It is the body that is possessed by the spirit!

Commentaries about the body in afro-brazilian religious trances

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present some theoretical and methodological reflections about the way the body has been conceived, felt and explained in the moment of African-Brazilian religious trances. The paper brings an empiric contribution in Casa de Fundamentos Ordem Iniciática do Cruzeiro Divino, which is in the city of São Paulo and it exists since 1960. This temple is one of the important points of Umbanda and it assembles many African-Brazilian religious leadership in its rituals. The theoretical analysis is based on anthropological studies, which the start is focused in classical texts from Marcel Mauss and the paper goes through the contemporary discusses of the theme. The contribution of this paper reveals that body has a symbolic-semiologist value which is structuring for the African-Brazilian religiosity and it establishes specific forms from relationship with the concepts of healthy and disease.