Afro-Brazilian calundureiras in the 1700s

Afro-Brazilian calundeiras as leaders of resistance to oppression

In the 1700s the colonial church and state made a concerted effort to suppress African religions, even though they had assimilated catholic elements. The Inquisition arrested and tried a large number of African calundeiros. [Mello, 322]

 In Paracatu, the Africans celebrated the acotundá dance, or Tunda. In the center of the room they set an image of a black god who had come "from the land of Coura" to make miracles in Paracatú. Worshippers built an altar around him, placing jars of water, cooked and raw herbs and other offerings. They sang in Courá, a language of the Sudan (Sahel region of West Africa), and performed divinations. Caetana, a priestess from Minas, "said she was god, who made heaven and earth, the waters and stones." Colonial soldiers took these people prisoner in 1747. [Mello, 268-9]

The calundureira Luzia Pinta presided over divinatory dances, enthroned on her high cadeira, dressed in Angolan garb and a feather headdress. Unmarried, she was about 50, tall and heavy, with tribal marks on her cheeks. Then, as two Angolan women sang and drummers played for hours, she danced. Luzia entered trance with great trembling, and as the "winds" entered her ears, she prophesied and answered questions. 

She laid people on the ground and leaped over them several times to cure them. Sometimes she carried a dagger in her hand and prescribed forest leaves to the sick. She untied a belt and whirled it in the air, and gave emetic drinks to get rid of sorceries.

Luzia told one slavemaster that the reason a woman had stolen money from him was that he was sleeping with her and not giving anything to her. [267] 

Several people denounced the Angolan priestess to the Inquisition. They arrested her in 1742 and sent her to Lisbon, where the inquisitors locked her down in the "secret cells" as a hard case. They tortured her as she called on San Antonio, trying to make her confess to a pact with the devil. (So, she belonged to the Antoniados movemen founded by Kimpa Vita, some 30 years before in Congo.) Luzia Pinta had to appear in an auto-da-fe and was banished for 4 years. [Mello, 352-7]

Source: Laura de Mello e Souza, O Diablo e a Terra de Santa Cruz: Feitiçaria e Religiosidade Popular no Brasil Colonial, São Paolo: Companhia das Letras, 1987

The religion referred to as calundu in the 1700s later became known as Candomblé, with variations Umbanda and Macumba. These communities were presided over by priestesses known as maes de santo, "mothers of the holy." The impressive woman in this photo is identified as Mae Senhora, "lady mother."


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