Exu

Lapa. It is something like the season of Exu in Augusta's house of Candomblé right now. Exu is the orixá that is the guardian of houses and temples and the intermediary between humans and the orixás. Various individuals are visiting and going through rituals involving him.

One of the most interesting things about Exu, is that the yearly ritual is only for people who are initiated into Candomblé. The ceremony involves ridding yourself of bad energy, but to uninitiated eyes it apparently can lead people to make erroneous assumption like the Catholic church made centuries ago. Indeed, this issue of access to rituals is where the scholarly study of religion is challenged. We must resolve that it is not entirely neccessary to know the 'secrets' of a religion to complete a thorough academic study and that to divulge the secrets would be unethical as a researcher. But still I wonder what I am missing as a very curious human being.

Lucas and I saw an exhibit representing offerings to Exu. He is represented by red and black and was associated with the devil by the Catholic church. We took a few pictures. Lucas also recently performed the ritual.