• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
Everyday and Esoteric Reality in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé
Sheila S. Walker
 History of Religions
, Vol. 30, No. 2. (Nov., 1990), pp. 103-128.
Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0018-2710%28199011%2930%3A2%3C103%3AEAERIT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L
 History of Religions
is currently published by The University of Chicago Press.Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtainedprior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content inthe JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/journals/ucpress.html.Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers,and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community takeadvantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.http://www.jstor.orgFri Feb 22 13:03:03 2008
 
SheilaS. Walker
EVERYDAY ANDESOTERIC REALITYIN THE AFRO-BRAZILIAN
CANDOMBLE
THE CANDOMBL~:
IN
EVERYDAY
LIFE
The city of Salvador, capital of the state of Bahia in northeasternBrazil, is the holy city of the Candomblk, the religious system createdand evolved by enslaved Africans and their Afro-Brazilian descen-dants. The Candomblk is the religion that provides the spiritual founda-tion and superstructure of Bahian life. With regional variations andnames such as Macumba, Shango, Casa das Minas, and so on, theCandomblk is also important in other states with significantAfro-Brazilian populations such as Rio de Janeiro, Siio Paulo, Maranhiio,and Pernambuco. Nowhere, however, is its influence as all-pervasive asin Bahia, where theCandomblC determines the very details of dailyexistence, from the colors of the clothes people wear to the foods theyeat on a given day. It is, in fact, the source of Bahia's gastronomictradition of true soul food, in which the food people eat is oftenliterally the food of the gods. The Candomblk is also the inspiration forthe content and form of much popular culture including the words ofsongs and the steps of dances, the themes of folkloric performances,and the imagery of the plastic arts as well as being the basis for most ofthe city's plethora of lively public festivities, including even most ofthose that are ostensibly Catholic in purpose.
el990
by The University of Chicago.
Ail
rights resewed
0018-271Ofl91l3002-0001401.00 
 
Afro-Brazilian CandombliThe CandomblC is also an esoteric system that provides philosophi-cal and cosmological explanations for the vagaries of human life, bothindividual and social. Religious belief is concretized in both ordinaryhuman behaviors and in public and private ceremonial behaviors, thegoal of which is to establish closer harmony between the human andspiritual realms. This harmony is symbolized and mediated by theOrishas, the anthropomorphized forces of nature that are the spiritualbeings of the CandomblC, and the intermediaries between the Creatorand His human creations. The Orishas came to Brazil during thetransatlantic slave trade with the Yoruba people from present-dayNigeria and Benin, the African ethnic group whose religious culturehas remained most intact and influential in both Brazil and elsewherein the Americas.In Salvador, an officially Catholic city of more than a million and aquarter inhabitants, more than
75
percent of the population is ofAfrican descent. And even were the
365
churches boasted of by touristbrochures not a much inflated number (almost one hundred would bemore accurate), they would still not approach either the number or theinfluence of the more than fifteen hundred CandomblC houses, thepriestesses and priests of which enjoy greater influence over morepeople than do the priests of the Catholic church. Additionally, thenumber ofCandomblC houses continues to increase as members ofestablished houses segment off to begin their own.Symbolic evidence of the omnipresence of the Candombli aboundsin Bahia's capital city. Dwellings, humble or expansive but otherwiseordinary in appearance, may actually conceal CandomblC houses orterreiros-the ensemble of the sacred space of a Candombli com-munity. Individuals of differing socioeconomic status and phenotype,not all of obvious African ancestry, may wear simple strings of coloredbeads that symbolize the Orishas, who are their spiritual guides andguardians, and that are believed to protect them from harm. OnFridays many people dress in white because Friday is the day dedicatedto Oshala, the Orisha responsible for the creation of human life, thusthe father of humanity, whose color is the white of wisdom and peace.Many street corners in Salvador are graced by food-vending "Ba-hianas," Afro-Bahian women sometimes dressed in the long, full skirtsand head ties characteristic of CandomblC members, and sometimesdressed in more ordinary clothes. These women are Candomblk initi-ates, and the delicious fast food they sell includes the preferred deli-cacies of some of the Orishas. The most characteristic of their creationsis acarajk, a black-eyed pea fritter cooked in red palm oil, that is afavorite of Yansan, Orisha of storms, whose symbolic color is dark red.These Bahianas may sometimes be seen throwing several acarajksinto the street in front of them as an offering to Eshu, the Orisha of
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...