Abstract: This paper is the result of an ethnographic research of about 7 years with an Esoteric Umbanda terreiro in the city of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. From this experience in front of, with and as a terreiro, surrounded by such a multiple cosmology and given to cosmic encounters, I propose a methodological reflection on the ethnographic practice in this context. Thus, I make considerations about time as a ritual agent in the terreiro and in writing and about the religious initiation process and the research initiation process that affect a neophyte-researcher. Learning from the terreiro how to learn, the objective was to make a research as the religious ritual sessions of Umbanda called gira, which emerges from the encounters between people, guides, mentors, in short, an encounter with ancestry.
Keywords:
umbanda; autoethnography; methodological reflections