Exu embodies the principles of contradiction,
dialectics, and dynamics. He is the mediator of the
exchange and reposition of axé that guarantees
balance and harmony within and between aiyê
andorum. He is the carrier of allebóand trans-
mits every invocation, supplication, or presenta-
tion. For this reason, ritual tradition demands that
any ceremony or liturgical act must begin with a
padê, an offering to Exu. Called a trickster or a
messenger, he embodies language and communi-
cation. As a master of dialectics, he incorporates
contradiction and the principles of good and evil.
He was mistakenly identified by the official
Catholic religion as the devil, an identification
that has been extended into some heterogeneous
religious practices like Umbanda.
Violent repression of African religious practice
was brutal and consistent from the time of com-
pulsory baptism during the slave trade until the
1970s, when the State of Bahia repealed legisla-
tion requiring houses of worship to be registered
with the police. Persecution of African religious
practices by the Catholic Church has remained a
reality parallel to the policy of incorporating
African elements into the Mass. Most recently,
some new fundamentalist Christian churches have
launched virulent and effective campaigns against
the Candomblé, identifying it as the work of the
Devil. Recent litigation in defense of Candomblé
and Umbandaterreiro communities has empha-
sized the human rights dimension of the prosecu-
tions brought against them for various reasons,
which constitute religious persecution.
Candomblé is a religion of initiation, not evan-
gelism, and for this reason it does not proselytize,
but welcomes those who participate. In Brazil, this
has come to include people of all races and walks
of life. Candomblé spiritual leadership holds con-
siderable lay power in the respective communities,
and this leadership traditionally has been exer-
cised, to a great extent, by women. This female
ascendancy in the Candomblé has been linked not
only to the nature of the religious philosophy, but
also to African social structures, which tradition-
ally did not transform gender attributes into sta-
tus differentials.
However, particularly in the State of Rio
Grande do Sul in the southernmost corner of
Brazil, the rapid proliferation of Umbanda houses
recently has been characterized by a trend in
which white males have taken over positions of
spiritual and secular power in religious communi-
ties. This trend runs parallel to one in the samba
schools. Recently, as the Carnival has become
a multimillion dollar industry, these traditionally
black community organizations have seen an
influx of whites who have taken control of their
structures of power.
In a cosmology that brings together the ances-
tors, the living, the yet unborn, and the forces of
nature, the terreiro communities’ activities and
contemplation are always geared toward the
future. Their thought and actions contain an envi-
ronmentalist philosophy in which the forces of
nature—the Orisha—are profoundly integrated in
human life and vice versa. In their festivities, the
Orisha visit and fraternize with the human con-
gregation. Together they celebrate the essential
unity between the material world of the living—
aiyê—and the world of the ancestors, the Orisha,
and those who are yet to be born—orum. They
reaffirm the continuity among different forms and
stages of life and realms of being. In this way, they
overcome the uncertainty intrinsic to the mystery
of death in an organic way involving the commu-
nity not only of men, but of all expressions of life
in the cosmos.Elisa Larkin NascimentoSeealsoOrisha; UmbandaFurther Readings
Bastide, R. (1973).African Civilizations in the New
World. New York: Harper and Row.
Bastide, R. (1978).African Religions in Brazil(2nd ed.)
(Helen Sebba, Trans.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Caroso, C., & Bacelar, J. (Eds.). (1999).Faces da
Tradição Afro-Brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Pallas and
Salvador, Brazil: Afro-Oriental Studies Center
(CEAO), Federal University of Bahia (UFBA).
Lopes, N. (2002).Novo Dicionário Banto do Brasil. Rio
de Janeiro: Pallas.
Oyewumi, O. (1997).The Invention of Women.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Thompson, R. F. (1984).Flash of the Spirit. New York:
Random House.Candomblé 153