"This book presents a strongly argued thesis about the origins of Candomble that is radically different
from the usual interpretations presented so far about its origin and status. No serious scholar interested in the
process of the transmission of African culture to the Americas will be able to ignore this work."
--John K. Thornton, Boston University
"A major achievement. The Black Atlantic case expands and transforms our understanding of both nationalism
and transnationalism and offers a wealth of fascinating and little-known data. I am in awe of the extent of the
research and the complexity of the analysis."
--Sherry B. Ortner, University of California, Los Angeles
"A wide-ranging, strongly-argued, rewarding piece of work. The author's deep engagement with his human and
intellectual subjects nicely draws the reader into the unfolding story. The book will be a significant contribution
to the study of transnationalism. Indeed, it effectively closes the door on some tired but central debates in Afro-American
studies and points the way methodologically toward some of the directions research ought to take in the coming
years."
--Richard Price, author of First-Time, Alabi's World, and The Convict and The Colonel
Princeton University Press Web Site, January, 2006
Summary
Black Atlantic Religion illuminates the mutual transformation of African and African-American cultures, highlighting
the example of the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé religion. This book contests both the recent conviction that
transnationalism is new and the long-held supposition that African culture endures in the Americas only among the
poorest and most isolated of black populations. In fact, African culture in the Americas has most flourished among
the urban and the prosperous, who, through travel, commerce, and literacy, were well exposed to other cultures.
Their embrace of African religion is less a "survival," or inert residue of the African past, than a
strategic choice in their circum-Atlantic, multicultural world.
With counterparts in Nigeria, the Benin Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Trinidad, and the United States, Candomblé
is a religion of spirit possession, dance, healing, and blood sacrifice. Most surprising to those who imagine Candomblé
and other such religions as the products of anonymous folk memory is the fact that some of this religion's towering
leaders and priests have been either well-traveled writers or merchants, whose stake in African-inspired religion
was as much commercial as spiritual. Morever, they influenced Africa as much as Brazil. Thus, for centuries, Candomblé
and its counterparts have stood at the crux of enormous transnational forces.
Vividly combining history and ethnography, Matory spotlights a so-called "folk" religion defined not
by its closure or internal homogeneity but by the diversity of its connections to classes and places often far
away. Black Atlantic Religion sets a new standard for the study of transnationalism in its subaltern and often
ancient manifestations.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction Chapter One: The English Professors of Brazil On the Diasporic Roots of the Yorúbà Nation
Chapter Two: The Trans-Atlantic Nation
Rethinking Nations and Transnationalism
Chapter Three: Purity and Transnationalism
On the Transformation of Ritual in the Yorúbà-Atlantic Diaspora
Chapter Four: Candomblè's Newest Nation: Brazil
Chapter Five: Para Inglês Ver
Sex, Secrecy, and Scholarship in the Yorúbà-Atlantic World
Chapter Six: Man in the "City of Women"
Chapter Seven: Conclusion
The Afro-Atlantic Dialogue
Appendix A: Geechees and Gullahs
The Locus Classicus of African "Survivals" in the United States
Appendix B: The Origins of the Term "Jeje" Notes
Bibliography
Index