African Traditional Religion : Vodun: The Seven African Powers

"Unlike the Judeo-Christian image, the Voodoo serpent represents "healing knowledge and the connection between Heaven and Earth."
ouroboros.jpg


Symbology Behind the Ouroboros
The ouroboros has several meanings interwoven into it. Foremost is the symbolism of the serpent biting, devouring, eating its own tail. This symbolizes the cyclic Nature of the Universe: creation out of destruction, Life out of Death. The ouroboros eats its own tail to sustain its life, in an eternal cycle of renewal. In the above drawing, from a book by an early Alchemist, Cleopatra, the black half symbolizes the Night, Earth, and the destructive force of nature, yin. the light half represents Day, Heaven, the generative, creative force, yang.
ouroboros2.jpg
The Ouroboros connects the Above and Below

Damballah-Wedo is depicted as a serpent or snake, and his veves reflect this aspect of him. When he possesses a human, he does not speak but instead only hisses and whistles. His movements are also snake-like, and can including slithering along the ground, flicking his tongue, and climbing tall objects.
Damballah-Wedo is associated with creation and is viewed as a loving father to the world. His presence brings peace and harmony. As a source of life, he is also strongly associated with water and the rain.
Damballah-Wedo is strongly associated with the ancestors, and he and his companion Ayida-Wedo are the oldest and wisest of the loa.
Ayida-Wedo is likewise associated with snakes and is Damballah's partner in creation. Because the creative process is seen as shared between male and female, Damballah-Wedo's veves generally depict two snakes rather than just one.
damballah-wedo-mine.jpg


http://altreligion.about.com/od/symbols/ig/Vodoun-Veves/Damballah-Wedo.htm
 
The Wisdom of FA is the Original Wisdom of the Cradle of Human Civilization that included the Global Early Civilization of the Abyssinian Highlanders of the African Nile Region .
The People of the Cradle of Civilization included people who are now known as the Fon people of Benin (Dahomey), in whose language it is called FA; the Yoruba and Benin Edo of Nigeria, in whose language it is called IFA; and the Ewe of Togo, in whose language it is called AFA. IFA is the oracle god who directed creation, formed the universe, formed the Earth, taught humans about divination, medicine, and language. From the Cradle of Civilization it spread to:
  • the Arabs of North Africa, who called the process Ilm al Raml (Science of Sand) or Khatt al Raml (Lines in Sand) and who identified FA with the Islamic Prophet Idris;
  • the Malagasy people of Madagascar, whose version of the process is called Sikidy;
  • the African people of the USA, West Indies, and South America, where the process is related to Vodou. The word "Vodou," meaning "sacred," was borrowed into Haitian Creole from the Fon language of West Africa, according to an earlier version of one of the web pages of the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. According to another UCLA Fowler web page, it seems that present-day Haitians use the term IWA.
  • Another possible indicator that present-day African people may have received the wisdom tradition of the Global Early Civilization of the Abyssinian Highlanders of the African Nile Region is the knowledge of the Dogon people of East Africa that the star Sirius has a binary star companion, Sirius B; that the orbital period of Sirius B is 50 years; and that Sirius B, a white dwarf star, is small and dense, much more dense than iron. The first European to observe that Sirius was a binary star was Bessel in 1844, who saw that Sirius was an astrometric binary (compare the astrometric multiple star Mizar B) because of the wobble of its apparent path through the night sky. In 1862, Clark telescopically resolved the Sirius binary star system. According to Robert Temple's 1997 book The Sirius Mystery, Second Edition, Chapter I, The Sirius Mystery Today, as quoted on a website of Michael Bara and Richard Hoagland: "... in 1976 .... the Dogon tribal tradition insisted upon the existence of a third star in the system of Sirius which modern astronomers could not confirm. Some critics said this proved the hypothesis of the book to be false. ... In1976 and in the years immediately following I predicted on numerous occasions that the existence of a small red dwarf star would be verified in the Sirius system, to be called Sirius C according to the standard naming schemes of astronomy (there already being an A and a B). This has now happened. In 1995 the French astronomers Daniel Benest and J. L. Duvent published the results of years of study in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics stating that a small red dwarf star, Sirius C, seems to exist in the system of the star Sirius.2 They have detected a perturbation which cannot be explained by any other means. ...".
  • The Dogon also know that Saturn has rings; that beyond Saturn is the interstellar space of the Milky Way, which is made up of stars more distant than the immediate solar neighborhood; and that Jupiterhas 4 major moons and orbits the Sun much slower than Venus. As the Maya also knew, the synodic period of Venus is about 584 days. Since 584 = 512 + 72 = 256 + 256 + 64 + 8 = 256 x (2 + 1/4 + 1/32) = 256 x 2 x (1 + 1/8 + 1/64) = 8 x 73 = 64 x (8 + 1 + 1/8), the IFA number 256 and related numbers such as 64, 8, etc., could be useful for astronomical and divinatory calculations.
  • Still another indicator that Africa might be the source of most human traditional belief systems is the occurrence among the Lemba People, not only of customs related to Judaism, but also the genetic marker known as the Kohen Gene, which has been traced back by genetic dating techniques to a divergence from Middle Eastern Jewish populations around 3,000 years ago, which is around the time of the exodus from Egypt, the lifetime of Aharon HaCohen. FreeRepublic.com has a web page discussing the genetic tests of the Lemba People.
One way to follow the history of IFA is to look at the sequence of the 16 Tetragrams. The traditional Yoruba sequence shown above corresponds to the following 16 Odu:.......
http://www.tony5m17h.net/VodouFA.html
 
THE SEVEN AFRICAN POWERS

SIETE POTENCIAS

african.gif

The religion of the West African Yoruba people was forced underground by centuries of slavery in the Americas. Several hybrid forms of worship, of which the best known is Santeria, were created by deliberate conflation of Yoruba spiritual entities with Catholic ones.
The Yoruba people of West Africa recognize three levels of spiritual force: one creator god called Olodumare; numerous nature or messenger spirits (similar to Christian angels) called the orishas, and the revered spirits of the dead, called the eggun. Under the yoke of Catholicism, Olodumare was identified with Jehovah, and the orishas were identified with various Catholic saints or angels. In the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean, seven of the many orishas were combined into a commonly seen image called "The Seven African Powers;" however, there are more than seven orishas, and most of them are identified with more than one saint.
Wherever people of African descent were converted to Catholicism, different patron saintswere spontaneously identified with their own African deities and spirits. However, even though there was no central hierarchy to make the ascriptions, as far as the Yoruba orisha were conserned, the hagiography and iconic symbols associated with each deity and each saint produced a variable set of flexible lists of correspondences between nine of the orishas and more than a dozen Catholic saints:
  • Eleggua / Elegua: Messenger, Opener of the Way, Trickster
    Saint Simon Peter
    San Martin (Caballero)
    Saint Anthony (of Padua)
    El Nino de Atocha
    Saint Expedite
    Saint Michael Archangel
  • Obatala / Obatalia: Father-Mother of Humanity, Bringer of Peace and Harmony
    Our Lady of Mercy
    Our Lady of Mt. Carmel
  • Yemaya / Yemalia / Yemalla: Spirit of Motherhood, the Ocean, and the Moon
    Our Lady of Regla
    Mary, Star of the Sea (Stella Maris)
  • Oya: Female Warrior, Spirit of Wind, Storm, Thunder, and Magic
    Our Lady of Candelaria
    Saint Catherine
    Saint Theresa
  • Oshun / Ochum: Lady of Love, Beauty, and Sexuality, Spirit of Fresh Water
    Our Lady of Caridad del Cobre (Our Mother of Charity)
  • Chango / Shango / Xango / Sango: Fourth King of the Yoruba, immortalized as Spirit of Thunder
    Saint Barbara
    Saint Jerome
  • Ogun / Ogum: Lord of Metals, Minerals, Tools, War, Birds, and Wild Beasts
    Saint John the Baptist
    Saint Anthony (of Padua)
    Saint George
    San Pedro (Saint Simon Peter)
  • Orula / Orunmila: Teacher, Prophet
    Saint John the Evangelist taking Jesus down from cross
  • Babaluaye: Spirit of Disease and Sickness, also Provider of Money to the Poor
    Saint Lazarus of Dives
The Seven African Powers image most often seen on hoodoo soaps and anointing oils consists of seven saints (sometimes given orisha names and sometimes saint names) surrounding a central circle in which is shown the crucifixion of Jesus, watched by a rooster on a pedestal. Inside the circle of saints the word "Olofi" sometimes appears. The full image is found on a common Mexican package amulet that combines three coins, an image of the Holy Trinity and a print of The Seven African Powers The inner Crucifixion image, without the outer ring of saints, appears on candlesand other articles marked "Just Judge" or "Faithful Judge" in English or "Justo Juez" in Spanish.

According to Blair Whitmer,
The phrase "The Seven African Powers" is misleading. These seven deities are only seven out of a large pantheon of Orishas. These are worshipped in several different religions brought to the New World including Santeria (in Cuba), Candomble (in Brazil), Arara (in Cuba) as well as many others. The phrase "Seven African Powers" is mostly predominant in African-American hoodoo; in Spanish-speaking nations, they are the Siete Potencias (Seven Powers).​
As a priest in Santeria, I'm biased towards the belief that proper worship of Orishas requires the direct input and guidance of a priest in the chosen religion. The same is not necessarily true if they are simply being invoked for magical uses, but that's not really "worship" ... at least not in MY book. Personally, I would advise extreme caution in invoking an Orisha for magical uses without the associated religious practice and guidance from a priest.​
However, regardless of what is "proper," hoodoo practitioners -- especially those who live in close proximity with Latin Americans -- do work with the Seven African Powers in a magical context, perceiving them as deities of luck, protection, and power. I have some opinions on how this practice has developed. This material is not substantiated by citations from scholarly materials, but rather is the result of my having lived through the times described and having witnessed these events. My information is not complete, however, and i welcome any additional comments.
7-african-powers-chromo.jpg
Now, even as this Seven African Powers image was meeting general acceptance in the Cuban Santeria community that resulted in Italian production of it as a holy card, an entirely unrelated event was ocurring, namely, the immigration of a wave of Santeria-practicing Cubans to America during the late 1970s. Bearing the Seven African Powers image with them, these folks ran smack into the ongoing African-American social movement called African Cultural Nationalism.

http://www.luckymojo.com/sevenafricanpowers.html


Thank you for this. I have some reading to do tonight!
 

Donate

Support destee.com, the oldest, most respectful, online black community in the world - PayPal or CashApp

Latest profile posts

HODEE wrote on Etophil's profile.
Welcome to Destee
@Etophil
Destee wrote on SleezyBigSlim's profile.
Hi @SleezyBigSlim ... Welcome Welcome Welcome ... :flowers: ... please make yourself at home ... :swings:
Back
Top