African-Catholic Festivals in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

Abstract

Salvador, first capital of the Portuguese empire in Brazil, has always had an intense and diversified religious life. Traditional Catholicism (lay, devotional, with its Iberian roots and medieval rituals), implanted by the settlers, was influenced by Indigenous and African religions. The result of the religious and cultural blend deriving from the encounter of Portuguese, Indigenous and African people can be noticed in religious festivals held by white, black and mixed-race people from different social groups, which gather in brotherhoods, third orders or professional classes. In the festivals, it is difficult to define the frontiers between Catholicism and African-Brazilian religions. The rituals were and still are perfor- med in churches and their yards, in the markets, on the beach and in the sea. Between the end of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century, the government and the Catholic Church acted together to restrain the manifestations of candomblé devotees. Imbued with the modernity and civilization ideals, the white, literate elite wanted to de-africanize the Catholic festivals. In this battle, lay religiousness was the winner by breaking rules, fostering adaptations and blending Catholic and African religious elements in tributes to saints and orishás.