Disc 3 Side B (15 tracks, 25’20”)
Oro. Inés Sotomayor and Ensemble.
Inés Sotomayor, Apwón, elderly Iyalocha, very well-known and respected in Jovellanos and neighboring communities. She is responsible for the annual feast which is celebrated by the descendants of the defunct Arrati mill in honor of their ancestors and the orishas,[1] which is attended by an enormous number of devotees.
Inés is a child of Babaluayé (Agróniga), one of the most venerated “Fundamentos” (orishas) de la vieja dotación, and she is the “Mayor (Elder),” or as they say, the most “ancient” (oldest surviving) among the Black people of Arrati.
Moyuba Orisha: salutes “to the owner” of the door of the Ilé Orisha, Eleguá. Eshubeleke.[2]
Osáin. Osáin.
Ochosi odé mata — Ochosi oyi reo.
Ogún moforibale.
Ogún onile-Ogún madé o — Ogunlé.
Dadá-Dadá.
Moforibale fú Changó.
Disc 4 Side A (22’25”)
Obá ogodó.
Oyá — Oya yariwó — Oyá Dadá o. [3]
Oyá-Oyá — Oyá jeri jeri — Oyá-Oyá — Oya mío obini bale.
Olokún — Oloko dedé — Yemayá — Yeyé. (Oshún).
Oshún. Didé o de dena!
Fernando Hernández intones a song in honor of Olokún, the god of the ocean, “who lives at the bottom of the sea, shackled in seven chains by Obatalá.” Olokún is a god for some, a goddess for others. “The Mother, the oldest, or Fundamento” of Yemayá.
DF-N: [re Arrati (Arratia?)] cf. García Rodriguez (2011). ↑
DF-N: Disc 3, Side B consists entirely of songs led by Inés Sotomayor. Her style on the recordings — no doubt influenced by both her advanced age — is unhurried as she numerous variations of epithets alternating with the chorus’ prolonged repetition of a brief refrain (e.g., iba orisha, iba laye o). [...] ↑
DF-N: After Sotomayor leads a sequence of songs for Oya (oya ka kaoya kuerun laye o), she turns over the lead singing to Fernando Hernández, who follows with another sequence for Oya (oya eriwo e, ayaba eriwo aya osi) and leads the rest of the liturgical sequence (oro). Interestingly, the first songs are more commonly associated with the closely-related orisha Obba, although Cabrera’s notes do not identify them as such. [re female orisha] ↑