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Here, the religion of Candomblé is described. Candomblé is presented as a relatively stable system of meanings and practices. Johnson maps out the contour lines along which variations occur, the semiotic system linking historically disparate groups of practice. The key vectors of signification described include: (1) the orixás (orishas) and the digestive metaphor of exchange, (2) Africa, “Africa” and Afro‐Brazil, (3) gender and spirit possession, (4) axé and the terreiro, and (5) Candomblé in the context of a broader Brazilian religious field of spirit‐possession religions.

The prologue launches the book with two anecdotes experienced by the author engaging with African and Hindu spirit mediums, which introduce the reader to the practice of trance performance as well as the local traditions of spirit mediumship in Trinidad focused upon here: Orisha Worship and Shakti Puja. The notion of ecstasy used throughout is also introduced.

This chapter focuses upon Shango as a popular Afro-Creole tradition, considering its social organization, ritual structure, and complex pantheon, as well as its symbolism, material culture, and patterns of performance. It emphasizes the personal flexibility and on-the-ground dynamism of Orisha Worship as a subaltern religious form, probing its overlapping and complex interrelations with Christianity, Spiritual Baptism, Kabba, and Hinduism.

This chapter discusses the Creator Gods, Obatala and Oduduwa, as they are worshipped in Africa and Cuba. The Obatala is the oldest and most important orisha in the Yoruba pantheon and is one of the few gods that is known to all Yoruba-speaking people and their neighbors. The Oduduwa, on the other hand, is worshiped throughout Yorubaland and have contradictory myths and traditions regarding the divinity's gender and character.

The chapter discusses how the Christian perception of sacrifice has affected Afro-American religions, in particular the Cuban Orisha religion in the USA (formerly called Santerìa) and Candomblé in Brazil. Many Afro-American religions require from their devotees offerings for the deities (ebó) as part of their regular rituals but also to ensure special requests for protection or support. The most controversial form of offering is the blood sacrifice, the ritual slaughter of animals, which became, as the chapter argues, the symbol of the paradigmatic other. The chapter shows how the misconceptions about animal sacrifice, in particular when transferred in a different cultural context and imposed by visual impressions, are used to enforce boundaries between religions.

This chapter begins by introducing the descriptive notation employed throughout this study. It then compares the author’s choices concerning pitch, timbre, rhythm, terminology, and other musical concepts with those of other scholars, and examines some of the difficulties in depicting these musical sounds and concepts. Two views of the batá repertoire are considered, the first of which divides all toques into two categories: those that typically appear in the oro igbodú; and all remaining toques. The second approach views the repertoire as a continuum, at one end of which are toques that reference Lucumí chants and songs, and which are generally dedicated to an individual orisha. Further along the continuum exist toques generally described as generic, but which retain a latent association with one or more orishas.

This chapter examines several aspects of batá pedagogy, focusing on the role of non-lexical verbal communication, the spatial relationships among the performers, and the micro- and macrostructures of the musical system. First, it examines the relationship between the okónkolo and the iyá, and draws on the associations between the okónkolo and mythology of the orisha Eleguá. The chapter then examines the macrostructure of the musical system, comparing the order in which toques are invariably played during the oro igbodú to the mythological stories of the warriors Eleguá, Ogún, and Ochosi. It is shown that many of the skills developed on the okónkolo are vital to learning the itótele. After these are examined, the chapter discusses the role of spatial relationships between the performers and the microstructure of the musical system simultaneously to illustrate the communication between the iyá and the itótele.

This chapter engages the pioneering work of Pierre Verger, who undertook the first intensive comparison of Yoruba orisha worship in West Africa and Brazil, by examining the sociopolitical dimensions of orisha cult organization and change in two Ekiti Yoruba kingdoms. Comparison of the politico-ritual configurations of decentralized Ishan kingdom with those of centralized Ayede kingdom, and their very different historical transformations from circa 1845 to the present, reveals political segmentation, not "family" or lineage, as the dominant principle of cult organization, even if it is cast within lineage ideology. The orisha cult “clustering” which thus occurs in the Ekiti Yoruba highlands, a ritual characteristic which Verger attributes to innovation in Brazilian Candomblé, suggests that West African orisha worship is closer to its New World manifestations than has generally been acknowledged.

The epilogue examines the 2011 human rights march in Buenos Aires on the National Day of Memory for Truth and Justice (Día Nacional de la Memoria por la Verdad y la Justicia), the anniversary of the start of the last military dictatorship (1976–83). It analyzes the author’s participation with Oduduwá Danza Afroamericana (Oduduwá Afro-American Dance), a group that brought together scores of volunteers to perform choreography based in Orishá dance. Orishá dance’s Yoruban origins and connection to the African diaspora made it an unexpected addition to the demonstration given the construction of Argentina as exceptionally white among Latin American nations. The group strove to connect Orishá dance’s link to the violence of the trans-Atlantic slave trade with Argentina’s history of political disappearance, as well as the country’s own violence against Afro-Argentines. Oduduwá’s project reiterates the importance of dance as both a political practice and one linked to memory.

Chapter 1, Historicizing Hips, introduces the factors that set up a market for mulatas. The nineteenth century particularly set into circulation a rich banquet of mulata signifiers which came out of the libidinal economies existing within plantations but not exclusively occurring within them. This chapter highlights the different social, historical and cultural factors that consolidated the mulata iconography into the twentieth century.

This essay proposes that Marta Moreno Vega’s 2004 memoir, When the Spirits Dance Mambo, is a Latina feminist narrative that foregrounds African diaspora worldviews, thought, forms, and practices as resources for cultivating a path toward decoloniality. In this memoir, Abuela’s spiritual leadership and her introduction of the young Cotito into the practice of Espiritismo become a central prism through which Cotito innovatively apprehends the links between sacred and secular realms in the burgeoning mambo and salsa music scene of New York. Even more importantly, her engagement with this diasporan worldview allows Cotito to critically apprehend prevailing gender norms and their limitations. This essay, therefore, argues that an Afro-Latina feminism emerges in this memoir from the practice of embodied spirituality that also has sonic, aesthetic, and social dimensions in everyday life.