# 2 Odoyá

One of the most beautiful contributions that African people brought to Brasil is the Candomblé. It is a very important knowledge that survives and modifies itself through the time. Part of this beauty we find just in this capacity to change by joining elements from other cultures – like the homage to the native people from Brasil in the Caboclo´s cult, that we will see better at his glorious moment, on June.

That’s no problem at all in modifying itself. In opposition to other beliefs, what Candomblé searches are not the truth unique and, sometimes, full of pain and regrets. Candomblés leaders use to worry themselves about harmony between human beings and nature, and also between men and society. Sure that in a new space, with different landscapes and vegetations, the many ethnic groups that came from Africa should adapt themselves, keep and dignify the knowledge that they brought from their old land, from their ancestors. For most of them there was no way to back, and they should learn how to live here with this other nature reality and with those other social groups, as the Tupis and Europeans.

 

Lots of oral traditions, maybe all of them, are able to change and not mischaracterize it selves. The fact is that culture is always in movement, and if we search for purity, we take the risk to find illusions or frustrations, it depends on how much sincerity we have with ourselves... whatever! Today I must write about Yemanjá, the great mother. An orisha very respectful, about who Pierre Verger, this great French anthropologist and photographer wrote:

 

“Yemanjá, whose name is derived from Yeye oman ejá, ‘The Mother whose children are fish,’ is the Orishá of the Egbás, a Yoruba nation once established in the Ibadan region, where the 

Yemanjá River still flows. Wars between the Yoruba nations forced the Egbás to migrate westward to Abeokutá in the early 19th century. Clearly, they could not take their river with them, but they did take her sacred objects, the basis of divinity’s Ashé (...)” (published in African Gods in the Candomblé of Bahia, a book of drawings by Carybé, a great Argentinean artist who lived in Bahia for many years – both drawings that are reproduced in this post were taken from this book, the Yemanjá’s instrument, and the Rio Vermelho´s Party, in Salvador)

We see that the moving to Brasil was not the first migration movement made by the Yemanjá’s cult followers. The point is that in this country, especially in Bahia, followers from lots of Orishas met themselves and started to learn with each other, and started to get stronger too. In Bahia’s Recôncavo, especially in Cachoeira city, this knowledge reached its limit. Histories of lots of Yoruba communities were worked as the history of just one nation. Cults of different divinities were learnt  and practiced together, because the followers of all those Orishas were living together, under the same reality. It is easy to see that it was a wonderful moment to the development of a beautiful culture, and people in Recôncavo made it happen in its entire splendour.

 

Mãe Filhinha (Mother Filhinha) is one of these people. Last sunday, February first, her home gave a party to Yemanjá, and put gifts 

over the waters to homage this divinity. It is beautiful to see that a 105 years old woman sustains her Orisha’s tradition. She herself went to the Paraguaçu River to give her gifts to the divinity. It was a moment of joy and proud. The realization of the act is decisive in Candomblé. Giving gifts to the mother shows respect, and, at the same time, establishes the continuity of the tradition and reinforces the fraternity feeling among the members of the community that she leads. It is complex. The word is absolute when it is said, and the act is complete when it is done.

 

At the end, Mãe Filhinha hugged everybody and went home to cut the party’s cake. I didn’t have gone myself to this party, unfortunately. So, I must thank the photos that I reproduce here to Beatriz da Conceição, my dear Bibi, an exceptional warrior for the traditional culture in Recôncavo, and a good friend. 

Just to finish with another citation from Verger:

"The salutations for Yemanjá are extremely interesting:

'Queen of the waters who comes from the house of Olokum.

She wears a dress of beads in the market. 

She waits, proudly seated, before the king. 

Queen who lives in the depths of the waters. 

Our mother of the weeping breasts' "