Faking Spirit Possession

I was driving Victor, Otávio and his boyfriend Jorge to a celebration of Candomblé in Alaketu, one of Salvador’s old and famous terreiros (temples). Four gays in a rental car, all dressed in immaculate white, as Candomblé ceremonies require. The initiative for the outing had been mine. As always, Victor had been hesitant to accompany me. He dislikes the ceremonies, with their long hours of just sitting, watching the initiates dance to the drumming, and waiting for the orixá spirits to arrive and possess the initiates’ bodies. This time, however, he had figured this was an opportunity for me to meet his friend Otávio, who was ‘from Candomblé’, and might be of use for my research. I do not know what Victor had told Otávio about me, but I dare speculate that the prestige of a European-who-works-at-a-university-and-writes-about-Candomblé had piqued Otávio’s interest in joining. While driving, I explained that the terreiro we were going to visit was a very old one, of great repute and on its way to be recognized by the Bahian state as ‘cultural heritage’. Otávio, a chubby adolescent with straightened black hair wearing a rather risqué lace blouse, exclaimed “chiquééééérima”, which may be translated as “how fabulous”. Otávio lived in a distant suburb of Salvador, and although he was in the early stages of initiation into Candomblé, he had never been to this terreiro. He had not even heard of it. I was reminded, once more, that the Candomblé of anthropologists and the Candomblé of local practitioners pertained to different, only partially overlapping circuits

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