Word: bahian
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Most characteristic of Bahian art were wrought-iron figures of the dread god Exú, pronounced eh-shoe (see color page). As with other Bahian folk figures, Exú suffered a sea change in being transplanted from Africa. Among other things, he acquired the horns and trident of the Christian devil, and a wife (to keep him more content). Exú's power for death and destruction is unquestioned by thousands of believers, who rarely refer to him by name. They call him simply O Compadre (The Companion...
...Devilmaker. In general, Bahian art is the product of humble and nameless artisans. But so potent is Exú that even making his image is rarely undertaken except by direct appointment by the Orixás (gods). Top Bahian devilmaker today is Reginaldo Andrade Costa, 28, a part-time garage mechanic who agreed to make them only when a regal candomblé priestess known as a mãe do santo (mother of the saint) explained that the iron figures were harmless until "blessed." His raw material is scrap iron, but Costa's crudely formed statuettes are striking embodiments...
...Bahia state. Disguised as an Arabian sheik, he was tossing ice cubes and confetti, brawling in nightclubs, when he spotted eye-filling (Miss Bahia, 1958) Ana Maria right on Salvador's main stem. Baby stopped, whistled, shouted, "Hey, beautiful!" But Ana Maria, blue-blooded daughter of a wealthy Bahian cattle rancher, industrialist and political potentate, sniffed: "Impertinent and presumptuous...
...Amazon. In order to show their prospective customers that some work is actually progressing, they send out an American engineer and a young college student to make a preliminary survey. But the plane in which the two are travelling crashes, and the student, after a delirious conversation with a Bahian sea goddess, finally dies. What all this means, and indeed whether the other survivers ever get out of the jungle, never becomes clear...