ABSTRACT
The Garifuna, formerly called the Black Carib, are descendants both of Africans and of Carib Indians who shared the island of St Vincent in the Caribbean. The central extension for Garifuna ancestor religion is in deterritorialization, through labour migrations. For Garifuna ancestor religion, the circulation of bodies in migration led to new signifiers applied to ritual at home. Beginning in the 1980s, evangelicalism has gained a strong footing, initiating on one hand an increase in Garifuna language literacy, and on the other a vitriolic attack on traditional religious ceremonies. Evaluating Candomblé's distance from the indigenous category at different moments allows to interpret historical changes and spatial mobility within the religion. 'African-ness' is an existential posture and a liturgical structure and genealogy for religious practice, not an ethnic group or claim to common descent from a specific homeland.
