ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT. This paper examines the relationship between male homo sexuality and the Afro-Brazilian possession cults in Belem do Para. After a discussion of the literature follows a description of the cults’ beliefs, rites and social organization. Male sex roles are then discussed and the two categories, bicha and man, analyzed. It is noted that there is no term which is equivalent to the western category of “ homosexual” in this taxonomic system. After putting forward folk explanations for the presence of many bichas in the cults, an analysis is put forward of the social rewards available to bichas within these cults, and the structural relationship be tween homosexuality and these regions in terms of their congruent marginality vis-ä-vis “ normal society.”
