FRONTIERS AND OTHERNESS: EXU. LIVING OTHERNESS IN THE CANDOMBLE FROM RECIFE (BRASIL)

In the Candomble rituals, in Recife, Brasil, the frontiers between interior and exterior, female and male, adult and child, mineral, vegetal and animal, the sacred and the profane, are not means of separation but places for cultural exchanges. How to speak about otherness in this context? The supernatural being Exu, a messenger between humans and gods, attend to individual prayers and, as such, make possible the expression of desires that are both universal and specific and embody different forms of alterity. Making use of interviews, mythology, ritual analysis, mythanalysis and mythcriticism (Gilbert Durand) this paper tries to classify the diverse forms of ritual living otherness.