Ilè Ase Oba Jagun

Characteristics

DAY: Tuesday.

COLORS: Anil, White and Purple.

SYMBOLS: Stick of palm stalks (Ibiri).

ELEMENTS: Earth, Water, Mud.

DOMAINS: Life and Death, Health and Maternity.

GREETING: Salubah!

Nana, the goddess of mysteries, is a deity of origin simultaneously with the creation of the world, for when Odudua separated the standing water that already existed and released the earth from the "sack of creation," at the point of contact of these two elements, the mud of the swamps, where the greatest foundations of Nana lie.

Lady of many shells, Nana synthesizes death, fecundity, and wealth. Its name refers to old and respectable people and, for the Jeje peoples, from the region of ancient Dahomey, means "mother." In this region, where today is the Republic of Benin, Nana is often considered the supreme deity and perhaps for this reason is often described as a male orish.

Being the oldest of the water deities, it represents the ancestral memory of our people: it is the ancient mother (Iyá Agbà) par excellence. She is the mother of the Iroko, Obaluayê and Oxumaré ores, but because she is the oldest goddess of candomblé she is respected as mother by all the other orixás.

Life is surrounded by mysteries that throughout history torment the human being. However, when still in prehistory, man was faced with the mystery of death, at its core an ambiguous feeling burst forth. Myths relieved this pain and reason pointed to what was right in its destiny.

Death makes the first religious sentiment appear in man, and at that moment Nana makes herself understood, for in the beginnings of history the dead were buried in a fetal position, referring to an idea of ??birth or rebirth. The primitive man understood that death and life go together, understood the mysteries of Nana.

Nana is the beginning, the middle and the end; birth, life and death.

It is the origin and the power. To understand Nana is to understand the destiny, the life and the trajectory of the man on earth, because Nana is History. Nana is still water, water of life and death.

Nana is the beginning because Nanã is clay and clay is life. Nana is the owner of axé because she is the orixá that gives life and survival, the lady of the ibás that allows the birth of the gods and the men.

Nana may be the harrowing reminder of death in the life of the human being, but only to those who view this end as something negative, as an extremely heavy burden that the whole being carries from birth. In fact, only people who have a heart full of evil and devote their lives to harming others worry about it. Those who practice good deeds live concerned for their own good, for their spiritual elevation, and desire their neighbor the same as for themselves, only expect from life ever better days and have death as something natural and unavoidable. Your certainty is the immortality of your essence.

Nana, the older mother, is the light that guides us, our everyday life. To know one's life and one's destiny is to know Nana, because the foundations of the Orixds and Candomblé are linked to life. Our life is our orixá.

It is in death, condition for rebirth and fecundity, that the mysteries of Nana are found. Respected and feared, Nana, goddess of rains, of mud, of earth, a judge who punishes sinful men, is death in the essence of life.