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Used with permission. |
Oshun is a Santerian Goddess - the Goddess of the Oshun River. She is the goddess of love and marriage and loves fans, mirrors and seashells. Also the Goddess of gold and money, Oshun prefers the colour yellow. As women when we wear jewellery and adorn ourselves we are embracing her qualities and allowing her magic into our lives. |
Santeria centers around the the worship of ancient African Gods who over time have been assimilated into the Catholic church as saints. Santeria comes from the Spanish word santo, meaning "saint".Santeria came to the Americas with the millions of black slaves from Africa, primarily from the Yoruban tribes along the Niger River. Forced by their owners to covert to Catholocism, the slaves continued to practice their religion in secret, passing along ancient traditions either orally or in secret texts which became known as libretas. Gradually, the Yoruban's began to see what they believed were the incarnations of their Gods in the Saints of the Catholic church, and merged the two faiths. The slave's Spanish and Portugese masters became fascinated with the Yoruban magic and began to practice it themselves. Today, any city with a large Hispanic population probably boasts as many Santeros as Catholics, since many of the devotees practice both.
In the ancient Yoruban tongue Gods were called Orishas. Saints identified with the Orishas may be of either sex and not necessarily of the same gender as the Orisha. Santeros do not question such an arrangement, explaining by saying that after the gods' mystical deaths, they were reincarnated in new bodies.
The Catholic Saint that is associated with Oshun is Our Lady La Caridad del Cobre.
The beautiful image used on this page is called "Oshun" by Joanna Powell Colbert. Please support her as an artist and do not download or copy any of her images without her express permission. My thanks to Joanna for allowing me to use her work. To order prints and cards of her work click on the banner below to go to her online catalogue.
