Deities
Gu
Fon Deities
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Gu is the Fon deity of iron, ironworking and the tools and weapons smiths forge from it, one of the children born to the creator pair Mawu-Lisa in Fon cosmology. He is patron of blacksmiths, hunters and warriors, and of the technology iron makes possible more broadly; his diaspora counterpart across the Atlantic, carried into Haitian Vodou, Santeria and Candomble, is Ogou.
Facts
Attributions
Mythic AssociationFon myth holds that Mawu sent Gu to earth before any of her other children to make it fit for habitation, giving him an iron blade with which he cleared the primordial forest and fashioned the first tools, an origin account for his standing as patron of iron and its tools. 1 Attestation
HistoricityNot a historical person: a divine or other-than-human being 1 Function
Domain / FunctionCraft, metalwork and smithing 1 Cult
Attributes and IconographyGu is represented less by a human figure than by the asen, a forged iron staff bearing tools and weapons that stands as his altar in Fon shrines. Anthropomorphic iron figures also appear, but the worked metal itself, cutlass, hoe and hammer alike, carries his presence more directly than any single fixed image. 1 Belief
TheologyHenotheistic: a supreme being above served lesser divinities 1 A child of the creator pair Mawu-Lisa in Fon cosmology, matching the henotheistic reading already carried by Mawu-Lisa. Origins
Origin of the NameThe name Gu is the ordinary Fon word for iron, so invoking the deity and naming the metal he governs are, in the language itself, close to the same act. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
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