UMBANDA Afro-American Religion

Word UMBANDA is originated of the sánscrito and it is made up of two words: AUM – that mean to Universal Mind, God, Zambi and BANDHA that means bow, fastening, subjection and entailment.

This means that to its meaning and ligación with God.
The practice of the present liturgy must to its creator, Caboclo it give Sete Encruzilhadas in the beginning of this century, some authors mention the year of 1900 and others the one of 1908, in the city of Niterói, through great medium Zelio F of Moraes, deceased in 1975.

There we had the reimplantación of the Umbanda word, in a ritual that represented the Umbanda, because this ritual that arose was completely different from the existing ones. It was in truth the first organized Umbandista Temple.

The UMBANDA tries to give to the creatures the knowledge indispensable for their own accomplishment, through direct bonding with the spiritual forces of the superior planes and with the emanated forces of the Orixás.
These conditions can provide the good, calling in their aid powerful forces. In quanto one is not able to measure the inmedible, it lives and it operates on the direction of the teachers of the space between which its own body, is as instrument to vehicular of its good and its love also benefits.
The Umbandista thinks that single he himself can choose the way that will take it evolution to its. The divine laws are responsible of which we are evolving constantly in all the Universe. This evolution occurs in the sense of the matter towards the spirit.

Religion born of the slavery in colonial Brazil…

The religious movement known like Umbanda, was born in 1908 during a kardecista session in Rio de Janeiro. There, the Spiritual Organization “Caboclo Sete Encruzilhadas” showed in the Zélio medium de Moraes suggested the name “umbanda” to designate novel cultured whose foundations were based on:

a) The call of Spirits of Light who would come to the Earth “riding” the body of a medium with their consent. These Spirits would be all those that when incarnated lived in Brazil during the time of the Slavery and belonging to native or brought cults of Africa, they were united under the flag of the Gospel.

b) The supreme teacher and example to follow would be Our Mr. Jesus Christ. Being that in addition would be accepted to the Gospel as sacred book.

c) Some African foundations were accepted in addition; the sincretismo between Orishás and Santos; some indigenous deities and beliefs and theories of the kardecismo (movement of the modern spiritism) such as the reincarnation, the spiritual evolution, the law of karma, etc.

d) The members of the cult would meet once to the week at least, during the first times of the night to make sessions spiritual. In these meetings it would be called to the Spirits Guides so that they helped with his advice, videncia and through you happen spiritual to all those that needed to clean their dawn of negative loads or to solve their conflicts; but in addition it would be helped to develop the mediunidad of which they wished to enter to the rows of the cult.

e) It would never be received to anybody by the lent aids, nor by no other reason.

f) All their members would have to dress totally target and would have to badly direct their energies towards good works, fighting, the black magic and the negative works.

g) Animals would not sacrifice themselves, nor would be used alcoholic drinks, tobacco or any type of hallucinogen (formerly very used by chamanes Indian) As well as drums would not be used either.

All these points differentiated to the UMBANDA from which it was called mainly until that moment in the south of Brazil and in the state of Rio MACUMBA. Where drums were touched, works for good practiced and badly, sacrifices became of animals and to the Spirits it offered drinks and tobacco to them.

The Umbanda de Zélio was like a “blanqueamiento” of the Macumba, because in certain it forms the first drift of second. He was then when the afro-Brazilian religion “umbanda” began to acquire many followers, attracted by kindness, La Paz, the charity and the love that was announced; being in addition that the strangers began to see of another way that type of cults.

But we must indicate that denomination “UMBANDA” was used with the passage of time to make reference to afro-Brazilian cults where homenajeaba to the Spirits of Indians and enslaved black under the influence of the cult to the Orishá (sincretizado). In this way they appeared different variations or branches that included under the title “umbanda”:

1) Umbanda Blanca or of Caritas; in that a greater influence notices towards the Gospel and the spiritism, that comes from Zélio.

2) Crossed Umbanda (in the South of Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina) or Candomblé de Caboclo (of River towards the north of Brazil); where animals sacrifice themselves, it offers drink and tobacco to the Organizations. Call peyorativamente still today “macumba”. Also she is the one that more followers it has being well-known by the popular name of “umbanda”. More African influence has much.

3) Esoteric or Cabalistic Umbanda; derived from the Umbanda de Zélio, but upset much more towards the Eastern kardecismo, doctrines and the defense of the foundations of the amerindian nations.

We can then say that what nowadays is known mainly like “umbanda” they are all those religious cults that have influences of the cult to the Orishás; of the catholicism; of the kardecismo; of the cult to the Enchanted ones (indigenous deities) and mainly of the cult to the ancestros on the part of the bantúes (the Angola-Congo). A type of sincrético phenomenon very seemed and that she arises almost from the same influences (removing the native) is the Wood Rule in Cuba, to which I always talk about like “umbanda Cuban” but without “Indians”.

Tags: Umbanda