RE-/PRESENTING BLACK FEMALE IDENTITY IN BRAZIL:‘FILHAS D’OXUM’ IN BAHIA CARNIVAL

Popular representations of black women in Brazilian Carnival are of hyper sexuality, nakedness and a certain exoticism linked to sex-tourism. These representations simultaneously make “Carnival in Brazil” synonymous with Rio’s carnival of tourism. Thus two distortions are reproduced, both of which encode race and gender in very specific ways. These stereotyped representations of women and of carnival, marketed internationally, run counter to the complexity of black women’s actual participation in Rio Carnival itself as well as that of the rest of Brazil and of Salvador-Bahia in particular where this study is located.

Of particular relevance to this paper is the way these distortions erase African-oriented Carnival. Thus the construction of a hyper-tourist-driven Rio Carnival, similarly fails to delineate sufficiently the Escolas de samba and Afro-blocos of Rio de Janeiro itself. Myrian Sepulveda dos Santos in a paper, “Samba Schools: The Logic of Orgy and Blackness in Rio de Janeiro,”¹ delineates some of the inner structures of the Rio Samba Schools. In spite of the “orgy” of Carnival, though, these often use the Carnival occasion to make political statements in theme, music and costuming about the condition of Afro- Brazilians—particularly their racial, social and economic locations within the larger Brazilian State. Robert Stam’s “Carnival, Politics and Brazilian culture,”² and his Subversive Pleasures³ challenge Roberto DaMatta’s reading of a flattened Carnival in which race, gender and a host of identities are of little consequence⁴ in the context of Carnival. Rather, he asserts that there are various carnivals and that racial politics are often squarely and deliberately located in Brazilian Carnival.

The actual source from which much of (Afro)Brazilian culture emanates, the North East, is perhaps the most exploited culturally in the context of Rio-tourist Carnival constructions as it is simultaneously erased. The largely black North-Eastern region of Brazil, and principally Bahia, continues to generate cultural practices and forms which then influence the rest of Brazilian artistic life, particularly at the level of the performative. An interesting discussion of Afro-Bahia Carnival in this context is Christopher Dunn’s “Afro-Bahian Carnival: A Stage for Protest,”⁵ which describes well some of the history of blocos afro particularly Ilê Aiyê (founded in 1974) and Olodum (1979). Black working class in orientation, these blocos afro were “not the occasion for ritual inversion of social roles for these participants,” Dunn asserts, “but rather an opportunity for young Afro-Brazilians to affirm their racial and ethnic identities” (12).

In history and orientation, the blocos afro offer re-interpretations of pan-Africanist politics in order to challenge racist exclusions of Afro-Brazilians from Brazilian economic and social structures. They simultaneously establish another set of identifications with particular African diaspora locations selected for their histories of resistance to domination. Thus, Haiti with its history is particularly evocative, as is Cuba, South Africa, the U.S. and a number of other selected African-diaspora locations. On the carnival fabric of Ilê Aiyê for 1994, for example is the caption “Black America, The African Dream” (America Negra O Sonho Africano) with imprinted photographs of Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, as well as Vôvô one of the founders and present leader of the group and Mae Hilda its spiritual mother. An African map occupies the center of the design and above it is an African mask with the name Ilê Aiyê. Thus in terms of music, lyrics of songs, the use of textiles, dance, the ritual of Carnival itself, blocos Afro in Bahia and other aspects of Bahia Carnival, re-present African history in the Americas, make specific political connections and educate as they entertain.

Antonio Risério’s Carnaval Ijexa⁶ uses the word “reafricanização” (“reafricanization”) to describe, from the 1970’s, an entire process of deliberate re-africanization of Afro-Brazilian culture. Still, this word “reafricanization” to many activist Brazilians suggests that Afro- Brazilians had lost some sort of static African culture. Many would like to see instead an understanding of a dynamic set of re-interpretations of African culture in Afro-Brazilian history, particularly when forms like Candomblé⁷ consistently infuse Afro-Brazilian culture and indirectly much of the larger Brazilian society. Still, I find Risério’s book a helpful presentation of the range of contemporary Afro-Brazilian carnival forms and their various connections and contexts. Absent from Risério’s book is any information on the question of gender in Carnival. His primary interest as his title suggests is the Yoruba (Ijexá) derived Carnival forms which he sees as Afro-Bahian carnival.

This paper addresses some of these issues as it explores questions of gender and the performative, memory, ritual, cultural re-invention in the context of festival traditions in African diaspora culture. It is linked in a way to an earlier paper, “Black Bodies, Carnivalised Bodies,”⁸ in which I examined the multi-layered representation of women at the level of body and space. This specific study is based on an afoxé (traditional Carnival group) “Filhas d’Oxum” in Bahia carnival. Filhas d’Oxum is a new, 1990’s-style, all-female afoxé which has as a specific intent the re- presentation of Black female identity in Brazilian culture. The execution of their Carnival presentation challenges the popular stereotypic, exotic representations of women by putting in its place a carnival of beauty and joy in femininity which emanates from the Òrìsà (goddess in some understandings) Oxum (Òsun) as she is interpreted in Afro-Brazilian (Yoruba) Òrìsà tradition. I will therefore examine the larger context of the afoxé in carnival in Bahia and then talk about the re-/presentation of women in Carnival via this particular group and then conclude by describing my own research process and the meaning of the performative aspects of this group as it relates to the claiming of public ritual space for Afro-Brazilian cultures and people.

AFOXÉ: Making it Happen

Afo/sé in Yoruba literally means “I command it and it happens.” It refers to that which is said which can achieve actuality. It is the power of the word; it refers then to the power that is used in certain forms of speech that causes something to happen. In other words, it is the spoken force of asé — the power to be.⁹ In another work, “Spirit work/Community Work: Ashé and Quilombismo in Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Contexts,” I define ashé, as moving “across two large discursive fields: that of spirituality and that of creativity, with its meaning and associations of what it is to be human in the world, questions of existence, the power to be, the dynamic force in all things” (pp. 2-3).

In Carnaval Ijexá. Notas Sobre Afoxés e blocos de novo carnaval afrobaiano¹⁰ Risério cites Olabiyi Yai, aYoruba scholar of oral literature similarly on this point. Yai conjectures on the assignment of the name that the early Afrocarnival groups perhaps exchanged magical incantations between them and that gradually the word afoxé passed into popular usage as a definition of Afrocarnival groups in Brazil (12). Thus, while afo/xé in Yoruba and in its meaning culturally and linguistically is the spoken power in asé, in Afro-Brazilian culture a very particular transformation has taken place— linguistic and cultural —which expresses well the meaning of Afro-diaspora transformation.¹¹ In this particular case, afoxé has, literally moved out of the specific linguistic history of its Yoruba origins, principally the level of the incantatory (word) into the area of the performative (body). And, in the contemporary period, there exists another level of meaning in Yoruba language contributed by Afro-Brazilians, which allows afoxé to become the general descriptor of traditional Afro-Brazilian carnival. Relationally, Afoxé thus now occupies a position in terms of Carnival history, roughly equivalent to “old time carnival” or “traditional masquerade,” in the Caribbean for example.

Afoxé in Bahia, Brasil, is the name given to a particular type of Carnival band which occupies an intermediate space between the popular blocos Afro and ritual Candomblé. The Dicionario de Cultos Afro- Brasileiros¹² defines afoxé as:

He goes on to identify, in 1983, twenty-three afoxés with Filhos de Gandhi, founded in 1949, being one of the oldest of this group. This proliferation, in his view, seemed to signify a rebirth of earlier afoxés such as Filhos de Oba, Lordes Africanos, Congos da Africa. Other precursors of the contemporary Afoxés include Reis do Congo, Embaixada Africana and Pandegos da Africa.¹⁴ Pierre Verger’s Retratos da Bahia 1946 a 1952 shows photos of Filhos de Oba (Plate 121) and Filhos de Congo (Plates 117-120). Embaixada Mexicana (Plate 116) resembles Trinidad’s traditional Robber Mas in costume.

Sheila Walker in “The Bahian Carnival,” makes a sharp distinction between Afro-blocos and afoxés, locating it largely in intent, music and dance. Blocos are the carnival’s basic samba groups, within that style are the Afro-Blocos-whose identifiable pageantry, costuming, and musical times serve to underscore the African themes of their presentationsss. The afoxes, of a different style now in resurgence eschew the samba entirely and take their inspiration from candomble. Their music derives from the Yoruba town of Ijesha (27).

Walker distinguishes between the two forms in terms of the music they use – the afoxes using skin drums played with hands and cow bells with a characteristic African rhythm rather than the drum batterie of the Samba; and their dance – “the sensuous movements of the orishas instead of the pyrotechnical gyrations of the samba.” She concludes that “afoxes are exclusively and unabashedly African” (27). Still, anyone listening to Ilê Aiyê or Olodum would be able to identify that, although they are using the drum corp, the rhythms are re-interpreted African rhythms, in which the African drum, as in Trinidad steelband, reappears in different guise.

It is impossible, however, to discuss afoxé in Bahia without some extended consideration of perhaps its most important exponent—Filhos de Gandhi (Sons of Gandhi; fig. 1: see photo gallery). The group itself has produced its own text Filhos de Gandhi. A História de um afoxé¹⁵ which is based on oral histories, memories and conversations with some of its principal participants and some early photographs.

In one of the few available studies Anamaria Morales, “O afoxé Filhos de Gandhi pede paz” (The Afoxé Filhos de Gandhi Asks for Peace),¹⁶ the author expresses what many Afro-Brazilian activists and scholars have identified—a pattern of resistance which includes the various sisterhoods and brotherhoods (such as Irmandade da boa morte {See the substantial work of Sheila Walker in this area} and Filhos de Gandhi), Candomblé and Quilombos.

Filhos de Gandhi was formed by a group of stevedores as a direct response to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. According to Morales they were described as follows:

For them, Gandhi because of his association with peace, his use of white, carried the energy of oxalá of the Afro-Brazilian Yoruba Orixá cosmology who is also identified as the principle of peace. Thus the group in its origin made a variety of statements of resistance: First, since Candomblé was persecuted tremendously during that time and not allowed to make public representations, their adoption of the energy of Gandhi allowed them a public presence which confronted the racist authority which was denying their existence; second, additionally it was an affirmation of life and Afro-Brazilian presence; third it effected an intersection of two major diaspora - Indian and African in the representation of Gandhi as the spiritual figure which carried the group’s name; fourth, it allowed a group of working class men public space. It is important that these men were stevedores as this gave them (as in other African diaspora locations) access to receiving information from outside the country and to utilizing their links with the exterior, international community for the benefit of the internal, local Afro-Brazilian community.

The link between afoxé and Candomblé was therefore significantly re-articulated in the existence of the early Filhos de Gandhi. Interviews with the founders of the group identify this connection deliberately. Humberto Ferreira in interview with Morales says the following:

The fact that the Catholic church which consistently sought to deny and suppress Afro-Brazilian spirituality called them a ‘bloco de feticeiros” (a group of wizards) or ‘candomblezeiros” (candomble worshippers) makes the point. And true, the group marched (and continue to march) the streets chanting various ritual Yoruba songs and chants under the slogan of peace and dressed in the colour of peace associated with Oxala. Crowley identifies in 1983 a reflection of the link between afoxés and Candomblé houses in the way in which “the theme song of Filhos attempts to integrate Gandhi into the cult hierarchy in “Salutation to Oxalá,” the Orixa of African divinity who represents God the Father” (p.24). Significantly as well, a number of paes de santos consistently participate/d in Filhos de Gandhi from its origin and a specific link with one of the oldest houses Ilê Axé Apo Afonja has been identified.

Today the group continues to be oriented to peace so much so that in some views it maintains a very conservative presence as distinct from the overt racial politics of the blocos Afros. But Filhos de Gandhi is the largest of the groups, a stream of white flowing for miles down the streets of Bahia when they parade for Carnival (fig. 2: Filhos de Gandhi stream of white). And, they continue to make powerful public appearances at important ritual and public events like the lavagem de Bonfim, (the ritual washing of the steps of the Church at Bonfim) and the popular Festa de Yemanja in Rio Vermelho and a variety of other festive and popular events and particularly at the annual Carnival where full numbers are represented.

The group remains all male exclusively. Thus the question of gender in afoxé becomes important. While some of the afoxés tend to incorporate both men and women, Filhos de Gandhi is principally a brotherhood.¹⁷ Women affiliated to the men of the group had at one point formed a female parallel called Filhas de Gandhi (Daughters of Gandhi) which “chose as subject the local ritual of washing the steps of Bonfim Pilgrimage which takes place in early February in a Salvador suburb with no reference at all to India or Gandhi beyond their name.”¹⁸ This is the first gendered reference I have found to an all women’s identification of an afoxé. It is important to assert here, as well, that the masculinist orientation of afoxé as represented in Filhos de Gandhi tended to relocate women to the periphery which they are not in Candomblé ritual. Since Filhas de Gandhi arose as a group affiliated to them, they were therefore seen by some in the community as principally the women of Filhos de Gandhi members.

Some of this tendency has carried over in some ways to Filhas d’Oxum (Daughters of Òsun) which some see as a new version of Filhas de Gandhi (Daughters of Gandhi). This was aided by the fact that the primary organizer of Filhas d’Oxum, Rosangela Guimares was the wife of the current leader of the Filhos de Gandhi. My research reveals, however, that while there were close links in terms of history, origin and there was an expectation of external support from the men, there were clear differences in the nature of the groups which I will delineate later. My first encounter with Rosangela Guimares was in the headquarters of the Filhos de Gandhi,¹⁹ and in it she made a point of telling me that the group had acquired its own house which was being renovated and that she was hoping to have in it an office space with modern equipment in order to manage the group’s interests. Thus separate space was the first and most significant aspects of the group’s negotiation of identity. One of the primary interests she indicated was caring for the security of women during carnival. Filhas d’Oxum she indicated was open to all women of whatever racial identification or designation since “all women suffer and often do not have the space they need to become the best they can be.” And, I observed later, in the context of Carnival, that it is in this area of security that the support of the men was expected. She added though that the group wanted to amplify the condition of black people in Brazil. She wanted to see beauty, joy, life which is the true energy of Òsun, over adversity.

Thus, in politics and orientation, while there was initial assistance from the brothers, Rosangela was clear about being not identified as a female component of Gandhi and was very articulate about the possibilities of women in society and their right to realize their dreams. Clearly with its name and its identification with the Afro-Brazilian Orixá (Brazilian orthography) of Yoruba derivation, Oxum,²⁰ a specifically female orientation, linked to beauty, fertility, female power, wealth and bounty and in a sense makes a more direct and public connection than Filhos de Gandhi could have, by naming itself in 1990’s context with the name Filhas d’Oxum. For one thing, it reinscribed the importance of the Òrìsà tradition in a public way and removes itself at the level of the performance of its name from the male Gandhi. Further, by claiming itself as an all-woman afoxé it makes a statement of women counter-organizing in contexts of male exclusivity.²¹

TRANSFORMING THE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN BRAZILIAN CARNIVAL

As I have argued from the outset, the popular constructions of Afro-Brazilian women by the dominant society, especially in the context of tourism and Rio Carnival, locate a specific construction of women as the most visible. Thus in the context of nakedness, sex and hyper- exoticism, a specific type of women is held aloft and the majority reduced to a mass of undifferentiated dancers. The distinctions that Carnival in Salvador da Bahia present along the order of a re-constituted African identity become significant when the question of female identity is accounted for as is done in the case of Filhas d’Oxum. For one thing, Bahia carnival in general is not as much a show for spectators as it is a participatory event. In this instance, women re-claim the space of ritual for political statements which critique dominant discourses of gender, race, sexuality.

Bahia carnival and festival traditions are loaded with the resonances and iconography which are directly traceable to African (particularly ancient Benin (Nago-Yoruba) and Angolan) forms. Blocos Afro such as Ilê Aiyê (birthplace/home) and Olodum (the overarching Òrìsà) in their names, patterns, rituals, musical rhythms, carnival themes, relationship to community, activism maintain this political, historical and aesthetic relationship with Africa. For example, each of the blocos-Afro begin their Carnival parading with a ritual offering to Exu-Elegbara, the Òrìsà of the crossing, of openings, of pathways, of chance (luck or ill-fate). A series of other offerings are designed to open the pathway and protect the passage through the Carnival. Ilê Aiyê ’s in particular has as its spiritual mother, - Mae Hilda - who is a mãe de santo in her own right and functions as a kind of spiritual guide and organizing presence for the important decisions the group made. Both Ilê Aiyê and Olodum have created an active community presence, in terms of education, art, music, dance, working with homeless children, creating employment.

Afoxés like Filhos de Gandhi and Filhas d’Oxum, provide an even closer integration of the questions of spirituality with community activism. Generally involved in community work, afoxés tend to have more direct links with practices of Candomblé in terms of rituals, intent, music. According to Daniel Crowley, while the afoxés and Blocos Afro are “directly concerned with Africa and its presence in Brazil,” the afoxés often have a closer relationship with Candomblé houses. Some afoxé members he continues “actually participate in Carnival as the fulfillment of a religious vow,” and therefore sometimes in fulfilling some obligation of service to the community. Still some major exponents of Afro-Brazilian spirituality, like Mae Stella of Ilê Axé Apo Afonja prefer not to see the carnivalizing of Òrìsà (conversation, Salvador- Bahia, March, 2001).

The intersection of spirit work/community work in which the healing of the community is prominent replays some of the traditional meanings of ritual. Filhas d’Oxum defined itself not so much as a Carnival group only but an organization of community women with a mission to feed the community and provide a sense of well being as far as women desiring things of beauty as well as women’s representation is concerned. For example, it had when I studied it in 1995 and 1996, an active community program of feeding the community one-day a week and are otherwise involved in issues of poverty in the surrounding neighbourhood. Rosangela Guimares, its leader, I discovered often used her own money to provide food if funds were not available.

The honoring of Oxum, the goddess of fresh waters was its central purpose. But this honoring, given the representations of Oxum, the elements she is assigned in this cosmology, is related to a larger set of meanings about female identity and power. Deidre Badejo develops some of these ideas in her book Òsun as far as the community relationship is concerned in the Òsun festival in Òsogbo in Western Nigeria. As such, in presentation, Filhas d’Oxum became in its public presentation almost a mobile version of the same logics of the terreiro, (the sacred community space in which Candomblé is practiced and lived) and from another angle a mini-Òsun festival within the Carnival. This climaxed in the filhas final dispatch which occurred the Thursday after carnival when the group met in Piata (a beach community about 10 miles from the city of Salvador) and then paraded through the streets to Lake Abaete, a lake of white sand and warm water, which was traditionally a place of washer women in Bahia and which has a number of ritual associations with the Òrìsà Oxum. The dispatch included offerings of flowers, food specific to Oxum; and ritual bathing of large numbers of the community who came for blessings, purification, witnessing. Possession was common among members of the afoxé as well as the witnessing community during this dispatch. Figures 3, 4, 5, (see plates 005-009) show the offerings to Oxum in Lake Abaete, ritual bathing from the water and possession.

A series of transformations of the representation of black women in Brazil was effected. The first and most obvious was that women were not represented in terms of hypersexuality and nudity but in a certain joy in the reclamation of female power. The claiming of public space in the context of Carnival to perform female identity under the full range of representations which Osun represents was another feature of this transformative process. The colors with which Osun is associated in Afro-Brazilian Òrìsà tradition - gold – communicated brilliance, wealth and a certain kind of self assurance and confidence in the possibilities of black elegance and beauty. So this was a performance which, while it is in the eyes of the public a performance of women, it is a performance for women.

Pierre Verger in his “The Orishas of Bahia”²² identifies some of the various versions of Òsun which appear in Bahia. These range from Òsun Ijumú queen of all Òsuns who has a close connection with ajés (witches), Òsun Oshogbo who is famous for helping women bear children, Òsun Ayalá, the big mother, Òsun Apará, the youngest of all with a warlike nature; Òsun Abalú the oldest, Òsun Abotô, the most feminine and elegant; Yeyé Karé and Yeyé Ipondá, who are both warlike in conduct. Thus rather than a singular representation of a female identity, multiple versions of womanhood are operative. The generational aspects were also accounted for in this range of representations. In re-presenting Òsun in carnival in this way, then, a variety of female identities were offered rather than one flat, exoticised or otherwise reduced version of what it is to be a woman (Fig. 6: Young girls in Filhas d’Oxum; see plates 004e, 004f and Fig. 7: A range of mature women in Filhas d’Oxum; see plates 004g, 004h).

Process

After doing some preliminary research for my larger project on “Women, Creativity and Power in Afro-Brazilian contexts,”²³ the existence of an all- female Carnival group brought together in one place the three salient aspects (women, creativity, power) of my project. I resolved that if it were possible, I would try to do a study of them. A series of conversations with Afro-Brazilian research contacts led to one of them accompanying me over to the building of Filhos de Gandhi in order to introduce me to Rosangela Guimares. Most had identified her as the group’s dynamic leader who had a series of clearly articulated positions on the issue of women and their roles and possibilities in Afro-Brazilian context. This initial enquiry produced a rather extended conversation with Rosangela Guimares who welcomed me instantly once she understood my project. Among other things, I told Rosangela that I was generally interested in learning about the representation of women in carnival in Brazil as well as in the larger social structures. Secondly coming originally from Trinidad, I told her that I wanted an opportunity to study some of the Brazilian forms comparatively. We arranged succeeding appointments.

My next step was to consult Afro-Brazilian friends (artists, sociologists, activists) and indicate what I was planning to do but more so to enquire if there were particular questions that they would like me to ask. From these discussions and my own interests, we formulated a number of questions that would guide my inquiry. These were as follows:

It is important that these questions were not going to be posed in their entirety but that I would raise them as sequentially as possible in formal interview/conversational contexts or that they would be revealed as the research process continued. Upon learning that I had several questions and wanted a formal interview, each of the appointed times for the interview there seemed to be one crisis or another that Rosangela needed to attend to urgently. For one thing, they were in the process of moving into their house during this period and wanted to complete it before the Carnival arrived. Some of the times we had arranged to meet I found Rosangela in the building itself helping the men to work on the floors, just returning from a visit to the shoe maker consigned to make the sandals for the group; organizing the cutting of fabric for various aspects of the costume. Clearly, these times were all inappropriate to interviewing a busy woman and instead I often offered to help to which she would instead respond with casual conversation and a rest break over a beer or some other refreshing drink. And often in these relaxed contexts, conversation about the group would develop.

A few direct answers were given though: The group started in 1991 and Oxum was selected because of her maternal orientation as the mother of all waters. Rosangela apologized each time for the inconvenience and instead one day asked me to participate in the Carnival as a guest of the group, indicating that this would answer all the questions I had. Knowing that carnival is to be experienced if it is to have meaning, I was ecstatic at this invitation for a variety of reasons. For one thing, it signaled a different type of relationship of trust and removed the time frame and formal interview orientation which was initially in place and instead made me the participant which I wanted to be in the entire process rather than a spectator. As well, my Trinidadian Carnival inclinations were satisfied.

For the next few weeks I made several visits to the house for all sorts of reasons. Whenever I was in Pelourinho I would drop by. On several occasions I went directly there to help. One evening for example my task was assisting in the cutting of numerous pieces of different types of gold fabric. All of this was cooperative work with some women sewing, others cutting, friendly conversation, singing popular Carnival songs. A carnival headquarters is a busy place and this was no different. But in the midst of that they continued the Wednesday community feeding almost as an obligation, sometimes with some difficulty while keeping the Carnival preparations in place.

Some of my own observations in process were that they use Oxum as the principal energy of the group but there is an actual referencing and praise of a variety of Orixa, predominantly female. On the walls are drawings of representations of Iansa and Yemanja. The feeding of the neighbourhood children and adults on Wednesdays often bread and soup, a year long commitment, is as integral a part of the meaning of the relationship with Oxum as it is a politics of community organization.

A variety of offerings were located in different locations in the house, behind doors for example. An altar with a variety of Christian elements but also money, a written request in a bowl of honey, a lit candle were prominently located. All the women, especially Rosangela worked in the kitchen preparing food and serving. So there was an ongoing interaction with two sets of communities - visible and invisible, the ancestors and the living community.

In the end, I paraded with them for Carnival in 1995. The group came out in the night each time and danced the street accompanied by piped music from the Filhos de Gandhi trio electrico (a huge tractor trailer which carries all the sound equipment and some members of the group, singers, etc.) and a core of male percussionists who parade with the group. The music or the afoxé tends to be more percussive in orientation than the drum core of the blocos Afro. While the last day of the parade is a despatch which meets at Piata and then parades a few miles to Lake Abaete where there is another ritual offering, a community washing ritual which I have already identified, the opening of Carnival is an offering at the crossroads (fig. 8: see plates 001, 001b, 001c, and 002).

In terms of costuming, the gold of Oxum predominates. There are a variety of other colour groupings which coordinate. For example an adolescent and little girls section wore mostly white and silver. An Iansa section wore red and gold. One group of women wore all white. The predominant versions of different costumes were gold. While the blocos Afro tend to use very specific fabric they have designed from year to year, the afoxé Filhas d’Oxum used the colour and texture to re-present a traditional entity in multiple ways in contemporary times. Each year are effected a number of variations but what remains constant is the predominance of gold. While Filhos de Gandhi is associated with white and a bit of blue, wearing the same costume year to year, Filhas d’Oxum maintains a gold association and even further, a set of variations not permitted in the very specific Gandhi uniform.

By the end of the despatch and in the days following, it was clear that my various preliminary questions were answered in various ways or at least I was able to provide my own interpretations for them.

Claiming A Public Space For Ritual

The house which is headquarters to Filhas d’Oxum is a basic two-story structure in Pelourinho, consisting of two front rooms, a balcony, a kitchen and dining area and a back patio. Behind the steps of the entry way is constructed a fount to Osun with some offerings. In an open area upstairs is a reception area which is the space from which much of the public/social and carnival activity is executed. When I met Rosangela at the headquarters of Filhos de Gandhi she came across as full of ideas but with a clear recognition that she was in an assistant role there. In the Filhas d’Oxum house she was in charge of operations - organizing the house itself, supervising the feeding of the community, supervising construction work, herself working as seamstress, cook, construction helper; making sure the people stayed on course. Always gracious, she offered food and gestures of friendship each time I visited.

So while in some of the community’s eyes this was still a sub group of Filhos de Gandhi, the relationship, in my view was more one of origins and some practical sharings for the protection of women in Carnival and the larger structures which one needs to mount a Carnival band. Without research one is unable to delineate the complex set of articulations that were being posited. A mother of five children, ranging from 18 to three years old, a wife as well, a former teacher who researched well her carnival representations, Rosangela Guimares was also a community cultural worker in the full sense, bridging in ways, unlike Filhos de Gandhi that space between service and commercial organization.

The House then is a location from which all emanates, it is here that ritual elements are prepared and rituals take place before making a public appearance. As in Candomblé ritual, there is a complex negotiation between the inner and outer space. The night of the first coming out for carnival, for example, a core of participants, each dressed like and embodied with the energy of an Òrìsà, spent time in the house preparing themselves for the external presence. Once they came out publicly, the group made its way with firecrackers popping as is done at certain points in Candomblé rituals (often signaling the presence of the Orixá) up the streets to the center of Pelourinho. There, in a circle at the crossroads, offerings were made (See photos) for the safe comportment of the group, protection from danger and an entreaty to the energies and especially exu to provide safe passage. That having been done, the Carnival display began, moving slowly towards Castro Alves Square and then further into the center of the city, striking iridescent yellow and gold.

The Carnival presentation then became a ritual space with the same play between inside and outside, a negotiation of public and private space, thresholds, a definable beginning in the public sense is the offering at the crossroads and a similarly definable closing. The fact that the dispatch occurred on the Thursday after Carnival is significant as well for it was outside Carnival space into the “lenten period” but within a definite other time sequence that does not accommodate itself to the Christian calendar.

The high point of the dispatch was the offering of flowers and food in bowls at the lakeside in Abaete, a traditional location for Osun and historically a place where other similar offerings have been made historically. Rosangela herself almost became transformed and embodied with the energy of the force of Òrìsà and entered the water as streams of people came in lines to have water poured on their heads. Possession was common in this event from participants in the group as from the public until Rosangela herself, overcome, on the occasion when I participated in the event, was led away by her assistants. An amazingly powerful ritual moment, the idea of community work and spirit work was bridged in this process.

Clearly, the re-presentation of women in the context of Carnival was one that sought to draw on traditional energy and power as identified in the female aspects of the Afro-Brazilian Yoruba cosmology and to relocate it in the Carnival context. Carnival then was not about display and dance and body only but the actual re-claiming of a certain ritual space, the mobility of traditional Òrìsà practice and the identification of a particular link with the community as identified in the feeding. The private/public negotiations, the carnival display itself which educates and the healing as identified in the water were also significant aspects of this re-presentation of the body of the culture of Afro-Brazilians. Further there was a movement from circumscribed space (Filhos de Ghandi headquarters where the idea and initial work began) to their own house and further from the house of Filhas d’Oxum to the streets; from the streets to the lake. A series of public gestures in terms of the ritual and the meaning of Oxum in Òrìsà tradition, Candomblé, Afro-Brazilian culture, African identity and its reinterpretations were effected. And in particular the ongoing representation of female identity in these contexts, consistently re-presented and performed a range of black female identities.

Despedidas - Post- Rosangela: Bahia, 2001

It was quite a shock for me to learn about a year ago that Rosangela Guimares had passed just before that year’s carnival. Some wondered whether Filhas d’Oxum would still come out after that major loss? Whether they would continue in the years ahead? What kind of honoring of her memory would be made? Unfortunately, I missed that carnival and have been able only to get sketchy details about what took place that year. I do know that the group did parade in 2000 as had been planned. And this year, (2001), I attended the carnival in Bahia to see, at least, how the Filhas would present publicly.

An interesting continuance of this research project would be to see what kind of transitions will be made in the years ahead in terms of gender, leadership and representation. My preliminary observations follow.

Significantly, Rosangela’s husband who once was the president of the powerful Filhos de Gandhi had been deposed from that office after a protracted power struggle. I went to the Filhas d’Oxum house just before the group came out and chatted with him briefly, expressing my condolences and indicating how important Rosangela had been to me when I was studying the group in Bahia. I had brought two copies of the book which contained my study initially for the library at Centro de Estudos Afro Asiaticios in Pelhourinho and took one to the Filhas house. We chatted briefly and I expressed condolences. He seemed a very sad person, attempting to manage Filhas d’Oxum, and in part to carry on the work that Rosangela had started. But things were markedly different. There was no bustle of women around the house as before on that evening. He and another man were putting the last touches of glitter to some props that were formed in the shape of fishes. It was as though all the life and energy had gone out of the house and the mood was still somber.

When the group did come out that night, it was without the initial excitement that had attended it previously. The various dancers who represented Orixás in prior carnivals were absent. The group was decidedly smaller (see Filhas d’Oxum photo gallery). Still when they paraded that night, they were a beautiful presence, still striking gold but more red of Iansa this time, and appropriately I suppose since Iansa is the Orixa of transformation, the guardian of the cemeteries. The group seemed decidedly younger too. Interestingly, Filhos de Gandhi were as powerful and as resplendent as ever (see photo gallery). An amazing showing as always of the white of Oxala and the blue of Yemanja and Ogun in Bahia overwhelming the Carnival streets with the presence of black men of all ages, types, appearances, all of its basic organizational and representational structures still firmly in place.

Perhaps, more importantly, the despedida (dispatch ceremony) which was normally the closing event of Filhas d’Oxum held in Lake Aabaete in which offerings to Oxum would be made, did not happen although we were told it would. My friend and research assistant in Bahia and I went to the lake only to find a few people walking around, some children in the water, but a marked absence of the presence, energy and vitality of the Oxum, and clearly an absence of the re-creation of the performative aspects of honoring Oxum, as existed in the days when Rosangela Guimares led Filhas d’Oxum.

References

Badejo, Diedre. Òsun Sèègèsí. The Elegant Deity of Wealth, Power and Femininity. Africa World Press, 1996.

Boyce Davies, Carole. “Transformational Discourses, Afro-Diaspora culture and the Literary imagination,” Macalester Internationl Special issue “Literature, the Creative Imagination and Globalizaton,” v. 3 (Spring, 1996): 199-224.

-----------------------. “Black Bodies, Carnivalised Bodies,”Border/Lines 34/35 (1994): 53-57.

Cacciatore, Olga Gudolle. Dicionario de Cultos Afro-Brasileiros. Rio de Janeiro: Forense Universitaria 1977.

Crowley, Daniel. Bahian Carnival Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, Monograph No. 25, 1984.

DaMatta, Roberto. Carnivals, Rogues, and Heroes. An Interpretation of the Brazilian Dilemma (London and Nmotre Dame, The University of Notre Dame Press, 1991).

Do Nascimento, Abdias. Brazil. Mixture or Massacre?Essays in the Genocide of a People. Dover, MA.: The Majority Press, 1989.

Dos Santos, Myrian Sepulveda. “Samba Schools: The Logic of Orgy and Blackness in Rio de Janeiro.” In Jean Rahier, ed., Representations of Blackness and the Performance of Identitites. Westport Conn.: Bergin and Garvey, 1999: 69-89.

Dunn, Christopher. “Afro-Bahian Carnival: A Stage for Protest,” Afro- Hispanic Review xi:1-3 (1992): 11-21.

Morales, Anamaria. “O afoxé filhos de Gandhi pede paz.” In Joao Jose Reis, Escrivadao e Invencão da Liberdade. Estudos Sobre of Negro no Brasil. Sao Paulo: Editor brasiliense, 1988, 264-274.

Risério. Antonio. Carnaval Ijexa Notas Sobre Afoxés e blocos do novo carnaval afrobaiano (Salvador, Corrupio, 1981).

Stam, Robert. Subversive Pleasures. Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism and Film (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989).

--------------. “Carnaval, Politics and Brazilian culture,” Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 7(1988): 255-263.

Verger, Pierre. “The Orishas of Bahia.” Os Deuses Africanos no Candomblé da Bahia/African Gods in the Candomblé of Bahia by Carybé (Salvador, Bigraf, 1993), 235-261.

Walker, Sheila S. “The Feast of Good Death: An Afro-Catholic Emancipation Celebration in Brazil.” Women in Africa and the African Diaspora. Ed. Rosalyn Terborg Penn and Andrea Benton Rushing. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1996: 203-214.

---------------. “The Bahian Carnival” and “Candomble: Spiritual Microcosm of Africa.”

Boyce Davies, Carole (2001). RE-/PRESENTING BLACK FEMALE IDENTITY IN BRAZIL:‘FILHAS D’OXUM’ IN BAHIA CARNIVAL. Ijele: Art eJournal of the African World: 2, 1.


	Dos Santos, Myrian Sepulveda. “Samba Schools: The Logic of Orgy and Blackness in Rio de Janeiro.” In Jean Rahier, ed., Representations of Blackness and the Performance of Identitites. Westport Conn.: Bergin and Garvey, 1999: 69-89.


	Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 7(1988): 255-263


	Robert Stam, Subversive Pleasures. Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism and Film (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989).


	Roberto DaMatta, Carnivals, Rogues, and Heroes. An Interpretation of the Brazilian Dilemma (London and Nmotre Dame, The University of Notre Dame Press, 1991).


	Notas Sobre Afoxés e blocos do novo carnaval afrobaiano (Salvador, Corrupio, 1981).


	Refers to the set of practices of African religion in Brasil, particularly those of Yoruba derivation. See Abdias do Nascimento, Brazil. Mixture or Massacre?


	Femi Euba in conversation with author in Quito, Ecuador at International Congress of Americanists in the context of the presentation of a related paper on ashé: “Spirit Work/Community Work: Ashé and Quilombisno in Contemporary Afro-Brazilian contexts provided this interpretation of the meaning of afoxé.


	See my “Transformational Discourses, Afro- Diaspora culture and the Literary imagination,” Macalester Internationl Special issue “Literature, the Creative Imagination and Globalizaton,” v. 3 (Spring, 1996): 199-224.


	by Olga Gudolle Cacciatore. Rio de Janeiro: Forense Universitaria 1977.


	Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, Monograph No. 25, 1984.


	by Anísio Félix (1st edition) Salvador - Bahia, Gráfica Central Ltda, 1987) I purchased my copy at the headquarters of the Filhos de Gandhi in Pelourinho.


	Based on work done for her Master’s Thesis which I examined at the library of the Federal University of Bahia, during my 1995 research period, this article appears in Joaõ José Reis, ed. Escravidão e Invencão da liberdade. Estudos Sobre o Negro no Brasil. São Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1988, pp. 264-274.


	Named after Mahatma Gandhi by longshoremen, filhos de Gandhi started the project of breaking through the contempt under which candomblé was held by deliberating working some of the iconography publicly under the cover of the “passive resistance an peace of Mahatma. See Anamaria Morales, “O afoxé filhos de Gandhi pede paz” in Joao Jose Reis, Escrivadao e Invencão da Liberdade. Estudos Sobre of Negro no Brasil. Sao Paulo: Editor brasiliense, 1988, 264- 274.


	See for example Diedre Badejo, Òsun Sèègèsí. The Elegant Deity of Wealth, Power and Femininity. Africa World Press, 1996.


	A more popular version of this in U.S. context could be The Million March, 1996, in Washington, D.C. which deliberately excluded women and the Million Woman March of l997 in Philadelphia, “the city of brotherly love.” Jonelle Davies repeatedly pointed out this connection to me. I thank her for this contribution.


	In Os Deuses Africanos no Candomblé da Bahia/African Gods in the Candomblé of Bahia by Carybé (Salvador, Bigraf, 1993), pp.235-261.

Ijele: Art eJournal of the African World (2001)

ISSN: 1525-447X