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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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“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—

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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 …

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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

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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.

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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.

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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,

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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

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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

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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).

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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

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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).

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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