Reciprocity of the Living and the Dead: Sacrifices and Possession in Afrogenic Traditions

Abstract

The article tackles the spiritual possession and sacrifices in Afrogenic traditions, mainly in Palo Monte and Santeria. It also examines the rites and phenomenology of Voodoo and the Creole spiritualism. I consider possession practices (the incorporation of the spirit) and sacrifices in the context of the reciprocal subjectivity of people and spirits in order to locate the sacred logic of exchange unifying both types of activity. Sacrifices and possession rituals bestow and empower spirits and worshipers mutually. The existence of people is associated with the development of spirits of the dead and regulated through the possession practice, the arrangement of ritual assemblies and their strengthening with the substances of sacrificial animals. By interpreting the logic of possession through the notions of embodiment, becoming, intension, and assemblage, I outline the post-structural frontiers of the Afrogenic sacredness and draft the ways of convergence with concepts of perspectivism and some problems related to these approaches.