A journey to the

African heart of Brazil

reveals the secret to

afro
surviving 300 years
of slavery

MUNDO

by Jennifer Patterson
{
Existiu um El Dorado Negro no Brasil
Existiu como clarão que o sol da liberdade produziu
Refletiu a luz da divinidade do fogo santo de Olorum
Revivieu a utopia um por todos, e todos por um.
Once there was a Black El Dorado in Brazil
There it was like a shaft of sunlight that liberty released
It was there, reflecting the divine light from the holy fire of Olorum
And there it revived, the utopia of one for all and all for one.

t
–Lyrics from “Quilombo, O El Dorado Negro” by Gilberto Gil/Waly Salomão

he Candomblé ceremony has just begun and already the worshippers

are twitching and moaning, channelling their West African gods, the orixás.
Barefoot, dressed head-to-toe in white, they shuffle through a deep carpet of
broad green leaves toward the mãe de santo, a white-turbaned Candomblé
priestess seated on a plastic chair at the back of the whitewashed room, where
she watches as, one by one, the dancers fall into a trance. A stocky man with a close-
cropped beard clutches his waist as if gored by a spear and hollers, “Arrrgghh!”

46 W e s t w o r l d >> n ov e m b e r 2 0 0 8 Elcio Carrico/gettyimages.com

 (page 47) Candomblé priestesses lead
the Festa do Bonfim procession in honour
of Oxalá, the Afro-Brazilian equivalent of
Christ; (clockwise from left) beach life in
Barra; old-town façades; Pelourinho’s
Pillory Square; the elegant dress of
Bahian women — fabrics and designs
imported from Africa in the late 19th
century — were once famous throughout
Brazil; Salvadorean youth practise the
rhythms of drum troupe Olodum.
48 W e s t w o r l d >> n ov e m b e r 2 0 0 8 (top) P. Narayan, (bottom left) Manfred Gottschalk/maxximages.com; (boy, Baiana) Jennifer Patterson
When the drumming stops, he growls and
snores, feigning sleep. A slender woman
with pale eyes flaps her elbows, eyes closed,
eyebrows twitching. Another whimpers as
she crumples to the floor in a faint.
Tonight, on the outskirts of Salvador da
Bahia in northeastern Brazil, we are witness-
ing a Candomblé ceremony. Similar to the
syncretic religions of Santería and Vodoun
brought by African slaves to Cuba and Haiti,
Candomblé is the oldest Afro-Brazilian reli-
gion, a mixture of traditional Yoruban,
Bantu and Fon beliefs. The practice was out-
lawed in the 16th century under Portuguese
rule, but survived underground until its per-
secution by church and state officially
ended in 1976. And on this July evening, we
are again honouring Xangô, lord of justice,
lightning and thunder, and Ogum, god of
war. Notably absent are my personal favou-
rites: Oxum, the siren of fresh water and
goddess of wealth and love, and Iemanjá,
Yoruban goddess of the sea.
Until now, I’ve had little exposure to
Candomblé, though over the years one
might say I’ve nurtured a mild voodoo fetish.
I married an Afro-Cuban, so I know about
Santería first-hand. And world-renowned
ethnobotanist Wade Davis opened my eyes
to Haitian Vodoun – far more hauntingly
complex than Hollywood would have us
believe – with his 1985 non-fiction adven-
ture The Serpent and the Rainbow. But my jour-
ney to Bahia and the African heart of Brazil
really began a decade ago, when I discovered
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, a novel by Bra-
zilian Jorge Amado, at a used-book store.
 My quest: to witness a Candomblé ceremony
– as Wade Davis had done with Haitian Vodoun.
Inside, a personal note to a past owner was
penned: “This book is one of the most
famous Brazilian romances. It’s set in the
1920s, but many habits remain the same in
the state of Bahia, Brazil. The book shows a
little of Brazilian northeastern culture, which
is, in my view, the strongest regional culture
in my country because of its African roots.”
Intrigued, I read Amado’s popular love story
and then Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands,
both set in or close to Bahia’s capital, capti-
vated by the languid sensuality of the tropics
and Bahia’s rich Afro-Brazilian heritage. Still,
it would be another 10 years before I finally
flew over Brazil’s jungle canopy and into Sal-
vador – this place of Yoruban chants, Can-
domblé, carnival and capoeira, where
traditions brought by African slaves are pre-
served in amber.
“I thought you would be black,”
my Brazilian host Bárbara Nascimento de
Oliveira – an award-winning writer and
friend of a friend – said upon welcoming
me into the home she shares with her
mother, Zélia. The assumption about my
race was understandable, for why was I so
keen to explore Bahia’s Afro-Brazilian cul-
ture? My English ancestors could be consid-
ered colonizers. Perhaps I was here to make
amends, to take my Eurocentric view of the
world and turn it on its head. But then,
that’s what I was here to explore, as, from
that first day, she and Zélia escorted me
around their town and guided me in my
quest: to witness a Candomblé ceremony,
just as Wade Davis had done with Haitian
Vodoun in the ’80s.
One thing I did know: the majority of
Bahians are descendants of West African
slaves. In fact, the state of Bahia has the
highest concentration of blacks in Brazil –
which, in turn, has the world’s second-larg-
est black population behind Nigeria. But as
Bárbara and I strolled the streets, I drew my
own comparisons – to Cuba mostly, though
Salvador seemed somehow closer to Cam-
eroon than the Caribbean. “Salvador is like
Angola,” Bárbara declared one morning as
we passed rows of shops signs in Yoruba.
And it appeared to be true – from the
impromptu capoeira performances in front
of the Afro-Brazilian Museum to the Bahian
street vendors dressed in white lace, hoop
skirts and turbans, selling African-inspired
finger food. The aroma of moqueca, a rich
seafood stew made with coconut milk, and
acarajés, deep-fried bean fritters stuffed with
Westworld >> n ov e m b e r 2 0 0 8 49
 Geographically, Salvador is closer to
Africa than North America.
shrimp, were hard to resist. Still,
we opted instead for tropical ice
cream: cashew and passionfruit.
Geographically, as well, Salva-
dor is closer to Africa than North
America. Draw a line across the
Atlantic and you find Angola,
while the same chart that traces the
transatlantic slave routes between
West Africa and Brazil illustrates
how snugly the South American
and African continents once fit
together: the coastline of north-
eastern Brazil tucked beneath the former
African “Slave Coast” that comprises mod-
ern-day Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria.
Almost 2,000 km northwest of Rio de
Janeiro, on Bahia de Todo os Santos (All
Saints Bay), Salvador was established as the
country’s capital in 1549, after the region’s
of Congo, from Angola to Mozam-
8]i`ZX bique – soon followed, more than
were enslaved in any other colony
8kcXek`Z
or country in the Americas, to cul-
FZ\Xe tivate Brazil’s coffee, cotton, cacao
Jflk_ and sugar. It would be three centu-
ries later, in 1888, before Brazil
8d\i`ZX JXcmX[fi abolished slavery, the last country
to do so – 81 years after slaves were
I`f[\AXe\`if freed by Britain, 40 years after their
emancipation in France and 23 years
after the end of the U.S. Civil War.
In Salvador’s old quarter,
discovery by the Portuguese in 1501. The Pelourinho, the cries of slaves were once
city soon served as an important slave port, heard as men, women and children were
its abundance of churches (one for each day publicly whipped and tortured on the
of the year) earning it the nickname “Black steep, wedge-shaped Largo do Pelourinho,
Rome.” The first Africans were transported or “Pillory Square.” Today the pedestrian-
here in 1550, and an estimated 4.5 million only colonial district has been transformed
slaves – from Senegambia to the Kingdom into a hive of black pride. Declared a
Westworld >> n ov e m b e r 2 0 0 8 51
 UNESCO World Heritage site in 1985, it is
now a popular tourist attraction, with cob-
blestone streets bordered by storefronts and
restaurants – neatly painted façades of tur-
quoise, ochre and lime green. References to
Africa are everywhere: beauty salons spe-
cialize in beaded braids; shops hawk ebony
sculptures and T-shirts in gold, red, green
and black, the colours of the African
diaspora; the percussion group Olodum
(which performed on Paul Simon’s Rhythm
of the Saints album) is headquartered here;
and martial arts studios offer workshops in
Angolan capoeira.

For seven sultry days of Brazilian

“winter,” further warmed by the Bahians’
gentle, lilting accent and forró and samba
tunes, I explored, from the bookstores of the
upscale residential district of Barra to the
whitewashed seaside churches and forts
across town. One entire morning was whit-
tled away at the Mercado Modelo, beneath
the art deco Lacerda Elevator that connects
Salvador’s upper town with its seaside har-
bour, where Bárbara took me shopping for
souvenirs – African-inspired clay figurines
and musical instruments like the one-
stringed berimbau and high-pitched cuíca,
the “laughing” sound of samba. Some days,
we ate our biggest meal at midday, vegetar-
ian buffets on leafy patios where monkeys
climbed the jungle-like plants. But mostly, I
skipped lunch and made the 20-minute pil-
grimage by bus to Pelourinho in the upper
town, away from the surf, sand and salty breeze
of the palm-fringed beaches, yet with occa-
sional views of the Atlantic and the freighters
in the bay that reminded me of Vancouver.
One lazy afternoon, down a cobblestone
side street decorated with azure, orange and
jade-coloured flags, an impromptu perfor-
mance by Escola Olodum: boys in red
T-shirts beating carnivalesque rhythms on
brightly painted oil drums; teenage girls in
canary-yellow tops, many with African
tresses, tilting their faces skyward, swinging
their arms and sidestepping to the layered
beat – a rapid barrage of percussion. The
troupe leader blew his whistle and the crowd
squeezed onto narrow Rua das Laranjeiras,
where a boy, barely nine years old, pounded
a drum with a force that belied his size. As
the swaying throng pulsated down the
street, the beats reverberated off buildings
and resonated like a communal heartbeat in
my ribcage. Carnival was still six months
away, but, closing my eyes, I could already

52 W e s t w o r l d >> n ov e m b e r 2 0 0 8
feel the energy of Salvador’s pre-Lenten
party that is said to eclipse Rio’s.
Only the day before, I met with Denil-
son José, black activist, choreographer and
%XCEPTIONAL¬
English teacher, inside his classroom over-
looking Praça da Sé. “Salvador is the black-
est city outside Africa,” he told me as we
discussed the country’s contemporary black
CLAIMS¬SERVICEx
movement and the importance of its cul-
tural links with the African continent. “Bra-
zil’s long military dictatorship ended 20
years ago and, since then, we have been
trying to make new ties with Africa – espe-
cially while [Afro-Brazilian singer] Gilberto
Gil was cultural minister.” Under Gil’s ten-
ure, Salvador hosted the second world con-
ference of African intellectuals and the
African diaspora, where world leaders con-
vened to discuss an African renaissance, a
new world order and enhanced cultural
and economic ties between black popula-
tions on both sides of the Atlantic. During
the 1970s and ’80s, the black consciousness
movement of Brazil may have taken its cues
from the American civil rights movement,
the Black Panthers, funk and James Brown.
But today, José stressed, Afro-Brazilians look

THATS¬OUR¬POLICY
increasingly toward Africa for affirmation.
“Black Brazilians are still struggling to
find their place in Brazilian society,” agreed
Dr. Jocélio Teles dos Santos, anthropology
professor and director of the Centre for Afro-
Oriental Studies at Salvador’s Federal Univer-
sity of Bahia, when we met that same 4AKING¬GOOD¬CARE¬OF¬YOU
afternoon over sweet black coffee in his colo-
nial office. To further complicate matters, dos 7HEN¬YOU¬PURCHASE¬INSURANCE¬YOU¬ARE¬PREPARING¬FOR¬THE¬UNEXPECTED¬n¬A¬
Santos explained, race is not defined by the COLLISION¬A¬lRE¬OR¬PERHAPS¬A¬THEFT¬!ND¬IF¬YOU¬EVER¬NEED¬TO¬MAKE¬A¬CLAIM¬YOU¬
American-style “one-drop rule,” whereby
WANT¬YOUR¬INSURANCE¬COMPANY¬TO¬BE¬WITH¬YOU¬EVERY¬STEP¬OF¬THE¬WAY
“one drop of black blood makes you black.”
In fact, in Brazil, the definition of black is !T¬!-!¬)NSURANCE¬WE¬EXCEED¬THAT¬EXPECTATION¬&OR¬THE¬SECOND¬YEAR¬IN¬A¬ROW¬
much more complex and depends mostly on !-!¬)NSURANCE¬HAS¬RECEIVED¬THE¬HIGHEST¬CLAIMS¬SERVICE¬AND¬TRUSTWORTHINESS¬
skin colour and facial features, rather than RATING¬OUT¬OF¬SEVEN¬MAJOR¬INSURANCE¬COMPANIES¬IN¬AN¬INDUSTRY¬REPORT

racial heritage. For example, in a country

where interracial relationships are the norm, 7E¬HAVE¬BEEN¬TAKING¬GOOD¬CARE¬OF¬OUR¬MEMBERS¬FOR¬MORE¬THAN¬¬YEARS¬
there are also many terms to designate skin WITH¬OUR¬KNOWLEDGEABLE¬STAFF¬VARIETY¬OF¬DISCOUNTS¬AND¬OUR¬EMERGENCY¬CLAIMS¬
colour: from black, black/brown, dark brown SERVICE¬7E¬CAN¬HELP¬WITH¬YOUR¬INSURANCE¬NEEDS¬TODAY¬AND¬WELL¬ALWAYS¬BE¬
and light brown to the dark-skinned cafuzo THERE¬WHEN¬YOU¬NEED¬US
and “copper-coloured” caboclo.
And, still, history repeats itself in Bahia, #ALL¬COME¬IN¬OR¬VISIT¬US¬ONLINE¬FOR¬AN¬APPLICATION¬OR¬NO OBLIGATION¬QUOTE
even in Black Rome. Not far from the Cen-
tre for Afro-Oriental Studies is the former
senzala, or slave’s quarters, which despite its
sad history has been converted into an
upscale waterfront restaurant. Here, one
afternoon, I found only middle-class white
Brazilians dining on pricey lobster moqueca
and shrimps in coconut; yet the kitchen and
¬¬0OLLARA¬2EPORT
wait staff were black. Outside, two shirtless
   ¬¬\¬¬WWWAMAABCA)NSURANCE1UOTES
Westworld >> n ov e m b e r 2 0 0 8 53
 boys rowed past in a painted wooden boat,
heading for their cliffside slum. Asked if the
ghosts of tortured slaves still haunted the
place, the waiter smiled broadly. Não, he
said, there are no ghosts. “These days, this is
a happy place.”

On a muggy afternoon in the

heart of Pelourinho, I climbed a narrow
staircase to the Federação Baiana do Culto
Afro-Brasileiro, the association that connects
outsiders with the secret world of Candom-
blé. A woman offered the single wooden
chair in the sparsely decorated space. The
only light: shafts of equatorial sunlight fil-
tering through the shuttered windows.
Moments later, a man emerged from the
shadows and led the way across Pillory
Square to the sky-blue slave church, Our
Lady of the Black Rosary. The baroque edi-
fice, which was built in the 18th century by
slaves, for slaves, and took almost 100 years
to complete, was decorated with yellow and
white gerbera daisies. A breeze ruffled the
Premier Bathroom 7/27/05 3:04 PM Page 1
curtains and the scent of candle wax min-
gled with the aroma of peanuts and palm
oil. The street’s din of voices, canned bossa
nova music and the occasional car horn
turned distant, otherworldly.
In a back room, an older gentleman
swept the uneven tiled floor. He was black,
but so were the faces of the saints whose
portraits hung from the walls around him.
In the far corner, a display cabinet of wooden
figurines: black patron saints, slave martyrs
and guardian angels, a long-haired Rastafar-
ian Bom Jesus, a black baby Jesus, and a Bra-
zilian rendition of Saint Francis of Assisi in a
brown tunic, his hand on the shoulder of a
shoeless boy whose yellow-and-green
clothes are the colours of the Brazilian
national soccer team. In the cloister, I paid
the young Candomblé guide, Elaine Batista
Santos, 50 reais (Cdn.$25) to attend that
evening’s Candomblé ceremony on the out-
skirts of town.
The church’s Yoruban-language mass
starts at 6 p.m., leaving just enough time to
sample local dishes at the nearby Senac
cooking school and return for a recitation
of chants, which now competed with the
samba-reggae rhythms from the music
shops on Pillory Square. Fittingly, the mass
seemed to reflect a new social order: most
of the whites were standing; the blacks
seated in the pews. Only latecomers are
forced to stand among the tourists. Elaine
then ushered six of us – an Italian couple,

54 W e s t w o r l d >> NOVEMBER 2 0 0 8
two Spaniards, a Mexican man and me –
down a side street and into a passenger van.
And we negotiated traffic-clogged roads –
five lanes of traffic flowing each way in a
chaotic blinking river of red-and-white
lights – through the already dark suburbs of
Salvador, then descended a steep flight of
steps through a terraced garden laced with
offerings to the gods. In this place of wor-
ship, mulheres (women) are seated on one
side of the room, homens (men) on the
other. Visitors wear white out of respect for
the orixás. We were not to speak or take
photos, as the dancers circled the room
and, one by one, fell into a trance – chan-
nelling their gods.

Given my Anglo-Saxon, Roman Catholic

upbringing, I find the dancers’ possession
by African spirits difficult to comprehend.
But, like Wade Davis, I try to understand,
recalling something Denilson José told me
a few days earlier, about the importance of
Candomblé: that “our people came to this
country completely defeated, yet they could
imagine a god of war. It is the most impor-
tant thing for us that Candomblé resisted
persecution. Candomblé brought people
together and gave them hope. Try to imag-
ine fighting against the Catholic Church in
slavery conditions. Our ancestors only per-
severed because they were very strong.”
After a short break, the now-costumed
dancers return, kissing the floor as they
enter the room. The mãe de santo puffs on
her cigarette. There is a warrior, a prince, a
king and a woman in straw channelling
Omolú. A statuesque young man in pale
aqua wears a crown and carries a sword; he
is Xangô. Another crowned, ebony-skinned
worshipper holds two swords, a white
sheet tied around his midriff; he evokes
Ogum, god of war. The two men dance
faster and faster, legs flailing, arms slicing
the air, their bare feet clearing a pathway in
the leaves scattered on the floor. The pale-
eyed woman lunges like a wild animal. A
matron convulses and a young man trem-
bles like a rumba dancer. And in the midst
of this crescendo, I at last feel a connection
to the shores of Africa and these people
whose ancestors crossed the Atlantic in
slave ships centuries ago. I feel strangely
elated. After this night, I realize, I will leave
Brazil with more than a few drops of Africa
in my blood.
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Westworld >> NOVEMBER 2 0 0 8 55