Olori, the Head Owner. A typology of African descent

• Main Author: José Jorge de Morais Zacharias
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina 2010-06-01
• Series: Esboços
• Subjects: Tipologia; C. G. Jung; Orixá; Candomblé; Religiões Afro-Brasileiras
• Online Access: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/esbocos/article/view/14762
• ISSN: 1414-722X; 2175-7976

The question about individual differences has awaked the human curiosity for a long time past. Justifying these differences and comprehending the people that present different or similar behavior in comparison the others, religious-magical system was building in distinct cultures and periods. The astrology,  the medicine of Galeno and chiromancy are examples about this unquietness. In a scientific world, the behavior searchers' established human typologies to explain the phenomenon. Carl Gustav Jung, swiss psychiatric, developed a typology which classify people in 16 types, based on categories as introversion and extroversion; world's perception through five senses or inspiration and decision-making personal or impersonal. However many people look the african-descendants culture as primitive, in it we found a system to explain the individual differences elaborated in its complex and ritualistic mythology. In this tradition, each person is conceived having a orisha's head, since their born, it's called Olori (the head sir). Therefore, the characteristics of personality are distributed, in according of Myths, to orisha's son. For example, an Ogum son's tends to be combative and impulsive, while an Oxalá son's will be calm and obstinate. This typology configuration contributes to the social interaction on african-descendants communities, valuating the individual differences contrary to tendencies about social uniformization.