The Candomblé cult is widespread in the northeast of Brazil and is based on the worship of spirits - orisha, or saints, who, when they enter the believer, relieve him of illness and misfortune. In order for a cult follower to establish contact with his spirit, he must first "recognize" it.
Initiation serves this purpose. Before the initiation ceremony, the neophyte retires for several days to the cult room - the barracon; he is fasting, he is forbidden to speak. It is believed that during the initiation he will be saddled by an orisha, whose name is determined by the priest.
The drums play the leading role in the ceremony, through which the spirits "speak". The drums are sprinkled with holy water in the Catholic Church, and then consecrated in the cult building of the barracon - smeared with chicken blood, palm oil and honey. They cannot be sold and taken out of there.
The cult ceremony of Candomblé begins with the Orisha sacrifice, which takes place in this cult venue. This cult ceremony involves a priest ("father of a saint") or a priestess ("mother of a saint"), a carver and "daughters of a saint" (the so-called ordinary followers of Candomblé).
The blood of a sacrificial animal or bird (a kid, a chicken or a dove) is poured over a stone or other objects that are kept in the room and personify the places where the spirits reside. Following this, a ritual begins, which consists of songs and dances of the "daughters of the saint" and participants in the cult under the guidance of a priest or priestess.
The main thing in the ritual of such cults is trance, with the help of which the deity is introduced into the believer.
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The Umbanda cult was born in Brazil in the middle of the 20th century. The word “umbanda”, according to some researchers, is a distorted “kimbanda”, which means “priest”, “cult”, “cult ceremony”. The Umbandist theologians themselves prefer to call themselves spiritualists, "followers of a god who radiates light."
They add the word “spiritualism” to the name of their cult. The first congress of the followers of "Umbanda Spiritism" was held in Rio de Janeiro in October 1941.
This is not yet an established cult. It is based on Candomblé, to whose Afro-Christian deities were added the local spirits of the "old Negroes" and the spirits of Indian leaders. Thus, umbanda is a syncretic cult that reflects the beliefs of blacks, Indians and whites. In addition, he absorbed spiritualism, occultism and a wide variety of theories about the afterlife.
Umbanda theologians use "witchcraft" books, handbooks on palmistry, dream books, and other occult literature. They even rank as sacred books J. J. Fraser's Golden Branch, a medical dictionary, a book by the Polish religious scholar F. Ossendowski “Beasts, People, and Gods,” dictionaries of Indian languages and D. Merezhkovsky's mystical works.
The following trends can be distinguished in the activities of the Umbanda centers:
1) vague, professing spiritualistic, spiritualistic-Umbandistic and similar teachings;
2) African, with a predominance of Candomblé elements;
3) Christian, linking Umbanda with the evangelical teaching;
4) Kardekist, linking the teachings of Umbanda with the teachings of Allan Kardek (1804-1869, real name Ippolit Denizar Rivet), the founder of French spiritualism, according to which people can call spirits through mediums;
5) occult, magic and witchcraft;
6) others: Masonic, yogis and others.
Umbandists seek to develop their own cult ceremonies. They observe the following rituals: baptism, confirmation, "crossing", that is, initiation into mediums, initiation empowering mediums, dying forgiveness and others. Some of them are performed in the Catholic Church, some in the cult premises of the terreiro.
Umbandist centers, as a rule, consist of structures: the main room - the abode of the deities, where the prayer takes place - fat; a small booth house where the evil spirits of eshu live (to the left of the entrance), and the same building behind the main room - for the souls of the dead (with broken dishes and sacrificial food). In almost all such centers, sacrifices to spirits are practiced.
One of the features of the Umbandist cult is healing from diseases that are the result of the effects of evil spirits, witchcraft, the evil eye and other wiles of evil spirits.
Umbanda priests treat diseases with a set of special tools. Among them are fumigation with aromatic herbs and ablutions. Moreover, they fumigate and wash not only people, but also animals, cars (from a disaster) and houses (from a fire).
Reception of "magic" water, as well as hand manipulations performed by mediums over the sick will also help to get rid of diseases.
More complex magic operations are also performed. For example, "head swap" is the transfer of an illness from a sore head to a healthy one. Sometimes this method is also used: by means of special manipulations, the disease is "transferred" to the patient's clothes, the clothes are wrapped in an attractive bag and left in a crowded place. It is believed that the first person who takes the package will get the diseases hidden in it.
You can also spread the disease to a bird or animal. In this case, they should be slaughtered and buried along with the patient's clothes, and then he himself should be subjected to cleansing ablutions. Thus, the magic rites of the Umbandists are in many ways similar to the magical rites of different peoples.
The ritual of "sealing the body" is very curious. According to legends, it protects a person from diseases, accidents, animal bites, knife wounds and other misfortunes.
The ceremony lasts a week. The patient is given ritual incisions on the forehead, neck, sides, chest, palms, knees. The incisions "seal the body", making it inaccessible to disease.
Adherence to two belief systems - traditional and Christian - is not a problem for most Indians, they see them as complementary rather than contradicting each other.
