Oshun, Goddess
of Love
by Sandra
Stanton
February
15, 2003
Home
Awakened Woman's Circle is working for peace
In Porto Alegre, She is on Her Way
Part 7 - City of Oshun
by Stephanie Hiller
"You know," said Suelen, as we walked past the many attractive booths displaying native crafts along the paths at PUCRS (the Public Catholic University of Rio do Sul), "I am something of a priestess."
"Oh," I said, interested, "what kind of priestess?"
"Yoruban," she replied.
That was a very nice coincidence. Luisah Teish had asked me to bring some water from Brazil; Teish is an American Yoruban priestess whom I greatly admire, and I was pleased to have this little assignment from her.
Suelen had heard of Teish in the states but had never met her. "I know just where to get it. I will take you to a place at the river to gather your water." Turns out the Yoruban goddess Oshun is the patron goddess of Porto Alegre.
Suelen had just been interviewed with Gen Vaughan for FIRE, Maria Suarez's Feminist Internacional Radio Endeavor. Suelen had used some of her time to tell Americans that here in Brazil there are people who understand that Americans are not the same as their government, and "we support you." Her words, delivered in a voice that flowed sweet and thick, like cream, were very powerful indeed. Suelen's 19-year old daughter Tariana who accompanied us that day was asked by Maria to assist with recording. It seemed to be part of Maria's mission to let women, especially young women, know how easy it is to run a radio broadcast.
Suelen speaking
on FIRE radio Maria
Suarez
Afterwards we headed to Gasometro, at the other end of the
city near the docks, where we could have a drink and watch
the sunset. The Porto Alegre sunset over the river is an
experience not to be missed, as all the guidebooks attest.
As we made our way to the bus, we passed a group of
Afro-Brazilian men with tall bow-shaped instruments. We
stopped to watch them. The group was getting ready to "play"
capoeira.
Capoeira is a martial arts practice said to have been originated by slaves from Angola as a self-defense practice, training the mind and body for combat situations. Prohibited until after the end of slavery in 1888, poor blacks nevertheless practiced it during public holidays. Persecution almost succeeded in stamping out the practice during the 1920s but desspite the ban, Master Bimba and Master Pastinha founded the first Capoeira schools in Salvador, in the northeastern state of Bahia. Now capoeira is a popular national sport. In the dance, two opponents encounter each other in a series of elaborate movements that reminded me a little of break-dancing; although swinging their legs and arms over one another, they never touch. Drums and the music of the stringed instruments accompany the contest.
Playing
capoeira
A large circle gathered around as the dance began. The first pair had painted faces. A little boy danced with a young man, perhaps his father. A woman entered the contest at one point as well. As we watched, a steady stream of people continued to pass by. At one point a protest march went by with many black and white signs against war, including "No War in Korea."
Once on the bus, Suelen expanded on a conversation held the night before with Kaarina in a restaurant near Gigantinho, the usual buffet affair. I asked Suelen whether domestic violence was a problem in Brazil, and she replied that yes, it occurred, but what she found even worse was the violence of women against men. This was a real surprise to me. Suelen's anger over the plight of these abused men seemed layered with unexpressed emotional content. As a feminist scholar of many years, Kaarina suspected that Suelen's comments represented a form of denial all too familiar to her from her years of research on how women interpret their situation. She questioned Suelen, but the conversation remained stalled on that single point, and for quite a long time, until I grew tired. Kaarina urged that some statistical study be done; experience had shown that women are often surprised when the data is collected to find that their impressions on this ticklish matter are often incorrect.
On the bus, Suelen explained why statistical studies in Brazil are not reliable. She gave examples from the census. When women were asked who was the head of the household (jefe), they would reply that the man was the head since men were given that title even though in fact the women were very much in charge. The mother is greatly honored in Brazil, said Suelen; to harm one's mother in any way is considered the greatest crime. Many grown men can't do a thing without asking their mother, something Suelen considered to be disgusting. Her own mother was very bossy and her brother was such a man, incapable of acting on his own and dominated by his wife as well. Why in this matriarchal culture women should be guilty of violent abuse of men was a question Suelen could not answer, and we agreed it was a worthy topic for research. We feminists like to feel that matriarchal or matrifocal society would be one of peace, and indeed Brazil is not a highly aggressive country. But this violence of women against their men, most frequently their response to adultery, was puzzling. Perhaps women's power did not reach beyond the home? She insisted that women held many powerful positions in her country. Perhaps there is a lot of adultery, and this is the only way women know how to stop it? Do they experience adultery as a form of oppression? Or is it something even more primal, a response by women who feel free to express in their homes the oppression they feel in the world around them? As in so many other countries, the home may be matrifocal, but the world is not.
Apparently some women have another response. Suelen revealed another interesting facet of gender relations in Brazil -- that many poor women, at least in the villages, have more than one husband in the same home. She had had that experience herself -- no problem at all. She only required that they be civilized. I had seen a Brazilian movie about a woman who took three husbands, one after the other, with enormous civilizing effect on the first! But I had not realized that such a set up might be common. I wondered if the reasons for this were economic; where labor is underpaid, two husbands are better than one. It was hard for me to imagine such a situation in America, where one husband's demands are often more than one woman cares to handle. For two men to live with one woman peacefully would seem to confirm that the woman has power, and the men give up a lot of ego and privilege to keep the peace.
Two days later, Suelen accompanied me to the Mercado Publico to buy some gifts. On the way, she offered to do a ceremony for me when we went out to Ipanema (not the famous Ipanema Beach near Rio) to gather the waters. She selected herbs for a ritual bath I would take before the ceremony, and chose the candles, soaps and offerings that we would need for the ceremony.
The Mercado Publico is housed in an old colonial edifice constructed in 1869 in the city's center. In aisles lined with stalls, all kinds of vegetables, fruits, meats, baked goods and cheeses are sold, as well as clothing and other dry goods. We visited four stalls devoted to the sale of ritual objects. Shelves were lined with boxes of soaps, candles in many colors (especially blue and gold) and some in the shape of Yemanja. I wanted to get one of those, but Suelen insisted that it was dangerous to use these objects without proper ceremony. I bought a lovely statue of Nosa Segnora Aparecida, the patron goddess of Brazil who is considered to be a form of Oshun, and several smaller images for gifts. Afterwards we went to her apartment in one of the city's older neighborhoods, on a charming rua that seemed more distinctively Brazil than the streets of the Azenha where I was staying. It was very, very hot. I dozed on the sofa while Suelen prepared the herbs, chopping them and mixing them with water while chatting quietly with two of her three daughters. It was another side of this many-sided woman-warrior whose conversation, at least with us Americans, usually carried a harder edge.
Tariana, Suelen and Susan Bright
When the herbs were ready, I showered with Oshun's soap and then was instructed to pour the herbal mix all over my body. Its smell was refreshing and cooling on this sweltering afternoon. Soon, like a water creature covered in seaweed, I emerged spotted with little green bits of the fresh plants. I could remove all those bits, but I wasn't to wash off the residue.
Off we went on the long bus ride to Ipanema, I still bedecked with a few pieces of plant that had escaped my fingers. Now Suelen talked about touch. How Brazilians always touched each other while they were talking, on the shoulder, on the leg. And when they hugged, they merged. If there was attraction, they showed it. If it was not mutual, it ended right there. But if it was mutual, ah then, Brazilian lovers were gorgeous.
It was now 105 degrees and really broiling. Ipanema is an upper middle class neighborhood in the south of the city, its little streets lined with various and charming houses all leading to the great lake formed by the convergence of five streams of the River Guiaba. In the shade of a tree we sat sipping coconut milk. Just ahead and up above our heads was a statue of Oshun.
When the sun finally prepared to set, we found a spot on the bank of the river. The remnants of many other ceremonies could be seen under the trees. A wind had come up, and I was sent to gather rocks and pieces of broken cement as a barrier around our altar. There Suelen placed our two candles and one for Oshun. Just at the water's edge was our offering to Oshun, a yellow paper tray bearing a mirror, a lipstick, a flower, and two jellied sweets. We lit our candles and watched them glow as the fiery sun sank into the bosom of the water. Suelen chanted the ceremonial words while I prayed for all the things I wanted for the world and for myself. I considered adding a few words of my own but held back, uncertain that it was appropriate. When finally something escaped my lips, Suelen commented that it was an unusual contribution. Here we all chime in with our prayers and blessings, but then our approach to ritual is highly eclectic, drawing from various traditions for lack of one to call our own, something Suelen seemed to feel was a little weird. Though the wind tossed the candle flames, the candles did not go out. A deep sense of peace and contentment filled me up. The lake glowed, the bamboo clumps squeaked and rattled, the scene suffused with the radiance of Oshun. "How do you feel?" she asked then. "I feel very very good," I told her. I filled my bottle with the pale yellow waters of the Guiaba, and we left our offering for Oshun.
When she lived in the States, Suelen told me, she could never find a place to do her ceremonies. There was always some law to stop her, fire hazard, whatever. But here on the shores of the River Guiaba, where candles are often left to burn down, there has never been a fire, to her knowledge.
The sun was down now. A sweet breeze blew towards us across the river, here more like a bay than a river, swollen with life, islands in the middle, and no sign of the other side.
"It's good to eat after ceremony," said Suelen. She was hungry. We shared a platter of shrimp on the patio in a beachfront restaurant while a DJ played cheesy American tunes before the music finally went Brasileira.