When Olokun, god of the oceans, threatened to discipline humanity with yet another deluge, Obatala the sky god intervened: it was decided that Olokun be restrained in the watery depths. For this, Ogun, god of war and technology was called upon. Ogun, like his Graeco-Roman analogues, Hephaestus / Vulcan is your talented blacksmith, technologist, and master of weapons. Like his Mediterranean counterparts, he is also crippled—lame in one leg, and it is this disability that makes him strive to overcome natural defect— by wielding a high level of artisanry and design. This is evident in the Italian love of automotives, after all Mount Aetna in Sicily is home to Hephaestus, where the god clangs away in the depths of the volcano, assisted by a staff of metal automatons of his own creation. ( These are among the earliest cyborg mentions in antiquity). With this in mind, we should consider that Hephaestus / Vulcan is the true god of the Roman Empire, not Ares / Mars. Rome is the by-product of the She-Wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus, its twin founders.

Canines—dogs, wolves, jackals are sacred to Ogun (and by default, Hephaestus). I grew up in Ibadan, Nigeria (a city also built on seven hills)—which at some point in the 70s was famous for the cheapest taxi fare in the world (those days are long gone…),and once a year the taxi drivers association (and perhaps the one for lorries too) dedicated a week to Ogun festivities. At this point people with dogs as pets were advised to keep them indoors the necessary rites included (male) dog sacrifices. To wit, there was many a dog-napping.

Speaking of dogs— the Dogons (of Sirius / DogStar fame) also talk about the Jackal, a deity deformed at birth (unlike the other deities he was born single-sexed, a male, interesting because Olokun for example, is hermaphroditic) and rejected by his mother. In his rage against Nature he crashes a spaceship “…and because of this he did more things than can be told.” .

This rage, this extraordinary temper has had its benefits, for example the the uprising that kindled the Haitian Revolution was ignited in the flames of an Ogou Fèray ritual. In Yoruba myth, the god, who presides over the spirit of metal, often goes deep into the forest to work off his anger at his forge. At least he knows himself.