AFRO-BRAZILIAN BOA MORTE FESTIVAL: A UNIQUE TESTAMENT OF STRENGTH AND ENDURANCE OF AFRICAN WOMEN IN DIASPORA

IRMANDADE DE NOSSA SENHORA DA BOA MORTE ( SISTERHOOD OF OUR LADY OF GOOD DEATH)

             Sisterhood of the Good Death - Bahia

Irmandade de Boa Morte in Cachoeira - Bahia - Brazil. Sisterhood of descendants of slaves who resisted slavery and established their right to a dignified life.

In the Brazilian state of Bahia, about an hour by car from the better-known city of Salvador, lies the historic city of Cachoeira, where the Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte, Sisterhood of Our Lady of the Good Death, holds their annual mid-August festival. Don’t let the name fool you; there is nothing macabre about this celebration. A unique testament to the strength and endurance of the African Diaspora, Boa Morte is a festival of deep cultural, social, spiritual and religious significance, a joyful expression of life, faith and happiness.

                          Procession on the street by members of Boa Morte

The Festival exemplifies the syncretism of Catholicism and traditional African religion known in Brazil as Candomble. The “Good Death” refers to the blending of the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in the Catholic Church and the Candomble worship of the iyas, female spirits of the Ancestors. Members of the Sisterhood who have transitioned and ancestors who during slavery, died free or fighting for liberation, are also venerated. They all are believed to have achieved the Good Death. The Virgin Mary, because of her bodily assumption, and the ancestors, because of their struggle and ultimate freedom before or upon death, were all insured a proper passage from the material to the spiritual world.

                     Mass at the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,Bahia

The Sisterhood is said to be the oldest organization for Women of African Descent in the Americas. It is a vestige of African Secret female societies, and began more than 150 years ago in pre-abolition era Brazil. Brazil had more than four times as many Africans imported to its shores as the United States, with the majority entering the country through Bahia.

     (Wearing costumes of "Creole" - torso head, trinkets, white coat, skirt and colorful slippers low - they become more colorful waterfall on the Sabbath and were, as always, welcomed with great affection by the people. "Little daughter Dona" (106 years) is the oldest of the Sisters of the Good Death. Age does not limit his actions and she walks the streets of Cachoeira without apparent fatigue. cachoeiranos collaborate with The Brotherhood, one of the symbols of the city.)

Throughout the colonial period, Cachoeira was a rich city at the heart of the cane-growing region; its beautiful examples of Baroque architecture attest to its former opulence. It is referred to as the Heroic City because of its role in fights against the Portuguese, but for people of African decent, the Sisters of Boa Morte are its true heroes.

                                        Donna Filhinha (106 years)

In Colonial times when Candomble, a traditional African form of worship was outlawed, the Sisters cloaked their formation as a lay catholic sisterhood to pass down their traditions and pay homage to the orixas, disguised as Catholic Saints. They used their skills to earn money to buy others from servitude as well as their spiritual power and social network to provide new freed slaves protection, sanctuary and safe passage to quilombos, settlements of freed and escaped Africans. Brazil was the last country in the world to abolish slavery in 1888, due in part to the power and prowess of these amazing women.

                                Members of Sisterhood seated and having a chat during Boa Morte festival

During the incredible festival of all-night vigils, masses, processions, and feasts, the current Sisterhood show their gratitude and reverence to Nossa Sehnora who answered their prayers for freedom and to the original ancestors of the sisterhood by commemorating their death and ascension.

                           Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte

Traveling to Cachoeira for Boa Morte was my first experience outside of Brazil’s major metropolitan areas; in contrast to it’s more urbane Neighbor Salvador, better known Rio or bustling Sao Paolo, at first glance Cachoiera seems a sleepy, beautiful, but somewhat faded, almost abandoned colonial town. But as with the Virgin Mary who masks the Candomble rites and rituals, nothing at Boa Morte is exactly as it seems.

                        Worshippers holding candles at the church

As each day of the festival passes, the energy builds, people descend upon the City from every direction in tour buses, cars and taxis and the ceremonies begin to take a more secular than religious tone. Sound systems appear, and a carnival atmosphere develops. Bahianas, female vendors dressed in white with huge full skirts and colorful head scarves set up shop along the streets serving all manner of delights, most notably acarajé, black-eye peas fritters fried in palm oil, with a spicy shrimp sauce and vegetables, which is served like a sort of Brazilian Falafel or taco and is a signature dish of Bahia.

     Procession in honor of Our Lady of Glory, in Cachoeira, Bahia. Photo: Fernando Vivas | Agency The Afternoon 08/15/2008

On the final day the sisters become festive, with the black shawls and somber faces of the processions long gone they treat the crowds to a swirling, whirling solo dance inside a crowded circle known as Samba de Roda. Decked out in their jewels and white eyelet they dance and spin at the center of a circle of onlookers defying their mostly septuagenarian status. While much of the sacred rituals of Boa Morte are reserved for the members of the Sisterhood, the Samba de Roda is a public exhilarating, magical celebration of life and freedom.( http://globalaxe.org/blog/boa-morte-festival/)

                    Beautiful Afro-Brazilian kids at Boa Morte  festival



A BROTHERHOOD OF OUR LADY OF GOOD DEATH, A PERSPECTIVE AND GENDER MUSEUM

                 Procession of  of followers of   Irmandade de Boa Morte in Cachoeira - Bahia - Brazil  
           
 This work is part of a larger project, the deployment of a new industry in the Museu Afro- Brazilian Cultural Heritage Sector Afro-Brazilian, which surveyed about prospects museum and gender in the Brotherhood of the Good Death, an institution created in the early nineteenth century by a group of black women, period in which there were other brotherhoods of white men, mulattoes and blacks, but none formed exclusively by black women. In this, they had freedom to choose, organize and reign in the festivities. Many churches held masses and processions, but none did as well as the Church of Barroquinha where they were. In 1820, presumably, the Brotherhood of Good Death in Cachoeira settled. From the creation this Fellowship was created the first Terreiro of Candomblé, Iya Omi Axe Intilá Aya, a house the background of the Church of Barroquinha after suffering persecution by the authorities, settled in neighborhood of Vasco da Gama, with the name of Iya Ile Oko Nasso, known as the White House, from 1920, gave birth to two more Terreiros: Ilê Axe Opo Afonjá in São Gonçalo do Retiro and Ilê Iya Iya OMIM masse, the Federation, known as Gantois.

The secular brotherhood known as the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Good Death, formed only by black women, born in the midst of a slave society unstable when the city of Salvador had a population of approximately 65,500 inhabitants divided into socio-occupational groups, with constant explosions antilusas popular revolts, the main one being the Malian revolt in 1835, according Reis (2003, p. 27). Until today keeps alive the brotherhood elements of african-Brazilian culture, such as religious rituals, oral, costume, cuisine, music, dance, among others; origin need not be exact, however, Tavares (1964, p. 335th) dates back to the 1820s, the Church of the Saviour in Barroquinha, resisting, so there nearly two centuries.

The Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Good Death, had since its inception, and continues to have, as its main objective, the devotion and the devotion to Our Lady, and still other objectives in the background, such as the practice of loans and aid financial donations and especially the purchase of manumission for enslaved; in cases of death associated with the Brotherhood took responsibility for burials and masses. The activities listed, the only one that does not apply to contemporaneity is purchase of manumission, the more they continue preserving, through its rituals, memory of their African ancestors. Importantly, the involvement of the sisters in the religious festivities colonial period was remarkable in the sense of organization and periodic celebrations of Masses (Reis, 2003, p. 332). The training and the goals of the Brotherhood of Good Death is approaching other brotherhoods color formed at the same time, however, this is one in which women reign completely. During its formation and legitimation in Bahian society, the sisters have suffered prejudices: color, gender, economic, among others. Being a society, markedly patriarchal and sexist, these women fought and negotiated to stand, able to show their work in organizations of the festivities of Our Lady and the achievement of its objectives, through their courage and strength.

                            Procession at Boa morte festival

 It is noteworthy that Verger (1992, p. 101) speaks of the Brotherhood of Good Death as preserving the spirit of initiative nagôs that women had in Africa, related to the activities and direction administration. In the colonial period there were other brotherhoods linked to the Catholic Church, in its Most, formed by white men, mulattos and blacks, and among these brotherhoods black, still in force for the subdivision of ethnic origin: the Jeje, and the nagôs Angolans (Reis, 1991, p. 55), but was not common only formed a brotherhood for black women, slaves, ex-slaves and freed. In the other sororities, when had women in their composition, they had a much lower participation compared men. It was up to them just the organization of religious festivals of the Catholic Church, or participation in services and charity to the needy brethren (Reis, 1991 p. 58).

        Followers release doves and pigeons into the air with a belief of returning with message of peace

In the case of the Brotherhood of the Good Death, women had complete freedom to decide and organize the festivities, since the men were not part of the group composition religious. Women of the Brotherhood were also known as black party high, stand out in the call for [...] African social elite in Bahia (Birth; Isidoro, 1988, p. 16). Relating to the creation of the Brotherhood of the Good Death, the Catholic character, the universe african-Brazilian religious, it is possible to find common links that refer to the rites of death and life, referring to ties Iyabás Candomblé linked to death and life: Nana and Iansã, Yemanja and Oshun, who have a point similar to the Death and Assumption. With the formation of the Brotherhood of Good Death records are also creating one of Terreiros the 1st of Candomblé in Brazil, linked to the Brotherhood because it was created [...] by women devotees of the Confraternity of Our Lady of the Good Death, [...], and a man supporter of the Brotherhood of Our Lord of the Martyrs, [...]. Verger (1992, p. 113), the Iya Omi Aya Intilá Axe in honor of Shango, a house at the bottom of Church Barroquinha, which housed political meetings and demonstrations of all kinds, Birth and Isidore (1988, p. 16). After its foundation, this Terreiro suffered various persecutions by the authorities civil and ecclesiastical, covering some localities soteropolitanas, settling in the neighborhood of Vasco da Gama, with the name of Iya Ile Oko Nasso, now known as Casa

Branca. From 1920 Terreiro this gave rise to two others: the Ile Axe Opo Afonjá, in São Gonçalo do Retiro and OMIM Iya Iya Ile Masse, the Federation, known as Terreiro do Gantois. The leaders of these Terreiros were part of the Brotherhood of the Good Death. In the registration processes of official history, many women began to anonymity, yet important names resisted to be forgotten, such as Hilaria Batista de Almeida, known as Aunt Ciata; Anna Eugenia dos Santos, known as Mother Aninha; Bibiana Maria do Espirito Santo, known as Mother Mary; Satira; Juliana; Sabina; Caetana; José Maria; Apollinaria; Justiniana; Xandinha; Zina; Mary Melo; Sinha shake; Agda Maria de Oliveira, among others; Birth (1998, p. 14). Based on the stories of women's lives in the past kept the Brotherhood, the Current sisters still preserving the material and immaterial culture african-Brazilian. Even in the nineteenth century the Brotherhood of Good Death expanded into the Reconcavo settling in the then Town of Our Lady of the Rosary of Porto da Cachoeira, (Born, 1998, p. 14), along with the growth of the Reconcavo, especially economic growth of the village and its harbor, which was a major in the Bahia time, where goods arriving and leaving from various parts of the world, especially slaves from different African nations.

In Waterfall, first, the Brotherhood settled in a house known as Casa star number 58, and all indications are that this house belonged to a legendary African lady by name Karoxa, (Birth; Isidore, 1988, p. 22). The house received this designation because of an Exu sitting in port Input in the form of a star, probably belonging to one of women with ties with the Brotherhood and Bogum of Candomblé, (Birth, 1998, p. 15-16). The activities performed in that house was formed the first Terreiro of Candomblé Jeje-Marrim nation that is one of the few with that name today, existing in Brazil, which is part of the Candomblé Bogum of the Old Mill in the Federation Salvador. The feast of Our Lady of the Good Death always happens in August, more precisely on days 13, 14 and 15, which are the days that are celebrated Death, Funeral andthe Assumption of Our Lady, an adaptation of the Christian calendar which commemorates the Assumption on August 15. Marked by processions and masses, this festival dates back to the fourth century AD in Antioch, (Costa, 2002, p. 13).

                       Mrs. Estelita Santana - Judge Perpetua the Brotherhood of Our Lady of Good Death in Cachoeira, tomorrow September 14 had completed 103 years. Mrs. Estelita Save! Save the Brotherhood! Save waterfall! Save Our ​​Lady! :: Adenor GONDIM 09/13/09 [+] ::

Since then, Oriental culture that spread quickly to the West arriving in Brazil at the end of eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The feast of Our Lady of the Good Death was the most disputed the Catholic Church, many churches held masses and processions, celebrating the party the next day, no longer did so well as the chapel of Barroquinha, with longest route, the busiest and most ostentatious presentation (Campos, 2001 p. 358-359), being organized for years by the Brotherhood of the Lord of the Martyrs Barroquinha, and then began to share the same with the organization of the Brotherhood Boa Morte, who Priore was a group of black women devoted to Our Lady of Good Death.

                            Adenor Gondim - Cachoeira - Bahia August 2002 Mrs. Estelita, 98 years, Judge Perpetua the Brotherhood of Our Lady of Good Death in Cachoeira Bahia

The organization of festivities begins months before, when the sisters prepare for total devotion to Our Lady, seeking to divide tasks among themselves. On first day of the festival happens at the Funeral Mass in the Chapel of the Brotherhood itself, where ensure sisters Mary and sisters and remember deceased relatives, and soon after offer supper white foods when used without the presence of palm oil. On this day the sisters wear the white garment, symbolizing mourning in african-Brazilian culture. On second day, happens the mass of this body and follows the procession or funeral procession the streets of Cachoeira, with sisters dressed in their finery.

                        samba de roda
 On the third day, is conducted Mass and procession of the Assumption of Our Lady Victorious in the streets of Waterfall, with sisters wearing the costume gala, but leaving on display the color red, symbolizing the joy and glory of Our Lady and wearing lots of jewelry. The procession is accompanied by thousands of visitors and intense fireworks. Shortly after Brotherhood procession to serve in their home-based feijoada accompanied by samba wheel, all in a peculiar mixture of the profane mystic-religious system, (Birth; Isidoro, 1988, p. 29). On this day Waterfall receives thousands of tourists, mainly african- Americans, and other Brotherhoods, and communities surrounding the capital,to honor this cultural practice that preserves important elements of african-memory Brazilian.

    

Day Baiana 25 11 2006 - Church of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Blacks - Pillory

The Sisters of the Good Death, even in the face of varied cultural change, socio- economic and religious, keep finding reasons for their existence and social function, maintaining its tradition with strength and beauty, preserving traits of memories ancestors. The dynamic associative dating back to women's associations in Africa, if constitutes an important element for its own survival in Brazilian society; and currently, with little more than two dozen women. Initially the Brotherhood had over two hundred, but as a result of social dynamics This Brotherhood was losing adept. The Brotherhood of Good Death over the years has contributed to the Maintaining this rich memory african-Brazilian, keeping alive, either through records, either by oral or by the work with the community and with their own Brotherhood is the sacred rituals, the gift that keeps Brotherhood cultural memory african-Brazilian in their daily lives. 

(http://www.cult.ufba.br/enecul2005/LiviaMariaBaetadaSilva.pdf)

follow this link for further information:http://www.terra.com.br/revistaplaneta/mat_395.htm

THE FEAST OF GOOD DEATH: AN AFRO-CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION

CELEBRATION IN BRAZIL

Sheila S. Walker

The Feast of Good Death

                                            Members of the Sisterhood feasting-Bahia,Brazil

Each year on the Friday evening nearest August 15 in the town of Cachoeira in the state of

Bahia in northeastern Brazil, several dozen Afro-Brazilian women begin the reenactment of the

complex Afro-Catholic religious ceremonial that their enslaved African an cestresses created

more than one and a half centuries ago. Catholic processions and masses in honor of the death

and assumption into heaven of the Virgin Mary are interwoven with symbols and interpretations

fundamental to the Candomblé, the religion of Yoruba origin that is the basis of Afro-Brazilian

spiritual life in Bahia and in the other parts of Brazil with significant populations of African origin.

The solemnity of the sacred celebration is complemented by an energetic samba de roda (ring

samba) typical of Cachoeira and based on African dance styles. The Festa da Boa Morte

(Feast of Good Death) is an exemplary manifestation of the multi-layered reality of AfroBrazilian culture.

                         

The women are members of the Irmandade da Boa Morte (Sisterhood of Good Death)

created within the Catholic Church in the early nineteenth century, which numbered up to two

hundred women when Cachoeira was a wealthy sugar cane producing area. As the sisters

explained, the Virgin Mary died on a Friday and, being without sin, was assumed into heaven in

body and soul on the following Sunday—certainly a "good death." Hence the Catholic Feast of

the Assumption on August 15. The Virgin is known as Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte (Our

Lady of Good Death) from her death to her assumption, at which point she becomes Nossa

Senhora da Gloria (Our Lady of Glory). The real theme of the Boa Morte pageantry, then, is

less one of mourning for the Virgin Mary's death, than one of rejoicing for her assumption into

heaven.

On Friday evening the sisters carry a reclining statue of Our Lady of Good Death in a solemn

procession through the streets to Cachoeira's largest church, where they place the statue in front

of the altar. After a mass of mourning for the Saint and for the deceased members of the

Sisterhood, they return to their meeting house to serve a dinner to the members of the

community who accompany them there.

On Saturday evening after spending the day preparing the feast they will serve on Sunday, the

sisters walk together to the church where another mass of mourning is said for Our Lady of

Good Death. They again carry the statue through the streets in a funeral procession

accompanied by mournful music from one of the town's two bands. The statue is then placed in

the museum of religious articles contiguous to the church, where it will remain during the year,

and a standing statue of Our Lady of Glory is taken from the museum into the church. Sisters

and people who have attended the mass touch the statue to request the saint's blessings, and the

congregation eventually disperses.

On Sunday morning, the sisters again gather at their meeting house and walk together to the

church, taking their usual places in the front pews for the mass celebrating the assumption of

Our Lady of Glory into heaven. In a final triumphant procession, the statue of Our Lady of

Glory is carried through the town accompanied by bands playing joyous music, and by many of

the people who attended the mass, some of whom help the sisters to carry the statue. At the

end of the procession the sisters return the statue to the museum until their next annual

procession, and return to their meeting house followed by many people from the town. After

serving a copious meal to these guests, the sisters rest for the ring samba they will dance on

Sunday evening and repeat on Monday and Tuesday evenings, again offering food to all who

attend.

                           dancing at Boa Morte festival of feast

Although the priest who said the masses insisted that the Feast of Good Death was a purely

Catholic celebration, numerous indicators suggest that this is not the entire explanation of the

event. The most obvious indicator is that a purely Catholic ceremony in Bahia peopled

exclusively by Afro-Brazilian women is, while not entirely impossible, at least highly

improbable—and in this case is a definite misperception of the complex meanings of the event.

In Bahia, the area of Brazil in which African culture has remained the strongest and most

influential, the religion of the overwhelming majority of the Afro-Brazilian population, and of

much of the non-Afro-Brazilian population also, is the Candomblé. This is true in spite of most

Bahians', including Candomblé members' and leaders', formal membership in the Catholic

Church, and is consistent with the veneer of Catholicism that has allowed the Candomblé to

persist from the period of slavery up to the present in spite of persecution by the political

authorities.

The Candomblé is based on the worship of the Orishás, the spiritual beings of the Yoruba

people of the current nation of Nigeria, whose religion managed to survive the middle passage

from West Africa to the Americas. The Orishás represent major forces of nature and human life,

and are intimately involved in the social and individual lives of their devotees. They are honored

in ceremonies in which they are believed to come into the human community by manifesting

themselves in the bodies of their devotees who have been prepared by initiation to receive them

and who, in a trance state, dance the movements characteristic of the Orishás to compelling

drum rhythms.

When forced to learn about Catholicism by the Portuguese and prohibited from worshipping the

Orishás openly during slavery, the Africans learned the names and characteristics of some of the

Catholic saints and established equivalences based on the similar attributes they perceived

between them and the Orishás. St. Lazarus the leper, the statue of whom shows his skin

covered by sores, was assimilated to Omolú or Obaluaiye, the Orishá of smallpox, which is

characterized by skin eruptions. By extension the Orishá of all illness and of death, Omolú can

also restore health and life. Maternal Orishás such as Yemanjá, Orishá of the ocean, were

assimilated to various versions of the Virgin Mary. And the most exalted Orishá, Oshalá, who

was responsible for creating human beings, was seen as equivalent to Jesus on the basis of the

importance of both in their respective religious systems.

watch:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZJgh8gvfQc&feature=player_embedded

There are no material images of the Orishás, who are supernatural forces, but the statues of the

saints came to represent the equivalent Orishás. And, on feast days for the saints the Africans

feigned that they were worshipping the saints to camouflage their real intention of honoring the

equivalent Orishás, a subterfuge that insured the preservation of their spiritual reality. Eventually

the Africans become Afro-Brazilians began to believe in the power of the saints to help them,

but never to the exclusion of the basis of their religious life—the Orishás. Thus, although the

Feast of Good Death clearly is a real Catholic celebration that represents more than just a

veneer of Catholicism, to say that it is purely Catholic ignores the meaning of much of the sisters'

symbolic behavior, and oversimplifies what is actually a complex cultural statement.

For the Friday procession the sisters wear the same elaborate lacey, long full skirts and blouses

that they wear to participate in Candomblé ceremonies. They also emphasize that the meal they

serve to the community is "white food," which, in terms of absolute color—fish, lettuce and

tomato salad, red berry wine—some of it is not. When asked why they wear white and serve

"white food," the sisters reply, "Because it is Friday." Friday is the day of Oshalá, who

represents peace and wisdom and whose color is white. "White food" in the Candomblé context

is food prepared without the red palm oil used in much Candomblé cookery. After Candomblé

ceremonies the favorite foods of the feted Orishá are served to everyone in attendance, which is

probably the model for the public feasting that characterizes the Feast of Good Death, as

opposed to other Catholic saints' days on which there is no feasting. On Fridays, however, no

food is prepared with palm oil because of Oshalá. This symbolism of the white clothes and food

on Friday suggests that the ostensibly Catholic pageantry may also contain other symbolic

behaviors that are more related to the Candomblé than to Catholicism.

        see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxoZ6xwBXBM&feature=player_embedded

For the Saturday and Sunday processions the women dress in the characteristic uniform of the

Sisterhood, consisting of a long black pleated skirt, white blouse and head tie, and black stole

lined with red satin and worn over one shoulder. Whereas on Saturday the stole is worn with

the black side out to express mourning for Our Lady of Good Death, on Sunday it is worn with

the red side out to express the joy of her assumption into heaven as Our Lady of Glory. On

Sunday the sisters add many chain-link necklaces and bracelets to make their outfits more

festive, and perhaps also to symbolize the chains of bondage from which their enslaved

ancestresses gained their freedom.

The beauty of the garment is one reason for which members of the Sisterhood say they like

belonging to it, some adding that the uniforms are also a source of spiritual protection. Sisters

have traditionally been buried in them. The Candomblé again provides the explanation for the

meaning of the otherwise not obvious red, black, and white colors of the Sisterhood's uniform,

which hardly represent Catholic mourning colors. They are rather the colors associated with the

Orishá Omolú, who can both bring and protect from death, a logical association for the Feast of

Good Death. Omolú's day of the week is Monday, one of the days of the feast, and on this

same Monday a major celebration is held for Omolú in Salvador, the state capital, that also

juxtaposes the Candomblé and the Catholic Church.

Most obviously unrelated to Catholicism are what are said by knowledgeable natives of

Cachoeira to be the totally private final acts of the complex pageantry. On Tuesday night after4

the final ring samba and meal, the sisters celebrate the culmination of their devotion. Entering

their other religious reality, they hold a Candomblé ceremony, only for themselves, to honor

their Orishás. Then the flowers that served as decor for the celebration for the saint as well as

any leftover food are deposited in a nearby river, which is exactly the way Candomblé

ceremonies for water Orishás such as Yemanjá end.

That these Candomblé symbols and meanings are integral to the Feast of Good Death does not

imply that the goal of the Sisterhood is not to honor the saint. When asked if there were a

relationship between the two religious systems, the president of the Sisterhood said that the

Sisterhood was one thing and the Candomblé another, then, apparently with no sense of cultural

dissonance, ended the conversation with "May Omolú bless you." In addition to her leading role

in the Sisterhood, she is an important Candomblé priestess. In fact, almost all of the sisters are

initiates and even priestesses of the Candomblé. Thus, although their sincere intent may be to

perform a Catholic ritual for their "little saint," as they affectionately call her, the spiritual

foundation of the lives of the sisters is the Candomblé, not Catholicism. Hence the basic

understandings, meanings, and symbols with which they have infused their Catholic behavior are

based on the Candomblé.

                      Brazil Building of the Sisterhood of Boa Morte (remaining group of slaves, first yard
                     of  Church,Brazil is a Candomblé country)

The statues of Our Lady of Good Death and Our Lady of Glory are both dressed in a light blue

cape over a white dress. These colors suggest an obvious relationship with Yemanjá, the Orishá

of the seas, whose day is Saturday, and whose colors are light blue and white, the colors of the

ocean. It is noteworthy that the three Orishás—Oshalá, Omolú and Yemanjá— whose color

symbols stand out in the Feast of Good Death are among the most important in the AfroBrazilian pantheon. Oshalá is the father of the other Orishás as well as of people, and in some

versions of the mythology Yemanjá is the mother of the other Orishás. They, thus, represent the

very fundamental principles of fatherhood and motherhood, hence procreation and the continuity

of life, and Omolú represents the triumph of life over death.

The Afro-Brazilian Sisterhoods and Brotherhoods

The Sisterhood of Good Death began in the Church of Barroquinha in Salvador in 1821, and

existed in the major towns in the area but died out everywhere except Cachoeira. The first

Candomblé temple openly institutionalized in Salvador was also created by women from the

Church of Barroquinha. The Casa Branca was officially instituted in 1850, and the other two

most traditional Candomblés in Salvador, Axé Opô Afonjá and Gantois, grew out of it. The

women who created these Candomblés and their successors have also been members of the

Sisterhood of Good Death.

The Sisterhood of Good Death was one of the numerous sisterhoods and brotherhoods of

African slaves and freedmen and women created within the Catholic Church in the l8th and l9th

centuries. The priests' major motive for creating such organizations was, not surprisingly, to

Catholicize the Africans and make them give up their own spiritual beliefs and practices. The

African and Afro-Brazilian sisterhoods and brotherhoods functioned as mutual aid and

benevolent societies in addition to the at least stated intention of promoting Catholicism. An5

estimated 85% of freed Black men and 83% of freed Black women were members of these

groups during the years 1790-1826 in Bahia. Their numbers decreased in the second half of the

nineteenthcentury as government agencies gradually took over the social security functions they

had fulfilled.

One of the major churches in Salvador, the Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos

(Church of Our Lady of the Rosary of Black People), was built by members of the Irmandade

de Nossa Senhora do Rosário (Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary), which was created

in Bahia in the seventeenth century. In l704 the archbishop gave the African Brotherhood

permission to build a temple, which they finished in 1710, supplying their own materials and

working on it after finishing their regular jobs. Our Lady of the Rosary was honored annually by

the Brotherhood with a mass and an opulent procession on the second of October until l917.

Inside the church, in addition to a statue of Our Lady of the Rosary, there are also statues of

two Black saints—St. Anthony of Catigerona, an African, and St. Benedict the Moor.

The sisterhoods and brotherhoods were originally based on the African geographic and ethnic

origins of the members. The first Irmandades de Nossa Senhora do Rosário were constituted of

men from the Angola area and their descendants, and the Irmandade do Senhor da Redenção

na Bahia (Brotherhood of Our Lord of the Redemption in Bahia) were men of Gege or Ewe

origin from the current Benin-Togo area of West Africa. The exclusive memberships of these

initial brotherhoods led to the creation of others grouping men of other African ethnic groups

and then of mulattos, and they all eventually began to admit any Afro-Brazilian man as the

process of miscengenation destroyed African ethnic purity.

 The sisterhoods were originally

organized along the same ethnically particularistic lines. The Sisterhood of Good Death, like

Salvador's first Candomblé, was constituted of Gege women—the same Gege women!

The sisterhoods and brotherhoods have been characterized by a Brazilian scholar as, "the

fulcrum of one of the most important positions of resistance and defense of Blacks against

slavery in Brazil."(3) European white travelers in Bahia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

were impressed by the zeal and enthusiasm of the Afro-Brazilians' "external manifestations of the

Catholic religion," but few were aware of the African cultural legacy that remained under the

external appearance of religious orthodoxy. The evidence available, mainly in the form of the

oral tradition, points to the importance of these institutions as repositories of the African cultural

heritage.(4) In a study of the Brotherhoods of Our Lady of the Rosary as a counteracculturative reaction, Veríssimo de Melo makes the point that such an analytical perspective

provides the only way to understand "the interest of the Blacks in a religion, the Catholic

religion—totally foreign to their primitive [meaning, I would like to think, original] beliefs."(5)

Eighteenth- and nineteenthth-century commentators on these Afro-Catholic institutions reported

with some dismay seeing processions for Our Lady of the Rosary accompanied by the music of

drums and clarinets as well as fire works, and one observer was scandalized to see a statue of

the Virgin "painted black."(6) De Melo concludes that:

… in spite of its apparent Catholic significance, Our Lady of the Rosary was for Blacks

a transposition of the idol of their primitive religion—perhaps Yemanjá… Being unable6

to worship their gods publicly—because the slave masters did not permit the fetishist(7)

cult—the slaves affiliated with the Catholic brotherhoods, where they could, tranquilly,

through the process that would be known later as syncretism, worship their African

idols in the form of the Roman Catholic saints. Only through the phenomenon of

syncretism is it possible to understand the devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary and

other saints by the Black slaves.(8)

In addition to providing a context for the religious syncretism that allowed the Africans and

Afro-Brazilians to maintain their religious beliefs in disguised form, the sisterhoods and

brotherhoods had the important secular function of serving as credit unions through which the

slaves saved to buy their freedom in the form of cartas de alforría, "free papers". In Bahia

some of the enslaved negros de ganho were allowed to work for themselves, paying a certain

part of their income to their masters and using the rest for their own purposes. This primary role

as "liberation banks" was a major preoccupation of the sisterhoods and brotherhoods prior to

emancipation in 1888.

                        watch:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIIETIu6P3M&feature=player_embedded#!

In an article on the Sociedade Protetora dos Desvalidos (Society for the Protection of the

Needy), Salvador's oldest existing autonomous Afro-Brazilian institution, Julio Santana Braga

emphasized the Society's central historic role as a credit union, membership in which was limited

to African and Afro-Brazilian men who could give proof of having a legitimate income. The

Society, which still owns a building in the Terreiro de Jesus in Salvador, and which recently

celebrated its 150th anniversary, was founded in 1832 by a free African, Manoel Victor Serra,

under the name of Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Soledade Amparo dos Desvalidos

(Brotherhood of Our Lady of Solitude Shelter of the Needy). Inspired by the Brotherhood of

Our Lady of the Rosary, the Society had as its goals, in addition to the spiritual (Catholic)

instruction and uplifting of its members and the providing of help to the needy, the acquisition of

emancipation for all of its members. Like the other brotherhoods, it promised its still enslaved

members "free papers", "with which you will enjoy not only eternal freedom in the second

transmigration into the next life, but that will also free you in this one from the worst

subjugation."

Thus, the brotherhoods and sisterhoods were organizational structures within which Africans

and later Afro-Brazilians could organize under the aegis of the Catholic Church to oppose the

system of slavery, and in which free Blacks could collaborate with their still enslaved brothers

and sisters to increase the ranks of the free. The founders of the Society for the Protection of

the Needy were very preoccupied with the question of to whom to entrust their funds, not

wanting to entrust them to the priest of the church in which it was founded without numerous

precautions because the goals for which the African and Afro-Brazilian men intended to use the

money did not conform to the intentions of the church. Such disguised emancipation funds were

a prelude to the emancipation credit unions that sprang up beginning in 1834 in the context of

the abolitionist movement, in which members specifically pooled their money in the kind of

rotating credit system found in much of Africa and the Caribbean in order to buy free papers,

without the religious pretense of the sisterhoods and brotherhoods.

Further evidence of the other-than-religious intentions of the Society was that it was not until

three months after its founding that the members began to discuss what their religious obligations

would be. The decision was that they would celebrate an annual mass for Our Lady of Solitude

on November 16, a somewhat minimal requirement for a truly religious organization. The

religious goals of the Society, whether primordial in the intentions of the brothers or not, but

without which the group could not have been created, were used when it wanted to obtain

benefits for its members from the Catholic Church. The fact that the Society began as a Catholic

brotherhood did not, however, mean that only professed Catholics were accepted for full

membership. Proclaimed Muslims such as Manoel Nascimento, better known by his Islamic

name of Gibirilu, were also members, which suggests that Catholic purity was hardly a key issue

for the members. The fundamental requirement for membership in the Society was and still is to

be a Black man.(11)

Another major function of the brotherhoods and sisterhoods was to assure their members a

"good death"—a decent burial, like the African American burial societies in the United States.

Members stipulated the conditions in which they wanted to be buried, often dressed in the

uniform of the organization, which was probably their finest article of clothing. Church funerals

were held for members with all appropriate pomp and circumstance, such that the funerals of

poor Blacks on their final day of glory often rivaled those of rich whites.(12) A prominent

woman in Cachoeira recently said that she will join the Sisterhood of Good Death when she is

older so that she can have a church funeral and be buried in the opulent costume, thus assuring

herself a good death.

Such is the context in which the Sisterhood of Good Death began, its major concerns being, like

the other Afro-Catholic sisterhoods and brotherhoods, to help its members and to gain freedom

for those who were still enslaved. The founders of the Sisterhood made a vow to Our Lady of

Good Death that if she would free them from slavery, they would hold a procession and feast in

her honor every year. They interpreted their ability to save and buy their freedom as evidence of

the Virgin's intercession, and the current sisters' procession continues to fulfill the vow of their

ancestresses. That their vow was to Our Lady of Good Death/Our Lady of Glory suggests that

their own transition from slavery to freedom was like a resurrection from the death of their life as

slaves to a new heavenly life as free women. The yearly ceremonial may, thus, be viewed as an

emancipation celebration—the oldest continuous celebration of emancipation from slavery in the

Americas, performed by the oldest continuing African American women's organization in the

Americas.

The Candomblé and the Sisterhood of Good Death

The Candomblé and the Sisterhood of Good Death represent two different techniques used by

the enslaved Africans to institutionalize and successfully maintain the reality and integrity of the

African spirituality that continues to be the basis of Afro-Brazilian life, in spite of Euro-Brazilian

efforts to eradicate this religious system and replace it with another one based on fundamentally

different conceptual and behavioral foundations, and serving antagonistic social and cultural

ends. The Sisterhood and Feast of Good Death represent the expression of African religious8

forms within the very institution whose explicit mission has been to eliminate them. They

represent the infiltration of the Orishás into the Catholic Church. The Afro-Catholic sisterhoods

and brotherhoods used what was to be an alienating institution as a cloak of protection within

which to express meanings essential to themselves and antithetical to the intentions of the

unwittingly complicitous host institution.

The Candomblé, in contrast, represents another style of Afro-Brazilian insistence on preserving

their religious integrity—outside of the institutions of Euro-Brazilian society. During slavery and

after, to the extent possible the Afro-Brazilians held their Candomblé ceremonies in rural areas

distant from their white oppressors. When this was impossible, they devised ways, by equating

the Orishás and the saints, to worship their prohibited African spiritual beings in full view of the

slave masters, with the approval of those committed to extirpating the African religious heritage.

The Feast of St. Lazarus, celebrated annually in mid-August in Salvador, offers an interesting

example of a kind of overt fusion of both forms. While a Catholic mass is being celebrated

within the Church of St. Lazarus, Candomblé members carrying statues of the saint go into a

trance and "manifest" and dance for Omolú in front of the church. The spatial locus of these two

forms of worship inside and outside of the church, in addition to being enforced by the Catholic

hierarchy, is symbolically appropriate and reflects the different styles used by Afro-Brazilians to

maintain their spiritual life and adapt it to the exigencies of a new and oppressive social

environment.

    For it is this joy can in a basket of alms to Mass Cosmas and Damian. 
:: Adenor GONDIM 25/09/09

Whereas the sisterhoods and brotherhoods took the Orishás into the Catholic Church, hiding

them in the vestments of the saints, the Candomblé took the saints out of the church with which

to camouflage the Orishás. Whereas the sisterhoods and brotherhoods adopted and adapted

Catholic rituals in order to honor the Orishás in the form of the saints, the Candomblé adapted

its own rituals to honor the saints in order to honor the Orishás they represented.

The most extreme form of Afro-Brazilian resistance to cultural oppression, to oppression in

general, was the creation of quilombos, the independent communities set up in remote places

by people who physically escaped from the slave system rather than creating a way to preserve

their cultural space within it. Candomblés have been characterized as "internal quilombos," as

islands of African cultural self-preservation within Brazilian society

     Door of the Church of the Third Order of Carmel. 

Savior scorned reborn in simple people occupying churches, terraces, stadiums, streets, squares with solemn and debauched his way, being religious and profane. Salve November 25 - Official Day of Baianas . the XE! Every Day is Day Baianas, Boy!

It is important to acknowledge that the nature of the saints and the Orishás, and hence of the

Afro-Brazilians' perceptions of them, is very different. The saints are abstract, and are known to

the Afro-Brazilians only in the form of pictures and plaster statues. The Orishás, in contrast,

descend to earth to the call of ceremonial drum rhythms to enter the bodies of their devotees,

who actually "become" the spiritual beings who have come to dance in the midst of their human

community. The Orishás have personalities and likes and dislikes, and they influence the daily

lives of their devotees. People's characters and fate are determined by the Orishás, who are

their spiritual guides and guardians, not by the saints.

It is significant that the two styles of religious self-affirmation represented by the Sisterhood of

Good Death and the Candomblé are not mutually exclusive options for Afro-Brazilians, but that,9

on the contrary, the same individuals founded, and their descendants still participate in, and are

leaders of, both systems. When the influential priestess of the Candomblé, Axé Opô Afonjá,

died in l967, a funeral ceremony was held, as it had been for her predecessor in l938, in the

Church of Our Lady of the Rosary of Black People. But a Catholic funeral is not sufficient for a

Candomblé initiate, and a special Candomblé ceremony for the dead, an axexéi, was also held

for her.

The Sisterhood of Good Death preceded the official establishing of the Casa Branca

Candomblé as an Afro-Brazilian institution growing out of the Church of Barroquinha. The

Candomblé temple that eventually became overtly officialized as the Casa Branca, however,

existed before the entry of its members into the Catholic Church. According to one account,

there are people who attest that the Casa Branca is really more than 350 years old, dating from

the beginnings of slavery in Brazil. They say that its original location was in a subterranean spot

entered through a hole in a tree.(13) Although the specifics of this version of the original location

are clearly apocryphal, it is undeniable that forms of African religious worship began as soon as

the Africans reached Brazil, and not only preceded, but also precipitated the creation of the

Afro-Catholic sisterhoods and brotherhoods.

In Cachoeira people say that the Sisterhood of Good Death grew out of a Candomblé whose

members were forced into the Catholic Church by a priest who was anxious to end their

autonomous religious life, and there is every reason to believe that its origins in Salvador were

the same. The original locus of the religious grouping that became known as the Casa Branca

was probably underground in the figurative rather than literal sense in that it was secluded in a

remote area because of persecution by slave owners, and also because such a location was

totally appropriate for a religion based on the forces of nature.

The church's drawing of Candomblé members into itself did not, however, kill the Candomblé,

as was the intent. The Candomblé went into the church in the form of the sisterhoods and

brotherhoods, going underground in a sense, and it came out again in the form of overt,

autonomous institutions. As a result of belonging to the Sisterhood of Good Death, the original

sisters were able to secure their freedom, for which they remained grateful to Our Lady of

Good Death/Our Lady of Glory. They also, while remaining members of the Catholic

Sisterhood, firmly institutionalized their own autonomous spiritual foundation outside of the

church. The Afro-Catholic sisterhoods and brotherhoods have almost gone out of existence,

whereas the Candomblé continues to flourish and proliferate. The Catholic Church used the

sisterhoods and brotherhoods to wage war on the Orishás—and the Orishás won the holy war. (http://dickinsg.intrasun.tcnj.edu/boamorte/Article.pdf)

                                 

Life 

just 

goes on.

   

Continued 
Life 
so.

     

Black and White I was born, I grew up and raised White and Black. One day the noonday sun was coming up and the colors began to bother. 
Bota bother about it. Retei me and opened the doors was a disaster this stormy intercourse of colors. 
dawn a lazy lost the fear of colors.

Bahia Maragogipe August 200
Photos:http://www.apenasbahia.blogger.com.br/