Abstract
This article addresses how the practitioners of jarê, an African-based religion that exists only in the Chapada Diamantina - a region of steep cliffs in the heart of the state of Bahia, northeast Brazil -, conceptualize death. The theme connects in complex ways with the history and the geography of the area, which has, for over a century, gravitated entirely around diamond prospecting activities. Jarê develops a sort of “telluric metaphysics” according to which the ground, the earth and the act of walking are interwoven into situations of life and death that are ritually elaborated during ceremonies. Jarê affirms that the life force of every person is conceived as an unstable and directable flux, the lability of which is processed according to differences in the concentration of energy as effected by ritual actions that can result in the death of participants.
Keywords:
Afro-Brazilian religion; Jarê; Anthropology of religion; Anthropology of death; Afro-Brazilian peoples