Bryan Donnelly (Oshun Kayode) Master Blacksmith, Bladesmith and Silver/Goldsmith

“All my life I have had a fascination with metal and working with it. Continue reading »

María Concordia, Ogún Gbemí, is an Orisha toolmaker from Oakland, California. María is of Italian and Puerto Rican descent. She was first introduced to African religion in a Vodún ceremony in New York where Papa Ogú, the Vodún equivalent of the Lukumí/Yoruba Ogún, recognized her as his omó and told her so. She was ordained to Vodún and eventually traveled to Haiti with the famed Mama Lola to receive assón-an important ritual in this religion. Subsequently Ogún Gbemí was also ordained into the Cuban-Bantú religious tradition, better known as Palo, and eventually to Ogún in the Lukumí tradition in Oakland, California. Ogún Gbemí is a member of the lineage that stems from the late Luis Rivera, Oké Ewé, whose descendants call themselves las pirañas-the piranhas.

In the early days of the religion in New York named Luis Rivera, Oké Ewé, one of the first Puerto Rican priests in New York ordained a considerable number of people in his short life as an Olorisha. Oké Ewé, who many considered a great spirtist medium, traveled to Cuba in the 1950s with his iyalorisha, Fela Mendéz, Shangó Bunmí, also Puerto Rican and possibly among the first Puerto Ricans ordained to the religion. Oké Ewé was ordained to Obatalá. Shangó Bunmí, Oké Ewé, Assunta Serrano Osaunkó, Iluminada León Olufandeí, Celina González Olomidé and a number of other Puerto Ricans residing in New York, traveled to Cuba in the 1950s for ordination into Lukumí religion. Shangó Bunmí’s husband, known simply as Mendez, was probably the first Puerto Rican ordained in Cuba to Ifá. This group were the pioneers for the entry of the Puerto Rican community into the religion. It is not exactly clear where the lineage’s name came from. Regardless of its origin, though, the lineage was very proliferous and today has numerous descendants all over the country. Ogún Gbemí herself has ordained over 25 Olorishas.

Ogún Gbemí has also been very active in her community as a spokesperson for the religion. In 1994, she and Iyalorisha Rosa Parrilla, Eshú Alaiwó, started a non-profit cultural association, the Oñi Ochún Cultural Center, dedicated to the preservation and celebration of Lukumi traditions. The center offered lecture series called “Conversations with our Elders” and had many Olorishas from Cuba, New York and even Africa give talks about the Orisha tradition. Lázaro Ros, Amelia Pedrozo (ibaye), John Mason, Afolabí Epega, Chief Kola Abiola, Mama Lola, and Karen Brown were among the many religious and academic personalities that visited Oñi Ochún during Ogún Gbemí’s administration. The center has since passed on to another Olorisha, Cheryl Smith, Odówailé, but many of the lectures and activities conducted by them were videotaped and kept in a library for students of the tradition who may want to consult them.

Ogún Gbemí’s recent metalwork, what may be referred to as her “calling,” reflects a very ingenious and innovative twist on an old theme. Most of her creations reflect a sincere devotion and love for her orisha-and all the orisha in general- whose elements she so craftily molds into the wonderful pieces of Orisha and orisha-inspired art she produces. It seems that wherever Ogún Gbemí goes, Ogún seems to follow her and mark her as his omó. It is more than evident that it is he who is directing the evolution of this latest facet in her life, he artistic vitality as an Orisha toolmaker. Maferefún Ogún!

In Ogún Gbemí’s own words:

“My desire to make crowns and tools started in 1998, I had been working with wood for about 15 years as a journeywoman carpenter and tile setter. I decided to learn to work metal and opened a small shop and began to learn blacksmithing and metal work. I wanted to make things for the Orisha to show my devotion and gratitude for all the ire I had been blessed with. I was unhappy with the mass produced crowns and tools that seemed to get thinner and cheaper every year.

“I never thought of my self as an artist. I just sit and look at the metal, and I think about the Orisha, and pretty soon I see what I want to make in my mind. It is in my mind, all finished, and I just have to figure out how to get the metal to do what I saw. Sometimes I have to adapt the mental image because my available skills cannot reproduce what I saw or it becomes just impossible to make the metal do what I saw.”

Though Ogún Gbemí does not consider herself an artist, but rather an instrument of the orishas, her work is undoubtedly creative and novel. Ogún Gbemí has indubitably found her niche in the world of Lukumí artists.

Part of an orishas paraphernalia includes metal or wooden implements that olorishas call herramientas, or tools. As implied by the word, herramientas empower an orisha. Although many elements encountered by the Lukumi in the New World were adopted and reinterpreted for and in their relationship to the orishas, this art form was not created in the Americas. Many elements that conform an orishas herramientas have counterparts in Yorubaland, for example, Oshun’s edan, similar to those used by the Yoruba Ogboni society; Shango’s oshe, a double-headed axe; and the ashabas, charm chains used by various orishas that are reminiscent of the shabas used by Yoruba hunters and hunting deities and the pencas used in Brazilian Candomble, Lukumi religion’s Brazilian sister.

Nonetheless, many Western aesthetic elements have been adopted and adapted by the Lukumi. For example, the Lukumi manufacture and use metal Western-style crowns, reminiscent of those worn by the colonial European monarchs. These crowns replaced the more traditional, cone-shaped, beaded crowns typical of the Yoruba. Instead of the beaded fringes seen in Yoruba crowns, different tools and attributes cling from the crown that are related with the orisha for whom the crown is destined.

Cunningly, the Lukumi appropriated and reinterpreted many symbols, some of which were markers of status, from the new society. The symbol for Orishaoko, the god of agriculture, thus became a replica of an ox-drawn plow, with a parasol in its rear section to protect the farmer from the insolence of the Caribbean sun. The chalice of the Holy Sacrament from the Catholic altar, usually depicted with bright rays stemming from the chalice, and the Eye of Divine Providence, similar to the Egyptian eye of Horus, were both attributed to Obatala and reinterpreted in terms that were acceptable and applicable to the Lukumi world vision.