Have I got a religion for you!

I may have written something about this once before, but lord knows I don´t want to go back and read all my posts. I know that at least part of this is new.


During the slave days in Brasil, the Africans found a clever way around the prohibition against the worship of their own deities. When the "christian" slave owner saw pictures or statues of the virgin Mary, or St. Teresa, or whoever, in the slave quarters, it probably salved his conscience to think that he had made new converts to Christ. But the slaves were using the images as representations of their own gods and they continued to practice their own religion(s) under the slave owner´s nose. I have no idea how many African religions there might have been, but at least some of their practices survive today in the Northeast state of Bahia.


I first became aware of this bit of Brasilean history a few years ago when I was with my friend, Moa, in the city of Campinas. We were visiting the mother of a friend of his who (the mother) was doing a sewing project for Moa. We spent most of an afternoon at her place and, based on the general conversation and the fact that at one point she went out onto the balcony to smoke a cigarette and have a conversation with one of her spirit friends, I was surprised to see a statue of the virgin Mary prominently displayed. I asked Moa about it afterwards and he explained that to her that was a statue of some African god, not Mary.


This woman had a miniature pinscher dog. She and her husband left the next day on a trip and took the little dog to stay at their son´s house. Now the son and his wife, who had two miniature pinschers of their own, were also going on a trip, leaving Moa and me to house sit and take care of the three dogs. One afternoon we came home and there were only two dogs. The mother´s dog was missing, and we determined the spot where she had crawled under the fence. We looked around the neighborhood, but eventually Moa had to make the call to the son and say we had lost his mother´s dog. Lucas (I just remembered his name) called his mother. The mother said she had to have a conversation with her spirit friend; call her back in ten minutes. Lucas called her back and got the message and then phoned Moa to relay it. The message was to walk up to the house on the corner (a long block) and we would find the dog. And, indeed, we did. Ready to convert?

Tchau