Axé, corporal practices, and Aids in Africanist religions in Recife, Brazil

This article analyzes the responses of Afro-Brazilian religions to the Aids epidemic in Recife, taking into consideration the religious symbolic structure. Drawing on participant observation and in-depth interviews conducted with Afro-Brazilian religious leaders and public health officials, it highlights the importance of "axé" _ the native category used to interpret corporal events _ in order to understand the history of Aids in this religious community. Axé is mystical energy, corporal vitality. It is manipulated in religious rituals and is symbolically associated with blood, perspiration and semen. In these times of HIV, the body scarification rituals and exchanges of fluids during sexual exchanges are the ways by which axé circulates among adept and are the core elements for its promotion, though they have also become a means for the transmission of the HIV virus. These elements were the basis of the dialogue between religious institutions and the public health system. This process generated changes in religious practices for regulation of social reproduction and the sexual life of the adepts.

Afro-Brazilian religions; HIV/Aids; Sexuality; Body