Globalization is not a new phenomenon, movement of people across long distances is not
something new; axial age: vast spaces were connected through trade in the Eurasia region. The
trans-Saharan connections between North Africa and West Africa. The Indian Ocean trade
brought for centuries East Africa, the Middle East, India, and South Asia into trade relationships.
The transatlantic slave trade gave birth to transatlantic religious and cultural connections.
The Virgin Mary served as a powerful figure in translating Catholicism into other diverse
cultures through a process of re-appropriation according to the cultural terms of indigenous
groups. Instead of the Christianization of Mesoamerica, it is more accurate to talk about the
indigenization of Christianity. Religious syncretism is the blending of two or more traditions, the
process usually involves changes in both or all traditions.
Places already sacred before Christianity became the sites of shrines to Mary. She became a
master symbol that various groups evoked to rally support for their political and socioeconomic causes.
The choice of the Tepeyac Hill to build a shrine for the Virgin Mary was not a random choice. It
had once been the site of a temple to the goddess of fertility Tonantzin. Tonantzin, Our Lady
Mother is associated with the moon, as is Guadalupe’s image. Indeed for the next 50 years after
the establishment of the Guadalupe shrine worshippers called her Tonantzin as well as
Guadalupe. Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, native Mayan people of eastern
Mesoamerica organized rebellions which soon incorporated the symbols of Guadalupe. This
example suggests that religious imagery can be effective in translating a new religion into an
older cultural and religious context: Mary made sense to Mayan, who already venereated
Tonantzin. Sometimes this process involves a literal translation across deities. Such is the case
for religions found in the Americas but derived from West African religions. In latin America,
catholic deities provided useful covers for slaves who wishes to continue to practice their own
religions but had been forbidden to do so.
Yoruba religious ideas and practices, in particular, shaped the development of the Candomble
religion in Brazil. But Yoruba religion itself was shaped by people returning from Brazil. The case
of the Black Atlantic shows us that even as African images and ideas became the basis for the
New World religious creation, there also emrged a transatlantic network of men and women
who shaped developments on both continenet. Hence, the influences were not unidirectional
from Africa to Brazil but rather reciprocal.
Some details: God is Olorun, the creator of the world. Jesus is identified as OShala, the creator
of human life. St George depicted slaying a dragon is Ohossi, the hunter god. St Lazarus protect
of lepers is Omolu, a deity governing disease. Mary is identified with yemanja, the mother of
some of the other orishas (gods). Furthermore (like in the case of Tonantzin), other Orishas who
are mothers are also identified as manifestations of Mary. These maternal deities are
associated with the water and sea as well.
Although the deities venerated are the same in Candomble as in the Yoruba religion, the idea of
purity was introduced in the Brazilian Candomble associated with the use of West African goods
(kola nuts) central to their ritual practice. The idea of purity is absent in the Yoruba religion, the
focus of ritual in Yoruba is to establish a physical and spiritual balance.
Umbanda was born as a revolt against the elitism of spiritism in Rio. By the 1920s, spiritism had
become a highly intellectualized and European-oriented set of practices. Lighter-skin Brazilians
controlled the seances. They were speaking with the likes of Voltaire and Plato, if an Indian
spirit appeared, possessing one of their own, they would refuse to allow him to speak. But
Umbanda is still a marker of social class.
Zelio de Moraes suffered an illness that left him partially paralyzed, His father was a Spiritist
and took him to his group for healing. There he was visited by the spirit of a Jesuit priest, who
revealed that the illness was spiritual and that he had a mission, which was to found a truly
Brazilian religion that would be dedicated to the worship and propitiation of Brazilian spirits,
These spirits included caboclos, spirit of Brazilian Indians, and pretos velhos, spirits of Africans
enslaved in Brazil.Zelio created the new religion and founded the first Umbanda center. The
center, the Spirits’ Center of Our Lady of Piety, attracted a largely white and middle-class
clientele. But the spirits that spoke through participants were those of Indians and Africans,
giving them the voice denied them by the spiritists.
In Yoruba and Umbanda thought, the orishas have no concrete form. They are forces and
principles rather than personages. Thus, the process of rendering African deities in catholic
form added a new visual and individuating dimension to worship, and the catholic images
remained a foci for Umbanda worship. The identification extends to ritual occasions as well.
People observe the catholic feast days that apply to their “translated” deities, but do so in a
way that corresponds to the Afro-Brazilian meaning of the deity. For example: Yemanja (Mary)
is identified with the sea, so people flock to the sea on the Catholic feast days for Mary and
once there, they offer gifts to Yemanja.
1930-1950: these religions were repressed as heretical by the Catholic Church, with support
from the Brazilian state,
State repression began to loosen in the 1960s.
Since the 1970s people have enjoyed relative freedom to worship openly.
The Politics associated with the identification with these new religions have changed.
Catholicism is not anymore associated with higher social status and political capital.
Today many of the lighter skin people are looking for their roots and finding their connection to
Africa by being possessed by African spirits.
The religions have now become part of the popular culture and some of its aspects are being
incorporated in the Brazilian narrative of national identity, a racial democracy.
Some followers of these new religions have left Catholicism
Some continue to identify as Catholic
The translation of Catholic Saints into Yoruba deities
The Catholic feast are celebrated with reference to Yoruba gods
Garifuna