IT IS SAINT’S QUIZILA: study on food interdictions na angolan candomblé and Food and Nutrition Security
Food Taboo. Food and Nutrition Security. Religion. Cultural Diversity. African Continental Ancestry Group. Racism.
The study aims to contribute to the comprehension of the meanings of food interdictions, quizila, in the eating experiences of African descendants of Candomblé and articulation of their principles with food and nutritional security. This is a study with a qualitative approach as a case study, conducted in a candomblé house (terreiro) of cultural tradition Angolan-Bantu located in the metropolitan region of Salvador-Bahia-Brasil. The field research was based on semi-structured interviews directed to African descendants of Candomblé, in addition to field observations. For the analysis of the empirical material, it was used procedures of content analysis and comprehensive approach. The study showed that the meanings of quizila permeate all the food living within the logic that reconciles with a worldview in which elements such as ancestry and the notion of immateriality transversalize the food relations. Quizila appear more incisively on the bodies of the adherents through their efficacy, marking the agency of the nkisi, ancestral entities, in the adherents and also in the food dynamics. Through the uniqueness of the quizila, relevant elements are outlined to think about the Food and Nutritional Security of the peoples of African religions in a way that goes beyond the notion of food as matter (physical element) and as a symbolic element, is also inserted in consonance with the notion of vital force, of the balance between the material and immaterial world. The quizila reinforce the conception of food dressed in other agencies and inserted in other relations with humans, with the environment and the universe that differs substantially from the meaning of food in the official discourses of public health and food policies. Food in the candomblé house (terreiro) investigated assumes the dimensions connected with an African worldview that survives the African diaspora in the colonial spaces within which religious worship is the great foundation of the re-existing symbolic framework for the diaspora.