Gran poder
Santo Amaro, Bahia, Brazil
Of all the cultural and socio-political forms of resistance created and developed by Africans who were kidnapped and forcibly brought as slaves to the Americas, the candomblé in Brazil is one of the most relevant and vindicating.
Candomblé is a religious unit of the African magical world in Brazil, not a religious organization, that serves as a resistance (conscious and unconscious) to the processes of slave colonization. Candomblé incorporates and fuses diverse African black religions as well as surviving religious beliefs of Brazilian indigenous peoples with Catholicism and Spiritism.
Candomblé represents a focus of resistance by slaves against processes of colonization and against the power of the Catholic Church, breaking with systems of totalitarian slave domination.
I remain chained at the bottom of a river, holding my breath. Two candomblé Mothers-of- Saints pull me to the surface and keep me above the water level, preventing me from drowning.