Umbanda: 113 years of struggle, evolution and resistance

Muito confundida com o Candomblé, a doutrina incorpora elementos do catolicismo, do espiritismo, além de rituais de povos indígenas, entre outras referências. (

Iury Lima – Cenarium Magazine

VILHENA (RO) – Mediumistic practices, spiritist rituals, evolution and personal transformation are part of the legacy of one of the most colorful and enchanting religions, full of tradition and culture, but also among the most demonized by other sacred creeds in Brazil. Throughout its 113 years of creation, the most popularized branch of Umbanda is still viewed with intolerance and prejudice, even though it has among its pillars values such as fraternity, charity, and respect for others. Created by the medium Zélio Fernandino Moraes, under the guidance of the spirit Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas, Umbanda emerged in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, on November 15, 1908.

Confused with Candomblé, the doctrine incorporates elements from Catholicism, by praising and praying to the saints; from Spiritism, by believing in evolution and in the survival of the human spirit, as well as rituals from indigenous peoples, among other references. The services, held in the traditional terreiros, which resist prejudice attacks from north to south of the country, are filled with songs sung by men and women, with the presence of spirit guides (entities), such as caboclos, pombagiras, and exus – nomenclatures commonly used by different doctrines and in an erroneous way to refer to pejorative terms.

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Manifestations of Afro-Brazilian Sacredness/Religiosity, at the Afroamazonic Festival of Yemanjá, in Manaus. (Toy Badé Cultural Association/Reproduction)

Adaptations and popularization

“Before Zélio Moares had this initiative, Umbanda already existed as an ethnic group of the Bantu trunk [linguistic branch that gave origin to several African languages], brought to Brazil through slavery (…) When we speak of Umbanda, we don’t speak of only one Umbanda. And although we respect this historical landmark of 1908, it is also necessary to keep in mind that it didn’t start there. Its roots come from Africa and from the indigenous pajelança, which are mixed together. What Zélio did was to bring the fusion, the mixture with Kardecist spiritism”, explained the general coordinator of the Amazon Articulation of Traditional Peoples and Communities of Terreiro de Matriz Africana (Aratrama), Alberto Jorge Silva Ọba Méjì, known as Pai Jorge, in an interview to CENARIUM.

He highlights that Zélio had the ability to present the proposal of transformation to a “more evangelized” Umbanda, in part because of the persecution suffered by the rites. “So, if we were to make a pyramid upside down, a big part of it is Kardecist, a second part is Roman Catholic, the third part is pajelança, and in the smallest part, down there, would be the Afro sacredness”, he detailed.

The general coordinator of the Amazon Articulation of Traditional Peoples and Communities of African-Brazilian Terreiro, “Pai Jorge”. (Personal collection/ Pai Jorge)

Persecution

“With the Vargas dictatorship, with the persecution of the terreiros that took place, there was a need for an organization into federations and associations to be able to get a license to operate. That’s where Zélio Moraes’ Umbanda started to have more strength, more amplitude, because there were very educated people, military, doctors and everything else that, let’s say, liked Kardecism, but did not fit exactly into the Kardecist principles. They had this influence of the caboclo, the preto velho, the Exu, and then these organizations and federations started to exist in several parts of Brazil, mainly during the military dictatorship. The houses that used to be Tambor de Mina, which were identified by the identity of Maranhão, especially here in Amazonas, Pará, Acre, and Rondônia, started to have the name Tenda Espírita de Umbanda (Umbanda Spiritist Tent), but they continue playing the drum or doing the Catimbó”, added Pai Jorge.

Alberto Jorge, who was almost ordained priest, after 10 years of Hebrew-Christian formation through theological studies, also focused on philosophy and sociology, says that the knowledge of the whole range of worldviews and realities that Umbanda provided him with opened his mind to religious plurality, which made him abandon the belief in a single “God, absolute owner of all truths and the thought that outside the church there is no salvation”.

“To keep in touch with God, we don’t need to be institutionally linked to Holy Mother, to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Church, or to the Lutheran Church, for example (…) God’s love is much more comprehensive, it listens to us, attends us, and welcomes us within our limitations and within our conditions”, he pointed out.

Current government feeds demonization

According to a survey conducted by Datafolha Institute in 2020, Umbanda, Candomblé and other religions of African origin represent only 2% of the population. A small rate, but expressive in absolute numbers: almost 500 thousand out of 212 million inhabitants (IBGE/2020). Catholics and Evangelicals are 50% and 31% of Brazilians, respectively. Spiritists are 3% of the nation; 2% belong to other unspecified religions; 0.3% follow Judaism; 10% have no religion at all, and 1% are atheists.

Not coincidentally, there is great scope for misinformation and religious intolerance, with Afro-descendent religions being the most affected by crime. In the entire year of 2020, 245 denunciations were made reporting episodes of attacks, violence and prejudice against those who follow such sacred creeds. In 2018, the number was lower: 211 records.

“Demonization is a highly perverse process. Christian, neo-Pentecostal denominations need to have a demon, need to have an enemy to fight. Without having a culprit for the failures and mistakes of humanity, it is not possible to make the millions and billions that they make. Human beings have a great capacity to blame others for everything they do, everything they practice. Everyone is guilty, except the one who did it”, laments Aratrama’s coordinator, Alberto Jorge.

“Religious wars have always been in the interests of the state. What Brazil is experiencing today is a declared war with a religious background, and Bolsonaro as President of the Republic is the exponent of this religious war, of this absurd confrontation between ideologies that have as a base what I understand as ‘God as religion’. And this is becoming more and more entrenched within society”, added the leader.

Pai Jorge denounces what he classifies as a “tremendous crime”: the prejudiced position of the Amazonas state office that should intervene more for plurality and respect – the State Department of Justice, Human Rights and Citizenship (Sejusc). “In the State Council for State Equality, the secretary Mirtes Sales did everything she could to put the representative of the Pardo-Mestiço Movement, who is a Bolsonarist and highly connected to Damares Alves (minister of Women, Family and Human Rights) and, who is against terreiro people, who has already manifested ‘n’ (multiple) times this, who has already made certain racist statements regarding black people and who denies Afro identity”, she said.

“The move was so perverse that she was elected president of a council, and this election took place in the absence of 50% + 1 of the council, because Mirtes Sales knew that she would not be able to be elected by the participants of the council and needed to make this trap there in Brasilia, with the National Council of Racial Equality”, she added. “And we have already denounced this to the Federal Public Ministry and the State Public Ministry”, he added.

Alberto Jorge exemplifies such a “cruel and criminal” episode as a sample of the religious war, starting from the fact that “a secretary of state bypassed common sense to elect what was convenient to her from a party-political point of view”.

Resistance

Mother Lilian of Odé, from Amazonas, who also talked to the CENARIUM report on this National Day of Umbanda, says that “practicing today is, for sure, very different from how it was when Umbanda first emerged,” but that there are still difficulties, since, historically, the religion has always been surrounded by prejudice and persecution.

“We, here in the North, didn’t suffer so much, but the people from the Southeast, from the South, suffer until today. You still see terreiros being invaded, burned, mediums being persecuted. In Rio de Janeiro, in certain places, mediums cannot wash their clothes and hang them out, because it is forbidden (…) Finally, it is still very difficult today”.

For her, breaking the prejudice depends much more on the umbandistas themselves. “Unfortunately, we still have many people claiming to be Umbanda followers and practicing anything but Umbanda”, she said. “To be an Umbanda dweller is really to belong to the sacred work, which requires a lot of sacrifice, dedication and renunciation (…) and not everyone wants to renounce”, declared Mother Lilian.

Mother Lilian of Odé, daughter of a medium, was born and raised in an Umbanda terreiro. (Personal collection/Reproduction)

“Whoever demonizes the sacred, whoever perverts the sacred, is human. With his selfishness and his blindness. So you see the exus and pombagiras being demonized as if they were just any guides. And in sacred Umbanda, an exu and a pombagira are light guides. And to be an exu or a pombagira, it is necessary that that entity has reached a degree of enlightenment and works for many people. As they are closer to this worldly energy, they are excellent connoisseurs of human ills and executors of Ogum’s Law on Earth”, he explained.

“Exus and pombagiras work in the energy that surrounds us. The pombagira is that force that decants the sadness in us and transforms it into joy; they arrive smiling and break those miasmas and heavy energy patterns of sadness in people. Exus, in turn, are those who open the way, who protect, not from the world, but protect the person from himself, because he is the one who has God and the demon inside him. The devil is not the Exu or the Pombagira, it is the person who goes to the shrine with evil intentions. He who serves God does not harm anyone. Demonization is human, it is not divine”, according to Mother Lilian.

Caboclo Sete Flechas opening a catimbó gira, in a terreiro in Manaus. (Personal collection of Mãe Lilian de Odé/Reproduction)

Protection and philosophy of life

For Lilian, who was born and raised inside the terreiro, daughter of a mother with mediumistic abilities since she was seven years old, it is necessary to protect the terreiros and the houses that practice the religion. “I don’t think that Umbanda practitioners should be afraid, on the contrary, this is the time to wear the shirt of Umbanda.

“Umbanda is the way. The philosophy of life is the way you walk. To get there, you need to use all the knowledge you receive, bring it into your life, into your philosophy of life, so that you find your evolution. You need to have it within you so that you can share it. For those who have Umbanda as a philosophy of life, they certainly have it as a religion. It ends up being both”, he concluded.

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