Candomblé

This past Tuesday (a little less than a week ago), a few of us took part in an interesting Afro-Brazilian experience when we attended a Candomblé service. Candomblé has roots in Africa but really is prominent in Brazil, especially in Salvador, where it first originated. Today, there are about 1,100 Candomblé churchs (vs. 2000 Catholic churches). Those who practice Candomblé believe in many gods and through ceremonies, celebrate them and call them down to the people.

Most Candomblé services are not open to the public, and only those who actually practice the religion (and I believe, also must be members of the church) are welcome to services. There are certain ceremonies etc that are open to those who are not a part of the church, but we could only go because we had a contact who was a member of the particular Candomblé church. (Apparently, you have to know someone to be able to go – you can’t just walk in yourself). You also cannot take pictures. I’m not sure what their routine services are like, or what a year’s calendar would be for a Candomblé church, but the particular ceremony we attended was the closing ceremony of a ritual that they had been celebrating slash preparing for all week. This particular ritual celebrated the Warrior God, the Harvest God, and the God of Leaves.

Esther, Renee, Andreas and I arrived in the neighborhood around 8:00. Also in our group were two Brazilian tour guides, a Danish couple, a Brazilian from Rio, and this hilarious random German guy. We made our way to the church, and we had to separate into guys and girls (opposite sexes can’t sit with one another). A few guys came out and started playing drums for a few minutes, and someone came around swinging one of those incense bulb things (I’ve seen them at Catholic services?) but then the incense swinging was done, and the guys stopped drumming. Much to our surprise, the service didn’t start for an hour and a half! By that time we were kind of tired, although it was really fun talking to the Brazilian tour guide girl and the Danish woman. Anyways so three guys started drumming again, and soon a few women came out dressed up in these huge dresses with big hoop skirts (circa 1860, Gone With the Wind). They started dancing around in a circle, throwing leaves everywhere (since the ceremony honored the God of Leaves) and they kissed the doorstep and kissed this wooden beam in the center of the room that was covered in wrappings. After a while, a few of the women started receiving these spirits, which was quite unusual to watch, having never seen anything quite like it before. Many audience members also received spirits. Apparently only women can actually dance around to receive the spirits, as every woman pledges to a God when she joins the religion and has a deep connection with that particular God, and is only able to receive that God (and thus prepares for days, or even weeks, leading up to a ceremony where her God is to be honored). The women would keel over and start trembling and put their hands behind their backs and shake a lot and then make animal noises. Then they’d be in a trance and dance around with their eyes closed, usually with the aid of someone not in trance so they wouldn’t run into stuff. Once they received their spirit, a cloth was tied around their waist so that the spirit could not escape through the belly button. All of the original dancing women quickly fell into trances, as did random audience members, including men (both young and old), other women, and even a couple of young children. Soon, the whole group proceeded through a door near the “alter” area, and we had a lot of free time again. After another long wait, two of the women and one of the very young girls came out, still in trance, but more decorated. They danced around forever, and by 11:20, they were kind of finishing up but our group needed to leave. Because only 3 of the millions of entranced people had gotten to dance around, it would be another few hours before the ceremony was complete.

It was very interesting to see something so completely different, and I had had quite a different image of what to expect going in (not that I really knew what to expect, but I’ve always associated sacrifices and stuff with my extremely limited knowledge of Candomblé, so I wasn’t sure if they’d slaughter something right there in front of us! Which they didn’t – they had already prepared the sacrifice earlier that afternoon. We didn’t get a chance to stay around long enough to see what happens with that…). We all thought it was quite an experience…