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- Title
A NIGHT'S PRAYER OF A NOVENA TO OGUN WITHIN THE ORISHA COMMUNITY OF ST. HELENA, TRINIDAD.
- Authors
Pérez Sisto, Edith
- Abstract
The purpose of the following paper is to analyze the events that took place in one night's prayer of a novena to Ogun (St. Michael) within the Orisha community of St. Helena, Trinidad, employing the uses and practices of ethnography. To obtain a dense description of the event, a holistic analysis was made, applying a triangulation -- three different visions of what is being studied: the text, communal and extra-communal narratives. The first is linked to what the story is about or to the action it narrates; the second is linked to how the group uses the text to create meaning; the third is linked to the way the wider society interprets what is going on. The data upon which this study is based on comprises on-the-spot accounts of Orisha prayers or ceremony, personal supplications, biographies and life-histories of ordinary cult devotees. Valuable insights were derived about social attitudes to the religion as well as its social function, significance and impact of this prayer/ceremony/ritual/festival on the contemporary society of Trinidad.
- Subjects
OGUN (Yoruba deity); PRAYER; ETHNOLOGY; SOCIETIES; SYMBOLISM; GENEALOGY
- Publication
Impulso, 2006, Vol 17, Issue 43, p121
- ISSN
0103-7676
- Publication type
Article