Bahian white: the dispersion of candomblé imagery in the public sphere of bahia
ABSTRACTFor most of its history, candomble was a marginal and persecuted spirit possession cult. From the 1920s onward, however, the cult evolved into the “trademark” of Bahia, a state in northeastern Brazil. The color white—a spotless and impeccable white—has come to dominate the public face of the cult: evoking positive connotations such as cleanliness and purity, the color helped to portray candomble as the splendid cultural heritage of the Bahian state as well as a respectable African religion. However, the “politics of white” has always been intersected by a “poetics of white,” as Bahian artists, writers, and other image producers sought to destabilize the condoned meanings of white. Hinting at that which is absent from the impeccable surfaces of candomble's public appearance, this “poetics of white” produced a layered public understanding of the cult. As people engage in speculations over the “true” candomble that lies hidden behind its public facade, claims to be “in the know” reconfigure the notio...
The birth of the Yoruba hegemony in post-abolition candomblé
The birth of the Yoruba hegemony in post-abolition candomble. Historical data indicates that critical Jeje and Nago religious practices of West African origin were already well consolidated in Salvador (Bahia, Brazil) in the 1860s, suggesting their rooting in the period of the slave-trade. While the Yoruba ethnogenesis and the racial and cultural nationalism of the « Lagosian Renaissance » in the 1890s may have indirectly contributed to the late 19th century Bahian « Nagoization » of candomble, the paper suggests that the increasing religious predominance of the Nago « nation » was mainly the result of competitive local Creole micro-politics.
Orisha Journeys: The Role of Travel in the Birth of Yoruba-Atlantic Religions
Cet article etudie le role que jouent les voyages dans le developpement parallele des religions d’origine yoruba au Bresil, a Cuba, dans les Antilles Britanniques, en Sierra Leone, dans la Republique du Benin et au Nigeria. A partir de la reprise critique des analyses traditionnelles de ces religions « orishas », l’auteur plaide pour une approche plus large ; a la fois sur le plan spatial, en en appelant a une analyse comparative de systemes de savoirs et de pratiques geographiquement distants mais lies par l’histoire, et sur le plan temporel, en preconisant une etude minutieuse des specificites historiques. L’auteur brosse un tableau general des conditions socio-historiques dans lesquelles les differentes traditions orishas se sont developpees autour du bassin Atlantique au cours du xixe siecle, en insistant sur l’importance des contacts multi-lateraux qui ont pu exister entre les differentes traditions locales, dans un contexte diasporique.