The late 20th century saw growing links between Candomblé and related traditions in West Africa and the Americas, such as Cuban Santería and Haitian Vodou. In the 20th century, growing emigration from Bahia spread Candomblé both throughout Brazil and abroad. 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. It primarily coalesced in the Bahia region during the 19th century. 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, and the Roman Catholic teachings of the Portuguese colonialists who then controlled the area. Healing rituals and the preparation of amulets and herbal remedies and baths, also play a prominent role.Ĭandomblé developed among Afro-Brazilian communities amid the Atlantic slave trade of the 16th to 19th centuries. Several forms of divination are utilized to decipher messages from the orixás. Offerings are also given to a range of other spirits, including boiadero, preto velho, caboclos, and the spirits of the dead, the egun. Offerings to the orixás include fruit and sacrificed animals. They believe that through this possessed individual, they can communicate directly with a deity. A central ritual involves practitioners drumming, singing, and dancing to encourage an orixá to possess one of their members. An initiatory tradition, Candomblé's members usually meet in temples known as terreiros run by priests called babalorixás and priestesses called ialorixás. Each individual is believed to have a tutelary orixá who has been connected to them since before birth and who informs their personality. Various myths are told about these orixás, which are regarded as subservient to a transcendent creator deity, Oludumaré. Deriving their names and attributes from traditional West African deities, they are equated with Roman Catholic saints. ![]() There is no central authority in control of Candomblé, which is organized around autonomous terreiros (houses).Ĭandomblé involves the veneration of spirits known as orixás. There is some influence from the Roman Catholic form of Christianity. It arose through a process of syncretism between several of the traditional religions of West Africa, especially those of the Yoruba, Bantu, and Gbe. A practitioner dressed as the orixá Oba at a temple in Brazil the possession of adherents by orixá is central to CandombléĬandomblé ( Portuguese pronunciation: ), previously known as batuque, (a term also used to refer to a distinct religion) is an African diasporic religion with music and dance, that developed in Brazil during the 19th century. Not to be confused with Candombe or Batuque.
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