Copyright by Alex Costa Kott 2021
The Thesis Committee for Alex Costa Kott Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Thesis:
Umbanda’s Relationship with the Natural Environment & Religious
Intolerance
APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE:
J. Brent Crosson, Supervisor
Christen A. Smith
Umbanda’s Relationship with the Natural Environment & Religious Intolerance
by
Alex Costa Kott
Thesis
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts
The University of Texas at Austin May 2021
Dedication
I would like to dedicate this thesis to all African derived religions in Brazil, it’s religious leaders and practitioners. Deixo aqui os meus respeitos aos mais velhos e aos mais novos. Also, to all of those who I met in Kenya, in Kibera and Wongonyi, asante sana. You all have motivated me to study, to become a better student and human-being, thank you.
Acknowledgements
I would like to dedicate this work to all who to stood beside me through trials and tribulations. I thank my family and friends, my Mestres de Capoeira, and everyone who crossed my path. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the support I received, both physical and spiritual.
Obrigado mãe, obrigado pai, para poder agradecer vocês seria necessário escrever um livro, é tanto, vocês são tudo pra mim. Marina e Kayden, amo vocês.
I would also like to acknowledge that as a graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin, that we are meeting on the Indigenous lands of Turtle Island, the ancestral name for what now is called North America.
Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge the Alabama-Coushatta, Caddo, Carrizo/Comecrudo, Coahuiltecan, Comanche, Kickapoo, Lipan Apache, Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo and Tonkawa, and all the American Indian and Indigenous Peoples and communities who have been or have become a part of these lands and territories in Texas.
In the loving memory of: Valentino Kott, Hamilton Costa, Maria Aparecida Resende Costa, Kristopher Muldrew and all of those who passed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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“Em nome de Deus pai, Deus filho e Deus espírito santo. Meu Senhor do Bonfim, acho em mim a tua presença, humildemente, para receber de vós, todas as graças que quiser me derramar. Perdoe-me Senhor por todas as faltas que eu tenha cometido, por obra ou pensamento. Fazei de mim forte para vencer todas as tentações do inimigo e do mal feitor. Que o sagrado orixá Ogum corte com sua espada todos os males e todas as enfermidades do meu corpo. Que Iemanjá, a rainha do mar, leve sob milhões para o fundo do mar todas as pertubações materiais e espirituais. Que Iansã afaste de mim todas as tempestades para o vento da bonança me trazer prosperidade. Que Oxum leve consigo todas as lágrimas que eu tenha que chorar para nunca mais desespero e tristeza me alcançar. Que toda a fortuna do mundo possa chegar aos meus pés com a força do sagrado orixá Oxumaré. Xangô meu pai, solidifique como é a sua santa pedreira para todos os bens eu alcançar. Salve nosso Senhor do Bonfim, Salve todos os orixás, que nos protejam nessa vida para nada nos faltar.
Èpa bàbá!”
Catimbó de Baiano e Preto Velho – Casa Pai Joaquim de Angola
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Abstract
Umbanda’s Relationship with the Natural Environment & Religious Intolerance
Alex Costa Kott, MA The University of Texas at Austin, 2021
Supervisor: J. Brent Crosson
This work explores one of Brazil’s most important syncretic religion, Umbanda. The first chapter focuses on how Umbanda and umbandistas relate and interact with the natural environment in its various forms. One of the main themes of this section is the importance of the orixás for the religion’s relationship with nature. This chapter also explores: plant taxonomy in Umbanda, Umbanda’s National Sanctuary in the city of Santo André (SP), the establishment Umbanda’s Magna Carta in 2013, the appearance of political-partisan movements for African derived religions in Brazil, the use of sacred food offerings in Umbanda, and how Brazil’s process of urbanization has impacted how umbandistas interact with nature in midst of the Anthropocene. The second chapter explores how religious intolerance has been manifesting against indigenous and African religiosity. The first section of the chapter focuses on the history of how Catholicism has demonized indigenous and African spirituality. This chapter also explores: the Kingdom of Kongo’s process of Catholicization, the establishment of Zélio de Morães’ Tenda vii Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade in Cachoeiras de Macacu, Rio de Janeiro, and also the spread of religious intolerance through evangelization, televangelism, Kardecian Spiritism and Eurocentrism.
viii Table of Contents
Introduction ...... 1
Literature Review ...... 3
Chapter 1: Umbanda and the Natural Environment ...... 8
Introduction ...... 8
Umbanda ...... 13
Orixás in Umbanda ...... 14
Umbanda & Plant Taxonomy ...... 16
Umbanda’s National Sanctuary ...... 19
Umbanda’s Magna Carta ...... 21
Umbanda, the Environment & Politics ...... 23
Offerings ...... 27
Umbanda, the Environment, and Urbanization ...... 30
Umbanda and the Anthropocene ...... 32
Conclusion...... 34
Chapter 2: Umbanda & Religious Intolerance ...... 36
Introduction ...... 36
Umbanda’s Relationship with Catholicism ...... 38
Umbanda’s Bantu Connection...... 41
The Portuguese Crown in Indigenous Territory ...... 45
Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade (Spiritist Center Our Lady of Piety) ..... 48
Evangelization & Violence ...... 50
The Evangelization of Drug Traffickers in the state of Rio de Janeiro ...... 52 ix Sugarcoating Violence & Eurocentric Notions of Religion ...... 56
Umbanda & Espiritismo ...... 61
Allan Kardec & Christian Morality...... 61
The Manifestation of Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas Through Zélio de Moraes & the Establishment of the Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade ...... 64
Umbandista or Espírita? ...... 68
Conclusion...... 71
Conclusion ...... 74
Bibliography...... 79
x Introduction
In order to engage with a literature review about Umbanda I have to first acknowledge and emphasize how African derived religions such as Umbanda are rooted in oral traditions and history, although, with the increasing presence of practitioners and religious leaders of African derived religions in academia, and the growing access and influence of the internet and it’s social media platforms, access to traditional knowledge and the spread of such oral based religions are changing rapidly. Oral history has been undervalued by traditional scholars, who historically trusted and continue defend the veracity of written sources. A new generation of historians have been eager to value and capture the voices of disempowered groups.1 I find it important to honor and acknowledge the wealth of knowledge that exists in terreiros that is not expressed through written texts, but instead expressed through music, dances, sacred food preparation, medicinal plant use, and daily interactions and conversations. Along with oral history’s importance inside and outside of academia, I would also like to emphasize “why testimonio comes into being outside or at the margin of the historically constituted institution of literature in modern Western culture.”2 After reading this quote I started thinking about how academia as an institution of power has also historically used its resources to propagate discourses of Eurocentrism, which violently further contributes to the marginalization of disempowered groups. Testimonio gives a voice to those who have been forcibly voiceless, and as such, may be the reason testimonio has been “at the margins” of academia. The presence of testimonio in academic spaces presents the
1 Alessandro Portelli, “What Makes Oral History Different,” in “What Makes Queer Oral History Different,” The Oral History Review, Vol. 43, No. 1, (2016), 03. 2 John Beverly, “Through All Things modern: Second Thoughts on Testimonio,” Boundary 2, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Summer, 1991), 06. 1 opportunity for coping and healing to survivors of violence, making it a tool of empowerment within academia. As a researcher, especially researching and writing about “nonhegemonic classes”, the well-being of those contributing to the completion of academic work should be always emphasized and re-emphasized. Scholars and graduate students such as myself should be reminded of their (our) positionalities in greater society and of being affiliated with academic institutions which have historically produced and reproduced violence in numerous ways. Dr. Natasha Behl in “Mapping Movements and Motivations: An Autoethnographic Analysis of Racial, Gendered , and Epistemic Violence in Academia” emphasizes that she writes because writing is a political act, a way of reclaiming power, and giving voice to a double trauma, first of racialized and gendered violence, and second of loss of voice.3 Dr. Behl also states how she finds that academic writing often adopts a cold and detached writing style, which obscures the pain, trauma, and injustice that animates researchers and the research process.4 It is with such thought that I approach and engage with the literature and writing process on Umbanda. Beverly (1991) states that “In general, secular writing in the colonies was not intended for commercial publication and even less for a general reading public”.5 Beverly refers to the colonial world, and many might relegate colonial secular writings to the past, but the same question should be taken into consideration when analyzing to whom and why scholars are writing, and who has access to scholarly work being produced. “People of color historically have been misrepresented, exploited, silenced, and taken for granted
3 Natasha Behl, “Mapping Movements and Motivations: An Autoethnographic Analysis of Racial, Gendered, and Epistemic Violence in Academia. Feminist Formations, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Spring 2019), 88. 4 Behl, 88. 5 Beverly, 13. 2 in education research.”6 “Some education researchers have given privileged status to dominant, White voices, beliefs, ideologies, and views over the voices of people of color.”7 As a graduate student who studies African derived religions I have to keep in mind that these are the families and communities who have been directly impacted by such violence in the name of academic research. “Researchers’ multiple and varied positions, roles, and identities are intricately and inextricably embedded in the process and outcomes of education research.”8 While writing, and while reading scholarly work, it may be beneficial to take these implications into consideration. This analysis might be helpful to graduate students such as myself, as a reminder that with access to the production and reproduction of knowledge in academic spaces comes a lot of responsibility toward those who we are writing about, and society in general.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The first chapter of this work focuses in Umbanda’s relationship with the natural environment. The only scholarly work in English which referred to the importance of nature to umbandistas and their well-being was Dr. Emma Francis Stone’s “Re- enchanting Late Modernity: The Role of Nature in Brazilian Umbanda.” Most of the scholarship referring to Umbanda’s relationship with nature was in Portuguese, such as
6 Dillard 2000; Stanfield 1995 in H. Richard Milner IV, “Race, Culture, and Researcher Positionality: Working through Dangers Seen, Unseen and Unforseen,” Educational Researcher, Vol. 36, No.7, (October 2007), 388-389. 7 Gordon 1990; Tillman 2002 8 Chapman 2007; Ladson-Billings; 2000. Stanley 2007 3 Colli-Silva (2019)9 which captures the reforestation of the Atlantic Rainforest in the interior of São Paulo as a result of a collective effort from terreiros de umbanda. The current Sanctuary located in Santo André, São Paulo demonstrates how African derived religions such as Umbanda may play an important role in building environmental consciousness. Throughout the thesis writing process I also used sources coming from studies of Candomblé such as Aureliano Léo Neto and Romeu da Nóbrega Alves (2010)10, which acknowledged a positive interaction between candomblecistas and nature, capturing a growing ecological consciousness coming from practitioners and religious leaders. Numerous studies of Umbanda such as “Um bosque de folhas sagradas” and in “Nessas matas tem folhas: uma análise sobre plantas e ervas a partir da Umbanda paulista” have emphasized the need of more scholarship focusing in Umbanda’s relationship with nature. Both of the previous studies have been performed in the state of São Paulo. The location of the scholarly field-work reflects Dr. Engler Steven’s important commentary on the need for more studies of Umbanda originating outside of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. 11 “Direitos humano e diálogo com século XXI na Carta Magna da Umbanda” by Dr. Artur Cesar Isaia has captured important concerns about how a group of umbandistas have positioned themselves collectively and politically. The political mobilization of such religious leaders has also shown the need to preserve and care for
9 Matheus Colli-Silva and Vagner Gonçalves da Silva, “Um bosque de folhas sagradas: o Santuário nacional da Umbanda e o culto da natureza,” Interagir:pensando a extenção, N. 26 (Rio de Janeiro: July-December, 2018), 11-33. 10 Nivaldo Aureliano Léo Neto and Rômulo Romeu da Nóbrega Alves, “A natureza sagrada do Candomblé: análise da construção mística acerca da natureza em terreiros de Candomblé no nordeste do Brasil,” Interciencia: Vol. 35, N. 8, (August 2010). 11 Steven Engler, “Umbanda and Africa,” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and emergent Religions, Vol. 15, No. 4 (May 2012), 13-35. 4 the natural environment and of the ecological consciousness among devotees of African derived religions.12 One central idea of the first chapter demonstrates that one way umbandistas relate and interact with nature is through the Orixás. The Orixá’s manifestation and embodiment with and through nature further contributes a greater amount of interaction between practitioners of African derived religions and the natural environment. My emphasis on the Orixás as the reason behind the sacralization of nature to some umbandistas doesn’t mean that other spiritual entities in Umbanda don’t have their own relationship with the natural environment (or even urban environment). The veneration and the manifestation of the Orixás across numerous Afro-Brazilian religious denominations has allowed my research to expand to other religious denominations besides Umbanda, where the Orixás are highly evolved “spirits” or entities.13 The ideas expressed throughout the thesis are also derived from numerous African and Afro- Caribbean religious scholars such as with the works of Dr. Toyin Falola, Dr. Elizabeth Pérez, Dr. Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús and Dr. J. Brent Crosson. Dr. J. Brent Crosson’s work Experiments with Power: Obeah and the Remaking of Religion in Trinidad has demonstrated how the demonization and the intention to criminalize animal offerings in African derived religions across the Caribbean and Latin America have been a constant tool of religious intolerance and persecution. Indigenous scholarship such as Dr. Marisol de la Cadena’s “Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes” has contributed enormously towards an intersectional analysis of how indigenous spiritual entities and their presence within nature have been challenging modern day politics, due to the ongoing threat
12 Artur Cesar Isaia, “Direitos humanos e diálogo com o século XXI na Carta Magna da Umbanda,” História: Debates e Tendências, Vol. 19, N. 1 (January-April 2019), 124-134. 13 Stone, 486. 5 coming from “the neoliberal wedding of capital and state.”14 De la Cadena’s work led me to ask similar questions regarding the sociopolitical position of umbandistas regarding their relationship with nature based on the veneration and representation of the Orixás. The second chapter of the thesis focuses on how religious intolerance has historically and continues to manifest against umbandistas and other practitioners of African derived religions in Brazil. The nomenclature of religious practices which influenced the establishment of Umbanda’s numerous identities such as Calundú, Cabula and others have been important during the research process in order to better grasp the Catholic Church’s role in epistemicide against indigenous and African ways of knowing, ways of knowing which have influenced Umbanda’s religious practices. Keeping in mind religious practices such as Calundú, Cabula and Candomblé de Caboclo may remind the reader to look at Umbanda’s historical process of establishment outside of the Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade and Umbanda’s mythological origins in Rio de Janeiro. Prior to Umbanda’s mythological birth year in 1908, the founding entities of Umbanda (such as the Caboclo and Preto Velho) were already manifesting under other religious spaces and denominations. Brumana and Martinez (1991) state that the spiritual entities manifesting in Umbanda are not a “creation” of Umbanda, and instead it has been absorbed from various preexisting religious and cultural elements in Brazil.15 The great majority of the most up-to-date scholarship regarding religious intolerance and persecution in Brazil towards African derived religions have been focused in the role of neo-Pentecostalism. Dr. Danielle N. Boaz in “Spiritual Warfare or
14 Marisol de la Cadena, “Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes: Conceptual Reflections beyond ‘Politics’ “ Culural Anthropology, Vol. 25, Issue 2, (2010), 342. 15 “As entidades umbandistas não são criações ‘ex nihilo’ do culto, e sim a absorçāo de elementos preexistentes em diversos registros culturais.” F. G. Brumana and E. G. Martinez, Marginália Sagrada, (Campinas: Editora Unicamp, 1991), 257. 6 Crimes against Humanity? Evangelized Drug Traffickers and Violence against Afro- Brazilian Religions in Rio de Janeiro” has captured the systematic and violent attacks on practitioners of African derived religions in cities and favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Hartikainen (2019), and Miklos and Penna Madeira (2019) both analyze court cases which emphasize what constitutes a religion and how social media platforms have been used to spread religious intolerance and hatred against African derived religions, and consequently its practitioners. A significant literary contribution towards a current understanding of the study of religious intolerance and persecution against African derived religions in Brazil has been the work Dr. Sidnei Nogueira, also known as Pai Sidnei de Sàngó, who is the babalorixá of Comunidade da Compreensão e da Restauração Ile Àsé Sàngó (CCRIAS), located in Suzano, São Paulo. His work was published in 2020 which contributes enormously to a more informed and current understanding of religious intolerance in Brazil. Nogueira’s positionality, not only as an academic but also as a babalorixá is crucial not only to academia but also to communities of African derived religions in Brazil, by having their own voice and experiences within academia. After a lengthy review of literature about Umbanda, I have come to the conclusion about the need or more of studies on Umbanda coming from states other than Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Brazil with its extensive territory and numerous regional cultures may have tremendous implications across terreiros of Umbanda and how the religion is practiced. I would also like to emphasize the need of more studies on the impacts of the internet and social media on religious traditions such as Umbanda, both regarding the role of the internet and social media platforms towards religious intolerance, and also how unlimited access to information about religious practices through the internet might be contributing or disrupting local religious practices and hierarchy within terreiros. 7 Chapter 1: Umbanda and the Natural Environment
INTRODUCTION
The following chapter focuses on the intersectionality between studies of Umbanda and the natural environment. Through various studies of Candomblé, scholars have emphasized the very important and complex presence of plants and the overall natural environment, for liturgical and medicinal purposes, however, the relationship between Umbanda and nature appears to be understudied, and deserves further attention and recognition.16 Due to the absence of scholarship on Umbanda and its relationship to the environment, studies of Candomblé are used throughout this chapter along with studies of Umbanda in order to better comprehend Umbanda’s relationship with the Orixás, and consequently with nature. It is also important to remember the components these religions share, which are the Orixás. Not only that, but as ethnobotanical studies of Afro-Brazilian religions such as “The Plants Have Axé”17 suggests, the vast majority of plants used in Umbanda are also used in other Afro-Brazilian religions such as Candomblé. Dr. Kwasi Wiredu, a distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Florida studying colonialism and inter-cultural dialogue, raises an important argument in his work Decolonizing African Religions. Dr. Wiredu’s argument, as stated below, should also be applied in studies of Umbanda, since it is a product of colonialism. Dr. Wiredu suggests that:
16 Pedro Crepaldi Carlessi, “Nessas matas tem folhas!” Uma análise sobre ‘plantas’ e ‘ervas’ a partir da Umbanda paulista. (Universidade Federal de São Paulo, 2016), 20. 17 Tiago Santos Pagnocca and Sofia Zank and Natalia Hanazaki, “The plants have axé”: investigating the use of plants in Afro-Brazilian religions of Santa Catarina Island. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, (2020). 8 The starting point of the problem is that the African who learned philosophy in English, for example, has most likely become conceptually westernized to a large extent not by choice but buy force of historical circumstances. To that same extent he may have become de-Africanized. It does not matter if the philosophy he learned was African philosophy. If that philosophy was academically formulated in English and articulated therein, the message was already substantially westernized, unless there was a conscious effort towards cultural filtration. (xi) Dr. Wiredu’s emphasis on de-Africanization may also be applied to one of the dominant differentiating characteristics between terreiros of Umbanda and terreiros of Candomblé, that being the language spoken throughout their rituals, songs, and prayers. In Candomblés of different ethnoreligious nations (Ketu/Nagô, Congo/Angola, Jeje, etc), languages such as Kikongo, Kimbundu, Yoruba, and Fon are used daily throughout their religious practices. In Umbanda, most, if not all, rituals, sacred songs (pontos cantados) and prayers are performed in Portuguese with some words derived from African languages such as the ones previously mentioned. While following Dr. Wiredu’s suggestion regarding the power implications behind the use of language throughout philosophical training, the same suggestion can also be applied towards post-colonial efforts of de-Africanization in Umbanda, not only from Catholicism, but also Kardecian Spiritism. A linguistic analysis of Umbanda’s pontos cantados, combined with Dr. Wiredu’s suggestion on the power dynamics behind language, shows the importance of Umbanda’s relationship with other African derived religions such as Candomblé, in order to maintain its vitality and preserve its African heritage coming from various ethnoreligious African groups. Since religions such as: Kardecian Spiritism, Catholicism and other Brazilian indigenous such as Jurema Sagrada, influence Umbanda in various amounts and ways, a relationship between Umbanda and other African derived religions, both in scholarship and within practitioners, might be an important tool to prevent and fight against Umbanda’s long history of de-Africanization, as seen in Brown (1994). It is also important to keep in mind that both Umbanda and Candomblé are relatively new 9 processes of religious organization, and one of the most important attributes which brings both religions together is the veneration and manifestation (in its various forms) of the Orixás, which have been venerated and manifesting in West Africa for thousands of years. In “A natureza Sagrada do Candomblé” (2010), the authors show how terreiros of Candomblé located in urban spaces in northeast Brazil rely on plants collected from forests and other natural environments in order to sacralize the terreiro so the Orixás, who are perceived as sacred, can manifest. Upon interviews of different babalorixás and yalorixás, the authors concluded that an urban environment, is only capable of becoming sacred through the use of plants. This way, the environment and its plants not only fulfill liturgical and medicinal purposes such as through herbal baths and defumações in order to heal, cleanse, and protect the practitioner’s body and spirit, but the same principal is applied to an urban environment which needs to be sacralized and cleansed in order to reach and receive the Orixás.18 Despite the argument which emphasizes Umbanda’s relationship with the environment as one which has “a variety of positive consequences for practitioners and helps to foster pro-environmental behavior by practitioners of Umbanda,”19 it is important to avoid generalizations in studies of Umbanda, a religion which may and sometimes does have distinct realities and lineages, a religion which respects differences. I argue that one of the factors leading to a positive relationship between umbandistas and the environment is Umbanda’s medicinal and liturgical use of plants, and the veneration
18 Nivaldo Aureliano Léo Neto and Rômulo Romeu da Nóbrega Alves, “A natureza Sagrada do Candomblé: análise da construção mística acerca da natureza em terreiros de Candomblé no nordeste de Brasil,” Interciencia, Vol. 35, N. 8 (August 2010): 570. 19 Emma Francis Stone, “Re-enchanting Late Modernity: The Role of Nature in Brazilian Umbanda,” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, (2015): 485. 10 of the Orixás. Dr. Reginaldo Prandi, one of Brazil’s renowned anthropologists of Afro- Brazilian religions, states, when referring to students and scholars of Afro-Brazilian religious studies, “for those who engage in the adventure which is to study Umbanda and the various Afro-Brazilian religions, generalizations are not welcome”.20 Umbanda’s history also helps the reader understand its numerous faces and interpretations, which are influenced by regional, social, political, and cultural implications.21 The purpose of this chapter is to further contribute to the intersectionality between studies on the environment and religion, through various ways which Umbanda relies upon and relates to the natural environment. Scholars may attribute a lack of studies of Umbanda’s relationship to the environment to a possible generalization which characterizes Umbanda as an urban religion. It is true, however, that Umbanda as we know today has numerous urban characteristics and attributes, not only due to a possible geographic location, but also through spiritual entities such as Exús, Pombagiras and Zé Pelintras whose mythology embraces urban life. Umbanda’s urban development and characteristics shouldn’t dismiss the importance of the natural environment but should keep in mind that Umbanda’s environmental and urban attributes can and may vary from one terreiro to another. The diverse background of authors and scholarly work on Umbanda coming from different Brazilian states in this chapter is purposely chosen in order to better accentuate Umbanda’s regional implications, which also might influence how umbandistas relate
20 Reginaldo Prandi, Segredos guardados: orixás na alma brasileira, in Direitos humanos e diálogo com o século XXI na Carta Magna da Umbanda (História: Debates e Tendências, Vol. 19, N. 1, 2019), 125. “para quem se aventura a estudar a Umbanda e as demais religiões afro-brasileiras, as generalizações não são bem-vindas. Translated by the author. 21 Alexandre Cumino, A Umbanda e o umbandista: quem é e o que é? (São Paulo: Madras, 2016), 15. 11 and interact with nature. “Overreliance on studies of Umbanda in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, has led to neglect of other areas of the country, including the interior of those states”.22 The purpose of this study is not intended to generalize or homogenize Umbanda’s relationship with nature, since it may manifest differently in each terreiro. Umbanda is a rich and diverse world which deserves the attention of numerous fields of study, including environmental studies. When engaging with the overall studies of African and African-derived religions, Umbanda’s heterogenous nature reflects the argument seen in Sàngó in Africa and the African Diaspora when describing the religious practices of the Yorùbá òrìsà Sàngó. “There is nothing ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in the multiple images of Sàngó; all Sàngó worshippers have been free to define Sàngó in the way most meaningful to them. However, though there may not be anything ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ about these definitions, there do exist tensions.”23 Despite Afro-Brazilian religious worldviews having a natural element, the contact with nature and the natural environment that religions such as Umbanda have may not be sufficient to inspire what could be defined as “ecological consciousness.” With a growing communal consciousness of the importance of the natural environment in relation to African derived religions in Brazil, some religious leaders and practitioners are promoting more responsible and ecologically safe practices through public statements and political mobilizations.
22 Steven Engler, “Umbanda and Africa,” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Vol. 15, No. 4 (May 2012), 26. 23 Toyin Falola and Joel E. Tishken and Akintunde Akinyemi, Sàngó in Africa and the African Diaspora, Indiana University Press, 2009, 07. 12 UMBANDA
Umbanda is a religion that absorbs many of the experiences lived by its religious leaders in its rituals. It also absorbs regional and geographical characteristics of Brazil’s diverse cultures and peoples, which can be seen and manifested throughout different terreiros of Umbanda across different Brazilian states. Umbanda’s heterogenous nature diversifies its historical lineages, religious practices, and even what spiritual entities and/or Orixás are manifested in the terreiro. When analyzing Umbanda’s relationship to the natural environment, it is important to keep in mind that this relationship might differ from one terreiro to another. On the one hand, the Santuário Nacional da Umbanda exemplifies a positive interaction between umbandistas and the natural environment due to their forest restoration and reforestation, a positive and counter force in the midst of the Anthropocene. The terreiros involved in the making Santuário established a safe place, not only for the Atlantic rainforest, but also a safe place to practice Umbanda in the midst of Brazil’s religious intolerance and persecution. On the other hand, studies have also shown how practitioners of African and African derived religions may harm the environment due to the absence of biodegradable materials in their oferendas and despachos to the Orixás which are made in natural environments such as forests, rivers, and beaches. When referring to the relationship between umbandistas and the natural environment in a country such a Brazil, it is important to keep in mind that Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, and the relationship of an umbandista with the environment who lives in a city such as São Paulo, one of the world’s largest metropolises, might differ from the relationship with nature of an umbandista who lives in rural areas, or where contact with forests, rivers, and beaches is much greater and influential, not only for their religious practices, but also their overall life.
13 Through the manifestation and veneration of spiritual entities and Orixás, Umbanda’s liturgy embraces untouched nature, rural life and urban centers. Spiritual entities such as the Pretas and Pretos Velhos, Boiadeiros are associated with Brazil’s rural life. Spiritual entities such as Exus, Malandros and Pombagiras, popularly known as people of the streets, or povo da rua, are attributed to Brazil’s urban life. Characteristics of untouched nature such as forests, are associated to spiritual entities such as Caboclas and Caboclos, which reflects Brazil’s indigenous peoples, both through romanticized attributes and Umbanda’s incorporation of other Afro-indigenous religions such as Jurema Sagrada. Besides Umbanda’s numerous groups of spirits whose mythologies, religious practices and offerings also rely on the environment, the Orixás are the most highly evolved “spirits” in Umbanda.24
ORIXÁS IN UMBANDA
In “Umbanda Spirituality: Recreating Spaces for Inclusion” Dr. Irene Dias de Oliveira and Érica Ferreira da Cunha Jorge explain how umbandistas believe in a supreme divine being: God.25 In pontos cantados in Umbanda, which are used to revere and call on spiritual entities and Orixás, God is also commonly referred to as Olódúmarè
(Yoruba), N’zambi (Bantu) or Tupã (Tupi-Guarani). The various names used to refer to or call on God, are a prime example of importance of linguistic studies in Umbanda’s scholarship in order to better understand and process Umbanda’s history and establishment as one of Brazil’s most important religions. Not only is it important to
24 Stone, 486. 25 Irene Dias de Oliveira and Érica Ferreira da Cunha Jorge, “Espiritualidade umbandista: recriando espaços de inclusão,” Horizonte: V. 11, N. 29 (January/March 2013), 36. 14 understand how umbandistas interact with and relate to the natural environment, but it is important to refer to the cosmologies which are manifested in Umbanda, the Orixás being inherited from Yorubaland. It should be emphasized that the Orixás can and may manifest differently across different terreiros of Umbanda. In some terreiros, instead of or along with the Orixás, voduns26 or minkisi27 may also be present in the terreiro’s religious pantheon, and may also manifest and be venerated throughout these terreiros. Central to this discussion of the umbandistas’ relation to nature is the sacralization of nature and ecological consciousness which can be due to the presence and the reverence of the Orixás. Despite that in Umbanda the Orixás tend to not incorporate or “mount” the mediums, in Umbanda’s pantheon, the Orixás are still portrayed as the most highly evolved spirits.28 In Umbanda, these Orixás are Yoruba deities, presented in various ways, as mythological and historical characters, forces of nature, vibrations, and essences.29 The Orixás are also associated with the elements of nature, and this association is significant because it reflects how umbandistas portray and relate to nature. In Umbanda and many other Afro-Brazilian religions that venerate the Orixás, it is understood that the veneration of Orixás is also portrayed as the veneration of nature.30 Each Orixá has its own kingdom within nature and the environment. Yemanjá is known
26 Ana Cristina Zecchinelli Alves, “Rezando em jeje na Umbanda, criação e tradicionalização de um ritual inter-religioso: A Reza Para Azawane. Universidade Federal Fluminense, 2018. 27 Joana Bahia and Farlen Nogueira, “Tem Angola na Umbanda? Os usos da África pela Umbanda Omolocô,” Revista Transversos, Rio de Janeiro, N. 13, (May-August, 2018). 28 Stone, 486. 29 Lindsay Hale, Hearing the Mermaid’s Song: The Umbanda Religion in Rio de Janeiro. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009), 150. 30 Ulysses Paulino de Albuquerque, O Dono do Segredo: O Uso de Plantas nos Cultos Afro-Brasileiros. (Recife: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, 2007), 72. 15 in Brazil as rainha do mar, the queen of the sea; Oxóssi’s kingdom is the forest, he is the Orixá responsible for hunting, and is also considered the protector of wildlife. Dr. Steven Engler when referring to terreiros of Umbanda Branca and Esotérica argues that the presence of the Orixás in these terreiros is the main marker of Candomblé’s influence in terreiros of Umbanda that have limited African elements. According to Engler, in Umbanda Branca “the Orixás are seldom if ever mentioned”.31 While keeping in mind the different interpretations and manifestation of particular Orixás across Umbanda’s diverse religious landscape, the backbone of the relationship (romanticized or not), between umbandistas and the environment, are the Orixás.
UMBANDA & PLANT TAXONOMY
An innovative study which used an ethnobotanical approach to analyze the use of plants in Afro-Brazilian religions in Santa Catarina, a southern region of Brazil, sought to understand the relevance of plants and their relationship to medicinal, spiritual, and cultural applications. The study was conducted in terreiros of Umbanda, Candomblé, and Ritual de Almas e Angola which can be defined as a branch of Umbanda, but with characteristics that align it closely with Candomblé.32
The approach taken through the lens of ethnobotanical studies not only demonstrates how important the natural environment and its plants are for medicinal, liturgical and cultural purposes in Umbanda, but also shows, as concluded in “The Plants
31 Steven Engler, “Umbanda: Africana or Esoteric?”, Open Library of Humanities, 6(1): 25, (June 2020), 21. 32 Giovani Martins, Ritual de Almas e Angola em Santa Catarina, (Florianópolis author’s edition), 2006. 16 have Axé,”33 how nature and its elements are common characteristics which bring different Afro-Brazilian religions together not only throughout their religious practices but also in academic studies. “One of the basic foundations of these three Afro-Brazilian religions (Candomblé, Umbanda, and Ritual de Almas e Angola) is the use of plants in their liturgical rituals since they are carriers of axé, a primordial element for the accomplishment of ritual and religious works.34 In these three ritual practices, plants are understood as essential parts of the healing practices. It is believed that plants can influence the spiritual plane and energetic layers that make up the aura of living beings, through an exchange of energetic fields. According to Dr. Lindsay Hale in Hearing the Mermaid’s Song: The Umbanda Religion in Rio de Janeiro, “axé is the force, the potential, the drive, the ceaseless energy of becoming. Axé is the power of the Orixás. Axé is realized in human beings, crystallized in sacred objects buried beneath the dirt floor… fixed and made available in sacred plants…”.35 One of the many principle concepts of African derived religions such as Umbanda that can be agreed upon various terreiros, is axé. Through medicinal, liturgical and cultural properties of plants used in Umbanda, axé is what “neutralizes certain energies and enhances others”.36 Both practitioners and scholars of Umbanda and many other African derived religions, understand that axé is the actual religion at work. Plants produce and carry axé, in doing so, plants demonstrate their essential role and the role of nature in Umbanda and other African derived religions.
33 Tiago Santos Pagnocca and Sofia Zank and Natalia Hanazaki, “The plants have axé”: investigating the use of plants in Afro-Brazilian religions of Santa Catarina Island. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, (2020). 34 Rubens Saraceni. A magia divina das sete ervas sagradas. (Madras: São Paulo), 2015. 35 Hale, 150. 36 Santos Pagnocca and Zank and Hanazaki, 03. 17 A total of twenty-seven babalorixás and yalorixás were interviewed throughout these terreiros in Santa Catarina. The interviewees were composed of 9 men and 18 women, between the ages of 34 and 67.37 These terreiros were located in urban areas which limited the growing of plants. As a result, the cultivation of ceremonially-relevant plants occurred both in urban areas (which became limited), and in nearby forests where rituals were also conducted. The natural environment not only provides plants and trees that are essential for ceremonies (giras) and rituals of Umbanda, but it also serves as a sacred space where ceremonies and rituals may be performed. In spite of the urban reality of these terreiros, the value and reliance that religions such as Umbanda have toward the natural environment, demonstrates the need for more environmental and ethnobotanical studies within African derived religions. Although most scholars characterize Umbanda as a religion which propagated during Brazil’s process of urbanization, ethnobotanical and environmental approaches are able to grasp how much the environment and its natural properties are essential to Umbanda. This dependence and reliance also raises important questions regarding the extent of ecological consciousness and environmental concerns that umbandistas might or might not have. The study identified 14 categories of uses of plants throughout the terreiros, “with emphasis on liturgical use (59% of the species), general and unspecified diseases (32%), digestive (27%), respiratory (15%), urological (14%), psychological (125) and endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases (10%)…Within the context of liturgical use, seven forms of use were identified, smoke cleansing, amaci, protection, offering, feitura de santo (making of saint), and blessing.”38 Cluster analysis and SIMPROF showed no significant difference in knowledge about plants between these religious groups, as they
37 Santos Pagnocca and Zank and Hanazaki, 04. 38 Santos Pagnocca and Zank and Hanazaki, 05. 18 share a large number of species. There is a similarity of 89.41% between Almas e Angola and Umbanda; 70% between Almas e Angola and Candomblé, and 67.85% between Candomblé and Umbanda groups. All respondents answered that they understood the plants as a basic and fundamental element of Afro-Brazilian religions, and without them, it would not be possible to carry out the religious works since the plants are holders of the axé, the primordial energy accessed in rituals.39 The results of this fascinating study also show that Umbanda and other African derived religions in Brazil, such as Candomblé and Almas e Angola in Santa Catarina share a large amount of plant species which are used during their religious practices. This analysis also demonstrates the relevance of studies of other African derived religions in order to better understand and study Umbanda. The abundant and diverse world of plants, as catalogued in “The Plants Have Axé,” shows how much the natural environment and its resources are extremely important for umbandistas, their overall health, religious practices and well-being.
UMBANDA’S NATIONAL SANCTUARY
Dr. Stone in Re-enchanting Modernity: The Role of Nature in Umbanda states that “although the relationship of umbandistas and nature are sometimes romanticized, it has a variety of positive consequences for practitioners, and helps to foster pro- environmental behavior by practitioners of Umbanda”.40 The establishment of the National Sanctuary of Umbanda (Santuário Nacional da Umbanda) in 1979 is a great example which helps demonstrate Umbanda’s pro-environmental behavior. The Sanctuary is located in the city of Santo André, in São Paulo state, and it occupies close
39 Santos Pagnocca and Zank and Hanazaki, 06. 40 Stone, 485. 19 to 645,000 square meters of the Atlantic rainforest, and has been visited by umbandistas since the 1970s. Throughout decades, this ecoregion has suffered tremendously from the commercialization and extraction of its natural resources (logging and mining). A collective effort of umbandistas coming from various terreiros in nearby cities (São Caetano do Sul, Santo André, São Bernardo, Mauá, Ribeirão Pires, Diadema and Rio Grande da Serra) led not only to the reforestation of part of the Atlantic rainforest, but also took measures that promoted environmental conservation.41 According to mãe Rosângela, who has been visiting the Sanctuary for more than 15 years, nature is where the energy and strength of the Orixás are found, and it doesn’t make sense for umbandistas to harm the natural environment. She see’s the Sanctuary as a place that brings peace of mind to umbandistas, peace of mind which not only refers to the ability to practice Umbanda safely and without any fear, but also peace of mind knowing that by attending the Sanctuary umbandistas are helping to protect the environment. Mãe Rosângela also refers to environmentally safe practices when her terreiro goes to the beach every year to perform rituals for Yemanjá. “Whenever we go to the beach, we leave the beach the same way we found it. A lot of times we collect trash whenever we arrive at the beach. We clean the space where we stay, and we even clean whatever trash that other people have left”.42 It can be said the establishment of the Sanctuary not only led towards the reforestation and recovery of a large part of the Atlantic rainforest, but it has also led towards a greater ecological consciousness within communities of Umbanda. Under the supervision of biologists, these umbandistas
41 Matheus Colli-Silva and Vagner Gonçalves da Silva, “Um bosque de folhas sagradas: o Santuário nacional da Umbanda e o culto da natureza”, Interagir: Pensando a Extensão, Rio de Janeiro, N. 26, (July/December 2018). 42 Colli-Silva and Gonçalves da Silva, 24. 20 collected natural compost from other parts of the Atlantic rainforest, creating an enormous “biological mattress” which helped restore the natural environment of the forest. Umbandistas portray nature as sacred and have taken measures to preserve nature through habits and efforts that helped build the Sanctuary.43 Not only has the institutionalization of a sacred forest for umbandistas result in the reforestation of the Atlantic rainforest, but it also brought various advantages for terreiros involved. Access to the Sanctuary also resulted in a much more safe and secure environment for Brazilians to practice Umbanda without the fear of any religious intolerance or persecution.
UMBANDA’S MAGNA CARTA
I would also like to approach the study of the relationship between Umbanda and the environment with the same approach which Dr. Artur Cesar Isaia from the University of São Paulo does so in Human Rights Dialogue with the 21st century in the Magna Carta of Umbanda.44 Isaia refers to the Carta Magna da Umbanda as a document that came to the public in 2013, which bases its arguments on Afro-Brazilian socio-religious elements of Umbanda. Unlike the political-partisan movement PDT-Axé, which doesn’t refer at all to environmental issues in its Manifesto, the Magna Carta of Umbanda not only promoted ecological consciousness and the conservation of the environment, but it also referred to racial prejudice, sexism, the politics of women’s contraceptives, euthanasia, and the rights of animals.45
43 Colli-Silva and Gonçalves da Silva, 13. 44 Direitos humanos e diálogo com o século XXI na Carta Magna da Umbanda. 45 Artur Cesar Isaia, “Direitos humanos e diálogo com o século XXI na Carta Magna da Umbanda”, História: Debates e Tendências, Vol. 19, N. 1, (January/April 2019), 124. 21 The Magna Carta of Umbanda was an initiative by a group of mães and pais de santo (Umbanda priests) under the leadership of pai Ortiz Belo. Despite Umbanda’s diverse landscape, there has an effort to seek unification between unaffiliated terreiros, respecting Umbanda’s heterogenous nature, but fighting for a common interest. The creation of documents such as the Magna Carta da Umbanda are not easy to come across, despite the importance of the creation of such document ,it raises important questions both for practitioners and for scholars of the Umbanda. The sociopolitical implications at stake in the document might not reflect the views of all umbandistas, Marme Rosa, a mãe de santo from Brazil’s southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, says that the release of the Magna Carta resulted in a divisão de forças.46 The distinct and diverse set of beliefs found across different terreiros of Umbanda reflects not only conflicting sociopolitical positions, but it shows the complexity of speaking on behalf of Umbanda itself, both as a practitioner and a scholar. The presence of topics such as the natural environment in the Magna Carta, might not exemplify the prioritization of all umbandistas but it shows scholars that it is an important and relevant topic for studies of Umbanda. The Magna Carta’s reference to the natural environment, shows the importance of the environment not only for religious purposes, but also how it can manifest in sociopolitical views. Not only does the Magna Carta prioritize environmental conservation for umbandistas and society in general, but it also emphasizes a direct relationship between the veneration of the Orixás, ancestors, and nature.47 “Umbanda as a natural and ecological religion, has its practitioners as protectors of the environment; we understand that the sacred Orixás manifest themselves “magnetically” with more intensity in nature, where practitioners of Umbanda go frequently, promoting an
46 Isaia, 126. 47 Isaia, 131-132. 22 energetic well-being and harmony, bringing a sense of balance and stability with the “forces” of Mother Nature.”48 It is clear that the document emphasizes and promotes a greater consensus between human beings and the environment through the religion of Umbanda.
UMBANDA, THE ENVIRONMENT & POLITICS
Humberto Cholango’s letter as seen in “Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes” (2010), is a socioreligious position within indigenous social movements which practitioners of African and African derived religions such as Umbanda can approach religiously, socially, and ecologically. Cholango’s letter protested more than 500 years of colonization by the dominant Catholic Church, as well as neoimperial stance of George W. Bush.49
“It’s inconceivable that in the 21st century, God still has to be defined according to the European standards… We think the life of Jesus is the Great Light coming from Inti Yaya (Paternal and Maternal Light that supports it all), whose aim is to deter anything that doesn’t let us live in justice and brotherhood among human beings and in harmony with Mother Nature…The Pope should note that our religions NEVER DIED, we learned how to merge our beliefs and symbols with the ones of the invaders and oppressors”.
Humberto Cholango, May 2007.
48 “Explicando que a Umbanda como religião Cristã, Natural e Ecológica, têm em seus seguidores os defensores da natureza; entendemos que os Sagrados Orixás se manifestam magneticamente com mais intensidade nos sítios vibratórios da natureza, aonde os religiosos de Umbanda vão constantemente, promovendo concentrações para refazimento energético, harmonizações e captação de energias sublimes, reequilibrando- os com as forças da Mãe Natureza” (Carta Magna da Umbanda, 2012). Translated by the author. 49 Marisol de la Cadena, “Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes: Conceptual Reflections beyond ‘politics’. Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 25, Issue 2 (2010), 335. 23
Cholango’s letter not only emphasizes the presence and importance of nature for the well-being of indigenous communities in the Andes and their religious views, an emphasis which can also be attributed towards African derived religions such as Umbanda due to its reliance on nature for liturgical and medicinal purposes. Cholango’s reference to the mergence of indigenous “beliefs and symbols with the ones of the invaders and oppressors” also characterizes the presence of Catholicism (and eventually Kardecian Spiritism) in Umbanda, its process of syncretization, which should also be perceived as a form of resistance. Not only can the environment be portrayed differently across different terreiros of Umbanda, but syncretism may also manifest differently across different religious spaces. “We understand that the neotraditional African religions in Brazil will know, as they have always known, how to resist by negotiation, for very often negotiating is also a form of resistance”.50 Cholango in his letter, refers to religious practices within a political discourse which places “historical, earthly, and political concerns of cohabitation between Catholic and non-Catholic, indigenous and nonindigenous institutions…the letter reveals that indigenous politics may exceed politics as we know them.51 Umbanda’s religiosity, along with numerous other Afro-diasporic religions, also challenges what is being politicized and what is not. Environmental concerns are a great example of what might interfere in Umbanda’s religious practices, and it might also influence political filiation and mobilization. In “Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes” “the unusual presences, not of indigenous politicians, but of entities” which she refers to as “earth-beings” have disrupted familiar comfort zones in
50 Nei Lopes, “African Religions in Brazil, Negotiation, and Resistance: A Look from Within”, Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 34, No. 6, (July 2004), 859. 51 De la Cadena, 335. 24 political spheres.52 A similar approach can and should be taken towards the Orixás as “earth-beings”, and the relationship the natural environment not only has for socioreligious purposes, but also in political spheres. Within Umbanda’s examples of political mobilizations such as it is seen in the Magna Carta da Umbanda, nature appears to be included in its political agenda, challenging Western understandings between religion and politics. Scholars of religion tend to refer to Judeo-Christian and Islamic political mobilizations in order to grasp the intersectionality between religion and politics. The same approach should also be taken into consideration when it comes to marginalized religions, such as with Umbanda. Despite various efforts and examples identifies Umbanda as an eco-religion as seen in Stone (2015), which promotes a positive relationship between umbandistas and the natural environment, there are cases such as with PDT-Axé which ignores the natural environment in its political agenda. PDT-Axé was established in 2007, and it is Brazil’s first political-partisan movement which aims to represent and protect povos tradicionais de matriz Africana (traditional communities of African derived religions).53 PDT’s Carta Manifesto emphasized and denounced the growing number of violence towards practitioners of African derived religions in Brazil through attacks on terreiros, its practitioners, and the assassination of its religious leaders. The Manifesto also emphasized its fight against all forms of discrimination and racism (PDT Carta Manifesto). Despite the Manifesto’s effort to represent and protect practitioners of religions such as Umbanda by denouncing religious intolerance, violence and racism; the Manifesto disregards an environmental
52 De la Cadena, 336. 53 PDT 12, “PDT é o primeiro movimento partidário voltado aos povos traditionais de matriz africana. Acessed December 5, 2020. https://www.pdt.org.br/index.php/pdt-axe-e- o-primeiro-movimento-partidario-voltado-aos-povos-tradicionais-de-matriz-africana/ 25 agenda, and fails to mention and denounce Brazil’s lack of enforcement and accountability by its government and numerous multinationals working in Brazil, which has led (and continues) to cause numerous environmental issues through: deforestation, forest fires, water pollution due to mining activities, and oil spill’s throughout Brazil’s coast. PDT-Axé fails to acknowledge what Andean indigenous movements have done so in order to protect “nonhumans, sentient entities whose material existence and that of the worlds to which they belong, is currently threatened by the neoliberal wedding of capital and the state.54 Brazil’s natural environment is under an enormous attack. Suffering numerous acts of violence which directly impacts nearby communities, and for the purpose of our chapter, it also threatens the livelihood Umbanda and many other Afro- Brazilian religions due to their reliance and sacralization of the natural environment. In “A natureza sagrada do Candomblé” (2010), the babalorixás and yalorixás who were interviewed, say that nature becomes sacred when it assumes a living representation of divinities, or possibly even more since the Orixás are also portrayed as nature itself.55 Despite the similarities between human and nonhuman religious interaction between those in the Andes (earth-beings) and African derived religions such as Umbanda in Brazil (Orixás), sociopolitical movements such as PDT-Axé appears to have failed to organize themselves in order to “rupture modern politics” in reference to Brazil’s numerous environmental concerns as it is seen in “Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes” (2010). The use of indigenous scholarship such as Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes shows how Umbanda as of a way of seeing, relating, and understanding nature, can contribute not only towards the study of religion, but also studies on the environment.
54 De la Cadena, 342. 55 Léo Neto and Nóbrega Alves, 569. 26 The appearance of earth-beings such as with mountains in Andean politics demonstrates a possible period of “rupture of modern politics”56, which can also be applied and is also seen throughout various studies of Umbanda. These studies not only capture a positive relationship between umbandistas and the environment, but a growing account of ecological consciousness within communities of Umbanda.
OFFERINGS
Dr. Elizabeth Pérez in Religion in the Kitchen presents an incredible work regarding religious food preparation and the act of feeding the Orixás for practitioners of Afro-Cuban Santería in the United States. The importance of talking about food preparation and offerings not only emphasizes the relationship of African derived religions such as Umbanda with the natural environment, but it also captures Umbanda’s need to “feed” the Orixás. The act of sacred food preparation exemplifies the impacts of Classical Enlightenment texts which strongly “reinforced the negative connotations attached in Christian moral thought of appetite and other sensations”57, and these “sensations” are embedded in Umbanda’s religiosity. Despite the need for greater amounts of accountability and ecological consciousness when it comes to the use of biodegradable material during religious offerings in the natural environment, the demonization of food offerings based on Christian moral thought is an ongoing issue faced by many umbandistas and other practitioners of African derived religions in Brazil. Umbanda’s religious practices consists enormously of rituals with the use of plant elements, and one of the most important rituals in Umbanda are the offerings to the
56 De la Cadena, 336 57 Elizabeth Pérez, Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, & the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions, (New York University Press, 2016), 04. 27 Orixás and spiritual entities. The practice of offerings implies that the Orixás and spiritual entities are “eating” the offerings made by umbandistas.58 Specific foods are offered to specific Orixás according to each mythological history. Despite being one of Umbanda’s most important practices, the use of offerings are also the reason behind criticism against umbandistas due to the environmental concerns of not using non-biodegradable materials. According to ”Um bosque de folhas sagradas” (2019), the majority of the fruits, plants, and flowers which are part of the offerings, are bought in stores and street markets, although, a large number of umbandistas make sure to collect these natural elements from their natural environments, because it is understood that the natural elements offered to the Orixás and spiritual entities need to be collected directly from its place of origin. Access to forests and natural environments become an issue for umbandistas living in cities which have a limited access to the natural environment, which once again demonstrates how the relationship between the natural environment and umbandistas might differ depending on the terreiros geographical location. When referring to the use of trabalhos and oferendas in forests, waterfalls, beaches, rivers and other natural environments, the Carta Magna da Umbanda states the need to use biodegradable materials in order to protect the environment, “The religion of Umbanda protects nature, it cherishes the forests, beaches, rivers, waterfalls and springs. It also cherishes the flora and fauna, which by doing so, contributes towards
58 Luiz Ideraldo Beltrame and Marsal, Morando. “O sagrado na cultural gastronômica do candomblé”, Saúde Coletiva: Vol. 5, N. 26, (2008), 242-248. 28 environmental international treaties, indicating the need to develop ways that doesn’t harm the environment.” 59 In “A natureza sagrada do Candomblé” (2010), Pai Marivaldo de Xangô who leads a Candomblé terreiro in the city of Caruaru, in the northeastern state of Pernambuco, when referring to the offering of foods to the Orixás in natural environments says that “everything goes back to the earth and the soil, it also to feeds the soil. It fertilizes the soil and goes back to nature. The soil is going to receive all of that (the offerings) in the form of a fertilizer. From then on the soil becomes stronger and is able to produce more fruits and other things. It’s the cycle…”60 Despite the criticism against many practitioners of Umbanda and other Afro-Brazilian religions who may not act ecologically conscious by not using biodegradable materials during offerings to the Orixás, Pai Marivaldo’s description of the outcome of food offerings which eventually contributes and gives back to the soil, and the natural environment shows how umbandistas can be an ally not only for the protection of the environment, but also cherish its well-being through the use of biodegradable materials and offerings which can act as decomposing organic materials. Practitioners of African and African derived religions in Brazil such as Umbanda, have been accused of harming the environment in relation to use of oferendas and
59 A Magna Carta da Umbanda (2012). “A religião de Umbanda defende a natureza, preza pelas matas, mares, rios, cachoeiras e nascentes. Preza também pela fauna e flora, contribuindo, assim, com os Tratados Internacionais de preservação da Natureza, indicando a necessidade de meios de desenvolvimento que não a agridem.” Translated by the author. 60 Léo Neto and Nóbrega Alves, 570. “Porque quando agente dá de comer aqui ao orixá, aquelas coisas fica…aquilo ali volta pra terra…Volta pra terra, pra alimentar a terra. Vai fertilizer a terra. Volta pra natureza. A terra vai receber aquilo em forma de fertilizante. Daquilo ali, a terra vai ficar mais forte, pra produzir mais, criar outras frutas, outras coisas. É o ciclo da energia…” Translated by the author. 29 despachos which are placed in the forests, rives, beaches, and other natural ecosystems.61 Despite Umbanda’s influence towards a much more positive way of interacting with nature, and its process of divinizing nature, it doesn’t always guarantee ecological consciousness.62 On the other hand, numerous practitioners and religious leaders are now emphasizing and promoting the importance of “sustainable offerings” through various ways including social media. Interviews with various babalorixás and yalorixás of Candomblé terreiros in João Pessoa, in the State of Paraíba, Brazil, as seen in “A natureza sagrada do Candomblé” (2010) demonstrates a growth of positive attitudes towards the natural environment and a growing ecological consciousness. It can be said that devotees of Orixás are also devotees of nature itself and its numerous representations. With the idea in mind of revering nature, it can also be said that it may be unconceivable for devotees of the Orixás, in this case devotees of the powers of nature, to harm the natural environment.
UMBANDA, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND URBANIZATION
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the 2019 fires that have been spreading across parts of the
Amazon rainforest and other biomes in northern and midwestern regions of Brazil could endanger the lives of 33 million people living in those regions, including 420 indigenous communities. As reported by the New York Times, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, since taking office, has worked relentlessly and unapologetically to roll back enforcement
61 Léo Neto and Nóbrega Alves, 570. 62 Colli-Silva and Gonçalves da Silva, 23. 30 of Brazil’s once-strict environmental protections.63 Brazil’s process of urbanization has been consolidated through a model that promotes not only environmental degradation, but also social disparities64, and according to Brazil’s Federal agency, the Conselho de Arquitetura e Urbanismo do Brasil, the impacts caused by environmental shifts are more likely to affect impoverished communities across cities and demonstrates the need of more ethnographic work in Umbanda terreiros located in impoverished and disenfranchised communities to understand the impacts of environmental shifts not only for umbandistas in relation to their relationship with nature, but also to emphasize the overall well-being of those living in these communities despite their religious affiliation. Studies that look at the relationship between Umbanda and the environment such as in “Re-enchanting Late modernity: The Role of Nature in Brazilian Umbanda”, which was based off ethnographic field-work in middle-class terreiros in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to see how “nature is constructed, perceived, and integrated into Umbanda practice and ritual.” Lee and Ackerman (2012, qtd. in Stone [2015])65 argues that the middle class:
Has most acutely experienced the consequences of ‘the desolate landscape of modernity’, as it is neither fully subordinated to capital nor fully autonomous, often subject to flexible labour models in which corporate paternalism, fixed- career paths, and job security no longer exist, thus concomitantly meaning that work no longer provides a strong basis for personal identity. (Lee and Ackerman, 2002)
63 The New York Times, “Brazil’s Bolsonaro on the Environment , In His Own Words”, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/world/americas/bolsonaro-brazil-environment.html 64 Raquel Rolnik and Jeroen Klink, “Crescimento econômico e desenvolvimento urbano: por que nossas cidades continuam tão precárias?” Novos Estudos-CEBRAP, n. 89. (2011). 65 Stone, 492. 31 Umbanda’s overall positive relationship with nature, can fulfill a void caused by “the desolate landscape of modernity” and life in Brazil’s urban centers. Despite Umbanda’s urban attributes, it still maintains and relies on its relationship with the natural environment which may connect or reconnect the lives of those living in urban environments with the natural environment. Dr. Stone argues that, although the methods by which umbandistas identify and connect with nature can be sometimes romanticized, Umbanda presents an appealing way in which interactions with nature cultivate more ecological awareness Umbandistas see the natural world as relatable and knowing; it is a mutual relationship of respect, unlike “the Cartesian perspective that views matter as static and inanimate, and therefore justifiably exploitable for human benefit and use.”66
UMBANDA AND THE ANTHROPOCENE
Through the veneration of the Orixás, umbandistas understand that beyond humanity, other non-human agency such as the trees, plants, oceans, rivers, forests, etc., exercise an active role in life.67 If such relationship with nature is present and fundamental to Umbanda’s religiosity, one should place the studies of Umbanda, and other African & African derived religions in conversation with discourses of the
Anthropocene. In religious communities of Umbanda and Candomblé, the saying “Kò sí ewé, kò sí òrìsà” (sem folha, não há orixá), meaning “without leaves, Orixás don’t exist,” deserves to be taken into consideration. It reflects the religion’s dependence in nature; it shows how fundamental nature is to Umbanda practice and ritual, and most importantly it
66 Stone, 488. 67 Carlessi, 04. 32 presents the Orixás through the lenses of nature and not through its anthropomorphized characteristics which may deemphasize the natural environment. The case study of Umbanda’s National Sanctuary in city of Santo André, which shows positive relationship between human-beings (umbandistas) and the natural environment opposes the belief of human superiority over the natural environment and other non-human living beings. Discourses of the Anthropocene present a geological period of environmental shifts defined as “when the forces of human existence began to overwhelm all other biological, geological, and meteorological forms…the Anthropocene marks the moments when the determinate form of planetary existence, and a malignant form at that, rather than merely the fact that humans affect their environment”.68 Umbanda’s National Sanctuary acknowledges the decadent period through which the natural environment faces in relation to societal attitudes which have negatively impacted the natural environment. But through numerous efforts coming from various communities of Umbanda, umbandistas have emphasized the importance of the natural environment and environmental conservation for Umbanda. Protecting and preserving the environment should not only demonstrate a positive relationship between umbandistas and nature, but it may also also be portrayed as a positive relationship between umbandistas and the Orixás. Unlike discourses of the Anthropocene which places humanity as “the determinate form of planetary existence”, umbandistas revere and venerate the Orixás, which can also imply the reverence and veneration of nature itself. In Umbanda, ideally, humanity depends on the Orixás for its overall well-being, and not the other way around.
68 Elizabeth Povinelli, Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), 11.
33 Recently, Afro-Brazilian religions such as Umbanda and Candomblé have been characterized as eco-religions, such as in Stone (2015) and Léo Neto & Nóbrega Alves (2010). According to Giner and Tabara ([1999], qtd. in Stone [2015]) the term eco- religion represents the religion’s effort (in this case Umbanda) to portray the natural environment with greater importance and “carry the potential to inspire cosmic piety and environmentally rational beliefs and behavior”.69 Povinelli (2016) describes the Anthropocene as a period when “the forces of human existence began to overwhelm all other biological, geological, meteorological forms and forces… a moment when human existence became the determinate form of planetary existence, and a malignant form at that”.70 Dr. Amelia Moore in Destination Anthropocene: Science and Tourism in the Bahamas describes the Anthropocene as “a powerful term that merges aspects of human and natural history to argue for their interdependence”.71 Unlike Dr. Amelia Moore’s emphasis on the Anthropocene which captures the separation or “interdependence” between humanity and the natural environment, Umbanda as a religion, both historically and during its daily practices, relies on the natural environment, Umbanda depends on nature.
CONCLUSION
Umbanda is a religion of social inclusion that respects differences, and these differences are also seen throughout its relationship with the natural environment. Studies
69 Stone, 491. 70 Povinelli, 09. 71 Amelia Moore, Destination Anthropocene: Science and Toursim in the Bahamas. (University of California Press, 2019), 10.
34 of Umbanda which have captured the importance of nature for the religion, identify the relationship between the natural environment and umbandistas as a positive one, despite that it can be romanticized in some occasions. Environmental degradation not only endangers plants species that are essential for Umbanda and its religious practices, but it also endangers the sacredness which is attributed to the Orixás. The purpose of this chapter was to introduce a variety of topics which places itself in between the studies of the environment and of Umbanda. In general, umbandistas relate, construct, and understand the environment in different ways. Some see the environment as a major concern for the religion in the midst of the Anthropocene resulting in political mobilizations, other political movements such as the PDT-Axé have disregarded its environmental agenda and focused primarily on racism, violence and religious intolerance, which is the topic of the next chapter.
35
Chapter 2: Umbanda & Religious Intolerance
INTRODUCTION
The study of religious intolerance in Brazil goes back to the invasion of the Portuguese Crown in indigenous lands, which relied on the collaboration with the Society of Jesus in order to convert Brazil’s indigenous peoples to Catholicism which benefitted in numerous ways both the Jesuits, the Portuguese Crown, and the Pope in their colonial project. Since then, we have seen the erasure and silencing of Brazil’s indigenous worldviews, and further along, the same violence being manifested against Africans, their descendants, and their religions, anything that wasn’t Eurocentric wasn’t accepted.72
Religious intolerance was not only a colonizing tool used during Portuguese colonization, but it was also part of the establishment of Brazil as a nation-state, and it was not until Brazil’s constitution of 1889 that the Catholic Church was disestablished as the state religion, and supposedly granted freedom of religion.73 The restricted recognition of religions other than Catholicism did not, however, extend to Afro-Brazilian religious practices and expressions. Instead, Afro-Brazilian religions remained de facto criminalized until the middle the twentieth century as key ritual practices were prohibited by law.74 For example, the playing of drums, ‘spiritism’, and healing, all of which are
72 Sidnei Nogueira, Feminismos Plurais: Intolerância Religiosa. (São Paulo: Sueli Carneiro; Pólen, 2020), 37. 73 Elina Hartikainen, “Adjudicating Religious Intolerance: Afro-Brazilian Religions, Public Space, and the National Collective in twenty-First Century Brazil”, Religions and Society: Advances in Research 10 (2019). 74 Paula Montero, “Secularization and Public Space: The Reinvention of Religious Pluralism in Brazil”, Etnográfica 13 (1): 07-11. 36 integral to the practice of Afro-Brazilian religions, were criminalized until 1940.75 Not only is de jure demonization and criminalization of Afro-Brazilian religions recent, but practitioners of Umbanda and other African derived religions suffer constantly with various forms of violence practiced in the name of religion. According to the U.S. Department of State, practitioners of African derived religions represent less than 1 percent of Brazil’s population, but this 1 percent can and should be questioned due to the impacts of religious intolerance in Brazilian society. In Colonial Brazil, practitioners of Calundús.76 “resisted by negotiation”77 with Catholicism and its numerous saints. Despite the considerably low number of practitioners of African derived religions across scholarly studies and Brazil’s census, a large number of Brazilians who believe or practice African derived religions such as Umbanda, due to the demonization and violence against such religions, Brazilians instead hide their African derived religions and publicly identify with Eurocentric religious traditions. Dr. Sidnei Nogueira, also a babalorixá of Candomblé Ketu reminds his readers of the need to observe the shame and even fear that have motivated practitioners of African derived religions to identify with Eurocentric religions.78
The purpose of this chapter on religious intolerance within and against Umbanda is to illuminate the role which religious violence has played not only in Brazil’s
75 Hartikainen, 93. 76 A religious practice established in 17th century Colonial Brazil. Knows as the first Afro-Brazilian religious communities, with the majority of them being of Bantu and some Fon origin. During this time period and this process was established the initial shaping of religious syncretism in Brazil with three elements: African, indigenous and Catholic. Hulda Silva Cedro da Costa, Umbanda, uma religião sincrética e brasileira, Pontifica universidade Católica de Goiás, Programa de Pós-Graduação Stricto Sensu em Ciências da Religião (2013), 11-14. 77 Lopes, 895. 78 Nogueira, 76-79. 37 establishment as a nation-state, but also in religious intolerance within Umbanda itself. I will emphasize the role which the Catholic Church played in past religious violence against umbandistas, and subsequently, how Evangelicalism today demonizes religions such as Umbanda through politics and the media. Another significant theme is how Kardecian Spiritism relates both positively and negatively with Umbanda, but also how European-identified Kardecian Spiritism has been used to mask Umbanda due to Brazil’s continuing violence against practitioners of African-derived religions. Dr. Nei Lopes notes how African religions in Brazil “have always known how to resist by negotiation, for very often negotiating is also a form of resistance”.79 Dr. Lopes was referring to a negotiation with Catholic practices, and I propose that a similar “negotiation” was and is still being made between Kardecian Spiritism and Umbanda. However, I will contrast this process of negotiation with the dynamics of demonization that characterize neo- Pentecostal groups’ relations with Umbanda.
UMBANDA’S RELATIONSHIP WITH CATHOLICISM
The approach I chose to take in order to engage with religious intolerance and Umbanda’s long-lasting relationship80 with Catholicism, consists of an analysis of the ethnoreligious traditions that may make up what we know as Umbanda. Along with the presence of Catholic characteristics in Umbanda, I analyze its historical relationship with the Kongolese Kingdom in Central Africa and Bantu ethnoreligious manifestations in Brazil; the Portuguese invasion against Brazil’s indigenous peoples; and discourses of
79 Lopes, 859. 80 I use the term “relationship” with caution due to the violent power dynamics existent between the Catholic Church and Brazil’s marginalized populations, both during Colonial Brazil and nowadays as a nation-state. 38 Eurocentrism and whiteness in Umbanda’s mythological birth in the state of Rio de Janeiro with Zélio Fernandino de Moraes. Although I may refer to my approach as historical, I also use caution when doing so, in order not to dismiss the ongoing violence (psychological, emotional, physical, or epistemological) against umbandistas and practitioners of other African derived religions in Brazil. When analyzing the role the Catholic Church played, and still plays in religious intolerance against African derived religions in Brazil such as Umbanda, it is helpful to take a look at the history leading up to Umbanda’s establishment as a religion in the early 1900s. According to Dr. Alexandre Kaitel, an umbandista and professor of psychology and religion from the Pontifíca Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Umbanda is established as a product of religious manifestations, such as Calundú81, Cabula82, and the Candomblé de Caboclo83 (all Bantu derived religious practices found across Brazil). Kaitel and dos Santos (2018) asserts that the majority of enslaved Africans forcibly taken to Brazil during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade were of Bantu origin.84 Within the overall context of religious intolerance and persecution against umbandistas in Brazil, I refer to historical Bantu religious practices which throughout time founded Umbanda, with the
81 Calundús are the prototypes of the terreiros of Candomblé and Umbanda. Francisco Cláudio Alves Marques, “Algumas considerações sobre Umbanda e Candomblé no Brasil,” Revista Contemplação, 15, 2017,84. 82 Cabula is a Central African ritual of communing with departed ancestors. Artur Ramos, O negro brasileiro, Vol. 1, Etnografia religiosa, 5th edition, Rio de Janeiro: Graphia Editorial, 2001 [1934], 97-98, 99, 103. 83 Candomblé de Caboclo is practiced with with African divinities, associated with terreiros of minkisi, orixás and voduns. Caboclos manifest separately from African divinities, as if there were two independent religious rituals occurring. Reginaldo Prandi and Armando Vallado and André Ricardo Souza, “Candomblé de Caboclo em São Paulo, in Reginaldo Prandi, Encantaria braileira: o livro dos mestres, caboclos e encantados. Rio de Janeiro, 2001, 124. 84 Kaitel and dos Santos, 11. 39 intention to demystify preconceived notions about the religion, which also contributes towards religious intolerance and persecution. Prior to the emergence of Umbanda as an organized religion in 1908 in the state of Rio de Janeiro, the veneration of the minkisi, orixás and voduns already existed in terreiros of Candomblé and in other African derived denominations; Pretos-Velhos85, Caboclos, Exus86, Pombagiras87, and Crianças (Erês)88 which nowadays are spiritual entities associated with Umbanda, were already performing spiritual work in some terreiros of Candomblé, in macumbas89 in Rio de Janeiro and São
85 Spiritual entities whose function in a terreiro is to help those with illnesses, either physical or spiritual, providing cure. These entities carry a smoking pipe and a cane, they walk with a curved body, demonstrating difficulty while moving, while embodying the characterization of elderly men and women (Katrib and Santos, 2020, 30-31). 86 In Umbanda, Exus are understood as spirits of disincarnated people with some qualities that make them closer to the Orixá Èsú. Also associated with Quimbanda and the linha de esquerda, some entities of this line manifest themselves as “stret folk”. Such entities live in the realm of darkness, revealing the true aspects of people so that they can reconsider themselves and their own potential, representing the unknown in oneself, and being hostile against discourse of the other and to domination attempts (Carvalho and Bairrão, 2019, 03). 87 Pombagira is the generic term for a class of female spirit entities, all of whom share particular features. Pombagira is recognized by her distinctive gargalhada (throaty cackle), brazen manner, and appetite for cigarettes and strong drink. Spirits of women whose life on earth defied the norms of proper feminine conduct (Hayes, 2011, 04) 88 The spirits of children in Umbanda are composed through Cosme and Damião (Saints Cosmas and Damian), associated to the Orixá Ibeji. In Umbanda’s context the spirirts of children are interpreted as a representation of all children who died “prematurely”, either through accidents or illnesses. In terreiros of Umbanda crianças are one of the main spiritual entities in its religious pantheon. . (Martins and Bairrão, 2012, 105) 89 Dr. Diana Deg. Brown in Umbanda: Religion and politics in Urban Brazil when referring to the term “macumba” says, “although widely used, this term lacks any clearly established referent. It is not clear whether it was ever identified with a specific set of practices by those who practiced them; whether like “Umbanda” today, it acquired meaning as a generic reference to diverse practices…” For the purpose of our Chapter, it is also important to keep in mind that the term “macumba” has also acquired its pejorative implications at the hands of Brazil’s upper sector nonpractitioners. (Brown, 1986, 25) 40 Paulo, and also in some Kardecian Spiritist centers. By emphasizing the spiritual manifestation of Umbanda’s numerous entities prior to the story of Zélio de Moraes might help the reader better understand Umbanda’s process of development throughout Brazil’ history and how numerous entities navigate across various African derived denominations in Brazil, showing the importance of analyzing other African derived religions in Brazil in order to better grasp Umbanda’s establishment and variations.
UMBANDA’S BANTU CONNECTION
Along with the epistemicide against Brazil’s indigenous peoples, the Catholic Church also sponsored the Catholicization of Africa’s Bantu speaking peoples, particularly the Kongolese Kingdom in West Central Africa. The “adoption” of elements and behaviors coming from European society was established along with local customs and the need created due to new encounters and changes which the Kongolese Kingdom faced. Nevertheless, Kongo continued to follow its customs along with its interpretation of Catholicism. Catholicism became the religion of the Kongolese elite, which fortified the elite’s concentration of power over politics and territory due to a constant threat coming from autonomous local powers.90 “Kongo royalty saw in Catholicism the opportunity to build a centralized religious hierarchy under the control of the state”91. Scholars such as Ann Hilton focused carefully on the religious and political dimensions
90 Marina de Mello e Souza, “ Catolicismo e poder no Congo: o papel dos intermediários nativos, séculos XVI a XVII”, (Anos 90 (UFRG) Vol. 21, N. 40 (December 2014), 54. 91 Livio Sansone and Elisée Soumonni and Boubacar Barry. Africa Brazil and the Construction of Trans-atlantic Black identities (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2008), 211. 41 in which Christianity might have interacted with the original Kongo religion92, such analysis may contribute towards understanding the existent power implications behind religious syncretism between Bantu religious practices in Kongo and in Brazil. To better understand the presence of Catholicism amongst Umbanda and other African derived traditions in Brazil, might be useful to focus towards Kongo’s embracement of Catholicism and not Catholicism itself as a Judeo-Christian institution. Dr. John K. Thornton in “Afro-Christian Syncretism in the Kingdom of Kongo” states, “It is significant that Kongo was not a colony of Portugal, and Christianity was embraced virtually from the start of contact. Because its own elite took the lead in shaping the new religion, Kongo actually adopted ‘embracing syncretism’, a system of seeking out common ground with another religion in order to incorporate its features in an intelligible way into an existing religion.”93 The overall attribution of Catholicism in African derived religious and cultural practices in Brazil should also be attributed King Afonso and his intellectual supporters which created a distinctly African variant of Christianity.94 Dr. Thornton acknowledges that Kongo Christianity and Kongo religiosity in general may have played an important role in the development of Christian thought in the African Diaspora,95 including Umbanda. Umbanda’s process of Catholicization is popularly attributed as a phenomenon which occurred in throughout Colonial Brazil, through which new Trans-atlantic black identities were also established, but as students of such a complex history such as
92 Ann Hilton, The Kingdom of Kongo (Oxford, 1985) in John K. Thornton, “Afro- Christian Syncretism in the Kingdom of Kongo”, Journal of African history, 54, (Cambridge University Press, 2013): 53-54. 93 Thornton, 57. 94 Thornton, 77. 95 Thornton, 77. 42 Umbanda, in the midst of a much greater Atlantic history and Umbanda’s Bantu heritage, we should remind ourselves that the Kongolese Kingdom had already encountered and faced the atrocities committed by the Portuguese Crown and the Catholic Church in Africa. Dr. Habeeb Akande in, Illuminating the Blackness: Blacks and African Muslims in Brazil, emphasizes the presence of Islamized Africans in Brazil, their role in slave revolts in the state of Bahia, and the presence of West African Muslim communities in nineteenth century Brazil. A similar approach should also be considered when studying Catholicism’s influence over cultural and religious manifestations such as Umbanda. Umbanda’s long-lasting process of religious syncretism with Catholicism can be approached through a common Bantu history, which emphasizes the encounter of Bantu cosmologies with Catholicism both in West Central Africa and in Brazil. The influence of Catholicism in Umbanda is heard throughout verbal references of Catholic saints in pontos-cantados, and the physical presence of their statues in Umbanda’s altars, referred to as Congá or Gongá in the terreiros. The presence of statues and images tends to be one of the aesthetics which differs terreiros of Candomblé from those of Umbanda. It should also be noted that the objectification of the divine, which can be said to identify the presence of statues and images in Catholicism, was implemented by umbandistas. Such can be seen through the statues of pretos and pretas velhas, caboclos and caboclas, and numerous other non-Catholic figures. Statues of Catholic saints in Umbanda are usually portrayed as the product of a Eurocentric inheritance of centuries of forced and violent conversions of various African ethnoreligious groups in Brazil into Catholicism. To that statement, I would also like to propose that the presence and veneration of Catholic saints in Umbanda might also be a Bantu inheritance from the Kingdom of Kongo, whose official religion for decades was
43 Roman Catholicism. Dr. Marina de Mello e Souza96 in Kongo King Festivals in Brazil, proposes that the celebrations of black kings and Catholic processions by Brazil’s Bantu speaking peoples, which were linked to music, dances, and performances, were a result of a combination of contributions that came not only from Portugal, but also from Africa.97 A similar approach should be taken when understanding the presence of Catholicism in Umbanda, a combination of contribution of both Portugal and Africa, but of course, contributions which have been sustained by power implications based on ideas about race and social class. The reader should also be reminded that these black kings celebrations “were understood in different ways by masters and slaves or free blacks, by those who watched described, and by those who held and lived them. As far as the masters were concerned, in Brazil the festivity was a confirmation of their own positions of power, a demonstration that the Africans and their descendants had joined the Catholic religion…which could be constructed as a Portuguese conquest…On the other hand, to those holding the feast, the choice of representatives who linked their community with that of the masters and government officials was an important aspect of social organization.”98 Along with the numerous ways by which Catholicism constructed and deconstructed discourses of power, Dr. Nei Lopes’ comment regarding “how to resist by negotiation, for very often negotiating is also a form of resistance”99 provides useful lenses to portray the Catholicism role throughout Africa and the African Diaspora.
96 Dr. Marina de Mello e Souza is a Professor of history at the University of São Paulo. She specializes in the history of Central Africa, Catholicism in Kongo and Angola, Afro- Brazilian Culture, and African religions. (de Mello e Souza, 2015). 97 Marina de Mello e Souza, “Kongo Kings Festivals in Brazil: From Kings of Nations to Kings of Kongo”, African Studies Quarterly, Vol. 15, issue 3 (June 2015): 40. 98 De Mello e Souza, 42. 99 Lopes, 859. 44 Nonetheless, Dr. John K. Thornton’s emphasis that the Kingdom of Kongo is in fact understudied100, may reflect also the absence of the influence which Kongolese Christianity has had over the African Diaspora and consequently over African derived religions such as Umbanda. In Umbanda, pretos and pretas velhas embody and represent the veneration of Bantu ancestors (generally the majority of pretos and pretas velhas identify themselves as from Congo or Angola, few from Guine region). The majority of pretos and pretas velhas also identify with Catholicism and carry rosaries. The presence of Catholicism amongst one of Umbanda’s main spiritual entities also indicates a possible process and presence of Kongolese Catholicism in Umbanda’s religious spheres. While referring to some of Umbanda’s Bantu characteristics, a linguistic analysis of the term “umbanda” itself shows such Bantu presence, Umbanda is derived from the Kimbundu (Bantu) language, which refers to “the art of curing”.101
THE PORTUGUESE CROWN IN INDIGENOUS TERRITORY
Religious intolerance and persecution against African derived religions is nothing new in Brazil or Atlantic history. Dr. James H. Sweet in Domingos Álvares, African
Healing, and Intellectual History of the Atlantic World, for instance, captures the life of a vodun priest who performs powerful healings, spiritual and physical, for both Africans and Europeans, across the colonial Atlantic world (Africa, Brazil, and Portugal), while suffering the violent consequences of religious persecution during the Inquisition in the brutal era of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. I refer to greater Atlantic history in order to
100 Thornton, 56. 101 Brown, 50. 45 better place Umbanda as a branch of African & indigenous derived epistemologies, which have been under attack for centuries, in the name of eurocentrism, capitalism, and the Christian God. Religious intolerance and persecution are engrained in the Portuguese Crown’s colonial projects, both against African civilizations and America’s indigenous peoples. Indigenous worldviews and spirituality were completely dismissed, to say the least, by Catholic institutions during Colonial Brazil. Attempts of epistemicide102 are still ongoing in indigenous communities across Brazil by evangelizing missions by Christian missionaries. Father Manuel da Nóbrega, who was a Portuguese Jesuit and the first Provincial of the Society of Jesus in colonial Brazil explicitly referred to the inexistence of any religiosity between the Tupis. When referring to the Tupis Nóbrega states, “These are peoples who have no knowledge of God, nor of idols and don’t pray to a higher being; they only refer to thunder as Tupã, which also means divine thing”103. Nowadays, across terreiros of Umbanda which are more inclined towards Afro-indigenous religious practices, it may be common to refer to God as Tupã.104 Instead of referring to the One
102 Dr. Boaventura de Sousa Santos refers to epistemicide as the murder of knowledge. As one of the conditions of genocide during European “expansion”. The destruction of knowledge is not an epistemological artifact without consequences. It involves the destruction of the social practices and the disqualification of the social agents that operate according to such knowledges. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Espitemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide, (New York: Routledge, 2016) 103 “É gente que nenhum conhecimento tem de Deus, nem ídolos e que nenhuma coisa adora, nem conhecem a Deus; somente aos trovões chamam de Tupã, que é como dizer coisa divina. Serafim Leite,” Cartas do brasil e mais escritos do padre Manuel da Nóbrega (Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra, 1955), 20. 104 Tupã, god of lightning and thunder, for instance, during Brasil Colonia, wasn’t portrayed as the one and only God, it was only associated to the Christian God due to the indigenous belief which that particular entity lived in the sky. Tatiana Jardim, “Umbanda: história, cultura e resistência”, (Rio de Janeiro: Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2017), 49. 46 God as Olodumare, or N’zambi, the following ponto-cantado refers to the One God (and a Caboclo) as Tupã:
Caboclo Rei (King) Tupã Caminhava pela mata, onde caboclo mora, pedi licença a Oxossi, a Deus e Nossa Senhora, encontrei esse Caboclo, ele veio ensinar, umas ervas pra curar, e uma reza pra entoar, ele pediu a Tupã licença pra trabalhar, com um canto ele chamouu, o grande pai pra lhe ajudar, na mata de Oxossi, Caboclo vai trabalhar, na fé de rei Tupã, junto com pai Oxalá.
I was walking in the forest, where the Caboclo lives, I asked permission from Oxossi, God, and Our Lady, I encountered Caboclo, he came to teach, about herbs that can cure, and a prayer to be sung, he asked permission from Tupã to work, with a song he called upon the great father for help, in Oxossi’s forest, Caboclo is going to work, through the faith in king Tupã, along with father Oxalá.
Ponto-cantado composed by Juliana Almeida, and translated by the author.
Dr. Henrique Soares Carneiro in As plantas sagradas na história da América refers to various sacred methods of tobacco consumption by indigenous peoples of Brazil and the Americas. In Umbanda, indigenous ways of knowing and healing are practices through the use of tobacco and defumação, which is constant amongst various spiritual entities. Indigenous spirituality in Umbanda is also present through spiritual figures of the Caboclos and Caboclas, and the implementation of Jurema Sagrada. According to Ortiz, the construction of Brazil’s indigenous peoples in Umbanda’s religious pantheon is
47 romanticized by dispossessing the Caboclos from their ‘wild’ characteristics due to a process of Catholicization and acceptance from the white world. 105
TENDA ESPÍRITA NOSSA SENHORA DA PIEDADE (SPIRITIST CENTER OUR LADY OF PIETY)
For the purpose of this section, which looks at Catholicism’s role of religious intolerance and its relationship with Umbanda, I will look at Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade (Spiritist Center Our Lady of Piety) as our case study. Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade is regarded by many as Umbanda’s place of mythological origin. Various lineages and terreiros of Umbanda across Brazil are not affiliated or connected to this particular terreiro and may practice Umbanda differently from Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade. One major distinction from the majority of Umbanda terreiros across Brazil is the absence of the atabaque hand drums, which reflects a process of de-Africanization. Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade was founded by the medium Zélio Fernandino de Moraes in November 15th, 1908, through the manifestation of an indigenous spirit who identified himself as Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas (Caboclo of the Seven Crossroads). Despite Umbanda’s indigenous characteristics through the Caboclo, issues of romanticization should also be taken into consideration, but for the purpose of our study we will look at discourses of eurocentrism present in Umbanda’s mythological origins which can also be interpreted as religious racism in action, which attributed the Caboclo’s previous incarnation to European Catholicism.106 107
105 Ortiz, 72. 106 Ademir Barbosa Júnior, Teologia de Umbanda e suas dimensões, (São Paulo: Boitempo, 2016), 19-20. 48 The primary source used for this study were audio archives from the Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade recorded during the 1960s. In these audios, Zélio Fernandino de Moraes, explains the origins of Umbanda through the spiritual manifestation the Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas. Most scholars of Umbanda trace the religion’s period of whitening to the 1940s, which represented a period of collective efforts of Brazil’s middle-class to codify Umbanda, along with the support of a nationalistic political agenda which applied Gilberto Freyre’s ideas about race to Umbanda as a “national religion”.108 But, I would like to suggest that Umbanda’s process of whitening was prior to the 1940s and may go back to 1908, the year in which the spirit of the Caboclo manifested. According to the audio archives from the Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade, in the voice of Zélio de Moraes (horse) during the Caboclos’ (rider) first spiritual manifestation, he said that during a previous incarnation prior to the life of an indigenous person, he was a Portuguese Jesuit by the name of Gabriel de Malagrida.109 The Caboclo acknowledges and reinforces a European and Catholic ancestry through the life of a European Jesuit who had been burned to death during the Inquisition. The Caboclos’ reference to a previous Catholic and European past demonstrates the power of eurocentrism and especially Catholicism in Umbanda’s origins. A denial of Umbanda’s Africanity, and in this case of its indigeneity, demonstrates the intersectionality between racism and it’s religious intolerance. The Caboclos’ effort to claim a European and Catholic ancestry may be portrayed as an effort to be accepted by Brazil’s religious intolerant society.
107 Mario Teixeira de Sá Junior, “A invenção do brasil no mito fundador da umbanda”, Revista Eletrônica História em Reflexão, Vol. 6, N. 11 – UFGD (January/June 2012): 07- 09. 108 Brown, 41-46. 109 Cumino, 71. 49
EVANGELIZATION & VIOLENCE
Religious intolerance and persecution can manifest itself when believers of a particular religion engage with violence (verbal, physical, and/or epistemological) in order to impose and enforce their own “truth” on others. While aggressively imposing a set of religious beliefs and belittling the other’s beliefs, many religious communities are not even open to listen to someone else’s experience coming from a distinct religious setting. According to a debate110 broadcasted by TV Senado111 in Brasília’s Senate between representatives of African derived religions and government officials, led by Senator Paulo Paim (PT/RS) in 2015, at the time president of Brazil’s Commission of Human Rights, cases of religious intolerance and persecution against practitioners of African derived religions in Brazil have been increasing at an alarming rate. This shows the attention needed by Brazil’s government officials and scholars of Brazilian studies to address such violence. When engaging in the studies of religious violence in Brazil coming from various Christian denominations against practitioners of African derived religions such as Umbanda, I would suggest readers to question the existence of any law or legal mechanism which can be sought to prevent Evangelical leaders from blaming African derived religions for the evils of mankind. Such discourses coming Evangelical religious leadership are not unique to Brazil; practitioners of African & African derived religions in the Diaspora have been suffering such violent attacks in numerous manifestations for
110 https://www12.senado.leg.br/tv/programas/em-discussao/2015/10/intolerancia- religiosa-no-brasil-bloco-2-de-3 111 TV Senado is Brazil’s first television network which broadcasts the Brazilian Senate. 50 centuries. Such was the case of the televangelist Pat Robertson and his comments which blamed vodun practitioners for Haiti’s massive and deadly earthquake in 2010, demonizing not only their beliefs, but also dehumanizing vodun practitioners as well.112 In many churches of various Christian and/or Evangelical denominations, pastors and religious leaders attribute the pain and suffering of those Christian believers to African derived religion and spirituality, and by doing so, these discourses have been generating and spreading religious hatred against practitioners of African derived religions in Brazil, and the entire African Diaspora. Pentecostals in Brazil have declared war against African derived religions, demonizing their deities, inciting fanatics and criminals to attack terreiros.113 Churches such as Deus é Amor, “God is Love” founded by the late David Martins Miranda, have attributed sicknesses to spiritual entities from Candomblé and Umbanda as their main cause.114 By attributing the cause of catastrophes, financial challenges, illnesses and family problems to religions such as Umbanda, empowers many Christian believers engage in discourses and acts of violence (in its numerous forms) against umbandistas and other practitioners of African derived religions. Edir Macedo in 2002 published Orixás, caboclos e guias: deuses ou demônios where he also refers to spiritual entities from Candomblé, Umbanda and Kardecian Spiritsm as diabolical. Throughout the book Edir Macedo asserts that all the evil in the world (illnesses,
112 Frank James, Pat Robertson Blames Haitian Devil Pact For Earthquake. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwoway/2010/01/pat_robertson_blames_haitian_d.html. Accessed April 5, 2021. 113 Bruno Reinhardt, “Espelho ante espelho: a troca e a Guerra entre o neopentecostalismo e os cultos afro-brasileiros em Salvador,” in Caboclo Shamanism (Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions, 2019), 277. 114 Francisco Cartaxo Rolim, Igreja Pentecostal Deus é Amor, Cadernos do ISER, N. 23 (1990), 59-63 51 unemployment, poverty, addictions and family conflicts) has a diabolical origin.115 What I wonder is, are laws of religious freedom and protection towards African derived religions going to do much if religious hatred is continuously being spread within a large and influential Evangelizing force? An emphasis on accountability should be enforced against such perpetrators of violence just as Donald J. Trump should be held accountable for abuse of power, incitement of insurrection and many other crimes. Church services should not be used to demonize, dehumanize, and incite hatred in Brazil’s already violent society.116
THE EVANGELIZATION OF DRUG TRAFFICKERS IN THE STATE OF RIO DE JANEIRO
The impacts of such violent and dehumanizing discourses in the name of Evangelization have further created greater problems for already disenfranchised and marginalized communities across Brazil, and by doing so, adding another layer of violence and trauma to these communities. The spread of religious hatred through Evangelization not only affects interpersonal relationships between families and communities in Brazilian society, but such ideologies of violence and hatred has reached and influenced non-state actors who are heavily armed and in control of communities due to the neglect of the Brazilian government. The power behind the Christian religious/political shift in Brazil is partly due to socio-economic motives. The great divide between the poor and the rich has led to high levels of insecurity which has created
115 André Ricardo de Souza and Edin Sued Abumanssur and Jorge Leite Júnior, “Paths of the Devil and his roles in neo-Pentecostal churches,” Horiz. Antropol. Ano 25, N. 53 (January-April 2019), 401-402. 116 According to the U.S. Department of State, Brazil is under the “Do Not Travel” list due to Covid-19 and an increase in crime. Brazil has also seen an increasingly spike in homicide rates (UNODC homicide statistics). 52 an opportunity for Christian and precisely neo-Pentecostal institutions to provide answers to personal and social suffering.117 In 2019, Rio de Janeiro’s state police arrested drug traffickers who were part of group identified as “Bonde de Jesus,” roughly translated to “Jesus Tram.”118 These Evangelized drug traffickers threatened, vandalized, and attacked terreiros of Candomblé, Umbanda and its devotees, with the intention to expel Afro-Brazilian religions out of the communities that they control. Such non-state actors govern these communities with heavy artillery, having access to such powerful firearms which in many cases Brazilian policing and governmental agencies do not have access to. These non-state actors are those in control and responsible for the access of various basic needs needed by families living in these communities, basic needs which have been denied by Brazil’s government. It is undeniable the power which rests on the hands of groups, and their process of Evangelization which has been sustained on the demonization of African derived religions is of extreme danger. The attribution humanity’s misfortunes, disasters, neglect towards African derived religions due to processes of Evangelization and religious hatred had led to the belief that in order for these communities to prosper, both spiritually and financially, such African derived religions such as Umbanda need not to exist in these communities. According to Dr. Danielle N. Boaz in “Spiritual Warfare or Crimes against Humanity”? “members of Bonde de Jesus and other Evangelized drug traffickers have
117 Martijn Oosterbaan, “mass mediating the spiritual battle: pentecostal appropriations of mass mediated violence in Rio de Janeiro,” Material Religion, Volume 1, Issue 3, (2000), 360. 118 Jornal Estado de Minas. Polícia Prende ‘Bonde de Jesus’ que atacava terreiros de Umbanda e candomblé.https://www.em.com.br/app/noticia/nacional/2019/08/18/interna_nacional,10 78089/policia-prende-bonde-de-jesus-que-atacava-terreiros-de-umbanda-e-can.shtml 53 threatened at least 200 Afro-Brazilian terreiros in the first eight months of 2019. 119 Such discourses of religious hatred coming from certain Evangelical leaders have influenced drug traffickers to act accordingly to such discourses of hate, which blames Afro- Brazilian religions for the community’s pain and suffering. Boaz argues that much more than religious intolerance, these attacks against African derived religions in the state of Rio de Janeiro are examples of “systematic egregious human rights violations in the 21st century that have received little acknowledgement, denunciation, or intervention”.120 Such human rights violations are the result of multiple explicit and implicit discourses of dehumanization and demonization of African derived religions in Brazil and its devotees, discourses of religious hatred which have penetrated spheres of State and also non-state actors. Boaz’s contribution towards the studies of Afro-Brazilian religions and the suffering caused by religious persecution is extremely important not only for academia and the studies of Africana religions, but it is also important for the lives and well-being of practitioners of African derived religions. Boaz acknowledges that her arguments “breaks with traditional ways that scholars have described the religious landscape in Brazil. Although researchers have often written about recent Evangelical aggressions against Afro-Brazilian religions, they have typically employed the perpetrators’ own language and worldview about spiritual ’warfare’ or ‘conflict’ to describe these attacks.”121 Scholars should be extra careful and aware about their positionality in academia and in society in order not reproduce trauma and violence. Affiliation to university institutions which have a long history of producing and reproducing various
119 Danielle N. Boaz, “ ‘Spiritual Warfare’ or ‘Crimes against Humanity’? Evangelized Drug Traffickers and Violence against Afro-Brazilian Religions in Rio de Janeiro,” Religions 2020, 11, 640, (November 2020), 01. 120 Boaz, 02. 121 Boaz, 02. 54 forms of violence throughout research should also not be forgotten in order to prevent further reproduction of violence. Boaz contends that the terminology being used throughout these studies is deceptive because “it downplays the severity of the violence and inaccurately suggests reciprocal aggressions between Afro-Brazilian and Evangelical religious communities”, a reciprocity which doesn’t exist. Boaz explains that the violent attacks being portrayed are only coming from particular Evangelical religious communities, it not it not a two-sided conflict, and so it violates international laws under “crimes against humanity” and which may also constitute genocide.122 Boaz also fails to discuss any publication that explains the process of Evangelization of drug traffickers and their collective crimes against devotees of Afro- Brazilian religions in the comunidades. I suggest that pastors and such Evangelical leaders need to be identified and held accountable, although, due to a strong Evangelical Caucus in Brazil’s parliament, discourses of religious hatred which leads to various forms of violence has been ignored by public officials. Brazil’s government officials have continuously failed to hold accountable Evangelicals in leadership positions who have taken advantage of their power to spread and propagate religious hatred, and consequently violence. Through the work of Dr. Danielle N. Boaz we have seen how non-state actors have contributed towards religious intolerance and persecution. The following section shows how Brazilian state actors have contributed towards religious intolerance through public statements and court cases, by attributing Eurocentric definitions to religion itself, and sugarcoating acts of violence in the name of freedom of speech coming from Brazil’s dominant society.
122 Boaz, 02. 55 SUGARCOATING VIOLENCE & EUROCENTRIC NOTIONS OF RELIGION
In 2014 the Public Attorney’s Office in Rio de Janeiro ordered Google to remove fifteen videos from YouTube which attacked umbandistas and practitioners of other African derived religions in Brazil with the use of pejorative terms.123 In these videos, African derived beliefs were associated to witchcraft, evil, and practitioners regarded as “demons” and “devils.”124 Rio de Janeiro’s Public Attorney’s Office understood that these videos spread religious hatred, prejudice and discrimination against African derived religions and its practitioners. Google refused to remove the videos arguing that these videos did not violate YouTube’s guidelines and policies. The multinational technology company argued that these videos consisted of nothing more, nothing less than the manifestation of religious freedom of Brazil’s Evangelical population.125 Dr. Cathy O’Neil, the author of Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, emphasizes the power which social media platforms such as Facebook have over what is seen and what is learned on its social media network. At the time the author wrote the book, about two-thirds of U.S. adults had a profile on Facebook, spending at least thirty minutes a day on the platform,
123 Fábio Grellet, “Juiz diz que umbanda e candomblé não são religiões” in “A palavra mata, o corpo vivifica: o paradigma ecológico da comunicação na Umbanda,” Espaço e Cultura, UERJ, N. 38, (January-June 2018), 40. 124 It may be useful for the reader to keep in mind that the concept of “the Devil in Christian theology, who represents the forces of evil in contradistinction of those of good by God, is entirely to Dahomean thought” (Herkovits and Herkovits 1958: 222-223). The process of demonization of African and African derived religions may be traced back to Yorubaland and Dahomey. Throughout West Africa’s colonial legacy, missionary literature falsely translated the name Elegba, Elegbara, or Exú to “the Devil”. Such discourses have spread throughout the Americas and the Caribbean, and continue to be used throughout discourses of religious violence against African derived religions such as Umbanda. 125 Grellet, 40. 56 only four minutes less than they spend socializing face-to-face.126 I find it important to emphasize the power and influence which social media platforms have in society and one’s world views, through political polarization and also the spread of discourses of hatred. According to a Pew Research Center report, nearly half of Facebook users rely on Facebook to access news.127 Such social media platforms have provided certain Evangelical pastors the opportunity to demonize, attack and offend practitioners of African derived religions. O’Neil’s research concluded the huge influence which social media platforms had throughout voting and civic participation during recent U.S. elections, shouldn’t we take into consideration the influence and power which not only churches, but also social media platforms have over religious intolerance and consequently the persecution of practitioners of African derived religions. Social media platforms are not the first media outlets which have facilitated Evangelists, or in this case, televangelists to spread discourses of religious hatred against African derived deities and religions across Brazil. Television was the most influential way of communication not only in Brazil, but also across Latin America128, and continues to be so along with the internet and its numerous social media platforms. In 2016, during a study performed by Brazil’s Institute of Geography and Statistics (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatisca – IBGE), a television was present in 97.1% of Brazilian households. Not differently from North American televangelists, religious TV shows were placed in radios and TV stations. Many protestants went as missionaries to Brazil, and
126 Cathy O’Neil, Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (Crown, 2016), 180. 127 O’Neil, 180. 128 Sandra Reimão, Televisão na América Latina (São Paulo: Umesp-Metodista, 2000) 57 were already familiar with the use of telecommunications as a tool of Evangelization.129 The use of media breaks geographical, social, and ideological barriers so that the “products” being sold by Edir Macedo’s Universal Church of the Kingdom of God may be offered to those in need, those who pay whatever price is asked for due to one’s pursue of happiness, spiritual and physical well being.130 Edir Macedo’s own Rede Record, Brazil’s second most watched TV station, through live streaming of IURD’s church services and televangelist TV shows, such media outlets have reached millions of Brazilians through discourses of Evangelization which emphasized negative, inhumane and demonizing attributes to African derived religions. Such powerful media outlets not only propagate and disseminate religious hatred, intolerance, persecution and violence, but such discourses also violate the psychological and emotional integrity of practitioners of African derived religions who might be on the other side of the TV screen. Such was and is the case, that in 2004 Eugênia Fávero, at the time Brazil’s Federal Prosecutor took legal action against Edir Macedo’s Rede Record for displaying TV shows which demonized Afro-Brazilian religions such as Umbanda and Candomblé.131 The legal action was also signed by Hédio Silva Júnior, coordinator of the Commission of Human Rights (OAB-SP), Rede Record was accused of racial and religious prejudice, and by doing so violating Brazil’s constitution. With the increasing control over media outlets, neo-pentecostalism also infiltrated Brazilian politics and have used their power both throughout media and in Brasília to
129 Jackson de Souza Félix and Vilso Junior Santi, “O uso da mídia televisiva por grupos e instituições religiosas no Brasil: uma análise da atuação da IURD na Rede Record,” Revista Pan-Amazônica de Comunicação, Vol. 2, N. 2 (May-August 2018), 03. 130 de Souza Félix and Junior Santi, 07. 131 Daniel Castro, “Ação acusa Record de demoniar negros.” https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/ilustrad/fq1612200403.htm. Accessed March 15, 2021. 58 circumvent the law in order to protect the IURD and its ideologies. According to Brazil’s Institute of Religious Studies132, Brazil’s Evangelical Caucus establishes interests and defends values which are taken into consideration during legislative debates and law- making processes. In O’neil (2016), the author refers to the control which governmental representatives have over social media outlets, “the government regulates them, or chooses not to”.133 The control which the Evangelical Caucus has not only in U.S. but also in Brazil, not only over policy making but also over media outlets such as Rede Record is of great concern for the livelihood of practitioners of African derived religions. The Evangelical Caucus not only attack African derived religions through policy making in Brasília, but they also act in the best interest according to their Christian faith which consequently demonizes and dehumanizes practitioners of African derived religions. A clear example of Brazil’s Evangelical Caucus and its influence over legal attacks against African derived religions has been Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court failed attempt to criminalize the use of sacrificial animals for religious purposes across terreiros in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.134 Dr. J. Brent Crosson in Experiments With Power: Obeah and the Remaking of Religion in Trinidad, when referring to the demonization of animal sacrifice and its role in religious intolerance states an important question, “Why, when most Trinidadians, Brazilians, and Americans consume meat, have they been so
132 Instituto de Estudos da Religião. “Menos da metade dos parlamentres da frente evangélica no congress são evangélicos,”https://www.iser.org.br/noticia/destaques/menos-da-metade-dos- parlamentares-da-frente-evangelica-no-congresso-sao-evangelicos/. Accessed March 20, 2021. 133 O’Neil, 181. 134 Supremo Tribunal Federal,“ STF declara constitucionalidade de lei gaúcha que permite sacrifício de animais em rituai religiosos,” http://www.stf.jus.br/portal/cms/verNoticiaDetalhe.asp?idConteudo=407159. Accessed March 23, 2021. 59 concerned about a relatively small number of animals killed under ritualized conditions of purity that sought to both consecrate the animal and minimize its suffering at death?”135 Such Evangelized sociopolitical actors have used various tools such as the media and policy-making to propagate their interests, have also used these same tools to disseminate religious hatred, intolerance and persecution against all devotees of African derived religions. Despite my focus in Umbanda, it would inhumane to say the least, to leave out comunidades de terreiro from numerous other traditions beside Umbanda. Although a large number of Umbanda terreiros might not practice the sacralization and consecration of animal sacrifice, as seen in Brown (1994) various forms of Umbanda such as Umbanda trançada or misturada (crossed or mixed), and Umbanda de Culto de Nação (cult of an [African] nation)136 might use the ritualization of animal and blood sacrifice. In the next section regarding intolerance across Brazil’s religious spheres, I will also refer to the demonization of animal consecration and sacrifice coming from Kardecian Spiritists, its role in religious intolerance, along with its implications of Eurocentrism centered in the history of Allan Kardec, and Brazil’s processes of “whiteness” in Kardecian Spiritism.
135 J. Brent Crosson, Experiments With Power: Obeah and the Remaking of Religion in Trinidad (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2020), 136. 136 Umbanda de Culto de Nação refers to African ethnolinguistic nations formed during Brazil’s colonial period of enslavement of African families. The nations most mentioned throughout Umbanda de Nação are those of Angola, Congo, Ketu and Omolocô, which according to Brown (1994) appears to be a syncretic Bantu nation that developed in the state of Rio de Janeiro during the early twentieth century (234). 60 UMBANDA & ESPIRITISMO
The following section focuses on discourses of religious intolerance coming from espíritas towards umbandistas and practitioners of other African derived religions. The founding of the Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade in 1908 demonstrates how racism and classism played a major role in the establishment of Umbanda in the state of Rio de Janeiro Throughout this section I use primary sources (audio archives) which talks about the story Zélio de Moraes, the manifestation of an indigenous spirit (Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas) and the founding of the Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade. These audios show the intersection between religious intolerance, racism and classism coming from Kardecian religious leaders against African and indigenous peoples and spiritual entities, entities which eventually established themselves as important pillars of Umbanda as a religion. This section not only captures how racism and classism led to the founding of Umbanda in the state of Rio de Janeiro, but it also shows long lasting discourses of Eurocentrism through Christian morality in Kardecian Spiritism which has been used to dismiss African based traditions, and has led towards the fear and invisibility of practitioners and their terreiros due to the consequence religious intolerance.
Allan Kardec & Christian Morality
Allan Kardec is the nom de plume of the French educator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail (1804-1869), Kardec is known as the founder or codificador of Espiritismo in Brazil. (Hess, 1991, 15) As a result of his studies, Kardec became convinced of a scientific validity of reincarnation, the “perispirit” (roughly, the astral body), and spirit communication through mediums, three corner stones of the Spiritist
61 doctrine.137 Despite Kardec’s rejection of a number of key Christian dogmas, which is crucial to understanding the hostility that Protestant and Catholic churches subsequently had and have against Espiritismo, the Spiritist doctrine does embrace Christian morality (as seen in Kardec’s book The Gospel According to Spiritism), and such Eurocentric morality is used towards religious intolerance against umbandistas and practitioners of other African derived religions.138 One way Eurocentrism manifests itself in Espiritismo in Brazil is through Christian morality, which has been used to dismiss and dehumanize African and indigenous peoples along with their cosmologies and epistemologies. Dr. Elizabeth Pérez in Religion in the Kitchen explains that “Despite a few exceptions, scholarly neglect of religious food preparation may be traced back to an ingrained suspicion of gastronomic pleasure and shallow estimation of day-to-day cookery in the Western philosophical tradition. Classical Enlightenment texts strongly reinforced the negative connotations attached in Christian moral thought to appetite and other sensations.”139 The same negative connotations which Dr. Pérez states that are attached to Christian morality regarding religious food preparation also manifests itself in Kardecian Spiritism when dismissing and demonizing the use of food offerings in Umbanda and in other African derived religions. The use of food offerings to Orixás and other spiritual entities in Umbanda, is one of the characteristics which differentiates Umbanda from Kardecian Spiritism. Brown (1994) emphasizes how during a major collective effort to codify Umbanda in 1941 with the Primeiro Congresso de Espiritismo de Umbanda (First
137 David J. Hess, Spirits and Scientists: Ideology, Spiritism, and Brazilian Culture (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991), 15. 138 Hess, 17. 139 Pérez, 03. 62 Congress of the Spiritism of Umbanda), leaders involved in the Congress (who came mostly from Rio de Janeiro through the lineage of Zélio de Moraes) acknowledged their doctrinal debt to Kardecian Spiritism.140 Not only was there an initial approach to downplay Umbanda’s Africanity, but such effort extended as well into the area of ritual practice and the need to “purify” Umbanda from its Africaness.141 Such effort to de- Africanize Umbanda based on Eurocentric discourses of Christian/Kardecian morality also provoked strong opposition coming from Afro-Brazilian religious leaders.142 During such counter position to Umbanda’s process of de-Africanization can be represented by the statement of one Afro-Brazilian religious leader as seen in Brown (1994), “An Umbanda terreiro which does not use drums and other ritual instruments, which does not sing pontos in the African style, which does not offer sacrifices [of animals] or food to the deities can be anything, but it is not a terreiro of Umbanda”.143 Such response demonstrates the anger which Afro-Brazilian religious leaders expressed against Umbanda’s process of de-Africanization, a process which not only impacted religious rituals but also “stressed both social class and racial antagonism”.144 Not coincidently, the same Classical Enlightenment texts that laid foundation for modern definitions of religion which demonized sacred food preparations and food offerings, also dismissed people of African (and indigenous) descent as having a religion.145 The influence and power of such condescending texts and discourses which laid the foundation for modern definitions of religion can still be seen nowadays, such as
140 Brown, 41. 141 Brown, 43. 142 Brown, 46. 143 Brown, 47. 144 Brown, 47. 145 Pérez, 03. 63 in the case of Brazil’s Federal judge Eugenio Rosa de Araújo when during a court case of religious intolerance against practitioners of African derived religions claimed that Afro- Brazilian religious manifestations couldn’t be considered religions because they lacked sacred scriptures such as those present in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.146
THE MANIFESTATION OF CABOCLO DAS SETE ENCRUZILHADAS THROUGH ZÉLIO DE MORAES & THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TENDA ESPÍRITA NOSSA SENHORA DA PIEDADE
The story of Zélio de Moraes, the spiritual entity Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas and the establishment of the Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade in the state of Rio de Janeiro in 1908 is a “good” example which captures discourses of religious intolerance, racism and classism coming from Kardecian Spiritism towards Umbanda and its practitioners. Diana Brown (1994) states that although she can’t necessarily prove that Zélio de Moraes was the founder of Umbanda, the author suggests that Zélio and his fellow companions were the first ones which she found in Brazil to consciously identify themselves as Umbanda practitioners.147 Zélio’s story which is undeniably important towards Umbanda’s history and propagation in Brazil, might be over emphasized and be attributed as the “origins” of Umbanda in Brazil because of an emphasis which scholars might have given towards African derived religions in Brazil coming from the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo while ignoring other Brazilian states. Dr. Steven Engler in Umbanda and Africa, refers the overreliance on studies of Umbanda in the cities of Rio
146 Jorge Miklos and Tatiana Penna Madeira, “A palavra mata, o corpo vivifica: o paradigma ecológico da comunicação na umbanda,” Espaço e Cultura: EURJ, Rio de Janeiro, N. 43 (January 2018), 38-51. 147 Diana Deg. Brown, Umbanda: Religion and Politics in Urban Brazil in “Zélio de Moraes e as origens da Umbanda no Rio de Janeiro,” (Universidade Feeral do Rio Grande do Sul, 2002) 4-5. 64 de Janeiro and São Paulo, which has led to the neglect of Afro-Brazilian religious manifestation coming from other regions in Brazil, including the interior of those two states .148 An overreliance of studies of Umbanda from a particular region (in this case the state of Rio de Janeiro) in Brazil might result in the dismissal of regional and cultural characteristics which are essential towards Umbanda and it’s heterogenous religious practices. Due to such overreliance, in order to better grasp Umbanda’s heterogenous and regional implications I have made an effort to use studies of Umbanda coming from various Brazilian states. Such emphasis on Rio de Janeiro is also seen throughout a large portion scholarly books published (specifically in English) which I came across during my research such as: Dr. Diana Deg. Brown’s Umbanda: Religion and Politics in Urban Brazil, Dr. Kelly E. Hayes’ Holy Harlots: Femininity, Sexuality & Black Magic in Brazil, and Dr. Lindsay Hale’s Hearing the Mermaid’s Song: The Umbanda Religion in Rio de Janeiro which were all based on ethnographic work conducted in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Zélio’s story with religion and spirituality begins at the age of seventeen, when due to an unsolved illness149 he was taken to the Federação Espírita de Niterói (Spiritist Federation of Niterói).150 During the spiritual session, “spirits manifested in various
148 Engler, 26. 149 Practitioners of Umbanda and other Afro-Brazilian spirit-based religions say that by “developing the spirit”, or establishing an intimate relationship of ritually mediated exchange, the afflicted is able to transform a disruptive experience into a constructive one. In return for their offerings of food, drink, praise, material items, and temporarily their own bodies, devotees believe that spirits will mystically intervene on their behalf in the affairs of the human world. Such ritual exchanges between human and spirit are understood to generate various effects directly measurable in the lives of individuals, including healing, protection from harm, the resolution of affliction, and other material benefits (Hayes, 2011, 06). 150 Jota Alves de Oliveira, O Evangelho na Umbanda (livro doutrinário) (Editora Eco, 1970), 39-42. 65 mediums, and identified themselves as spirits of enslaved Africans, of Brazil’s indigenous peoples and caboclos.151 These spirits were asked to leave by the president of the Kardecian session based on an accusation of their spiritual backwardness. After such comment, the seventeen year old Zélio de Moraes, was dominated by an unknown force, which made him speak without knowing what he was saying. Zélio only heard his own voice asking for the reason which made Kardecian leaders responsible for the spiritual session to not accept the communication of those spirits. Zélio asked why were they portrayed as inferior, and questioned if was only due to a different skin color or social class which these spirits revealed to have had during their previous incarnation.”152 After such an attempt to indoctrinate and expel the spirits of Brazil’s black and indigenous
151 It is not unknown, the plurality of meanings which are attributed to the term Caboclo, which should not be exclusively identified and considered as Brazil’s first indigenous nations. Edson Carneiro (2008) captures a variety of attributions towards the term Caboclo, from Yoruba Orixás, to Dahomean Voduns, and even Catholic saints. Boyer (1999) captured multiple meanings to the word Caboclo in the city of Belém, which was attributed towards various spiritual entities such as Pretos Velhos, Crianças (Ibeji) and Exus. Tall (2012) shows an enormous cultural diversity present in the use of the term Caboclo in Umbanda, which was attributed towards various figures in Colonial Brazil, such as sailors, herdsmen, and prostitutes. For the author, Caboclo as a generic term represents ancestral figures which are not of black of African origin (82). In Pordeus Jr. (2002) (2003) work in the state of Ceará, the author states that the Caboclo, as a category, reflects a process of appropriation of indigenous lands. With the appearance of Umbanda, the term Caboclo ended up referring to the thetricalization of an indigenous identify no longer visible. In Artur Cesar Isaia, “O índio brasileiro entre a Umbanda e o Espiritismo na primeira metade do século XX,” Revista Brasileira de História das Religiões. ANPUH, Ano XIII, N. 38, (September-December, 2020), 190. 152 “manifestaram-se espíritos, que se diziam pretos escravos e de indios ou caboclos, em diverson mediuns. Esse espiritos foram convidados a se retirar pelo presidente dos trabalhos, advertidos do seu atraso spiritual. Então o jovem Zélio foi dominado por uma força estranha, que fez com que ele falasse sem saber o que dizia. Zélio ouvia apenas sua própria voz perguntar o motivo que levava os dirigentes dos trabalhos a não aceitarem a comunicação desses espíritos e por que eram considerados atrasados, se apenas pela diferença de cor ou de classe social que revelaram ter tido na sua última encarnação.” Translated by the author. 66 spirits from the Kardecian session, Zélio stated: “If you all judge and attribute discourses of inferiority to black and indigenous spirits, I have to say that tomorrow in my horse’s house, I will start a spiritual practice where black and indigenous spirits will be allowed to manifest and spread their message, and fulfill the mission which was given to them by the spiritual plane. And in case you all want to know my name, may it be: Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas (Caboclo of the Seven Crossroads), because there will be no closed paths for me”.153 Despite emphasizing the importance and contribution of Zélio de Moraes’ story towards the propagation and establishment of Umbanda as a recognized religion in Brazil, it may also be important emphasize the processes of de-Africanization and Africanization which occurred during and after the establishment of the Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade. According to Dr. Renato Ortiz in A morte branca do feiticeiro negro: Umbanda, integração de uma religião numa sociedade de classes (1978), Umbanda’s establishment is analyzed through two complementary movements, of embranquecimento (whitening) and empretecimento (blackening), which may refer both to religious practices and the racial background of practitioners. The embranquecimento of African derived religious practices already existent prior to 1908, and the empretecimento of Kardecian Spiritst religious practices which might be visible in various scales, forms and amounts nowadays in different centros and terreiros of both Espiritismo and Umbanda. Audio archives used throughout this section from the Tenda
153 “Se julgam atrasados esse espíritos dos pretos e dos índios, devo dizer que amanhã estarei em casa deste aparelho para dar início a um culto em que esses pretos e esses índios poderão dar a sua mensagem e, assim, cumprir a missão que o plano spiritual lhes confiou. E, se querem saber o meu nome, que seja este: Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas, por que não haverá caminhos fechados para mim.” Translated by the author. 67 Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade154 also explains the absence of the atabaque drum throughout Zélio de Moraes’ Tenda. Such absence of the atabaque which is visibly an African inheritance seen throughout most African derived religions in Brazil demonstrates one characteristic of such process of embranquecimento amongst Umbanda’s religious practices.
UMBANDISTA OR ESPÍRITA?
According to Dr. David J. Hess in Spirits and Scientists: Ideology, Spiritism and Brazilian Culture, many umbandistas call themselves and identify as espíritas, especially when talking with outsiders whose social status is higher than their own. Dr. Hess claims that many umbandistas enjoy a much higher social prestige by identifying themselves as espíritas rather than umbandistas.155 An act which I have personally witnessed and heard numerous times from umbandistas in Goiânia and in Austin who self-identify as espíritas. Such public disassociation with Umbanda, and instead, associating themselves with Kardecian Spiritism despite being religiously aligned with practices of Umbanda, demonstrates a long lasting and ongoing process of invisibility and fear caused by religious intolerance and Eurocentrism which has influenced umbandistas to claim and identify with European derived religions such as Kardecian Spiritism, rather than an African derived identity such as Umbanda. Reminding the reader that even during an Umbanda Congress (which has a long history of de-Africanization) held in 1961, “The official historian of the Congress returned to an African derivation for the word ‘Umbanda’, referring to a dictionary of the Kimbundu (Bantu) language of Angola, which
154 https://www.tensp.org/audio 155 Hess, 154. 68 defined its meaning as the ‘art of curing’ ”.156 In Hess (1991) the sociologist Cândido Procópio Ferreira de Camargo also mentions that most umbandistas he interviewed enjoyed the qualification of espírita, which was almost always employed by interviewees during their first contact, only later did they specify Umbanda as the nature of their “Espiritismo”.157 Along with enjoying a much higher social prestige, I would also add that the process of self-identifying with Espiritismo rather than Umbanda may also reflect the outcome of violence, racism and the impacts of religious intolerance in Brazilian society. When referring to religious intolerance against African derived religions in Brazil Nogueira (2020) talks about the shame, invisibility and even fear which devotees of African derived religions may face when identifying themselves as umbandistas or candomblecistas.158 The shame, stigmatization, racism and the denial of belonging to a terreiro shows the mechanism through which practitioners of African derived religions in Brazil have hidden and still hide behind hegemonic and white religious expressions such as Catholicism, and Kardecian Spiritism as a doctrine of French and Christian origins. Nogueira (2020) also concludes that many even prefer to deny any religious affiliation instead of belonging to an African derived religion.159 Such denial and disassociation of practitioners of African derived religions in Brazil may be result of the fear and trauma caused by centuries of racism, religious intolerance and persecution. It may be important to question the power implications existent behind the process of self-identification of practitioners of African derived religions in Brazil to better understand the numerous consequences of religious intolerance. A similar approach should also be taken when
156 Brown, 50. 157 Cândido Procópio Ferreira de Camargo, Kardecismo e Umbanda (São Paulo, Pioneira, 1961),14. 158 Nogueira, 76. 159 Nogueira, 78. 69 analyzing the nomenclature used in centros and terreiros of Umbanda, which many times, instead of having the term “Umbanda” under their name, might have the term “espírita”. Emília Mota from the Universidade Federal de Goiás while referring to Projeto Igbadu160 recognized that a large part of African derived terreiros use the nomenclature of “centro espírita” instead of “Umbanda” or other African based religion. Such phenomenon is also present in Zélio de Moraes’ Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade whose nomenclature refers both to Catholicism and Espiritismo but neglects an African based nomenclature or term. Just as Hess (1991) describes umbandistas enjoying a much higher social prestige by identifying as espíritas, the same can be applied to the terreiros and the nomenclature used to identify themselves. The same fear, stigma, racism which Nogueira (2020) identifies for practitioners of African derived religions can also be applied to the nomenclature being used throughout terreiros who hide under hegemonic and white religious practices. According to Dr. Steven Engler in Ritual Theory and Attitudes to Agency in Brazilian Spirit Possession a distinct characteristic of Kardecian Spiritism which reflects its historical relationship with Umbanda, is that it reflects Brazil’s dominant racist beliefs which dehumanizes black and indigenous populations and demonizes black and indigenous religions. Kardecian Spiritism has violently portrayed “black and native spirits as non-evolved, a key element in the tensions that led to the emergence of Umbanda as a separate religion in the early twentieth-century.”161 The historical
160 Whose objective was to generate visibility for terreiros and establish a map of such terreiros in Goiânia, Goiás. The project which sought visibility for African derived religions such as Candomblé, Umbanda, Omolocô, Pajelança and Jurema, indicated 213 terreiros and centros in the city of Goiânia. (Mota, 2018,07). 161 Steven Engler, “Ritual Theory and Attitudes to Agency in Brazilian Spirit Possession,” Method and theory in the Study of Religion 21 (2009), 462-463. 70 relationship between Umbanda and Espiritismo can be seen during Umbanda’s mythological origins in the state of Rio de Janeiro and it being closely tied to issues of race and class.162 Espíritas portrayed Afro-Brazilian religious traditions as being more emotional and with more corporeality throughout its rituals and its symbolism , which according to Ortiz (1999) eventually led to the Africanization of many centros espíritas. “This view is reflected in historical accounts that focus on the role of white middle-class Kardecists as leaders of the emerging religion, portraying Umbanda as originating in a middle-class empretecimento of Kardecism “.163 Due to the presence and role of white- middle class Kardecians in Umbanda’s establishment in Rio de Janeiro, the presence of such leaders contributed towards Umbanda’s process of de-Africanization by over emphasizing Kardecian principles over Umbanda’s Yoruba, Bantu and Jeje (Dahomey) cosmologies. Religious intolerance from Kardecian discourses has been a force which has manifested internally and externally in communities of Umbanda.
CONCLUSION
Eurocentric discourses amongst the narrative of Zélio Fernandino de Moraes, based on the manifestation of an indigenous spiritual entity and the mythological origins of Umbanda itself, may either demonstrate racism and religious intolerance at work from within Umbanda, or it may also show the result of centuries of epistemicide and its generational trauma. Nogueira (2020) emphasizes that the actions which make up what we know as religious intolerance in Brazil consists of a fight against the knowledge of black and indigenous ancestry, which lives in rituals, mythologies and oral traditions. The
162 Engler, 463. 163 Engler, 463. 71 long-lasting systematic attempt to extinguish African and indigenous world views and ways of being has encountered resistance and strength coming from epistemological quilombos which remains alive across terreiros, despite Eurocentric and Catholic efforts to eradicate such sociocultural religious traditions for centuries. Dr. Nei Lopes in African Religions in Brazil (2004) refers to Umbanda as perhaps the most important Brazilian syncretic religion.164 Religious syncretism is a term which is used not only by scholars of Umbanda, but also by umbandistas themselves. Umbanda’s process of religious syncretism tends to be romanticized to say the least by many practitioners. But it is a term which should also be regarded as the result of centuries of colonialism, eurocentrism, violence, religious intolerance and persecution. Pai Alexandre Cumino, the author of various books on Umbanda coming from a perspective of practitioners, refers to Umbanda as a religion which manifests itself as a living organism.165 Umbanda is constantly shaping itself to regional and social implications, and a constant force which keeps “interacting” with Umbanda’s heterogenous and living nature are the constant attitudes of religious intolerance and persecution against its worldviews and its practitioners coming from Brazilian society. A common characteristic between Umbanda’s Bantu and indigenous inheritance is their common reference to Catholicism through the spiritual manifestation of Caboclos, Caboclas, Pretos and Pretas-Velhas. These spiritual entities are known to have faced a process of Catholicisation during their incarnation in Colonial Brazil. Cumino (2016) captures the narrative which traces Umbanda’s establishment to November 15th, 1908 and its Catholic implications presented by the Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas, the entity which set the fundamental principles to the Umbanda practiced
164 Lopes, 852. 165 Cumino, 33. 72 at Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade. During the Caboclo’s first spiritual manifestation, stated that during his previous life he had once been the Jesuit Gabriel de Malagrida, who would later be born as an indigenous person in Brazil. The Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas also named what would be the first tenda (another term used for terreiro in Umbanda) of Umbanda. He explained that it would be called Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade, because just as Mary welcomed and embraced Jesus Christ, Umbanda would also welcome and embody its “children”. Cumino refers to the spiritual work performed by Zélio Fernandino de Moraes as Christian, due to Catholic discourses and references. Cumino also reminds the reader that Pretos and Pretas-Velhas, can be found constantly referring to Jesus Christ and Mary, emphasizing their process of Catholicization and faith. Cumino acknowledges the controversiality which exists in topics of Christian faith within black and indigenous religious spaces.166 Although I do choose not to engage with questions of “right or wrong” in such topics I remind the reader to reflect on matters of dynamics of power which are engrained in the forced conversion of Africans and Brazil’s indigenous peoples, those who founded the principles and traditions which make up what we call Umbanda nowadays.
166 Cumino, 71. 73 Conclusion
Dr. Shawn Wilson in Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods mentions how in and indigenous research paradigm “critiquing others’ work does not fit well within my cultural framework because it does not follow the Indigenous axiology of relational accountability. Criticizing or judging would imply that I know more about someone else’s work and the relationships that went into it than they do themselves…What follows then is properly termed a review rather than a critique.”167 It is with the same approach that I engage with the scholarly work used throughout the thesis, with the intention not to criticize, but to build upon the work of others.168 I not only thank and acknowledge the scholars involved in the studies, but also all the practitioners, pais and mães-de santo who contributed in the numerous academic studies used throughout the literature review on Umbanda’s relationship with nature, and religious intolerance against umbandistas and practitioners of other African derived religions in Brazil. The work of Dr. Shawn Wilson has shown how “one of the great strengths that Indigenous scholars bring with them is the ability to see and work within the Indigenous and dominant worldviews. This becomes of great importance when working with dominant system academics, who are usually not bicultural. As part of their white privilege, there is no requirement for them to be able to see other ways of being and doing, or even to recognize that they exist. Oftentimes then, ideas coming from a different worldview are outside of their entire mindset and way of thinking. The ability to
167 Shawn Wilson, Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods, Fernwood Publishing, 2008, 43. 168 Wilson, 44. 74 bridge this gap becomes important in order to ease the tension that it creates.”169 The use of Indigenous Research Methods and their ability to bridge the gap between different worldviews may be beneficial toward the studies of Umbanda, being a religion which navigates through various worldviews (Yoruba, Bantu, Jêje, Catholic, Afro- indigenous…). Electric Santería: Racial and Sexual Assemblages of Transnational Religion by Dr. Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús captures an important reflection regarding the use of media during religious practices in Santería. During a visit to Cuba, a Santería practitioner from the United States video recorded a religious ritual in order to teach other santeros in the United States. But “at the moment of the ‘capturing’ when a jar was capped during the ritual, the camera was turned off so that the spirit would not ‘jump into the camera’ rather than in the glass jar.”170 Negotiations regarding the use of religious media raises important questions throughout African derived religions such as Santería and Umbanda in the African Diaspora. Media has quickly changed across familial generations, and African derived religions such as Umbanda, which have relied on oral and narrative transmission of knowledge, have been facing a new phenomenon due to the internet and various media resources. Has access to unlimited information throughout the use of the internet disrupted the transmission of religious information which was once only accessible through elders? Are there any impacts of such within religious communities? Researchers of Afro-Brazilian religions constantly refer to being in-between what is public and what is private, what is a secret and what’s not, what is permitted and what is
169 Wilson, 44. 170 Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús, Electric Santería: Racial and Sexual Assemblages of Transnational Religion, Columbia University Press, 2015, 48. 75 not permitted.171 How do African derived religions that rely on aspects of secrecy throughout its knowledge interact with the media and the internet? Despite such concerns regarding the integrity of religious practices and their communities, I also see the use of media and the internet as a tool which might disrupt preconceived notions and religious intolerance against marginalized and demonized religions. During my visit to Kenya in 2014, while attending a Friday prayer at a local mosque in Nairobi, a good friend of mine from Kenya who practiced Islam asked for my phone in order to take a picture inside the mosque before the prayers had started. After quickly taking the picture while trying to be discrete, he asked me to show the picture to those in the United States, and tell everyone in the U.S. that I had prayed in a mosque, and that it was a welcoming and peaceful place. His request was due to an ongoing conversation we were having about religious intolerance against Muslims in the U.S. Out of respect to what is sacred, I would not have tried to take the picture myself, but the use of media was used as a tool against religious intolerance due to my residency in the United States. Throughout the chapter on religious intolerance I have emphasized the use of media as a tool which may propagate religious hatred and intolerance. But, the use of media and social media platforms may also be used as a demystifying tool, especially since practitioners have greater agency over such platforms. Dr. Nei Lopes in “African Religions in Brazil” mentions the “battle” against a neo-Pentecostal front which demonizes African religions and takes “away a large number of their followers by using mass communication media.”172 Dr. Cathy O’neil in Weapons
171 Rodrigo da Silva Melo, A tradição juremeira e suas relações com o candomblé e Umbanda na casa Ilê Axé Xangô Agodô, Universidade Federal da Paraíba (April, 2011), 19. 172 Lopes, 839. 76 of Math Destruction has shown the extent to which society is influenced by social media, either through the outcome of political elections through Facebook, or the propagations of religious hatred through YouTube.173 Dr. Shawn Wilson’s Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods has shown me the importance of writing with honestly, and the importance to acknowledge hardships faced during the writing process. Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic I was unable to perform field-work for the completion of the thesis during the summer of 2020. Both chapters and their topics were based on personal experiences regarding the importance of nature towards one’s well-being and religious intolerance. The first chapter was based on my own connection with the natural environment which has been present in my life since my childhood in Goiânia. Growing up in the periphery of Goiânia my family and I had access to numerous fruits, plants and herbs. We grew our own pomegranates, starfruit, papaya, lime, custard apple, guiné, boldo, rosemary, ginger and numerous other fruits and plants which were used for homemade remedies and daily consumption. Umbanda’s use of plants and herbs for both physical and spiritual remedies was one of the aspects of the religion which I was attracted to at an early age along with the atabaque and it’s pontos- cantados which are also manifested in Capoeira, an art-from which I have been practicing since the age of eight. The chapter on religious intolerance was motivated by the ongoing attacks and violence against practitioners of African derived religions which have been increasing in Brazil. Although less than one percent of the population follows Afro-Brazilian religions, thirty percent of the cases of religious intolerance registered by the human rights hotline
173 Jorge Miklos and Tatiana Penna Madeira, “A palavra mata, o corpo vivifica: o paradigma ecológico da comunicação na Umbanda,” Espaço e Cultura, UERJ, N. 38, (January-June 2018), 40. 77 involved victims who were practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions.174 The use of television and social media platforms has been constantly used to spread religious hatred. In 2018, Edir Macedo’s television network Rede Record lost a fifteen-year lawsuit in which it had been accused of promoting religious intolerance towards Afro-Brazilian religions.175 Along with the increase of domestic violence176, and the worsening of society’s mental health177 during the Covid-19 Pandemic, violent crime also rose unevenly impacting Black-majority neighborhoods.178 I dedicate this thesis to all of the lives lost and impacted by the Covid-19 Pandemic, including my family who has been coping with the passing of a loved one due to gun violence in Central Texas, and dealing with the harsh effects on mental health which have been aggravated by the Pandemic.
174 2019 Report on International Religious Freedom: Brazil. https://www.state.gov/reports/2019-report-on-international-religious-freedom/brazil/ 175 2019 Report on International Religious Freedom: Brazil. https://www.state.gov/reports/2019-report-on-international-religious-freedom/brazil/ 176 Eve Valera, Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard medical School. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/when-lockdown-is-not-actually-safer-intimate- partner-violence-during-covid-19-2020070720529. Accessed April 1, 2021. 177 Alvin Powell, The Harvard Gazette: Health & Medicine, “Pandemic pushes mental health to the braking point,”https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/01/pandemic- pushing-people-to-the-breaking-point-say-experts/. Accessed April 4, 2021. 178 John D. Harden and Justin Jouvenal. The Washington Post, “Crime rose unevenly when stay-at-home orders lifted. The racial disparity in the widest in years. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/local/public-safety/crime-rate- coronavirus/. Accessed March 13, 2021.
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