Ferretti, Bastide, syncretism and the Casa das Minas cult house

Abstract

This article is a contribution to the history of anthropology of Afro-Brazilian religions. It focuses on Roger Bastide’s and Sérgio Ferretti’s contradictory thematisations of syncretism and of their approach to the Casa das Minas cult house (São Luís, MA). I begin by presenting the main aspects of Bastide’s reflection on the two topics, and then focus on Ferretti’s criticisms of the French anthropologist and sociologist. One of Ferretti´s criticisms is dominated by the critique of the famous “principe de coupure” defended by Bastide. The other has to do with Bastide’s approach to Casa das Minas, presented as the most African cult house in Brazil, where syncretism was irrelevant. I then examine the bibliographical supports Bastide use to defend his point of view. In the conclusion, I return to Sérgio Ferretti in order to better situate his importance in the anthropology of Afro-Brazilian religions in the 1990s.