The details of encounters between religious groups in multireligious African contexts and the intricacies of living, belonging, and identifying within such milieux have hardly been explored. In Yorùbáland, the cultural region of the Yorùbá people—and the geographic context of this thesis—the fine grain and vast array of possibilities of interreligious encounter between Christians, Muslims, and adherents of African Indigenous Religions remains largely undocumented in terms of detailed, quality accounts. While most regions of West Africa and even Nigeria exist with a dominant religious tradition, Yorùbáland is a microcosm of the wider region’s multireligious composition, with Christianity, Islam, and African Indigenous Religions all playing prominent roles. The Yorùbá ‘spirit of accommodation’, a phrase often used to describe how Yorùbá culture not only tolerates, but also embeds and synthesises the religious ‘Other’, has created a unique multireligious environ and is undoubtedly one of the optimum contexts in the world to study interreligious encounter within a single ethnolinguistic area. Comprised of fieldwork and research conducted from 2009-2014, this thesis works toward addressing the aforementioned gap in scholarship with two ethnographic case studies of people who simultaneously belong and/or identify with multiple religious groups and traditions in the predominantly Yorùbá city of Ogbómòsó, Nigeria. The first case study examines a new religious group known as the Ogbómòsó Society of Chrislam (OSC). Interreligious encounter in this instance features a group that intentionally combines elements from Christian, Muslim, and indigenous Yorùbá religious traditions, creating dynamic examples of multiple religious belongings and identities. The second case study examines multiple religious belonging and identity at the annual Ogbómòsó Egúngún festival. Interreligious encounter in this instance features 12 individual narrative accounts focusing on each individual’s religious belonging and identity throughout key points in their life. Beyond its important ethnographical contributions, the thesis offers methodological and theoretical insight into approaching religious belonging and identity as complex and fluid processes, rather than static and singular events. It argues that approaches that only allow for the possibility of classifying people in single, discrete categories masks the varied, dynamic, and complex belongings and identities of people in the lived world, many of who live across and within multiple religious groups and traditions.

Tendo como foco a religião, a cultura negra é estudada em dois momentos: em África e no Brasil. Em África, considerando o período entre os séculos XII e XVI, realizamos uma síntese abrangendo, aspectos geográficos, históricos, políticos, econômicos e de organização social, relativa à África Bantu e a África Ocidental, caracterizando o cotidiano, a ideologia humanista e aspectos significativos da religião e magia. Numa perspectiva interpretativa e dinâmica, analisamos a vida e a morte como processo cultural, onde os ritos estão presentes no dia-a-dia e marcam, sobretudo, os momentos importantes da vida individual e coletiva, na dimensão material e espiritual. A interpenetração de culturas embasa nosso pressuposto de unidade na diversidade e diversidade na unidade. No Brasil, tratamos da religião trasladada e da religião reelaborada. De maneira resumida caracterizamos o cenário europeu entre os séculos XVI e XIX, para situar o tráfico de escravos e a ideologia do colonizador no mesmo período. xi Apoiados no conceito de reinterpretação, verificamos as religiões dos negros no novo ambiente, buscando o início e o desenvolvimento de uma forma específica: o Candomblé. No Candomblé como sistema religioso, apesar da aparente dicotomia (rito nàgó e rito bantu), procuramos caracterizá-lo como uma manifestação da cultura negra, como bloco, em oposição à branca, evidenciando a contradição vivida pelos adeptos que se inserem na ideologia ocidental e praticam ritos sustentados pela visão de mundo negro-africana tradicional. Numa abordagem de antropologia interpretativa, utilizamos os rudimentos da teoria da relatividade mas, preocupamo-nos também, em inserir o trabalho numa perspectiva de antropologia estética. / Negro culture is studied over two different periods in two distinct locations, firstly in Africa and then in Brazil. In Africa, the main period considered is between the XII and XVI centuries. We synthesized several topics such as geography, history, politics, economy and social organization pertaining to Bantu Africa and West Africa. This context is used to describe daily life, human ideology and significant aspects of magic and religion. Using a dynamic and an interpretative perspective, we analyzed life and death as a cultural process. Also emphasized are the daily rituals and other customs marking important events in individual and communal life, from both a spiritual and a material dimension. Our interpretation of cultures supports our presupposition of unity though diversity and diversity through unity In Brazil, we focused on the transferred religion and its evolution. In a summarized fashion, we characterize the European scenario in between the XVI and XIX centuries. This helps us put into context the slave trade and the ideology of the colonizers during this time. xiii Supported by the concept of reinterpretation, we address the religion of these Africans in their new environment, and search for the beginnings and evolution of a specific system of religion called Candomblé. In spite of a dichotomy between the Nàgó and Bantu rites, we characterize Candomblé as a unified manifestation of Negro culture, and as a form of opposition to the White religion. We also reveal the contradiction experienced by the Candomblé adepts, who were inserted into Western ideology yet continue to practice rites sustained by a traditional African vision of the world. In our interpretative anthropology approach, we utilized the rudiments of relativity theory, and also strived to insert our work within the perspective of esthetic anthropology.

Tendo como foco a religião, a cultura negra é estudada em dois momentos: em África e no Brasil. Em África, considerando o período entre os séculos XII e XVI, realizamos uma síntese abrangendo, aspectos geográficos, históricos, políticos, econômicos e de organização social, relativa à África Bantu e a África Ocidental, caracterizando o cotidiano, a ideologia humanista e aspectos significativos da religião e magia. Numa perspectiva interpretativa e dinâmica, analisamos a vida e a morte como processo cultural, onde os ritos estão presentes no dia-a-dia e marcam, sobretudo, os momentos importantes da vida individual e coletiva, na dimensão material e espiritual. A interpenetração de culturas embasa nosso pressuposto de unidade na diversidade e diversidade na unidade. No Brasil, tratamos da religião trasladada e da religião reelaborada. De maneira resumida caracterizamos o cenário europeu entre os séculos XVI e XIX, para situar o tráfico de escravos e a ideologia do colonizador no mesmo período. xi Apoiados no conceito de reinterpretação, verificamos as religiões dos negros no novo ambiente, buscando o início e o desenvolvimento de uma forma específica: o Candomblé. No Candomblé como sistema religioso, apesar da aparente dicotomia (rito nàgó e rito bantu), procuramos caracterizá-lo como uma manifestação da cultura negra, como bloco, em oposição à branca, evidenciando a contradição vivida pelos adeptos que se inserem na ideologia ocidental e praticam ritos sustentados pela visão de mundo negro-africana tradicional. Numa abordagem de antropologia interpretativa, utilizamos os rudimentos da teoria da relatividade mas, preocupamo-nos também, em inserir o trabalho numa perspectiva de antropologia estética. / Negro culture is studied over two different periods in two distinct locations, firstly in Africa and then in Brazil. In Africa, the main period considered is between the XII and XVI centuries. We synthesized several topics such as geography, history, politics, economy and social organization pertaining to Bantu Africa and West Africa. This context is used to describe daily life, human ideology and significant aspects of magic and religion. Using a dynamic and an interpretative perspective, we analyzed life and death as a cultural process. Also emphasized are the daily rituals and other customs marking important events in individual and communal life, from both a spiritual and a material dimension. Our interpretation of cultures supports our presupposition of unity though diversity and diversity through unity In Brazil, we focused on the transferred religion and its evolution. In a summarized fashion, we characterize the European scenario in between the XVI and XIX centuries. This helps us put into context the slave trade and the ideology of the colonizers during this time. xiii Supported by the concept of reinterpretation, we address the religion of these Africans in their new environment, and search for the beginnings and evolution of a specific system of religion called Candomblé. In spite of a dichotomy between the Nàgó and Bantu rites, we characterize Candomblé as a unified manifestation of Negro culture, and as a form of opposition to the White religion. We also reveal the contradiction experienced by the Candomblé adepts, who were inserted into Western ideology yet continue to practice rites sustained by a traditional African vision of the world. In our interpretative anthropology approach, we utilized the rudiments of relativity theory, and also strived to insert our work within the perspective of esthetic anthropology.