Quimbanda
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (February 2022) |
Quimbanda, also spelled Kimbanda (Portuguese pronunciation:
Quimbanda focuses on male spirits called exús as well as their female counterparts, pomba giras. Pomba giras are often regarded as the spirits of deceased women who worked as prostitutes or in other positions traditionally considered immoral in Catholic Brazilian society. Quimbanda's practices are often focused on worldly success regarding money and sex.
A range of Afro-Brazilian religions emerged in Brazil, often labelled together under the term Macumba, which often carried negative connotations. Historically, the term Quimbanda has been used by practitioners of Umbanda, a religion established in Brazil during the 1920s, to characterise the religious practices that they opposed. Quimbanda thus served as a mirror image for Umbandistas.
Definitions
The origins of the term Quimbanda are unclear.[1] As a religion, it has been described as taking influences from Kardecist Spiritism, folk Catholicism, and Afro-Brazilian religions like Candomblé.[2] In Brazil, there are individuals who call themselves Quimbandeiros and openly practice Quimbanda.[3]
Relationship with Umbanda
The scholar of religion
Umbandist leaders have been keen to disavow practices they consider barbaric or primitive and maintain that said practices instead belong to Quimbanda.[12] The anthropologists Diana Brown and Mario Bick noted that, for the early Umbandistas, "Quimbanda represented a repository for all the opprobrious associations from which they wished to escape."[1] 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".[13] Brown noted that Quimbanda represented "a crucial negative mirror image against which to define Umbanda,"[14] suggesting that it could also serve as an "ideological vehicle for expressing prejudices" towards African-derived and lower class religions.[15]
The boundaries between Umbanda and Quimbanda are nevertheless not always clear, with various spirit mediums engaging or promoting practices associated with both.[16] Hess noted that the two represented "ideal types," but that "in practice they comprise a total system in which one side only makes sense when placed in dialogue with the other side."[11]
Beliefs
Quimbanda is a spirit-mediumship religion.[2] Its rituals focus on spirit mediums "incorporating", or being possessed by, various ancestral spirits.[6] In distinction from Umbanda, it focuses on interactions with "spirits of the street", namely exus and pombagiras but also, since the 1970s, ciganos.[17]
Exus
In Quimbanda the male spirits are known as Exus, they are considered very powerful spirits. Note that they are not the same as the
[Quimbanda] is associated particularly with the cultivation of a set of powerful spirit entities called Exus, referred to by their devotees as guardians.
Exus, commonly referred to as ‘spirits of the left’, are not purely evil. Instead, they are more human-like in their qualities and share in human weaknesses. Exu spirits primarily deal with human and material matters as opposed to the ‘spirits of the right’ used in Umbanda, who deal with primarily spiritual matters. Exus are typically called for rituals to arrange rendezvous, force justice, or keep life balance. From inside of the cult, Quimbanderos instead affirm that Exus cover both Spirit and Matter, and that They simply consider pointless to stick only to one of them. According to the lore provided by trained sorcerers, Exus has a stern and high morality, They simply accept to help people into delicate matters too, like seduction and vengeance, but never with the uninterest in morality and ethic often attributed to them by outsiders.
Pomba Giras
The female counterparts of the exús,[18] pombagiras are regarded as the spirits of immoral women such as prostitutes.[19] Linked to marginal and dangerous places,[20] they are associated with sexuality, blood, death, and cemeteries.[21] They are often presented as being ribald and flirty, speaking in sexual euphemisms and double entendres.[22] They wear red and black clothing,[23] and only possess women and gay men,[24] who will then often smoke or drink alcohol,[25] using obscene language and behaving lasciviously.[24] The term pombagira may derive from the Bantu word bombogira,[26] the name of a male orixá in Candomblé's Bantu or Angola tradition.[27] In Brazilian Portuguese, the term pomba is a euphemism for the vulva.[28]
Ogum
Practices
Rituals
A Quimbanda ritual, called a trabalho, typically consists of several parts: a motive, dedication to a spirit, a marginal location, the metal or clay (earthy) material, an alcoholic drink, scent, and food (usually a peppered flour-palm oil mixture, sometimes called miamiami).[30] Animal sacrifice, generally avoided in Umbanda, is common in Quimbanda as it is in many Afro-Brazilian religions.[31] Species sacrificed include pigeons, chickens, goats, sheep, and bulls.[32] Songs that Quimbandistas sing for the deities are commonly called pontos.[32]
Particular elements of an Exu trabalho remain unchanged in the Pomba Gira trabalho and therefore mark Pomba Giras as the female counterparts of Exu: the colors, the location (male to female variation), the time of day, the day of the week, the scent (smoky), and the container for the food and the flour/palm oil mixture. In a Pomba Gira trabalho, another set of elements indicates a gentler coding: from rum to champagne or anisette, from the absence of flowers to red roses, from pepper in the flour/palm oil mixture to honey, and from a fierce initiatory act to a song, which seems to suit the purpose of the ritual: to obtain a woman.[29]
Marginal locations
‘Marginal locations’ refer to areas containing magical and spiritual significance where rituals are executed. Many Quimbanda rituals are performed at crossroads, as Exu is the Lord of the seven crossroads and
History
From Africa to Brazil
Quimbanda originated in
Catholic influence
The
From Macumba to Quimbanda and Umbanda
Before Quimbanda became its own separate religion, it was contained inside the religious tradition of
Contemporary
Quimbanda grew considerably in the 1970s.
Reception and influence
Quimbanda has been criticised and opposed by various groups in Brazilian society. Animal rights groups have objected to its practice of animal sacrifice.[41] Spiritists maintain that Quimbandistas are drawing low spirits into the material realm, while Pentecostalists and other Christians have regarded Quimbanda as being in service of the Devil.[41]
References
Citations
- ^ a b Brown & Bick 1987, p. 89.
- ^ a b Gidal 2013, p. 236.
- ^ Brown 1986, p. 90.
- ^ Engler 2009, p. 557.
- ^ Hess 1992, p. 136.
- ^ a b Gidal 2013, p. 237.
- ^ Gidal 2013, p. 249.
- ^ Hayes 2007, p. 307; Capone 2010, p. 103; Engler 2012, p. 16.
- ^ Brown 1986, p. 1; Hale 2009, p. x; Engler 2020, p. 2.
- ^ Brown 1986, pp. 1, 191; Brown & Bick 1987, p. 79; Engler 2009, p. 555; Engler 2020, p. 23.
- ^ a b Hess 1992, p. 147.
- ^ Brown & Bick 1987, p. 80.
- ^ Brown 1986, p. 86.
- ^ Brown 1986, p. 44.
- ^ Brown 1986, p. 45.
- ^ Hess 1992, pp. 138–139.
- ^ Gidal 2013, pp. 237–238.
- ^ Brown 1986, p. 74.
- ^ Hess 1992, p. 141; Hale 2009, p. 3.
- ^ Capone 2010, p. 84.
- ^ Capone 2010, p. 90.
- ^ Hale 2009, pp. 3–4.
- ^ Hale 2009, p. 3; Capone 2010, p. 84.
- ^ a b Capone 2010, p. 85.
- ^ Hale 2009, p. 4.
- ^ Hale 2009, p. 3; Capone 2010, p. 90.
- ^ Capone 2010, pp. 85–86.
- ^ Hale 2009, p. 3.
- ^ a b Hess 1992, p. 141.
- ^ Hess 1992, p. 140.
- ^ Gidal 2013, p. 242.
- ^ a b Gidal 2013, p. 244.
- ^ Hess 1992, pp. 142–144.
- ^ Brown & Bick 1987, p. 74.
- ^ a b Brown & Bick 1987, p. 75.
- ^ Hayes 2007, p. 309.
- ^ Hess 1992, pp. 150–151.
- ^ Gidal 2013, pp. 237, 242.
- ^ IBGE – Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics). Religion in Brazil – 2000 Census. Accessed 2009-12-02.
- ^ a b Brown & Bick 1987, p. 91.
- ^ a b Gidal 2013, p. 243.
Sources
- Brown, Diana DeG. (1986). Umbanda: Religion and Politics in Urban Brazil. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. ISBN 0-8357-1556-6.
- Brown, Diana De G.; Bick, Mario (1987). "Religion, Class, and Context: Continuities and Discontinuities in Brazilian Umbanda". American Ethnologist. 14 (1): 73–93. .
- Capone, Stefania (2010). Searching for Africa in Brazil: Power and Tradition in Candomblé. Translated by Lucy Lyall Grant. Durham and London: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-4636-4.
- Engler, Steven (2009). "Umbanda and Hybridity". Numen. 56 (5): 545–577. .
- Engler, Steven (2012). "Umbanda and Africa". Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. 15 (4): 13–35. .
- Engler, Steven (2020). "Umbanda: Africana or Esoteric?". Open Library of Humanities. 6 (1): 1–36. doi:10.16995/olh.469.
- Gidal, Marc Meistrich (2013). "Musical and Spiritual Innovation, Participation and Control in Brazil's Umbanda and Quimbanda Religions". Ethnomusicology Forum. 22 (2): 232–253. S2CID 145470978.
- Hale, Lindsay (2009). Hearing the Mermaid's Song: The Umbanda Religion in Rio De Janeiro. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 978-0-8263-4733-6.
- Hayes, Kelly E. (2007). "Black Magic and the Academy: Macumba and Afro-Brazilian 'Orthodoxies'". History of Religions. 46 (4): 283–315. S2CID 162364404.
- Hess, David J. (1992). "Umbanda and Quimbanda Magic in Brazil : Rethinking Aspects of Bastide's Works". Archives de sciences sociales des religions. 79 (1): 135–153. JSTOR 30128587.
Further reading
- Bastide, Roger (1978). The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Interpenetration of Civilizations. Trans. Helen Sebba. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins UP. ISBN 978-0-8018-2056-4.
- Brown, Lyle; Cooper, William (1980). Religion in Latin American Life and Literature. Waco, Texas: Baylor UP. ISBN 978-0-918954-23-7.
- Brumana, Fernando; Martinez, Elda (1989). Spirits from the Margin: Umbanda in São Paulo. Stockholm, Sweden: Almqvist and Wiksell Int. ISBN 978-91-554-2498-5.
- Langguth, A. J. (1975). Macumba: White and Black Magic in Brazil. New York: Harper and Row. ISBN 978-0-06-012503-5.
External links
- Mario dos Ventos, Kimbanda page of an English speaking Kimbandeiro
- The House of Quimbanda, page of the first formally established American house.
- http://www.starrycave.com/2014/05/the-firmeza-of-quimbanda.html?m=1