Imitera

Imitera or Bahian royal alchemy is a group of magical practices and beliefs in Bahia, primarily based around manipulating and interpreting products removed from the body of a sacred king. The royal figure may be treated in the religious terms of the practice in a mechanical or functional manner, as a conveyor of divine portents, wills, and other forces. From this, the practice of imitera may become a major if not crucial part of statecraft in various pre-modern Bahian polities; even in the occult today, ideas influenced by it are regarded as significant or potent among many traditions in and out of Bahia.

Although the exact origins of the system are difficult to pinpoint, it shows a combination of influences from Bahian Fetishism and Badi. Prior to the rise of hourege, many sare polities had a holy man, described traditionally as a 'king' but whose temporal powers were limited, who was carefully tended to and observed for the purposes of divination. During the Bahian Consolidation, Irfanic assaults on these practices, along with mobilization on part of new fetishist royal figures in the vein of Koyizo Nzorfu, turned imitera into a system of royal veneration; the king would use ritually significant excretions to mark the gravity of certain decisions or events. From the 15th century, it was challenged and attacked under the Lourale ka Maoube, but in the 16th century new schools of the practice promoted new interpretations more focused on bodily cultivation and medicine.

Imitera varied considerably by region and time period, but there were some common conventions or patterns:

• Blood related to animality, and thus rites of war;
• Tears were associated with reflection, and thus peace and development;
• Sweat was roughly measured to represent the gross 'activity' of some sort at the level of the whole realm;
• Hair, nails, and skin corresponded to the state of the realm;
• Feces represented gravity and decision, and could be treated in a way similar to imigongo to 'paint' representations of edicts or important events;
• 'Recirculation' through a usually symbolic ceremony was used to make most physical instances 'mundane' and carry no significance, an innovation often imputed to the early houragic period which made portents selected at the pleasure of the king or the attendant priesthood;
• Kings were guarded and attended to, while deceased kings' remains were carefully treated through a ritual to remove it of any divinity or power;
• The royal body may be extended to a larger collective of men and women, especially in 16th century interpretations, probably as kings in some areas were diminuted themselves by restrictions placed through the system. Many ubushyirahamwe groups, especially those seen in the Zombibudi Wars, were organized on this basis.