port2005 really real

8/12/2019 Port2005 Really Real

1/31

Circling around theReally Real:

Spirit Possession Ceremonies andthe Search for Authenticity in

Bahian Candombl e

MATTIJS VAN DE PORT

ABSTRACT Many anthropologists studying spirit possessioncults have commented that the most immediate experience ofpossession escapes our understanding. In Bahian candomble,cultists have reached similar conclusions: while their religiousdiscourse explains why possession happens, the phenomenonitself is considered to be hors discourslocked-up in the here

and now of the experiencing body. This article discusses how theconstruction of possession as radically other helps the priest-hood to deal with the fact that candomble has become the trade-mark of the Bahian state, and ever more voices are involved ina debate as to what the cult is, can be or should be. In response,priests have put the inexplicability of possession at the serviceof authenticating their particular understanding of candomble.Declaring words to be inadequate to grasp the really real of theirreligion, they seek to restore their authority. [candomble, spirit

possession, authenticity, religious authority, tourism, Lacaniantheory]

With good reason postmodernism has instructed us that real-

ity is artifice yet, so it seems to me, not enough surprise hasbeen expressed as to how we nevertheless get on with living,

pretending . . . that we live facts, not fictions.Michael Taussig,Mimesis and Alterity. A Particular History of

the Senses[1993]

ETHOS, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 149179, ISSN 0091-2131, electronic ISSN 1548-1352. C 2005 by the American Anthro-

pological Association. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article

content through the University of California Presss Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals/

rights.htm.


2/31

150 ETHOS

During one of the first spirit possession ceremonies thatI witnessed in Bahia I was taken over by the fear that I

might become possessed. That fear was kind of odd, giventhe fact that I do not believe in spirits who take pos-

session of people. Yet it was scary nonetheless (whateverthis it may have been). Ceremonies of candomble1 can be powerful

performances, and this particular one, in a small neighborhood temple(terreiro), packed with locals rubbing shoulders, certainly was. After theintroductory round dance had been danced, the drums started calling on

theorix as, the spiritual entities that are worshipped in Bahian candomble.They seemed to arrive in large numbers. The daughters-of-saints (filhas-

de-santo; initiates) who had been dancing for hours, circling round andround the central pillar, started bending forward and backward, quiver-ing their shoulders and grunting like a Vitrola needle at the end of a

recordas Ruth Landes (1947:50) once described it in the metaphor ofher time. Many of the locals who had been watching the scene became

possessed as well: a plump lady on high heels, a middle-aged man, a some-what grayish looking woman wearing an apron, they all started to staggeron their feet and turned up their eyeballs. Contrary to the initiates, they

took off silently, as if sneaking out of their bodies. Soon, two of the three

adolescent boys who had been busy displaying a cool and unaffectedposture amidst the general effervescence, entered into trance. I clearlyremember the nervous expression on the face of the third one after thedeparture of his mates. A young girl, who had been chatting and giggling

with a friend as if this was a schoolyard rather than a place of worship,all of a sudden fell into a rigorous spasm, and rolled over the dance floor,

stiff as a broomstick. She was covered with a white sheet and for over anhour lay motionless on the floor.

The drums were beaten ever more frantically. Each time someonewould fall into trance there was a lot of cheering and applause. I felt ner-vous. I was overwhelmed by the sight of behavior I could only interpret

as a complete lack of self-control. And I was scared that I too would fallto the floor, but with no narrative other than hysteria to make sense of

it. It was only a sense of professionalism that kept me from wrestling myway back to the exit. I recall that I crossed my arms over my chest. I triedto dissociate myself from the scene by rummaging in my rucksack to look

for nothing in particular. I urged myself to breath deeply and calmly. I

told myself that I do not believe in spirits. I forced myself to think of whatanthropologists have been saying about possession trance, invoking thespirits of science to protect me from whatever it was that was creepingtoward me that rowdy night. What calmed me down, in the end, was the

sight of a dog, a German Shepard. The animal had been walking around


3/31

Spirit Possession Authenticates Religious Authority 151

freely over the dance floor, pursuing its own canine pursuits, undisturbedby the interactions of people and spirits.

Afterward I tried to figure out what had been so uncanny. All I couldcome up with was that the drums had been instigating me to cross athreshold that I cannot (or dare not) cross. Beyond it, I imagined, lies

madness, the annihilation of Self, a black hole. But I realized that I wasalready borrowing words for comforts sake. Language was to no avail here.It would be fairer to say that imagination itself was lacking.

Im certainly not the only anthropologist to have observed that nomatter how possession trance is tackled theoretically, its most immediate

experience escapes our understanding. Janice Boddy (1994), Paul Stoller

(1995), and Michael Taussig (1987), to name but a few, all have remarkedthat whereas the Otherness of the phenomenon (its uncanny inexplica-

bility, its screaming incompatibility with Western notions of personhood,its seeming disdain for self-control, its radical otherness) demands expla-

nation, and this explanation highlights the inadequacy of our conceptualcategories rather than the phenomenon itself (Boddy 1994:407).

This is of course not to say that there is a lack of imaginative ap-proaches to possession trance. In anthropological literature, the phe-nomenon has been cleverly linked up with the battle of the sexes,

as womenwhose predominance as mediums has universally beennoticedcan have their fleeting moments of prestige when possessed by

a spirit (Boddy 1994). It has been described as a catharsis that works ondeep seated psychic conflicts and may bring about healing (Obeyesekere1981). It has been explained in terms of neurobiology, where the impact

of patterned, repetitive acts on the human nervous system are said to pro-duce trance like states (Lex 1979). It has been read as a text inscribed

in the body in which new meanings are produced and the sediments ofhistory are articulated. It has been appreciated as a kind of surrealist per-formance, in which reality is attacked and the inadequacies of the world

are addressed (Stoller 1995). And recently, a colleague of mine argued thatwe should stop thinking about possession as something radically other, as

we are all living in a state of enduring possession. Could there be any otherway of being, he asked, now that weve learned that identification is allthat we have in that impossible project of coming to a sense of self?

Thought provoking comments. And yet, there seems to be an overallagreement that there is something in possession trance that refuses

to be signified. No matter how clever our attempts to break the mystery,something about possession remains enigmatic, unapproachable, resisting

the word, displaying the failure of representation. When faced with peoplefalling into trance, thoughts like Oh well, arent we all possessed are notlikely to cross ones mind. One is simply flabbergasted, not knowing what


4/31

152 ETHOS

to think as to what it is these people are doing to (or with) themselves.Even Ruth Landes, who in her classic study on Bahian candomble comes

across as a stout and stalwart character, admitted that she felt keyed upand restless when the drumming reached a peak during one of the firsttrance inducing ceremonies she witnessed (1947:50).

It can be argued that in many ways possession trance is as mysteri-ous a phenomenon for the candomble community as it is for anthropolo-

gists. There are important differences to be noticed, of course. The ideaof spirits taking possession of a human body is widely accepted in Bahiansociety, and spirit possession is a common practice, not only in can-

domble, but in many other religious denominations as well (Kardecismo,

Pentecostalism, Charismatic Catholicism). Moreover, candomble offers agreat many myths and metaphors to explain why possession trance hap-pens (cf. Prandi 2001:527).

But here too, we must observe that whereas these myths provide the

phenomenon with an explanatory cosmological frame, the mystery as towhat exactly happens is accepted for what it is: a mystery locked up in the

here and now of bodily experience. In factas I will describe in greaterdetail belowthe candomble priesthood is keen on repeating over and

over again that there is something in possession trance that is beyond

human grasp. The mysteries, as they call it, cannot and should not berevealed. A candomble priestess told anthropologist Luis Nicolau Pares:

No one can ever really talk with certainty about the mysteries. The mysteries are the

mysteries. The secrets are the secrets, and no one will ever know anything. Those who

study, those who come to observe, they are observing, but they dont know the deep

knowledge. For one says one thing, and another says another thing, and so they only

leave one confused. I always leave the researchers em balano(dangling). [1997:2]

Following William James (1958), this something in the phe-nomenon of possession that escapes our understanding might well be la-

beled the ineffable. Obviously, the aim of this article is not yet anotherforlorn attempt to name-call into existence a phenomenon that refuses tobe verbalized. Accepting the ineffable for what(ever) it is, I would rather

discuss what use people make of occurrences that might be (or must be)labeled that way.

In the research arena that is Salvador, and more particular, its ter-reiros de candomble, possession trance and other productions of the in-effable are staged in a tumultuous world of rapid change. As I will de-

scribe below in greater detail, it is a world where religious authoritiesare unable to impose their views or control the religious practices of cult

members. It is a world where the regimes of truth that buttress the sym-bolic order are in disarray. It is also a world that isto borrow MichaelTaussigs phrasingall too visibly made-up: ever new groups are re-

signifying the cult; its rhythms and aesthetics have been appropriated by


5/31


the culture and entertainment industry; and its gods, rituals and philoso-phies have become commodities for the tourist market (as well as on the

more local religious market that Brazilians so aptly call o mercado dosbens de salva aothe market of salvation products). Because of all ofthis, one could also say that it is first and foremost a world in search of

authenticity.Of course, candomble studies have not ignored this wider social and

political context within which the cult operates and develops (Amaral2002; Bastide 1978; Fry 1982; Herskovitz 1943; Johnson 2002; Prandi1999; Santos 2000; Silva 1995, 2001). Yet the phenomenon of posses-

sion is largely studied and understood within the cosmological frame-

work of the cult. Thus, we are told that possession is the most inti-mate experience of the mutual bond between spirits and their mediums(Berckenbrock 1999:197) and we further learn that this relationship be-tween human beings and spirits is a reciprocal one: in worshipping his/her

orixa (observing the taboos, participating in the rituals, sacrifices, and cel-ebrations) the initiate gains access to divine protection and receivesax e,

the life-force that assures the dynamic of life processes, and without whichhuman existence would be paralyzed, lacking all possibility of realization.

Within this scheme of offering and receiving, possession entails a verita-

ble booster ofaxe, not only for the receiving medium, but also for thecandomble community at large (Santos 1975:3940).

In this article, I propose an alternative perspective on possession andpossession ceremonies by interpreting them first and foremost as the pro-

duction of the ineffable in a symbolic universe in which meanings are adriftand truth regimes are in disarray. I will argue that in a world where authen-ticity is in high demand, phenomena that seem to be hors discoursin

other words, seem to be positioned beyond received ways of knowing andunderstandingbecome increasingly attractive. I take possession to be

such a phenomenon: because it seems to escape all attempts at significa-tion it appears to be immune for the slippings and slidings of meaning.Whether you say a million words about it or nothing at all, you are not

going to grasp its essence. Possession thus suggests that there are realitiesbeyond conventional knowledge, and as I will argue, it thus creates a

locus for the really real.

THE FAILURE OF SYMBOLIZATION

A generation of scholars who try to put Lacanian thoughts and con-cepts at the service of understanding social phenomena provide a goodstarting point for this inquiry. As their thinking has only recently entered

anthropological debates on the construction of reality, a brief exploration


6/31

154 ETHOS

of their thoughtswith all the simplifications brevity impliesmay benecessary.

Whereas most anthropologists are inclined to focus their thinking onthe positive work of culture (their primary concern is to show how socio-symbolic formations produce meaning, to explain how people manage to

transform ultimately arbitrary notions into certainties-beyond-dispute bymeans of taboos, techniques of embodiment, commemorative rites and themany other practices they have at their disposal), scholars such as SlavojZizek (1989, 1997), Yannis Stavrakakis (1999), and Katherine Pratt Ewing(1997) tend to focus on the ultimate failure of symbolization processes.

All symbolic constructions, they argue, are lacking because they fail to

capture lived experience in its entirety.What do they mean? In the Lacanian view, our entrance into the

symbolic world of language and social relations was the beginning of a lifelong drama: we have forever lost the enjoyment of a state of wholeness, a

full and undivided identity. AsZizek puts it, entering the symbolic worldwith all its division as to what one is and what one is notmortifies, drains

off, empties, carves the fullness of the Real of the living body (1989:169).From this moment on, we will find ourselves in an endless and impossiblequest to recover this lost state of fullness.

The relevance of Lacanian thought for the social scientist begins atthis point. Identification with socio-symbolic constructs is the way we go

about this quest, and sheer desire is the fuel that keeps us going. Yet all ourattempts to find the lost state of wholeness in the realm of the symbolicare doomed to fail because the constructs we identify with are the very

cause of our division and are lacking in themselves (we will always only besomething by not being something else). Therefore, Stavrakakis argues,

nothing in the realm of the symbolic can provide us with a solution,an exit from this frustrating state (1999:46). Only in fantasy is therea (temporary) release, as fantasies can cover the lack in socio-symbolic

constructions. This is what Lacanians mean when they argue that fantasysupports reality: it emerges exactly in the place where the lack in our

socio-symbolic constructs becomes evident, and reality can only acquirea certain coherence and become desirable as an object of identification,by resorting to fantasy (Stavrakakis 1999).

Fantasy, however, is not a happy ending to this Lacanian story onthe construction of realities. Sooner or later, the illusory character of our

dreamed up realities will be revealed. The agent that destroys our fantasiesand shows that the realities they supported are in fact lacking has been

designated the Real.The Real is a highly paradoxical concept. In its positive nature it is

unrepresentable. Logically this makes sense: if the agent that destroys

our (dreamed-up) realities could be represented, it would only signal the


7/31


triumph of our reality constructions, not their failing. Being exterior toall symbolization, the presence of the Real can only be detected through

its effects, through the ways it intrudes on our lives (which is why I thinkof it as an agent). Zizek describes the Real as something that persistsonly as failed, missed, in a shadow, and dissolves itself as soon as we

try to grasp it in its positive nature (Zizek 1989:169). Yet for all of itsungraspable characteristics, the Real derives its solid-sounding name fromits unchanging and stonelike nature: it is, as Zizek puts it the rock on

which every attempt at symbolization stumbles and the hard core whichremains the same in all possible worlds (1989:169).

The confrontation with possession trance that I have described in

the opening of this article may serve as a concrete example of these intru-sions of the Real. It was a shocking confrontation with an I-dont-know-

what that was wholly exterior to my anthropological make-up, and thisconfrontation did exactly what Lacanians think it does: it triggered the

desire to cover up this void (by writing this article) and created the fan-tasy that the Lacanians might help me in doing so. But one might also

think about less idiosyncratic examples, such as accidents, disasters andother traumatic events that tear asunder the dreamed-up states of being(the fall of the Berlin wall, the recent wars on the Balkans, September

11th). Jacques Lacan himself liked to compare the intrusions of the Realwith a tile falling on the head of a passer-by or a knock on the door that

interrupts a dream. When things like that happen, he said, we all of a sud-den become aware that . . . the network of signifiers in which we have ourbeing is not all that there is, and the rest of what is may chance to break

in on us at any moment (Lacan, in Bowie 1991:103, emphasis added).The phrasing is important, and points out another register through which

the Real works its way into the symbolic order. For is not the postmoderncondition, where truth regimes are in serious disarray, and meanings areeternally slipping and sliding, a constant reminder of the fact that . . . the

network of signifiers in which we have our being is not all that there is,and the rest of what is may chance to break in on us at any moment?

The case of candomble in Salvador certainly suggests a positive answer tothat question.

INTRUSIONS OF THE REAL: SIMULACRAE AND OTHER

SOURCES OF CONFUSION

Since the late 1930s, candomble has become a symbol bank formany groups in Bahian society, who are busy inserting the cults religioussymbols, and its practices, aesthetics, rhythms and music into their own

projects. An emergent cultural nationalism sought to cut the umbilical


8/31

156 ETHOS

cord with Europe and re-imagine the Brazilian nation as a unique mix ofthe European, African and Indian races. All over Brazil a renewed interest

in the Afro-Brazilian heritage, including the Afro-Brazilian cults, becamevisible from this time on. Bahian intellectuals and artists were particularlyeager to explore this heritage, as Bahias overwhelmingly black popula-

tion, long considered to be a sign of regional backwardness, could nowbe transformed into a source of regional pride (Dantas 1988). Tourismsoon joined this project of weaving candomble imagery into the fabric

ofBaianidadea concept denoting all that is deemed quintessential toBahia. From the 1950s onward, tourist guidebooks urge their readers to

visit the rites of a barbaric and primitive religion of a destitute and for-

saken people (Brandao and Silva 1958:59) and watch how the orixas takepossession of the bodies of their sons and daughters, and make them do

what professional dancers could never accomplish (Valladares 1951:98).With the inauguration of a state tourist organization, Bahiatursa, in 1971,

an unprecedented production of candomble imagery has indeed givenSalvador the appearance of the Capital of Fetishism: hotels, commercial

enterprises and streets are named after the orixas; the city council haserected statues of orixas in public squares and parks; and souvenir shopsare filled with orixa bric-a-brac. Art galleries sell artworks inspired by the

cult of the saints and bookshops offer glossy coffee table books on can-domble. Tourists can participate in various courses where one can learn

to play the sacred rhythms from candomble or to dance the dances ofthe orixas.

Consequently, candomble has long left the confines of the traditional

places of worship. Certainly, the cult still functions as a religious prac-tice, with over two thousand registered temples in Salvador alone. But

it has also become a tourist spectacle; a source of inspiration for localwriters, artists, filmmakers, dancers and musicians; an emblem of Ba-ianidade used by the state authorities; a token of black resistance and

emancipation; a proto-ecological movement that from time immemorialrespects the forces of nature; a fortress of female power and matriarchy

in a macho culture; an exemplary tolerant religion that supports gayrights; and a money-generating industry, selling all kinds of spiritual prod-ucts and services. Anthropologists, Evangelical Christians, social work-

ers, New Age gurus and the officialFedera ao Nacional dos Cultos Afro-Brasileiros are all making public their particular (and widely diverse)

understandings of what the cult is all about (cf. Van de Port 2005).This public re-signification of the cults practices and discourses is

not only the work of people who do not belong to the candomble commu-nity. Many adepts of the cult seek to profit both politically and materiallyfrom the overwhelming public interest in candomble. This is most evident

among the priests and priestesses of the leading traditional temples,who


9/31


have become public figures, have themselves photographed with the po-litical and cultural elite, or seek to get their temples on the list of pro-

tected monuments. Members of minor temples explore the opportuni-ties of tourism, hiring themselves out as tourist guides, or teaching theart of drumming. In other words, in Salvador there is no neat separa-

tion between degenerated public forms of candomble and a pure innerlife of the temples, however much the priesthood wishes to see it thatway.

In the face of this hyper-exposure of candomble imagery in Salvadorspublic sphereand the endless re-readings of the cult it provokesJean

Baudrillards notion of thesimulacrum readily comes to mind. Baudrillard

argues that what distinguishes simulacrae from mere imitations is thatthey become a reality on their own, producing the same symptoms as

the original referent. As such, they mess up distinctions between trueand false, original and copy, real and imaginary, sacred and

profane and cause havoc in the regimes of truth that buttress the sym-bolic order (Baudrillard 2001:171). This is exactly what has happened

in Salvador. The omnipresence of candomble imagery outside the templewallsand the fact that these representations are now available to allhas severed this imagery from its original referent. No better example of

the unsettling work of the simulacrum (as well as the anxieties it trig-gers) as the performances of a Salvadorian folklore group called the Bale

Folcl orico da Bahia.The Bale Folclorico da Bahia performs a nightly show in the tourist

district of the old city center that includes a sequence of dances of the

orixas. Many priests and priestessesespecially those who are most activein the public sphereargue fiercely against the productions of the Bale,

with all available arguments. M ae Stella, priestess of the famous temple IleOpo Afonja, opened her address to a congress on tourism by saying thatone thing must be remembered at all times:

Candomble is a religion. It has nothing to do with the folklore shows that can be seen in

nightclubs, where they put on the orixas dance, as if the dancer were a filho-de-santo. . . .

These shows are vulgar imitations. Having to witness how the sacred is profaned on

stage, how these dances are performed in a sequence that includesmaculele,capoeira,

or samba de roda is saddening to all serious people, regardless of whether they are

priests or laymen. [1991:3435]

Such indignation about the performances of the Bale Folclorico is

surprising when one realizes that most Bahian culture productions aredrenched in candomble imagery and full of references to the universe of

the orixas. What is it about these performances that elicits such severecritiques? What might be at stake became clear to me when I observed arehearsal of the dance group. The dancersadolescents, all of them black,

and most of them from the poor neighborhoodshad been stretching


10/31

158 ETHOS

and flexing their muscles for over an hour in utmost concentration anddedication. Then the drums were beaten, the sacred songs where sung,

and the youngsters started to dance. The spectacle was nowhere close tothe somewhat obligatory fatigued dancing one often sees in the temples.The movements were exaggerated, stylized and highly energetic. There

was no adherence to any liturgical sequence. The dancers beautiful andsweating bodies were dressed only in tights and shorts, rather than thebaroque costumes of filhos-de-santo who incorporate their orixas. Yet

for all the obvious differences, the rehearsal produced a genuine efferves-cence that filled the studio to the brim, transcending the mere rehearsal,

producing a spectacle that was as powerful as a religious ceremony of

candomble.An even more telling example of the way in which simulation has the

power to produce the same symptoms as the original comes from a videotape that the Bale Folclorico da Bahia produced in 1989. A scene shows

a dancer interpreting the orixa Xango dancing with two earthen bowls inwhich a fire is burning. At one point, the dancer pokes his foot in the

fire. In spirit possession cults, this kind of behavior obviously serves toprove the reality of the medium being taken over by a supernatural being.During this performance, however, the test was simulated. And yet, the

dancers foot, poking around in the blistering hot charcoals, did not getburned. So what is real here, and what is fake?

A different source of confusion over what is and what is not real isthe fact that, by entering the public sphere, the candomble priesthoodhas to explain itself to its new audiences. What this means is that they

are forced to translate their faith in terms that the others can understand.The situation reminds one of what John Comaroff has convincingly ar-

gued about the colonizing of Tswana consciousness in South Africa: onceyou engage in a conversation with others, you start objectifying your ownworld by inventing a self-consciousness and distinctness vis-a-vis the other

(Comaroff 1989). Whats more, inevitably you start to internalize theterms through which you are being challenged. But whereas Comaroff

discusses a relatively surveyable situation of Tswana on the one hand andprotestant missionaries on the other, the candomble priesthood has toengage in a conversation with widely different interlocutors. The wish to

be recognized as a full fledged religion, for example, requires the use ofcriteria that are thoroughly Christian: time and again, I found worshippers

of the orixas explaining their religion as if they were no different fromCatholics and Protestants. What is a religion?, Antonio Maciel, secretary

of theFedera ao National dos Cultos Afro-Brasileirosandpai-de-santo

(father-of-the-saint, i.e., priest) asked me, just to give me the answer rightaway. Well, a religion has a liturgy, it has dogmas, it has churches, it has

qualified priests. We all have that!


11/31


For example, for a person that is initiated in the afro-religion (religi ao afro), to become

a priest, he has to pass at least seven years, fulfilling his obligations, and performing the

rituals after the first, third and seventh year. These are the basic dogmas to become a

priest. We can make a comparison: the priest(padre)from a catholic church, he goes

to study, he will have to go to a seminar for a certain number of years, after which he

will receive his diploma. In the Afro-religion, exactly after seven years, he will receive

hiscargo, so in our comparison he receives a diploma, he receives his powers and his

cargo, he stops being . . . how would you call that? . . . not a novice . . . thats what it is

called in the Catholic church . . . in our language it isi ao. . . thats it, he stops being an

i aoto become a priest (sacerdote)

The conversation with the ever more powerful Pentecostalchurches requires that the priesthood defend itself against allegations

that candomble is the realm of the devil. To counter these attacks, thepriests have to stress that their dealings with occult forces are only to dogood. The stress on doing good is such that the endless public com-

memorations of the legendary priestess Mae Menininhathe mother ofall Bahiansmake her look like a catholic saint, rather than a priestessfrom candomble.

In sum, the hyper-exposure of candomble in the public sphere pro-vokes many conversations, and in turn these conversations force cultists

into a constant reformulation of what is and what is not candomble. Priests

find themselves producing comparisons on all sides: were real priests,just like the Catholic ones, its all a bit like astrology, nkosi sekelele

afrika!, we have broken with Catholicism, we are purely African,Santa Barbara is surely an elevated spirit, but she is not Iansa, we

are definitely not folklore. It is highly unlikely that these reformulationsdo not leave their mark on an understanding of self within the candomblecommunity. It is also plausible that this development increases the vis-

ibility of what I have earlier referred to as the made-up character ofbelief.

THE QUEST FOR THE REALLY REAL

All of this confusion as to what is and what is not real, the hyper-

exposure of candomble in Salvadors public sphere begs the question ofhow it is that the cult maintains (or produces) a sense of authenticity. Howdo the cult membersin particular those who are active in the public

sphereproduce a sense that what is now their particular reading ofcandomble has an inevitability to it that other readings lack? How do they

avoid the sense that their creed and practices are but a clayish substancethat can be molded into whatever one wishes to make of it? How do theyconvince themselves that the others are feigning and that they are involved

with the real thing? How do they keep the rest of what is at bay?


12/31

160 ETHOS

Lacanians would argue that fantasy would be put to work in order tocover up the failure of symbolization and recreate coherence (Stavrakakis

1999:46). Baudrillard offers a similar lead. In Simulacras and Simula-tionshe describes the responses of societies where the dynamics of sim-ulation are at work as follows:

When the real is no longer what it used to be, nostalgia assumes its full meaning. There

is a proliferation of myths of origin and signs of reality; of second-hand truth, objectivity

and authenticity. There is an escalation of the true, of the lived experience; a resurrec-

tion of the figurative where the object and substance have disappeared. And there is a

panic-stricken production of the real and the referential, above and parallel to the panic

of material production. [2001:174]

Much of this can easily be pointed out in Salvador. The entering ofcandomble into the public sphere has indeed triggered a proliferation ofmyths of origin. Temples are involved in (or pay lip service to) a restora-tion of their African roots, breaking with the syncretistic traditions of the

past; there is a genuine quest for African wisdom and African religiousproducts; more and more adepts dress up in Nigerian clothes; many have

entered Yoruba language courses; and a journey to Nigeria or Benin, theland of origins, is ever higher on the agenda of priests and priestesses,who by now have specialized travel agencies at their disposal to make

the pilgrimage. Brazilian scholars speak about these fantasy scripts as thereafricaniza ao(re-africanization) of the cult.

The second-hand truths, objectivity and authenticity that are insuch high demand when simulation abounds are delivered by a great

number of anthropologists who have put themselves at the service of thepriesthood. With the prestige of the written word (in what is largely an oraltradition), the prestige of their scientific methods, as well as the prestige of

their belonging to the white middle-classes, they have become importantarbiters in an attempt to shift the true from the false, and the authen-

tic from the degenerated. Their books are circulating in the candomblecommunityespecially the work of Pierre Verger, a French anthropolo-gist and photographer who makes explicit comparisons between Bahian

candomble and the original cults in West Africa. Many anthropologistshave taken up ceremonial functions in the temples, or have been initiated.

To my knowledge, at least two have opened up a temple themselves.Much more should be said about these attempts to immunize the

cult against the unsettling work of the simulacrumthrough fantasy, but I

hastily pass them by because in this article I want to focus on what Bau-drillard vaguely calls the panick-stricken production of the real and the

referential and the escalation of the true, of the lived experience. Whatdoes he mean? Is he still talking about fantasy formations? Baudrillard isnot very clear as to how one produces the real and the referential or

how the true or the lived experience might escalate. Id like to think,


13/31


though, that he is hinting at a tendency that has been pointed out in anincreasing number of studies on the condition of postmodernity: when

people begin to mourn the loss of the self-evident nature of things, theylikely develop a craving for authenticity, for encounters with somethingthat is really real and somehow immune from the disturbing work ofsimulacrae.

Take for example David le Bretons essay on life-risking sports that

gain ever more adepts in the Western world. An adept of free jumping toldthe anthropologist

When we are in the plane climbing to the altitude for the jump, I always feel frightened

and surprised that I am undertaking such a peculiar activityjumping from a plane. But

as soon as Ive left the plane, its like being in another dimension. Suddenly everythingseems so real. Free fall is much more real than everyday life. [Le Breton 2000:3]

This equation of what is outside the realm of discourse with authen-ticity also clearly comes to the fore in Sean Kingstons discussion of au-thentic primitive art, or rather, the demise of it. Kingston argues that the

enchantment of any art object or performance is produced by its capacityto [flush] us out of our unquestioned confidence that we hold the correct

view on how things generally are (1999:343). For this effect to happen,something inexplicable has to be present.

One of the reasons for [authentic primitive arts] death was that its producers and its

means of production became too visible. It lost the enchantment of authenticity to its

Western audience as it became apparently mentally encompassable to them; not only

did the people who produced these numinous objects seem less strange and unfamiliar,

but they even began using the Wests familiar material and social technologies in the

production of their world. The net result, of course, being the decreased power and

authenticity of the art. [Kingston 1999:343]

Tourismsuch an inescapable presence in Salvador and itsterreirosde candombleis yet another field where the inexplicable is sought to

produce the authenticity people crave for. The search for the exotic, forthe strange ways of the Other, is clearly fuelled by the desire to be flushedout of the unquestioned confidence that we hold the correct view on how

things generally are. What else would explain our gazing at the pyramidsof Gizeh (how on earth did they build those things?), the success of Rio

de Janeiros favela tours (how on earth do people manage to live underthese circumstances?), or indeed, the busloads of tourists who make theirway to Salvadors candomble temples to gaze in full incomprehension at

the spectacle of possession trance? The tourist guides that I interviewedduring my research were all aware that tourists want the real thing, and

that it is the uncanny I-dont-know-what of possession trance that deliversthe authenticity that is sought. Obviously I receive a lot of questionsabout possession, is what Josuel, an initiate into the cult and part-time

tourist guide, said when I asked him about tourist responses to possession


14/31

162 ETHOS

trance. He told me that he had no difficulties understanding the baffledtourists:

When you see a person receiving an orixa and completely change, you start asking

yourself why this is happening and how this comes about. A lot of them ask me whether

[the mediums] use drugs, or alcohol, but I tell them that we do not use drugs or alcohol.

I tell them that these are the orixas!

Gabriela, an Argentine blonde who is a bit of a veteran in the businessof taking tourists to celebrations of candomble, told me that she was hesi-

tant to take tourists to certain celebrations in honor ofcaboclos, becausethese spirits may start to interact with the audience in rather unbecom-ing ways, and tourists wouldnt understand what was going on and become

scared. But she too told me that it is a golden rule that, no matter howlong it takes, she will never leave a temple with her group before the arrival

of the spirits:

Before I take them to a temple, I will tell them that it may take hours before the spirits

arrive. They have to know that this is not a show, that the celebrations do not follow

the time schedule of the tourists. And as you know, it can become very repetitive. I may

not wait until all the orixas get dressed up [after mediums are possessed they are taken

behind the curtains to be dressed in festive costumes], but I will always stay until at

least the possession has started.

My observations confirmed their view: time and again I could witnessthat it was this strangeness that fuelled the anticipatory excitementof foreign tourists who made an organized tour to the temple; just as the

inexplicability of it all was the central topic in the discussions afterwardoften in a heated debate whether or not the trance was faked.

Lastly, the equation of the inexplicable with the authentic is also to befound in studies on religion, where the role of mystery in the productionof the numinous, that sensual-experiential underpinning of the Sacred,

has been discussed by a great many authors. Roy Rappaport, for instance,deemed the numinous constitutive of any religion: if liturgical orders are

to remain vital they must receive the numinous support of at least someof those who participate in them at least from time to time (Rappaport1999:394ff). In her recent study on Sufism, Katherine Pratt Ewing argued

that Pakistani mystics acknowledge the limitations of intelligential anddiscursive reason and seek authentic truths hors discours:

Access to truth requires an irruption, a disruption of the imaginary, of the ideologies,

including the ideology of the self that place a screen or veil between us and truth. With-

out such an irruption, we are caught in a historically contingent discursive formation.[Ewing 1997:259]

What these examples suggest is that people are not powerless in theface of the havoc caused in the symbolic order by simulation, nor des-

tined to plug [their] lack with one poor fantasy object after another


15/31


(Eagleton 1997:7), as the Lacanian scenario suggests. Fantasy certainlyplays an important role that needs to be considered. But these examples

show that people have more potent ways at their disposal to convincethemselves that they are living facts, not fictions.

It is here that I would want to return to our discussion of the Real.

As I have argued, the Lacanians have characterized the Real as a radicalnegativity, a rocky hard core at which all symbolization stumbles. Ungras-

pable in any discourse, it remains the same in all possible universes. TheLacanians always describe the intrusions of the Real as horrific and trau-matic. They are to be avoided at all costs. Any awareness of its presence

triggers the work of fantasy to cover up the lack. But contrary to what

the Lacanians argue, the keyed up anthropologists, the bungy jumpers,the disillusioned art collectioners, the tourists and the saints-to-be thatIve introduced in my text seem to be looking for something that remainsthe same in all possible universeshowever horrific that something

may be. Their examples suggest that we might need to modify our under-standing of the workings of the Real. Could it be that the Real does more

than trigger the desire to cover it up through fantasy? Could it be that ina world where the simulacrum is doing its unsettling work, this negativity

might become attractive as a source of authenticity? Could it be that the

very fact that the Real is beyond the grasp of the human imagination alsogrants it the status to be beyond dispute, and therefore authentic? And

could this help to explain the productions of the ineffable that Ive stud-ied in Salvador? There are reasons to suggest that this is how it must be

thought of.

MODES OF THE INEFFABLE: THE INEXPLICABLE AND THE SPONTANEOUS

Let me give you some concrete examples as to how the ineffable doesits work in safeguarding the really real of candomble beliefs. Time andagain, my interviewees tried to convince me of the authenticity of their

experiences by referring to inexplicable events. In their narratives, theineffable would occur in several modes.

First of all, initiation into the cult very often begins with inexplica-ble bodily experiences. Most of the time these are fainting spells or ab-scences (ausencias), but they might also be depressions and illnesses

that cannot be diagnosed. When a medical doctor or psychiatrist cannothelp to solve the problem, a Bahian has a great many options in the mer-

cado dos bens de salva aoto seek relief from his/her afflictions. Throughvarious channels, healing is promised by Charismatic Catholicism,Pentecostal churches, New Age groups, Kardecist and Umbanda centres

and Candomble, who all offer their particular explanations of the cause


16/31

164 ETHOS

of the affliction and the way to go about a healing. A combination ofadvice from friends and family and preestablished links or affinity with

a particular denomination will guide a person toward one or the otherchurch or temple (Amaral and Silva 1993:100; Leacock 1975:117, 122).When unsolicited bodily experiences and spontaneous fainting spells or

absences occur in a temple during a ceremony, they are more readilyinterpreted as a sign that the orixa is calling on his human counterpart. Incandomble, there is in fact a whole vocabulary to label spontaneous faint-

ing spells: they are calledo chamado do santo (the calling of the saint),bolar no santo(rolling to the saint),cair no santo(falling to the saint) or

possession by santos brutos (unruly saints). Vagner Gonalves da Silva

writes:

Rolling or falling to the saint is considered to be an indication that a future initiation

is necessary. It usually happens when a person is attending a celebration and the orixa

incorporates him or her, still in a state that the adepts of the cult would call savage

(bruto, not yet ritually seated or made). Rolling to the saint looks like fainting. For

the people from candomble, however, the orixa is involved. He takes the head of his son

or daughter, even against their wish, and urges their initiation. This rolling usually

happens when the people are singing and dancing for the orixas, a significant fact,

because the identification of the orixa to which the person belongs can be established

through the song that was sung at the moment of rolling. Once having rolled, the person

is taken to the saints room, where hell be woken up, generally by sprinkling waterover his body, tapping under his feet, or pulling his hair a bit. Rolling in a particular

temple is also a sign that this is the temple where the orixa prefers to be seated.

However, the wishes of the orixas need not be immediately satisfied. The person may

not want to be initiated, or may not be in the social or financial position to start the

process. [Silva 1995:123; cf. Bastide 2000:189 and Ligiero 1993:129]

What struck me during interviews, however, is that whereas initia-tion stories are often success stories of coming to understand the causes

of inexplicable afflictions through explanation, the inexplicable as such

was always underlined and held out to me as the principle ingredientof the narrative. The logic at work in these narratives seems to be thatthe more poignant the inexplicability of the occurrence (not I startedto have fainting spells, but rather there was nothing wrong with me,

and all of a sudden I started to have these fainting spells; or I was notreally into candomble, but the orixa took me anyway), the more power-

ful the really real of the explanation that brought about healing. Clearlythen, these narratives put inexplicability at the service of authenticatingbelief.

Visions, dreams and revelations are another mode in which the in-explicable helps to convince people of the authenticity of their particular

convictions. Again, it is striking how much inexplicability and spontane-ity dominate the narratives of these experiences (cf. Csordas 1990). Thecase of Walmir may serve as an illustration.


17/31


Strange Encounters

Walmira white Bahian, a university-trained journalist, writer of po-etry and self-proclaimed romantic soulhad wanted to be initiated into

the cult. When we met he told me his story was going to be kind of weird.He told me he had been with a couple of friends. It was on a beach inAlagoas. They had encountered flying saucers. Not just once, but various

times.I recall how Walmir looked at me, assessing the impact of his words,

probably seeing an expression of disbelief on my face. Yes. Flying saucers.The information he had just given me was indeed hard to process. I had

assumed that the story about his explorations of candomble would havebeen yet another story about a quest for the spiritual, guided by the en-chantment of the drumming and the beauty of the Afro-Brazilian other.

And in fact, as the interview proceeded, these elements were all part ofthe narrative: Walmir told me about the distant drumming he used to hear

during his childhood, about his flirtations with Zen Buddhism, about thewink of recognition he had found in the counter-culture of the Tropicaliamovement, where the lyrical beauty of candomble had been voiced by

singers such as Caetano Veloso and Maria Bethania. He talked about his

black lovers, first an alabe (drummer from candomble) who had intro-duced him to temple life, then a pai-de-santo. I love the humour incandomble, he said. The laughing! The possessions that came werefrequent, sometimes for days on end. They were tiring him out, he said,

especially the ex us, who would possess him at home. Later he receivedhis orixa, a much more powerful experience. What was it like?, I asked

him. It was beautiful, he said. Eventually he had opted out, given upon the idea of having himself initiated and becoming a pai-de-santo. Hetold me he could not stand the animal sacrifices. He hated the endless

preoccupation of the cultists with money. And the thought of bearing theresponsibility for a following of initiates was simply too frightening.

But all of it had started with the flying saucers. You know, I really didnot have any particular interest in science fiction or UFOs or what have

you. But I saw flying saucers anyway. And it wasnt just me. My friendssaw them as well. He explained that after his encounter with the flyingsaucers it was not difficult to believe. Anything. Whatever. The experience

had been fundamental. It had broken open all assumptions as to whatis and what is not believable. It was beyond words. It could not be

communicated. But even that did not matter. Just thinking about theencounter made him happy. He murmured plenitude. Such plenitude.

What the case suggestsfrom Walmirs somewhat embarrassed com-

ments on the weirdness of having inserted something as outrageous asflying saucers in his narrativeis that what matters is not so much the


18/31

166 ETHOS

specific content of the vision (the flying saucers might as well have beenmermaids, or the manifestation of one or the other spirit). What matters

is the unsolicited and out-of-the-ordinary character of the revelation.Finding a strange object (such as a stone or a bone) also belongs

to this register of inexplicable and unpremeditated occurrences that add

authenticity to a particular belief. The case of Luiswho indeed seemedto be wavering as to what to believeis telling.

Tattoo

I met Luis in a shop that sells religious articles, where he was buying

some herbs and minerals for a ritual bath. We entered into a conversation,and he started to talk about his recent experiences in a temple. He pointed

out a big tattoo on his arm, a portrait of a Cheyenne Indian with wavingblack hair. He told me that the prime reason for choosing this particular

tattoo was the fact that the black hair had served the purpose of coveringup an earlier tattoo that he did not like anymore. Two weeks later, how-ever, he had become possessed by a Cheyenne Indian. This was indeed a

strange occurrence. Indian-spirits (caboclos) are well known entities incandomble cosmology, but as far as I know, north American plain Indians

descending form the skies have not yet been reported. Hism ae-de-santo(mother-of-the-saint, i.e., priestess), however, insisted that this was thespirit who was taking possession of his body. He told me that ever since,

he had been surfing the Internet to find all kinds of information aboutCheyenne Indians.

Weeks later he called me up from his mobile phone. He was some-where on the highway to the neighboring state of Sergipe, and told mequite excitedthat while making a sanitary stop he had found a strange

bone that might well have been from an Indian. Thinking that anthro-

pologists know about bones and Indians, he wanted my opinion on hisfindingclearly hoping that this bone might be interpreted as a sign ofthe authenticity of his possessions by the Indian spirit.

One of my own experiences might serve to illustrate how inexplicabledivinations also may contribute to upgrade the authenticity and inescapa-bility of a conviction.

The Words of the Caboclo

In Julythe month during which many of the caboclo spirits arehonored and celebratedI took Thomas, a Dutch friend who was visiting,

along to a temple in the center of Salvador. When we entered, the priestwas already possessed by a spirit, andas is their habitwalked aroundthe temple, drinking beer from a bottle, smoking cigars and talking to the

public, responding to questions and giving advice. When he saw Thomas,


19/31


he walked up to him, and urged me to translate his words. With eyes thatstared into a distant nothingness, he said that my friend was writing, but

that he should be writing that other thing. Yes, if you want to shine,if you want to make a lot of money, you should be writing that otherthing. From the face of Thomas I could already see that thecaboclohad

struck a chord. Later Thomas told me that there was a major struggle inhis life whether he should devote his time and energy to writing up his

dissertation on European law or work on a film-script he kept hidden in hisoffice drawer. We were both speechless as to the accuracy of thecaboclos

intervention. The spirits often speak in general terms, so that one can

always find something truthful in it. This particular spirit, however, had

just hit the nail on the head without any prior knowledge. He had nevermet us, let alone could know what Thomas was doing in his life.

Do I now believe in the authenticity of this spirit? No, not really. Butthe whole event did highlight the politics of my saying I dont believe

these things: that remark is forever exposed as an act of not wantingtogo into believing spirits and messing up my worldview (not to mention my

academic credibility).Afterward, I used the example in many conversations with cultists,

saying that this event really had left me speechless. They would only nod

their heads. Or they would say, Yeah, its like that, the spirits do thingslike that, little strange things, to make sure that youll start to take them

seriously.These cases cannot be written off as still more examples as to how

fantasy works to cover up the failure of symbolization. Theres no coveringup of a void in symbolic constructions in these stories. If anything, fantasyis highlighting these voids, or producing them (as the case of Luis, who

wanted the Indian bone to be a sign of authenticity, suggests). The gistof these stories seems to be that there is no arguing with something that

is beyond comprehension, and it is thus that these occurrences help touphold the really real of candomble beliefs.

POSSESSION AND POSTPOSSESSION AMNESIA

Possession belongs to the same set of inexplicable and spontaneousoccurrences that serve to authenticate the really real of candomble be-

lief. Following Roger Bastide, we could say that possession is the pol-ished, religiously appropriate form of the occurrences described above.

He suggests that learning to transform ineffable occurrences into the ap-propriate, religiously condoned form is what initiation into the cult is allabout: noninitiated individuals who hear the call of their orixa are pos-

sessed bysantos brutos, and the final goal of initiation is to free them of


20/31

168 ETHOS

this violence by the baptism of the god (por meio do batismo da divin-dade) (Bastide 2000:189). It should be noted, however, that learning to

be a willing horse to be ridden by the saint (as local parlance has it),in no way diminishes the inexplicability of possession. To the contrary,great care is taken to keep the inexplicable inexplicable. A discussion of

the phenomenon of postpossession amnesia may serve to illustrate thatpoint.

Time and again, I was told that the medium who goes into trance

has no recollections of the time-out that is possession trance. Manyethnographers have heard the same. Roger Bastide states bluntly: all

that was done or said during the crisis is forgotten afterward (Bastide

1978:192). Landes introduces an old priestess, saying

This god business is a mysterious force which sweeps over you. I dont like it. You

become a slave to the saint, and sometimes you go around possessed for three days!

You have no wants, your body is dead, you dont feel anything at all. [1947:57]

Rita Segato reports from Recife that in the cult . . . it is being saidthat, during possession, consciousness disappears. To be more precise,

self-consciousness disappears, the body becomes the vehicle of experienceitself, without further mediation (Segato 1995:99). In some temples in

Rio Grande do Sul, people are not even supposed to remember that theywere possessed (Silva 2000:60).

Ruth and Seth Leacock, who discuss the topic of postpossession am-

nesia at length, urge their readers to consider an alternative view. Themediums with whom they spoke also fiercely maintained that they had

no recollections whatsoever of their trance experiences (Leacock andLeacock 1975:206ff). But the Leacocks doubt the validity of the accountsof their informants, no matter how resolutely stated. They report that

mediums who had claimed complete amnesia in one interview, during

other interviews would demonstrate to have clear recollections of specifichappenings during the possession rituals that had been discussed earlier.When confronted with the incongruity of their statements, they would al-ways deny it: the fiction was always maintained that they had been told

by their friends what had taken place (1975:206ff). These anthropolo-gists conclude that mediums subscribe to an ideological rule that what

knowledge there is should not come to the ears of others.This suggestion that the experience of possession ought to be locked

up in the body is further supported by the widely reported taboo on

speaking about possession trance, or, as many anthropologists (includingmyself) had to learn, on asking questions about possession trance. Segato

reported that

Trying to push the issue [of possession experiences] a bit further, or trying to understand

the subtle difference between what people describe as a normal state of consciousness


21/31


and the state of possession is considered rude and disrespectful toward the privacy

entitled to the people who go in trance. [1995:102]

Mae Stella, mae-de-santo from a leading temple in Salvador, makesno secret about her opinions on curious anthropologists. In a publication

calledMeu Tempoe Agoraa curious mixture of autobiography, religiousguidebook and etiquette manualshe writes:

Our religion is so strong and so mysterious that it raises the curiosity of those who are

outside. They seem to think that a host of curious questions, sometimes even imper-

tinent ones, is synonymous with knowledge. But I tell you, those ways are dangerous,

leading into true labyrinths, and with dire results. I therefore advise the visitors and

friends of theAx e:dont ask questions, just observe! [Azevedo 1993:88]

What is important to my argument, of course, is not so much whetherpostpossession amnesia is reality or fiction. It is plausible that, just as most

people do not remember their dreams, and Freudian psychiatrists have totrain their patients to remember them, trance states are likely forgotten

if there is not a tradition that urges the mystic to report on them.This is basically the argument of Jose Jorge de Carvalho (1994). The

constant references to postpossession amnesia provoked that author to

speak of a specific Afro-Brazilian mystical style. He points out that in theCatholic tradition, as in other classic traditions of mysticism, the mystic

is urged to share his or her experiences with the community of believers.The mystic is supposed to translate his or her experiences into essays,poetry, autobiographical reports, and tracts. It is the linguistic translation

of mystical experience that is valued in these traditions: the greater thesophistication of the mystics wordings, the fancier the metaphors, the

more subtle the tropes to describe the mystic experience, the more im-portant these experiences are as a contribution to a science of the soul.

In candomble there is no such attempt to exteriorize the subjective ex-perience of trance through language. De Carvalho expresses his surpriseafter reading an interview with the famous Salvadorian priestess Olga de

Alaketu in a magazine calledPlaneta(1974).

I consulted the article in the expectation of finding yet another dialogue with a spiritual

leader, along the lines of the interviews that the magazine had published before in issues

dedicated to yogis, Sufis, Rosicrucians, theosophists, Christian leaders, Buddhists and

the like. To my surprise, I had to conclude that Olga de Alaketu simply does not show us

the play of her subjectivity. She expresses herself in a completely exteriorizing way

she speaks about the ceremonies, the liturgical calendar, the genealogy of her temple,the history of her cult, and so on. She doesnt reveal anything about an interior world,

a psychological dimension, or the individual that is Olga de Alaketu. She does not bring

into play that confessional style, she does not give us an autobiography of her soul,

that subsequently could serve as a pedagogical tract on a spiritual doctrine. Although

she comes across as exalted at all times, she always remains remote, always remains

enigmatic. [1994:85]


22/31


23/31


MYSTERY ON DISPLAY

We have seen how people from candomble circle around the Realin an attempt to authenticate their beliefs. Trance-inducing ceremonies

spectacularize the central role of the ineffable. During these ceremonies,mystery is put on display in a highly dramatic form. We find it in the xir e,the opening round dance around the central pillar (or a marked spot at the

center of the dance floor) where the secrets of the house (fundamentos)have been planted when it was constructed. We find it in the many

prostrations of the initiates toward this spot, reminding the audience ofits centrality. We find it visualized as the priest and his initiates enter and

re-appear from the adjacent rooms of the ceremonial dance hall, forbiddenareas for all who are not part of the temple, yet shielded off from view byseductively [waving] curtains, that do offer glimpses of the secret and

mysterious backstage of the house. But we find it above all in the stagingof possession. The way a daughter of Xango or Oxossi, or a son ofOmulu transforms into a vehicle for the deity has to be witnessed in every

little detail, right in front of our eyes:

She will feel convulsions all over her body, enters into a dizzy spell, loses her balance,

walks as a drunkard from one side of the dance floor to the other, looking for someone to

hold on to, and finally, overcome by the orixa, will acquire another posture and recover

her senses. With closed eyes (or eyes wide open, as is the case in the candombles do

caboclo) she will start the dance, maybe speak, and in fact, take over the celebration,

which for a while will be completely focused on her. [Carneiro 2000:60]

Given the importance of the coming of the orixasas the constitutingmoment of the celebration, the spectacularization of possession probablydoes not need further comment. Yet another observation that must be

made about these ceremonies triggers a number of questions.Trance-inducing ceremonies (with some exceptions) are public

events. As I have stated before, they attract a very heterogeneous au-dience consisting of members of the temple, guests of honor, cult adepts,inhabitants of the neighborhood where the temple is situated, as well as

tourists and anthropologists. Obviously then, during ceremonies, the workof the ineffable is no longer put to the exclusive service of the believers,

but is sought to do its work for the society at large as well. This is surprisingfor a number of reasons.

First, it seems to be a breach with the great stress on secrecy in can-

domble. Life within the temple is dominated by a great number of rulesand regulations that determine who has access to what knowledge, and

at what time; who is allowed to speak and who is to remain silent; whohas access to certain areas of the temple; who is allowed to see sacredobjects or witness ritual practices (Van de Port, forthcoming). One of the

motives to shield most candomble rituals from public view is an outspoken


24/31

172 ETHOS

concern as to what the public at large might make of these events. Espe-cially the sacrificing of animals and the initiation of new membersrituals

that produce a lot of bloodtrigger the fear that they might reinforce age-old stereotypes of candomble being a primitive and barbaric cult. Thisconcern of not being able to control what happens with the images of can-

domble rituals once they enter into the public sphere plays up around thetrance-inducing ceremonies as well (as these events are equally likely tobe labeled primitive); the unease about (and sometimes strict taboo on)

outsiders filming, photographing or tape-recording the ceremonies are agood example of this concern. And yet, this worry does not induce the

priesthood to hide the trance inducing ceremonies from public view. To

the contrary, the ceremonies are brought to public attention through allavailable channels. For those who are not within reach of the sound of

the drumming or the fire crackers blasted into the sky, or did not receiveinformation by word of mouth, there are several options to find out when

and where a ceremony is going to take place: newspapers list the mostimportant temples with full address and phone number in their what

and where sections, the registers of the Federaao Nacional dos CultosAfro-Brasileiros (where temples have to report and register their celebra-tions) are open for consultation, and the tourist office publishes a weekly

calendar of the upcoming ceremonies. Which leaves one wondering whythere is such stress on being public.

Second, the public character of these spectacles is surprising whenrelated to the argument that I have developed thus far: if the production ofthe ineffable is to be understood as an attempt to undo the unsettling ef-

fects of candombles entrance into the public sphere and its appropriationby others who turn it into something-other-than-itself, then why expose

these moments to the gaze of these very others? In other words, is not oneasking for trouble when opening up these celebrations for each and ev-eryone in a universe that is plagued by the unsettling work ofsimulacrae

and endless re-interpretation?The answer to that last question should be yes, but no. The main

reason to display possession in public has to do with the fact that tem-ples are not only places of worship but also economic units who sell avariety of spiritual products and services to their clients. Next to manip-

ulations of the realm of the supernatural for harm or healing, they offerdivine consultations, herbal baths, the breaking of spells, the throwing of

the cowry shells (buzios) for divinatory purposes. Walmirwhom we sawcomplaining about the endless preoccupation with money in the temple

was certainly right: economic survival is a recurrent issue in priesthoodtalk as feasts and offerings are expensive, and temples have to competewith a great many others for clients on the mercado dos bens de sal-

va ao. For its economic survival, then, a display of spiritual power is


25/31


crucial. The trance-inducing ceremonies are the moment par excellence

in which a temple can display its spiritual potency: the number of initi-

ates who dance in thexir e, the quality of the drumming and singing, thesplendor of the costumes and decorations, the number and stature of the

guests, andas I sometimes suspectedthe number of noninitiates whoroll to the saint all attest to the accumulated ax eof a particular temple.

Mere display, however, is not enough, because these ceremonies are

not immune to the unsettling work of simulation. Early ethnographies al-ready report that simulation of trance is more common than it seems

(Carneiro 1942:91) and list a whole set of available tests with which thepriesthood seeks to prove the really real of possession. I have never wit-

nessed these tests (an interviewee told me they are part of the secret ini-tiation process), but the concern that trance is being faked is widespread.This is understandable. As the market for bens da salva aois booming,

many newcomers have entered the candomble business. Time and againI would be told that I should watch out for the many charlatans that call

themselves priests and priestesses but are only after my money. Time andagain I would be told that many people fake trance. Some of the reasonspeople would give me for faking would be purely commercial. A young

woman told me that when consulting a caboclospirit, I always test him

by asking a question he cannot possibly know the answer to. If he fails torespond, I know he is a cheat. To my question of what motives peoplemight have for faking she responded: Why would people fake? Clients payfor consultations with a spirit, not with just anybody! A priest called Pai

Bobby told me that he had established contacts with a Swiss tour operatorwho organized group travels to Brazil. As these groups would only do

Salvador in a couple of days, the chances that there might be a ceremonyon the day of their arrival were always slight. So Pai Bobby had gottenhimself on the pay list of the tour operator and chartered his initiates to

stage a celebration on days that fitted the time schedule of the groups.During these ceremonies the tourists were also allowed to film and take

pictures. But that is obviously fake, these spectacles are mere shows?,I suggested. No, no,nadafake, he replied. The orixas come for real!

Given the presence of charlatans, the really real of the spiritualpower that is held out to the public at large should at all times be authen-ticated. One cannot but conclude that the spectacle itselfthe staging of

the ineffablesucceeds in doing so. The audiences may doubt the particu-lar possession of a particular person, and they may have their reservations

about this or that temple. In general, however, the really real of the com-ing of the orixas is never doubted. As old and shriveled ladies turn intofierce dancing warriors; as giggling schoolgirls roll over the floor, stiff as a

broomstick; as tourist guides wrestle their way out of the temple for fear ofbeing caught by the spirit; as anthropologists become restless and keyed


26/31

174 ETHOS

up when the drumming reaches a peak, they all become figurants in thistheater of the really real.

Taking the theater metaphor a bit further, it can even be argued thatthe gaze of tourists and other outsiders is notas one would thinkathreat to the authenticity of the spectacle, but a reinforcement of it. For is

there a better way to highlight the ineffable than stage-casting a busloadof sweatinggringosgazing at the spectacle, with open mouths and incom-prehension written all over their faces? It seems to me that the puzzled

gaze of the outsiders is artfully brought into play to spectacularize theineffable and thus authenticate the beliefs of candomble for both the reli-

gious community and the society at large. Anog aa male dignitary in the

candomble templeswith whom I spoke on a drizzly Sunday afternooncertainly played with these thoughts.

Tourists and Nuns

I was touring a visiting colleague around the city, and the oga must

have seen us coming, climbing the many steps leading to Casa Branca,the oldest and one of the most reputed temples of Salvador. Casa Brancais much visited by tourists, and in all likelihood, he must have thought

that we were just another couple ofgringos. We started chatting. Yeah,yeah, he said. There are a lot of tourists that come to visit here and they

always ask a lot of questions. They always want to know about trance.We asked if it happened that tourists fell into a trance during the

ceremonies. He nodded his head. Oh yes, it happens that tourists fallinto a trance. Every once in a while it happens. At one time, we even hadvisiting nuns falling into a trance! The oga seemed quite eager to serve

us this little detail. There was pride in his voice, triumph in his laugh-ing eyes as he countered my expression of disbelief. Yeah, yeah! Nuns!Freiras!

This is, of course, a powerful image: a baroque spectacle of touristcuriosity and Catholic propriety being crashed under the sheer force of

the African spirits. One can almost see it happen: little blond gringasthatare invaded by the Other they had come to gaze at. Rigid and pale nuns

bodies that surrender to the sensual beating of the drums, their wimplesand rosaries flapping around in the whirling movement of the dance. Butwhat was it that the oga sought to convey? What does the oga make of

the spectacle that is the trance inducing ceremony of candomble? First ofall he makes it into a spectacle that attracts gazing outsiders, and we can

safely assume that the two categories he introduces into his little storythe clueless tourists and the nuns, whom we might read as the embodimentof the religious Otherare not at random. Then we see that, in the theatre

of his mind, the oga does not allow nuns and tourists to simply gaze at the


27/31


spectacle. He shakes these bystanders out of their passive role, has themsucked into the incomprehensible phenomenon that is possession trance.

There are many reasons to think of why he would have wanted thisto happen. Obviously, this is a powerful image with which to argue thespiritual potency of the particular temple this oga belongs to, the intensity

of its axe. Given earlier remarks during our conversation, in which hepresented his temple as purely African, his story is also a comment onblack power, the supremacy of the Afro-Brazilian creed. But above all,

the story is a way of saying that the things you do or do not believe areirrelevant when it comes to the mystery of possession trance. The force

of the orixas is beyond what you believe, or whether you believe; it is

beyond what you know. Therefore, it cannot be a historically contingentdiscursive formation. It is really real.

FINAL COMMENTS: ON MIRACLES AND THE CONSTRUCTIONIST PARADIGM

While writing this article, I rented a video at the local rent-out inthe Salvadorian neighborhood where I lived during fieldwork. It was amiddle-of-the-road Brazilian comedy called Deus e Brasileiro (God is

Brazilian). It shows God as a well-educated, middle-aged gentlemen wear-ing a pair of decent sneakers and a little rucksack, who travels around

the Brazilian Northeast to meet up with his followers. Of course, he en-ters into a lot of situations where his announcement that he is no one

other than God himself is being doubted. And time and again he hasto resort to a little miracle to convince his audience of the truth of hisstatement.

I had rented the movie to relax a bit, but watching it was a mixedpleasure and did not bring about the relaxation I was after. Here I was,

struggling with the Lacanian Real, the Jamesian ineffable, the discontentsof the constructionists paradigm in anthropology, and the unsettling workof Baudrillards simulacrum in postmodern societies, and all of a sudden I

found myself being forced to ponder the possibility that what I was tryingto get across in this article was as banal as the comedy showed it to be:

no Gods without miracles.Okay. Maybe it is as banal as that. But then again, maybe it is good

to return to a middle-of-the-road comedy every once in a while, if only to

shake oneself out of the myriad textual labyrinths social science theoryforces one to enter. So lets study miracle productions. Lets study the

ways in which people manage to transcend the stories they live by. Andlets not only study the transcendence of religious constructs, but thoseof race, gender, ethnicity, and the nation as well, where questions about

the really real are as pertinent as they are in the field of religion. And


28/31

176 ETHOS

lets stop closing off this domain of investigation by dismissing it as meretheology or metaphysics.

Because studying moments of transcendence might lead us beyondthat dead-end street that the constructionist paradigm in anthropology isbecoming. However noble its motives to break down essentialisms, and

however politically necessary such a project may be in the world of today,the blind spot of constructionism, Stavrakakis writes, is that it reduceseverything to the level of construction and, on the other hand, occupies

a meta-linguistic or essentialist position outside construction. As such,constructionism itself becomes an essentialist position, as it never asks

what is exterior to it (1999:66; cf. Van de Port 2004). I do not know how

to counter that critique. So now that the impossibility of its position hasbeen name-called into existence, I see no other option but to move ahead.

The Lacanians suggest that we will have to turn to the role of fantasy increating the symbolic coherence that is never there (and that includes

the fantasy formations in our own work and writing). In this article I haveargued that we might also study the moments when people seek access to

the void that is at the center of all signification, work their way toward astate of puzzlement that allows them to authenticate their beliefs.

MATTIJS VAN DE PORT is Lecturer and Researcher at the Research Center for Religion and Society at the University

of Amsterdam.

NOTES

Acknowledgments. The research for this article took place within the framework of the

projectModern Mass Media, Religion and the Imagination of Communities sponsored by

The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research NWO. I am grateful for the constructive

comments of my colleagues in the project on an earlier version, especially Birgit Meyer and

Rafael Sanchez, and I would also like to thank Peter Geschiere, Jojada Verrips, Lisa EarlCastillo, Luis Nicolau Pares, Marjo de Theije, and Jocelio Teles dos Santos for their helpful

comments.

1. Candombleis an umbrella term for a variety of beliefs and practices that have evolved

out of the African religions that came to Bahia under slavery. Although candomble has

recently been granted the status of religion in the state of Bahia, and organizations such

as the Federa ao Nacional dos Cultos Afro-Brasileirosare trying to canonize the central

dogmas of the cult, any suggestion of uniformity is misleading. There are over 2,500 registered

individual religious centers in the city of Salvador that are highly independent unities, and

not responsible to any superior body for the maintenance of conformity to a set of common

traditions (Wafer 1993:4).

REFERENCES CITED

Amaral, Rita

2002 Xire! O modo de crer e de viver no candomble. Rio de Janeiro: Pallas.


29/31


Amaral, Rita de Cassia, and Vagner Gonalves da Silva

1993 A cor do axe. Brancos e negros no candomble de Sao Paulo. Estudos Afro-Asiaticos

(25):99124.

de Azevedo Santos, Maria Stella

1991 Religiao Afro. O que voce precisa saber. Guia ABAV:3435.

1993 Meu Tempo e Agora. Sao Paulo: Editora Oduduwa.

Bastide, Roger

1978 The African Religions in Brazil. Toward a Sociology of the Interpenetration of Civ-

ilizations. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

2000[1958] O Candomble da Bahia. Rito Nago. Sao Paulo: Editora Schwarcz.

Baudrillard, Jean

2001 Simulacra and Simulations.In Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings. Mark Poster, ed.

Cambridge: Polity Press.

Berkenbrock, Volney J.

1999 A experiencia dos Orixas. Um estudo sobre a experiencia religiosa no candomble.

Petropolis: Editora Vozes.

Boddy, Janice

1994 Spirit Possession Revisited: Beyond Instrumentality. Annual Review of Anthropol-

ogy 23:407434.

Bowie, Malcolm

1991 Lacan. London: Fontana Press.

Brandao, Darwin, and Motta Silva

1958 Cidade do Salvador. Caminho do encantamento. S ao Paulo: Companhia Editora

Nacional.

le Breton, David2000 Playing Symbolically with Death in Extreme Sports. Body and Society 6(1):111.

Carneiro, Edison

2000[1958] Candombles da Bahia. Rio de Janeiro: Civilizaao Brasileira.

de Carvalho, Jose Jorge

1994 O encontro de velhas e novas religioes. Esboo de uma teoria dos estilos de espir-

itualidade.In Misticismo e novas religioes. Renee Zickman, org. Pp. 6798. Petropolis:

Vozes.

Comaroff, John

1989 The Colonization of Consciousness in South Africa. Economy and Society 18:267

295.

Csordas, Thomas J.1990 Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology. Ethos 18:547.

Dantas, Beatriz Gois

1988 Vovo nag o e papai branco. Usos e abusos da Africa no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Editora

Graal.

Eagleton, Terry

1997 Enjoy! London Review of Books, Nov. 27.

Ewing, Katherine Pratt

1997 Arguing Sainthood. Modernity, Psychoanalysis, and Islam. Durham, NC: Duke Uni-

versity Press.

Fry, Peter

1982 Para Ingles Ver. Identidade e politica na cultura brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: ZaharEditores.

James, William

1958[1902] The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: The American Library.

Johnson, Paul Christopher

2002 Secrets, Gossip and Gods. The Transformation of Brazilian Candomble. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.


30/31

178 ETHOS

Kingston, Sean

1999 The Essential Attitude. Authenticity in Primitive Art, Ethnographic Performances

and Museums. Journal of Material Culture 4(3):338351.

Landes, Ruth

1947 The City of Women. New York: MacMillan.

Leacock, Seth, and Ruth Leacock

1975 Spirits of the Deep. A Study of an Afro-Brazilian Cult. New York: Anchor Press.

Lex, Barbara

1979 The Neurobiology of Ritual Trance.In The Spectrum of Ritual. A Biogenetic Struc-

tural Analysis. Eugene G. dAquili, Charles D. Laughlin, and John McManus, eds. New

York: Columbia University Press.

Ligiero, Zeca

1993 Iniciaao ao Candomble. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Era.

Obeyesekere, Gananath

1981 Medusas Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience. Chicago:

Chicago University Press.

Pares, Luis Nicolau

1997 The Phenomenology of Spirit Possession in the Tambor de Mina. An Ethnographic

and Audio-Visual Study. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. London: SOAS.

van de Port, Mattijs

2004 Registers of Incontestability. The Quest for Authenticity in Academia and Beyond.

Etnofoor 17(1/2):124.

2005 Candomble in Pink, Green and Black. Re-Scripting the Afro-Brazilian Religious

Heritage in the Public Sphere of Salvador, Bahia. Social Anthropology 13(1):326.

Forthcoming Visualizing the Secret and the Sacred. Televisual Styles and the ReligiousImagination in Bahian Candomble.

Prandi, Reginaldo

1999 Referencias sociais das religioes Afro-Brasileiras: sincretismo, branqueamento,

africanizaao. In Faces da tradiao Afro-Brasileira. Religiosidade, sincretismo, anti-

sincretismo, re-Africanizaao, praticas terapeuticas, etnobotanica e comida. Carlos

Caroso and Jeferson Bacelar, org. Rio de Janeiro: Pallas.

2001 Mitologia dos Orixas. Sao Paulo: Companhia das Letras.

Rappaport, Roy A.

1999 Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

dos Santos, Jocelio Teles1995 O dono da terra. O caboclo nos candombles da Bahia. Salvador: Sarah Letras.

2000 O poder da cultura e a cultura no poder. A disputa simbolica da herana cultural

negra no Brasil. Ph.D. dissertation.

dos Santos, Juana Elbein

1998[1975] Os nag o e a morte. Petropolis: Vozes.

Segato, Rita Laura

1995 Santos e daimones. O politesmo Afro-Brasileiro e a tradiao arquetipal. Braslia:

Editora UnB.

da Silva, Vagner Gonalves

1995 Orixas da metropole. Petropolis: Vozes.

2001 O antropologo e sua magia. Trabalho de campo e texto etnografico nas pesquisasantropologicas sobre religioes Afro-Brasileiras. S ao Paulo: Editora USP.

Stavrakakis, Yannis

1999 Lacan and the Political. Routledge: London.

Stoller, Paul

1995 Embodying Colonial Memories. Spirit Possession, Power and the Hauka in West

Africa. London: Routledge.


31/31


Taussig, Michael

1987 Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man. A Study in Terror and Healing. Chicago:

Chicago University Press.

1993 Mimesis and Alterity. A Particular History of the Senses. New York: Routledge.

Valladares, Jose

1951 B eaba da Bahia. Guia Turstico. Salvador: Livraria Progresso Editora.

Wafer, Jim

1993 The Taste of Blood. Spirit Possession in Brazilian Candomble. Philadelphia: Univer-

sity of Pennsylvania Press.Zi zek, Slavoj

1989 The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso.

1997 The Plague of Fantasies. London: Verso.

port2005 really real

Documents