An important element of the Study Abroad trip is to explore the roots and interconnections of Afro-Brazilian culture and spiritual practice in Northeast Brazil. These reflections are meant to provide a context students’ experience in Bahia, but you can skip the discursive sections and see the descriptions of the group’s experiences (with photos) below.
Some terms:
feijoada: a traditional Brazilian dish of beans (feijao), meat, served with rice and farofa (manioc flour). The term also refers to an event at which this is the main dish.
Ogum: orixa from Afro-Brazilian spiritual practice. Warrior and patron of iron workers. Often syncretized with Saint George, but also with Saint Anthony.
Our Lord of the Good End (Nosso Senhor do Bonfim: A Brazilian Catholic church in Salvador that is also the site of various Afro-Brazilian practices.
Navigating the Syncretism of Salvador
Even though a majority of Brazilians are nominal Catholics, many are also practitioners of various spiritual practices of African heritage. Candomble is the best known, but there are various other forms across Brazil. Often they derive from the same West African spiritual matrix, but there are many African nations and cultures represented — including Yoruba, Fon, Jeje, Nago and many others. In Salvador Candomble is considered to be of largely Yoruba origins and it has been “purified” and refreshed in recent decades through a process of “reafricanization” that removed many of the new world practices and spiritual entities.
Yet, there are many variations in practice. In some spiritual houses there are entities of New World origin also worshiped (including Catholic saints). Thus, being active in Salvadoran spiritual communities may involve a nominal — even intense — Catholicism, and a possible association with a house of Candomble.
Cultural Survival and Continuity
In the history of Brazilian slavery the Portuguese “slavocrats” (escravocrata, as they are called in the history books) tried to separate families, linguistic groups and the diverse cultures of the slaves who were brought to Brazil. This had the result of mixing the cultures and enforcing the Portuguese language as the lingua franca for all. There had been earlier attempted led by Jesuits to establish Nheengatu as the general language (lingua geral) of Brazil. The language was based on the indigenous Tupi and Guarani languages. The Jesuits generally opposed the slavery of indigenous peoples and this brought them into conflict with the plantation owners and slavers. As a result the Jesuits were withdrawn from Brazil by the Portuguese government which, under regent Marquis de Pombal, sided with the slavers. Subsequent slavery shifted from indigenous peoples to imported Africans and the Portuguese language was enforced.
In spite of repression, the African languages survived in part, as did the practices that came from the various peoples and nations of Africa. Various deities such as orixas had commonalities from one African group to another. This allowed a maintenance of common tradition, although mixing of spiritual entities (orixas and others) and languages, all with an overlay of Portuguese language and an enforced Catholic culture. Other entities entered African-Brazilian practice from indigenous traditions, but these are stronger in areas such as Maranhao than in Salvador.
Salvadoran spiritual culture embraces Catholicism and Afro-Brazilian spiritual practice – sometimes with an attempted purity in one or the other, but often combined in private and public practice. The usual term is syncretism, which is used here roughly to mean the identification of African entities and deities with the saints of the Catholic Church so that one could worship both, or appear to worship the official religion while privately identifying with African entities. Various authorities search a proper term for this syncretism — sometimes seeing a merging of saints and orixas, sometimes a submerging and camouflage of African belief beneath the practices and saints of entities of Catholicism, and sometimes seeing the two as “oil and water” that mix and coexist but do not merge.
A Contemporary Example: A day in a village near Salvador
This particular day in Salvador was a mix of all these unique northeast Brazilian traditions.
A friend from a capoeira class took us to a modest village/bairro about forty minutes from the center of Salvador where we visited a celebration for the orixá Ogum. It was a small, mostly orthodox house of Candomble (terreiro) but this was not a completely formal ceremony. The public was invited to share the food (a traditional dish of beans and rice with the meat of an ox, freshly prepared for the event).
The ceremony was presided over by a man who served as the administrator, guide, sexton and director of the event. He oversaw the drummers, signaled the percussion rhythms to be played and gently guided the event.
The central figure was the mae de santos (“Mother of Saints,” the spiritual leader of the terreiro). She led the dancing, cared for the novitiates, and guided the spiritual integrity of the celebration.
A few elements of the event:
By tradition there are three drums of determined sizes They play specific rhythms for each entity (orixá) to be invoked, and each rhythm accompanies a specific dance movement for the orixá.
The high points in the ceremony occur when a novitiate “receives” an entity and embodies it. In this tradition the entities have not bodies and communicate with the believing community through the bodies of the novitiates. This occurs during the period of drumming and dancing when one of the devotees enters what appears to be a trance that signals the presence of the orixá.
The presence of the entity in the dancer is signaled by the placement of a special shawl that also serves to support the person so that he or she does not fall.
After the ceremony we got a special introduction to the various resting places of the orixás. Some are simple figures, some might seem to be altars, and others are resting places for the entities with specially-prepared covers and offerings.
The ceremony we saw was dedicated to Ogum, the orixá of war and iron. There was a small altar to him in the courtyard of the terreiro.
There is no strict syncretism or convergence of orixas and Catholic saints that is valid for all terreiros and traditions. However, there are some commonalities that are recognizable despite variations by region and tradition. For example, Ogum is broadly associated with St. George, but in many Candomble houses in Salvador Ogum is associated with St. Anthony (whose day is June 13, the day of his death). On this afternoon the feijoada and ceremony were dedicated to the African-Brazilian entity Ogum, but the same terreiro was celebrating Saint Anthony that evening. The ox that had been slaughtered for Ogum during the day would serve for Saint Anthony in the evening.
The terreiro also had a pantheon of orixás they honored, including
Iemanja (goddess of the sea,and often syncretized with some attributed of the Virgin Mary)
Ogum, god of iron an war (usually syncretized with Saint George). Patron of iron workers and warriors.
Yansa/Iansa, goddess of the wind and tempest. Wife of Xango, the god of thunder and fire. Sansa is often syncretized with Saint Barbara, a 3rd century saint who was executed by her Roman father because she had adopted the Catholic faith.
Omulu (also called Obaluae or Babaluae): in Candomble and other Afro-Brazilian spiritual practices Omulu is the spiritual entity (oriya) associated with sickness and health. Usually a male, but sometimes a female, Omulu is often syncretized or associated with the Catholic Saint Lazarus (for a bit of trivia, see the Note below).
Many of the figures were at rest, covered in a protected space — so I don’t have a photo from that terriero. But here are some images from various festivals in which the figure is danced.
Oxala, an orixa whose gentleness is often associated with Jesus.
Interesting, this terreiro seemed not to have fully “reafricanized” by purging itself of Brazilian entities that entered the practice in the New World. There were caboclos, representative of the indigenous chiefs of the forest; and there was Pombagira, a sensual entity. She is presented in red, drinking wine and smoking. Often she is adopted as the patron of prostitutes and has gained popularity among gay Brazilians as well. She is often not included in the orthodox pantheon of Candomble, but has a wide popular appeal.
Nosso Senhor do Bonfim
To complete the syncretistic tour of Salvador we ended the day at the famous church of “Our Lord of the Good End.” the name refers to Jesus Christ, who is also associated with the Afro-Brazilian entity Oxala. So far as we know, this is the largest and most famous Catholic church (and perhaps the only one) that includes Oxala in its worship. On special occasions the devotees of Oxala attend a special mass wearing symbolic white gowns with read sashes or scarves. Uniquely, the worship is of both Oxala and Jesus.
The church is also site of another unique syncretic practice. Once a year traditional Salvadoran women (Bahaianas) form a procession of several miles and walk/dance several miles from the harbor in the lower city to the church. There they wash the steps of the Church to purify it for the orixás. In the procession they also carry figures of Yemanja (also Iemanja), the goddess of the sea, mother of all orixás, and also a figure of Our Lady of Conception. She is also represented by a sereia, or mermaid.
In his famous novel Mar Morto, Jorge Amado says that sailors are blessed to drown in the arms of Iemanja—a romantic death that the figures in the novel do not seem to seek out with a lot of enthusiasm. However, the legend offers the consolation that someone lost at sea is in arms of the mother of all who love the sea.
( Note: Older readers and late-night viewers of a comedy channel may vaguely recall the Lucille Ball show in which her husband, Desi Arnaz, would often be shown with his band singing Babalu…Babaluae. This is a 1930’s Cuban song that references the West African heritage of many Cubans Africa-descendants. In Cuba the practice is often called Santeria and is related to the same broad African cultural matrix as Candomble practice.)