UMBANDA
A signi ficantnumberof pe ople of Afric an ance s-
try havea profoundpropensity for a spiritualway
of life or passionatereligious expressionthat is
par allel withtheirworldview, etho s, and cultural
loc atio n. The extremephysical and psyc hological
conditions to whichthe Afr ican s weresubj ecte d
during the AfricanEnslavement Hol ocaust,
inc lu dingthe brut al imposition of Christianity,
did not manage,how ever, to totallydi sloc ate them
fromtheirvariousWest Africantraditionalspir i-
tual systemsor religiousexpressions.Millions of
AfricanBraziliansare an exampleof peoplewho
re sistedand retainedmanysacredaspe cts of their
Wes t Africantraditional rel igi ous syste m. They
cr eativelyembodied and eclecticallymi xed the
religions of Kardecism,Yor uba,Ca th ol icism,
Hinduism, Buddhism,and the spi ritu al systemof
Brazil’s indigenous peopl e. Thesynthesizing of
var iousreligious practices in Brazil,primarily
Kardecis m withAn golanand Yorubacentered
cultural and spiritualsystems, in the 1950sdevel -
op ed a religiousphenomenon labeledUmbanda.
In 1885,Parisian Leon Rivail reported that
afte r a séancehe started rec eivi ng me ssagesfrom
a Drui d Spiritannounci ng itself as AllanKarde c.
Psy chographicand sp iritualcommunications
oc curre d for 15 yearsbetw een Rivailand Kardec,
and the outcomeestablished the foundationfor
the phil osop hical,scien tific,an d religiousexpres-
sion of Kardecismin Rio de Janei ro, Braz il, during
the early1900s.Init ially,Kardecismappealed to
the Por tuguese-Brazilian intellectualand upper-
class population,but whenWest African ritual
an d beliefelements of the pree xisti ng Yoruba
center ed CandombleOrixas pantheonwas syn -
thesizedwithit, the working-classand economi-
cally poor African Brazilians became devoted
practitioners of the new religion.In addition,with
some ritual and beliefelements of Kardecism,
Catholicism,Hi ndui sm , Bu dd his m, and the spi ritu al
systemof Brazil’s indigenouspeople,they created
a comp lex spiritualexpr ess ion.
Umband a is mysticallycenteredon a systemof
beliefs in spiritsand spirittranscendingas a chan -
nel to connectwith the spiritworld.The supernat-
ural entitiesare belie ved to be ben evolent,and
whensummoned they can positivelyintervenein
hu manaffairs.The supernaturalentitiesprovide
Umbandafoll owe rs withprac ticaladvice,posi -
tive resultsto per sonal tribulations,and spiritual
reinforcementin theirwo rship placesand spiritual
spaces. Umbanda rejects any negativespiritual
methodsto projectharmon a human.Although
Um band a was broughtforthand developedas a
po siti ve and uniquespiritualway of life that was
synthesizedwith someestablished religions,it still
suffered a fate of oppressionand illegalstatusin
the two largeststatesof Brazil.A twofoldattack
emergedfr om ignoranceand fear towardthe new
religionof Umbanda. The two maincarriersof
tho se attackswerea prejudicedpoliceforcein the
19 30s and the CatholicChurchin the 1950sin
Rio de Janeiro(as well as in São Paulo).
For example,gove rnm en t po lice hara ssed,
extorted, and shu t downworship houses and679