On November 28th I went to the Waterman building And listened to Doctor Paul C Johnson speak on Candomble and the material incorporation of spirit possession. He is a professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in the Department of History and Department of Afroamerican and African studies. He also has written about the African Diaspora and the many religions that make it up. He isn’t a practitioner of any of the religions he studies so gives an outsider’s perspective on the religions he studies.

In his lecture Doctor Johnson spoke about the origins of Candomble and the African Diaspora as a whole. He said that Numerically speaking, Brazil is the Capital of the African Diaspora in the Americas because more enslaved people were brought there than to any other colony nation during the slave trade era. The influence that Portugal had on the culture of Brazil through colonization is shown by the Catholic church’s influence and importance. Slaves were allowed to attend church on Sunday and as a result the enslaved people were able to practice modified versions of the religions of Africa. Despite these practices being banned in public until the 1970s the religion’s popularity in Brazil grew and still is growing. Most members of modern Candomble don’t consider it a religion and are baptized practicing Catholics. The Religion’s focus on material work through usage of altars, special items, animal sacrifice, and alcohol all highlight the difference between a Catholic mass and almost any ritual the Candomble does. However, the deities of Africa and the saints of Catholicism are interwoven. With many houses of Candomble each having a saint represent them that is tied to a deity from africa including Yemaya and Obatala. The religion also has another sect called Spiritism which is very similar including the ritual aspect of animal sacrifice but is considered more closely related to Christianity and has even been compared to Pentecostalism. Practitioners of SPiritism typically dress in all white and claim that they don’t practice witchcraft which makes them different from Candomble. Practitioners of Candomble often associate the deity Esu, the god of the crossroad and often considered a shady figure across the diaspora, with the devil due to his nature and his usage in Candomble rituals that aren’t always used for moral purposes. Candomble also differs from Spiritism due to its lack of the concept of good and evil. Practitioners of Spiritism may often call Candomble Witchcraft or work of the devil due to its lack of  good and evil and the slightly more dark depiction of Esu.

Doctor Johnson spoke about the way in which to convey information to the public in a way that is understood and how the way practitioners can sometimes make it difficult to understand a concept because each religion has its own logic, terms, and rules. The way in which the religions logic and terms are conveyed across cultural barriers often is a challenge that scholars of religion often face. This was an interesting concept to explore and made me think about ideas and rituals in other religions that I am familiar with that would make no sense to those watching the ritual if they weren’t in the religion. Take for example the practice of Communion, some questions I would have if I didn’t speak the language that the ceremony would be why do some people drink from the cup and eat the circle but others don’t? Why do some still go up but not drink or eat? Why do some have their arms crossed? Does it represent something?. All of these things would make no sense to me unless I understood the holy book and knew the story of the Last Supper.

Doctor Paul C. Johnson highlights the many different ways that cultures and religions mix and change over time in his book Syncretism and Hybridization and what the different ways that they mix are. Johnson’s definition of syncretism “syncretism was used in an expanded sense as a comparative adjective applied to religions”(Johnson 760). Candomble and Spiritism shows many examples of syncretism due to the religions being born out of the Catholic Church. The Catholic influences are seen with saints and deities being interwoven. That concept is also shown in Santeria due to the Catholic Church being an institution of power and importance in the Spanish empire just like the Catholic church was a powerful institution in the Portuguese government. The importance of cowrie shells in divination rituals is very similar to those found in Nigerian Yoruba practices which shows the Syncretic nature of the Diasporic religions Candomble and Spiritism.

Johnson, Paul C., Michael Stausberg, and Steven Engler. The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion. First ed., New York, Oxford University Press, 2016.