Encruzilhadas da cultura: imagens de Exus e Pombajiras na Umbanda

Abstract

This work intends to be a contribution for Brazilian afro descendent sacred arts studies, an area which is not much explored yet. I intend to deepen in the subtle and complex world in which the Umbanda Exus and Pombajiras religious sculptures are inserted. All the route covered by those images that represent those entities is surrounded by a immaterial halfpart linked to its religious mythical environment and affection in an undividable way. Usually generated by a conjunction between the oniric and the invisible, Exus and Pombajiras images gain their morphology due to a creative collective process and, when realized in material world, they play their primordial sacred function at homes and terreiros (Umbanda religious temples). Devilishment process, a visual fact that is identified in sculpture representations of those entities, hides symbolic content which goes beyond the ordinary association between Exu and devil. These Umbanda cult characters and its imagetical representations are connected to several cultural factors and contemporaneous, archaic and mythical religious legacy, which can be perceived on the icons that represent them, when submerged in its religious symbolism