Dressed to charm the gods: sensuality, beauty and eroticism in Cuban Santeria and the Xangȏ de Recife (original) (raw)
Dressed to charm the gods: sensuality, beauty and eroticism in Cuban Santeria and the Xangô de Recife.
Aída Esther Bueno Sarduy
PhD in Anthropology
Professor of Anthropology in the programs of New York University, Boston University and Middlebury College in Madrid, Spain.
Translation: David González Lopez
Abstract
The paper’s starting point is the presence, increase and expansion of cults of African origin in Latin America. From there it approaches, in a comparative perspective, some of the changes in the attire of men when dancing the Candomblé ritual, specifically in the Xangô of Recife (Brazil), and also of the women who undergo the iyaworaje -initiation period in Cuban Santería. The article reveals the way in which these religions allow the expression of sensuality and eroticism as elements proper to the religious culture. All this takes place in a religious space in which discourses about sex and gender are flexible and nonessentialist.
Key words: Santería, Candomblé, Xangô de Recife, iyaworaje, orichas
The success that religions of African origin in the Americas have displayed in surviving, expanding and attracting individuals from every ethnic group and social class, and from so many nationalities and realities alien to the African ethnic heritage, is indeed an extraordinary development. At the present time, the cult of the orixás 1{ }^{1} counts its followers by the thousands throughout the world and oversteps, with an outstanding strength, political, cultural and ethnic boundaries. In my capacity as a researcher in the Afro-Brazilian religious field and in the traditions of African origin in Cuba, I have had the opportunity of verifying the vigor of those religions that -although they are not to be considered proselytizing entities- have managed to grow in an extraordinary way 2{ }^{2}.
In Brazil, Candomblé 3{ }^{3} continues to expand, incorporating -to the ritual linage of African ancestors brought as slaves- new sons- and daughters-of-saint 4{ }^{4} who enrich the most traditional houses-of-saint in Brazil. New places of cult open their doors, thereby multiplying the number of terreiros 5{ }^{5} throughout the whole Brazilian geography. This phenomenon is not limited solely to Brazil: it has also crossed over borders and strongly installed itself in some of the nations that most
intensely opposed and denied, all along their history, the African ethno-cultural component, such as Argentina (Gutiérrez Azopardo 2011; Frigerio, 2002).
The same might be said of Cuba, a place where Cuban Santería, also called Regla de Ocha 6{ }^{6} has disseminated and become popular inside and outside the island. The latter circumstance is due to the hundreds of thousands Cubans who migrated for economic or political reasons for several decades, and were accompanied in their travels by their orichas 7{ }^{7}, thus imposing on the latter their “second exile”. Nowadays, in some of the cities where many of those migrants have settled Miami, New York or Madrid, among others-, Santería grows unhindered, seducing thousands of men and women who consecrate themselves to the orichas. The orichas are deities that came from Africa with the slaves and took root at the places of destination of those who worshiped them. From that moment on, this spiritual heritage as disseminated throughout the world by the consecration of each new initiated.
Through tourism that many foreigners have become acquainted with the cult of the orichas in Cuba; others have come into contact with these religions through their intercourse with the communities of Cubans in the diaspora. It is possible, then, to speak about a new tourism for religious purposes, and, in all probability, we might frequently discover that some of the passengers standing in line at the airline counter in the airports of North America or Europe expecting to travel to Havana, are making the trip with the purpose in mind of undergoing the initiation ritual in Santería; I will not elaborate any further because tourism for religious purposes with Cuba as its destination goes beyond the topic being discussed here, but it deserves at least a mention due to its relevance.
Other ways of expansion of these religions that we should take into account pass through the artistic manifestations that have carried the songs and dances of the orichas to the large international stages. Musical groups and dance troupes of Cuban dances favored the access of the general public to the bembés and güemileres 8{ }^{8}; popular dancing music also paid tribute, in their lyrics, to the orichas, and with a rhythm of salsa and reguetón they spoke of their qualities and attributes, and about the way they manifested themselves through trance. Cuba’s most famous musical groups have dedicated songs to the orichas, and many musicians who have been initiated into these religions carry out their iyaworaje dressed in white and proudly displaying the necklaces that identify them as people who practice this religion.
Something similar happens in Brazil, where the manifestation of the orixás through dancing and trance continues to attract many people to these cults as observers or sympathizers; there are even cases of possessions by the orixás in some spectators that are present but alien in every respect to those traditions: The expressive, communicational and emotional potential that is unleashed in those ceremonies operates to that extent.
The public part of the ceremonies of Candomblé, when there is singing, playing and dancing for the orixás, is a distinctive feature of those cults and is —probably- the best known aspect for non-initiates about these religious ceremonies. Literature and cinema have reproduced scenes from these celebrations that constitute, furthermore, a recurrent theme in documentaries and special reports about Brazilian culture. In fact, the image of a black or mulatto woman dressed with the appropriate clothing for the cult of the orixás and adorned with its colorful necklaces is nowadays a particular, recognizable image of Brazilian society; its representation is a typical element of the “Brazil brand,” and its image on a postcard is most emblematic with respect to Afro-Brazilian culture.
The great beauty, showiness and capacity to move that these dances display, accompanied by the rhythm of sacred drums and the songs for the orixás seduce millions of curious onlookers and sympathizers and has led to certain terreiros being considered sites of historical and cultural interest, and are marked as such in guidebooks for tourists.
This opening of the orixás cult to people alien to them has had a great impact on the religious dynamics, since the festivity-of-the-saint has become increasingly public, showy and theatrical. The elegance and the originality of the attires, as well as the careful selection of the complements, the fabric and the embroidery, succeed in assuring that the ritual performance results in a show of great beauty and sophistication. Each son- or daughter-of-saint endeavors to dress in their finery to dance for the orixás, and feels as a protagonist of the festivity-of-the-saint when participating in the circle of dancers. Following the xirế, the movements of the dancers manifest some of the qualities of the orixá of the head that the body recreates, following the polyrhythm of the sacred drums; thus, the performance of each child-of-saint is unique, in the same way that the orixá that was affixed on his/her head on the day of the feituría 10{ }^{10} is also unique.
As a consequence of the expansion of Candomblé to all social strata, and also because of the growing social mobility of the population of Afro-descendants, the festivity-of-the-saint is increasingly becoming a show in which prosperity can be perceived in numerous ways, among others, in the attire of the children-of-saint. The orixás to which correspond the most colorful dances, clothing and performances, have been gaining prestige and popularity among spectators and sympathizers, becoming the favorite orixás for most people who decide to be initiated in this religion. Among them all, Oxúm, Iemanjá, Iansã, and, above all, Xangô, stand out as the most popular, and these are consequently the ones that have more initiated children.
A very interesting aspect to be observed in the candomblés in Brasil -linked to the beauty and the showiness of the attire used to dance in the festivities-of-the-saint- is the custom of wearing female clothes by some men who have a iabá or female orixá as their orixá of initiation because their exquisite clothing markedly stands out. Many researchers in Brazil have taken up imposing any limitation this topic as an object of study and have theorized about the discourses on gender that might derive from this custom, as well as its possible links to the expression on male homosexuality in the realm of Afro cults. Nevertheless, there is a big ongoing debate around the way in which this habit was introduced into the Xangô de Recife 11{ }^{11} and very particularly into the Sítio de Pai Adão, one of the most traditional terreiros in which men were not allowed, in the past, to dance with female clothing.
I had the opportunity to ask the highest authority of the Sítio de Pai Adão about this matter, and I questioned him about how old this custom was. He said that although the custom is much older, it has greatly changed with modernity; clothing
has been exaggerated, pushing to the extreme all the components of the attire with which particularly some men dance for the orixás. The senior heterosexual men of the Sítio de Pai Adão have never danced with women’s clothing; the babalorixá clarifies this beyond a shadow of doubt.
He also affirms that this is not a custom originated in the terreiro, which follows the Nagô ritual 12{ }^{12}, but an import from another one of the nations of Candomblé, the Jeje nation 13{ }^{13}. Once this custom had been introduced, no one was capable of imposing any limitation, so now they allow each son-of-saint to dress in whatever way he decides.
By stating that the great male figures of the Sítio never used a female wardrobe, so as to avoid being taken for a homosexual or to be related to homosexuality, the head of the terreiro points to another scenario, very different from the one Rita Segato presented in her work about the Xangô de Recife, which was undertaken in the same terreiro thirty years before I undertook my own field work in that community. Segato arrives at the conclusion that, in these cults, a matrix of sexualities in transit exists, and that this would be the proper discourse of these cults, particularly in the Xangô de Recife. I did not find exactly what she described (Segato 1995, 2003). I saw a Xangô that shared with the dominant society many of the prejudices and discourses about the sexualities that are not sanctioned by the dominant hetero-normativity, although it did not disown the sons-of-saint that manifested an ambiguity in their sexual preferences or exhibited overt sexual preferences judged to be dissenting.
Vis-a-vis these manifestations, forceful indeed, about the “Jeje heritage” introduced into Nagô with respect to the use of a female attire, it seemed to me unavoidable to ask some authority of the Jeje nation in Pernambuco about this question of the “women’s clothing” worn by some men when dancing for the orixás. This is doubtlessly a very important issue within the candomblés, since nowadays the festivities-of-the-saint are quite visual displays in which the aesthetical angle of the festivity is much taken care of. The sons- and daughters-of-saint dress up in their finery to dance for the orixás, and in these circles of sacred dances, the men who dress with female clothing display very attractive aspects when they perform their spectacular dances.
I spoke about this matter with a pejigáa 14{ }^{14} of the Jeje nation in Pernambuco. From what he stated, it becomes apparent that his view on this subject is at the antipode of the discourse of the babalorixá from Sitio de Pai Adão. I asked him about the use of the skirt by the male dancers, how old that tradition was, and about the connections between that custom and homosexuality in the cults. These were some of his answers:
As far as I know, the use of the skirt in the Jeje nation by people of the male sex comes from a very ancient tradition, that is, since the beginning of the 20th 20^{\text {th }} century, because my
great-grandfather-of-saint, Tata Fomutinho, already used a skirt when Oxúm incorporated into him, and the Jeje people came to Brazil in the mid- 17th 17^{\text {th }} century. […] we are seen as people who descend from a rich nation: rich because of our culture, and also because we are careful with our appearance, due to the clothing we wear in the festivities as well as in the day-to-day of our kwe115k w e^{115}; also because of our good manners when we welcome visitors to our houses, and because of the abundant food when the table is served. […] It is true that in order to cultivate our rituals we had to confront many problems. Such as, for instance, the use of skirts by the men, particularly between the 1930s and the 1960s, years of military dictatorships, years of the Estado Novo, when we were prevented from using the skirt because it amounted to an insult for the Brazilian machista society. Among the Jeje or Mahi 16{ }^{16} not only the female voduns 17{ }^{17} use skirts, but all of them do, when they incorporate themselves. We have never needed to hide this from anyone.
Here in Recife, at certain given moments, at the times of repression, the Egbás (the Yoruba) used an ParseError: KaTeX parse error: Expected 'EOF', got '́' at position 11: a b a d o ̲́^{18}, to represent a skirt, an artifice that would in no way configure anyone’s hetero-sexuality. In my view, what is important is not having to fool any orixá or vodun in the way of dressing, because their son would be a man and a son of a female vodun, but rather to make them feel all right, that they would feel good and give us the pleasure of their presence in our humble kwé.
It is obvious that among homosexuals, the brightness of the use of the skirt becomes clearer, also because they know how to handle these clothes. I know heterosexual men who also know how to handle those clothes without any shyness when they are incorporated by their orixás and voduns.
When I explain that the babalorixá of the Sítio de Pai Adão informed me that the Jejes were the ones who brought this custom, he replies:
I believe that the use of the skirt belongs to all the nations of Candomblé; it is only that here we see houses that -due to machismo and the lack of culture- are allowed to criticize those other houses that uphold the tradition. More specifically, in Recife, the Mahi houses were victims of that machismo. In the early 1940s, Fausto de Oxúm, who was a Nagô (Egba), from the root of the Sítio de Adão, who was a grandson of Baiana do Pina, Fortunata, used a skirt when he was incorporated by Oxúm, being a Nagô, and under the watchful eye of the police, who repressed everything at that time, and he was even sent to jail several times, but he never stopped using a skirt for Oxúm. In the early 1960s, even at the time of military rule, Fausto changed nations and became a member of the Jeje-Mahi nation, and there he did do it indeed, all of his sons-of-saint of the male sex began to use a skirt in their orixás and voduns, whether these were male or female, or whether their sons and daughters were men or women.
It is a well-known fact that Afro-descendant religions are welcoming, they welcome their sons and followers without any regard for the sexual option of each of them. To say
that in certain nations the men do not use skirts because they are men (heterosexuals) is the purest expression of prejudice. How can anyone say nowadays that in this or that other house the sons that are men would not use a skirt? I myself saw and heard a Iemanjá raspada [initiated] at the Stīo de Pai Adão dressing-down in a son who was a man and who danced with a skirt on the day of his dijina, and I refer to the Sítio because it is the most traditional house of Recife, of the Nagô nation in Pernambuco. […] among the Mahi, that currency has no value… we are accepted as people, as human beings created to live happily, and our skirts do not leave us any less male, but they do leave our voduns such as they were and dressed when they were on earth, as our tradition dictates and as we were taught to do by our elders.
After these manifestations of the pejigan of the Jeje nation, it remains clear that there are different visions in Candomblé about the issue that we are discussing here. They point not only to complex gender visions and to fragmented and hybrid identities, but also to the penetration of the hetero-normative discourse in the deepest site of the casas-de-santo. The construction of gender and the acceptance of the multiple forms of the construction of gender and sexual difference, as is explained by Lamas (1999) and the Afro-Brazilian codex present in the cults described by Segato (2003), are present in those discourses and coexist with the male order emanating from the foundational patriarchy of the dominant society, and that -as Bourdieu (1997) points out-, does not renounce its supremacy and takes shape wherever the social and the cultural become flesh, in every body and trespassing any border.
As Birman affirms (1985:5), no autonomy exists that would allow for Candomblé, in spite of its matrix of complex and transitional sexualities, to be able to keep its followers safe from other systems of representation or value systems from the society that surrounds them:
[…] the social identity constructed on the religious plane is inevitably related to other systems of representation of our society, articulating values on the moral, social and political planes. This is as saying that Candomblé does not possess the enviable autonomy and symbolic power capable of generating for its followers a sufficient system for the multiple insertions in society; nor does it constitute itself as a religion of salvation in the Protestant style, instituting for its followers an ethics that explains its ways of being in the world. Nevertheless, it does establish, with the other ideologies present in society, a certain relationship that appropriates given subjects through the act of privileging some and denying others, thus creating a common figure in the cults: the adé 19{ }^{19}, a category referred to as the homosexual “of saint”. In relation to this figure, numerous suppositions, comments and relations exist; these are established by articulating the concept of person in Candomblé
and in the moral system that is dominant in society, besides the categories through which the male and female genders are thought and constructed.
It is true that certain prejudices exist, in Candomblé and specifically in the Xangô de Recife, about the use of female clothing by some men; but there are also voices that appreciate in the custom something very different and totally disconnected from the sexuality of the sons-of-saint and their anatomy. There is -in Bajtinian terms a plurality of inter-related voices and discourses, questions and answers such as the ones I have provided here, and this complexity of voices and discourses is something very characteristic of Candomblé, in which the oddest thing is to find one sole, hegemonic, religious discourse.
The subject of religious performance and aesthetical sophistication in the attire with which the sons-of-saint dance for their orixás -especially the men who dress in female clothing - has been, in Brazil, a very prolific and transcendent issue for understanding the question of gender within the Afro-Brazilian cults.
On the other hand, in Cuba, a country very similar to Brazil regarding its past of slavery and almost identical with respect to the presence and relevance of those religions of African origin, the aspect in which I have been able to appreciate, in the course of the past few years the change is obvious - more than in the spectacular attires displayed in the religious ceremonies open to the non-initiated - basically in the way in which the initiated, called iyawós, dress in their outings on the street during their first year after having ended their ritual seclusion.
Contrary to what happened in times past, when the iyaworage required a discreet way of life due to the stigma suffered in Cuba by religions of African origin, because they were considered atavistic, marginal or even violent 20{ }^{20}, nowadays religious elements are proudly displayed. The tactful concealment of necklaces under the shirt or the blouse, or limiting the number of outings on the street as much as possible while complying with the requirements of the iyaworage ritual are no longer necessary. Quite the contrary: in Cuba as well as Brazil, in this day and age, the cult of the orixás has become a religion endowed with prestige and power. Most notoriously, the clothes and complements worn to comply with the obligation of dressing in white during the first year of initiation-specifically in the case of initiates in Cuban Santería - can pass as indicators of the latters’ status. Cuban Santería is no longer a religion of blacks and the poor. Cubans who
wish to be initiated in the religion of the orixás come from every ethnic origin, and are aware of the fact that the process will be an expensive one.
Unaffectedness and modesty have been dropped as characteristics of the ceremonies for the coronation of the saint. In these ceremonies, people, as we Cubans say, “throw the whole house out the window” [go to enormous expense] 21{ }^{21}. Wealth and ostentation are apparent in the ceremonies, in the attire of those undergoing initiation, but can also be perceived in the indiscreet stares through the windows into many houses in Cuba. Those sidelong glances reveal the canastilleros 22{ }^{22} that feature expensive porcelains and vessels imported from any corner of the globe, to become receptacles of the elements that represent the orixás. The Havana slums, historically inhabited by the least favored classes, mostly black and racially mixed population and among those counted as “racially mixed” I include whites from the lower classes- are being visited, in the course of the past few decades, by foreigners who arrive on the island expecting to be initiated in Santería or in Palo Monte Mayombe 23{ }^{23}. Those neighborhoods were, in the past, the birthplace of these religious traditions, so that is where you can find the descent of the most aristocratic lineages of the Regla de Ocha, and it is onto that stock that the aleyos 24{ }^{24} wish to graft themselves.
Today, thousands of women and men of every ethnic origin, who come from the most exclusive Havana neighborhoods as well as from abroad, visit the houses of their godmothers and godfathers; they call on the babalawos without any fear of being recognized as a follower of those religions. In fact, to be a santero, a palero, an olúo, an obbá or a babalawo is an honorable title, an element of social distinction and differentiation, in accordance with the hierarchy of the title. Furthermore, the followers of those religions are not taken as uncultured people nowadays: they are medical doctors, professors, engineers, politicians, lawyers, etc. They have chosen Santería as their religion, they exhibit the necklaces and bracelets that identify them as such, and show them off. Fortunately, it is no longer necessary to try to conceal religious symbols, nor to resort to the strategy of dissimulation to avoid being discovered wearing the elements that distinguish and single out people who practice Afro-Cuban religions.
The popularity of these religions has unchained a certain furor of initiations that is sweeping through the island from one end to the other, although it is perhaps most noteworthy in
the larger cities. This becomes apparent at a glance in the increasing number of iyawós that walk through the streets of Havana and respectfully greet their religious elders when their paths cross.
The presence of Santería in Cuban culture and society, and the peculiarities of this way of dressing -rigorously white- have made the iyawó un icon of Afro-Cuban religiousness that any individual, whether close or removed from the practice of knowledge of this religion, can perfectly recognize. Specifically in the case of the women iyawós, it is easy to detect the change into white clothing, indicating that a new adept been born. Due to the nature of these changes in the attire of many women iyawós who stroll down Havana’s streets, we might speak of an authentic aesthetical revolution. What had previously been a sober, chaste and enormously circumspect attire has changed to a type of clothing that - without renouncing the expression of its ritual intent- stresses some of the characteristics of the Cuban woman: sensuality, flirtatiousness and a slight touch of eroticism. We might also include in this portrait a touch of vanity, a feature that, being very present in the idiosyncrasy of Cubans, whether man or woman, is nevertheless perceived as more accentuated in women. It would not be exaggerated to say that almost all the natives of this island enjoy a high degree of self-esteem concerning their body and -notwithstanding the alien aesthetical canons in the glance of the other- it is customary for Cuban men and women to be conceited; they almost always feel sensual and attractive, even at times in which their behavior is conditioned by a religious precept or mandate.
It is possible to affirm that the rigid precepts that regulate how an iyawó should be dressed counter some of the essential principles of Cubanness, something that might be defined as a way of being, moving around and dressing of the Cuban woman, who finds no contradiction whatsoever between restraint and sensuality, and likes to be admired by others when walking gallantly down the streets. By degrees, the aesthetical native ethos has been permeating the most rigid mandates of the religion of the orichas with respect to the attire of the iyawó, and the way of dressing proper to ceremonies -the origin of which lie not only in African aesthetical transitions, but also in those pertaining to colonial times- has been coming closer and closer to the tastes of locals, to the national identity and idiosyncrasy, thus showing that everything changes, and that “the traditional” does not have to be unmovable.
Today it is frequent to see some tremendously attractive and sensual iyawós women, spectacular when standing on the pedestal to which their 10 to 15 cm stiletto heels elevate them: white stockings, skirt and serge skirt girdling their body, allowing the most curious men to guess the silhouette of the underwear. In the upper part, the décolletage progresses downward, seemingly on a free-fall to the very beginning of the crease between the breasts; the embroidered shawl delicately covers the shoulders and is manipulated by the iyawó with the grace, dexterity and gentleness identical to those granted to an expensive Manila shawl. On the head, a splendid white turban hides under its folds one of the most visible signs of initiation: that she has shaved her head as a part of the ritual of crowning the saint. On their neck, they exhibit the necklaces that identify, by their color, the rishi to which she has been consecrated. A white broad hat and a white umbrella are essential complements for protection against
the rays of the sun.
When starting to walk up or down the street on her daily outings, the iyawó dressed as previously described transforms a dilapidated Havana street into a unique modelling footbridge in which religiousness, sensuality and restraint are harmoniously combined, following the compass marked by the high heels. The elegance and exquisiteness of the way some iyawó women dress has become a visual show of enormous beauty, a beauty that seduces by passers who cannot remain unmoved. Feigning to ignore that she is the center of attention of so many glances, the iyawó walks assured. She knows that this is not incompatible with the fact of feeling good, and seeing herself attractive and fulfilled in her initiate’s crossing.
One must note that this aesthetical innovation has been strongly criticized by those who believe that it is disrespectful to transgress the norms of Yoruba religion in Cuba, instituted in the
beginning of the past century, in 1904, at the council held in the Havana neighborhood of Regla, in Havana, were established to regulate all the ritual aspects of Yoruba religion in Cuba. The rules of the iyaworaje 25{ }^{25} invoked by the most orthodox come from that meeting attended by the major Santeros over a century ago. Others, not necessarily referring to a concrete date, consider that the tradition should not be altered, and that this form of dressing up is not the one their elders taught them when they were initiated to the religion.
Nevertheless, if we consider the list of rules instructing about the iyaworaje, and we compare it to the current uses, we do not see that this would be an outright transgression, but rather a flexible and ductile reading of those precepts. For instance, with relation to shoes, there is the specification that, in the case of women, “embracing shoes should be used, and they should have heels, and never use sandals”; however, it does not specify the height of the heel, nor what we should consider a sandal. Taking into account that after 100 years of evolution women’s shoes have greatly changed, this norm leaves a margin to ad hoc interpretations about what is, or is not, a sandal, and what would be the appropriate maximum height of a shoe for an iyawó. To provide another example with respect to clothing: this catalog of rules regarding the attire of iyawó women, specifies that “during the whole year, stockings and petticoats under the skirt should be used”, but it does not clarify to what extent the clothing can be girdled to the body, but rather the amount and the order. Therefore, the most exuberant iyawós among those that walk down Havana’s streets are not, properly speaking, committing any transgression of the above-mentioned rules, but rather have interpreted them in the light of a new aesthetic canon, and also of their own personality.
If there are religions in which the followers have the possibility of negotiating and acting on the norms that govern the practices, and even to introduce innovations without consequently altering the religious principles nor introducing cracks into the faith, the religious traditions of African origin provide an excellent example.
To speak of flexibility and predisposition to change in the religious field is very important and pertinent in a world in which secularization, the admission of subjectivity and the privatization of the religious field; have not managed to definitely win the battle against some of the radical interpretations of religion. Candomblé in Brazil and Santería in Cuba are religions that offer every follower the possibility of identifying with the gods and to receive their protection through a very intimate and complex relationship. A relationship from which it is possible to negotiate about
goals, characteristics and procedures of the sacred realm and where it is allowed to debate, to change and to update the norms if in so doing the survival of the faith is not threatened, but rather promoted.
These peculiarities of the Afro-descendent religious field are not only original, but also very convenient for an understanding of the religious phenomenon in the context of a globalized world; an environment in which beliefs, creeds and ideologies of the most heterogeneous origin coexist in spaces perceived as increasingly reduced. If we accept that the precepts of religion itself can be questioned, corrected and adapted to the new times, this notion constitutes in itself an implicit sign of the fact that human beings have a total jurisdiction on earth to continue giving shape to the gods under whose protection they take shelter.
These and other specificities of Afro-American cults have favored their transformation into the religious option that is most favored by many men and women who wish to continue believing, who wish to remain in an enchanted world, and to live in it, adoring and worshiping entities under whose protection they feel safe. All this without foregoing their own capacity to control their religious life in the same way that they conduct the profane field: with autonomy, with flexible margins and without having to submit themselves to unquestionable commandments.
Syncretic religions are demonstrating a great ability to adapt to the new times. In the religious discourse coming from those traditions, it is possible to discern an open system of values in which both sorts of “actors” -the initiated and the orixás - manifest themselves as fulfilled and whole in their divinity-humanity. This opening becomes visible at the time of expressing the communion with the gods by means of possession, through religious performance in which one sings and dances for the orixás. It is also present in every action of the daily life of the believer.
In Candomblé men who would so desire might dress in a female attire when possessed by their female orixá, master of their head, in order to dance in the xiré, without causing any conflict with their sex or gender. Likewise, in Cuban Santería an iyawó woman can dress up with all the sensuality, the eroticism and the elegance appearing in her vision of what is indicated to her by the ritual of iyaworaje, without breaking, in so doing, the fundamental norms, nor commit any disrespect vis-a-vis her elders (her godmother or godfather); in the last analysis, the fulfillment of the hard precept implied in dressing exclusively in white clothes for a full year is already in itself
one of the most evident signs of religious devotion and reflects reverence towards the orisha to which the person has been consecrated.
In Candomblé as well as in Regla de Ocha or Santería, men and women are allowed to display their true self, with no limitations nor constrictions that might exercise force on the free expression of the human condition from the perspective of which they are called upon to feel fulfilled as believers.
This can be considered a specific aspect of these cults that originate in a religious universe that is extremely complex and peculiar.
Dominique Zahan, a specialist in History and religions of black Africa explains to us that in spite of the enormous diversity of forms through which those African peoples, ethnic groups and cultures express their religious beliefs, there is some sort of unity linking the ideas. According to this author, if there is something marking the essence of African spirituality, it is 26{ }^{26} :
[…] to consider oneself as image, model and an integral part of the world, in the cyclical life of which the person feels deeply and necessarily submerged.
Therefore 27{ }^{27} :
[…] it is not to «please» a God or for the love of said God that the African “prays,” implores and slaughters, but in order to implement his/her “onseselveness” and the order in which he/she is implied.
I point out these peculiarities of African spirituality in order to underline its earthly sense and its radical reference with respect to this world.
Speaking about the attitude of Africans vis-a-vis the Supreme Being, Zahan 28{ }^{28} affirms something that is truly surprising and odd compared to the viewpoint of how in the West the category “God” -to which it could be likened, has come to be elaborated:
[…] He/she aspires indeed to become God, some of his/her rites even lead to this. Nevertheless, he/she never abandons his/her human condition; he/she does not ascend to a pure Heaven to enjoy there, in peace, the beatifical vision. He/she would rather force God to return to earth, to approach him/her again and to descend upon him/her to divinize him/her. This way, the favorite site of the black person’s beatifical vision continues to be on earth.
This description corresponds absolutely to what happens in the cult of the orixás when they come down to earth and inhabit humans through trance and possession dances. Such a close relationship between divinities and men accounts for the establishment of a close relationship of mutual dependency, in which the existence of one without the other would be unthinkable. The orixás are not eternal and, different from other gods whose existence goes on independently of human beings, in the philosophy of West Africa’s religions, gods might die if the cult that those humans carried out for them are extinguished. This mutual need between the orixás or orichas and the men and women that they inhabit when they return to earth is beyond the moral avatars that do not interfere at all in religious life. In this sense, it would be possible to affirm that neither Santería nor Candomblé are religions that establish moral codes to be followed as customary.
The orichas do not judge the different ways in which human sexuality is expressed. Moreover, during their transit through earth they had the experience of loving and enjoying sexuality in accordance with their personalities and their psychological capacities. The Yoruba pantheon is the very manifestation of sexual diversity, the affirmation of the fact that sexual identity and gender could never be reduced to binary nor to excluding categories.
We have an example of this in the categories iabá, aboró and metá, which are very important in the construction of the imaginary gender within the cults. Together with the categories iabá and aboró - respectively representing the female and the male-, we find the category metá, representing hybridity - the female and the male in one same being-, and interceding between them, all the “qualities” of each one of the orixás, aborós, iabás and metás, with which their expressions of gender and their socio-cultural attributes would multiply. In such a complex gender panorama, the category iabá would configure the “eternal” female of the bipolar categorizations of gender and the category aboró would be its counterpart, that is, the “eternal” male, as Felipe Rios pointed out (2004;203)(2004 ; 203).
Nevertheless, as Segato recalls, due to the anti-essentialist character of gender construction in Afro-Brazilian religions, these gender attributions would not correspond in a dichotomic way with the male/female anatomies (cf. Segato, 1995).
The gods of this peculiar pantheon, with their hazardous lives and their hybrid identities, offered a broad spectrum of possibilities, with respect to which a new set of meanings would be
constructed in the New World. Those identities of the orixás are characterized by their lack of essentialism, by their flexibility, by their ambiguity and because they transit through a maze of genders that do not at all correspond to “the female” and “the male” such as patriarchy had configured them and inscribed them in the habitus of gender of the dominant culture.
Logún-Edé - the young cyborg that Rios (2004) defined is neither female nor male, neither gay nor transsexual, neither brave nor coward, he is “something else,” or a set of “all the possibilities,” a being who uses, according to his convenience and at each specific situation, all the possibilities that his body offer him. Iemanjá is the archetype of motherhood, and at the same time, she might be missing out in the care of her children, who are handed to another, adoptive mother that would look after them. Segato expounds on these ambiguities, that are inherent to almost all the orixás (1995:413), deeply analyzing this peculiar code inscribed in the mythical discourse; the figure of Orixalá might serve as another example of this indetermination, and the author summarizes it as follows:
[…] Orixalá: the authority of age and wisdom, patient and benign with everyone, lacks, however, effective power, and thus his will is ignored. When his patience, after a long time, runs short, his procedure is punishment. Formal lawfulness (incarnated by Iemanjá) offends him; and the spirit of justice (incarnated by Iansã) assaults her. Orixalá represents the existing ethics, present but defaulting.
It is in this ambiguous universe, anti-essentialist by definition and plural, in which subjectivity and the vision proper to the world of Afro-descendant communities is constructed, and where religious, social and cultural practices necessarily wander through other courses of gender, identity and construction of sexual difference.
Therefore, imposing in this context “the male and the female” as binary, contrasting and excluding oppositions does not allow to appreciate the wealth of this cultural and symbolic space, and reducing sexual practices to heterosexuality or homosexuality is an equally reductionist procedure (Cf. Segato 2003). By this same logic, men in Candomblé would not dance dressed as women. ¿As which woman? ¿As Oxúm, who represents sweetness, enchantment and flattery, or as Iansã, the virile warrior that lifts a spade in one hand and, with the other, lifts the horse tail
affixed to an iron fist that displays its might and moves safely in the world of eguns 29{ }^{29} that terrorize Xangô?
What happens in this religious space is rather the following: each child-of-saint, benefiting from the space that these cults offer him/her, a space in which, just as the orixás, he has no identity tied to biology nor to gender, exhibits and manifests in his/her body his/her emotions, wishes, pains and enjoyments. In his/her performance of gender he/she reflects the features of what he/she is and how he/she assumes his/herself as a subject with gender, sex and identity, revealing something that has been produced in the subconscious. Therefore, when he/she dances for the orixás, his/her performance is unique. Each child-of-saint, irrespective of his/her anatomy and the way or the dexterity with which he/she handles the body, transforms it into the territory in which the biological, the psychic and the cultural are inscribed at the same time. Liberated from the coercive constrictions and commandments of the dominant society, it expresses its link with the orixá to which he/she was consecrated; he/she will establish an intimacy with this orixá that is expressed by a dance constituting in itself a show of great beauty, and, furthermore, it has an extraordinary emotional and cathartic potential. It is, indeed, a ritual that leaves no one indifferent.
To interpret the activity developed by a child-of-saint when he/she dances for his/her orixá as a performance encoded in binary male/female would be to err in the reading of what is being observed. This posture would irremediably lead to important confusions from which not even some of the members of the religious community could escape, and which would equally trap many researchers. The habitus of the majority society that makes the male order sacred, imposes heteronormativity, opposes and ranks the female and the male, cuts through all the social strata and naturalizes those categories and values.
Nevertheless, following Butler (2001), we might say that to speak about homosexuality in Candomblé is as non-clarifying as to speak about heterosexuality. Both categories have the function of controlling eroticism, of describing, authorizing or repressing, as all the categorizations about identity do. We might affirm with Bourdieu (1997) that we face the urgent task of contradicting the gender habitus that naturalizes the male and the female within a scope to which all the dispositions about the anatomies that incarnate the human should be “naturally” referred.
Presently, in societies that continue to naturalize and keep the male order (Bourdieu), inequality continues to be maintained and gender stereotypes become entrenched. In order to persist in this statu quo, those stereotypes are resignified with a “politically correct” language. Nevertheless, we must take into account that using politically correct terms to speak about this question does not solve the in-depth problem. This is not the way either to overcome the obvious difficulty to admit something that anthropology has demonstrated in the study of the cultures and how in these gender roles are constructed; that a correct and universal correspondence between sex and gender does not exist (Casares 2012:55).
Nevertheless, we continue to transmit irrational gender stereotypes in our discourses that reinforce the gender habitus that naturalizes the male and the female, and it is convenient to recall, as Rosa Cobo (1995:66) has expressed, that:
[…] The first ideological mechanism, coarse but very effective, that points to reproducing and reinforcing inequality according to gender is the stereotype. It might be defined as a set of simple ideas strongly rooted in the consciousness that escapes the control of reason.
In the 21st Century, the so-called “Western societies” do not succeed in opening up to include the different ways of being in gender and the different ways of constructing and imagining sexual difference. Anthropology has a lot to say on this field 30{ }^{30}, because there are ethnographies that collect the multiple roles of gender that some cultures have elaborated for all the bodies, for all the anatomies and for all sexualities to find their place in society. These societies have been called primitive until recently, but perhaps we would still have a lot to learn from them. On this topic, we might point to the fact that, just to quote one example, Western male/female categories would be as narrow in the Hopi-Navaju vocabulary as in the Afro-Brazilian religious field.
Whereas certain religions demand -particularly of women- for people to comply with moral codes and behaviors that are so restrictive that they are difficult to comply to, the religious experience in the Regla de Ocha or Candomblé does not require the renunciation of desire nor of sensuality. It does not demand, either, modesty in dressing nor the domestication of the body for it to comply with precepts that demand reticence and moderation in every gesture, or even in the very way of walking. To be a daughter or a son of Iemanjá, Naná or Iansa is to find in the orixá to which the believer has consecrated him/herself a referent that might offer him/her possibilities of
exploring rough tracks of their own personality. It allows them to know their own weaknesses and strengths, the contingencies of being in the gender, the acceptance of the sexual experience and the desire beyond “normalized” sexuality. To be a son or a daughter of Ogún, of Xangô, of Oxosse, or of Obatalá, among other things means to discover features of personality that do not have to necessarily correspond to a specific anatomy. There is no goal that the believer might have to attain with respect to sexual identity nor to gender.
In this religious context —anti-essentialist by definition—, which knows how to get along in ambigüity and contradiction, a space opens up to welcome every identity, every gender, every sexual difference and every body. It is allowed to externalize the desire and to show sensuality through the body, the territory in which what is imagined and symbolized in the psychic realm is implemented. This acceptance of diversity, of the complexity of the human experience is —as I see it— one of the most valuable, novel contributions that the Afro religious space might contribute to majority society on this matter in which, as Lamas (1999:99) points out: “Little by little, a nonessentialist conception of human beings gains ground”.
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- 1{ }^{1} I use the term “cult of the orixás” or “orisá cult” when refering to the various religions that in Cuba as well as in Brazil worship those divinities of African origin. In Cuba they are called orichas.
2{ }^{2} This article deals with one of the topics that I developed in my doctoral dissertation, entitled: “The Decline of the Female Priestly Leadership in the Xangô de Recife. The City of Women That Will Not Be”, presented at the Complutense University, Department of Social Anthropolgy, Faculty of Political Science and Sociology, under the direction of Dr. Tomás Calvo Buezas, with which I obtained the mark ‘Sobresaliente cum laude’ [First-class cum laude].
3{ }^{3} Candomblé: according to what Vivaldo Costa Lima (1977) explains, the term Candomblé is used to name in a generic way the religious groups characterized by a system of beliefs in divinities called orixás, Candomblé is also used as synonym of terreiro, house-of-saint or roça, that is, the place in which religious ceremonies are staged.
4{ }^{4} Son- or daughter-of-saint (according to the sex of the person in question) is the person initiated in the cult of the orixás.
5{ }^{5} Terreiro or casa de santo: name given in Brazil to the place where the orixás are worshiped and religious festivities are held.
6{ }^{6} Santería: Afro-Cuban religion in which the orichas are worshiped in a way very similar to that of Candomblé in Brazil.
7{ }^{7} Orichas (in Spanish and orixás in Portuguese. I will mark this difference when writing the term in reference either to Brazil or to Cuba): Divinities of African origin worshiped in Candomblé and other traditions of African origin.
8 A{ }^{8} \mathrm{~A} bembé is the festivity of a saint. A güemîlere is a major festivity-of-saint in which slaughterings are performed, besides chanting and dancing.
9{ }^{9} The xiré is the order in which orixás are invoked in the ceremonies of candomblé; it is a rigorous order followed by dances and songs addressed to the orixás, beginning with Exá, messenger orixá dispatched to convene all the other orixás. This order undergoes certain modifications in the Umbanda cult. ↩︎
10{ }^{10} Feituría (in Portuguese and coronación de santo in Spanish): ceremony in which, through many rituals, the novice puts his guardian orixá into his head, thus becoming initiated in the religion.
11{ }^{11} Xangô de Recife: generic term to designate the cults of Yoruba origin in Recife (Pernambuco). It is also used in the nearby states (Alagoas, Sergipe and Paraíba).
12{ }^{12} Name by which slaves coming from the Yoruba country and who spoke that language are known in Brazil.
13{ }^{13} Jeje: The Jeje (Djedje) nation identifies, in Brazil, the Afro-descendant people with Dahomeyan roots.
14{ }^{14} Pejigã (also written peji-gã,): in the Jeje and Jeje-Nagô Candomblés this is the name by which people call a person of the greatest trust of the head of the terreiro. It is a post given exclusively to men. The pejigã is in charge of conservation and cleaning of the peji (altar in which the symbols that represent the orixás are kept.). He also plays the role of ogã, that is, he ritually slaughters the animals that are surrendered as votive offerings.
15{ }^{15} Kwé is the name given to the house-of-saint or roça among the Jeje.
16{ }^{16} Another way of naming the Jeje-Mahi peoples who speak Ewé.
17{ }^{17} Voduns: Generic name given to deities of the Jeje-Mahi peoples, equivalent to the orixás in the Nagô nation.
18{ }^{18} The abadó is a piece of cloth tied to the waist over lose, baggy-type trousers.
19{ }^{19} Adé: This is a term that means effeminated or affected man. This type of femininity displayed by certain men in candomblé is usually associated to the fact that the orixá ruling their head is female. Consequently, people refer to them as “homosexuals-of-saint”.
20{ }^{20} In Hampa afro-cubana: los negros brujos (apuntes para un estudio de etnología criminal), La Habana: 1973 (1906), before transforming into the theoretician of “transculturation” and defender of black culture in Cuba, ethnologist Fernando Ortiz navigated on the same tide of the criminal anthropology of Italian medical doctor and criminologist Cesare Lombrosio, who likewise influenced Nina Rodrigues and Artur Ramos, who are considered the pioneers of Afro-Brazilian studies. Early Ortiz applied this theory to Cuban blacks, especially to those who practiced Afro-Cuban religions, and -as Jorge Castellanos (2003) recallshe proposed the banning of the practice of Afro-Cuban religions, the incarceration of its priests and the confiscation of the sacred objects used in those rites.
21{ }^{21} I am now working on an article that attempts an in-depth analysis of the economic aspects linked to santería. I am aware of the enormous importance of this topic nowadays, due to the rise experienced by those religions in Cuba, where they are also being used as a subsistence resort. The high costs attained by initiation rituals have brought along genuine problems for those in the lower strata who try to fulfil the requirements of an initiation, particularly its economic obligations and the subsequent rituals that confirm the position of the person being initiated in religion. In the midst of the critical economic situation experienced by the island, in which the national currency stands devaluated and average monthly salaries do not go beyond US$ 25 , the cost of an initiation is estimated in several thousand CuCs , the second currency that circulates in the island, the equivalence of which is 1 CuC per 24 Cuban pesos. The cost of initiation ceremonies can therefore be considered nonsensical in relation to the real salary of Cubans.
22{ }^{22} Canastillero: the canastillero is a sort of cupboard, generally an antique, in which the initiated person stores the vessels containing the elements that represent each orixá.
23{ }^{23} Palo Monte Mayombe: is another Afro-Cuban religion. Is one of the names by which they are known in Cuba different religious traditions of Bantu origin brought to Cuba by slaves.
24{ }^{24} Aleyo: this is the name applied to those who believe in santería but have not yet been initiated into the religion.
25{ }^{25} Iyaworaje: Period of twelve months and a few days (depending on the oricha that has been crowned) during which the iyawó must follow strict rules that affect every facet of their lives as recent initiates to the Regla de Ocha or Santería: attire, places to be avoided, things that must not be done, nourishment, etc.
26{ }^{26} Dominique Zahan. Espiritualidad y pensamiento africanos. Ediciones Cristiandad, Madrid, 1980, p. 15.
27{ }^{27} Op.cit. p. 15 ff
28{ }^{28} Op.cit. p. 37 ff
29{ }^{29} Spirits of the dead
30{ }^{30} Aurelia Martín Casares (2012:56) points out, in “Antropología del género. Culturas mitos y estereotipos sexuales,” contribution made by Will Roscoe’s (2000) work due to his study of gender roles in NorthAmerican native groups, that earned him the Margaret Mead Award of the American Anthropological Association.
Con formato: Fuente: 11 pto
Con formato: Fuente: 11 pto