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| church in Pelourinho square |
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| dancers perform Capoeira at Bale Folklorico |
I had heard/read Brasil has the most
Africans outside of Africa before I went to Bahia, but it was warming and shocking all the same to
see exactly what that means, live and direct. Salvador’s landscape, simmering heat, and energy
mirrored Ghana’s to me: The red dirt roads, the various stages of construction
happening everywhere, the gated communities of mini mansions tucked behind high
walls, the cucumber-cool supermarkets stocked with pricey provisions, the
Buddha-shaped women wrapped and knotted in African cloth selling smoking street
food…
The food in particular was a comfort to me. I recognized kose (they call it
acaraje); a sweet fermented corn dough snack wrapped in corn husks that looked like
kenkey, and bankye aka boiled cassava which they served at our hotel for breakfast one morning.
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| an acaraje stand in itapua, bahia |
And then there was the religion.
On our first Wednesday trip to Pelourinho, we were apprised
that many in the square who had donned red were doing so in observance of Santa Barbara day,
Santa Barbara being an African
orixa or god worshipped in
Candomble, an African
traditional religion practiced in Brasil.
That evening, we saw a procession of men robed in red African apparel,
some in masks, drumming in the Pelourinho square.
On a Friday trip to the city center, we were
told that many would be wearing white in honor of another African goddess called
Oshun. As we rode around town, I noticed businesses named after Yemanja, a
goddess of the river; and pedestrians wearing t-shirts/baseball caps hanging in
the market celebrating an
Olodum Festival.
(The Olodum Festival is not religious; Olodumare is the name of God in Yoruba)
The professor and poet Joao who came to visit us when we were staying in the Bahian 'burbs as part of a small welcoming committee of Brasilian writers, poets, and culture-keepers, so graciously took time out of
his schedule to take us on a walking tour through his hometown, the historic
city of
Cachoeira. Cachoeira is known for its committed practice of Candomble.
He took us to a building in honor of the Sisterhood of the Good Death, a secret
society of African women 40 and above who did side work on top of their duties
as enslaved captives to buy their freedom and that of others in the community.
Joao explained that there had been some opposition to the building by one
Catholic priest in the town, but in the end the memory of these women had been
preserved by the author Jorge Amado who had been an advocate of preserving
Brasil’s African culture. Later that day, Joao took us to a traditional African
religious terreira or temple.
Having grown up partially in Ghana, in a Christian home, and
being Christian myself, my spirit roiled with discomfort and I felt an inner
warning shot fire. In Ghana, as in many countries outside of the West, things
of the spirit are not taken lightly. Religious temples, ceremonies, and
practices are not casual cultural tour stops, but portals to spiritual realms;
and I did not want to invite or entertain any unfamiliar spirit(s).
But having been an Africana Studies major in college, and
specifically having taken a course in the Sociology of Black Religion, I was and am well aware of the role religion—particularly Christianity—played in the
enslavement, manipulation, and liberation of African people. While legislators,
enslavers, and others who directly and indirectly benefited from the free labor
force and subjugation of African men and women advanced the
Society of the Propagation of the Gospel’s mission to enter “foreign parts", Christianize
the African and Indian "heathen” and "savages", and effectively erase all connections to their native culture via
language, religion, music, etc;
Christian Abolitionists were calling out the hypocrisy and sheer evil of the
institution of slavery and fighting for its end.
Meanwhile, the ancestors of
black liberation theology were at work. While many
enslaved Africans got the explicit and subliminal message that life would be
easier for them with respect to their interactions with the enslavers if they
converted to Christianity, many of the forced African emigr
és
used the slavers’ religion as a cover to preserve and practice their
traditional African religions, and/or communicate messages plotting escape from
enslavers. In America,
Harriet Tubman used Negro spirituals to direct Underground Railroad missions; and later it was no coincidence that the black
church in America was a hub of the Civil Rights movement. In Latin America,
Santeria and Candomble were examples of how the Africans who were enslaved used
the Catholic church’s worship of saints as a cover to worship orixas, or merged the religious traditions into one belief system.
I respect the fact that many Afro-Brasilians so fiercely held
onto their beliefs under threat of violence and extinction, and was so moved by the powerful story of the Sisters of the Good Death. The image of
these women coming together to subvert the twisted system that kidnapped them
from their homes and ripped them from their families by devising the means to buy their freedom and that of others in their community is just rockstar to me—while the converse of the town Catholic
priest rallying against them is yawn-inducing.
Now “Good Death”, Joao explained, signifies the African
outlook on death not as a bad thing, but a continuation of another realm of
life. As a Christian and African, this resonated with me because I believe
Jesus’s death was a good thing—the liberation of mankind from the sin that
separates us from God—and his resurrection was the continuation of that good
thing; the promise of eternal life to come for those that believe in him. That
said, it struck me, as a Christian, how the religion has been used to
manipulate African people into docility. As Joao shared the story of the Good
Death Sisters, I wondered what I would have done in their situation. Would I
have subverted, or would I have gone along with the okiedoke in the name of
Jesus, afraid to rock the boat?
I asked myself this question in another way when we went to
the
Bale Folklorico in Pelourinho. As I watched the men perform the spiritual fight dance of
capoeira, flipping and flinging themselves across the stage with acrobatic
precision and balletic grace, I wondered why my spiritual guard was down. I also
played back the museum visits we had made in Bahia, ambling past religious
masks and other artifacts. Why was I comfortable seeing these religious
performances and artifacts in environments sanctioned by whites as cultural institutions,
and not in their natural environments?
It hit me after the Bale Folklorico just how much had been
lost in the trade of human beings as slaves—how much Africa and her culture has
been mythologized on both sides with whites dismissing African practice as
heathen, pagan, savagery; and the Diaspora so fiercely protecting and preserving
it that in some cases Africans journey to Brasil and other African enclaves in
the Diaspora to study the indigenous way. Meanwhile, many Africans take it all
for granted, even as African culture—as with all cultures—evolves.
Perhaps because Africans who remained on the continent did not feel the need to preserve the culture as much as those who were forcibly removed did, many contemporary Africans make the free choice to observe Christianity and Islam and other religions. I should add that not every Brasilian I encountered was a practitioner of Candomble. I learned later that some of the students that joined us on the tour of Cachoeira opted not to go inside the terreira because they are evangelical Christians. I also saw several Assemblies of God churches as we drove around town. I'm sure, as with every society, there are also many Brasilians of other faiths as well as agnostics and atheists. I should also add that in the narrative of Christianity, one major truth gets left out that
one of the oldest Christian churches was founded in Ethiopia in the 1st century, pre-dating the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism as we know it.
Spirituality and religion at their purest expression and
practice come down to faith. What you believe is definitely molded by the value
system you were raised with as a child as well as the experiences you have as
you mature into adulthood. At some point, every adult makes the determination
for herself or himself to continue in the faith, or lack thereof, they were
brought up with, or abandon it for something else. That decision can be clouded
by race, ethnicity, and history, but again, in its purest form faith and what
you choose to believe has nothing to do with external things. It’s an internal
choice that then, ideally, finds its expression in our action.
What does any of this have to do with my adventures as a writer? Well, I think it
necessary to hash these
things out as best I can for myself, so I can write with deeper honesty and
integrity.
