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University of California Press

Holy Harlots

Femininity, Sexuality, and Black Magic in Brazil
by Kelly E. Hayes (Author)
Paperback eBook
Price: $43.95 / £37.00
Publication Date: May 2011
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 312
ISBN: 9780520262652
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 18 b/w photographs
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About the Book

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.

About the Author

Kelly E. Hayes is Associate Professor of Religion at Indiana University.

Reviews

“A book outside of the box that will evoke the Pomba Gira in all its readers.”
— Nacla/Report On The Americas
“A clearly written and exciting book, filled with major insights, which will inspire further scholarship.”
— Missiology
"Holy Harlots is an engaging and much needed exploration of the Queen of the Catacombs and the Lady of the Raggedy Skirt..."
— Western Folklore
"Another route less taken has been that of in-depth ethnographic vignettes and storytelling as a means to document the effects of spirits and gods in the lives of ordinary people. This is what Kelly Haynes achieves masterfully in Holy Harlots, her book on Pomba Gira spirits and mediums in Rio de Janeiro."
— Book and Film Reviews
"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