Ìtàn - oralidades e escritas: um estudo de caso sobre cadernos de hunkó e outras escritas no Ìlè Aṣé Omi Larè Ìyá Sagbá

Abstract

Ìtàn is a Yoruba term meaning myths, òrìṣà stories, which are passed by tradition through the generations in the terreiros de candomblé using orality. Ìtàn establish the personal features of the òrìṣà, as well as the paths the òrìṣà took, using storylines involving sacred and human forms. Ìtàn determines rites, personalities and identifications in the terreiro. Those rites comprise traditions and secrets. Ìtàn justify and validate the organization of the ritualistic materials used in each specific situation and the performance of the rituals, creating a direct link with the òrìṣà's archetype. How to maintain the secrets through generations? Would the written records threaten the secrets? How is it possible to perpetuate secrets without modifying them? The writing records would protect or undermine those secrets? Those questions guide this thesis and evoke other set of interrogations directly linked to the demands related to the learning process of children and teenagers beyond the school, such as: could we consider the ìtàn as learning facilitator, which builds educational networks in those places? Starting from written records on notebooks/ journals from children and teenagers, I have researched those processes, focusing on their circulation inside one terreiro where the written records are a part of everyday life and represent a outspread of a practice which is not very common inside the afro-descendant religious spaces. Ìtàn is one of the major tools used to transfer, comprehend and maintain candomble traditions, based in secrets and orality. Written records do exist, in a considerable number, and they focus on guarding ritualistic knowledge inherited from the elders/ learnt in a friend's terreiro such as the ìtàn registers and notebooks/ journals found in the terreiro that is the subject of the present research