Mãe Menininha do Gantois: ialorixás, settlements, and the sacred geography of Candomblé in Bahia

Abstract

The previously unpublished interview with Mãe Menininha do Gantois, conducted in 1972 to mark her 50th anniversary as an ialorixá at Terreiro do Gantois, is now being published for the first time, offering a valuable record of Candomblé’s memory and tradition. In 2022, I was entrusted with analyzing these materials at the LLILAS Benson Rare Archive at the University of Texas at Austin while working as an archival processor at the Benson Special Collections. The recording was part of the unprocessed collection of Gerard Béhague, an ethnomusicologist and former professor at the university, who conducted the interview. Originally stored on reeltoreel audio tape, the recording had never been published and contained distortions that made it difficult to identify some participants. To enable its publication, a careful editing process was undertaken to ensure clarity and accuracy, particularly in the transcription of Yoruba terms and personal names. Mãe Menininha do Gantois's interview captures her journey, the lineage of the ialorixás of Gantois, the pivotal role of Black women in preserving Candomblé traditions, and the sacred geography shaped by Candomblé terreiros in Salvador. Her account maps an “affective cartography” of Salvador between the 19th and 20th centuries, recovering memories and knowledge that precede and continue to shape contemporary social dynamics. These cartographies reconstruct narratives from the perspectives of those who have long inhabited and transformed these spaces, reaffirming ancestry as a foundational structure and highlighting the centrality of Black territories in the city's history. The ways of living and being of Black and Indigenous people reveal an "anteriority" that predates European colonization, manifesting not as a distant past, but as a living continuity that reconfigures the present and envisions futures rooted in ancestral knowledge.