GWYNELLE DISMUKES: When Africans were brought to America and enslaved, it was those very priests and priestesses acting in secrecy who served as doctors, for one, but also they were able to keep that identity alive, and they were able to really project a kind of spiritual force and energy that allowed people to survive through those devastating kinds of circumstances.

BEN KINGSLEY: Elements of traditional African religion were first exported from sub-Saharan West Africa to Brazil in the 16th century, but they did not flourish until the mid-19th century. Many traditional African cults took root. Brazil’s various cults place the spirit medium in a central role, with special emphases on both spirit possession and divination. Divination evokes the help of the spiritual world for those who are suffering misfortune in the world of the living. It is a stable aspect of mediumship, and, in Brazil, divination remains vitally connected with comparable functions in Africa.

Afro-Brazilian cults, like the traditional religions of Africa, strongly emphasize performances such as speeches and dances, drumming and sacrifices. Ceremonies are dramatic, colorful, and ecstatic. They evoke the age-old powers and presences of both divinity and saints.