Aziri Tobosi (Iemanjá) costume

“Dressing the orixá is something much greater and deeper than the everyday dressing; it is a religious act.” (Patricia Ricardo de Souza)

Orixás clothing are a relevant component of candomblé. Conceived and made with their own arrangement of colors, knots, and symbols, they convey the importance that "orixás should be the maximum expression of beauty of a terreiro" (Patrícia R. de Souza).

The equedes, part of the high hierarchy of the terreiro, are the women in charge of taking care of the orixás. They dress the orixás and dance with them. The zeal in their duties includes washing, ironing and starching the clothing, polishing and cleaning tools and accessories.

Clothes dressed by the practitioner indicate function, hierarchy and seniority within the terreiro. The size of the necklaces, the use or not of sandals, smock and the pano da costa, in addition to the sumptuousness of the clothing, denote the position of those who wear it.

The gogre, a choker with blue beads, a color associated with Iemanjá, serves to establish the connection between orixá and initiate. Also the mokan, a necklace that goes from the neck to the navel, made of palha da costa, used as protection against the eguns.

Also made with palha da costa to ward off the eguns, we have the contraegun – a braid that is on the upper part of the arm – and the umbigueira – worn around the waist. Both are intended to protect the initiate from any negative energy that may stand in their path.

The guias (sacred necklace), which connect the devotee to their orixás are composed of beads (in jeje language, ian or ianan).

The singue is made of two strips of white cloth worn at chest height. The adê, a head adornment for female deities, symbolizes ancestral mothers' mistery and partially hides the initiate’s face, creating the effect of merging their facial expression with that of the orixá.

The sacred objects that symbolize the orixá form the settlements, also known as igbá or ibá. Comprised of items that capture the energies of nature associated with the orixá, they spiritually bind the initiate, who receives the energies emanated by the orixá represented there.

Each devotee has their assentamentos (settlements) to use throughout life. Made up of  alguidar (bowl), quartinha (liquid container), dishes, tools and stones related to the orixá, they need to be washed with specific leaves and kept with water and food peculiar to each orixá.

The Zaira Trindade collection, acquired in 1999, remained for years in the museum storage room for years, inaccessible to visitors, due to the apprehension of its professionals about disrespecting the Afro-Brazilian religion, about which they did not have sufficient knowledge.

In 2018, from conversation circles promoted by MHN with representatives of the black movement, a shared curatorship emerged between its professionals and Tat’etu Lengulukenu, the spiritual leader of InzoUnsata Ria Inkosse, for the specialized treatment of the collection.

Responsible for the identification and classification of items in the collection, Tat’etu faced the challenge of the almost complete absence of spiritual information about Zaira Trindade, which led him to look for dotes and mejitós to assist him in the care of the pieces.

The acquisition of this collection is part of a context that began in the 1980s with the re-democratization of Brazil after the civic-military dictatorship. NHM underwent a revitalization process driven by new discussions emerging from Museology, History, and Anthropology.

In the beginning, NHM acquisitions were based on elites’ values and sought to teach a glorious past through objects. The expography exalted national heroes, men of the State, aristocracy and military circles, placing blacks and indigenous people in subordinate positions.

The renewal movement of the National Historical Museum led to a search for expansion of diversity of social representations of the history of Brazil. Receiving the Tsiipré collection was a milestone in this context, to which, years later, the Zaira Trindade collection was added.

Such a process is neither linear nor has it come to an end; it is a reflection of the dynamics present in society. A violent society with Afro-diasporic culture, especially with religions, whose terreiros, according to Lélia Gonzalez, are "true centers of cultural resistance".