blood, oil, honey, and water: symbolism in spirit possession sects in northeastern Brazil

Abstract

In this article I propose to document a symbolic system in northeastern Brazil in which different spirit possession group types assign various meanings to four symbols—blood, oil, honey, and water—that all these groups engage in their religious beliefs or ritual practices. All the groups rely on these symbols either to represent or to disavow an ideology that is in turn correlated with a distinct “racial” identity. Participation in and recruitment into these groups are described and analyzed in terms of the meanings attributed to the symbols by the leaders and members of Candomblé, Giro, and Mesa Branca groups. These meanings, while stable when analyzed from an intragroup perspective, are often transformed in the intergroup context in dramatic and subtle ways. Once transformed, the same symbol can be, and often is, used by each of the groups to evaluate and characterize the others in ways that help it to maintain its own coherence and appeal. The analysis of the symbols as a system partially explains multiple use, and stability as well as changes in affiliation, by religious actors over time. Thus the intergroup symbolic domain is characterized by temporal, evaluative, and transformative aspects that provide a framework for understanding contemporary religious affiliation and behavior in a socially inequitable, racially complex, urban setting.