The playful didactics of Eshu

an approach to the exuberance of African-Brazilian culture as depicted in the comic album “AfroHQ”

Abstract

The article presents a brief approach to African-Brazilian culture through the comic “AfroHQ”. It discusses the issue of African-Brazilian identity since four themes in which it seems to gather many scenarios that, alongside the narrative, illustrate the symbiotic relationship between the Orishas and the history of blacks in Brazil: ancestry, slavery, resistance and contributions to the national culture. In the plot, Eshu, the Orisha of movement and transformation, plays a trick on other gods, provoking them to materialize scenarios that express the history and the influences of black on Brazilian soil. Each Orisha is responsible for exposing facts and images that somehow embody in history characteristics of the deities themselves. The text of the article includes notes about the mythology related to African-Brazilian deities.