The transformations in Afro-Brazilian religions have been the central focus of extensive literature in the fields of anthropology and sociology of religion, emphasizing both ritualistic and liturgical changes, as well as in terms of the public. In this work we analyze the phenomenon of the incorporation of elements of New Age in some Umbanda temples in the city of Florianópolis (Brazil), analyzing how this process occurs and what it reveals to us in terms of the transformations of Afro-Brazilian religions. The research demonstrates that this articulation occurs mainly with the use of alternative therapies in Umbanda temples and the substitution of some aspects of Afro-Brazilian religions, such as ritual animal sacrifice, with new elements.

The present article analyzes the career trajectories and songs from the repertoires of three popular musicians of the first half of the 20^th Century. These are Patricio Teixeira (1893-1972), a radio singer; Getúlio Marinho (1889-1964), considered to be the first person to record macumba rhythms on a commercial album; and Tancredo da Silva Pinto (1904-1979), whose song “General da Banda” (General of the Band) is symbolically linked to Ogum. Each of these singers and songwriters, in his own way, sought to divulge elements of African-Brazilian rituals and religious practices in his music. Their artistic performances allow us to conclude that religion inspired some of their musical production, marking out the presence of the sacred in their professional activities and contributing to the social circulation of African-Brazilian symbologies.

Oswaldo de Andrade’s poem, “O Santeiro do Mangue” (1991 [1950]) and Ruth Landes’ ethnography

“City of Women” (2006 [1947]) both highlight how African-Brazilian religions have maintained connections to sexual practices considered to be “perverse” by Christian moralities. The present article describes the presence of the orixás in today’s brothels in Rio de Janeiro. We emphasize the use of Candomblé and Umbanda as counter-hegemonic forms of spirituality which protect women involved in the sale of sex and are used as symbolic languages criticizing a moral order that highlights female passivity. Through the language of the saints, that which cannot be said becomes public in Carioca brothels, highlighting agencies in a space nominally dominated by men.

Migratory phenomena and global flows have changed the religious diversity in Europe. The resulting processes of accommodation of religions and practices within new social contexts are characterized by complex dynamics of preservation/adaptation of religious elements. This paper aims to discuss the ways Afro-Brazilian religions, specifically Candomblé Ketu, have been introduced into and adapted within an Italian context. Based on fieldwork that took place in 2013-2016, it analyzes the religious/spiritual paths of Italian practitioners in order to understand how they approach Candomblé and how their observance of both Afro-Brazilian religions and so-called therapeutic practices promote dialogues and re-significations of some religious/spiritual elements.

The Xangô religion of Recife is a the cult of the orixás, gods of West African (mainly Yoruba) derivation syncretized with the saints of Lusitanian popular Catholicism. The essential act of the cult consists of sacrifice and feasting: animal slaughter, during which the faithful sing, dance and experience trances. The cult characteristics imply a whole set of responses to environmental pressures of various kinds, with oppositions of a dialectical character between the community and domination; the initiate as a ritual son and the initiate as a client; the meat and the feast; and the sacrifice and the party. In other words, between the practical requirements of culture and its surplus that transpires as the feast and as the holy and the beautiful.