Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A Choreography of the Universe: The Afro‐Brazilian Candomble as a Microcosm of Yoruba Spiritual Geography

1991; Wiley; Volume: 16; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1525/ahu.1991.16.2.42

1937-4402

Sheila S. Walker,

Italian Social Issues and Migration

The Candomble, the basis of Bahian spiritual and cultural life, is based on Yoruba religion recreated in Brazil. Nineteenth‐century civil wars made the Yoruba in West Africa especially vulnerable to enslavement, and the particularisms of the Yoruba religious presence reflects the results. The Orishas, the spiritual beings of the Yoruba, were associated with natural features and localized human groups in Africa. In Brazil they were grouped together in religious institutions based on new organizational principles created in the alien context of slavery. The Catholic church unwittingly contributed to the perpetuation of Yoruba religion. In attempting to Christianize the Africans, the church provided them with the camouflage of the saints for the continuation of the worship of the Orishas. This practice continues in the form of public festivities for the saints, the real meanings of which are based on the Candomble.