“Put the Brassiere on the Cross”

Abstract

Komfa is a Guyanese practice involving elaborate rituals dedicated to “the Seven Nations” of ancestor-spirits who re/present colonial British demography. Komfa’s Spanish nation is most frequently understood as presenting queer subjecthood through overtly sexualized and (trans)gendered performances. To Guyanese, “Spanish” generally refers to Venezuelans. Pre- and post-emancipation histories of mobility within the borderlands of Guyana and Venezuela illuminate how Komfa practitioners embrace ambiguities of “noncompliant” genders and sexualities. Devotees who embody Spanish spirits tend to be transgender, identify as gay or antiman, and/or share intimate relations with partners of the same sex. Many also engage in sex labor. Such orientations, identifications, and occupations performed during trance possession and “secular” contexts of daily life may be re-valued through Komfa, providing non-conforming Guyanese with a refuge from societal discriminations through which they transform conceptions of selfhood by embracing the agencies and lived experiences of “non-Guyanese” within a symbolic economy of erotic alterity.