Each orixa has a movement vocabulary that identifies him or her without a word being spoken. Ogum, orixa of iron and of war, cuts with the arm as though clearing a path. Oxum, of fresh water and of beauty, gathers and pours, and passes a hand across the face as though at a mirror. Iansa, of wind and storm, sweeps with a horsetail whisk and moves quickly and high. Oxossi, the hunter, draws a bow. Omolu, associated with sickness and its cure, dances covered in a raffia veil. Oxala, the eldest, moves slowly and bent, as an old man does. A person watching who knows the tradition reads the orixa off the body immediately.
That is what makes recognition possible when an orixa arrives. An initiate who receives an orixa is not acting a part; the community identifies which orixa has come by the movement that begins, the posture the body takes, and the greeting cry. The person is then dressed in that orixa's colours and emblems by the house and continues in the ceremony. Nothing here is improvised for effect, and the dance is not a representation performed for onlookers: it is the form in which the orixa is called and then received. Candomble is a living religion under continuing pressure in Brazil, including physical attacks on terreiros, and its practitioners describe it as a religion rather than as folklore.