This is the catalogue of ritual objects related to the Yoruba deity Xangô (written Changó in Cuba) in the collection of the Museu do Estado de Pernambuco in Recife. The 307 works are placed in the following categories: sculptures of orishas (deities) in polychromatic wood; wooden and plaster sculptures with the image of the Virgin Mary and of Catholic saints; musical instruments; ritual clothing; ritual objects (fans, crowns, metal armbands and bracelets, rams’ horns, bull tail brushes, bows, arrows, darts, and axes); furniture (ritual benches); pamphlets; recipes for potions; and handwritten manuscripts. The catalogue text is by anthropologist and museologist Raul Lody and the introduction is by Marluce Câmara Azevedo, who provides a history of the museum starting with its origin in 1940; the volume is illustrated with ninety-seven black and white photographs.

In this text, anthropologist and museologist Raul Lody underscores the rarity and uniqueness of the works in the Museu do Estado de Pernambuco (MEP) collection, knowing that many works of this sort are not found in the terreiros where Xangô (the warrior syncretized as Saint George) is worshipped. The collection shows techniques, forms, and uses related to Xangô in Recife, capital of the state of Pernambuco. Many ritual objects had been seized as part of the systematic persecution of Afro-Brazilian religions and rites during the Estado Novo under Getúlio Dornelles Vargas, which while in power in the thirties and forties, engaged in censorship and political repression. In Lody’s view, the collection does not establish hierarchies between the objects it contains. Each work has value because of its function; it has a content of its own that demonstrates its use and representation. 

For further reading, see “Coleção Arthur Ramos” (ICAA digital archive doc. no. 1110525), “Coleção culto afro-Brasileiro: um documento do candomblé na cidade do Salvador” (doc. no. 1110527), “Dezoito esculturas antropomorfas de orixás” (doc. no. 1110529), “Símbolo do mando” (doc. no. 1110531), and “Yorubá: um estudo etno-tecnológico de 50 peças da coleção arte africana do Museu Nacional de Belas-Artes” (doc. no. 1110532), all by Raul Lody; “Catálogo ilustrado da Coleção Perseverança” (doc. no. 1110522) and “Religiosidade africana no Brasil; Arte afro-brasilidade” (doc. no. 1110519) by Abelardo Duarte; “Cosmologias e altares” (doc. no. 1110528) and “Geopolítica da mestiçagem” (doc. no. 1111371) by Maria Lúcia Montes; “Para nunca esquecer. Negras memórias. Memórias de negros” (doc. no. 1110530) put out by the Museu Histórico Nacional; “Catálogo do Museu Afro Brasileiro” (doc. no. 1110521) by Jocélio Teles dos Santos; “Arte religiosa afro-brasileira. As múltiplas estéticas da devoção brasileira” (doc. no. 1110520) by Vagner Gonçalves da Silva; “Catálogo ilustrado do Museu Folclórico” (doc. no. 1110523) by Oneyda Alvarenga; and “A coleção etnográfica de cultura religiosa afro-brasileira do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia da Universidade de São Paulo” (doc. no. 1110533) by Rita Amaral.