Some comments over the Yorùbá origins of Candomblé and other Afro-Brazilian Religions

Bibliographic Data

ID9284652
AuthorsEmmanuel Ofuasia (0000-0002-2028-6005, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume9
Issue1and2
Pages165-180
Publication date2024-12-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueYoruba Studies Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2473-4713 • E-ISSN: 2578-692X
PublisherGeorge A. Smathers Libraries (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.32473/ysr.9.1and2.137832
OpenAlexW4405205666
LanguageEN
Citations received2

Candomblé is one of many Afro-Brazilian religions that boast of African origins consequent, especially of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In recent times, efforts toward vitiating the transnational link between Africa and Brazil as unstable, historically, and socially have become replete among some scholars – the claim being that merely finding the echoes of Africa in the Americas are not sufficient grounds to ferment an essentialist perception of these Afro-Brazilian religions as purely African. Whereas this research agrees with such scholars that an essentialist understanding of Afro-Brazilian religions is unfair, it contests their outlook that portraying Yorùbá as the origin of Candomblé and other Afro-Brazilian religions may be misleading. Hence, for its aim, this research makes etymological and philological assessments of some important concepts central to Yorùbá identity and rituals. Whilst establishing that an essentialist reading will not do, the study explores discourses on sexuality and matriarchal cults, divination, and sainthood

Aesthetics · Comparative religion · Divination · Essentialism · Ethnology · Feminism · Human sexuality · Identity (music · Linguistics · Philology · Reading (process · Sociology · Theology · Yoruba · African cultural and philosophical studies · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Philosophy