article
Untimely Gods and French Perfume: ritual, rules and deviance in the Brazilian Candomblé
Folk • 29 • Published In 1987 • Pages: 5-22
By: Sjørslev, Inger.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
The focus of this paper is on ritual as a collective expression of experience, and trance related to individual experience expressed in collective form. The author's interpretation of the events described in the text is inspired by ideas related to the anthropology of experience as noted in the works of Victor Turner and Edward M. Bruner and further supplemented by the concepts of 'framing' and 'keying' suggested by Erving Goffman. 'The anthropology of experience …deals with how individuals actually experience their culture, that is how events are received by consciousness, implying not only cognition but also feelings and expectations' (p. 6). In this study the author describes two different examples of spirit possession experienced by mediums in the CONDOMBLE ritual and the way in which each in turn deviated from the expected 'text' of the ritual performance. In Sjorslev's analysis of this behavior she attempts to form a link between. on one hand, the generally accepted collective expectations of the ritual performance and, on the other hand, the individual experience and reaction to a ritual situation (p.6).
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Theoretical orientation in research and its results
- Spirits and gods
- Revelation and divination
- Magicians and diviners
- Organized ceremonial
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Bahia Brazilians
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 1999
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- South America
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Eastern South America
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- EvaluationIn this alphanumeric code, the first part designates the type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on. The second part is a ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- Ethnologist-5
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- John Beierle; 1998
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1980-1981
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1980-1986
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Cachoeira, Bahia, Brazil; Bahia, Brazil
- NotesAdditional notes
- Inger Sjørslev
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 21-22)
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Bahia (Brazil : State)