History of Candomblé
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Candomblé originated among enslaved Africans transplanted to Brazil during the Atlantic slave trade.[3] Slavery was widespread in West Africa; most slaves were prisoners of war captured in conflicts with neighbouring groups, although some were convicted criminals or those in debt.[4] African slaves first arrived in Brazil in the 1530s,[5] and were present in Bahia by the 1550s.[6] Over the course of the trade, around four million Africans were transported to Brazil,[7] an area that received more enslaved Africans than any other part of the Americas.[8] Within Brazil itself, these Africans were most concentrated in Bahia.[9]
In the 16th century, most of the enslaved came from the Guinea coast, but by the 17th century Angola and Congo populations had become dominant.[10] Then, between 1775 and 1850, the majority of slaves were Yoruba and Dahomean, coming from the Gulf of Benin, largely in what is now Benin and Nigeria.[11] Priests of the Oyo Empire were likely among the enslaved when the latter was attacked by Fulani and Fon groups.[12] As the last wave of slaves, these Yoruba and Dahomean people became numerically dominant among Afro-Brazilians, resulting in their traditional cosmology becoming ascendant over that of longer established communities.[13] On being brought to Brazil, these slaves were divided into "nations", primarily on their port of embarkation rather than their original etho-cultural identities.[14] This process meant that Africans of different cultural backgrounds, regions, and religions were thrown together under a unifying term such as "Nagô",[15] the latter used for those exported from the Bight of Benin.[14]
Transportation merged deities venerated in different regions in Africa as part of the same pantheon.[16] Whereas in Africa, people had generally venerated deities associated with their specific region, these commitments were broken up by enslavement and transportation.[15] Of the thousands of orishas venerated in West Africa, this was cut down to a much smaller pantheon in Brazil.[17] Which deities continued to be venerated probably depended on their continued relevance in the new Brazilian context.[12] Orisha associated with agriculture were abandoned, probably because slaves had little reason to protect the harvests of slave-owners.[18] By the 18th century, accounts of African-derived rituals performed in Brazil were common,[19] at which point they were referred to generically as calundu, a term of Bantu origin.[20] A 17th and 18th century ritual that incorporated drumming and spiritual possession, known as a Calundu, is believed to be an influence of Candomble's drumming works.[21]
The Roman Catholic nature of Brazilian colonial society, which allowed for a cult of saints, may have permitted greater leeway for the survival of traditional African religions than were available in Protestant-dominant areas of the Americas.[22] Many of the slaves learned to classify their orixás in relation to the Roman Catholic saints and the calendar of saints' days.[23] There is no evidence that the slaves simply used the cult of saints to conceal orixá worship, but rather that devotees understood the two pantheons as comprising similar figures with similar abilities to fix certain problems.[2] Some ecclesiastical figures in the Roman Catholic Church saw the syncretisation as a positive step in the process of converting the Africans to Christianity.[24] The Christian teaching provided to enslaved Africans was often rudimentary.[25] Among slave owners, there was also a belief that allowing the slaves to continue their traditional religions would allow old enmities between different African communities to persevere, thus making it less likely the slaves would unify and turn against the slave-owners.[26] It was also thought that allowing the slaves to take part in their traditional customs would expend energies that might otherwise be directed toward rebellion.[27] However, as steps were taken to convert the African populations to Christianity in Brazil, many Africans had been converted before being brought to the Americas.[21] In Brazil, enslaved Africans and their descendants were also exposed to ceremonial magic practices from Iberia.[28]
