Ogun Balenyo is the Dominican Palo saint of war.
Ogun Balenyo
Ogun Balenyo is the Dominican version (Palo, 21 Divisiónes, or Dominican Vudú) of the Yoruba orisha Ogun, the orisha of metal, war, and technology. He is syncretized with Saint James the Greater (Santiago Apostól) in the form of Santiago Matamoros (Saint James the Moor Killer). A traditional image of Saint James the Moor Killer represents Ogun Balenyo in the Dominican Republic. In Haitian Vodou, he is Ogou.
Editor Iroko Kíkokí
I don’t trust any religion and don’t believe in spirits, saints, or orishas, and yet somehow they are very much part of my Caribbean life. I connect with the divine through them. I only believe in nature and the stories we tell to try and explain the mystery of life. I have some great stories.
I didn’t grow up with them, but the Yoruba orishas began to reveal themselves to me on my last day living in New York City. The very next day I became an island Puerto Rican and had a series of inexplicable experiences with the orishas in Puerto Rico. I survived the pandemic by studying bomba drumming with Hector “Coco” Barez, the former percussionist of Calle 13. The drum changed my life.
Cubans and Puerto Ricans crowned me a son of Elegúa, and when I read about him, I realized that my friends and family were right. My personality even changed. I became funny in Spanish. I was never funny before. Elegúa is a clown.
When I moved to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, I had more strange experiences with Altagracia and Kongo religion. I moved on to Santiago de los Caballeros to get away from the tourists. When a friend said there was going to be a palo for San Miguel, I went looking for it because I thought it would be a drum, song, and dance festival like Puerto Rican bomba which I love so much. I couldn’t find the drum, but ended up with an Afro-Indigenous Dominican wife and family. I didn’t expect that.
Ogun Balenyo is the patron saint of Santiago de los Caballeros. I don’t really understand the Dominican Republic’s African Diasporic traditions. Cubans and Puerto Ricans are proud of our Afro-Indigenous heritage. Dominicans are generally not, so it’s been harder to connect with the old traditions. They are around, but you have to know someone because the Christian churches look down on it.
Many people call the old traditions folklore to diminish them from the big world religions, but they are not folklore. These are living traditions. I have been scolded many times in my search that “we are Christians,” and yet Paleros consider themselves Christians. In the city center, faith is about Jesus, but in the barrios, its San Miguel and other manifestations including Ogun Balenyo.
One of my greatest joys in the Dominican Republic is hanging out with people in a barrio where the paved road becomes dirt and soon turns into tobacco fields. The people are poor, but so rich in the way they live. When I bike through the area, I play music loud like a Puerto Rican or Dominican. I noticed that when I play palo music, the locals sing along and start dancing naturally. It’s a great way to connect with the Dominican barrios.
This is a great video. Eneroliza Núñez is a mambo, a leader in the traditional faiths. I love it when she starts singing and all the kids start singing along. I wish I was there.
Dominican music generally doesn’t have clave, the Afro-Cuban bell pattern that is the basis for rumba, son, and salsa. But palo music has its own 3-2 clave. It’s sounds to me very close to Cuban rumba clave.
The young dancers in grass skirts are representing Ogun who lives in the forest and wears a grass skirt. I used to think it referred to a primitive way of life, but the grass skirt actually is a symbol of the orisha.
It’s all still a mystery to me, but somehow “Yo soy Ogun Balenyo.”