Ayorinde, Christine. 2004. “Santería in Cuba: Tradition and Transformation.” In The Yoruba 

Diaspora in the Atlantic World edited by Toyin Falola and Matt D. Childs, pp. 209-225.

Indiana University Press, 2004.

This source was suggested to me by Professor Brennan after reviewing what I had so far. The chapter is split into sections discussing different aspects of the Santeria religion in Cuba. It starts with an introduction into who is worshipped and basically how the religion works. Then Ayorinde goes into more detail into how the practitioners show their worship and what objects and songs come from/resemble certain gods. This section was very useful in determining the purpose and symbolism of the Thunderstone. The author then goes into topics like: communication with the gods, Yoruba subgroups, how slave trade affected the religion, and how the religion is passed down through the generations.

The authors perspective in this chapter seems to be very impartial, and only informative. The goal seems to be to teach people about the transformation of the Yoruba religion through the years. I don’t see any real bias throughout the reading, all the information seems to be from the perspective of a very devout practitioner.

Castillo, Daisy R., and Mederos, Aníbal A. 2007. “Lo femenino y lo masculino en la Regla

Congo o Palo Monte”. In Afro-Hispanic Review, Vol. 26, No. 1, African Religions in the New World, pp. 151-157. William Luis, 2007. http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/23055254.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A4746fbd7dea826834c3b56455f085daa.

I found this citation on JSTOR using the keywords “Regla de Ocha” and “Chango”. The general purpose of this article is to talk about the masculinity and femininity in the religious expression of the Regla Congo(hence the title). More specifically it discusses this in terms of the slave trade and how both masculinity and femininity has changed through it. In talking about this change, the article goes into beliefs and practices of the Regla Congo. This section gets to the heart of what gender means to the religion, and how gender is dependent on what the object means to the religion. Although this does not directly relate to the Thunderstone that I am studying, gender plays a major part in both the Diasporic religions, and in Chango.

Because the text is in Spanish, and I can translate it, but not fluently read, the tone and perspective of the author is a little unclear. With this, I found the perspective of the author to be similar to other works we have read. Their goals seem to be solely to inform people about the Regla Congo. For talking about sex a lot, there seemed to be little bias in this article. It did not seem to favor men or women over each other, and got the information across.  

Lawuyi, Olatunde B. 1988. “Ogun: Diffusion across Boundaries and Identity Constructions.”

African Studies Review Vol. 31, No. 2 (Sep., 1988):pp.127-139, http://www.jstor.org/stable/524422?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=((thunderstone)&searchText=AND&searchText=(shango))&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3D%2528%2528thunderstone%2529%2BAND%2B%2528shango%2529%2529&refreqid=search%3A8cc1dc2eadc54a0d174b8cc014501bfb&seq=10#page_scan_tab_contents.

I found this article on JSTOR by searching “Shango” and “Thunderstone”. This article is focused on Ogun’s role in the Yoruba Religion, and how the god is a structure in the religion. He does this by discussing the idea of Ogun and what realities his conceptions deal with. It then discusses how all the different variations Yoruba religion all connect to the idea of Ogun. Also, who worshipped Ogun along with where those people worshipped him connected back to the main idea of the structure of Ogun to the Yoruba religion. Throughout the article, it compared Ogun with Chango, which includes the symbolism of both Chango and the Thunderstone.

This article seems very scholarly because it explains the purpose of the journal before talking about anything else. The perspective seems to that of most articles I have found, and that means that I do not see much bias. The information seems to be from an inside perspective of the religion which talks more about what the religion means to the people rather than what the religion is made up of. Even though the intended audience is unclear to me, it seems to present the information in similar ways as previous articles.