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Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department for the Study of Religions Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department for the Study of Religions Petra Tlčimuková Spirit Possession in Candomblé Bachelor thesis Supervisor: Dr. Hans Gerald Hödl 2009 1 I sincerely confess I wrote this Bachelor thesis on my own with usage of listed sources and literature. Petra Tlčimuková 1 First I would like to thank to my supervisor Dr. Hans Gerald Hödl for his helpful advices, consequent guidance and patience. Farthermore I want to thank to Mgr. Jana Rozehnalová, PhD. for her cordiality and patience during the procces, Mgr. Tamás Szilágyi for his help and support, Justin Burnett for his corrections, and others who enabled me to comfortably extract from the sources of University of Vienna and supported me during the time of preparations. 1 Table of contents: 1. Prologue .......................................................................................................................................... 2 2. Introducing Afro-Brazilian Religions ................................................................................................ 2 2.1. Historicaly-political overview of slavery ....................................................................................... 2 2.2. Afro-Brazilian religions ................................................................................................................. 4 3. Candomblé .......................................................................................................................................... 6 3.1. History of Candomblé ................................................................................................................... 7 3.2. Candomblé and the problem of syncretism ................................................................................. 9 3.3. The structure of the world ........................................................................................................ 13 3.4. Social structure within the community ...................................................................................... 14 4. Medium ............................................................................................................................................. 20 4.1. Initiation ..................................................................................................................................... 20 4.2. Social status of children-of-saint ................................................................................................ 23 5. Spirit possession ................................................................................................................................ 25 5.1 Classification of spirit possession phenomena ............................................................................ 26 5.2. Spirit possession in Afro-Brazilian religions................................................................................ 29 5.3. Face of spirit possession in Candomblé ..................................................................................... 32 5.4. Typology based on maturity level of possessed person ............................................................. 33 5.5. Medium possessed ..................................................................................................................... 34 6. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 41 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 43 Apendix ................................................................................................................................................. 46 Key words: ............................................................................................................................................. 55 Resumé .................................................................................................................................................. 56 1 1. Prologue My bachelor thesis attemps to give a coherent description of spirit possession phenomena in the frame of Candomblé religion. With the succesive familiarization of Candomblé origin, development and spread, as a part of AfroAmerican religions I mainly focus on Candomblé itself, its social structure, ritual practises containing the spirit possession phenomena, role and social status that the mediums have. I try to decribe the spirit possession concept in various scholar approaches and its role in the society of Candomblé members, its community. It is not the aim of this work to discover new facts, not even to set up a new theory for the research of Candomblé or spirit possession. Due to the fact that my thesis is based on read materials, it is rather prefered and desirable to make a clear and meaningful view of the spirit possession phenomenon in Candomblé, to find the place that this phenomenon occupies in its enviroment and within approaches of different scholars, and to try to analyze possible shortcomings or on the contrary, novel or interesting points of some theories. 2. Introducing Afro-Brazilian Religions 1 This introductory chapter deals with the category of AfroBrazilian religions, gives a short overview of their genealogy and a New World`s history. It shall give a ground to the whole topic and enable us to link the next chapters to the more specific phenomena without losing the ties to its background. 2.1. Historicaly-political overview of slavery In the 15th century while the Portuguese ships were searching for the Indian subcontinent to land on, they reached different parts of Africa. In the same century they started the slavetrade from west Africa, especially from what has since been called the Slave coast, but they also carried out trade with black people from other locations such as Ghana, Mali, Dahome, Benin, 1 Literature used in this chapter: Harding, E. Rachel, A Refuge in Thunder. Candomblé and Alternative Spaces of Blackness , Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2000. Maggie, Yvonne, Mircea Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion , vol. 1, New York: Macmillan 1987. Stingl, Miroslav, Černí bohové Ariky , Praha: Svoboda, 1992. 2 South Africa, etc. These were the areas which provided the highest number of slaves who were mostly very skilled agriculturists and as such were the most suitable workforce for the Portugese plantations in America. In the 16th century there were contracts for human trade between Portuguese traders and African kings. In the beginning some of the black kings were selling their own slaves but then they started to sell nonenslaved people and they were completing caravans of people called „coffle“. The way across the ocean was called the „Middle passage“ and many people died there. Such a situation caused a crumbling of African societies and in some cases even the race extermination. During slavery in the New World there arose quite a high number of small black „states“ so called „quilombo“ 2. In Brazil they were called „quilombo Palmares“. Thanks to the existence of these unofficial states there appeared more influential tendencies or ideas to create an independent AfroAmerican state already during the 17th century. Suprisingly, in Palmares there was a black monarchy with sovereign black kings for a while. Interrestingly, in some places AfroAmericans were in close contact with Indian communities and sometimes they even managed to become chiefs of indian tribes which were hidden deeply within forests. These quilombos were extremely important for saving the inhereted african religion and culture. In „Refuge in Thunder“ we can find that in the 19th century quilombos had a bit different character than Stingl previously described: „ Quilombos were spaces where slaves, libertos , and other magnalized people took refugee, however temporary and assailed, in order to (re)- create an enviroment where they were able to rest their overworked and castignated bodies, a place to tend to their needs for physical and psychic healing“. 3 Finally in the year 1888 American slavery came to an end but Brazil was not independent until 1960 which is the year when it became a part of the British Commonwealth. 2 See Stingl, Miroslav, Černí bohové Ariky …, p. 46. 3 See Harding, E. Rachel, A Refuge in Thunder…, p. 80. 3 2.2. Afro-Brazilian religions Within these religions there exists a concept called „African memory“ 4. We can find there a special heritage of African culture and spirituality in Brazil. AfroAmerican culture as a whole has actually four main links to Africa: a. Yoruba from Nigeria ( Spanish and Portuguese colonies) b. Fanti-Ashanti from the Golden Coast (British colonies) c. Fon from Dahome (French colonies) d. Bantu from Congo (Portuguese) These originally african cultures and the religious traditions they brought had went through some changes since they arrived to Brazil. First of all, it is necessary to say, that there are more influential sources for the category of AfroBrazilian religions. That means that each of these religous traditions draws from one or many religious sources which can easily differ from each another. According to The Encyclopedia of Religion 5 the sources are not only: A. African cults but at the same time : B. Indian cultures in Brazil C. Roman Catholicism D. Kardecism But these above mentioned religious traditions can only be seen as the most influential, not as the only sources which shaped and are still modifying the spectrum
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