Umbanda
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Umbanda (Template:IPA) is a religion that emerged in Brazil during the 1920s. Deriving largely from Spiritism, it also combines elements from Afro-Brazilian traditions like Candomblé as well as Roman Catholicism. There is no central authority in control of Umbanda, which is organized around autonomous places of worship termed centros or terreiros, the followers of which are called Umbandistas.
Adherents of this monotheistic religion believe in a single God who is distant from humanity. Beneath this entity are powerful non-human spirits called orixás. In the more Spiritist-oriented wing of the religion, White Umbanda, these are viewed as divine energies or forces of nature; in more Africanised forms they are seen as West African deities and are offered animal sacrifices. The emissaries of the orixás are the pretos velhos and caboclos, spirits of enslaved Africans and of indigenous Brazilians respectively, and these are the main entities dealt with by Umbandistas. At Umbandist rituals, spirit mediums sing and dance in the hope of channeling these spirits, through whom the congregations receive guidance, advice, and healing. Umbanda teaches a complex cosmology involving a system of reincarnation according to the law of karma. The religion's ethics emphasise charity and social fraternity. Umbandistas also seek to reverse harm that they attribute to practitioners of a related tradition, Quimbanda.
Roman Catholicism was the dominant religion in early 20th-century Brazil, but sizeable minorities practiced Afro-Brazilian traditions or Spiritism, a French version of Spiritualism developed by Allan Kardec. Around the 1920s, various groups may have been combining Spiritist and Afro-Brazilian practices, forming the basis of Umbanda. The most important group was that established by Zélio Fernandino de Moraes and those around him in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro. He had been involved in Spiritism but disapproved of the negative attitude that many Spiritists held towards contact with pretos velhos and caboclos. Reflecting Umbanda's growth, in 1939 de Moraes formed an Umbandist federation and in 1941 held the first Umbandist congress. Umbanda gained increased social recognition and respectability amid the military dictatorship of 1964 to 1985, despite growing opposition from both the Roman Catholic Church and Pentecostal groups. Since the 1970s, Umbanda has seen some decline due to the resurgent popularity of Candomblé.
In Brazil, hundreds of thousands of people formally identify as Umbandistas, but the number who attend Umbandist ceremonies, sometimes on an occasional basis, is in the millions. In its heyday of the 1960s and 1970s, Umbanda was estimated to have between 10 and 20 million followers in Brazil. Reflecting a universalist attitude, practitioners are typically permitted to also follow other religious traditions. Umbanda is found primarily in urban areas of southern Brazil although has spread throughout the country and to other parts of the Americas.
Definitions
Formed in the state of Rio de Janeiro during the 1920s,Template:Sfnm Umbanda combines elements of Spiritism (Espiritismo) with ideas from Afro-Brazilian religions like Candomblé.Template:Sfnm Additional influences come from Roman Catholicism,Template:Sfnm as well as Asian religions like Hinduism and Buddhism.Template:Sfn The religion's practitioners are called Umbandistas,Template:Sfnm while the term Umbanda itself may derive from the Portuguese language terms uma banda, meaning "one group".Template:Sfn
Umbanda is not a unified religion,Template:Sfnm having no central institutional authority,Template:Sfnm and being transmitted in a largely oral manner.Template:Sfn It displays considerable variation and eclecticism,Template:Sfnm being highly adaptable,Template:Sfn and taking various different forms.Template:Sfnm Much of this variation is regional.Template:Sfn Several scholars deem it appropriate to talk about "Umbandas", in the plural, as much as a singular Umbanda.Template:Sfnm Reflecting a general universalist stance that encourages tolerance towards other traditions, Umbandistas are commonly permitted to also pursue other religions,Template:Sfnm with some also practising Roman Catholicism,Template:Sfnm Judaism,Template:Sfn or Santo Daime.Template:Sfn
Reflecting its Spiritist origins, Umbanda has been labelled a Western esoteric tradition.Template:Sfn It has also been called an Afro-Brazilian religion,Template:Sfnm although the scholar of religion Steven Engler cautioned that Africanised ritual elements are not present in all Umbandist groups and that the Spiritist influence is more significant across Umbanda as a whole.Template:Sfn There are also Umbandist groups that have adopted Kabbalah,Template:Sfn or New Age practices.Template:Sfnm
Relation to Afro-Brazilian religions
Umbandist groups exist on a spectrum, from those emphasising Spiritist connections to those stressing links with Candomblé and related Afro-Brazilian religions.Template:Sfnm Groups taking the former position often refer to themselves as practicing Umbanda branca ("White Umbanda"),Template:Sfnm Umbanda pura ("Pure Umbanda"),Template:Sfnm or Umbanda limpa ("Clean Umbanda").Template:Sfn The anthropologist Lindsay Hale referred to the more Africanist wing as "Afro-Brazilian Umbanda",Template:Sfn while fellow anthropologist Diana Brown called it "Africanized Umbanda".Template:Sfn Most Umbandist groups exist at points between these two poles.Template:Sfn
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In practice, Afro-Brazilian religions often mix, rather than existing in pure forms,Template:Sfn and thus scholars see them as existing on a continuum rather than being firmly distinct from each other.Template:Sfn Brown noted that the boundary separating Umbanda from Candomblé was largely "a matter of individual opinion".Template:Sfn She added that there was "no general consensus" as to what exactly Umbanda is and what it is not.Template:Sfn In Rio de Janeiro, a tradition called Omolocô was established as an intermediate religion between Candomblé and Umbanda.Template:Sfn Groups combining elements of Umbanda and Candomblé are sometimes termed "Umbandomblé", although this is rarely embraced by practitioners themselves.Template:Sfnm In the Porto Alegre area, it is common for groups to mix Umbanda with the Afro-Brazilian religion Batuque.Template:Sfn
Outsiders sometimes refer to Umbanda as Macumba, a pejorative term for Afro-Brazilian religions.Template:Sfnm While some Umbandistas have referred to themselves as macumbeiros, often in jest due to the term's negative connotations,Template:Sfn Umbandist literature usually uses Macumba in a more restrictive sense to designate baixa espiritismo (low spiritism), traditions that work with lesser spirits for morally questionable purposes.Template:Sfn Umbandistas often describe these practices as Quimbanda and emphasise their opposition to them, maintaining that Umbandistas work for good while Quimbandistas work for evil.Template:Sfn The boundaries between Umbanda and Quimbanda are nevertheless not always clear, with various spirit mediums engaging or promoting practices associated with both.Template:Sfn The anthropologist David J. Hess called the two religions "siblings".Template:Sfn
Beliefs
Various Umbandistas have claimed that theirs is not a new religion but an ancient tradition brought to Brazil from elsewhere. Some practitioners have claimed that it derives from ancient Egypt, India, or China, or from the Aztecs or Incas. Others have maintained that Umbanda's origins are either extraterrestrial or from Atlantis.Template:Sfnm These sorts of origin stories reflect the influence of Theosophy.Template:Sfn Brown suggested that these explanations were adopted by Umbandistas eager to dismiss the possibility of their religion having Sub-Saharan African origin.Template:Sfn In contrast, various practitioners of Africanised forms of Umbanda have maintained that the religion originally came from Africa.Template:Sfn
Theology and cosmology
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Umbanda is monotheistic.Template:Sfn It believes in a single God who is the creator and controller of the universe,Template:Sfn an entity that presides over the astral world but who is distant from humanity.Template:Sfn He is sometimes called Olorun,Template:Sfnm a name of Yoruba origin.Template:Sfn Beneath God is a pantheon of spirits that reflect syncretic origins,Template:Sfn assembled into what Brown called "a complex, impersonal bureaucracy",Template:Sfn and it is these entities thought to intervene in humanity's daily lives.Template:Sfn
Although it has no authoritative source ensuring a standardised cosmological belief among practitioners,Template:Sfn Umbanda has an elaborate cosmology.Template:Sfn An important distinction is made between the material and the spiritual, with the latter considered far superior.Template:Sfn Umbandist theology is largely Spiritist in basis, adopting the Spiritist emphasis on reincarnation and spiritual evolution,Template:Sfn as well as the hierarchical ranking of spirits according to their "degree of evolution".Template:Sfn
Many Umbandistas believe in a three-part cosmos, divided between the astral spaces, the earth, and the underworld.Template:Sfn The more highly evolved spirits dwell in the astral realm, spirits incarnated in physical form reside temporarily on earth, while malevolent and ignorant spirits inhabit the underworld.Template:Sfn The barrier between these worlds is not impenetrable; spirits from both the astral and underworld realms can visit the earth.Template:Sfn Umbandistas often refer to the plano astral (astral plane) as the além (beyond).Template:Sfn Sometimes, the realm of the evolved spirits is also called Aruanda, a term that likely derives from Luanda, a port in modern Angola, but which in Umbanda has looser connotations of an area within the astral plane.Template:Sfnm
The astral world is deemed to be divided into a hierarchy of seven vertical levels, the Sête Linhas de Umbanda (Seven Lines of Umbanda), although the specific identity of each line varies among Umbandistas.Template:Sfn This seven-fold division may derive from Theosophy.Template:Sfn Each of the Seven Lines is governed by an orixá, a highly evolved spirit who will also have an identity as a Roman Catholic saint.Template:Sfnm The underworld is also divided into Seven Lines, each of which is led by an exú spirit.Template:Sfn Each Line is also internally divided into seven sub-lines; each of these is then divided into seven legions; these divide into seven sub-legions; these into seven falanges (phalanges); and these into seven sub-falanges.Template:Sfn Umbandistas often liken this cosmological structure to the organization of an army, and it may reflect the prominent role that various military figures have played in Umbanda's history.Template:Sfn The spirits inhabiting these groups are usually arranged on the basis of regional or racial origin.Template:Sfn
Orixás
At the top of Umbanda's hierarchy of spirits are the orixás,Template:Sfn entities often regarded as deities.Template:Sfn The term orixá derives from the Yoruba language of West Africa,Template:Sfn as do the names of the various orixás themselves, which in Brazil are also employed in the Nagô or Ketu tradition of Candomblé.Template:Sfn Although the names of the orixás are drawn from Candomblé, Umbandistas do not typically interpret these beings in the same way that Candomblé's practitioners do.Template:Sfn There is nevertheless variation according to group; African-oriented Umbandistas place particular emphasis on the orixás, while they remain far less important in the rituals of White Umbandist groups.Template:Sfnm
For Umbandistas, the orixás are God's intermediaries,Template:Sfn and represent elemental forces of nature as well as humanity's primary economic activities.Template:Sfn White Umbandist groups often perceive the orixás primarily as frequencies of spiritual energy, vibrations, or forces.Template:Sfn They are regarded as beings so highly evolved that they have never incarnated in physical form.Template:Sfn Like God, they are distant from humanity, permanently residing on the astral plane.Template:Sfn Many Umbandistas rarely expect orixás to manifest during rituals, for the orixás are preoccupied with important spiritual matters.Template:Sfn They are also thought too powerful for many humans to handle, meaning that their manifestation could be dangerous for the ritual's participants.Template:Sfn Instead, the orixás send their emissaries, the caboclos and pretos velhos, to appear in their place.Template:Sfnm
Nine orixás are commonly found in Umbanda, fewer than the 16 more usually present in Candomblé.Template:Sfn The son of Olorun, Oxalá is associated with the sky and regarded as the creator of humanity.Template:Sfn Iemanjá is a maternal figure associated with the sea.Template:Sfn Nanã is also a maternal figure associated with water, but in her case the waters of the lake and swamp.Template:Sfn Omolu is the orixá of sickness and healing.Template:Sfn Xangô is linked to thunder and lightning, as well as to stone working and quarrying.Template:Sfn Ogúm is the orixá of war, metalworking, agriculture, and transportation.Template:Sfnm Oxúm is associated with fertility and with flowing water, especially streams and waterfalls.Template:Sfn Iansã is a female warrior who manifests in storms.Template:Sfn Oxóssi is a hunter who lives in the forest.Template:Sfnm Exú is a trickster and the guardian of the crossroads, being the intermediary between the orixás and humanity.Template:Sfn He will often be paid homage first during a ritual, to stop him being disruptive later in the rite.Template:Sfn
Each of the orixás is deemed to have their own desires and emotions.Template:Sfn The orixás are also associated with particular colors; Oxúm with blue,Template:Sfn for instance, and Oxóssi with green.Template:Sfn Each is also linked to particular days of the week; Iansã with Wednesday,Template:Sfn and Nanã with Tuesday, for example.Template:Sfn They are also associated with a particular celestial body, such as Xangô with the planet Jupiter and Iemanjá with the moon.Template:Sfn
Each orixá is typically associated with a Roman Catholic saint.Template:Sfn It is in this form that they are often represented on Umbandist altars,Template:Sfnm and these links are also reinforced in praise songs.Template:Sfn Xangô, for instance, is often identified with Saint Geronimo,Template:Sfn Nanã with Saint Anne,Template:Sfn and Omolu with Saint Roch and Saint Lazarus.Template:Sfn Many Umbandistas identify Exú with the Devil of Christian theology,Template:Sfn and Oxalá with Jesus Christ.Template:Sfnm There is often regional variation in these associations; in Rio de Janeiro, Iemanjá is typically linked to Our Lady of Glory, while in Salvador she is associated with Our Lady of the Conception.Template:Sfn There are nevertheless differences of opinion among Umbandistas as to the nature of the relationship between orixás and saints.Template:Sfn Many Umbandistas regard the orixás and saints as manifestations of the same spiritual force rather than being exactly the same figure;Template:Sfn some practitioners believe that these saints were once humans who were physical manifestations of the orixás.Template:Sfn
Relationships with the orixás
Umbanda often teaches that each person has a coroa (crown) of protective spirit entities.Template:Sfn The most important of these is the orixá da frente ("the front orixá"), an orixá deemed to be that individual's spiritual parent.Template:Sfn These entities are a person's protectors and patrons.Template:Sfn They are also deemed to influence that individual's personality traits.Template:Sfn Umbandistas believe that these entities are deserving of respect and that treating them well will improve a person's life.Template:Sfn In Umbanda, it is usual for a medium to personally determine the identity of a person's spirit patrons.Template:Sfn This is different from Candomblé, where the identity is more often ascertained through forms of divination;Template:Sfn divination in general plays much less of a role in Umbanda than in Candomblé.Template:Sfn Knowing the identity of these orixás is deemed to offer a person insights about themselves.Template:Sfn
Lesser evolved spirits
Although very different in tone from one another,Template:Sfn the pretos velhos and the caboclos are together the most important spirit types in Umbanda.Template:Sfnm Umbanda departs from Spiritism over the value placed on these entities, with Umbandistas believing that Spiritists often negatively misjudge the pretos velhos and the caboclos because of their appearance.Template:Sfn For Umbandistas, the caboclos and pretos velhos are "beings of light",Template:Sfn entities who inhabit the lower echelons of the Seven Lines of the astral plane.Template:Sfn In emphasising the spirits of these socially marginalised groups, Umbanda is sometimes characterised as having an egalitarian nature.Template:Sfn
Although they are only the emissaries of the orixás, the pretos velhos and caboclos take centre stage in Umbandist rituals.Template:Sfn They are particularly prominent during rituals in which practitioners seek assistance with their problems,Template:Sfn with Umbandistas approaching these entities in the hope of receiving advice and protection.Template:Sfn In practice, Umbanda strongly emphasises practitioner's personal relationships with these spirit beings, with ritual homage given to them in exchange for cures and advice.Template:Sfn This relationship bears similarities with that between devotees and the saints in popular Catholicism.Template:Sfn
Pretos Velhos
The pretos velhos ("old blacks") are usually, although not always, regarded as the spirits of deceased African slaves.Template:Sfnm They are usually conceived as being elderly, and thus referred to with respectful terms like vovô ("grandfather") and vovó ("grandmother").Template:Sfnm The pretos velhos are deemed to be kind, patient, and wise.Template:Sfn Despite the suffering they endured in life, they are thought to preach forgiveness and love.Template:Sfn They are regarded as healers and counsellors, spirits to whom Umbandistas can bring their problems.Template:Sfn When a medium deems themselves possessed by one of the pretos velhos, they will often smoke a pipe.Template:Sfn
The names of these pretos velhos often reflect Catholic forenames followed by an African national affiliation, as with Maria Congo or Maria d'Aruanda.Template:Sfn They will sometimes be addressed collectively as the povo de Bahia (people from Bahia) or as members of a particular nation, such as the povo da Congo (people from Congo).Template:Sfn These spirits are commemorated on the feast of the old slaves, held on May 13, marking the day in 1888 when slavery was abolished in Brazil.Template:Sfn Wayside shrines dedicated to the pretos velhos can be found in various places in Brazil,Template:Sfn although in parts of Amazonia, Umbandist groups have often ignored the pretos velhos or subsumed them as a type of caboclo.Template:Sfn
Brown suggested that the portrayal of the pretos velhos reflected the stereotype of the "faithful slave" common in the writings of Brazilians like Castro Alves and Artur Azevedo. This literary trope had in turn been influenced by the popularity of Portuguese translations of the 1852 American novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.Template:Sfn
Caboclos
Caboclos are usually the spirits of indigenous Brazilians, especially those of the Amazon rainforest.Template:Sfnm In Umbanda, they are regarded as hunters and warriors who are highly intelligent and brave, but also vain and arrogant.Template:Sfn Their power comes from the forces of nature, including the sun and moon, waterfalls, and the forest.Template:Sfn Their individual names often reflect these links to nature, for instance Caboclo Mata Virgem (Caboclo Virgin Forest) or Caboclo Coral (Caboclo Coral Snake).Template:Sfn They are often described as living in the forest, or alternatively in a paradisiacal city in the forest called Jurema.Template:Sfn
These spirits often have snakes as their companions,Template:Sfn something alluded to in the songs sung about them,Template:Sfn and which may derive from certain Afro-Brazilian traditions from northeast Brazil.Template:Sfn The caboclos are deemed to have been people who roamed free, and thus can be contrasted with the pretos velhos, who in life were held in bondage.Template:Sfn When mediums believe themselves possessed by caboclos, they often adopt stern expressions and make loud, piercing cries,Template:Sfn also smoking and drinking alcohol.Template:Sfn When these caboclo-possessed individuals perform healing on clients, they often blow cigar smoke over the latter as a means of cleansing and curing them.Template:Sfnm
The caboclos do not derive from any prolonged contact that Umbanda's founders had with indigenous peoples, but instead reflect the popular Indianismo of Brazilian culture.Template:Sfn Their portrayal often draws on the stereotype of Brazil's indigenous peoples being "noble savages",Template:Sfnm and reflect the heroic depiction of indigenous Brazilians that developed in the country's Romantic literature from the mid-19th century.Template:Sfn The term caboclo may derive from the Tupi language term kari'boka ("deriving from the white").Template:Sfn Although associated primarily with indigenous spirits, the term caboclo is also sometimes used for the spirits of cowboys or frontiersmen,Template:Sfnm or—in parts of northeast Brazil—Turkish kings.Template:Sfn
Other evolved spirits
Below the caboclos and pretos velhos in the Seven Lines of the astral realm are a large number of unidentified guias (spirit guides) and espíritos protetores (spirit protectors).Template:Sfn Other types of spirit found in Umbanda include the boiadeiros (cowboys), crianças (children), marinheiros (sailors), malandros (rogues), ciganos (gypsies) and sereias (mermaids).Template:Sfnm
The crianças are spirits of children and are valued largely for the joy and humor that they bring.Template:Sfn Thought to be pure and innocent,Template:Sfn they are deemed to enjoy sweets and toys just like living children.Template:Sfnm In Umbandist rites they are thought to often appear towards the end of proceedings, after tiring adult issues have been dealt with. Those mediums possessed by the crianças often giggle, sing nursery rhymes, and perform in a child-like fashion. Umbandistas often hold an annual birthday party for these spirits on the Roman Catholic feast day of the child martyr saints Cosmas and Damian.Template:Sfnm It is possible that the crianças derive in part from beliefs about the Ibeji twins, spirits venerated in parts of West Africa.Template:Sfn
Exús and pombagiras
In Umbanda, the exús are spirits yet to complete the process of karmic evolution.Template:Sfn They are unevolved spirits of darkness which, by working for good, can gradually become spirits of light.Template:Sfn Interpretations of these exús nevertheless differ among Umbandistas, with more African-oriented practitioners often taking a more positive attitude towards them.Template:Sfn Exús are associated with Friday,Template:Sfnm and with the colors red and black.Template:Sfn They are also linked to the obtaining of power, money, and sex.Template:Sfn The term exú derives from the name of a Yoruba orisha spirit regarded as a trickster.Template:Sfnm
Exús fall into two main categories. The exús da luz (exús of the light) or exús batizados (baptised exús) have repented for their sins and seek redemption and karmic advancement by serving the orixás. In life, the exús da luz were often sinners who performed immoral acts through noble intentions.Template:Sfn The other type of exús are the exús das trevas (exús of the shadows), spirits who are unrepentant and who afflict and torment the living. They may act as "obsessors", finding a human victim and "leaning" (encostado) on them, causing the latter problems such as bad luck, compulsive behaviours, or addiction. The exús das trevas may do this due to their resentment of the living, or because they have been commanded to do so by a feiticeiro (sorcerer) practicing Quimbanda.Template:Sfn These negative exús are sometimes also called Exú pagão (pagan exú), reflecting the influence of Christian thought.Template:Sfn In Umbanda, the exús are often referred to with Christian-derived names like the Devil, Satan, or Lucifer, and are portrayed as being red with horns and tridents, reflecting Christian iconographical influence.Template:Sfn
The female counterparts of the exús,Template:Sfnm pombagiras are regarded as being the spirits of immoral women, such as prostitutes.Template:Sfn Linked to marginal and dangerous places,Template:Sfn they are associated with sexuality, blood, death, and cemeteries.Template:Sfn They are often presented as being ribald and flirty, speaking in sexual euphemisms and double entendres.Template:Sfn They wear red and black clothing,Template:Sfnm and only possess women and gay men,Template:Sfn who will then often smoke or drink alcohol,Template:Sfn using obscene language and behaving lasciviously.Template:Sfn The term pombagira may derive from the Bantu word bombogira,Template:Sfnm the name of a male orixá in Candomblé's Bantu tradition.Template:Sfn In Brazilian Portuguese, the term pomba is a euphemism for the vulva.Template:Sfn When rituals focus on the exús and pombagiras, some Umbandistas will say that it constitutes Quimbanda.Template:Sfn
Mediumship
Central to Umbanda are the spirit mediums,Template:Sfn individuals responsible for contacting the good spirits.Template:Sfn According to Brown, these mediums represent "a sort of intermediate category of semi-specialists" within the religion.Template:Sfn Umbandistas believe that the skill of mediumship, or mediunidade, is innate to certain individuals,Template:Sfn those capable of vidéncia (seeing) spirit or sensing the spirits' presence through intuition.Template:Sfn Umbandist mediums are typically called filhas and filhos de santo (daughters and sons of the saint).Template:Sfn Several scholars who have studied the religion have noted that women predominate as spirit mediums.Template:Sfnm From her research in the late 1960s and 1970s, Brown found that around two-thirds of Umbandist mediums were female and a third were male.Template:Sfn She noted that while a few were under the age of 18, this was generally discouraged.Template:Sfn
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Most Umbandist mediums take on this role as a result of an initial personal crisis, often physical illness or emotional distress, that they come to believe is being caused by spirits as a means of alerting them.Template:Sfnm Often, they report that they initially resisted the call to become a medium but that the problems faced became too much and so they relented.Template:Sfn Developing one's innate mediumistic abilities then takes training;Template:Sfn in Umbanda, it may take seven years or more to train,Template:Sfn a process known as desensolver mediunidade ("to develop mediumistic abilities").Template:Sfn While a novice, the medium may be called a cambona or cambono.Template:Sfnm They will often be tasked with assisting established mediums during Umbandista rituals, for instance as ushers or scribes, writing down the messages from the spirits.Template:Sfn Novice mediums may find their early possession experiences uncontrollable, but over time they learn to control it.Template:Sfn To mark completion of this training, the medium may be given a necklace, the guia ("guide");Template:Sfn henceforth, they are a medium com guia ("medium with a guide").Template:Sfn
Each of a medium's spirits will often have their own unique character.Template:Sfn Expert mediums are thought to work with spirits from each of the Seven Lines.Template:Sfn A medium's relationship with their exú or pombagira is considered close, and is mediated through the giving of gifts.Template:Sfn Reciprocity is expected when engaging with the spirits, with those seeking their services often providing them with gifts.Template:Sfn A person's misfortunes may be interpreted as a reminder that obligations to the spirits have not been met.Template:Sfn Many Umbandistas believe that a good medium should maintain a healthy and pure body, for this reason avoiding smoking, over-eating, or drinking alcohol, especially on the night of an Umbandista session.Template:Sfn Some Umbandista mediums operate out of their home, rather than running a centre.Template:Sfn
Reincarnation
Umbanda teaches that everyone has a spirit that survives bodily death.Template:Sfn Umbandistas sometimes refer to living people as espíritos enćarnados (incarnate spirits).Template:Sfn Like Spiritists, Umbandistas typically believe that each person has a perispirit, a transparent membrane around the body that mediates between the body and soul.Template:Sfn They believe that disturbances in either body and soul can impact the perispirit.Template:Sfn
From Spiritism, Umbanda takes the ideas of reincarnation and karmic evolution;Template:Sfn the terms reincarnacâo and karma were largely introduced to Brazilian Portuguese via the ideas of Spiritism's French founder, Allan Kardec.Template:Sfn Umbandistas believe that the spirit survives bodily death and goes on successive reincarnations, seeking ever higher levels of spiritual evolution.Template:Sfn Everyone is subject to karma,Template:Sfn and a person can spiritually evolve through their incarnations.Template:Sfn
Reincarnation is a central idea for many Umbandistas.Template:Sfnm Practitioners believe that by serving the spirits and assisting the living they can build up their karmic credit. The higher a person's karmic credit, the higher their level on the astral plane, and then the better the status of their next incarnation. Umbandistas believe that disincarnate spirits can also build up karmic credit.Template:Sfn Practitioners sometimes believe that the events of previous incarnations can influence a person, for instance generating certain irrational fears. Some Umbandistas think that the same spirits can meet repeatedly over successive incarnations.Template:Sfn
Morality, ethics, and gender roles
Umbandist morality places key emphasis on caridade (charity),Template:Sfnm something also evident in Spiritism,Template:Sfnm and which for both religions may derive ultimately from Roman Catholicism.Template:Sfn As in Spiritism, for Umbandistas charity is regarded as a key motor for spiritual evolution.Template:Sfn Practitioners for instance may give gifts and food to poor children to mark the festival of the Template:Lang.Template:Sfn Umbandistas also place value on humility.Template:Sfn Umbandistas often believe that things happen for a reason, rather than being mere coincidence, and are part of a person's path in life.Template:Sfn Brown suggested that Umbanda was "an essentially conservative religion", for it does not challenge the socio-economic status quo, and encourages "individual rather than collective responsibility and action".Template:Sfn
Brown argued that Umbanda inherited the Roman Catholic view that the world was a battleground between good and evil.Template:Sfn Umbandistas often embody all the things that they oppose in the term Quimbanda.Template:Sfn In the Umbandist view, Quimbanda is associated with evil, immorality, and pollution,Template:Sfn and particularly with the use of exús.Template:Sfn Given that Umbanda places focus on combating the harmful influences of exús, a common saying among Umbandistas is that "if it weren't for Quimbanda, Umbanda would have no reason to exist".Template:Sfn Brown noted that Quimbanda represented "a crucial negative mirror image against which to define Umbanda",Template:Sfn suggesting that it could also serve as an "ideological vehicle for expressing prejudices" towards African-derived and lower class religions.Template:Sfn In Brazil, there are also individuals who call themselves Quimbandeiros and openly practice Quimbanda.Template:Sfn
Noting the predominance of women as spirit mediums, the scholar Patricia Lerch suggested that Umbanda offered Brazilian women a level of prestige and influence otherwise not offered by the low-paying jobs available to them.Template:Sfn Engler noted that Umbanda, like Candomblé, offers "scope for the performance of alternative sexualities in a society governed by very conservative heterosexual gender roles."Template:Sfn Afro-Brazilian religions are often stereotyped as attracting gay men, and to avoid this stereotype some male Umbandistas refuse to be possessed by female spirits.Template:Sfn Based on research in the late 1960s and 1970s, Brown noted that a few centros had "an openly gay orientation" with a largely gay clientele,Template:Sfn and in the 21st century some Umbandist priests have conducted same-sex marriages.<ref name="domtotal.com">Template:Cite web</ref> The orixá Oxumaré, as an entity that spends six months being male and six months being female, is sometimes cited as a patron of gay and bisexual people.Template:Sfn
Practices
Umbandist practices often revolve around clients who approach practitioners seeking assistance, for instance in diagnosing a problem, healing, or receiving a blessing.Template:Sfn In Umbanda, spiritual knowledge and ethical behaviour are generally seen as being more important than ritual action.Template:Sfn
Houses of worship
Umbandist places of worship are termed centros,Template:Sfnm or alternatively tendas (tents).Template:Sfn Those adopting a more African-orientation are sometimes called terreiros; this term comes from Candomblé,Template:Sfnm and so is avoided by some practitioners of White Umbanda.Template:Sfn Each centro will typically have its own Padroeiro, or patron spirit.Template:Sfn They are often totally autonomous, although some are members of larger Umbandist federations.Template:Sfn
A centro may occupy a purpose-built structure although may be based out of someone's home.Template:Sfn Sometimes several centros will share the same structure, arranging their services at different times from each other.Template:Sfn An insignia, the ponto riscado (sacred sign) may be on the exterior of the building to identify its function.Template:Sfn Certain rituals may also be held outdoors, for instance beside a stream or the sea if that location is deemed particularly appropriate to the rite.Template:Sfn
The main ritual space is called the barracão.Template:Sfn Often this will face east, a direction deemed most conducive to astral forces.Template:Sfn Sacred objects will often be buried beneath the floor, and these are termed axés.Template:Sfn This main room will typically have paintings of the spirits on the walls, a space for practitioners to dance, and an altar.Template:Sfn The altar will often have figurines of the caboclos, preto velhos, and orixás, the latter often in their form as Roman Catholic saints.Template:Sfn Flowers and glasses of water are also often present to attract good forces, the latter a direct influence from Spiritism.Template:Sfn Seating in rows to face the main ritual area is also common.Template:Sfn Afro-Brazilian oriented terreiros may also have multiple outdoor shrines to different orixás.Template:Sfn
Centros have both formal and informal hierarchies.Template:Sfnm Each is typically led by an individual called the chefe ("chief"), a term borrowed from Spiritism,Template:Sfnm or alternatively the mãe-de-santo ("mother-of-saint") or pai-de-santo ("father-of-saint"), terms from Candomblé.Template:Sfnm In some groups, leaders may be called a babalaô, a term that may be borrowed from the Yoruba word babalawo, a diviner in the Ifá system.Template:Sfn A chefe is usually a medium who receives the highest ranking spirits, and they will often lead group prayers and deliver sermons during services.Template:Sfn Their leadership is often rooted in their individual charisma,Template:Sfnm and most have full-time jobs other than their role at the centro.Template:Sfn Brown noted that, although women predominate as Umbandist mediums, most chefes were men.Template:Sfn The second-in-command is the mãe pequena ("little mother").Template:Sfn A centro may close on the death of this leader; alternatively, their leadership role will often be passed to a family member or, more rarely, to a non-related senior initiate.Template:Sfn
The chefe may refer to those under them as meus filhos do centros (my children of the centre), reflecting that they constitute a ritual godparent to them.Template:Sfn Under the chefe will be the corpo mediúnico (ritual corps), the group of mediums active at that centro. These in turn divide into the médiums de consulta (consulting mediums) and the médiums em desenvolvimento (mediums in training).Template:Sfn The latter are often expected to attend training sessions, the sessões de desenvolvimento, and to learn their ritual obligations to different spirits as well as the necessary ritual songs and the Umbandist cosmology.Template:Sfn Advancement within the centro often relies on a person's development as a medium.Template:Sfn In smaller centros, there may be between 10 and 60 members of the corpo mediúnico, while at larger centros there can be several hundred.Template:Sfn These larger centros may therefore have further subdivisions within the corpo mediúnico as well as multiple sub-chefes.Template:Sfn Mediums are often expected to abstain from alcohol or sex prior to a ceremony.Template:Sfn The congregation of lay Umbandists who attend services at the centro are called the assistência.Template:Sfn
Some centros will also have a place for the mediums to change clothing,Template:Sfn a kitchen,Template:Sfn and an office.Template:Sfn There is much work involved in running a Umbanda centro, for instance overseeing maintenance and paying bills.Template:Sfn To gain legal registration with the Brazilian state, centros require an administrative system, often consisting of a board of directors, president, vice president, secretaries, and treasurers, although the size of this administration varies by centro.Template:Sfn The centro is financed largely by its members, who consist of both its ritual corps and its regular lay attendees; they are expected to pay an initial registration and a monthly membership fee.Template:Sfn Centros will sometimes also operate in a manner akin to mutual aid societies, offering their members social welfare services such as access to doctors and dentists or burial funds.Template:Sfnm The social activities common among Brazil's Christian churches, such as picnics, dances, and coffee mornings, are largely absent from Umbandist centros.Template:Sfn
Rituals and ceremonies
Umbandistas typically hold public ceremonies called sessões (sessions) several times a week.Template:Sfn These take place in the centro; if an Umbandist group lacks one, it will instead be in rented premises or a private home.Template:Sfn The purpose of these rituals is to invoke spirits to come to earth, where they may take possession of the mediums and thus offer spiritual consultations to the congregation.Template:Sfn Brown described these Umbandist rituals as being livelier than Catholic or Spiritist ceremonies, but less so than those of Afro-Brazilian traditions or Quimbanda.Template:Sfn
Mediums and others engaged in Umbandist rituals typically wear white clothing;Template:Sfnm for men this often means white tee-shirts and trousers, for women layered white skirts, singlets, or blouses.Template:Sfn This uniformity conveys an impression of equality among practitioners,Template:Sfn and also distinguishes them from Candomblé practitioners, who may wear more complex and colorful attire.Template:Sfn Umbandistas also usually remove their shoes on entering the ritual space,Template:Sfn before genuflecting to the altar.Template:Sfn To start a ceremony, a ritual purification using incense, the defumacão, is used to banish harmful spirits,Template:Sfn with the exús often being placated and asked to remain absent.Template:Sfn Offerings of food may be given to the spirits, typically consisting of fruit, rice, and coconut milk.Template:Sfn
A session may be begun with the recitation of a Roman Catholic prayer or the reading of passages from Kardec's writing.Template:Sfn Singing often opens a session,Template:Sfn with a song sung at such ceremonies being called a ponto,Template:Sfnm curimba,Template:Sfn or ponto cantado.Template:Sfn Usually sung in Portuguese,Template:Sfnm they typically involve "strophic song forms, couplets and quatrains with abeb rhyming schemes".Template:Sfn The pontos celebrate the powers and exploits of the spirits,Template:Sfn thereby inviting them to attend the ritual, where they can then engage in spirit possession.Template:Sfnm In a ritual, pontos will often be sung in honor of the leader of each of the Seven Lines.Template:Sfn In White Umbandist groups, the singing will be accompanied by hand clapping, while more African-influenced groups often also employ drumming.Template:Sfnm
Umbandist practice can often incorporate Roman Catholic elements. In São Paulo, for instance, it is common for Umbandist groups to recite the Lord's Prayer or Hail Mary during their rituals.Template:Sfn Many Umbandist groups have also embraced New Age practices such as aromatherapy, crystal healing, numerology, tarot cartomancy, reiki, and chakra realignment.Template:Sfnm The ethnomusicologist Marc Meistrich Gidal suggested that Umbanda embraced change and innovation in liturgy and ritual much more readily than Afro-Brazilian religions like Candomblé and Batuque.Template:Sfn
Possession and consultations
The gira is a dance to celebrate the orixás;Template:Sfn the members of the ritual corps will often dance in a procession.Template:Sfn During the gira, some participants will become possessed, ceasing to dance and instead swaying and jerking rapidly.Template:Sfn In Umbanda, the term incorporação (incorporation) is usually used to describe this possession.Template:Sfn While possessed, the medium is considered a cavalos (horse),Template:Sfnm or sometimes an aparelhos (vehicle), for the possessing spirit.Template:Sfn Their first act will sometimes be to bow before the altar to display respect for the orixás.Template:Sfn The possessed medium's facial expressions and demeanour may change to reflect the entity within them, while attendants may dress them in a manner suited to this spirit, for instance with the giving of feathered headdresses to those possessed by caboclos.Template:Sfn A possessing spirit may then "open the way" for others to follow it.Template:Sfn
Once all of the spirits are believed to have arrived, the singing and dancing will stop and the consultas (consultations) will begin.Template:Sfn These consultas typically take up over half the ceremony's length.Template:Sfn Those clients awaiting a consultation with the mediums will often have a numbered ficha (token), and will sit waiting until their number is called, at which they can approach a medium.Template:Sfnm The individual guiding the client to the medium in question may be called a porteiro ("usher") and in some cases is a medium-in-training.Template:Sfn The possessed mediums will provide each client with a message, often in a coded ritual language;Template:Sfn this message will then be written down by an assistant, the escrevedor (scribe),Template:Sfn who may also interpret it for the client.Template:Sfn Consultas form the principal link between Umbandist mediums and lay followers, and it is as a client at a session that most people first engage with Umbanda.Template:Sfn Successful consultas attract converts and are a centro's main means of recruitment.Template:Sfn Mediums who gain reputations to successful consultations gain prestige; in doing so, they may end up challenging the head of the centro.Template:Sfn Such mediums might also split off to form their own centro.Template:Sfn
If exús possess a medium during the session, they will generally be exorcised.Template:Sfn If a client is diagnosed as being harassed by exús, efforts will be made to tirar (pull out) this entity from the person's body. Sometimes, multiple mediums will do so, placing their hands on the patient and absorbing the exú into themselves; it is believed that they have the ability to defend themselves from its influence.Template:Sfn In some instances, clients have also reported being possessed during the ceremony.Template:Sfn Once the consultas are over, services often end with prayers and pontos.Template:Sfn The practitioners will then change out of their ceremonial clothing and leave.Template:Sfn Mediums who were possessed often report no memory of the events that transpired during the possession.Template:Sfn
In White Umbanda, consultations generally always take place as part of the public ceremony, thus emphasizing the idea that they are being offered to clients as a form of charity, rather than as a means of earning money.Template:Sfn Umbandist mediums generally do not charge for working with the spirits, but clients will typically support them with material gifts.Template:Sfn In more Africanised forms of Umbanda, as in Candomblé, private consultations will also be held outside of public ceremonies.Template:Sfn
Obrigações
A particular orixá will be paid ritual homage on the saint's day that correlates with them.Template:Sfn These acts of ritual homage are called obrigações (obligations) and will usually take place at a place in the natural environment associated with the orixá in question, for instance a pile of rocks for Xangô, at fresh water for Oxúm, or at salt water for Iemanjá.Template:Sfn Ritual homage will also sometimes be made to exús, in which case it is usually done at the crossroads. Offerings to the exús typically include candles, cachaça, cigarettes, and sacrificed black chickens.Template:Sfn Many Umbandists believe that performing a homage to these entities goes beyond the bounds of Umbanda and becomes Quimbanda.Template:Sfn
There are also specific festivals in the Umbandist calendar devoted to particular orixá. December 31 is for instance the Dia de Iemanjá, and sees thousands of Umbandistas and other participants amass on Rio's beaches.Template:Sfn Umbandistas often also associate Brazil's Abolition Day, celebrated on May 13, as a reference to their pretos velhos.Template:Sfn Certain Umbandist groups, particularly those of a more Africanist-orientation, have also organised public processions on the Catholic saint days that correspond to particular orixás. These processions are similar to those also held by Catholics.Template:Sfn
In Afro-Brazilian Umbanda
In Africanized Umbandista terreiros, ceremonies tend to take place on Saturday nights, beginning around 10pm and continuing until dawn.Template:Sfn In contrast to the white clothing of White Umbandista groups, practitioners at these ceremonies will often be colorfully dressed.Template:Sfnm More African-oriented Umbandista groups will often feature practices like animal sacrifice, dancing, and drumming which are found in Afro-Brazilian religions like Candomblé.Template:Sfn These are typically avoided by White Umbanda traditions,Template:Sfn the practitioners of which sometimes regard such practices as primitive.Template:Sfn
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The drumming is performed to summon the spirits to appear at the ceremony;Template:Sfn different rhythms are often selected for different orixás.Template:Sfn Amid the drumming, singing, and dancing in a circle, Umbandistas believe that the caboclos, as representatives of the orixás, will appear and possess one of the participants.Template:Sfn Later in the ceremony, other caboclos, as well as pretos velhos, exús, and pomba giras, will appear and possess people to offer advice, protection, and healing.Template:Sfn
Animals sacrificed in these African-oriented terreiros are usually chickens, although sometimes guinea fowl, sheep, goats, or more rarely, bulls.Template:Sfn Typically, the animal's throat will be cut,Template:Sfn after which its corpse may be butchered and body parts placed on the altar.Template:Sfn In White Umbanda, these sacrifices are deemed misguided, unnecessary, and cruel, with White Umbandistas believing that blood sacrifice attracts the lowest types of spirits and generate bad karma for those engaging in the sacrifice.Template:Sfn Various White Umbandistas have also questioned why spiritual beings would require nourishment from physical blood.Template:Sfn
Healing
Clients typically approach Umbanda seeking assistance for problems to do with relationships, family, employment, finances, and especially health.Template:Sfn Clients' problems are often, although not always, attributed to a spiritual cause;Template:Sfn Umbandist healers then claim to treat the spiritual cause of the ailment, not just its biological symptoms.Template:Sfn Common causes of harm can include malevolent and ignorant spirits from the underworld,Template:Sfn karmic retribution from previous lifetimes,Template:Sfnm spiritual disequilibrium (desequilíbrio),Template:Sfn a neglect of the orixás,Template:Sfn or the curses of living humans, including from the evil eye.Template:Sfnm Sometimes, the client's problems are diagnosed as evidence that they are ignoring their own undeveloped powers as a medium.Template:Sfnm
One treatment, descarrêgo, involves discharging negative energy from around the patient using the healer's hands, a technique deriving from the Spiritist passe.Template:Sfn If a person believes they are being tormented by a malevolent spirit. Umbandist mediums will then cajole the spirit to leave.Template:Sfn If a person is repeatedly attacked by spirits, Umbandistas may deem that individual to be especially sensitive to spirits and recommend that they become a medium themselves so as to learn to control the issue.Template:Sfn To deal with harmful spirits, the medium may encourage their client to create an Umbandist altar in their home, or to light candles intended to dispel harmful spirits and attract good ones.Template:Sfn
Umbandist mediums may prescribe herbal or homeopathic remedies for their clients.Template:Sfnm Umbandistas often employ herbal baths or washes called banhos to cleanse and fortify themselves.Template:Sfnm Another type of herbal infusion, amacis, are more commonly found in Afro-Brazilian Umbanda and are often rooted in Afro-Brazilian medicinal traditions.Template:Sfn Herbs used may be collected on specific days based on their astrological associations.Template:Sfn Also found in Afro-Brazilian Umbandist groups is a complex healing rite termed the sacudimento (shaking), in which offerings are given to the spirits and prayers and songs are offered.Template:Sfn There are also Umbandist groups that offer spiritual surgeries, in which tumours and other problems are allegedly cut from the body using etheric means.Template:Sfn
The use of spiritual healing does not mean that Umbandists dismiss mainstream medicine;Template:Sfn practitioners of White Umbanda generally place great faith in the latter, reflecting the ideological positivism inherited from Spiritism.Template:Sfn Umbandist mediums have for instance been involved in biomedical HIV prevention programs in Brazilian favelas.Template:Sfn Practitioners will often see the two methods of healing as complementary,Template:Sfn with the spirits dealing primarily with the spiritual aspects of illness rather than the physical ones.Template:Sfn Umbandistas have sometimes explained that they are capable of offering certain levels of healing, for instance helping patients to better cope with their ailment, even if they cannot enact a total cure.Template:Sfn
History
Background
Umbanda derives from the combination of Afro-Brazilian religions with Spiritism.Template:Sfn Amid the Atlantic slave trade, between 3.5 and 4 million enslaved Africans were transported to Brazil,Template:Sfn with the numbers reaching their highest levels in the 19th century.Template:Sfn The trade continued until 1851, with slavery ultimately being abolished in the country in 1888.Template:Sfn In Brazil, enslaved Africans were allowed to join Roman Catholic religious brotherhoods, and it was within these that they privately continued the practice of African-derived religious traditions.Template:Sfnm Different names for Afro-Brazilian traditions arose in different parts of the country;Template:Sfn in Salvador, Bahia, these traditions became Candomblé.Template:Sfn The 19th century saw Rio de Janeiro become Brazil's economic hub, resulting in growing numbers of Afro-Brazilians moving there.Template:Sfn Afro-Brazilian religious groups were first recorded in Rio de Janeiro in the early 20th century, although were probably present in the city beforehand.Template:Sfn Candomblé was likely introduced to the city by migrants from Bahia.Template:Sfn In the early decades of the 20th century, Candomblé was subject to considerable disapproval from the bourgeoise classes and the dominant Roman Catholic Church, with its terreiros often experiencing police repression.Template:Sfn Umbanda departed from Candomblé in various ways; it reduced the pantheon of orixás found in Candomblé, dropped the practice of animal sacrifice, and simplified the initiation process.Template:Sfn
A variant of the American religion of Spiritualism, Spiritism was developed by the Frenchman Allan Kardec.Template:Sfn Kardec's Spiritism combined Spiritualism's general emphasis on spirit mediumship with the Hindu ideas of karma and reincarnation, Christian ethical systems, and the social evolutionism and positivism of Auguste Comte.Template:Sfn It placed emphasis on the idea of spirits progressing on a path of moral and intellectual evolution, meaning that there is a distinction between higher, or "evolved" spirits, as well as lesser ones.Template:Sfn Spiritism arrived in Brazil Template:Circa,Template:Sfnm where it was often called Kardecismo or Espiritismo.Template:Sfn Brazil's Spiritists still often regarding themselves as Roman Catholics.Template:Sfn Spiritism proved popular among the largely white Brazilian bourgeoisie,Template:Sfnm with Rio becoming the hub for Brazilian Spiritist activity.Template:Sfn The first Brazilian Spiritist Federation forming in 1884 as an attempt to unify the movement.Template:Sfn Throughout Latin America, Spiritism often hybridised with other religious traditions from the 1860s on.Template:Sfn Brown noted that Umbanda was "deeply influenced" by Spiritism but "diverged from it in many important ways".Template:Sfn Umbanda would make the spirits of African and Indigenous American people central to many of its rituals, but in Spiritism these entities were often perceived as being low on the level of spiritual evolution and thus avoided.Template:Sfn
Foundation
Umbanda is generally regarded as having emerged in the area around Rio de Janeiro during the 1920s.Template:Sfnm There is a lack of clear evidence regarding Umbanda's foundations and it is possible that it emerged from multiple origins around the same time,Template:Sfn with various early 20th-century groups having combined Spiritist and Afro-Brazilian religious practices.Template:Sfn
A key figure was Zélio Fernandino de Moraes, founder of the first Umbandist group, the Centro Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade (Spiritism Center of Our Lady of Mercy). This initially operated in Niterói from the mid-1920s before moving to the centre of Rio de Janeiro in 1938.Template:Sfnm According to claims that gained prominence in the 1970s, in 1908, when he was 17 years old, Moraes had been cured of an illness by a highly evolved spirit. His parents then took him to a Spiritist ritual, where the spirit Caboclo Seven Crossroads (Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas) incorporated into him. This spirit defended the appearance of African and indigenous spirits that then incorporated in other mediums, despite the Spiritist prejudice towards them.Template:Sfnm
Umbanda's founders were Kardecist Spiritists disappointed with Spiritist orthodoxy,Template:Sfn and who were interested in the country's Afro-Brazilian religious traditions, which they deemed more exciting and dramatic than those of the Spiritists.Template:Sfn They were mostly white men, largely occupied in middle-class professions involving commerce, government bureaucracy, and the military.Template:Sfn Most were sympathetic to the reforms of President Getúlio Vargas, with de Moraes being a local pro-Vargas politician.Template:Sfn Brown suggested that Umbanda could be seen as an attempt by middle-class white Brazilians to exert control over the popular religion of the lower classes,Template:Sfn drawing comparison with how other lower class practices like samba, capoeira, and Carnival were also embraced as symbols of Brazilian national culture in the early 20th century.Template:Sfn By combining Afro-Brazilian and European ideas, Umbanda was presented as a national religion for Brazil at a time when the country was increasingly being presented as a cultural melting pot.Template:Sfn
In 1939, Zélio de Moraes formed the first Umbandist federation, the Umbandist Spiritist Union of Brazil.Template:Sfnm In 1941, the Primeiro Congresso do Espiritismo de Umbanda (First Congress of the Spiritism of Umbanda) was held in Rio de Janeiro, representing a collective attempt to codify Umbandist teaching. The congress' proceedings were published in 1942 and highlight Umbanda's origins in Spiritism and the early Umbandistas' desire to distinguish themselves from Afro-Brazilian traditions.Template:Sfnm In turn, some Umbandist groups whose membership was predominantly Afro-Brazilian began maintaining that Umbanda was a religion with African origins,Template:Sfn and that anyone not using drumming and animal sacrifice in their rites was not truly practicing Umbanda.Template:Sfn In turn, White Umbandist leaders retorted that the Africanised traditions were in fact Quimbanda or Candomblé and were falsely using the term "Umbanda".Template:Sfn This confusion may be explained if the term "Umbanda" had been adopted independently both by Zélio de Moraes' group and by practitioners of various Afro-Brazilian groups.Template:Sfn
After the Second World War
The collapse of Vargas' Estado Novo in 1945 allowed Umbanda to be practised more openly.Template:Sfn Although it remained concentrated in the cities of southern Brazil, over the coming years Umbanda spread rapidly throughout the country,Template:Sfn while in the 1950s and 1960s it also spread to Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina.Template:Sfn
In response to the growth of Umbanda, Spiritism, and Pentecostalism, Brazil's dominant Roman Catholic Church mounted a campaign against these minority religions, one later formally terminated due to the changes of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.Template:Sfn In part to counter Catholic opposition, in the late 1950s Umbandistas began campaigns to get their co-religionists elected to office, typically rallying around Brazilian nationalism and calls for religious freedom.Template:Sfn The first open Umbandista elected was Attila Nunes, who became a vereador (city councilman) in 1958 and Rio's state deputy in 1960.Template:Sfn From the 1950s on, six new Umbandist federations formed in Rio, three of them open to more Africanised elements.Template:Sfnm The most important of these was the more African-focused Umbandist Spiritist Federation, founded in 1952 by Tancredo da Silva Pinto.Template:Sfnm For the second congress of Umbandistas in 1961, several thousand attendees met in a Rio football stadium.Template:Sfn
In 1964, a military dictatorship took power in Brazil.Template:Sfnm The military government largely protected Umbanda; many soldiers were Umbandistas and the military government regarded the religion as a counter to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, which they perceived as having grown increasingly sympathetic to the political left since the 1950s.Template:Sfnm From 1965, Umbandist centros/terreiros were permitted to secure legal recognition with just a civil registration,Template:Sfn while Umbanda also gained recognition as a religion on the Brazilian census.Template:Sfnm The 1960s and 1970s saw the rapid growth of middle-class participation in Umbanda.Template:Sfn After the 1960s and 1970s, the number of Umbandistas declined.Template:Sfn During the 1970s, Candomblé spread from Bahia into São Paulo, where it grew rapidly, largely at the expense of Umbanda.Template:Sfnm Some Umbanda temples transformed into Candomblé temples.Template:Sfn Conversely, Umbanda saw growth in northern Brazil during this period.Template:Sfn The 1970s also saw the rise in attempts to "re-Africanize" Umbanda by emphasising African elements, reflecting a broader revival of interest in African cultural heritage among Afro-Brazilians.Template:Sfnm
Demographics
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Diana Brown noted that by the 1970s, there were estimates that between 10 and 20 million people, as much as ten percent of Brazil's population, were practicing Umbanda.Template:Sfn In 1969, there were estimates that 100,000 Umbandist centros were then active in Brazil.Template:Sfn The number of Umbandistas declined following the 1970s,Template:Sfn although in 1986 Brown suggested that Umbanda still had millions of followers in Brazil.Template:Sfn These numbers are not reflected in the census data; in the 2000 Brazilian census, only 397,000 people identified as Umbandistas.Template:Sfnm
These statistics do not account for those who attend Umbandist services but do not consider themselves Umbandistas.Template:Sfnm Brown noted that many who visit Umbandist centres do so only in emergencies, thus being "casual participants",Template:Sfn with Hale suggesting that it was these "occasional participants" who ran into the millions.Template:Sfn Although originally concentrated in Brazil's large southern cities, the religion has spread throughout the country.Template:Sfn Brazilian immigrants have also taken the religion to other parts of Latin America like Uruguay as well as to the United States.Template:Sfnm
Umbandistas come from across Brazil's racial and class spectrum,Template:Sfnm and centros vary in their racial and class demographic.Template:Sfnm Based on a research sample from different Rio de Janeiro centros in the late 1960s and 1970s, Brown found that 52 percent of practitioners were white, 29 percent mulatto, and 18 percent black.Template:Sfn Conversely, writing in the early 21st century, Hale thought that most Umbandistas were people of color and were working or lower class.Template:Sfn Brown also suggested that middle-class practitioners have been more influential in Umbanda's history;Template:Sfn middle-class Umbandistas have included high-ranking military figures, journalists, and politicians.Template:Sfn Brown believed that White Umbandist centros typically had a diverse socio-economic membership,Template:Sfn while Africanized Umbandist terreiros had particular appeal for "people in the entertainment world and the arts," gay people, and those in "the upper sectors" of society who were interested in alternative lifestyles.Template:Sfn
Many of those who come to Umbanda were raised in a different religion.Template:Sfn Brown's research found that most of those who started going to a centro learned of it through family or friends.Template:Sfn The main reason that people get involved in Umbanda is because they have a problem and hope that the religion's spirits will be able to identify the cause and provide a remedy.Template:Sfn Health concerns are the primary reason, but other issues are to do with love, family problems, unemployment, finances, or alcoholism.Template:Sfnm For many clients, visiting the centro will be a last resort after they have tried other methods of dealing with their problem.Template:Sfn In some instances they turn to Umbanda because medical professionals have been unable to successfully diagnose their problem;Template:Sfn alternatively, they approach Umbanda because they cannot afford professional medical treatment.Template:Sfn Those involved often keep their practice discreet, sometimes not informing family members that they are Umbandistas.Template:Sfn
Some Umbandistas move on to join Candomblé, believing that the latter deals with more powerful supernatural forces and thus resolves problems more readily.Template:Sfn Umbanda is sometimes described as an appropriate preparation for Candomblé,Template:Sfn and the move from Umbanda to Candomblé can also bring greater prestige within Brazilian society.Template:Sfn Umbandist mediums sometimes hold critical views of Candomblé, regarding it as authoritarian,Template:Sfn and criticising the high prices charged for initiation into it.Template:Sfn Other Umbandistas have left the religion for Pentecostalism.Template:Sfn
Reception and influence
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Umbanda has faced opposition from other religions in Brazil. Spiritists have often looked down upon Umbanda because it deals with what they regard as less developed spirits.Template:Sfnm From the 1950s, Brazil's Roman Catholic establishment campaigned against Umbanda, portraying it as a primitive religion frequented by ignorant people.Template:Sfn A 1961 book by the Franciscan friar Boaventura Kloppenburg, for instance, presented Umbanda as a heresy based on superstition which encouraged sexual permissiveness and harmed its practitioners' mental health.Template:Sfn The religion has also been criticised by Protestant groups, which in Brazil are largely Pentecostal, and which see their own religion and Umbanda as mutually incompatible.Template:Sfn Many Brazilian Pentecostals openly defined their religious identity in opposition to Umbanda and Candomblé,Template:Sfn traditions they believe are associated with the Devil.Template:Sfn Throughout much of the 20th century, Umbanda also faced hostility from Brazilian intellectuals on both the political left and right.Template:Sfn
Scholarly research into Afro-Brazilian religions began in the late 19th century, although for much of the 20th century the focus was on Candomblé and other traditions deemed to have a "purer" African origin than the more syncretic Umbanda.Template:Sfn In the early 1960s, a group of sociologists at the University of São Paulo began to study Umbanda, the most prominent being Roger Bastide, who saw the religion as an expression of urban industrial change.Template:Sfn Over following decades, research focused primarily among Afro-Brazilian Umbandistas, rather than White Umbandist groups.Template:Sfn In 2016, following a study by the Instituto Rio Patrimônio da Humanidade (Rio Heritage of Humanity Institute), Umbanda became one of Rio de Janeiro's Intangible Cultural Heritages.<ref name="Rio-2016">Template:Cite web</ref>
Umbanda has also influenced some practitioners of Santo Daime,Template:Sfnm and a tradition called Umbandaime has emerged as a hybridized religion combining elements of both.Template:Sfnm Umbandist trance states have also been studied by Heathens seeking to create new forms of seiðr.Template:Sfn
References
Citations
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Further reading
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External links
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