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As someone who assigns both Matory and Parés in my graduate courses, I find myself asking what is at stake in this debate. If we take Matory at face value, Parés is an unreformed “Herskovitsian” who searches for linear connections between vodun religion in West Africa and the Jeje Candomblé in Bahia. According to Matory, Parés's emphasis on primordial Africa is based on a quest “to avenge the honor of the Jeje nation.” But avenge it from what? Against whom? As both authors make clear, Nagô Candomblé houses transcended Jeje houses in power and prestige, starting in the late nineteenth century. Matory acknowledges the continuing influence of Jeje, especially through the dialogic exchanges of Jeje elites who traveled back and forth between Africa and Brazil in the 1890s. However, he firmly rejects Parés’ claim that memory of earlier Jeje structures shaped Candomblé as it evolved in the twentieth century.
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