Upload
dominic54
View
319
Download
1
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Orixás and Modern Words:
Symbolic sustainers that influence peoples’ abilities
and limitations in organizing thoughts
David Jess Borough
2007-12-12
POR 598: Afro-Brazilian Maroon Poetics
With Isis McElroy
Borough 2
Egregrius: rise above the herd
Gregarious: belonging to the herd
Segregarius: separate from the herd
A small part of the reason that ancient cosmologies are so interesting to the
modern reader, particularly among the highly educated, is that they seem to connect us to
the basic core of our humanity. Particularly since the advent of the industrial age and the
information age, individuals have so many options for how to communicate and
interconnect with society (think about the vast technological options available just with
Microsoft Windows and Office, and the dependencies and errors that our ad hoc
processes using them create in our workplaces), that we are left groping for that basic
evolutionary natural essence that is our human origin. Perhaps we are in some way
looking for a circle dance that will re-connect us and remind us what we are doing and
who we are.
Orature and dance—lets just say these kinds of things—have an effect to be
explored that may connect people to their core humanity. Sacks mentions a similar idea
throughout Anthropologist on Mars, a collection of case studies of a neurophysiologist,
who also wrote Awakenings on a similar basis. People with rare deficiencies shed light
on basic evolved human processes. When they are missing some component of the
normally evolved brain, it is Sack’s job to figure out what is missing. Vision, for
example, is made up of lots of different processes, and what the brain ultimately stores
and responds to does not necessarily correspond with an objective physical reality. By
being deprived of the complexity of modern life, sometimes these patients gain insights
into what makes them human, and so does Sacks, who says, for example, that a patient
Borough 3
who only “awakens” when hearing the Beatles resonates with our innate nature to imitate
rhythms. Sacks is talking about the physiology of deficiencies, and not about cultures
(such as Yoruba) that may hold some connection to earlier beginnings. However, his
comments about peering into our evolutionary beginnings is a stepping-off point for
exploring the subject of finding developmental truths by studying comparative cultures
that may shed light on any ancient roots or branching points in human sociological
development.
This paper does not claim to be research, nor science, and it does not even claim
to be prescient (although that is certainly its ultimate calling), but it is really more like
pre-science. Since science requires creativity and open-mindedness, and since adequate
hypotheses must be discovered or created in order to make progress in finding new
knowledge, a creative exploration is always necessary. The form that such exploration
takes is of infinite variety. In that sense, this paper is part of the creative stepping in
science, that of putting new ideas together and free-thinking about them. It could be
considered a kind of performance in which its director journalizes the creation of a plan
for further study. Using its inputs, its bibliography, and its loose collection of working
theses, this paper juxtaposes these elements and intermingles them with creative thoughts
in the direction of finding out more about an enthusiastic curiosity. Thus, it can be
considered a personal reaction towards the texts with an eye towards academic
progression with a particular type of focus.
This paper describes a sparse web of texts and themes from a study of orature of
the Afro-Brazilian diaspora, including three Yoruban orixás, and capoeira themes, and
synthesizes an introductory study of the fundamentals of the ergonomics of human
Borough 4
memory with this author’s interpretation of those texts and themes. In doing so, it
explores an idea of potentially using cosmologies of the Afro-Brazilian diaspora and
other texts of ancient origin in order to let us peer into the ways of development of
written language and human thought. The past and future progression of academics, and
new designs for it such as the New American University, can be informed by thinking
about an evolution of orixá-like mythologies into modern language. But this paper stops
short of researching the reasons for and against, and arguing, such a point (which would
require in-depth study of religion, anthropology, and linguistics), and simply uses the
supposition as a lens for creatively responding to the texts of study.
Afro-brazilian orixás
Edwards and Mason say that the religion of the orixás is a technology, and that by
reviving its core details new usefulness and knowledge can be obtained. Religion based
upon it can be improved (Yoruba reversionism), and people will be able to use much of
the reclaimed work of the ancient Yoruban cosmology designers to improve their lives
(iv). Using the cosmology of orixás as a kind of language, dictionary, paradigm for
thought, or what have you, if it was so used, must have lead to some very muddled
thinking as compared with modern written language and academics. That is not to say
that it didn’t work, or wasn’t useful; quite the contrary. If ancient religious rites in
Micronesia can be found to produce precisely the same complex rice irrigation allocation
patterns as a modern computer program (reference missing), then perhaps ancient
cosmologies such as those peered at thru the African diaspora can be found to have had
(and to have today) similarly complex applications to societal living. But modern
language has interesting flaws as well: its sheer power to form thoughts in new
Borough 5
combinations, its comparative lack of structure in a cosmology, particularly recently,
must be bewildering to the modern mind.
Edwards and Mason write, “Each and every symbol means something, and was
carefully chosen by the Yoruba for a definite reason. The African did not just pull
symbols or attributes out of a hat. The Yoruba were scientists. They are responsible for
creating one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever seen” (iv). Polarity permeates
their religion (3). This idea of polarity is quite important for developing a language.
Portuguese is quite based on polarity concepts such as good-bad, in-out, belonging-not
belonging, like-unlike. Imagine a dictionary that more and more carefully defines what
each Orixá means. The Yoruban concept that Orixás multiply in 2s and 64s and
thousands is practically a prediction of the modern dictionary. “The Yoruba regligion is
the science of allowing God to flow through you, thus transforming your whole life into a
prayer, so that as God breathes, you breathe.” (Edwards and Mason, 5). This is like the
psychological art of “Focusing”, in which a word is chosen and pondered to arrive at an
understanding of ones state of being. New orixas were obtained from conquestors
(Edwards and Mason, 5). This is similar to the way words are assimilated into a language
after a conquest.
McElroy in a class handout says “Orishas [1], voduns [2] or nkisis [3] are not only
religious entities but mainly symbolic sustainers- that is, conductors of rules for social
exchange. The term “symbolic sustainers” does not produce a single hit in a Google
search, but the meaning of the term is obviously in support of my quest for theses. This
statement also gives some idea of the many names that orixás are known by, in different
languages and dialects, and in the same language. Other names include Iwas and Wintis.
Borough 6
The Portuguese name is orixás, so that is used in this paper. It is important to give a list
of names that the individual orixás are known by—and sometimes some explanation of
them, because the reader will see different terms used in different sources. Some of the
names are like translations—they are names used in different languages. Others are
different senses of what the Yoruba might call the same orixá. Sometimes the meanings
are so different that they can be considered to be like a word that is used in divergent
languages but has different meanings and senses in each language.
To give a cursory and sketchy, not to mention faulty—almost anecdotal—
introduction to religious use of the orixás in Brasil, Candomblé may be mentioned. Many
sources mention it with Voduns and talk about derivation trees from original African
deities that were different in different villages and regions, such as Ewe and Fon related
to the Jejé nation. Dahomean Candomblé and Nkisis derived from the Minkisi deities
(earlier Bantu) from the Angola nation; Cuban Palo of Kongo-Angola origin; Kongo-
Angolan lineages of Brazilian Candomblé; Wintis, Surinamese, Cuban Santeria, Lucumí,
or Regla Ocha, Brazilian Candomblé, Haitian Vodou, and Obeah—characterized by
ritualized, collective music and dance rhythms. Brazilian Candomblé is often said to have
been organized by 3 women in Bahia in early 19th C., but later split into at least 100
factions, many of which became much later organized into loose associations including
groupings called “nações” Some of the broad groups are named as follows:
Candomblé de Ketu
Candomblé de Angola
Candomblé de Jeje
Borough 7
Candomblé de Congo
Candomblé de Ijexa
Candomblé de Caboclo
Brazilian Macumba, especially in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, is a derivation of
Candomblés. In Lendas Africanas dos Orixás, Verger and Carybé give some poems in
Portuguese about popular legends about some major orixás. Since Exú was already
translated in class, the legends that I chose to translate from Verger and Cayrbé are about
the Orixás Ogum, and Iemanjá, because they are some of the Orixás that come up the
most in the literature. The poem about Exú was translated in class, and I cite it here
without including the full text since I did not translate it, myself.
Exú
Exú is a mystery, having different aspects at the same time. He represents the idea
of choice and its consequences. It often appears that Exú is letting you (or even tricking
you to) have a choice, and then laughing at the results, whether they mean outrageous
fortune or tragic death. Other names: Elegba. Exú, in particular, seems to have a lot in
common with the modern Christian godhead, particularly in that it is associated with
Axé, which is often associated with a human being’s power to make imagination into
reality. But when it comes to words deriving from gods, Exú is quite important, because
in our choice of words we change our thinking and our destiny. Exú can easily lead to the
idea of choosing which words to read and which words to write, and their powerful
consequences.
Borough 8
Ogum
Ogum is much about power and industry, fire, metal, machines, and destruction
with weapons. Without war, without machines made of iron (which is a powerful symbol
of Ogun), it is unlikely that a society could survive to develop (from mere short-term
memory) the power of multi-generational multi-epochal multi-lingual (multi-anything)
knowledge. The translated poem about Ogum from Verger and Carybé follows (14):
Ogum Yêêê!
Ogum was the oldest and the most combative of the children of Odudua,
The conquestor and king of Ifé.
For this, he became regent of the kingdom when Odudua,
Momentarily, lost his vision.
Ogum was warlike, bloodthirsty, and fearsome.
“Ogum, the brave warrior,
The crazy man of the muscles of steel!
Ogum, who having water in the house,
Washes himself with blood!”
Ogum fought without ceasing against the neighboring kingdoms.
He would always bring rich spoils from his expeditions,
Besides numerous slaves.
All these conquested goods, he would bring to Odudua, his father, king of Ifé.
Borough 9
“Ogum, the brave warrior,
The crazy man of the muscles of steel!
Ogum, who having water in the house,
Washes himself with blood!”
Ogum had many graceful adventures. He knew a lady, called Elefunlosunlori-
“She who paints the head with white and red powder.”
She was the wife of Orixa Okô, the god of Agriculture.
Another time, going to war, Ogum encounted, at the bank of a stream,
Another woman, named Ojá, and with her had his son Oxóssi.
He had, also, three other women that became, later, women of Xangô.
Kawo Kabieyesi Alafin Oyó Alayeluwa!
We salute the King Xangô, the owner of the palace of Oyó, Lord of the World!
The 1st, Iansã, was beautiful and fascinating;
The 2nd, Oxum, was coquettish and vain;
The 3rd, Obá, was vigorous and invincible in the fight.
Ogum continued his wars.
During one of them he took Irê.
In the past, this city was formed of seven villages.
Because of this, they call him still today Ogum mejejê Iodê Irê—
Borough 10
Ogum of the seven parts of Irê.
Ogum killed the king Onirê and substituted his own son,
Reserving for himself the title of king.
He is saluted with Ogum Onirê! “Ogum Rei de Irê!”
However, he was authorized to use only a tiny crown, “akorô.”
So he came to be called, also, Ogum Alakorô—“Ogum owner of the tiny crown.”
After installing his son in the throne of Irê,
Ogum returned to battle for many years.
When he returned to Irê, after a long absence, he didn’t recognize the place.
For unhappily, on the day of his arrival, they
Were having a day of ceremony,
In which all the world should stay completely silent.
Ogun had hunger and thirst.
He saw the jars of palm wine,
But he did not know that they were empty.
The general silence looked like a signal of displeasure.
Ogum, who had short patience, had a fit of anger.
He broke the jars with blows of his sword, and cut off the peoples heads.
The ceremony, being finished, the son of Ogum finally appeared
Borough 11
And offered him his favorite foods:
Snails and beans, sprinkled with palm oil;
All accompanied with much palm wine.
“Ogum, the brave warrior,
The crazy man of the muscles of steel!
Ogum, who having water in the house,
Washes himself with blood!”
“The pleasures of Ogum are combat and fights.
The terrible Orixá, who bites himself without pain!
Ogum kills the husband in the fire and the wife in the stove.
Ogum kills the robber and the owner of the thing robbed.”
Ogum, repentant and calm, lamented his violent actions,
And said that he had already lived enough,
That he saw now the time to rest.
He lowered, then, his sword and disappeared below the earth.
Ogum turned into an orixá.
Iemanja
Iemanja is of the water. She became very important in Brasil because she
represented the middle-passage, and the potential passage back to Africa, and much
Borough 12
spirituality surrounding the identity of the slave. The translated poem about Iemanja from
Verger and Carybé follows (50):
IEMANJÁ
Odô Iyá Yemanjá Ataramagbá,
Ajejê lodô, ajejê nilê
Iemanjá was the daughter of Olokum, the goddess of the sea.
In Efé, she became the wife of Olfin-Odudua,
With whom she had 10 children.
These children received symbolic names, and all became gods.
One of them was called Oxumaré, the Rain Bow,
“that which moves with the rain and reveals our secrets”.
Of so much breast feeding her children. Iemanjá’s breasts became immense.
Tired of her stay in Ifé,
Iemanja fleed in the direction of the “sunset of the earth”
Like the Yorubas designate the West, arriving in Abeokutá.
To the north of Abeokutá, lived Okere Xaki king.
Iemanjá was still very beautiful.
Okere wanted her and proposed marriage.
Iemanjá accepted, but imposing one condition, telling him:
You will never ridicule the immensity of my breasts.
Borough 13
Okere, kind and polite, was treating Iemanjá with consideration and respect.
But, one day, he drank palm wine in excess.
He returned home drunk and staggering.
He wasn’t knowing how he should act.
He wasn’t knowing what he should say.
Stumbling into Iemanjá, she called him drunk and useless.
Okere, humiliated, yelled:
“You, with your long and shaking breasts!
You with your huge shaking breasts!”
Iemanjá, offended, shot off and left.
Some time before his first wedding,
Iemanjá would receive from her mom, Olokm
A bottle containing a magic potion, telling her this:
“You never know what could happen tomorrow.
In case of need, break the bottle, throwing it on the floor.”
In her flight, Iemanjá tripped and fell.
The bottle broke and of it was born a river.
The tulmultuous waters of this river carried Iemanjá in the direction of the ocean,
The residence of her mother, Olokum.
Borough 14
Okere, contrary, wanted to impede the flight to her mother.
Wanting to bar the way to her, her transformed himself into a hill,
Called, still today, Okere, and located himself in the way.
Iemanjá wanted to pass by the right; Okere moved himself to the right.
Iemanjá wanted to pass by the left; Okere moved himself to the left.
Iemanjá, seeing her path thus blocked to her maternal home,
Called Xangô, the most powerful of her children.
Kawo Kabiyesi Sango, Kawo Kabiyesi Obá Kossô!
“Greetings King Xangô, greetings king of Kossô!”
Xangô came with dignity and sure of his power.
He asked for an offering of a lamb and four roosters,
A plate of “amalá”, prepared with yam flour,
And a plate of “gbeguiri”, made with beans and onion.
And he declared that, on the following day, Iemanjá would encounter the way to
pass.
That day, Xangô undid all the knots that tied the ties of the rain.
The clouds of the sides of the morning and the afternoon started to appear.
The clouds of the right and of the left started to appear.
When they were all reunited, Xangô arrived with his lightning.
Then it was heard: Kakara rá rá rá …
Borough 15
He having thrown his lightning at the hill Okere.
It split into wo and, suichchchch …
Iemanjá went to the sea of her mother, Olokum.
There she stayed and refused from then on to return to the land.
Her children call her and greet her with:
“Odo Iyá, the Mother of the River, she doesn’t return any more
Iemanjá, the queen of the waters, who uses clothes covered in pearls.”
She has children in all the world.
Iemanjá is in every place where the ocean beats with its frothy waves.
Her children make offers to calm her and please her.
Odô Iyá, Yemanjá, Ataramagbá
Ajejê lodô! Ajejê nilê!
“Mother of the waters, Iemanjá, who extends to the reaches of the immensity.
Peace in the waters! Peace in the home!”
Ergonomics memory theory
In order to arrive at useful hypotheses surrounding my beliefs that gods are words
and words are gods, I turn to my year-long study of ergonomics. It is a newly developing
science of how to take the human being into account in engineering workplace designs. It
started with automobiles (one of the first studies shows how people are not good at
predicting safety margins when passing in the oncoming traffic lane on highways with
Borough 16
solid and dashed yellow stripes—leading to today’s divided freeways). Then it went
largely to aviation design and into workplace safety. A tremendous amount of knowledge
has been gained by studying the human component of systems such as aircraft,
computers, and work processes. One branch of ergonomics is about human memory and
thinking (cognition). Ergonomics contributes to other sciences that it is informed by such
as neurolinguistics, in that it leads to engineering advances that put those sciences to use.
A typical application is making sure that the well-designed separate systems of
procedure, machine, tool, computer, display, and computer program not only work well
together but also work well with the entire range of human beings and human situations
that may be placed into series and parallel activities with them.
A quintessential truth developing in the ergonomics of memory is that part of our
memory is outside our heads: it is in our artifacts, our architecture, our processes, in our
memory joggers, our social connections, locations, ways of being and relating, social
rules, written references, in our tools, and even in our habits. Norman gives some
delightful anecdotes that illustrate how memory outside the head works, including a
simple story about walking to the bedroom for reading glasses, getting there and seeing
the bed and taking a nap, getting up and going to the kitchen for something to eat, and
seeing the magazine, reminding him to go again to the bedroom to get the glasses as the
first time. It is a whimsical example but it tells volumes about how the human memory
machine works and what its limitations are (these limitations are then considered in
designing work processes).
Theories of working memory or primary memory (from 1890), and short-term
store (in 1971), are related to the well-known concepts of conscious memory vs.
Borough 17
unconscious. The short-term memory models have been elaborately tested, particularly in
neurolingistics, which has produced much of our current knowledge about human
capacities and limitations with regard to what we can hold at immediate attention. The
Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics says that verbal information has a decay
rates of 20s, and that we have a short-term capacity for 5 to 7 independent items,
maintained together as a chunk. A phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad model
has been widely tested experimentally, which show how verbal information is rehearsed
in the mind as it is assimilated into long-term memory by a central executive, which
integrates stores with each other and long-term memory. Mental images are rehearsed by
cycling attention to different parts of them, but a delay longer than a few seconds results
in loss of memory (129).
Humans can only focus on a few chunks of information short-term, and all of
human knowledge (the part that can be called stored inside the head) is believed to go in
and out of the long-term memory through these 5 to 7 chunks. The limiting factor is
simply astounding, but chunks can be made more complex. Creativity, or effective
novelty, taxes short-term memory, increases arousal level, Generating novel cognitive
structures involves retrieving, synthesizing, and transforming information. An incubation
period is required for creative problem solving (Handbook 134). We can hold 5 to 7
letters of the alphabet in short-term memory. But in order to get to that we had to go thru
a kind of social evolution. First, we could hold onto only very basic symbols (think of a
mother’s face representing happiness, a bear representing fear). The chunking then may
have turned to various stages of symbolism. To get to an alphabet a lot of stages had to be
traversed. Now, the neurolinguists are doing a lot of experiments with words and phrases.
Borough 18
It turns out that the limit for well-known words or phrases is 5 to 7 at a time, just like
letters, even though they seem to hold so much more information than letters. The key to
human knowledge and thought is in how these chunks of information are grouped as
symbols, and how they have been assimilated in the long-term knowledge structure. They
have to be retrieved the same way they are assimilated.
The clues that this science provides to my quest for hypotheses is that an alphabet
is a technology that allows chunking in a more flexible form than—let’s say for this
discussion—orixás do. Orixás are one way of chunking information that likely developed
from using faces and personalities as symbols. But they have limitations to assimilating
knowledge as compared with the more abstract alphabet and dictionary systems. One
town had one orixá. Tribal warring is another container for values and knowledge (a
system of social rules). Why do we fight? Because that’s part of our identity. It is part of
our cultural memory. But it is limited in its abilities to develop knowledge.
Communication between humans is not linear. Verbal, non-verbal, paralinguistic
cues, and artifacts are not passive, but rather negotiated thru hard mental work.
Communication is not just an uninterrupted series of exchanges, but is punctuated, which
is the means that participants organize interchanges with stimulus and response, and
create causal maps. Communication is not equivalent with reducing uncertainty, but is
rather a way to reduce dissonance or conflict. Speaker and listener go away with separate
ideas that may be mutually beneficial—not true understanding or duplication of a
message. Shared meanings are created thru identity management, task definition, role
negotiation, and interpretive processes (Handbook 152). Thus, the goal of communication
is organized action, not shared meaning. The coordination devices are common artifacts,
Borough 19
common good, external representations (Handbook 153). These reports make me think of
tribal dance circles, repetition, call and response, social dancing and singing, the
symbolism of the Yoruban society. (And where do I ask why almost all songs have 3
verses—there is a very human reason for that!)
The process of science or academics is a process of clarifying communications. It
is in many ways very much like a closer and closer defining of the orixás. However, even
a scientific model with its exact definitions defines new (and quite precise) gods such as
—perhaps, and there can be many much richer examples for various contexts—scientific
method, bias, correlation, meaningfulness, application to human society, ethics. What it
can show is not just that we use a kind myth (social dream symbolism), or meaning
sustainers that are not perfectly delineated, in the modern world, but also that
cosmologies are technologies that are at an early stage of language development. “I know
what you mean,” is satisfying to speaker and listener, but it indicates a level of common
understanding that has no lower limit. We carry our conversations on threads of shared
meaning. Science, and to some extent academics, through a process of repetition in which
a reader tries to duplicate the results of the writer by understanding the precise shared
meanings and the somewhat less precise shared interpretations, works at the very slow
and tedious process (almost like ancient priestly rites) of defining words more and more
carefully.
I am a technical communicator educated as an economist currently working in the
field of human factors engineering, or ergonomics, writing a paper about the origins of
words while studying Afro-Brazilian orature at Arizona State University under the
umbrella subjects of Latin-American studies and Portuguese. I am writing this paragraph
Borough 20
while listening to popular and classical music like Clare de Lune and the Music Box
Dancer. The above sentence conveys a long string of icons and ideas. All of these
experiences are influencing my focused thinking right now as an author in the writing of
that paragraph and this paper. You as a reader are collecting some references to these
ideas, and could at this moment —with or without looking back thru the paragraph—
recite a list of ideas that I have just introduced. How many of the items are you
remembering right now? Can you remember every all of them? Probably not. However,
you can surely remember at least a few of the main ideas—and if repeated back to me—I
would confirm that you are thinking about some of the things I am thinking about. But as
my reader, what are you really thinking about right now? What did this string of words
cause you to start thinking about? It is probably very different from what I am thinking
about while writing it.
Language development
How did language develop? Current theories of memory posit capacity to keep
only 5-7 well-assimilated ideas in current focus at one time. Most experiments have been
done in the realm of literature, where it is shown that these memory “chunks” can be
letters, words, or short well-known phrases. While we are thinking, we are trading
encapsulated concepts in and out of these short-term memory spaces as symbols while
connecting rapidly to long-term memory stores. Modern education consists of
assimilating long-term memory using common symbols such as words defined in the
dictionary, and holding them in view together in short-term memory while re-assimilating
the long-term concepts associated with those words. Each word, while being socially
defined, also has a great number of connotations and more personal connections. This
Borough 21
aspect of words is much like the loosely-defined nature of gods. But how were gods and
words created? Psychology tells us that among the easiest things for human beings to
assimilate into long-term memory (and connect with symbolically in short-term memory)
are people: faces, personalities, and familial relations. Rhythm will also be very
interesting to explore, someday, because it can create a way for symbols to be assimilated
into long-term memory through repetition (putting similar thoughts together over and
over again until turned into a symbol).
My potential hypotheses are too complex, and too understudied to explore so
quickly, and too hidden in pre-historical origins, to lead easily to a sure experiment, and
so I keep it only loosely in mind while exploring artifacts of pre-history for clues. I also
need to explore the current literature to find out what has already been written on the
topic of gods as the origin of language. But for now, in the exploration of Afro-Brazilian
poetry, it suffices to start the eventual experimentation with some exploration of myth.
The idea is that mythologies may hold some clues to the origin of language, itself. Since
humans remember people most easily (think of the baby-mother connection), then people
may have originally been used as the symbols that are held in short-term memory while
developing more complex concepts. That leads to stories about people, their adventures,
and their spouses and children, and to stories about animals and objects and concepts as
people with names, faces, personalities, and stories. When you look at letters of the
alphabet, or words in the dictionary, think of people. In fact, a technique is often used in
education to help students comprehend new material, such as to assimilate grammatical
concepts with characters such as Senior Comandante, Senora hesitante, and Menino
quem queria explicar to make the subjunctive mood more salient (Deal, Ch. 2).
Borough 22
Elements that could precurse language:
Rhythm
Repetition
Pattern
Call-response
Personality trait
Feelings (fear, anger, joy)
Character
Story
Mood (cool/hot)
Explanation of assumptions
This paper as a reaction to the texts uses 3 working assumptions that are preposterous
in the sense that they are certainly false:
1. That the language of ergonomics (which is described briefly), and the words used
by the author, are sufficient to give a cursory description of an entire culture and
cosmology. To qualify that assumption just a little more, the language used in this
paper is merely one reaction to the texts viewed thru a very technical paradigm, and it
uses simplified terms from all the fields in order to cover broad creative ideas.
2. That studying the Afro-brazilian diaspora in English (and a little Portuguese) is the
best way that I can further my study of the Portuguese language. My original idea to
write a research paper in Portuguese would have given me an exercise in advancing
my grammar and ability to read and write in Portuguese, but there is something much
Borough 23
more to be done. Understanding the cultures surrounding a language can do much
more for true adoption of the new language. Furthermore, I do not think it is
necessary to focus only on Afro-Brazilian cultures; I think that studying African
cultures and Afro-American culture and history is also quite helpful. Although I will
benefit much from focus, right now watching all the movies about slaves and their
descendants in the USA— was very enlightening towards an understanding of the
Afro-brazilian diaspora, and thus, in furthering me on my new path to adopting
Portuguese as a co-language with English.
3. That Yoruban thought is primitive and sheds light on formational, developmental,
principles that became modern Portuguese language, Brazilian culture and thought,
which is much more complicated, and advanced on progression of language and
thought development (and perhaps more open). This paper, thus, does not argue that
modern language developed from Yoruban-like mythologies, but simply—and boldly
—assumes it. Thus, it is used as a working assumption in a creative process for
finding all the possible connections on some kind of tree of human development (a
tree on which any branch may fall off or flourish in the future). The ultimate fate of
such as process is that the author rubs up against enough other knowledge in order to
form a more reliable thesis. It is a unique way of reacting to a text, much like using
culturally-bound aesthetics such as light or balance, except with a focus on studying a
subject of intense curiosity.
4. That societal traits, cosmologies, dictionaries, religions, dances, customs, and
cultures have individual human designers, who are rational and all-knowing, and who
have designed these things for the best use of the people who use them. This
Borough 24
assumption, much like the basic assumption of economics is a useful simplifying
assumption, because it lets us say that a society has “chosen” a custom, with the
rationale simply that other customs were available to the developing society at some
point, and yet this is the one that exists. If such “decisions” were arbitrary and
meaningless then they would lead to no interesting results as they would have no
developmental basis. Yet, delving into the reality that societies develop without full
rationality, knowledge, or design, would be to complicated a step for now.
Synthesis
Ideas that are explored run in a series:
1. Can Yoruba and Capoeira reversionism (really knowing the original designs)
shed light on the origins and development of human thought.
2. Can modern words be understood in similar terms (as conceptual containers of
ideas and values) as the orixás.
3. Can modern gods be understood as a kind of last vestige of orixás that seem
more suitable as gods than as words.
4. Can thinking about human thought as developed first through cosmologies
like represented by the orixás shed light on modern controversies as diverse as
those surrounding racism and fast driving?
5. Are racisms, in the sense of using words that are inadequately delineated, a
kind of modern “god” that is worshipped in one way or another (and is this
analogy useful).
Borough 25
6. Is affirmative action designed to effectively change society so that it
deemphisizes worship of such godlike racisms?
7. In a designed reconstruction of the kinds of words we use to describe
membership in groups, would it be useful to use personal characteristics and
universal support that does not try to define groups and group membership
specifically?
8. In order to explore this series of ideas, what subjects must be studied. What
sources have already said that gods are words and words are gods. What
sources have already shown a progression of development of human thought
that involves mythologies and dictionaries.
9. What kinds of thesis statements can be designed for more focused study, to
avoid the trap of overly broad subjects and endless false starts in writing
cohesive papers.
Slow driver example
Political controversies of all kinds, such as the one in Arizona over “slow drivers”
can be looked at through an understanding of words as containers, and an understanding
of themes of orixás and capoeira. A representative of the National Safety Association
(NSA) once told me that the recent law about slow driving that was passed as a
compromise between lobbyists in Arizona, and that the NSA-associated group deferred
because they liked the obvious stupidity that got left in the law as written. There is a bit
of Elegba in this deferral, in that they were letting the opposition make their choice and
live with the consequences. There is a bit of capoeira in the sense that the NSA lobbyists
Borough 26
deferred to the other side’s temporary win. Arizona voters and their constituent
legislators value the concept of speed. So when NSA reports that speed kills and that
slowing down saves lives, they cannot hear the science for want of their “gods”. But it is
not only the speed god that is in the way; there are many more gods; and many facets.
NSA scientists study the issue with a kind of experimental validity and open-mindedness,
looking at the numbers and the repeatable models; whereas the public has mostly learned
some basic science, and that science has turned into gods, containers for values and
beliefs. One of those is the concept of relative speed, that two cars going the same speed
is safer than two cars going different speeds because the relative speed between them is
less (zero). The common thinking is correct so far, but it is understandably muddy.
Further thinking reveals many other effects, including cars coming the other way, and the
results of reaction time. Relative speed is a good thing to measure in these studies, but it
is not the speed with another car going in the same direction that matters so much as the
relative speed with 2 other kinds of cars: ones going in the opposite direction and ones
that suddenly stop. To put it simply, slowing down in the presence of any hazard reduces
the average relative speed on the road, reducing congestion (which is really caused by
relative speed to stopped cars, not cars slowing down, thereby reducing average relative
speeds), and gives drivers more time to react, thus reducing accidents. A secondary value
on the side of slowing down is that it would be more openly inclusive of all types of
drivers (old, foreign, looking for an address, gas-saving car users, bicyclists, pedestrians,
the extra cautious)—and thus less discriminatory on the basis of race, religion, national
origin, and other personal characteristics. If knowledge that peers into the evolution of
language and gods can inform the ways of resolving controversies and designing a better
Borough 27
society, then it may be well worth studying. A third god on the side of prohibiting slow
driving is one of frustration and disappointment. An intelligent voter upon hearing the
evidence above fully elaborated and proved may still say, “I don’t care. Drivers just
shouldn’t slow down, because it causes congestion, and it bothers me when I have to
slow down in reaction,” and upon hearing a good argument based upon the secondary
value of inclusion may react with their own value of exclusion, “They should drive fast
like everybody else or they should just stay home—or stay in their country.”
The Handbook says that over 20% of drivers will be over 64 years of age by
2050, that traffic accidents are the 3rd leading cause of death and injury worldwide
(1539). It says that a leading cause of death in traffic accidents is sensation seeking
(1541). Of the 3 orixás that I studied, Ogun is most sensation seeking in the sense of cars.
For purposes of this exploration we will say he is the god of speed. It is hard to say if
such analysis of controversies using a concept of evolution of language from gods is
ultimately useful, but I think it is worth studying. Next steps would be to find out what
the fields of histrionics, literature and orature studies, anthropology, sociology, religion,
and linguistics have to say on the topic. Key words to search for would include evolution
and development of language, and all the words for gods and mythologies and
cosmologies.
Problems with religion and academics
Edwards and Mason use the word “believe” to describe how people (such as
Yoruba) use descriptions of the orixás. It is the same word we use to describe scientific
knowing. In this way the same word is used with two different aspects, much the same
way that Elegba, and many of the other orixás have two or more aspects. We could
Borough 28
branch the words, make two words where there was one before, one for religious belief
and the other for scientific belief; but—assuming that language is how it is because it
serves a societal purpose—this having the same word for two things probably exists to
remind us that all scientific knowledge is not final, and that religious knowledge—let us
say—holds some truths that transcend science. There is a bit of Elegba in that collective
decision (as it is clear that two words could have been used, thus signifying the idea that a
choice is available to collective society); and a reminder that our collective choice will
have serious consequences, whether good or bad. Do words evolve in much the same way
that orixás did. They probably do.
Edwards and Mason say that Yorubas pray in everything they do, but that some of
what might be called prayer is more of an asking an intermediary who should be prayed
to in order to solve a certain problem, and that it goes on throughout the day in all types
of situations (5). This is much like using language. Today, we even gain great benefit by
“asking” the words what they know; juxtaposing different words together, creatively
writing and reading poetry; choosing a word and pondering it, to change it for another. In
many ways, we use words like intermediaries to realize higher powers of thought and
solution, intermediaries, like orixás.
So it is religion or is it technology. Is it prayer or is it life. Is capoeira a dance, a
game, a fight, or a philosophy? Edwards and Mason say that orixás were used by
Yorubas much like early Christians used Moses’s Ten Commandments; that they were
rules for living life in a similar way. In doing so, these authors give me another clue
towards my quest for a thesis. The Ten Commandments seem like a technological
Borough 29
progression towards language that could have come from complex mythologies that also
have many similarities to orixás.
In Christianity, we have the Godhead or Holy Trinity of divine beings, each called
by a large variety of names including the triad of Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
They are similar to orixás in many senses: they are used as depositories and conveyors of
values and meaning; they are loosely delineated, at some times appearing to represent
various aspects of one being. In Catholicism, in particular, there is far more orixá-like
variety, making Catholicism an apt link between Yoruba and Christian cosmologies.
Modern words may well serve some of the functions of ancient gods, and that modern
gods serve some of the functions of both words and gods, particularly those functions that
have emerged over the epochs as being the ones best served by gods, and not just words.
The Christian trilogy becoming so popular in Brasil today is particularly well-suited as a
god rather than as a word, because it largely represents the human being within all of us,
or the best in us becoming reality through the actions of the body, and the particular
mysteries of philosophical spirituality that words do not convey as well as an intelligent
human-like god-being. God is very roughly Axé, the power to make imagination into
reality. The Son is very roughly the human with its limitations (of short-term memory) to
make anything happen, except through the “miracle” (of memory chunking and) societal
progress. The Holy Ghost is a fitting completion to the trinity because a human trying to
surpass human limitations needs something that is quite unhuman like in its vastness and
power to communicate ideas. What words (and god names are words—although proper
nouns with salient human-like characters) could possibly do what those gods do in our
Borough 30
society? That is why I think they may well-represent a re-balancing of complex orixá-like
cosmologies with dictionary-documented word systems.
Syncretism was natural in slave-laden Brasil because there are so many
similarities. And it leads to the idea that there could be a cause-and-effect relationship
way back in the tree of social life; that all 3 religions could have come from one branch;
or that a branch even farther back on which human beings evolved that naturally—over
aeons of social evolution—developed cosmologies with striking similarities. I am more in
favor of the first supposition; although I am sure that the reality of human development
has been in all ways a mix of both.
Problems with racism
Racism is loosely defined as any belief that people are divided into races on a
genetic tree that can be identified into membership into groups on the branches of that
tree thru traits. Racism of all kinds is one of our modern orixá-like word-gods. Statistical
group characteristics do not prove causation either way. Racism is valid to some limited
extent, but only because of trait correlations that have genetic and cultural roots. A useful
construct here is a model of science that has physical science in the shape of a water
spout getting bigger and bigger and falling back on itself (like a mushroom); then the
science of biology spouting from the top of that one; and the science of psychology
spouting from that one, and the science of sociology spouting from that one; then some
models go on to have a kind of spiritual science spouting from sociology. The key is that
even though biology can be completely explained by physics, there is no mechanism for
seeing the cause and effect between them (thus a small spout connecting them). Faulty
racism can be greatly informed by using such a model, because a similar spout exists
Borough 31
between biology (plants and animals) and psychology (the human mind). The genetic
tree is biological, but racial categorization is sociological (society, human geography, and
what have you). Thus, we can easily see how a genetic tree exists, but we cannot peer
into it.
“People of color” is another term of capoeira, and it is Exú. It is wrong but does
little harm and it does a great deal of good, because eventually all people have to fall into
that classification. Orixas are flexible, also reified, as is God (Time US study syncretism
in US and regional concepts of God). Groups who use genetic traits or geneology as
membership criteria invoke racism gods. Their approach should be as an interest, study,
or field, like history focuses on time. The NPR rural advisor in Utah says that the Church
used the criteria, “African American”, “African living on another continent”, or “having
dark skin”, to exclude people from the priesthood and from entering the temples (NPR).
When they changed the rule in 1978 thru revelation, these criteria had been revised to that
point and amitted to. The groupings are all mixed up, and that—too-is capoeira,
deception, with political negotiation and will. The following terms are a form of capoeira
or exú. Negotiators of these group names in many ways have accepted the labels in order
to enjoy laughing at the people who want to label people this way. Thus, the negotiated
group names becomes proof of the absurdity:
African American—continental origin and residence
White—very rough color category
Black—very rough color category
Asian—continental origin irrespective of residence
Borough 32
Native American—birth in the 2 continents, except it describes heritage from people living
in America before Europeans invaded in late 14th c.
Native Indian—birth in a country, except it describes heritage from people living in
America before Europeans invaded in late 14th c.
Yoruba cosmology introducing three major orixás with poems translated from
Portuguese to English, and other sources of the Afro-Brazilian diaspora; then explores
some possibilities of synthesizing another science, human factors, specifically of memory
and learning, to show how some of the culture, cosmology, orature, and dance from the
Afro-Brazilian diaspora might be modeled as showing a view via the science of
ergonomics to possible sources of development of modern language and academics. In
other words, gods are words, and words are gods. Those exact words have likely been
written many times before (sources unknown), yet this paper does not survey the
literature in which such statements may be found, and moreover lacks grounding in the
fields that convey aspects of the idea (such as histrionics, religion, and linguistics). As
such, it sparsely describes a few aspects of introductory Afro-Brazilian diaspora studies,
some basic ergonomics relating to human memory, and a creative reaction to the
synthesis suggesting bases for further research and study. It makes a case for
deconstructing sociological definitions regarding genetic, geographic and national
heritage while accepting but deemphasizing, notions of geographic, and national origin,
and gives applications to policy on diversity. I cannot focus on Yoruba cosmology,
because I have not studied its completeness and its origins and its connections enough,
and the capoeira that I have studied is not particularly Yoruban at all; the dance course I
took is from Ghana; and the religions are Afro-brazilian; yet I cannot just say it is Africo-
Brazilian because these facets are sparse and disparate; a continent can mean so many
Borough 33
things, and so can slavery and its consequences in history. So my focus has to come from
the reality of my pathways of knowledge, and that is through a complicated and largely
unknown group of cultures and influences that may be called—for now—since a large
portion of slaves were delivered to Brasil on their way to the Americas at large, the Afro-
Brasilian diaspora.
This use of gods as containers of thought is not unlike the way we use words in
modern written and spoken language, and in language-thought. When we look at the
limitations of this technology, particularly at the edges, it appears not much unlike the
orixan version. And that brings us into the full circle so much a part of Afro-brazilian
diasporic thought. The belief that people belong to races based upon a genetic tree and
observable through visible genetic traits is a container for values and beliefs, the word
“race” being an even simpler manifestation of it, much like an orixá. Many alternative
“beliefs” are available to society.
Race is scientifically and fundamentally invalid in many ways, yet it has its uses.
Since significant (and substantial) differences can be found in groups separated by
various racial definitions (education level in Brasil is an extreme example). Science
reports a 15-minute intervention that reduces the racial achievement gap in US schools,
and thus gives another stark example. Students given 15 minutes to write about their own
values in a double-blind study achieved at almost half a grade higher than students given
a similar 15-minute writing assignment to write about the values of others. However, this
effect was correlated with race, increasing the grades of “black” students much more than
“white” ones, thus closing the racial achievement gap in a ridiculously small amount of
time. Perhaps a great thesis can come of that such as that disparity in achievement may in
Borough 34
many cases be a surprisingly—shall we say—unpredictable mechanism that is largely
based in self-conceptions. And in that way, race is somehow obviously, intuitively, valid
on some level. But racial identification is self identification, and it can be changing and
overlapping. Because of my exposure to evidence that race is invalid (and theories of
universal inclusion of all types of self-identified personal differences and group
identifications), I cannot see racial arguments ever again in terms of them and us. They
are no more them than I am us. We are all we. If we want to talk about racial groupings it
has to be on some other basis, in which we do not know exactly who is in which group all
the time, but we all own the groups rather than we owning “ours” and “they” owning
“theirs.” For example, in this new basis, I can talk about African Americans or gay
people—or even scientists, lets say, to deconstruct the groupings a bit more—without
necessarily identifying my own group identity. The concept of the speaker being in the
group in order to speak about it—well, it is clearly important in some contexts, but it is
not automatically immoral or invalid for somebody outside the group or ambiguously in
the group to speak about the group. And speaking for the group academically may be no
more valid or invalid than somebody in the group speaking for the group, unless there is a
specific causational reason other than mere group membership. For example, the group of
people who have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder can be expected to contain many
better spokespersons for the group that the group of outsiders, who have never
experienced similar feelings. A psychologist, on the other hand, may speak for the group
academically in most respects better than a unique member of the group can, especially
since every member is not the same as the others any more than the outsider psychologist
Borough 35
is, but at least the psychologist studied the entire range of necessary science for
understanding academically.
Personal characteristics are personal, but they are important, meaningful, and
relevant. What relationship does a son have with his father that makes him an African and
me a European? Cannot other relationships (such as living in America) override those
ones? Racism is a cosmology of its own independent of cosmologies of its groups
“members,” probably with reification of “groups.” We mix all kinds of concepts up. Like
there is the dehumanization of a slave; then there are the decendants of slaves and their
legacy and stereotypes and everything. They are not the same thing. What proof is there
that a non-descendant of a slave is not effected just as negatively (thru different
pathways). The genetic branch gives no claim on understanding or belonging.
Constructive policy: support social grouping identifications of all kinds, but do
not mandate any of them (same as separation of church and state). Let people be black,
Indian, native, gay, or religious, but do not make policies respecting those classifications
(let minority protection be based upon the abstract “personal characteristics”, and lists of
criteria for offering positions. Even affirmative action, which uses a kind of racism to
achieve a reduction of racism, and is in effect of a wholly different nature than
discrimination against individuals, might still be enhanced by such thinking.
Bibliography
Amistad. Dir., Stephen Spielberg. 1997.
Awakenings. Dir., Marshall, Penny. Writer, Oliver Sacks. 1990.
Campbell, J., The Power of Myth. Video series. PBS. 1988.
Borough 36
Deal, Clarice. Dissertation. In development. 2007.
Verger, Pierre Fatumbi & Carybé. Lendas Africanas dos Orixás. 1997.
The Color Purple. Dir., Stephen Spielberg. 1985.
Edwards, G. & Mason, J. "Black Gods: Orisa Studies in the New World". Thoruba. NY.
1985.
Esmeralda Ribeiro. “Ogun”. Peres, P., Trans. Callaloo Special Issue: African Brazilian
Literature. 18.4, Fall 1995. Accessed 27 Nov 2006:
http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/journals/callaloo/toc/cal18.4.html
Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics, Salvendy, Gavriel, ed., 3rd ed., Wiley
(2006), Hoboken, NJ, USA.
Megenney. “A Bahian Heritage: An ethnolinguistic study of African influences on
Bahian Portuguese.” Chapel Hill, NC. 1978.
Mendonca. Influência Africana no português do Brasil. São Paulo. 1935.
Norman, Donald A. The psychology of everyday things. Basic Books. 1988.
NPR Science Friday. KJZZ radio station interview with NPR rural advisor in Utah. 2007-
12-06 at 1 PM.
The Piano Lesson. Dir., Lloyd Richards. Television drama. 1995.
Pessoa de Castro, Y. Falares africanos na Bahia: um vocabulário Afro-Brasileiro. Rio de
Janeiro. 2001.
Risério, A. "Oriki para Ifá". Fundação Casa Jorge Amado. Salvador. 1996.
Roots. Dir., Marvin J. Chomsky and John Erman. Television series. 1977.
Sacks, Oliver. An Anthropologist On Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales. Vintage. 1986.
Schlindler’s List. Dir, Stephen Speilberg. 1993.
Borough 37
Science. “15 min. intervention closes the racial achievement gap” Science 1998-08-14.
Something the Lord Made. Dir., Joseph Sargent. HBO Films. 2004.
Thompson, R. "Flash of the Spirit". Vintage. NY.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Dir., Harry A. Pollard. 1928.