The English Professors of Brazil: On the Diasporic Roots of the Yorùbá Nation

Abstract

argued that African Americans in virtually every American nation "retained" some greater or lesser cultural "memory" of the African past. Assuming that the cultures of the West African Fon, Yorùbá, and Ashanti (as reconstructed in the "ethnographic present") represented the extant "base line," or starting point, of African-American cultural history, Herskovits' "ethnohistorical" method posited that less-acculturated African-American groups instantiated the earlier historical stages of the more acculturated African-American groups. Thus, for example, spirit possession in the Brazilian Candomblé, could be taken to demonstrate the African derivation of "shouting," or the behavior of those "filled with the Holy Spirit," in black North American churches (Herskovits 1958[1941]:220-1). No less, the Candomblé, could be taken to represent an earlier stage of black North Americans' gradual syncretic adaptation, accommodation, and acculturation (Herskovits 1958[1941]:218). 1 Dozens of scholars have usefully employed similar methods in the study of African cultural "memory" and adaptations. 2 This study revises Herskovits' cultural history of the African diaspora and proposes, at the Afro-Latin American locus classicus of Herskovitsian studies, some non-linear alternatives to Herskovits' and others' visions of diasporas generally. The Jeje-Nagô, or Fon-and Yorùbá-affiliated temples of the Brazilian Candomblé religion are a locus classicus in the study of memory, retention, and 72

Metamorfose infinita: sobre brujos, espíritos e apuntes em Havana

“…Tylor, as reflexões sobre magia de Henri Hubert e Marcel Mauss, a circulação de espíritos de Alan Kardec e as descrições da criminalidade nas colônias de Armand Corre. 5 Ainda assim, alguns autores vêm demonstrando por que LNB representou um esforço de compreensão e interpretação de uma realidade pós-colonial verdadeiramente transatlântica (Matory, 1999;Palmié, 2006;Bronfman, 2002, p.564). O livro resultou de intensa circulação de ideias e recriações conceituais que atravessaram escritos e práticas científicas de natureza diversa em diferentes lugares.…”

Food and spirits: religion, gender, and identity in the ‘African’ cuisine of Northeast Brazil

“…As Freyre is helping to create a model for Brazilian identity drawing on exotic ideas about Bahian Blackness and Bahian flavors, the Afro-Brazilian religious practice known as Candomblé Á though still very much repressed by the state and by the police Á is emerging as a powerful mainspring of symbols for scholars and intellectuals seeking to emphasize what they describe as the creative and aesthetically vibrant Black culture of Bahia (see Fry 1982, Matory 1999. Many of the novels of Jorge Amado make repeated mention of Candomblé, the religious space of the terreiro, and, importantly, of the food served to devotees and spirits alike Á acarajé.…”

“Can you take a picture of the wind?”: Candomble’s Absent Presence Framed through Regional Foodways and Brazilian Popular Music

“…It is not a light dish, so you have to eat it sparingly" (interview, Lauro de Freitas, 2013) (see also Fry 1977). This type of racial identity politics revels in the culinary skill of black cooks as savants de la cuisine, yet delimits the agency and cultural access that West African descendants-blacks-have in Brazil (Matory 1999(Matory , 2003.…”