An Exu to call my own: narratives of the religious path of Pai Paulinho de Odé

Abstract

This article is inserted in the Afro-Brazilian memory and religiosity field. The empirical object of the study is the religious trajectory of Pai Paulinho de Odé in Umbanda, a spiritual leader of the Terreiro “Ilê de Odé Tolobum Beociomi”, in the city of Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Based on interviews with Pai Paulinho, we analyzed his experiences in religion in dialogue with the bibliography, which serves as theoretical-methodolo-gical support. The research has a qualitative nature and the interviews followed the methodological protocol used in studies related to Oral History. We approach Pai Paulinho’s life story: his birth, his childhood living at the Terreiro, the first time he received a spiritual entity and the importance that the dream had on his permanence in religion. The text concludes on the extreme centrality and structuring presence of the Exu and the matrifocality of family and religious experiences.