Holy Harlots examines the intersections of social marginality, morality, and magic in contemporary Brazil by analyzing the beliefs and religious practices related to the Afro-Brazilian spirit entity Pomba Gira. Said to be the disembodied spirit of an unruly harlot, Pomba Gira is a controversial figure in Brazil. Devotees maintain that Pomba Gira possesses an intimate knowledge of human affairs and the mystical power to intervene in the human world. Others view this entity more ambivalently. Kelly E. Hayes provides an intimate and engaging account of the intricate relationship between Pomba Gira and one of her devotees, Nazaré da Silva. Combining Nazaré’s spiritual biography with analysis of the gender politics and violence that shapes life on the periphery of Rio de Janeiro, Hayes highlights Pomba Gira’s role in the rivalries, relationships, and struggles of everyday life in urban Brazil.
The accompanying film
Slaves of the Saints may be viewed online at
ucpress.edu/go/holyharlots.
Kelly E. Hayes is Assistant Professor of Religion at Indiana University.
"An enthralling account of the spirits of the street, whose stories are as complex as those of their human hosts. Long ignored both by governments and by scholars, here these spirits and persons finally acquire full rights to a rich representation. There is no book quite like it." —Paul Christopher Johnson, author of Secrets, Gossip and Gods: The Transformation of Brazilian Candomblé and Diaspora Conversions: Black Carib Religion and the Recovery of Africa
"Hayes constructs a cogent and passionate account that masterfully weaves the daily struggles, hopes, and resilience of women living in a favela with keen, unassuming, and often witty insights about fieldwork and the ethnographic encounter." —Raquel Romberg, author of Healing Dramas: Divination and Magic in Modern Puerto Rico
312 pp.6 x 9Illus: 18 b/w photographs
9780520262652$43.95|£37.00Paper
May 2011