Brazil

A culturally diverse population, Brazilians also practice a variety of different faiths, several of which are rooted in the history of African slaves brought to work on Brazilian sugar plantations beginning in the sixteenth century. West African Yoruba and Dahomean peoples retained impressive segments of their religious beliefs and practices through syncretization with Catholic cultural elements. Bastide notes that on the special Catholic saints' days that were observed by plantation owners, Africans secretly celebrated their own deities. An example is the Yoruba deity Ogum, god of iron and patron of blacksmiths forging iron weapons and farm tools. In some regions of Brazil, Africans clandestinely worshipped Ogum under the guise of celebrating St. George, who was depicted in paintings, lithographs, and figurines on a white horse while slaying a dragon with a long iron sword. Cultural Syncretism proceeded along two lines. First, the Yoruba orixás (deities) and Catholic saints were both structural intermediaries between a high and remote Olorun (God) and ordinary people on earth. Second, cultural items such as the iron weapons linking Ogum and St. George brought together orixá and saint. Over time the link between iron farm tools and Ogum weakened in Brazil in that the slaves had no concern for the profitability of the master's plantation. The iron weapons retained as cultural elements, however, would serve as important symbols in the ongoing war, both real and psychological, between master and slave.

Yoruba beliefs and practices comprise a common cultural pattern running through most African Brazilian religions. However, each African Brazilian religion has been differentially shaped by the larger Brazilian milieu, which also included Central African religious traditions, indigenous shamanistic beliefs and practices, and a type of spiritualism known as Kardecismo. Furthermore, worshippers were not restricted to persons of African descent, and membership generally reflects the ethnic composition of a particular locale. African Brazilians dominate Candomblé in Salvador, Bahia, while in the southern cities of São Paulo and Pôrto Alegre, European Brazilians comprise 50 percent of the members in the Umbanda religion.

CANDOMBLÉ

During the latter part of the slave era and after emancipation in 1888, African Brazilians more openly practiced Candomblé in urban religious centers. Two Yoruba-influenced religions emerged: Candomblé in Salvador and Xangô in Recife. A closely related Dahomean-influenced religion known as Tambor Das Minas developed in São Luís.

Each religious center is led by a mãe de santo (mother of saint) or a pai de santo (father of saint). According to Wafer, their initiates are divided into two categories: those who go into trance and are possessed by deities, and those who do not. Of the latter, the males are called ogãs and the females are known as equedes; they work in special supporting roles that, in part, help provide financing and labor for the religious center and its celebrations in exchange for ritual protection and opportunities to dance along with the deities.

A religious center recognizes each deity during its annual cycle of celebrations. While dancing to polyrhythmic drumming and Yoruba songs and words in the more conservative religious centers, spirit mediums known as "horses" are possessed by the various deities in all practices of Candomblé. An important part of each celebration is feeding the honored deity as well as those who come to observe and enjoy the beautifully costumed deities and their dancing. After the main part of the celebration, the deities take their leave, and the "horses" are possessed by childlike spirits known as erê. Although spirits of the dead are an important part of many African Brazilian religions, it is rare that Candomblé in its more conservative form has anything to do with them. Instead, eguns (spirits of dead ancestors) are dealt with in the cult of Egum.

BATUQUE

The Batuque religion in Belém is an independent religious system, which Leacock and Leacock say deserves recognition in its own right. Although African origins are present, Batuque has been "Brazilianized" far more than Candomblé. An early form of Batuque was brought to Belém at the time of the Amazon rubber boom (1890–1913). It probably included cultural elements from the Dahomean influence in São Luís, generalized Yoruba religious traits, folk Catholicism, Brazilian and Iberian folklore and history, and indigenous Brazilian shamanic traits from the Pajelança of Pará and the Catimbó cult of northeastern Brazil.

Members of Batuque refer to the supernatural beings that possess them as encantados. They include a variety of spirits of the dead as well as deities, but not Catholic saints. Saints are said to live in the sky, while the encantados live in encantarias deep in the forest; under rivers, lakes, and the sea; and even in underground cities directly beneath human cities.

UMBANDA

Umbanda is another highly Brazilianized religion with Central and West African, pre-Columbian indigenous, folk Catholic, and spiritist origins. It is practiced primarily in southern Brazil, especially in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Pôrto Alegre. It is also found in nearly all major urban areas.

Umbanda apparently evolved out of Macumba in the 1920s. According to Bastide, Macumba was in part an outgrowth of the introduction of Yoruba deities into the earlier Central African Bantu cult known as Cabula. Congolese and Angolan religious traditions were present in Macumba and later in Umbanda, as, for example, in the use of the name Zambi for the high god, instead of the Yoruba name Olorun. Also, Central African beliefs in possession by spirits of the dead were retained in Macumba. This helped set the scene for the diffusion of Kardecist spiritist beliefs related to spirits of the dead, supernatural fluids, and "passes" to remove evil fluids from sick and troubled individuals. The new sociocultural mélange became Umbanda. According to Karasch, the frequent changes in symbols, beliefs, and rituals in Umbanda as it spread throughout Brazil was part of the flexibility that characterized Central African religions brought by slaves to southern Brazil.

Brown, in describing the "whitening" of Umbanda, notes that many early leaders of Umbanda were middle-class professionals, mostly European Brazilians. They were unhappy with the "highly evolved" Kardecist spirits who gave long-winded lectures on doctrine. They enjoyed the curing rituals of the African and Indian spirits in Umbanda but did not care for animal sacrifices, drinking, and the drumming and dancing often associated with what they regarded as the more primitive forms of Umbanda rituals. These "low" features were dropped from Pure Umbanda. During the 1950s some African Brazilians reacted to Umbanda Pura by decrying the de-Africanization of Umbanda. Differences in religious beliefs and practices to some extent reflected different social and racial sectors. Today these divisions within Umbanda maintain a relatively peaceful coexistence.

See alsoCandomblé; Music: Popular Music and Dance; Syncretism; Umbanda.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Octavio Da Costa Eduardo, The Negro in Northern Brazil (1948).

Seth and Ruth Leacock, Spirits of the Deep: A Study of an Afro-Brazilian Cult (1972).

Esther Pressel, "Umbanda in São Paulo: Religious Innovation in a Developing Society," in Religion, Altered States of Consciousness, and Social Change, edited by Erika Bourguignon (1973).

Roger Bastide, The African Religions of Brazil (1978).

Mary Karasch, "Central African Religious Tradition in Rio de Janeiro," in Journal of Latin American Lore 5 (1979): 233-253.

Chester E. Gabriel, Communications of the Spirits: Umbanda, Regional Cults in Manaus, and the Dynamics of Mediumistic Trance (1980).

Patricia B. Lerch, "An Explanation for the Predominance of Women in the Umbanda Cults of Pôrto Alegre, Brazil," in Urban Anthropology 11 (1982): 237-261.

Diana Degroat Brown, Umbanda: Religion and Politics in Urban Brazil (1986).

Jam Wafer, The Taste of Blood: Spirit Possession in Brazilian Candomblé (1991).

Júlio Braga, Ancestralidade afro-brasileira: O culto de Babá Egum (1992).

Additional Bibliography

Caroso, Carlos, and Jeferson Afonso Bacelar. Faces da tradição afro-brasileira: Religiosidade, sincretismo, anti-sincretismo, reafricanização, práticas terapêuticas, etnobotânica e comida. Rio de Janeiro: Pallas: CNPq; Salvador: CEAO, 1998.

Kiddy, Elizabeth W. Blacks of the Rosary: Memory and History in Minas Gerais, Brazil. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005.

Parés, Luis Nicolau. A formação do candomblé: História e ritual da nação jeje na Bahia. Campinas: Editora Unicamp, 2006.

Selka, Stephen. Religion and the Politics of Ethnic Identity in Bahia, Brazil. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2007.

Silva, Vagner Gonçalves da. O antropólogo e sua magia: Trabalho de campo e texto etnográ fico nas pesquisas antropológicas sobre religiães afro-brasileiras. São Paulo: Edusp, 2000.

Sweet, James H. Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441–1770. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Voeks, Robert A. Sacred Leaves of Candomblé: African Magic, Medicine, and Religion in Brazil. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997.

                                        Esther J. Pressel