CLAD in luminous fabrics and gold ornaments topped by a feathered helmet, a young woman shook and moaned as she danced. Other dancers slumped to the floor as three men played drums and sang.
The group were being “possessed” by their personal deities during a Candomblé ceremony in the northeastern Brazilian city of Salvador.
The Afro-Brazilian religion, based on traditional African beliefs, has its roots in the slave era. It also now has about 1m adherents.
However, its followers say they face a rise in physical and verbal attacks from Brazil’s increasingly influential evangelical movement. It accuses them of witchcraft and satanism because they sacrifice animals and worship deities that they believe take over their bodies.
In April a federal judge ruled that the Afro-Brazilian practices followed by millions are not religions, as they have no basic text, no hierarchical structure and no single God.
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Two months later a Candomblé temple was burnt down and its high priestess was shot at. Other temples have been attacked with stones or vandalised with graffiti.
“We’re constantly told that we are satanists and devils, but anyone who says that doesn’t know what Candomblé is,” said “Baba PC”, the Babalorixa (high priest) at Salvador’s Casa de Oxumare temple.
“The evangelical churches sustain and grow themselves by attacking others. There is a religious war today in Brazil but we do not participate; we respect all other beliefs and want to coexist peacefully.”
An estimated 4m slaves were shipped from Africa to Salvador, known as the Black Rome. Forced by their masters to convert to Christianity, they would practise Candomblé in secret and plan rebellions. Sacred symbols of African deities would be hidden inside statues of Catholic saints, to be worshipped covertly.
Followers were violently persecuted by the state for centuries and won legal recognition only in the 1940s. A law requiring permission from the police to hold ceremonies was repealed in the 1970s. Now its practitioners say their hard-won gains are being threatened.
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Ivanir Dos Santos, vice-president of Brazil’s commission against religious intolerance, said discrimination against Candomblé and other African religions was a reflection of deep-rooted racism in Brazil, which did not abolish slavery until 1888 and was the last nation in the western hemisphere to do so.
“Candomblé was persecuted in the era of slavery by the Catholic Church, then during the dictatorship they criminalised Afro-Brazilian culture,” he said, referring to military rule between 1964 and 1985. “Nowadays this prejudice is manifested through the Pentecostal churches, who have mounted a campaign of persecution against people who don’t share their vision of Christianity.”
Followers of Candomblé worship one supreme creator and believe this is the same God as the one followed by the Christian church. But they also worship deities known as orixas, which represent different elements of nature and link together the human and spiritual worlds.
Each person has their own individual orixa — protecting them and controlling their destiny — to which they give offerings of flowers and the sacrifice of goats and chickens in rituals before the ceremonies. Once the offering has been made and the animal’s “energy” has passed to the orixa, its meat is cooked and eaten.
Marco Feliciano, a leading evangelical pastor, said last year that Africans were descended from “cursed ancestors”. At the time he was the president of Brazil’s human rights commission.
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In a series of videos published on YouTube in May, evangelical pastors said Afro-Brazilian religious believers were linked to the devil. They claimed the cults encourage crime and the use of drugs, and cause Aids.
When prosecutors filed an order to ban the videos on the grounds that they promoted religious discrimination, a federal judge denied it, stating: “Afro-Brazilian manifestations do not constitute religions.”
He later reversed the ruling in the wake of an outcry.
For Dos Santos, the incident was yet another sign of the hypocrisy of Brazilian society. He said: “While Brazil in theory prides itself on its Afro-Brazilian identity, in practice it’s not actually like that in day-to-day life.”
“These religions, which come from black Africans and their traditional customs, are considered a threat by prejudiced people, and are demonised by these [Pentecostal] religions.”