Candomblé
It arose through a process of syncretism between several of the traditional religions of West and Central Africa, especially those of the Yoruba, Bantu, and Gbe, coupled with influences from Roman Catholicism.
It arose through the blending of the traditional religions brought to Brazil by enslaved West and Central Africans, the majority of them Yoruba, Fon, and Bantu, with the Roman Catholicism of the Portuguese colonialists who then controlled the area.
Following Brazil's independence from Portugal, the constitution of 1891 enshrined freedom of religion in the country, although Candomblé remained marginalized by the Roman Catholic establishment, which typically associated it with criminality.
Since the late 20th century, some practitioners have emphasized a re-Africanization process to remove Roman Catholic influences and create forms of Candomblé closer to traditional West African religion.
[31] Omolocô was founded in Rio de Janeiro as an intermediate religion between Candomblé and Umbanda,[32] with traditions merging these two systems sometimes labelled "Umbandomblé" by outsiders.
[35] The three most prominent are Nagô or Ketu (Queto), Jeje (Gege) or Mina-Jeje, and Angola or Congo-Angola;[36] others include the Ijexá (Ijesha),[37] Egba, Efan (Ekiti)[38] and Caboclo.
[82] His ritual paraphernalia is often kept separate from that of other orixás,[83] while the entrances to most terreiros will have a clay head, decorated with cowries or nails, that represents Exú and is given offerings.
[95] This process may have begun as a subterfuge to retain the worship of African deities under European rule,[96] although such syncretisms could have already been occurring in Africa prior to the Atlantic slave trade.
[122] These spirits are typically those of indigenous Americans or of boiadeiros ("cowboys" or "backwoodsmen"),[123] although in rarer cases caboclos are portrayed as being from the sea or from foreign countries.
In these instances, attempts are sometimes made to "Africanize" these spirits, ritually "seating" them in a material object, giving them an African-derived name, and then considering them a pledged slave of the orixás.
For instance, animal sacrifice and the shaving of an initiate's head are usually reserved for male practitioners, while women are typically responsible for domestic duties in maintaining the ritual space.
[168] Homosexuals have described the religion as a more welcoming environment than Christianity,[169] and have cited stories of relationships between male orixás, such as Oxôssi and Ossain, as affirming same-sex attraction.
[173] The bakisse is the "room of the saints", a storeroom containing both ritual paraphernalia and the assentamentos, or seated objects, of the orixás,[189] with most terreiros offering veneration to between twelve and twenty of these spirits.
[198] An outdoor enclosure may have a tree dedicated to Tempo,[199] shrines to forest orixás like Oxossi and Ogun,[200] and a balé, a place set aside for the souls of the dead.
[54] Specific foodstuffs are associated with each orixá;[248] a mix of okra with rice or manioc meal, known as amalá, is considered a favourite of Xangô, Obá, and Iansã.
[313] Hundreds of thousands of people congregate at the beach on Iemanjá's Day (2 February),[252] where they often load offerings to her onto boats, which then take them out into the water and cast them overboard.
[322] Another common divinatory practice involves slicing an onion in two and dropping the pieces to the ground, drawing conclusions from the face onto which they fall;[323] alternatively a kola nut may be cut into quarters and read in the same way.
[329] In the Candomblé worldview, a person's problems may be caused by their disequilibrium with the spirit world,[330] because they are lacking in axé and thus have an "open" body vulnerable to harmful influences,[331] or because they are being punished by orixás.
[335] Staying healthy is then ensured by maintaining a state of equilibrium with the orixás, avoiding excess, and following lessons imparted in mythological tales.
[215] Herbs are deemed to contain axé which needs to be appropriately awakened:[340] leaves should be fresh, not dried,[340] and picked late at night or early in the morning to ensure maximum potency.
[340] If taken from the forest, permission should be sought from the overseeing orixá and offerings left, such as coins, honey, or tobacco;[340] alternatively, healers often purchase them from the casas de folhas ("houses of leaves") in markets.
[341] Leaves may then be rubbed directly on the patient or brewed into a tea or other medicinal concoction;[342] practitioners may also produce pó (powder), which may have a variety of uses, from healing to harming or attracting someone's romantic attention.
[358] This meant that Africans of different cultural backgrounds, regions, and religions were included together under a unifying term;[359] those from the Bight of Benin were for instance called "Nagô".
[358] As the Yoruba and Dahomean people made up the last wave of slaves, they became numerically dominant among Afro-Brazilians and their traditional cosmology became ascendant over that of longer established communities.
[365] The Roman Catholic nature of Brazilian colonial society, which allowed for a cult of saints, may have permitted greater leeway for the survival of traditional African religions than were available in Protestant-dominant areas of the Americas.
[374] Various emancipated Yoruba began trading between Brazil and West Africa,[375] and a significant role in the creation of Candomblé were several African freemen who were affluent and sent their children to be educated in Lagos.
[377] However, Afro-Brazilian religious traditions continued to face legal issues; the Penal Code of 1890 included prohibitions on Spiritism, talismans, and much herbal medicine, impacting Candomblé.
[382] The 1930s saw a proliferation of academic studies on Candomblé by scholars like Raimundo Nina Rodrigues, Edison Carneiro, and Ruth Landes,[383] most focusing on the Nagô tradition.
[399] By the early 21st century, tourist literature increasingly portrayed Candomblé as an intrinsic part of Brazilian culture;[400] Varig Airlines used the tagline "Fly with Axé.
[418] Brazil's Roman Catholics have mixed opinions of Candomblé and the attendance of its practitioners at mass,[419] while Evangelical and Pentecostal groups more uniformly target Candomblecistas as part of their "spiritual war" against Satan.
