Exu in the religion Umbanda, the reorganizing force of chaos

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Exu is by far one of the most mysterious and controversial figures in Umbanda and Youruba spirituality. Out of 70 books about Umbanda 41 mentioned this entity and 17 were books solely devoted to understanding more about this force. Many describe Exu as an essence of movement, the famous medium Norberto Peixoto gives us a paradoxical but insightful description of Exu as the reorganizing force of chaos.

 

One of the earliest depictions of Exu as a guiding spirit. Taken from the book Trabalhos Praticos de Magia Negra, Antonio de Alva (1984) (lit trans. Practical Works of Black Magic).

African roots

Yoruba spirituality gives a central role to Exu (in Yoruba language graphed as èsù and in English as eshu) and he is considered to be of the main gods of Yoruba traditional religion, called orixás. In its cosmogony when Olorum gives to the heavenly god Oxalá the task of creating the world he asks first Oxalá to do an offering to Exu. Oxalá doesn’t follow Olorum’s request and Exu tricks Oxalá frustrating this first attempt of creating the world. This is one of the many stories that puts the devotion to Exu as necessary for the beginning and end of any work.

In a more esoteric reading Exu represents communication, the streets, the intercessions of the city and of life and connection between the spiritual and the profane. The Romans called it Mercury, the Greeks Hermes, the Norse Loki, the Japanese Susanoo and the Egyptians Anubis. Under the Abrahamic religions, Exu would be the Hod ("majesty") in kabbalah, the figure of the prophets as Moses in Judaism or the last prophet, Saint John, the Baptist in Catholicism (Luke 16:16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John.”).

 

In the Yoruba mythology, Exu is often described as a trickster who can lie, swindle and scheme to get advantage over others. In one story Exu puts fire in his own house in the middle of the night, Exu starts to scream like crazy pretending to be innocent. When the villagers come to help, Exu lies, saying that there was a treasure in the house and now he has lost everything. The villagers of Ijebu including the king gather everything they have to repay Exu for his loss but there is not enough money to repay for such a great fortune. After taking everything they had, the king gives his crown to Exu and Exu takes control over the whole village.

It was common in Yorubaland to sacrifice a rooster behind the peji, a believer said in the book Xangos do Nordeste (1937): “Exu is something that we look to appease as a way to avoid any disruption in our work”. These animal sacrifices continue to happen in Brazil, mostly by practitioners of Quimbanda and Candomble.

A second story might explain this fear of being punished by Exu. In the story Exu was furious because two peasants who lived side by side stopped giving him their offerings. When they were working on the fields Exu walked by a road with a pointed beret with one side being white and the other red. One peasant said to the other “Did you see this stranger with the white beret?", the other replied “Red”. A discussion started and soon they were attacking each other with hoes, ending with both being fatally injured. Exu continued walking his way, singing and dancing.

I guess we can see a lot of Exu’s fingerprints in the current polarization and political violence that we are seeing. The Greeks had a similar concept that the gods created humans as paws to be played with and these dramatic events are nothing but a source of amusement to them..

One of the earliest photos of a statue of Exu as an Orixa. Taken from the book Xangos do Nordeste, Albino Gonçalves Fernandes (1937).

And then the Christians came…

Looking at all that (lying, deceiving, creating chaos) it is easy to understand why Christians would associate Exu with the devil. The two oldest Churches of the five traditional Churches in the world are located in Africa: The Coptic Church in Egypt and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. One of the biggest names in Catholicism and highly respected in Protestantism is an African priest, St. Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430). The earliest source of the association between Exu and the devil is unclear but we can assume it could be traced to the 4th century or to the beginnings of the Faith.

The association was used by the Church as an instrument of control and evangelization of the Yorubas. The Church offered baptism and Eucharist as an alternative to keep the entity at bay, making the expensive animal sacrifice unnecessary. The new “enemy” was also the perfect excuse to frighten the local population into converting to the faith that was expanding to Yorubaland.

Exu Caveira (Exu Skull) .The earliest representation of Exu as a guiding spirits in Umbanda. Taken from the book Exu by Aluizio Fontennelle (1952).

It is common to accuse the followers of Exu of practising destruction magic. In this point I have to come in the defence of Umbanda, Fernandes (1937) cited a believer who pointed out one of the biggest hypocrisies of the Church: The institution that has one of the biggest collection of books about occultism like the Lemegeton and the Lesser Key of Solomon, grimoires of high magic that involves expensive materials, astronomical calculations and knowledge of Biblical Hebrew - requisites that would restrict the practice to a small and select group of priests - is the same institution that was accusing the followers of Exu of practising black magic. The same hypocrisy of the followers of the Jesus who was talking to the spirit of Moses and Elijah on Mount Tabor and then accuses Spiritism of communicating with spirits (Matthew 17 and Luke 9).

Putting dendê in the Umbanda melting pot

With the announcement of Umbanda in 1925 by Zelio de Moraes it was just a question of time for Exus to enter the melting pot of the new syncretic religion that was being formed. The earliest incorporation of Exu that I could find was of Mother Zilmeia de Moraes, the daughter of Zelio de Moraes, but the Umbanda centre founded by Zelio has always worked with Exus.

With the Spiritist and Christian influences there was an effort to fit Exu in their worldview and he was seeing as a spirit of a lower level of evolution who, through the practice of charity, would continue to evolve to a more enlightened form. Some even said that Exu doesn’t have free will and that’s why he would participate in works of black magic and with spiritual progress it would transform into a different entity when it reached a higher level of evolution (boiadeiros, marinheiros, caboclos and others).

There is a recent effort to interpret Exu as spirit of light and remove any mention that he would be connected to evil or demons, some saying that Exu would never do any kind of evil. The earliest book mentioning that Exu is not the devil that I could find is actually quite recent, 2006, with Rubens Saraceni. A recent event, Marching for Exu, brought thousands to the streets of Sao Paulo to denounce religious intolerance mostly from evangelical groups, at one moment many would get on their knees to pray the Lord's Prayer.

While the Exu in Umbanda was being hygienised and becoming of more and more a spirit of light, a different movement was happening in Quimbanda, a variation with elements of Luciferianism and Satanism. Many interpret that while Umbanda was trying to be accepted by society Quimbanda would be the middle finger to the Christian majority in Brazil, many seeing themselves as part of a “resistance” against the current system. In Quimbanda rituals it is still very common to see Exu in red and black and with names of the demons from Goetia.

It's common to put offerings in front of statues. A statue of Exu Maioral (Maiorial is a common nickname for Satan). The statue is sold at Imagens Bahia, link below: https://www.imagensbahia.com.br/exu-maioral-de-40cm/p/1337

Well, isn’t it surprising that the entity that is famous for being a trickster is being interpreted in so many different ways by each of these groups? Maybe our understanding of Exu is not that different from the two farmers who were discussing the colour of his beret. If you ask me what’s my interpretation of Exu I would say he is clearly not Satan because Satan is a Hebrew concept (ha-śāṭān or the Greek diábolos means “the adversary”, as the adversary of the good God, YHWH). I would say that Exu is a spirit connected to the profane (material world) and can be important when working with dense energy. Instead of sending an angel of light to the catacombs we can send someone who knows their way in and out to rescue a lost soul.

About Exu Lucifer, Exu Satan and other demonic names for Exu, my opinion is the same as that of Satanists, it is nothing but an immature sentiment of revolt. Immature because it identifies itself by its opposite, it needs to explain what Christianity is before they can identify themselves with what is not. They imagine they know what they dislike but are not yet prepared to identify as something independent. A true alternative to Christian morality is not to call yourselves “the adversaries, or opponents” but to create a healthy identity of who you are independent from the impressions of others.

Names

The oldest book with a list of names of Exu that I could find is the O Espiritismo no Conceito das Religiões e a Lei de Umbanda by Aluizio Fontenelle (1951).

Most of the names can be translated to English with the exception of the last one:

Exu-Rei (Lúcifer, Satanaz, Diabo, etc.) (lit trans. Exu-King, Lucifer, Satan and the Devil), Exu das 7 Encruzilhadas (Exu of the 7 Crossroads), Exu Caveira (Exu Skull or Skull Exu), Exu do Vento ou Exu das 7 ventanias (Exu of the Wind or Exu of the 7 Winds), Exu das 7 chaves (Exu of the 7 Keys), Exu Tranca-Ruas (Exu Street Locker), Exu Pomba-Gira ou mulher de 7 exus (Exu Pomba-Gira or Women of 7 Exus). Exu Maré (Exu of the Tides). Exu dos Rios (Exu of the Rivers), Exu das Matas (Exu of the Woods), and the last one Exu Tiriri.

Offering and greeting

 

The greeting for Exu is "Laroyê!" and it means “Hail the messenger!”.

Common offerings for Exu are cigars, alcoholic beverages (wine or cachaca) and foods prepared with pepper and dendê oil (palm oil).

I've translated a ponto to Exu here and a second ponto here showing a real ritual of a medium apparently channelling an Exu, pontos are songs used by Umbadistas to summon the spirits. And to finish, a performance of what some Umbandistas believe happens in the incorporation process:

This article was written by Eduardo Guimarães and registered in the Brazilian National Library. The content is copyrighted. Reproduction for sale or profit is prohibited. With reproduction without a profit motive is allowed with the consent of the author. 

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