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What Gender are the Orishas?: An Incarnation of Yemanja in Salvador Da Bahia

2013; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

1556-5068

Cheryl Sterling,

African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues

In this paper, I specifically examine a public ritual of the orisha, Yemanja, during the festa de Iemanja in Salvador da Bahia, wherein Yemanja incarnates in the body of a male devotee. Hence, my questions pivot on the issues of gender and identity. In Yorubaland, it is said that a male can never incarnate Yemanja, as she is the essentialness of motherhood, so what does it mean for her to arrive in the body of this male in a diasporic incarnation? As a female orisha incarnating in a male body, is there some element of the sexual in this incarnation? Since the orisha “mounts” the head and shifts the incarnate orientation from the secular to the spiritual, to what extent does she change his orientation from male to female? In this re-orientation, does the initiate become a more femininely identified male, or does he manifest homosexual behaviors? What are the significant societal and cultural differences between Salvador and Yorubaland that account for the re-gendered manifestation of the orisha? Through the reading in this paper, spirituality becomes a heuristic tool, to underscore the changing modalities of lived experiences and the narratives of identities they generate.