ABSTRACT
Of the many inhabitants of the Afro-Brazilian spirit world, Pomba Gira is the most notorious. Known as Lady of the Cemetery, Queen of the Crossroads, and Mistress of the Night, among other epithets, Pomba Gira is venerated in small centers throughout Rio de Janeiro. But she is most popular in the poor and working-class neighborhoods that cling to the city’s steep hillsides and ring its periphery, a population that sees in this spirit’s mythology aspects of their own lives and believes that she possesses the mystical power to resolve their afflictions.
