The Canon · No. 084
Candomblé
Candomblé Ketu, Jeje, Angola
c.1830 CE – present · African & Diasporic · Living · Brazil, especially Bahia; Uruguay, Argentina
VI. REFORMATION & EARLY MODERN — 1500 – 1800
How many
Roughly 170,000 declare it in the Brazilian census, but survey work consistently suggests several million participate. Under-declaration is a direct result of stigma.
Who began it
No founder. The first recognised terreiro, Casa Branca do Engenho Velho in Salvador, was established around 1830 by African-born women, notably Iyá Nassô.
What it is for
To maintain the relationship between the community and the orixás, and to preserve African tradition in a country that imported more enslaved Africans than anywhere else on earth.
What it worships
Olorun or Olodumare, remote. The orixás: Exu, Ogum, Oxóssi, Xangô, Oxum, Iemanjá, Iansã, Obaluaiê, Oxalá, Nanã. In the Jeje nation the spirits are voduns; in Angola nation, nkisis.
What it holds
Each person belongs to an orixá whose temperament shapes theirs. Axé — vital force — is accumulated, transmitted and stored in consecrated objects, and the house's assentamentos are its reservoir. Destiny, character and health are all connected to correct relationship with one's orixá.
What it does
The terreiro, a temple-compound and community. Leadership by a mãe de santo or pai de santo; Candomblé is notable for the authority held by older Black women, in a society structured to give them none. Initiation involving months of seclusion, head-shaving and dietary restriction. Drumming on atabaques, songs in Yoruba, Fon or Kikongo, and possession by the orixá, who then dances in costume. Animal offerings. Ritual foods specific to each orixá. 2 February: the offering to Iemanjá, when hundreds of thousands take flowers and gifts into the sea at Salvador and Rio.
After death
The egun, ancestors, are honoured, and in the Egungun tradition of Itaparica they appear masked. Rites of axexê dismantle the deceased's spiritual objects and return their axé. Reincarnation within the lineage is widely held. No hell, no final judgment.
Its texts
Oral, in ritual languages that most practitioners do not otherwise speak.
Its branches
Ketu (Yoruba, largest), Jeje (Fon), Angola (Bantu), Caboclo (incorporating indigenous Brazilian spirits). Related but distinct: Umbanda, a 1908 Brazilian synthesis of Candomblé, Spiritism and Catholicism, which is larger and more socially accepted.
Of note
Candomblé preserved West African liturgical language, drum repertoire and ritual structure more completely than almost anywhere outside Africa, under a legal regime that criminalised it for most of the twentieth century.
Its timeline
- 1500s–1888 CE Brazil receives roughly 4.9 million enslaved Africans, about 40% of the entire Atlantic trade. Slavery is abolished in 1888, the last country in the Americas to do so.
- c.1830 CE Casa Branca founded in Salvador.
- 1890 CE The new republic's penal code criminalises spiritism and healing; Candomblé is prosecuted under it for decades.
- 1920s–40s CE Police raids; ritual objects confiscated and displayed in police museums, where some remain.
- 1930s CE Terreiros required to register with the police; the requirement is only lifted in Bahia in 1976.
- 1976 CE Bahia abolishes the police licensing of terreiros.
- 1980s–present Growing recognition as national heritage; Casa Branca is listed as a national monument in 1984 — the first Afro-Brazilian religious site to be protected.
- 2000s–present Sustained attacks by neo-Pentecostal groups, including physical destruction of terreiros and assaults on practitioners, prompting religious-intolerance legislation and public campaigns.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.