One hundred years ago in Brazil the rituals of Candomblé were feared as
sorcery and persecuted as crime. Its cult objects were fearsome
fetishes. Nowadays, they are Afro-Brazilian cultural works of art,
objects of museum display and public monuments. Focusing on the
particular histories of objects, images, spaces and persons who embodied
it, this book portrays the historical journey from weapons of sorcery
looted by the police, to hidden living stones, to public works of art
attacked by religious fanatics that see them as images of the Devil,
former sorcerers who have become artists, writers, and philosophers.
Addressing this history as a journey of objectification and
appropriation, the author offers a fresh, unconventional, and
illuminating look at questions of syncretism, hybridity and cultural
resistance in Brazil and in the Black Atlantic in general.