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
Function
Domain / FunctionCraft, metalwork and smithing 1 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 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 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 Iconography
SymbolGu is the Fon deity of iron and ironworking, patron of the tools and weapons smiths forge from it and of the technology iron makes possible. 1 Attestation
Era of Attestation Veneration TodayActively venerated in a living tradition 1 HistoricityNot a historical person: a divine or other-than-human being 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. Correspondences & Relations
Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Source Dahomey: An Ancient West African KingdomMelville J. Herskovits
Related To
Sources
1. Dahomey: An Ancient West African Kingdom
2. Voodoo in Haiti
Alfred Metraux, Oxford University Press, 1959Gu, Fon/Dahomey origin, documented in Haitian Vodou by Moreau de Saint-Mery eraView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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