Umbanda

Umbanda is a living, plural Afro-Brazilian religious tradition that took shape in Brazil through the knowledge, spiritual practices and experiences of different peoples, places and periods of our history.

Its roots are deeply connected to the African presence and diaspora in Brazil. Its formation also involved relationships with Indigenous peoples, Brazilian realities and different religious and spiritual currents encountered along the way.

One of the first things to understand about Umbanda is that there is no single way to practise it. It may be more accurate to speak of Umbandas in the plural than of one uniform Umbanda.

There is no central authority that can impose a doctrine or ritual order on every terreiro (an Umbanda religious house and community) and no single sacred book.

Each community is organised through its fundamentos (the knowledge, principles and practices that sustain its tradition), its lineage, its elders, its experiences and the ways it has received, preserved and developed its tradition.

Umbanda is decentralised, but it is not unstructured.

This does not mean an absence of authority, tradition or hierarchy. Terreiros have their own structures of priesthood, seniority, responsibility, knowledge and transmission.

Authority is passed on, exercised and recognised within communities, lineages and traditions. It is not concentrated in an institution that can determine how all Umbandas must exist.

Different terreiros may therefore share many foundations while understanding the Orixás (divinities), spiritual guides, ancestry, mediumship (ways of perceiving, experiencing or mediating relationships with the spiritual world), rituals, lines of spiritual work and even Umbanda's history in different ways.

Here at Casa de Axé Águas de Oxum, we speak from our own place within that diversity.

Our Umbanda acknowledges its African and Indigenous roots, understands nature as a manifestation of the sacred, honours the Orixás, ancestry and spiritual guides, and recognises Ori (the personal divinity and primordial principle of each individual, connected to individuality, personality, destiny and path) as a fundamental dimension of each person's responsibility for their own existence.

We do not claim to speak for all Umbandas. We aim to show clearly where we speak from.

Where does Umbanda come from?

Telling Umbanda's history means recognising that it has no single birth certificate.

Long before “Umbanda” became an established name and religious identity, Africans forcibly brought to Brazil and their descendants were already rebuilding, preserving and transforming different ways of relating to the sacred.

These peoples came from different societies, languages and traditions. They brought knowledge of divinities, ancestry, nature, healing, trance, protection, community and ritual.

In Brazil, this knowledge was reorganised under conditions profoundly shaped by enslavement, colonial violence, the separation of communities and the need to recreate continuity in a new territory.

Different Afro-Brazilian religious expressions developed within this broad religious landscape. Bantu, Nagô/Yoruba, Jeje and other traditions encountered one another, entered into dialogue and were transformed in Brazil.

This process also unfolded in territories inhabited by many Indigenous peoples, each with their own knowledge, cosmologies and relationships with land and the sacred.

When we speak of Umbanda's Indigenous roots, we are therefore not speaking of a single Indigenous tradition or a simple, uniform line of transmission.

The Indigenous presence takes different forms: historical encounters between peoples and communities, knowledge and practices that circulated across Brazil, and, particularly visibly, the presence of Caboclos (a line of spiritual guides) within Afro-Brazilian religions.

The formation of the Umbandas also took place in a society deeply shaped by Catholicism and, from the nineteenth century, the growth of Kardecist Spiritism.

Simply saying that “Umbanda is a mixture of African, Indigenous, Catholic and Spiritist religions” is therefore insufficient.

These are not ingredients combined in equal proportions, but centuries of resistance, coexistence, conflict, imposition, appropriation, transformation and religious creation.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly in urban centres in south-eastern Brazil, practices and communities began to organise within this wider religious landscape and gradually came to be identified as Umbanda.

A history also shaped by struggle and resistance

Umbanda did not grow under neutral conditions.

Afro-Brazilian religions and practices were historically persecuted, criminalised, discredited and associated with backwardness, superstition or witchcraft.

Indigenous peoples and their traditions also endured centuries of violence, displacement, forced conversion and attempts at erasure.

Throughout the twentieth century, different Umbanda leaders sought public recognition and legitimacy. Federations, congresses and attempts to organise, and even standardise, the religion emerged.

This pursuit of legitimacy also created tensions.

Some currents brought Umbanda closely into line with Spiritism and Christianity, seeking to distance it from practices identified as African or as “macumba”.

Part of this process is described as whitening or de-Africanisation. It is connected both to racism in Brazilian society and to strategies adopted by some currents to gain social acceptance.

Other communities maintained more visible connections to their African roots, while later movements deliberately reaffirmed those roots.

This helps explain why the Umbandas we encounter today can differ so greatly.

These differences did not arise by chance. They carry Umbanda's history within them.

We understand today's Umbandas within this living history, rather than through a single founding moment.

Approaching Umbanda only through the question “what do you believe?” leaves out an important part of how this religion is lived.

Religious experience also happens through relationships that are built and nurtured: with the Orixás, ancestry and spiritual guides, the community, sacred spaces and the elements used in ritual.

Much of the knowledge within Umbanda is not only explained.

It is also learned through experience.

People learn by participating in a gira (an Umbanda ritual gathering), listening to elders, singing, playing instruments, observing, caring, preparing, offering, incorporating and sharing community life.

The body participates in this experience. So does the terreiro.

How we understand the sacred in our terreiro

At Casa de Axé Águas de Oxum, we begin with a fundamental understanding:

Nature is the sacred whole around us and within us.

For us, the sacred is neither separate from existence nor confined to a distant place. It is expressed in life itself and in the relationships that sustain it.

The sacred beyond the terreiro

This understanding does not allow us to live spirituality as though there were two entirely separate states: one inside the terreiro and another outside it.

What we cultivate before the sacred needs to find expression in how we live: in our choices, how we treat other people, how we care for our surroundings and ourselves, and the responsibility we take for our actions.

Worshipping Orixás, seeking spiritual guidance or receiving a guide's care does not remove what each person needs to feel, live through, choose, learn, repair and transform.

Spirituality can guide, strengthen, open paths and reveal possibilities.

None of this, however, guarantees that our choices are aligned with our Ori.

We may listen and still choose not to follow.

We may know and not act accordingly.

We may recognise a path and still take another.

Personal responsibility therefore holds an important place in how we live the sacred.

Living Umbanda means more than believing in the existence of Orixás or spirits.

It also means building a relationship with the sacred that finds expression in how we feel and make sense of our experiences, in our choices, actions and relationships, and in how we move through life.

More than a religious space

In Umbanda, a terreiro, also called a Casa de Axé in some traditions, is the space where a religious community gathers, worships, learns and carries out its work.

But a terreiro is more than the physical place where rituals happen.

It is also a community built through relationships, foundations, responsibilities and a shared spiritual life.

It is where knowledge is passed on, members practise and learn, elders teach, Orixás are worshipped, guides work, and people gather to care for one another and commune with what they recognise as sacred.

Each terreiro has its own organisation, leadership, roles, practices and ways of conducting rituals.

Visiting a terreiro therefore also means getting to know a particular community within the diversity of Umbandas.

What is a gira?

One of Umbanda's main forms of ritual gathering is called a gira.

It is a ceremony in which the community comes together to worship, sing, pray, work with its guides and share in the sacred.

There is no single sequence that all giras must follow.

Depending on the terreiro and the purpose of the gathering, it may include prayers and greetings, pontos cantados (sacred ritual songs), atabaques (ritual drums), herbal smoke cleansing, herbs, offerings, dance, mediumship, spirit incorporation and spiritual consultations.

Some giras are open to visitors. Others take place within the community.

At our Casa, we understand each gira as a meeting of community, ancestry, Orixás, guides and the sacred we cultivate together.

Body, sound, song and movement

Music is not simply an accompaniment to ritual.

It is a sacred and fundamental part of it.

Pontos cantados are songs used to greet, praise, call, sustain or farewell Orixás and guides, and to accompany different stages of the spiritual work.

Atabaques, voices, clapping, singing, rhythm and movement form what many terreiros call curimba, the musical and ritual dimension of the gira.

At our Casa, we understand these elements as mobilising and directing axé (the sacred life force that circulates, sustains and transforms life and relationships), supporting the relationship between spiritual and material dimensions and helping to prepare and sustain incorporation.

Mediumship and incorporation

Mediumship holds an important place in many forms of Umbanda.

One of its best-known expressions is spirit incorporation, a mediumistic experience through which spiritual guides manifest through a medium's body.

Many traditions also speak of the manifestation or incorporation of the Orixás themselves; others understand this relationship differently.

At our Casa, we recognise manifestations of both guides and Orixás through the medium's body.

Incorporation is not experienced in the same way by everyone. It can involve different intensities and different degrees of awareness during the process.

Spiritual guides present themselves through different lines of work, known as Pretos Velhos, Caboclos, Exus, Pombagiras, Erês and others.

They participate actively in religious life, advising, teaching, listening, guiding and carrying out different forms of spiritual work and care.

What about visitors?

You do not need to belong to the terreiro or know about Umbanda beforehand to participate in an open gira.

Visitors can join in the songs and prayers, share in this space of axé, receive passes (a form of spiritual care) or other spiritual care and, when consultations are part of the gathering, speak directly with an incorporated guide.

People seek out guides for different reasons. They may be going through difficulties or distress, looking for guidance, trying to understand a situation better, or simply wanting to talk and hear what the guide has to share.

Visitors are asked to respect the space, the community and the guidance of that Casa.

See upcoming giras

The ritual ends; the relationship continues

A gira has a beginning, a middle and an end. What is experienced in the terreiro does not necessarily end when we step outside.

After the gira, the relationships we have built, what we have learned, the responsibilities we have taken on and the choices we make remain with us.

The terreiro is a place where we encounter, cultivate and learn to recognise the sacred, and where we develop healthy relationships with other people, ourselves, our community and the divine.

What we experience there continues in how we choose to walk beyond it.

Related reading: What does axé mean?

Like every religious tradition, Umbanda has its own vocabulary.

Some words come from African languages. Others also exist in everyday Portuguese but carry specific meanings within Umbanda that may be unfamiliar even to first-language Portuguese speakers.

We therefore aim not only to use these terms, but also to explain what they mean within our tradition.

Many of these words remain in their original form in English because they carry concepts with no exact equivalent in another language.