Cult of Gods

Ògún

Yoruba (Orisha) tradition. See the whole pantheon.

Domains
iron, war, hunting, roads
Symbols and attributes
Iron tools; dog; palm fronds
Bronze head from Ife, Nigeria, c. 12th-15th century, Kimbell Art Museum.
Bronze head from Ife, Nigeria, c. 12th-15th century, Kimbell Art Museum.

Key myth

Orisha of iron and those who work it: smiths, soldiers, surgeons, drivers. In myth, he cut the first path through the primeval forest for the other orishas to descend.

Primary sources

  • Ifá corpus
  • Ile-Ife oral tradition

All sources for the Yoruba (Orisha) pantheon

Place in the family graph

Choose a deity to see where it comes from. Dashed lines are links the sources describe that are not parent and child.

OlodumareObàtáláOdùduwàỌrúnmìlàÈṣùÒgúnṢàngóỌyaỌ̀ṣunYemọjaOlókunỌ̀sanyìn

More traditions

Odin rides to Hel, W. G. Collingwood, after the Poetic Edda.NorsePapyrus of Ani, British Museum (New Kingdom), a Book of the Dead.EgyptianA chaos monster and a sun god, drawn by L. Gruner for A. H. Layard's Monuments of Nineveh.MesopotamianVishvarupa Vishnu, Kashmir or Himachal, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art collection.Hindu

Elsewhere in the world

Deities in other traditions who share a theme with Ògún: war and fighting, craft, smiths and making. This is overlap in one area only.

Norse

Odin

wisdom, poetry, war

Norse

Thor

thunder, protection of gods and people, strength

Norse

Freyja

love, desire, magic (seiðr)

Norse

Týr

law, oaths, war

Egyptian

Seth

storm, desert, chaos

Egyptian

Horus

kingship, sky

Egyptian

Sekhmet

war, plague, healing

Egyptian

Ptah

craftsmen, creation by speech

Compare across cultures