Each orisha carries its own body of oriki, chanted praise names and epithets recounting its characteristic powers, associated objects, colors, foods and past actions, performed during festivals, divination sessions, initiations and other ceremonies dedicated to that orisha specifically. Ogun, associated with iron and the forge, and Oshun, associated with rivers and beauty, are among the orisha whose oriki are especially widely documented and performed, each praise tradition drawing on that deity's particular domain and mythic history for its epithets and imagery. These praise chants function alongside, and often interwoven with, an orisha's songs and its associated drum rhythms, all forming part of the wider performed tradition through which that deity is honored and, practitioners hold, made present and attentive during ceremony.
Because oriki are transmitted orally and vary by region, lineage and individual performer, a given orisha's praise chant is rarely fixed in a single canonical form the way a written scripture might be, and skilled praise chanters are valued precisely for their command of an extensive repertoire of praise names and their ability to draw on and recombine that repertoire appropriately for the specific occasion and audience in front of them, a living oral art rather than a memorized fixed text performed identically every time.