ABSTRACT
The main road leading from the old centre of Salvador, Brazil’s fifth largest city, heaves by day with shoppers and hawkers. By night scantily clad feminine figures cluster to sell sex. Ambiguity is part of the game on the trottoir: these glamorous ‘women’ are often travestis, with the allure of a phallic femininity.1 Also at night, in any of the hundreds of temples (terreiros) of the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomblé, filhas de santo (literally ‘daughters of the saint’, devotees) clad in white lace dresses take to the floor as they receive their deities (orixás) in possession. In most Candomblés, it is only ‘women’ who can be ‘mounted’ (gún, Yoruba) by the orixás. In many terreiros, travestis enjoy this privilege.
