Candomble-

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One of the days of class, we had to go to Pierre Verger's Foundation and check out the resources it has. Verger was a photographer that traveled around Africa and Brazil and found many African traditions maintained by the slaves in Bahia. He was really impressed and snapped many pictures and then compared them. He got a Ph.D through his research without going to school.
One of our teachers, Willys, comes from a family of Candomble practitioners and he took us to see his house, Casa Branca (White House), and this place has been established since 1830s, although there is no official records, but they know the priestess who started it, etc, so they can estimate the time. It is his family tradition and he is currently a helper of the priestess so he has a chair around the podium. This house is run by head priestesses only.
Candomble is an Afro-Brazilian religion that formed in the slave community. It is composed of elements from the different African cultures. There are 16 Orixas (deities) and they represent elements of nature or previous kings of different African kingdoms. There are many more deities in African cultures, but the ones that African slaves didn't find practical to worship didn't get passed down through the traditions, only the ones that talked about strength, etc, and motivated the slaves. You have to get initiated. And everyone is protected by one of the Orixas which you have to go through a procedure called Ifa to find out. There are people who can get into a trance and act as mediums with their deities.. and I don't know much more about it.. It was and still is heavily persecuted, previously by the government and now by an evangelic sect. I dont know much about religions..but there are many different ones in Brazil. Since 1889 (or 1888, I forgot), there has been no official religion in Brazil. It used to be Catholicism. And currently, there are 120 million self-proclaimed Roman Catholics. And this country has 190 million people. (And abortions are illegal here.)

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