Afro-Brazilian culture was the theme of the fourth conversation of the Culture and Synodality Room, an initiative of the cultural dream of the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council that accompanies the path towards the Afro-American Pastoral Encounter of 2028, which will be hosted in Brazil.
The meeting was coordinated by the Secretariat of Afro-American and Caribbean Pastoral and included the participation of professor and doctor Rosenilton Oliveira, researcher and lecturer at the University of São Paulo, who has developed part of his career alongside the communities of the Afro-Brazilian pastoral and has studied their celebrations, pilgrimages, congresses, expressions of spirituality and black culture in the Church.
Before his presentation, the father Wilfrido Mosquera presented some data about Brazil, a country that will host the Afro-American Pastoral Encounter of 2028. He highlighted its continental dimension, with more than 8.5 million square kilometers, a population that is estimated to be 214.2 million inhabitants and a cultural diversity also linked to the presence of the Amazon and of numerous indigenous peoples.
The priest also recalled that around 55.5% of the Brazilian population is afro-descendant and presented this meeting as a first approach to the path of preparation towards 2028: “this meeting is already like that appetizer” to begin to know and savor what is to come.
Path of meetings on culture
The Room of Culture and Synodality had already addressed other aspects of the Latin American reality. The first dialogue, held in Madrid, was dedicated to Latin American teaching and culture and was coordinated by the Network of Popular Culture.
In June, a meeting on culture and education was held, coordinated by the Network of Educational Pastoral and Global Pact. In July, the topic was culture and Afro-American women, under the coordination of the Leadership Network.
This fourth conversation was specifically dedicated to Afro-Brazilian culture and was accompanied by a prayer from Monsignor Zanoni Demettino Castro, metropolitan archbishop of Feira de Santana. In his invocation, he asked that the Most Holy Trinity, “source of communion, of diversity, of life,” illuminate the meeting and open hearts to dialogue, memory, faith, and hope of the Afro-descendant peoples. The moment of prayer was accompanied by a song dedicated to Our Lady Aparecida, presented as “Our Black Lady” and “sovereign Quilombola”, before giving way to Professor Rosenilton's presentation.
Identity built also from Africa
The researcher began his presentation by recognizing the continental dimension of Brazil and its enormous diversity of peoples and cultures. At the same time, he warned that this wealth coexists with social structures still marked by inequality. His reflection presented the identity and black memory of the afro-descendant people in Brazil and showed how the African peoples, taken to the country under conditions of enslavement, participated decisively in the construction of Brazilian society and culture.
To organize his presentation, he raised two major questions: the construction of the Brazilian national and cultural identity and some of the structural elements that allow understanding that identity. From there he proposed to also think about the possibilities and challenges of a pastoral and ecclesial action alongside the Afro-Brazilian population.
The professor situated part of his analysis in the period following the proclamation of the Republic, in 1889, when Brazil was undergoing social and political transformations. Just a year earlier, in 1888, slavery had officially ended. However, he pointed out that the abolition was not accompanied by reparative policies addressing the consequences of centuries of enslavement. Institutional responses of recognition and appreciation of African populations would come much later, especially in the early 21st century.
Nation that sought its symbols
At the beginning of the 20th century, Oliveira explained, the Brazilian elites were asking how to build a new society and a national identity in the tropics. Brazil had historically developed a gaze oriented towards Europe and tended to value elements coming from France, England, and other European countries, while sidelining the cultures present in its own territory. Among them were the cultures of the indigenous peoples and of the African populations.
The modernist movement, particularly from 1922 onwards, played an important role in constructing a narrative about Brazil and in recognizing certain elements as symbols of the national culture. Later, during the governments of Getúlio Vargas, it also promoted the construction of national identity, although within a period of strong political contradictions and dictatorship. In that process, culture and national identity came to be understood practically as the same reality. The image of Brazil abroad became associated with a huge cultural force.
Oliveira remembered, for example, the folkloric research conducted by Mário de Andrade, who traveled through different regions of the country to study the diversity and richness of Brazilian cultural expressions. But this recognition had a contradiction: certain cultural elements were valued, while the people and communities that had produced them continued to be discriminated against..
Culture was valued, but not always those who created it.
The professor used capoeira as one of the clearest examples. Capoeira became recognized as an element of Brazilian culture and later as a national sport, but those who practiced it, mostly black people, were persecuted and even considered subjects of criminal offenses during much of the first half of the 20th century.
Something similar happened with samba. This rhythm of African origin was progressively incorporated into the image of Brazil and valued as a national expression, while the men and women who performed it were persecuted until the 1940s. In this way, Oliveira showed one of the contradictions that run through the construction of Brazilian identity: “we have a movement to value elements of African culture, but we do not have the same movement to value the people, the subjects who produce it”.
This tension can also be observed in cultural heritage. The researcher explained that when talking about Brazilian cultural heritage, it is necessary to recognize the african and indigenous matrices that constitute it. “When we talk about Brazilian culture, we are also talking about the presence of the people who came from Africa”, he noted.
The African presence in Brazilian culture
For Oliveira, many of the symbols that are currently recognized as expressions of “Brazilian-ness” have a strong African and indigenous presence. Music, dance, gastronomy, literature, arts, and religious expressions are part of this heritage. Capoeira, samba, carnival, and feijoada are some of the most well-known examples. In music, the African influence is present in rhythms, beats, ways to dance, and song lyrics. That influence also reaches expressions like sertanejo, pop, rock, and funk produced in Brazil.
The researcher also related these expressions to other cultural experiences in Latin America, mentioning similarities with manifestations present in Cuba, Colombia, and Uruguay.
In gastronomy, he highlighted feijoada and the use of ingredients like palm oil, linked to traditions from Africa. In literature, he pointed out the influence of Afro-Brazilian culture on authors like Jorge Amado, as well as the work of contemporary writers like Conceição Evaristo and Carolina Maria de Jesus. He also referred to the Portuguese language spoken in Brazil. As he explained, the African influence is not limited to the incorporation of words from different languages, but reaches the construction of sentences, phonetics, and other aspects of the Brazilian language, with a particularly important presence of the languages from the Bantu complex.
Heritage that also has black faces
The exhibition also addressed material cultural heritage. Oliveira presented as an example the city of Ouro Preto, in Minas Gerais, recognized for its architectural heritage and the richness of Brazilian baroque. In the traditional narrative about this heritage, European masters and artists often appear, including Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and French. However, the researcher pointed out the need to recognize the participation of Africans and Afro-descendants who worked in its construction, both from physical effort and from their intellectual and artistic capabilities.
Painters, artisans, and other African workers participated in the construction of churches, houses, decorations, and other expressions of Brazilian baroque. For the researcher, this presence must be incorporated into the cultural memory of the country.
Another space of memory presented was the archaeological site of Cais do Valongo, in Rio de Janeiro, an old port through which numerous people brought from Africa entered in a state of enslavement. Today, the place allows for the visibility of that part of Brazilian history.
More than five million Africans arrived in Brazil
Oliveira explained that historical data on the exact number of Africans brought to America is not precise, but noted that during the centuries of slave trafficking Brazil received approximately half of the African people taken to the Americas. According to the data presented during the conversation, between 1526 and 1870 around ten million people were transported and about five million arrived in Brazil.
This dimension helps to understand, according to the researcher, why the population of African descent and indigenous peoples have such an important weight in the historical formation of the country. However, the censuses and the categories used to classify the population for much of Brazilian history contributed to presenting a different reality. The researcher explained that until the 1990s demographic records could show a majority of self-identified white population, related to the way in which classification by color was carried out.
Currently, around 56% of the Brazilian population, more than 110 million people, identifies as Afro-descendant, according to the data shared during the exhibition.
African peoples and indigenous peoples
The African presence in Brazil cannot be understood as a homogeneous experience either. Oliveira presented the diversity of African peoples brought to the country, including groups from regions historically identified as Sudanese and peoples from Central and Southern Africa. He mentioned, among others, the nagô, ketô, ijexá, and jeje, as well as the strong Yoruba presence, especially in the northeastern Brazil and in Salvador de Bahia.
This diversity has left marks on languages, music, gastronomy, dances, and religious expressions. The presence of the orixás, the musical traditions, and cultural manifestations of Bahia are some of the highlighted examples.
This heritage is complemented by the presence of indigenous peoples. Oliveira recalled that Brazil has around 190 indigenous peoples and more than 200 indigenous languages, even though Portuguese remains the only official language at the national level. For the researcher, this reality poses the challenge of also recognizing indigenous languages as part of the identity and culture of the country.
The religious dimension of Afro-Brazilian memory
One of the aspects that was presented was the relationship between culture and religious experience. Oliveira explained that, just as happened in other Latin American and Caribbean countries with a strong African presence, in Brazil, religions of African origin emerged.
These religious experiences were constituted from processes of transformation and dialogue with Catholicism and with indigenous cultural matrices. Therefore, the researcher asked to avoid a simplistic reading based solely on the idea of syncretism. “I am not talking here about an idea of syncretism or a false religious experience”, he clarified.
His argument is that the religious experience is closely linked with the cultural experience of the peoples. That is why, just as the African religions transformed in Brazil, the Catholicism experienced in the country also received the influence of African and indigenous cultures. “If there is a transformation of African religions in Brazil, there is also a transformation of the Catholicism that is lived in Brazil”, he said. In this sense, the ways of celebrating, the expressions of faith, and the relationship with the sacred also form part of the Afro-Brazilian cultural memory.
Religious spaces as places of preservation
Oliveira particularly emphasized the role of the Candomblé terreiros in the preservation of african cultural elements during the centuries of enslavement and after that.. For almost four centuries, he recalled, the population of African descent suffered enslavement and their values and cultural productions were disregarded. In that context, these religious spaces allowed for the preservation of symbols, knowledge, music, philosophy, and ways of understanding the world.
“When we talk today about African culture in Brazil, we have to recognize that it was thanks to African religiosity” that many of these symbols were able to be preserved, he explained.
For this reason, it was considered that it is not possible to think about the Afro-diasporic presence in Brazil without recognizing the importance of these spaces and their relationship with the sacred.
Diverse culture that paves the way towards 2028
The exhibition also explored other expressions of Brazilian culture, including the clothing of the bahianas, whose dresses, adornments, colors, and ways of covering the head contain cultural and cosmological references related to authority and identity. In the case of capoeira, it distinguished between capoeira Angola, which is more directly related to traditions from Central Africa, and regional capoeira, which incorporated transformations and acrobatic elements that were later spread internationally.
It also addressed carnival, especially the samba schools of the southeast. Although carnival is a celebration widespread throughout Brazil and is recognized as one of the main national cultural expressions, Oliveira recalled that there are other regional festivals of enormous importance, such as the Parintins Festival in the north and the June festivals dedicated to Saint John, Saint Anthony, and Saint Peter in the northeast.
The diversity of these expressions shows that Brazilian culture cannot be reduced to a single symbol. It is a plural construction in which African, indigenous, and European matrices converge, with an African presence that, according to the researcher, has been decisive and often insufficiently recognized.
Look towards the African American pastoral
The meeting is part of the preparation path towards the Afro-American Pastoral Meeting of 2028 in Brazil and aims to generate spaces for training and dialogue about the cultural diversity of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Room of Culture and Synodality leaves open a reflection that transcends the borders of Brazil: recognizing the African roots of the culture of Latin America also implies recovering the memory of the peoples who built it, their spiritualities, their struggles, and their contributions to the life of the Church and the societies of the region.
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