The anthropologist and museologist Raul Lody writes about the ceremonial scepters that are used on special occasions as well as in everyday activities, including: celebrations, religious rituals, consecrations, initiation rites, planting and harvest festivals, dances, and theatrical events. These artifacts can be found in shrines to local heroes, figure in creation myths, and are used by deified kings, gods of agriculture, and ancestral figures who watch over law and order and social customs. Lody’s essay provides no information concerning how the collection was assembled; nor does it indicate whether the pieces were confiscated by the police from temples devoted to Afro-Brazilian religious cult worship. Many objects of this nature were donated to museums in Brazilian state capitals, such as Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Maceió, and Recife.
Raul Lody (b. 1952) published a number of studies on this subject, including Vinte e um bastões cerimoniais [21 ceremonial scepters] (Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional, 1990); “Dezoito esculturas antropomorfas de orixás”[see doc. no. 1110529]; and others that were more focused on the theme such as “Yorubá: um estudo etno-tecnológico de 50 peças da coleção arte africana do Museu Nacional de Belas-Artes” [doc. no. 1110532]; and “Coleção Arthur Ramos” [doc. no. 1110525].
Other published articles and studies on this subject by noted specialists that have already been filed in the ICAA digital archive include: Catálogo ilustrado do Museu Folclórico, by Oneyda Alvarenga [doc. no. 1110523]; Cosmologias e altares, by Maria Lúcia Montes [doc. no. 1110528]; Cem anos de arte afro-brasileira, by Marta Heloísa Salum [doc. no. 1110524]; Para nunca esquecer. Negras memórias. Memórias de negros,published by the Museu Histórico Nacional [doc. no. 1110530]; and Catálogo do Museu Afro Brasileiro, by Jocélio Teles dos Santos [doc. no. 1110521]. (4)
