By Allison Parker and Joselyn Rubio-Correa

During our first week here in Salvador, Brazil, we’ve felt the vibrant and strong influence of Afro-Brazilian culture. The city reflects the traditions of African origin that live on today. Before our departure, we learned about the current racial and gender inequalities in Brazil, and specific to the state of Bahia. Salvador was, originally, the capital of Bahia during the period when the Portuguese enslaved the Indigenous people of Brazil and Africans. Although the Portuguese attempted to control and diminish Indigenous and African culture, the people and traditions held strong. As our professor quotes “oppression leads to resistance”. Examples of oppression and attempts to erase culture in Afro-Brazilians would be in the 1900’s when the religions of Candomblé and Umbanda were illegal to practice and labeled as “the devil” in the eyes of Christianity. Although Candomblé and Umbanda are no longer illegal, they continue to be demonized by the Christian church, as noted by Alcides, Pai De Santo. In addition, Capoiera, an Afro-Brazilian traditional practice, was criminalized and illegal to practice in the late 1800’s and into the 1900’s. Nationally, the practice was outlawed and people who practiced Capoiera faced harmful consequences and even death. However, it was still practiced in secret, passed down to the children and is now recognized as a national practice or symbol belonging to Afro-Brazilians. 

The Candomblé religion originated from the religious syncretism of West African religions and Christianity. Unlike Christianity, in Candomblé there is no belief of a devil, heaven, or hell. To become a follower of Candomblé, you have to know Portuguese and be initiated into the religion by a pai de santo (priest). Once you have been accepted into the religion, you are assigned an Orixá (god) and it is with you until death. Followers of Candomblé worship many different Orixás and often provide them with offerings as a way of giving thanks.

Another tradition practiced is the art of Capoeira. As defined by Osmundo Pinho, social anthropologist in Bahia, “Capoeira is the expressive cultural African origin that combines ritual, dance, and body fight, nowadays practiced as a sport around the world” (Pinho, 2020). We learned that Capoeira is an art form like a dance that resembles a fight. However, Capoeira can be in the form of a real fight if a person feels threatened. As we were humbled by our flexibility and coordination skills, we learned the value and belief of Capoeira. Music, dance, movements and spirituality are crucial in the practice of Capoeira. The art is within the spiritual energy called axé (Rehard, 2021). Rehard uses a definition quoted by the scholar Barabara Browning “pure potentiality, the power-to-make-things-happen”. Rehard states that “Capoeiristas are able to engage in bodily dialogues with each other while using personal agency to shape the flow of the game for their own advantage” (Rehard, 2021). From our first-hand sight, capoeira is a controlled, strong, elegant practice that takes dedication, skill, and passion. The capoeiristas should never lose eye contact with one another, even when they are upside down or flipping. During our trip to Lençóis, Brazil, we were able to watch many Capoeira performances by students and teachers. In all the performances, the dancers moved in sync with one another and always watched one another, to prepare for their partner's next move. For musical expression, we saw the berimbau, atabaque, pandeiro, and agogo. (Itacare, 2024). Singing and clapping are encouraged as the audience gathers around the roda, or ring.
 

Both of these Afro-Brazilian traditions focus on the connection to corpo, the Portuguese word for body. Capoeira uses the body as a form of dance and expression while Candomblé uses the body to connect with nature and the environment. Our time here has shown us the importance of the connection between the mind and body as well as our place in relationship to the natural world. 

Sources:
Itacaré. “Capoeira - Itacaré Beach - Bahia - Brazil.” Www.itacare.com, 2024, www.itacare.com/itacare/capoeira/. Accessed 21 May 2024.
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Pinho, Osmundo. “Race and Cultural Politics in Bahia.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, 17 Dec. 2020, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.946. Accessed 23 May 2024.
 
Rehard, Abby. ““Axé, Capoeira!”” ReVista, 25 Jan. 2021, revista.drclas.harvard.edu/axe-capoeira/. Accessed 21 May 2024.

Allison Parker is a sophomore at CSB+SJU pursuing a major in Sociology with an Anthropology concentration, and a minor in Global Health. Her hometown is Belview, located in southwest Minnesota. She’s interested in learning about social behaviors and better understanding social, health, and cultural life issues. She looks forward to experiencing Brazilian culture and applying her studies abroad in Salvador. ​

By Carter ​Potthoff and Morgan Van Beck

After a missed flight and 24 hours in Chicago, we were more than happy to finally land in Salvador and settle in. On the way to the hotel in the middle of rush hour traffic, we saw a massive building with the words “Jesus Cristo é o senhor” and a huge logo reading “Universal”; it was one of the Protestant churches that have exploded in popularity in Brazil in the past few decades. Being the future social scientists that we are, we both instantly knew that we needed to investigate further and decided to use our first blog post for this trip to dive deeper into religion in Brazil and reflect on our experiences with religion here in Bahia thus far. The religious dynamic of Bahia is super interesting because it not only includes the rapidly growing Protestant movements, but is also the birthplace of Candomblé, one of the most practiced Afro Brazilian religions. 

Our brief introduction to Candomblé included a lecture by Professor Willys Santos, who is a scholar on Brazilian religions at UFBA and also a Candomblé priest as well as a lecture and visit to a terreiro, a place in which Candomblé is practiced, by and alongside Alcides, another Candomblé priest or Pai de Santo. These have been our favorite lectures thus far. We learned that Candomblé is not just a religion, but a way of life. Followers of Candomblé focus on their connection with their own self, their communities, and nature, and they connect with these things via their orixás, or the spirits that are with someone from birth until after death.
 
Pai Alcides talked about the important role of women in Candomblé, which is a matriarchal religion, because female slaves from Africa were the ones who kept the African roots of Candomblé alive. He also talked to us about the role Candomblé has in its followers lives and how followers engage with the religion. He explained that the terreiro created a space for family that was taken away by the slave trade. It is a place for community and gathering. He also explained that followers of Candomblé go to priests based on their needs, whether physical, emotional, relationship, social/economic, etc. Based on that, the Pai de Santo then provides direction to help us better understand ourselves and what we need in order to resolve the issue. Pai Alcides said “O Candomblé vai equilibrar, não curar” or “Candomblé will balance, not cure”. This line, for us, is what Candomblé is all about; seeking balance within one’s life in order to progress forward.
 
Learning about Candomblé here in Brazil has also helped us to retroactively better understand some of the material that we read in class, specifically, the book Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior. This book gave us a lot of insight into the dynamics of race, gender, and inequality in Brazil. It also centered on Afro Brazilian religion, which we were very unfamiliar with. Specifically, Jarê, which was practiced by the family that the book centered on. Zeca was a Jarê healer, but before coming to Brazil, we couldn’t fully understand what his role in the community really was (Vieira Junior 2019). Our time with Professor Willys Santos and Pai Alcides taught us the principles of Candomblé and other Afro Brazilian religions in an approachable way that made us appreciate Crooked Plow so much more.
 
As two students from Stearns County, we both really enjoyed diving into Candomblé. It’s something that we would never have had the chance to experience back home. Something that we are a little more familiar with is Protestantism; although, we were not familiar with its role in Brazil before this class. In Professor Willys Santos’s lecture, he talked about how Protestantism and Candomblé interact in Brazil. He explained that Afro Brazilian religions have historically been targeted and suppressed by those in power, who have historically been Catholic and are now increasingly Protestant. This tied into part of the lecture that Flavia Biroli gave at the CSBSJU Multicultural Center. She discussed the ways in which Protestantism is exploding in Brazil, its tie to conservative movements, and its effect on the decline of Catholicism. We also read about the changing religious dynamics of Brazil in Pereira’s Modern Brazil: A Very Short Introduction and discussed it with Karine Belarmino, a PhD student who researches clientelism within Brazilian Protestant movements. Karine explained that these Protestant denominations are gaining strength by providing services in communities that lack them, which makes adherents flock to their congregations, thus “buying” their votes in exchange for these services (Belarmino). This has culminated in a strong Brazilian Protestant movement, both political and religious, which was reflected in the grandiose church that we saw on our drive home from the airport.
 
An influx of congregants also means that Protestant churches are gaining political power. In addition to listening to Flavia Biroli’s lecture, we also read her 2016 article titled Political Violence Against Women in Brazil: Expressions and Definitions. In this article, Flavia discussed how a strong conservative movement and backlash is resulting in political violence against women, but she also discussed the role of Protestant churches in this conservative movement. Many prominent Protestants are gaining political power by winning the votes of the growing number of Protestants in Brazil. These politicians, who are sometimes pastors, campaign on platforms of Protestant values, such as traditional family and gender roles (Biroli 2016). These Protestant politicians are also able to promote policies that target non-Christians in Brazil, such as those who practice Candomblé, which brings us full circle back to Professor Willys Santos’s lecture on our first full day here.  
 
It has been a whirlwind first couple of days, but we are looking forward to everything else that Brazil has in store for us!

​Photos from a shrine to one of the Candomblé orixás, Yemanjá, in Salvador, Brazil. 

Sources:
​
Belarmino, Karine. “Clients of God: Introduction.” Ph.D. Dissertation.       University of Minnesota. Forthcoming.

Biroli, Flávia. “Political Violence against Women in Brazil: Expressions and Definitions /
Violência Política Contra as Mulheres No Brasil: Manifestações e Definições.” Revista Direito e Práxis 7, no. 15 (September 14, 2016).

Pereira, Anthony. Modern Brazil a very short introduction. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Vieira Junior, Itamar. Crooked Plow. Verso Books, 2019.

Morgan Van Beck is a senior Political Science and Hispanic Studies double major with a minor in Latino/Latin American Studies. She is originally from Sartell, Minnesota. Morgan's most formative educational experience was traveling around Guatemala with the Guatemala Human Rights Commission, which inspired the theme of her senior distinguished thesis: human rights abuses in post-conflict societies. Morgan recently received a Fulbright grant to teach English in Colombia and will be moving there shortly after graduation. ​