Legba in Brazil - Continuities and Transformations of a Deity

Abstract

In this article I present the transformations and continuities in the cult of Legba in Brazil, an African entity of Fon- Ewe origin, paying special attention to its practice in the Maranhense mine drum. I start from the process of reinterpretation made by the Europeans of this entity in Africa and how this process was extended to Brazil during the African Diaspora caused by slavery. My central argument is that the extension of this process of exchanges to the Americas acquired new interlocutors and even greater complexity, affecting the various systems in contact. While, on one hand, the work of compulsory conversion led to the demonization of Legba, on the other, certain characteristics of Legba made possible an absorption of Catholicism in accordance with the cosmological principles of the African mythology of origin.