popular religion and festivals

12Popular Religion and Festivals

The introduction of Roman Catholicism to the New World was part ofthe colonizing policy of both the Spanish and the Portuguese, but onLatin American soil Christian beliefs and practices came into contactwith those of the native Amerindian peoples, and later with thosebrought by enslaved Africans and their descendants. Latin AmericanCatholicism has consequently absorbed elements of pre-Columbian reli-gious beliefs and practices, giving rise to what is known as “popular” or“folk” Catholicism. Popular Catholicism has blended elements of differ-ent religions, yet it is still a recognizable mutation of traditional RomanCatholicism. In Mexico, for example, Catholic saints are matched upwith pre-Columbian deities, as are Christian festivals with indigenousones. Similarly, popular religion in the Andean countries must be under-stood in its historical and cultural context, since it is heavily influencedby the experience of conquest and the persistence of indigenous beliefsunder a Christian guise.

In recent years, Catholicism in Latin America has also become synony-mous with Liberation Theology, with its commitment to social changeand improvement of the lot of marginal sectors. This radical theologywas announced at Medellín, Colombia, in 1968 with a formal declarationof the Church’s identification with the poor. The doctrine’s complexityand diversity make it difficult to define, but the influence of Marxism isapparent, along with that of pioneering social reformers and educatorssuch as the Brazilian Paulo Freire. Liberation Theology’s most famousadvocate is the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, whose humble originssharpened his awareness of social problems. Gutiérrez was responsiblefor setting up the Bartolomé de las Casas center for theological research,named after another famous reforming churchman and situated in one ofLima’s poorest districts. Liberation Theology essentially holds that salva-tion can occur in this life, and that it is not God’s will that people sufferwhile awaiting redemption in the hereafter.

More recently Latin America has been marked by the growth of NewProtestantism. Among the theories attempting to explain why LatinAmericans are willing to abandon their traditional Catholicism (not just

official Roman Catholicism, but more oftenpopular Catholicism) in favor of evangeli-cal churches is the notion that Protes-tantism and indigenous religions are simi-lar. For example, both Protestantism,particularly Pentecostalism, and indige-nous Mesoamerican religions allow for thepossibility of direct communion with Godand/or “possession” by spirits—in contrastto the more mediated versions of commu-nion advocated by the Catholic Church.

The religious and mythological land-scape of Latin America is undeniably rich.In Brazil and Cuba, African slaves forced toworship the Christian God and the saintspreserved their own belief systems bydrawing direct associations betweenCatholic icons and their own deities. Thispractice gave rise to Candomblé in Braziland Santería in Cuba, both of which aresometimes referred to as syncretic reli-gions. Religious faiths such as Bahá’í, andSanto Daime and Umbanda in Brazil, to-day continue to appeal to large numbers ofpeople, who are drawn to the alternativeapproach and perspectives on life that theyoffer. Alongside organized religions, bothwithin and outside the mainstream, manyof the region’s poorer inhabitants alsomaintain strong beliefs in pagan rituals,particularly those linked to healing. Allstrata of society unite annually to celebratelocal and national festivals, such as Carni-val in the run-up to Lent—particularly im-portant in Brazil—and the Day of the Deadin Mexico.

—Lisa Shaw and Thea Pitman

Popular Catholicism

Mexico and Central America

A number of factors have affected theemergence of popular Catholicism in Mex-

ico and Central America over the five cen-turies since the Conquest. These include,on the one hand, a substantial number ofsimilarities between the pre-Columbian re-ligions of Mesoamerica and Catholicism(similar symbols and concepts, parallelsbetween gods and saints, and the existenceof similar social structures based on hierar-chy and wealth redistribution), and thewillingness of the early missionaries to ac-cept the use of such “metaphors” from theold religions to help indigenous peoples as-similate Catholic doctrine. On the otherhand, a tradition of accepting the gods ofconquering civilizations already existed inpre-Columbian society, along with a will-ingness to accept conversion to Christian-ity in exchange for some protection by theChurch from the states that governed in-digenous groups, and some respect for thelatter’s traditional self-image. The syncreticnature of the religious practices of thesenew converts did not go unnoticed or un-punished by the guardians of the faith, butby then the existence of popular Catholi-cism was a fait accompli.

In more recent times, it has become evi-dent that popular Catholicism is also thepreserve of women, both indigenous andwhite. Whereas the Catholic Church itselfis very much a male-dominated institution,Mexican and Central American womenhave taken an active role in the more pri-vate world of popular Catholicism—in theimparting of beliefs and practices from onegeneration to the next, and in the venera-tion of saints on altars in their own homes,for example. Mexican women in particularhave also found strength and identity in therole model that is the Virgin of Guadalupe,the mestiza (brown or mixed-race) virginwho is a popular Mexican adaptation of theVirgin Mary.

2 8 6 P O P C U LT U R E L A T I N A M E R I C A !

Contemporary popular Catholicism ismost easily identified by a number of prac-tices: dependency on a complex network ofsocial support known as compadrazgo (kin-ship relations defined by the choice of god-parents for different events in a person’slife), the veneration of often uncanonizedsantos (saints) with a consequent lesseningof emphasis on God, and the expression ofsuch veneration in many annual fiestas

(processions and dramatizations of biblicalstories and historical events), in the con-struction of altars in private homes and onstreet corners, and in the painting of retab-

los (votive offerings) to thank saints fortheir help in times of need. To outsiders, thepractices of popular Catholicism seem color-ful and entertaining, and they constitute asubstantial tourist attraction across the re-gion. In recent years, the pre-Columbian ele-ments of popular Catholic practices havebeen emphasized to lend weight to thereevaluation of the pre-Columbian contribu-tion to Mexican and Central American cul-tures. This shift in emphasis is also highlyattractive to tourists.

—Thea Pitman

See also: Cultural Icons: Religious andMythical Figures (Virgin of Guadalupe);Popular Religion and Festivals: IndigenousReligious and Cultural Practices (Guatemala;Mexico); New Protestantism (Mexico andCentral America); Popular Festivals(Mexico); Popular Medicine and Healing(Mexico and Central America); Visual Arts

and Architecture: Art (Religious Folk Art)

Bibliography

Carrasco, Pedro. 1976. El catolicismo popular

de los tarascos. Mexico City: SEP/Setentas.Espin, Orlando O., and Roberto S. Goizueta.

1997. The Faith of the People: Theological

Reflections on Popular Catholicism.

Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Green, Duncan. 1997. “Thy Kingdom Come: TheChurch.” Pp. 201–215 in Faces of Latin

America, by Duncan Green. London: LatinAmerica Bureau.

Ingham, John M. 1986. Mary, Michael, and

Lucifer: Folk Catholicism in Central

Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press.Rowe, William, and Vivian Schelling. 1991.

Memory and Modernity: Popular Culture in

Latin America. London: Verso, pp. 68–74.Stracke, Claire T., and J. Richard Stracke. 1997.

“Popular Catholicism.” Pp. 1130–1134 inEncyclopedia of Mexico, vol. 2, edited byMichael S. Werner. Chicago: FitzroyDearborn.

The Andean Countries

The relationship between the Church andthe lower classes in the Andean countrieshas always been contradictory, if not para-doxical—the result of a Spanish traditionof anticlericalism apparent even among thedevout. Even as early as the sixteenth cen-tury, faith in God and contempt for ecclesi-astical authorities were not mutually exclu-sive. Moreover, as Jeffrey Klaiber hasshown in the Peruvian context, cleric sup-port for despotic regimes has not alwaysprecluded popular support for the Church,even at times of popular rebellion. It is al-most inconceivable that even the most ex-tremist rebellion should include the kind ofviolent anticlerical retribution seen, for ex-ample, in the Spanish Civil War. Klaibersees the Catholic faith as the only elementshared by all social classes and ethnicgroups in the Andes. An explanation forthis unifying role can be found in the trans-cultural nature of Andean religiosity and inthe reconciliatory movements within lib-eral sectors of the Church.

The expression of the integration ofChristianity into indigenous belief systemscan be clearly seen in colonial churchesthroughout the Andes and elsewhere in

P O P U L A R R E L I G I O N A N D F E S T I V A L S 2 8 7

Latin America, decorated largely by indige-nous hands and according to native aes-thetics. The Catholic Church during thecolonial era learned the pragmatic value oftolerance and the incorporation of poten-tially troublesome popular movements.This sort of pragmatism is visible also inthe absorption of native festivals into theChristian calendar, and more recently inthe acceptance of unofficial saints, ele-vated to this status by popular belief. Anexample of this phenomenon is SaritaColonia, a girl from the Andean town ofHuaráz who migrated to Lima, where shedied in 1926. Several miracles are attrib-uted to Sarita, who is believed to be the pa-tron saint of the urban migrants. Saints canalso be created to placate marginal socialsectors: this was arguably the case with an-other Peruvian, the black saint Martín dePorras, who was canonized in 1962 withthe title Patron of Interracial and SocialJustice. Other important figures in popularAndean religiosity are the Virgins that haveappeared throughout the region, such asthe Virgen del Agua Santa (Virgin of theHoly Waters) in Baños, Ecuador. One ofmany reputedly miraculous Christian ap-paritions in pre-Columbian sacred sites,the Virgin is credited with having savedmany lives, is the object of pilgrimage, andis habitually showered with gifts.

—Keith Richards

See also: Popular Religion and Festivals:

Indigenous Religious and Cultural Practices(The Andean Countries); Popular Medicineand Healing (The Andean Countries)

Bibliography

Candelaria, Michael R. 1990. Popular Religion

and Liberation: The Dilemma of Liberation

Theology. Albany: State University of NewYork Press.

Klaiber, Jeffrey L. 1977. Religion and

Revolution in Peru, 1824–1976. London:Notre Dame.

Muskus, Eddy José. 2002. The Origins and

Early Development of Liberation Theology

in Latin America: With Particular

Reference to Gustavo Gutiérrez. Carlisle:Paternoster Press.

Sobrino, Jon. 2001. Christ the Liberator: A

View from the Victims. Maryknoll, NY: OrbisBooks.

Venezuela

Popular Catholicism in Venezuela is intrin-sically linked to Liberation Theology, adoctrine that conceives of action vital tothe promotion of social justice and sees theeveryday experience of the people as asource of valid religious values. InVenezuela, from the late 1950s onward, agrowing interest developed within the offi-cial Catholic Church in working with popu-lar sectors of society. Small, independentgroups of clergy and activists set up a num-ber of initiatives directed at the poor.

Though these movements had only lim-ited impact in Venezuela, they paved theway for important pastoral work and of-fered free schooling or training, amongother activities. By the late 1960s, as Levinenotes, some religious congregations beganto articulate a “liberationist position,” andmembers went to “live with the people,”got involved in barrio or community orga-nizations, and came face-to-face withpoverty and inequality.

Similar groups sprang up around thecountry. Not all of these groups survived,but two important initiatives from this pe-riod have not only lasted, but have played amajor role in popular religion in Venezuela.The first of these is the Centro Gumilla, aJesuit center for research and social actionthat was founded in 1969; it has two bases,


one in Caracas, the other in Barquisimeto.The center produces a wide range of publi-cations directed at the working class andrural poor, including a pamphlet series thathas essays on such topics as educationalreform, agriculture, Liberation Theology,and contemporary reworkings of Bible sto-ries. These publications reveal a profoundrespect for popular culture and link reli-gion with the experiences of real socialgroups.

The second initiative, CESAP (Centro alServicio de la Acción Popular or Center forPopular Action), was founded in 1974 andoffers courses to popular organizations.Each of its three regional centers runscourses, operates a lending library service,and runs a series of outreach programs ontopics such as nutrition and literacy. Again,this center produces numerous pamphletsfor group discussion and grassroots partic-ipation, and its stated goal is replacing cap-italism with a just, participatory, and class-less society.

Alongside these two important centersare a variety of popular religious organiza-tions throughout Venezuela. There are dif-ferences among the forms of popularCatholicism in Venezuela, but there arecommon features as well, such as the em-phasis on Bible study in which the localpeople are seen as active interpreters ofbiblical texts, and the importance of collec-tive action. In this way, these and similarreligious groups within Venezuela can bedefined as “popular Catholicism” in thatthey attempt to return the Church to thepeople and to start out from the beliefs andexperiences of the masses.

—Claire Taylor


New Protestantism (Venezuela)

Bibliography

Berryman, Phillip. 1984. When Theology Listens

to the Poor. San Francisco: Harper and Row.Cleary, Edward, ed. 1990. Born of the Poor: The

Latin American Church since Medellín.

Notre Dame: University of Notre DamePress.

Gutiérrez, Gustavo. 1973. A Theology of

Liberation. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.Levine, Daniel H. 1992. Popular Voices in Latin

American Catholicism. Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press.

Brazil

Within popular Catholicism in Brazil,homegrown saints are particularly impor-tant. The country has also witnessed theemergence of many millenarian cults, themost famous of which was that led by theragged lay preacher Antônio Conselheiro(“the Counselor”), who settled thousandsof his followers on an abandoned ranchcalled Canudos in 1893. Having refused torecognize the rule of the new Republicangovernment established in 1889, the com-munity was eventually brutally wiped outby the federal army. More recently, popularCatholicism has become closely inter-woven with Liberation Theology (as is pop-ular Catholicism in Venezuela and otherparts of the subcontinent). In Brazil thisradical doctrine became closely identifiedwith the Franciscan Leonardo Boff, andDom Paulo Evaristo Arns, the bishop ofSão Paulo archdiocese during the violentyears of the military dictatorship estab-lished in 1964. Their evangelical conceptwas to allow people to liberate themselvesfrom the socioeconomic injustices at theroot of Brazilian society as part of a gen-eral liberation from sin.

In the state of Bahia the people showtheir devotion to the patron saint of thestate, Nosso Senhor do Bonfim (Our Lord


of the Good End), a manifestation of Jesus.The basilica that takes his name is situatedon a hill overlooking the city of Salvadorand facing the sea. People flock there frommiles around to seek cures for their ills.Street vendors outside sell wristbands, nar-row colored ribbons that bear the saint’sname, as talismans to bring good luck. It isbelieved that he will grant three wishesduring the three-time knotting of the rib-bon, provided that the person making thewishes wears it until it drops off. A ritualcleansing of the church’s steps takes placeevery year, a popular Catholic festival thatis traditionally held on the Thursday beforethe third Sunday in January. This popularreligious outpouring is given the tacit ac-quiescence of the Catholic Church, whoseresident priest schedules a nine-day seriesof masses (novenas) during this period.Followers of Candomblé and Umbanda

also participate in this street festival.The national shrine of Nossa Senhora da

Aparecida (Our Lady of Aparecida) is lo-cated two hours away by bus from the cityof São Paulo. The construction of the pres-ent-day shrine, on the site of an earlierchapel, was begun in 1940 and only finishedin 1990. According to legend, in the eigh-teenth century a group of fishermen, aboutto return home with only a few fish after anunsuccessful trip, found a wooden statue inthe image of the senhora in their nets,whereupon they obtained a more abundantcatch than ever before. With the permissionof the Church they then built a small chapelto enshrine this statue of Our Lady of Apare-cida. The fact that the image is black sug-gests that the poor were appropriating intheir own way the devotion to the Immacu-late Conception then being promoted in theIberian Peninsula. An estimated six millionBrazilians visit this shrine every year.

In the arid and poor northeast, severalmajor religious figures have emerged onthe margins of the Catholic Church, suchas Padre (Father) Cícero, who opposedthe transition of Brazil from monarchy torepublic at the end of the nineteenth cen-tury. He remains the focus of pilgrimageeven today, as depicted in Walter Salles’saward-winning movie, Central Station

(1998). Padre Cícero’s image can still beseen in many of the homes of the poor inthe northeast.

Liberation theologians introduced a sys-tem of “base community” pastoral workinto the Catholic Church in the 1960s, forexample in the shantytowns (favelas) ofBrazil’s big cities. In the heyday of thesebase communities, at the end of the 1970s,it appeared as if a new Church were beingborn, with an emphasis on lay leadershipand consciousness-raising. In São Paulo,for example, the base communities werepart of the so-called Operation Periphery.This program, launched by ArchbishopArns and his collaborators, sent people andresources to the poor outskirts of the citywhere new neighborhoods were beingerected. Priests and nuns helped thesecommunities with practical issues and en-couraged them to make their own deci-sions, including interpretations of the Biblebased on their own life experiences.

The progressive Catholic Church in Brazilin the 1980s showed considerable couragein defending the lives and cultures of indige-nous communities and the rural and urbanpoor against both the state and powerfulgroups who were prepared to use extremeviolence to protect their vested interests.

But Church leaders in Rome, and even insome parts of Brazil, watched the Libera-tion Theology movement with growingalarm. For them it represented a trend


away from Church orthodoxy toward a ma-teriality considered inappropriate. As bish-ops have retired or left the Church in Braziland in other Latin American countries,Pope John Paul II, in office since 1978, hasreplaced them with orthodox clergy whodo not espouse the ideals of social reformor Marxist economic analysis. Although themovement was thus brought to a halt, it didnot fail. Hundreds of people who wereschooled in its ideologies have gone on toadvocate a range of socially just causes.

—Lisa Shaw

See also: Popular Social Movements and

Politics: Base Communities in Brazil;Popular Cinema: The Brazilian Film Industry(Box-Office Successes and ContemporaryFilm in Brazil); Popular Religion and

Festivals: Candomblé; New Protestantism(Brazil); Popular Catholicism (Venezuela);Popular Medicine and Healing (Brazil);Umbanda; Visual Arts and Architecture:

Architecture and Landscape Design (Favelas)

Bibliography

Boff, Leonardo, and Clodvis Boff. 1994.Introducing Liberation Theology. New York:Hyperion Books.

Burdick, John. 1993. Looking for God in

Brazil: The Progressive Catholic Church in

Urban Brazil’s Religious Arena. Berkeley:University of California Press.

da Cunha, Euclides. 1944. Rebellion in the

Backlands. Translated by Samuel Putnam.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Gutiérrez, Gustavo. 1988. A Theology of

Liberation: History, Politics and Salvation.

Maryknoll: Orbis Books.Nagle, Robin. 1999. “Liberation Theology’s Rise

and Fall.” Pp. 462–467 in The Brazil Reader:

History, Culture, Politics, edited by RobertM. Levine and John J. Crocitti. London: LatinAmerica Bureau.

Silverstein, Leni. 1995. “The Celebration of OurLord of the Good End: Changing State,Church, and Afro-Brazilian Relations inBahia.” Pp. 134–151 in The Brazilian Puzzle:

Culture on the Borderlands of the Western

World, edited by David J. Hess and RobertoDaMatta. New York: Columbia UniversityPress.


T-shirts featuring an image of Padre Cícero are sold in Juazeiro do Norte, the

town that the priest founded in the 1920s. (Stephanie Maze/Corbis)

Santería

One of many religions of the African dias-pora in Latin America brought across theAtlantic with the slave trade, all of whichcombine elements of African worship withthe Catholic faith. Santería, although bestknown in its Cuban manifestation, also ex-ists under the same name in Puerto Rico,Venezuela, and Mexico. A similar phenom-enon in Haiti and the southern UnitedStates is the unjustly demonized vaudun,or voodoo. Brazil has its Candomblé,

Uruguay its Candombe, and Trinidad its or-

isha. The common feature of all these reli-gions is their preservation of beliefs deriv-ing mostly from the Central West AfricanYoruba culture that continues to exist inpresent-day Nigeria, Congo, and Benin.

When they were brought to the Spanishand Portuguese colonies in the New World,slaves were transported in groups that gen-erally remained more or less intact after ar-rival, a policy that permitted them to retainelements of the African cultures they leftbehind. In contrast, the British coloniesseparated slaves who might have languageor customs in common, thus systematicallyerasing cultural roots in order to better ac-culturate and control them. The result ofthe Iberian approach is a visible continua-tion of African cultural and religious prac-tices in Latin America, a phenomenonrarely seen in North America or the BritishCaribbean.

Santería was not brought to Cuba in asingle demographic wave; the first consign-ments of slaves arrived in the mid-sixteenthcentury, and the height of the slave tradeoccurred more than two centuries later, inthe late eighteenth and early nineteenthcenturies. This continual wave of forcedmigration from Africa allowed Afro-Cuban

cultural practices to maintain a relationshipto the mother continent while evolving intosomething specific to the island.

In Santería and similar religions, Africanand European elements coexist, originat-ing in the religious instruction with whichcolonial masters were supposed to “repay”those they had displaced and dispossessed.However, Africans, like indigenous peoplesin the Americas, were wary of discardingtheir religious heritage and unreservedlyadopting Christianity. They needed to pre-serve their own spiritual traditions and ap-pease their ancestral gods as well as theChristian deity, while maintaining the ap-pearance of obedience to their masters.They fulfilled this need through dual wor-ship: the African pantheon, multiple andmultifaceted, was paralleled with theChristian system of saints. Thus eachYoruba deity, known as an orisha, wouldbe “paired” with the saint who most closelyresembled his or her physical attributes,spheres of influence, or preoccupations.This phenomenon is often described withthe contentious term “syncretism” but canalso be seen as a simultaneous and parallelobservance of discrete cultural codes.

The Santería system, also known inCuba as La Regla de Ocha or Rule of Ocha,is not merely a duplicitous practice aimedat hoodwinking religious authority. Nor isit simply a product of the trauma or cul-tural crisis created by the experience ofslavery. The identification of orishas withsaints does reveal certain similarities be-tween African and European worship,since the Santería figures have spheres ofinfluence similar to the Christian ones. ForFernando Ortiz, the original scholar ofAfro-Cuban culture, the complexity andrichness of Yoruba mythology are compa-rable to those of ancient Greece. Ortiz


coined the crucial term “transculturation”to describe the interaction and reciprocalinfluence between cultures, irrespective ofpolitical and social power. Santería is aprime example of this phenomenon.

The Yoruba creator god Olodumare isthe almighty in the Santería pantheon,from whom aché or cosmic energy origi-nates. The orishas are his emissaries, andtheir exploits, strengths, and frailties paral-lel the human world, as did those of theGreek gods. Moreover, the divine and mor-tal worlds are linked by the figure of Eleg-guá, the messenger and intermediary whoopens paths, and the prankster whoteaches moral lessons with levity. Identi-

fied with St. Anthony as his Catholic mani-festation, Elegguá is the figure evoked firstin all ceremonies, as he alone permits com-munication. Yemayá, the archetypal mater-nal figure who controls the sea and themoon, is the figure most closely identifiedwith women’s lives and exclusively femaleconcerns. Like all the orishas, she is anambivalent figure with moods just likethose of human beings: she nurtures butcan also be implacable and merciless whenriled. She is paired with Our Lady of Regla,patron saint of the port of Havana. Severalof the orishas are of indeterminate genderand may change sex according to circum-stance. Changó, one of the fundamental or-


A Cuban worshipper weeps over the icon of St. Lazarus, who is both a Catholic saint and an

important deity in the Afro-Cuban religion Santería. (Reuters/Corbis)

ishas, is identified with a female saint(Barbara) despite his association with tra-ditionally masculine roles as a warrior,drinker, womanizer, and daredevil. Hisbrother Oggún (St. Peter), still worshippedwidely in West Africa, represents telluricenergy and governs all activities involvingthe use of iron. Another androgynous god,Obbatalá (Our Lady of Mercy), representstruth, peace, and justice. The severe femalegod Oyá (St. Teresa) reigns over death,wind, and lightning, and cares for the dead.She is closely associated with Changó, whooccasionally disguises himself as Oyá.Ochún (Our Lady of Charity) is the coun-terpart of Changó, displaying all the char-acteristics considered essentially feminine.

There are now some thirty orishas inCuban Santería, pared down from the orig-inal Yoruba pantheon, which numberedhundreds of deities. Others have arisenfrom non-Yoruba sources, including Bantuculture and Catholicism. All are consideredancestors who have become divine, indi-cating the fundamental role of family andlineage in Santería.

Music and dance are crucial elements ofSantería worship, facilitating the evoca-tion of orishas and their possession ofworshippers. Drumming sessions, knownas bembe in the Lucumi language, are heldto evoke an orisha with his or her ownparticular rhythms. The possessed are fa-miliar with the deity’s habits and are ableinvoluntarily to reproduce them. The sa-cred batá drum, brought out only in sun-light, is indispensable to these rituals. Theother musical element is singing, particu-larly by the akpwon, who knows theprayers for all the orishas and is able tolead a session of followers. There is aclose link among musicians, dancers, andthe lead singer, who are conceived of as a

whole and whose contributions combineas one single expression.

Another important part of Santería prac-tice is divination, performed either withobi (coconuts split into four parts), bymeans of seashells in a system known asdiloggún, or using a complex set of config-urations called the Tablero de Ifá. The ba-

balaos or santeros, high priests who origi-nally introduced these systems, are theprominent figures in the divinationprocess. Central figures in the Santería hi-erarchy, they oversee all other ceremoniesand initiations. Sacrifice or propitiation(ebó) is also essential, and each orisha haspreferred foods or animal sacrifices. Thereare also colors associated with each one,seen in the necklaces or elekes worn by fol-lowers.

The fact that it has survived discrimina-tion and occasional persecution through-out Cuban history is a testament to its per-suasive force. Today Santería has beenaccepted, though in diluted forms, evenamong the nation’s white population. It isalso evident in some of the mainstream cul-ture emanating from the island: in the 1992novel Dreaming in Cuban by the Cuban-American writer Cristina García, numerouswhite characters are influenced by a san-

tero’s advice and predictions. An examplein music is the jazz pianist Omar Sosa’s2001 album Sentir (Feeling), and in film,Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Guantanamera

(1994). Santería is still practiced by newgenerations of Cubans. Although the origi-nal Yoruba elements are fading, the sur-vival of this Afro-Cuban religion, and themusic associated with it, appears assured.

—Keith Richards

See also: Introduction; Popular Cinema: TheFilm Industry and Box-Office Successes in


Cuba; Popular Religion and Festivals:

Candomblé

Bibliography

Atwood Mason, Michael. 2002. Living

Santería: Rituals and Experiences in an

Afro-Cuban Religion. Washington, DC:Smithsonian Institute.

Barnet, Miguel. 2001. Afro-Cuban Religions.

Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener.González Wippler, Migene. 1999. Santería: Mis

experiencias en la religión. St. Paul, MN:Llewellyn.

Candomblé

An Afro-Brazilian religion that originatedamong the slaves taken from the Dahomeyand Yoruba regions of what is today south-west Nigeria, Candomblé first emerged asa religious practice in around 1830. Todayit is practiced mainly in the city of Salvadorin the state of Bahia. Its most important de-ity or god, known as an orixá, is Oxalá.This religion shares its origins with San-

tería, the Afro-Cuban religion.Candomblé began as an expression of

resistance to slavery. The African slavesbrought to Brazil belonged to a variety ofdifferent religious belief systems, but theirPortuguese masters forced them to con-vert to Christianity upon arrival in thecolony. In order to preserve their beliefs,the slaves made associations betweentheir own religious figures and icons andthe Catholic God and saints that they wereobliged to worship—or to seem to wor-ship. This system of associations gave riseto what is often referred to polemically asa syncretic belief system that combines el-ements of Catholicism and African reli-gious practices. Oxalá, for example, isconsidered to be the equivalent of theChristian God, and the sea goddess, Ie-

manjá (sometimes written Yemanjá), is di-rectly associated with the Virgin Mary. Theiconography of Candomblé today directlyreflects this idea of syncretism or at leastparallel association. The orixá Oxossi, forexample, is associated with St. George andis depicted as a hunter connected with theforest. Iemanjá is depicted with both theface of the Virgin Mary and the body of amermaid. Iansã (or Yansan) is syncretizedwith St. Barbara and associated with thecolor red.

Each orixá has his or her own specialday (equivalent to the saints’ days ofCatholicism), on which he or she is hon-ored and appeased. Each is associatedwith a particular color, symbol, song,dance, and type of food, all of which fea-


A statue of Iemanjá, the Candomblé and

Umbanda deity who combines elements of

both the Virgin Mary and a mermaid. (Courtesy

of Alex Nield)

ture in the ceremony held on that day. Ox-ossi’s preferred foods are boiled yellowcorn mixed with coconut, yams, and blackbeans, and his color is turquoise blue.Iansã’s favorite food is a fried cake ofground black-eyed peas (acarajé) andcooked okra cut into circles (caruru).Each follower of Candomblé has his or herown personal orixá who appears to him orher every week and to whom he or shemust pay tribute on a weekly basis. Exú isthe messenger of the orixás, the means ofmaking contact with them. It is believedthat he sometimes makes mischief and somust be appeased before the deities willcome to earth. His favorite food is farofa

(roast manioc flour) and a glass of water orcachaça (a kind of rum made from sugar-cane).

The place of worship is called a ter-

reiro, and the religious leaders are knownas pais-de-santo or mães-de-santo (liter-ally fathers or mothers of the saints). It isthe mães-de-santo or priestesses whohold the positions of greater power andprestige. They are ordained in a ceremonythat involves shaving their heads andsmearing them with the blood of hens orgoats. Chicken feathers are then stuck totheir foreheads. This ceremony is accom-panied by the beating of atabaque drumsand chanting in African languages. Thepriestesses dance frenetically until thenew mãe-de-santo falls into a trance.Spirit possession or a trancelike state isthe crucial mechanism of Candomblé. Inthe public ceremonies, called toques, ani-mals are often sacrificed (Iansã’s pre-ferred sacrifices, for example, are nannygoat, hen, and guinea fowl). Songs aresung in Nagô, the Yoruban language, fromwhich terms are taken to describe the dif-ferent hierarchical positions within this

religion. As each orixá or deity is honoredin a ceremony, his followers (known asfilhas- or filhos-de-santo, literally daugh-ters or sons of the saints) fall into a tranceas their particular orixá enters their body.When the followers are possessed by thespirit of the orixá, they retire, returning tothe central area of the terreiro wearingthe clothes and adornments associatedwith their deity.

Candomblé provides a closed, alterna-tive society with its own hierarchy, andthus appeals to the marginalized poor,largely of mixed race. The priestesses pre-serve the oral history of the Afro-Braziliancommunity by reciting the names of theirancestors and those of other worshippers,and describing how their forebears weretransported to Brazil in slave ships. This in-formation is passed on to newly ordainedpriestesses to ensure that cultural memoryis preserved.

—Lisa Shaw

See also: Sport and Leisure: Food (BrazilianFood); Language: Brazilian Portuguese;Popular Religion and Festivals: Santería

Bibliography

Afonjá, Ilé Axé Opô. 1999. “Iansã Is Not SaintBarbara.” Pp. 408–410 in The Brazil Reader:

History, Culture, Politics, edited by RobertM. Levine and John J. Crocitti. London: LatinAmerica Bureau.

Rowe, William, and Vivian Schelling. 1991.Memory and Modernity: Popular Culture in

Latin America. New York and London:Verso.

Silverstein, Leni. 1995. “The Celebration of OurLord of the Good End: Changing State,Church, and Afro-Brazilian Relations inBahia.” Pp. 134–151 in The Brazilian Puzzle:

Culture on the Borderlands of the Western

World, edited by David J. Hess and RobertoDaMatta. New York: Columbia UniversityPress.


Umbanda

A Brazilian religion that combines elementsof European Spiritism (founded by AllanKardec, 1804–1869) and Catholicism, to-gether with Afro-Brazilian and Amerindianreligious beliefs. It is sometimes referred toas macumba. Today people practice Um-

banda to cure illnesses and solve personalproblems. For this reason it has been calleda form of psychotherapy for the poor. Um-

banda emerged in the early twentieth cen-tury in urban Brazil and is often called theonly truly Brazilian religion.

There are dozens of different sects ofUmbanda, and each is independent withinthis religion. Followers meet in centers,each known as a centro (center), tenda

(tent), cabana (hut), or terreiro (yard).Each center is associated with a particularsaint, such as Caboclo (an Amerindianspirit) or Pai or Vovó (literally, father orgranny, the spirits of African slaves). Cabo-clo is worshipped with candles, Pai likescigars, and Vovó smokes a pipe (or at leastthe mediums who make contact with themdo). The possession of mediums by thespirits is the central mechanism of Um-

banda. The mediums use alcohol and to-bacco to aid spirit possession. Followersbelieve in reincarnation and seek separa-tion of the spirit from the body. Umbanda

shares some of its terminology (althoughnot always with the same meanings) andicons with Candomblé, such as Iemanjá, anamalgam of the Virgin Mary and a mer-maid, and Oxalá. The good spirits areknown as orixás and the evil spirits arecalled exús.

In the 1930s the processes of urbaniza-tion and industrialization were beginningto take hold in Brazil under the presidencyof Getúlio Vargas (1930–1945). It was a

time of great social upheaval, particularlyfor former Afro-Brazilian slaves and theirdescendants, who after the abolition ofslavery in 1888 moved en masse to thecities, particularly the then federal capital,Rio de Janeiro, in search of work. Findinga belief system of their own became veryimportant for the marginalized and dis-placed Afro-Brazilians.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Umbanda waspersecuted by the state, which feared gath-erings of disenchanted Afro-Brazilians. Itwas only given official status in the 1940s,principally to attenuate any threat it posedfor inciting racial tensions. The first Um-

banda congress took place in 1941, and itis said that the religion took its name fromthe sacred Sanskrit word Aum-Bandha,

meaning “the divine principle” or “the limitof the unlimited.”

—Lisa Shaw


Candomblé

Bibliography

Brown, Diana Degroat. 1994. Umbanda:

Religion and Politics in Urban Brazil. NewYork: Columbia University Press.

Goodman, Felicitas D., Jeannette H. Henney,and Esther Pressel. 1982. Trance, Healing

and Hallucination: Three Field Studies in

Religious Experiences. Huntington, NY: R. E. Krieger.

Indigenous Religious and

Cultural Practices


As in most areas of Latin America with adeeply rooted native culture and densepopulation, the Spanish colonizers wereable to make only limited inroads into in-digenous religion in the Andes. The


strength of belief in autochthonous deitieswas severely tested by the ravages of Con-quest and disease in the early sixteenthcentury, but there followed in 1564 a move-ment known as Taki Onqoy, or “Dance ofSickness.” It invoked regional deities orwakas in challenging both the spiritual andpolitical authority of the Europeans. TakiOnqoy aimed to end Spanish rule through acombination of ritual and direct action, byinvoking the old gods and mobilizing themagainst the invader. Its eventual suppres-sion was followed by the first campaigns towipe out idolatry: these had only limitedsuccess but required the Spaniards to un-derstand certain characteristics of the An-dean religion they sought to replace.

The result of this shared experience, inwhich Andeans and Spaniards not only en-gaged in confrontation but were ultimatelyobliged to reach some consensus, is thekind of ritual in which both belief systemsare honored simultaneously. Variously seenas syncretic, transcultural, or hybrid, suchrituals often take place in sites held sacredby indigenous tradition. The CatholicChurch traditionally reports an apparition,at or near an indigenous holy site, of aChristian saint, the Virgin, or Christ him-self, thus allowing the Church to influence,though by no means transform, the preex-isting indigenous event held there.

A prime example of this phenomenon isQoyllur Rit’i (“snow star” in Quechua),held annually at Sinakara in the Ocongateregion of southern Peru near Cuzco. Thesite, some 4,700 meters above sea level andeven now difficult to reach, is below thesnowcapped peak of Ausangate, an Apu orobject of ancestral worship. It is believedthat, in the late eighteenth century, the in-fant Christ appeared to an indigenous boyand eventually left behind an image on a

stone. A church built to house this image isvisited only during the festival, in earlyJune. As Michael Sallnow has shown, theappearance of these “miraculous shrines”constituted a phase of consolidation in theimposition of Christianity and served tolink the native worship of natural phenom-ena with the introduced Christian featuresand sacred elements. It is also likely that,as often occurred, the “miracle” came at anopportune moment. The great Andean re-bellions of the 1780s (Tupac Amaru II insouthern Peru and Tupac Katari in the LaPaz region) had barely ended, the repres-sion of indigenous culture had been institu-tionalized, and the reconciliation of thetwo religious systems might have beenseen as politically expedient. The originalnature and function of Qoyllur Rit’i is,however, still visible. It coincides with therise of the Pleiades in the southern skies, afine moment to propitiate deities able to in-fluence harvests.

Visually, however, Qoyllur Rit’i is un-mistakably an indigenous Andean festival:pilgrims arrive from villages in traditionaldress as well as in guises assumed for theevent itself, such as chunchos (Amazonianpeoples) and ukukus (bears). Theukukus, always personified by youngmen, have a variety of roles. They policethe event, mocking any miscreants in aQuechua delivered in falsetto. They alsospend the night on the snowcap, in themorning bringing down the ice. This ice,which is considered sacred, is taken intoCuzco and shared amongst the faithfulthere. Qoyllur Rit’i is today a massive pil-grimage, constantly changing in nature ac-cording to the circumstances, and isadopted by white Peruvians as well as na-tives and those of mixed race, not to men-tion the increasing number of tourists. It


is a prime example of syncretic religiouspractices in the Andes.

—Keith Richards

See also: Introduction; Language: IndigenousLanguages; Popular Religion and Festivals:

Popular Catholicism (The AndeanCountries); Popular Medicine and Healing(The Andean Countries)

Bibliography

Fleet, Michael. 2001. “Religion in LatinAmerica.” Pp. 295–320 in Understanding

Contemporary Latin America, edited byRichard S. Hillman. Boulder, CO: LynneRienner.

MacCormack, Sabine. 1991. Religion in the

Andes: Vision and Imagination in Early

Colonial Peru. Princeton, NJ, and Oxford:Princeton University Press.

Mills, Kenneth. 1997. Idolatry and Its Enemies:

Colonial Andean Religion and Extirpation,

1640–1750. Princeton, NJ, and Oxford:Princeton University Press.

Sallnow, Michael. 1988. Pilgrims of the Andes:

Regional Cults in Cuzco. Washington, DC:Smithsonian Institution Press.

Mexico

The cultural and religious practices of theancient civilizations of Mexico, in particu-lar the Mexica (or Aztecs) and the Maya,are well documented. It is common knowl-edge, for example, that these peoples un-dertook vast civil engineering projects toconstruct ceremonial centers, some stillvisible today in the form of pyramids; thatthey had ideographic writing systems andrecorded their own history; and that theyhad advanced knowledge of astronomy andmathematics (the Maya are credited withthe invention of the concept of zero, orrather the “place-value” numerical systemwe use today). They were polytheistic(worshipped many gods); they believed inpreprogrammed cyclical transformation

and renewal on a social and individuallevel, and hence viewed death as less of anend than a new beginning; they believedthat all things, including rocks, were ani-mate beings that had souls; and most, ashas been widely reported, conducted sacri-ficial rituals that included the offering up ofanything from corncobs to small children.

In the five centuries since the Conquest,despite decimation by war and disease,forced conversions to Christianity andWestern cultural values, and the gradualprocess of mestizaje (racial mixing be-tween Spaniards and indigenous peoples),there are still millions of indigenous peopleliving in Mexico, divided into over thirtydifferent ethnic groups defined by factorssuch as territory, culture, and language.Many indigenous people still do not speakSpanish fluently and many still continue re-ligious practices that predate the Con-quest. Nevertheless, almost all indigenousgroups have, by now, been influenced byCatholicism, and indigenous cultural andreligious practices are best perceivedthrough the prism of the colonizers’ cultureand religion. In some Catholic churches,such as that in San Juan Chamula, Chiapas,all the pews have been removed, and thelocal Tzotziles kneel on pine needlesstrewn on the floor, light candles and in-cense, pray to their santos, sleep, eat, anddrink. Today, they even use Coca-Cola toburp out evil spirits. Catholic priests areused only to provide the odd service; other-wise, the practices of these Tzotziles are al-most entirely pre-Columbian in nature. Therituals and beliefs of faith healers (curan-

deros) are also infused with elements ofCatholic iconography, but those forms offaith healing that aim to cure spiritualrather than physical ailments are perhapswhere indigenous religion is at its purest.


Curanderos also tend to respect the tradi-tional calendrical systems of the ancientcivilizations and organize rituals to coin-cide with them.

Despite the gradual merging of cultures,many indigenous groups are making a con-certed effort to preserve their culturalidentity by recording their beliefs, theiroral history, and their traditional ways ofworking (agricultural methods or patternsof weaving, for example). By working withinstitutions such as the Instituto NacionalIndigenista (National Indigenist Institute)they protect their right to be different; inextreme cases, such as the Zapatistas inChiapas, they rise up in arms. A few groupshave had less contact than others withSpanish culture (often because of the diffi-cult access to their territories) and con-tinue to live and work as their ancestorsdid. Such is the case of the Lacandón groupin southern Chiapas. This very small groupof people has never been Christianized andcontinues to practice essentially the reli-gion of the ancient Maya.

—Thea Pitman

See also: Introduction; Popular Social

Movements and Politics: Zapatismo;Language: Indigenous Languages; Popular

Religion and Festivals: Indigenous Religiousand Cultural Practices (Guatemala); NewProtestantism (Mexico and CentralAmerica); Popular Catholicism (Mexico andCentral America); Popular Festivals(Mexico); Popular Medicine and Healing(Mexico and Central America); Visual Arts

and Architecture: Art (Religious Folk Art)

Bibliography

Benítez, Fernando. 1989. Los indios de México:

Antología. Mexico City: Era.Bonfil Batalla, Guillermo. 1996. México

profundo: Reclaiming a Civilization.

Austin: University of Texas Press.

Carrasco, David. 1990. Religions of Mesoamerica.

San Francisco: Harper and Row.Green, Duncan. 1997. “Race against Time:

Indigenous Peoples.” Pp. 183–200 in Faces of

Latin America, by Duncan Green. London:Latin America Bureau.

Sullivan, Lawrence E., ed. 2002. Native

Religions and Cultures of Central and

South America: Anthropology of the Sacred.

New York: Continuum.Wauchope, Robert, ed. 1969. Handbook of

Middle American Indians. 16 vols. Austin:University of Texas Press.

Guatemala

Within Guatemala, a country where an esti-mated 56 percent of the population aremestizo (of mixed Amerindian and Span-ish origin) and 44 percent are predomi-nantly Amerindian, indigenous religionsare widely practiced. Guatemala’s Indiansare the modern-day descendants of thegreat Mayan civilizations, and their com-munities are for the most part concen-trated in the western highlands. However,what may be termed Guatemala’s “indige-nous community” is very diverse. At leasttwenty different Mayan languages are spo-ken, and the various communities range insize from some groups with fewer than5,000 members to others with up to 80,000.

Until the mid-twentieth century manyMayan communities remained outside thescope of the Catholic Church in terms ofreligion. Instead, a dual system has arisen,whereby a local Catholic church existsalongside a parallel system of “shaman-di-viners” outside the Church who help outthe people with their concerns over crops,health, and personal problems.

As a whole, Mayan religious and culturalpractices are centered on the principle ofliving in tune with nature and a spiritualconnection to the land. A variety of rituals


are performed, the most important ofwhich are those related to the sowing andcultivation of maize, rituals that have ex-isted since the time of the ancient Maya.These rituals involve a night vigil before theday of sowing the seed and a ritual at themoment of harvest to thank the land forproviding the crop. Other rituals includethat of “house feeding,” a ceremony thattakes place when a house has just beenbuilt. Friends, relatives, and other villagersare invited to a meal that is presided overby the pasawink, or elder of the village.

Interestingly, within these popular prac-tices are frequent syncretic elements thatcombine indigenous traditions with thesymbols of Catholicism. Siebers notes thatthe cross, for instance, is frequently used inindigenous communities during the ritualof the sowing of the maize, and that thishas a dual meaning: on the one hand, thecross refers to the Christian cross andChrist’s death; on the other, it representsthe concept of the four corners of the uni-verse within Mayan belief, and also thespirit of the maize. In this way, the indige-nous groups integrate different religious el-ements and practices into their lives andculture.

The percentage of Guatemalans whoconsider themselves followers of indige-nous religion is very low: according to U.S.government statistics, only 1 percent of thepopulation describe themselves as practi-tioners of traditional Mayan religions, withthe majority describing themselves as Ro-man Catholics. However, many elements ofMayan religion have been incorporated intopopular Catholicism within Guatemala. Wil-son, who carried out extensive researchwith Mayas in the province of Alta Verapaz,found that the traditional Mayan rituals offertility and healing are once again gaining

in popularity. He describes how this ethnicrevivalist movement was led by Catholiclay activists, who encouraged a renovationof the “earth cult” in an attempt to create anew ethnic identity. In this way, just as pop-ular indigenous practices contain elementsof Christian symbolism, so too has theCatholicism practiced in Guatemala takenon a variety of elements from indigenousbeliefs and rituals.

—Claire Taylor

See also: Language: Indigenous Languages;Popular Religion and Festivals: PopularCatholicism (Mexico and Central America);Popular Medicine and Healing (Mexico andCentral America)

Bibliography

Marzal, Manuel M., Eugenio Maurer, XavierAlbó, and Bartomeu Melia. 1996. The Indian

Face of God in Latin America. New York:Orbis.

Siebers, Hans. 1996. “Popular Culture andDevelopment: Religion, Tradition andModernity among the Q’eqchi’es ofGuatemala.” Latin American Studies 76:137–158.

Smith, Carol A., ed. 1990. Guatemalan Indians

and the State: 1540 to 1988. Austin:University of Texas Press.

Wilson, Richard. 1995. Maya Resurgence in

Guatemala: Q’eqchi’ Experience. Norman:University of Oklahoma Press.

Popular Medicine and Healing

Brazil

In Brazil, curandeiros (healers) and ben-

zedeiras (blessers) are ritual healers whotreat various illnesses and problems suchas infertility, poverty, and unemployment.They employ a mixture of Catholic sym-bols and prayers and a special relationshipwith the supernatural. This is traditionally


a female domain, since the majority ofproblems they deal with are related to thefamily. Pajés (medicine men) are localspirit healers that are consulted by peopleall over Brazil who do not have access tomedical services. Such forms of alternativemedicine, which are typically offered freeof charge, are naturally very attractive tothe poor.

Over the last hundred years or so the hi-erarchy of the Roman Catholic Church hascondemned these practices as pagan tradi-tions and actively sought to suppress them.However, the benzedeiras consider them-selves an essential part of popular Catholi-cism in Brazil, and they use prayers andpsalms from the Bible to cure many ail-ments and predicaments. When a person is“cured,” he or she has to give gifts to thehealer, and a relationship of dependenceand obligation is established. These heal-ers have to be obeyed exactly, and their au-thority over many of their clients is not un-like that of a shaman, an alternative sourceof power to the Church that is open only tothe initiated in the community. Any personwith a special dom or gift, Spiritist orCatholic, can become a healer. In manyways these practices offer an alternativereligious vocation to women, who are de-nied access to the priesthood and margin-alized by the male-dominated medical pro-fession.

The beliefs of the pajés are allegedlybased on those of the indigenous tribes ofBrazil and center on the spirits of dead In-dians. These spirits are believed to workmischief and to introduce objects into aperson’s body to cause illness. The pajé

has the power to discover what these ob-jects are and how to remove them. To-bacco smoke is used to induce a trance oris blown on the pajé’s hands before he

passes them over the sufferer. Massagesand baths are also given to remove the in-fluence of the spirits. These rituals are verysimilar to those used in Umbanda. Thepajé can also traditionally perform harmfulactions if a client requests this: for exam-ple, an egg buried underneath the ham-mock of one’s enemy will, they believe,cause him or her to go blind.

—Lisa Shaw


Popular Catholicism (Brazil); Umbanda

Bibliography

Van den Hoogen, Lisette. 1988. “Benzedeiraswithin the Catholic Tradition of MinasGerais.” Pp. 177–193 in Social Change in

Contemporary Brazil, edited by GeertBanck and Kees Koonings. Amsterdam:Centre for Latin American Research andDocumentation.


The Andean region has a rich and variedtradition in healing. Like most areas of in-digenous culture in the Americas, it was re-pressed by European colonizers quick toassociate the unknown with devil-worship.However, since the 1980s official attitudeshave changed. In 1984 Bolivia became thefirst Latin American country to officiallyaccept indigenous medical practices,which in any case are often the only re-course for remote or impoverished com-munities.

A particularly famous example of An-dean medicine is that of the Kallawaya peo-ple who live to the north of La Paz. Theyare renowned herbalists who reputedlytreated the Inca nobility and have longbeen itinerant healers; their practice wasinstitutionalized in 1987. Today they arewell enough respected and established to


be the subject of tourist excursions. Otherfamous communities of healers can befound in Catacaos, near Piura in coastalPeru, Iluman in Ecuador, and among theKogi of the Colombian Sierra Nevada.

The role of coca in Andean society iscontroversial due to the leaf’s use as a nar-cotic since the early twentieth century.However, coca use in both diagnosis andhealing is an ancestral practice. It is alsoused in divining, an activity not divorced inthe Andean mind from medicine; diagnosisoften focuses on the spiritual condition ofthe patient. Moreover, coca is an importantsocial component that reinforces commu-nity relationships and identity. NorthAmerican and European attempts to sup-press coca have contributed to a wide-spread distrust of Western medicine, givingrise to numerous modern myths no doubtalso inspired by rumors of rogue organtransplants and the practice of herbal andgene piracy.

Another widespread Andean practice, ifless controversial, involves the use of cuy,or guinea pigs, in diagnosis. Here coca is of-ten consumed by the doctor to aid his con-centration. Then the animal is rubbed overthe patient’s body before being opened andits organs examined. A diagnosis of the pa-tient is then made. Such practices must beseen as elements of an overall cosmologyand of a complex system of interactionsbetween humanity and the natural environ-ment. Traditional medicine is also crucialin the maintenance of trade and reciprocitybetween neighboring regions.

—Keith Richards


Indigenous Religious and Cultural Practices(The Andean Countries); PopularCatholicism (The Andean Countries)

Bibliography

Allen, Catherine. 1988. The Hold Life Has:

Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean

Community. London: SmithsonianInstitution Press.

Koss-Chioino, Joan, Thomas Leatherman, andChristine Greenway, eds. 2002. Medical

Pluralism in the Andes. London: Routledge.Morales, Edmundo. 1995. The Guinea Pig:

Healing, Food and Ritual in the Andes.

Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Revista Medica. www.revistamedica.8m.

com/histomed130.htm (consulted September 2003).

Ventura i Oller, Montserrat. 2001. “Chamanismoy redes de intercambio en el Ecuadorcontemporáneo.” Revista GeoNotas 5, no. 2.Online journal attached to the Website of theDepartment of Geography, State Universityof Maringá. www.dge.uem.br//geonotas/vol5–2/ventura.shtml (consulted September2003).


Popular medicine in Mesoamerica covers awide range of practices, some of whichdeal with the curing of identifiable physicalailments and conditions, such as a brokenleg or pregnancy. Others concern culturallyspecific, often emotional ailments such assusto (fright) and mal de ojo (the effects ofthe evil eye), or are of a more spiritual or-der such as the loss of one’s soul, moraldilemmas, or those ailments thought to becaused by the ill effects of sorcery. In allcases the approach is far more holisticthan that offered by traditional Westernmedicine, and almost all cures combinepractical solutions (medicinal infusions,etc.) with prayer, ritual, and psychologicalsupport. Rituals involve such activities asthe sacrifice of chickens and other smallanimals, the use of incense, blowing orspraying the patient’s body with liquids,and passing objects such as eggs andplants over the body.


Practitioners who deal with a wide rangeof ailments, especially those pertaining tothe spirit, are referred to by the overlap-ping terms of curanderos/as (curers, faithhealers), chamanes (shamans), and/or bru-

jos/as (witch doctors). Many other termsused to designate curanderos are specificto certain regions and ethnic groups, suchas sukias in Nicaragua and h’men in theMayan Yucatan. Many of these healers,specifically shamans, invoke the supernat-ural world via trancelike states (often pro-voked by the ingestion of hallucinogenicdrugs such as peyote or magic mushrooms)and then journey into the supernaturalrealm with the aid of a “spirit helper,” whooften takes the form of an animal such as acoyote.

Curanderos may be either male or fe-male, although across Mesoamerica thereis a tendency for purely spiritual healing tobe done by men (with this position go so-cial prestige, civic authority, and even spe-cial dress codes and artifacts), and for theforms of physical healing done with medic-inal plants and prayers, especially those as-sociated with gynecological issues andchildbirth, to be the preserve of women.Most curanderos assume their role as ahereditary duty after a long apprenticeship.However, many female curanderas begintheir healing activities on the death of orabandonment by their husband in order tomake a living and have a valued place intheir community.

Since the time of the Conquest indige-nous curanderos have experienced perse-cution for their beliefs and practices. Evenin the twentieth century, state health-careworkers across the region were at pains toeradicate curanderismo in favor of West-ern medical science. Nevertheless, curan-

deros are an essential part of the makeup

of most Mesoamerican indigenous commu-nities, closely entwined with popularCatholicism. In rural regions they easilyoutnumber state health-care workers. Fur-thermore, the relationship of trust betweenpatient and curandero is much greaterthan that between patient and health-careworker, and this promotes the use of cu-

randeros and even their ability to provideeffective cures (faith alone can help heal).Even among the urban mestizo (mixed-race) populations of the region, curan-

derismo has not been totally supplanted byWestern medicine. For example, limpias

or barriadas (ritual cleansings) are stillpopular, cheap, and easy.

In more recent years, the countries ofCentral America have attempted to utilizethe knowledge of curanderos and to li-cense them as practitioners rather thanoutlaw the practice altogether. Indigenousparteras (midwives) have been legalizedin El Salvador, and curanderos may obtainlicenses in Guatemala. Furthermore,health-care workers have been encour-aged to cooperate with parteras and cu-

randeros so that their healing integrateselements of Western medicine and so that,in certain cases, patients can be referredto state health-care workers when theircomplaints fall beyond the realms of thefaith healers.

—Thea Pitman


Indigenous Religious and Cultural Practices(Guatemala; Mexico); Popular Catholicism(Mexico and Central America); PopularFestivals (Mexico)

Bibliography

Castañeda, Carlos. 1968. The Teachings of Don

Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Berkeley:University of California Press.


Dow, James W. 1986. The Shaman’s Touch:

Otomí Indian Symbolic Healing. Salt LakeCity: University of Utah Press.

Huber, Brad R., and Alan R. Sandstrom, eds.2001. Mesoamerican Healers. Austin:University of Texas Press.

Rowe, William, and Vivian Schelling. 1991.Memory and Modernity: Popular Culture in

Latin America. London: Verso, pp. 68–74.Trotter, Robert T., II, and Juan Antonio Chavira.

1981. Curanderismo: Mexican-American

Folk Healing. Athens: University of GeorgiaPress.

Santo Daime

A religious cult founded in the Amazon atthe turn of the twentieth century, based onthe ritual, communal consumption of an in-fusion of herbs. Santo Daime was madepopular from the 1980s onward by thelarge number of Brazilian celebrities whohave adhered to its doctrines.

The inspiration for Santo Daime (or theEclectic Cult of Fluid Universal Light, togive it its formal title) came from MestreRaimundo Irineu Serra (otherwise knownas Rei or King Juramidã), a rubber tapperand son of black slaves who learned aboutthe healing properties of Amazonian plantsfrom Peruvian Indians. It is said that ondrinking for the first time one particularlypotent mixture, ayahuasca, a blend of thejagube liana (Banesteriopsis caapi) andthe rainha leaf (Psicotrya viridis) thatsupposedly has been around since the daysof the Incas, Serra received a visitationfrom the Virgin Mary. Thereafter, everytime he consumed the tea (which henamed Santo Daime), he would receiveprayers that later would form the basis ofthe cult’s worship.

Having started out as little more than abackwoods shaman, Serra would go on to

establish a church and community in therainforest where followers would live to-gether in harmony with each other andwith nature, combining periods of work, si-lence, and meditation with the drinking oftea on set feast days. These days consist oftwelve hours of chanting and dancing tothe rhythm of maracas around a six-pointed star, with the express purpose ofbecoming closer to God and learning aboutoneself.

The notions of fraternity, communityspirit, and love of nature, so dear to themovement, along with the speedy arrival ata state of transcendence afforded by theSanto Daime tea itself, drew the attentionof Brazilian hippies in the 1970s, who tookSerra’s teachings, and his drink, to otherparts of the country. In the 1980s, govern-ment investigations concluded that therewas nothing untoward taking place withinthe Church and that followers of Santo

Daime were not drug addicts. A number ofcritics of Santo Daime have argued thatgovernments have continued to turn ablind eye to the drug-taking in these com-munities because they can count on thesupport of the powerful environmentallobby, of a number of senators represent-ing the northern states, and even of someCatholic bishops.

Several high-profile stars from televisionand the music industry became involvedwith the movement in the 1980s, such asthe popular composer Peninha, singer-songwriter Ney Matogrosso, actress MaitêProença, and most significantly, the tele-

novela (soap opera) superstar Lucélia San-tos, who temporarily gave up her televisionand film career to live in one of theChurch’s remote communities.

The espousal of values such as the pro-tection of vegetation, along with the


Church’s charity work to aid the environ-ment, has recently attracted people fromall over the world, both New Age eco-tourists and people seeking alternativesystems of belief, to the headquarters inCéu do Mapiá in Amazonas state. As wellas having established a number ofchurches throughout Brazil (most in ruralareas traditionally associated withBrazil’s hippie population), Santo Daime

has traveled to Europe and the UnitedStates where, according to the move-ment’s official Website, there are tenchurches. With the exception of Spain,where the use of the infusion in recog-nized religious rituals has recently beenmade legal, followers abroad are obligedto celebrate in secret, and transporters ofSanto Daime tea to locations outsideBrazil have been given prison sentencesfor drug trafficking.

—Stephanie Dennison

See also: Travel and Tourism: Ecotourism;Mass Media: Telenovela (Brazil)

Bibliography

Official Santo Daime Website. www.santodaime.org (consulted September 2003).

Bahá’í

A faith that was founded in 1844 along uni-versalist principles by the Bahá’u’lláh, thetitle of the Persian mystic Mirzá Husayn Ali(1817–1892). It first made its mark on LatinAmerica in the late 1930s, in Mexico andCentral America, entering most of SouthAmerica a few years later. Today it is thethird most popular organized religion inmany Latin American countries afterCatholicism and Protestantism. The appeal

of this religion, with its accent on globalunity, lies in its rejection of discriminationon grounds of ethnicity, gender, or socialbackground.

Bahá’í, which has neither dogma norpriesthood, proposes a noncentralizedfaith in which all creeds can converge andshare both differences and similarities. Theemphasis upon unity is manifested in thefaith’s temples, which are circular, intimat-ing the deliberate exclusion of any geo-graphical focal point or place of originsuch as Mecca or Jerusalem. This philoso-phy is applied in practical terms in commu-nities with differing faiths: Bahá’í meetingsbegin with prayers from members of all re-ligions represented.

Bahá’í is clearly attractive to those seek-ing an alternative atmosphere, social aswell as spiritual, in societies with en-trenched chauvinist attitudes and wherediscrimination on the basis of gender, eth-nicity, or beliefs is all but institutionalized(the advancement of women is a notablyhigh priority in all Bahá’í literature). In Bo-livia, where a high proportion of followersare from indigenous communities, Bahá’í

works to implement social benefits, raisingfunds for projects such as educational fa-cilities, without the apparent self-promo-tion and paternalism associated with moreentrenched religions. The results are ap-parent both at grassroots and central lev-els: in remote villages, where the possibil-ity of extending local education into highschool has been achieved, and in a city likeSanta Cruz, where the influential Bahá’í-inspired Nur University runs a program totrain teachers to serve the entire Andeanregion.

Radio has also been a successful tool forBahá’í, raising its profile in Latin Americawhile facilitating communication among


rural communities. The world’s firstBahá’í radio station, in the Otavalo regionof Ecuador, was set up as a means of en-abling contact between members buteventually took on a far broader role. Therealization of the potential of indigenouscommunities, within the context of themodern nation, became central to its aims,and the station has enjoyed considerablesuccess. Conserving Andean cultural tradi-tions has been one of its main achieve-ments, though it also promotes numeroussocial projects.

Bahá’í has formal associations with theUnited Nations and with many nongovern-mental organizations such as UNIDA(Unidad en Diversidad, or Unity in Diver-sity), a group that responds to the politicalcrisis in Argentina via training programsaimed at providing models for participa-tory development and the fortification ofcivil society.

Of the estimated 7 million or so Bahá’í

followers worldwide, there are an esti-mated 57,000 members in Brazil and300,000 in Bolivia. Of the seven worldwideBahá’í temples, one is in Latin America(Panama) and a second is currently underconstruction in Chile.

—Keith Richards

See also: Mass Media: Radio (Cuba and theAndes)

Bibliography

Bahá’í Official Website. www.bahai.org(consulted September 2003).

Hein, Kurt John. 1988. Radio Bahá’í Ecuador:

A Bahá’í Development Project. Oxford:George Ronald.

Lamb, Artemus. 1995. The Beginnings of the

Bahá’í Faith in Latin America: Some

Remembrances. http://www.bahai-library.org/books/latinamerica.lamb.html (consultedSeptember 2003).

New Protestantism


The Protestant faith, particularly the newerbranches (as opposed to traditional Angli-canism or Lutheranism), has witnessed aboom in popularity in Mexico and CentralAmerica since the 1970s, both in rural ar-eas and in poor neighborhoods in urban ar-eas, and in particular among the substan-tial indigenous populations of thesecountries (i.e., the poorest sectors of soci-ety). Statistics show that growth has beenparticularly large in Honduras andGuatemala since the mid-1980s (7 percentand 6 percent respectively of the popula-tions of these countries converted toProtestantism over the period 1985–1995).Mexico, the most populous country in Cen-tral America, has the highest number ofProtestants, around 5.5 million in 1995, de-spite a slower rate of growth of the Protes-tant community.

Unlike the original split in Europe be-tween the Catholic and ProtestantChurches, the split in Mexico and CentralAmerica was not based on a clash overdoctrine. Much of the “new” Protestantismin the region is evangelical in nature, andhence sets itself up in opposition to allother religions, including other branches ofProtestantism.

Community health workers in Chiapas,southern Mexico, have noted that indige-nous women prefer a religion that allowsthem to use contraception, and that in gen-eral, women find that the ProtestantChurch offers them a more active role thanthat available to them in the male-domi-nated Catholic Church. It has been arguedthat indigenous communities also useProtestantism as a way of showing theirdissent from the impositions of the


Catholic-oriented nation-states by whichthey are governed. Other theorists suggestthat concerted missionary activity fromabroad, the experience of rapid moderniza-tion, and/or large-scale demographicchange (migration to big cities or to othercountries), coupled with the dismember-ment of traditional social structures andcultural practices, have created a spiritualgap that Protestantism has filled.

One of the most compelling explanationsput forward is that economic change, andin particular the advance of the marketeconomy into parts of the world wherepeople have previously been unaffected byits logic, is the root cause of the surge inpopularity of New Protestantism in the re-gion. In traditional, indigenous communi-ties—in the highlands of Guatemala, forexample—a “cargo system” is still in place.This system, intimately related to theCatholic calendar, is a way of redistribut-ing wealth for the benefit of the wholecommunity by designating individual com-munity members to be in charge of organiz-ing and financing specific festivals. How-ever, this practice stands in directopposition to the concept of a marketeconomy where the individual seeks tomake and retain profits for the benefit ofhis/her own family. Protestantism, with itsconcept of a “work ethic,” provides the re-ligious background to support the logic ofthe market economy and is hence makingdramatic in-roads in parts of the regionwhere the market economy is not yet fullyin place. Nevertheless, such widespreadconversions to Protestantism have notgone unopposed, and there is substantialdisharmony recorded in the indigenouscommunities of Chiapas, Mexico, for ex-ample, between breakaway Protestantgroups and those members of the same in-

digenous group who have chosen to re-main Catholics.

—Thea Pitman

See also: Popular Social Movements and

Politics: Zapatismo; Popular Religion and

Festivals: New Protestantism (Brazil;Venezuela); Popular Catholicism (Mexicoand Central America)

Bibliography

Dow, James W., and Alan R. Sandstrom, eds.2001. Holy Saints and Fiery Preachers: The

Anthropology of Protestantism in Mexico

and Central America. Westport, CT: Praeger.Fleet, Michael. 1997. “Religion in Latin America.”

Pp. 295–320 in Understanding Contemporary

Latin America, edited by Richard S. Hillman.Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

Green, Duncan. 1997. “Thy Kingdom Come: The Church.” Pp. 201–215 in Faces of Latin

America, by Duncan Green. London: LatinAmerica Bureau.

Martin, David. 1990. Tongues of Fire: The

Explosion of Protestantism in Latin

America. Oxford: Blackwell.Stoll, David. 1990. Is Latin America Turning

Protestant?: The Politics of Evangelical

Growth. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress.

Venezuela

The evangelical presence in Venezuela’scapital city, Caracas, is low-key in compari-son with Brazil’s main cities, but the sys-tematic promotion of New Protestantism isactively under way. The best-known evan-gelical phenomenon in Caracas is the inde-pendent Las Acacias Pentecostal Church.

In the 1990s, about half of Venezuela’s325,000 Protestants could be found in sixchurches: Assemblies of God, Light of theWorld, OVICE (Venezuelan Organization ofEvangelical Christian Churches), Peniel, theNational Baptist Convention, and the Pres-byterian Church. The first two churches are


Pentecostal, and the second two are of theFree Church tradition.

With the exception of the Baptists andthe Presbyterians, the mainstream Protes-tant churches have had relatively littlepresence in Venezuela. A survey carriedout in 1992 found that the 231 Protestantchurches in Caracas had a total member-ship of 31,000 people, which representedjust over 1 percent of the 3 million peoplein the area surveyed. As low as this figureis, it is important to remember thatCatholic practice is on the decline. It hasbeen estimated that 6 percent of the inhab-itants of Caracas attend mass on any givenSunday and that this percentage falls tojust 2 or 3 percent in poorer areas.

The history of Protestantism in Vene-zuela dates from the early nineteenth cen-tury, when itinerant Bible salesmen passedthrough the country. The first congrega-tions in Caracas were established in the1870s. For decades, however, missionarieswere attracted more to rural areas, and vir-tually no Protestant congregations werefounded in the capital city until the 1940sand 1950s. Many of these first-generationchurch leaders were still active in the1990s.

—Lisa Shaw


New Protestantism (Brazil; Mexico andCentral America)

Bibliography

Berryman, Phillip. 1996. Religion in the

Megacity: Catholic and Protestant Portraits

from Latin America. London: Latin AmericaBureau.

Brazil

The following Protestant Churches arenow represented in many Brazilian cities:

the Baptist Church, the Assemblies of God,the Christian Congregation, the Four-square Gospel Church (which now hasmore followers in Brazil than in the UnitedStates, where it originated), Brazil forChrist, God Is Love, and the UniversalChurch of the Kingdom of God. For manyBrazilians, the Universal Church epito-mizes the new brand of Pentecostalism,with “services” akin to television showsand a heavy emphasis on financial contri-butions from the “audience.” Members ofother churches worry about the effect ofthe Universal Church on the image of theProtestant community as a whole. A com-mon misconception holds that the growthof Protestantism is fostered and fundedfrom abroad, but it is the Brazilianchurches that are expanding the fastest.

The rapid rise of evangelical Protes-tantism in Brazil can be explained in partby the failure of Liberation Theology toprovide spiritual solace for the impover-ished masses. Following the Vatican’s deci-sion, taken in 1989, to carve up the arch-diocese of São Paulo arbitrarily, the poorcentral districts of the city were increas-ingly neglected by the Catholic Church, al-lowing the evangelicals to gain a foothold.

Like Brazil for Christ and God Is Love,the Universal Church of the Kingdom ofGod, established in 1977, revolves aroundits founder, Edir Macedo. By 1990 the orga-nization had 700 churches and claimed tohave 500,000 members. In that year itbought a television station in São Paulo for45 million U.S. dollars. Macedo obviouslyappealed to mass audiences. One morningin September 1990 he drew 150,000 peopleto a stadium in Rio de Janeiro and thencaught a plane to São Paulo, where he ad-dressed a crowd of 50,000. Like soccerfans, many of them carried banners, includ-


ing one that read: “Pele, the king of soccer,has gone, and Jesus, the king of kings, hasarrived.” There have been reports ofbizarre and disturbing events at these gath-erings. On one occasion, for example,Macedo promised to cure people’s eye-sight. Hundreds of pairs of spectacles werehanded over to him, which he promptlytrampled on.

—Lisa Shaw


New Protestantism (Mexico and CentralAmerica; Venezuela); Popular Catholicism(Brazil)

Bibliography

Berryman, Phillip. 1996. Religion in the

Megacity: Catholic and Protestant Portraits

from Latin America. London: Latin AmericaBureau.

Popular Festivals

Colombia

One of the most important popular festi-vals within the Andean region of Colombiais the Aguinaldo Boyacense, the period ofcelebration held in the Boyacá region inthe last few days before Christmas. TheCarnaval de Barranquilla (BarranquillaCarnival), which takes place in the city ofBarranquilla on the northern coast ofColombia, traces its roots back over sev-eral centuries. It has links with the blackslave celebrations that took place innearby Cartagena de Indias in colonialtimes. While Semana Santa, or Holy Week,is important throughout Colombia, theplace that is most famous for this celebra-tion is Popayán in the southwestern part ofColombia.

The Aguinaldo Boyacense festival lastsfrom 16 to 23 December each year. Gamesfor children and a variety of sportingevents or competitions, such as tennis, cy-cling, and chess, are held throughout theday and into the night. The afternoon activ-ities are dominated by the novena or reli-gious service; in the early evening the mainattractions are the processions, which of-ten include decorated carrozas (carnivalfloats). The carrozas are created by a vari-ety of local entities, including schools,churches, local companies, and the policeforce, and prizes are awarded for the bestfloat. Finally, once the processions areover, a lively, open-air concert is held in themain square, the Plaza Bolívar. Every nightat least three bands perform into the smallhours, playing salsa, vallenato, or even car-


Edir Macedo, the infamous founder of Brazil’s

Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. (Ted

Soqui/Corbis Sygma)

ranguera, the local folk music of the Boy-acá region. The concert usually includes atleast one big national name, such as LosTupamaros, who performed there in 2002.

From the mid- to late nineteenth centurythe Carnaval de Barranquilla properstarted to take shape. Now the carnivaltakes place over four days, starting on Sat-urday and ending the day before AshWednesday. Over the four days, a variety ofevents are staged: on the opening Saturdayis the Batalla de flores (Battle of the Flow-ers), an event that memorializes the civilwar that Colombia endured between 1899and 1903, the Guerra de Mil Días (War of aThousand Days), and that functions as atribute to peace. During this event, a largeprocession makes its way through the city,with carnival queens, dancers, and floats,

all decorated with flowers. Sunday is takenup with the Gran Parada (Big Parade),which concentrates on folk, indigenous,and black forms of music and dance, in-cluding cumbia, mapalé, and son. On theMonday, the Festival de Orquestas (Festi-val of Bands) takes place, during which na-tional and international bands play salsaand the obligatory vallenato to crowds inthe Romelio Martínez stadium. The last dayof the carnival is dominated by the tradi-tion known as the Muerte de Joselito

(Death of Joselito). Legend has it thatJoselito was a coachman who drank somuch that he fell asleep in his coach; totease him, the carnival-goers decided toput him in a coffin and carry him to thecemetery, amid great wailing and mourn-ing. Every year this prank is reenacted,


Women in costume dance in the street during carnival, Barranquilla, Colombia, 1994. (Jeremy

Horner/Corbis)

with the crowd carrying a coffin and cryingover “Joselito” as they process through thestreets.

Holy Week in Popayán is marked bysolemn processions throughout the week,as well as the Festival de Música Religiosa

(Festival of Religious Music), which at-tracts choirs and orchestras from all overthe world. The celebrations consist of sixprocessions: one during the day on PalmSunday to represent Christ’s triumphal ar-rival in Jerusalem, and five at night, fromTuesday to Thursday, which represent thepassion, death, and burial of Christ. The fi-nal procession takes place on Saturday tocelebrate Christ’s resurrection. Duringthese processions, images carried on plat-forms are decorated with candles and a dif-ferent color of flowers each day, leading upto the final celebration on Saturday, inwhich multicolored flowers symbolize joyat the resurrection.

—Claire Taylor

See also: Popular Music: Cumbia; Salsa;Vallenato; Popular Religion and Festivals:

Popular Festivals (Carnival in Brazil;Mexico)

Bibliography

Harding, Colin. 1995. Colombia: A Guide to the

People, Politics and Culture. London: LatinAmerica Bureau.

Samper Martínez, Diego. 1994. Carnaval

caribe: Exploración del carnaval de

Barranquilla Colombia. Quito: AndesEditores.

Williams, Raymond L. 1999. Culture and

Customs of Colombia. Westport: GreenwoodPress.

Mexico

Mexico celebrates a huge variety of fiestas

populares (popular festivals) that attractvisitors from all over the world. Its carnival

is the third biggest in the world, after thoseof Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans. Manyof the festivals are based on the events ofthe Roman Catholic calendar (saints’ days,posadas or pre-Christmas processions,Easter week celebrations, and reenact-ments of the crucifixion), though somemay have been superimposed over olderpre-Columbian festival days and ritualpractices. Others are purely civic celebra-tions designed to reaffirm a sense of na-tional pride (for example, El Grito de Inde-

pendencia or Independence Day and El

Día de la Raza or Mexico Day). Still oth-ers, which celebrate the culture or the arti-facts of a particular place, have been devel-oped by the Mexican government and thetourist industry as a way of promotingtrade and tourism (for example, the SilverFair in Taxco). The concept of the fiesta

popular really applies only to the first cate-gory of festival mentioned. Nevertheless, incontemporary Mexico many of the tradi-tional, popular fiestas based on the RomanCatholic calendar have incorporated ele-ments of the more urban-based civic andcommercial festivals. This is part of theprocess of encroaching national and global(capitalist) culture, studied in detail byNéstor García Canclini.

Undoubtedly the most important andthe most idiosyncratic of Mexico’s popu-lar festivals is El Día de los Muertos (TheDay of the Dead). The festival dates backto colonial times, although some criticssee it as a prime example of the blendingof indigenous culture with SpanishCatholic culture (the Mexica are known tohave venerated their dead in similar waysusing similar iconography). This festivalhas developed spectacularly since the1960s and is now an essential part of Mex-ico’s national identity.


The festival of the Day of the Deadstretches over two days, on 1 and 2 Novem-ber of every year, which correspond to AllSaints’ Day and All Souls’ Day in the RomanCatholic calendar. Traditionally, the de-parted souls of small children are honoredon the first of the two days, and those ofadults on the second, and it is usually thesecond of the two days that is the more exu-berant day of the festival. The basic festivalconsists of several masses. However, ofren-

das (offerings of food, drink, and other sym-bolic items for the dead) constructed inpeople’s homes and the candlelit vigil at thegraveside of departed relatives on the nightof 1 November are the readily identifiablesymbols of the festival today. In the run-upto the festival, the ofrendas become ubiqui-tous, more in public places than in private

homes, and a vast amount of merchandise isavailable in shops and markets to decorateofrendas, the graves themselves, or simplyto offer as gifts to friends. These items in-clude pan de muertos (loaves of bread dec-orated with crossed bones, which are alsomade of bread), calaveras (skulls made outof sugar or chocolate and brightly deco-rated), and all sorts of arts and crafts thatplay on the theme of death. (In recent years,products associated with Halloween haveappeared for sale beside them as the twofestivals have begun to merge.) Althoughthe death of relatives is still a cause forgreat sadness among Mexicans, the humorbrought to the fore in this festival is remark-able and helps shape the popular view thatMexicans treat death lightly.

—Thea Pitman


Typical skeleton figures used to celebrate Mexico’s popular festival the Day of the Dead. (Danny

Lehman/Corbis)


Popular Catholicism (Mexico and CentralAmerica); Popular Festivals (Carnival inBrazil; Colombia)

Bibliography

Canclini, Néstor García. 1993. “Fiesta andHistory: To Celebrate, to Remember, to Sell.”Pp. 87–104 in Transforming Modernity:

Popular Culture in Mexico, edited by NéstorGarcía Canclini and translated by LidiaLozano. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Carmichael, Elizabeth, and Chloë Sayer. 1991.The Skeleton at the Feast: The Day of the

Dead in Mexico. London: British Museum.Nutini, Hugo G. 1988. “Pre-Hispanic

Component of the Syncretic Cult of the Deadin Mesoamerica.” Ethnology 27, no. 1: 57–78.

Rosoff Beimler, Rosalind. 1998. The Days of the

Dead/Los días de muertos. Photography byJohn Greenleigh. San Francisco:Pomegranate.

Carnival in Brazil

Some form of pre-Lenten celebration (likeMardi Gras in New Orleans) has existed inBrazil since the mid-sixteenth century, af-ter the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500.Today this annual event, held seven weeksbefore Easter, is most widely associatedwith the city of Rio de Janeiro, where theso-called escolas de samba (“sambaschools”), or neighborhood carnival asso-ciations, take part in a lavish parade that isscreened by satellite all over the world.Carnaval is celebrated all over Brazil forfour days, from Saturday to Tuesday. Notevery city has a street carnival, however;some prefer well-behaved indoor balls.

The musical accompaniment to the car-nival processions in Rio de Janeiro is per-cussion-based samba, provided by a 300-piece drum section or bateria from each“samba school.” The marcha carnavalesca

or carnival march provides an alternativerhythm in Rio, favored for indoor balls andby the bandas, groups consisting of brassand drums, that pass through Rio’s streetswith crowds following behind them.

The official celebrations in Rio are heldin the purpose-built Sambódromo (Sam-badrome). Each escola’s parade must havea theme or enredo, which might be histori-cal or political, or linked to a particular in-dividual. The carnavalesco, a kind of artdirector within each escola de samba,

chooses the theme, and in June of the pre-vious year the escola’s composers beginwriting sambas on this theme. The bestsongs are chosen by the directors of the“school,” and around September the re-hearsals begin in the headquarters of eachorganization. On a given night, usually atthe end of October, the members choosethe winning samba. For the parade, the“school” is divided into units called alas,


A reveler shows off his Internet costume during

the Rio de Janeiro Carnival in 2000. (Antonio

Scorza/AFP/Getty Images)

or wings. Each ala wears a different cos-tume relating to a specific aspect of thetheme. The bigger escolas have over sixtyalas, each containing eighty or so mem-bers. Two alas are compulsory: one is theala das baianas, older women dressed inthe attire of the Afro-Brazilian street ven-dors of Salvador da Bahia, who wear tur-bans and long lace dresses (this costumeharks back to the Bahian women who firstpracticed Candomblé in Rio, personifiedby Carmen Miranda in Hollywood); andthe comissão de frente (literally, frontcommission), who open the parade bywalking or dancing slowly. The mainsamba dancers are called passistas, themost important of whom are the porta-

bandeira (the flag-bearer, always awoman, who carries the escola’s flag) andthe mestre-sala (master of ceremonies), aman. In between the alas come the or-nately decorated floats—–the carros

alegóricos—–that take around six monthsto build. On top of the floats stand thedestaques, men and women wearing eithervery expensive and elaborate costumes ornext to nothing. Another aspect of thecity’s festivities are the blocos de empol-

gação, great masses of people wearing thesame costume that parade in one solidblock and dance energetically. The bloco

called Cacique de Ramos, for example, al-ways dress up like Indians, and Bafo da

Onça (Jaguar’s Breath) consists of 6,000to 7,000 members. They dance to thesamba de bloco played by the bateria atthe close of the carnival parade in theSambadrome.

Today Salvador da Bahia in Brazil’s north-east vies with Rio to create the most popu-lar carnival in Brazil. Each year an esti-mated 2 million people crowd intoSalvador’s narrow streets to dance, sing,

and party to the music of the blocos afro

(Afro-Brazilian carnival groups), afoxés

(carnival groups that perform music anddance based on Candomblé rituals), andtrios elétricos (musicians playing electrifiedinstruments on top of decorated trucks). Inthe northeastern states of Bahia, Ceará, andPernambuco, frevo, a fast, syncopated ver-sion of the marcha, is the main carnival mu-sic. In Recife, and Fortaleza in Ceará state,the maracatu, an Afro-Brazilian proces-sional dance, is performed during Carnival.Participants sing and dance to a heavy, slow,almost trance-inducing rhythm.

Carnival has its roots in pre-Christianfestivities held by the ancient Greeks, Ro-mans, and others. In spite of their paganorigins these festivities were assimilatedinto the traditions of Roman Catholic coun-tries of Europe. The early carnivals inBrazil were based on a popular festivalknown as entrudo, a tradition that origi-nated in the Azores and became popular inPortugal in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen-turies. Associated with riotous antics andpranks, the entrudo was outlawed in Brazilin 1853 and finally died out at the begin-ning of the 1900s. In the first years of thetwentieth century, three separate carnivalswere held in Rio de Janeiro: that of thepoor, largely Afro-Brazilian population inthe central Praça Onze district of the city;that of the middle classes in the AvenidaCentral (now the Avenida Rio Branco); andthat of the wealthy, white elite, which cen-tered on lavish masked balls. By the 1920sthe annual event had become associatedwith two musical rhythms, the carnivalmarch (marcha or marchinha), of bour-geois origin and inspired by Portuguesemarches that were brought to Brazil withmusic hall (teatro de revista), and thesamba, believed to have grown out of the


percussion-based batuques and lundus

performed by African slaves on rural plan-tations.

The first escola de samba, named Deixa

Falar (Let Them Talk), was founded in1928 in the Rio district of Estácio de Sá bya group of Afro-Brazilian samba com-posers. The term “samba school” is said tohave been an ironic reference to the schoolacross the street from where this marginal-ized group used to meet. A kind of neigh-borhood club, Deixa Falar was dedicatedto making music (samba) and paradingduring Carnival. It was only in 1935, duringthe presidency of Getúlio Vargas (1930–1945), that the escolas de samba were nolonger repressed as manifestations of Afro-Brazilian culture, and their carnival pa-rades were officially recognized. TodayRio’s main escolas de samba are still asso-ciated with particular areas of the city, of-ten one of the hillside shantytowns (fave-

las), and include Mangueira, Portela, andSalgueiro.

—Lisa Shaw

See also: Popular Music: Samba; Popular

Theater and Performance: Popular Theaterand Music Hall (Teatro de Revista);Cultural Icons: Latin Americans inHollywood (Carmen Miranda); Popular

Cinema: Youth Movies, Cinema, and Music;Popular Religion and Festivals:

Candomblé; Popular Festivals (Colombia;Mexico); Visual Arts and Architecture:

Architecture and Landscape Design(Favelas)

Bibliography

Guillermoprieto, Alma. 1991. Samba. NewYork: Vintage Books.

McGowan, Chris, and Ricardo Pessanha. 1998.The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova

and the Popular Music of Brazil.

Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Teissl, Helmut. 2000. Carnival in Rio. New

York: Abbeville Press.


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