Each of the 16 orixás – the entities worshiped in Candomblé and Umbanda – corresponds to one or more Catholic saints. This connection can be explained by telling a little about the history of the colonial period in Brazil. At that time, the first Africans of Yoruba origin arrived in the country, a people who occupied the region where Nigeria, Benin and Togo are today. The religion of the Yoruba was Candomblé, but they landed in Brazil as slaves and could not freely worship their deities – you know, the official religion of the country was (and is) Catholicism. Because of this ban, slaves began to associate their deities with Catholic saints to exercise their faith in disguise. As Catholic saints are quite numerous, there are deities that are identified with more than one saint. For example: Oxossi, the king of hunting, is associated with São Jorge and São Sebastião. “This relationship with one or another saint depends on the region of the country, varying according to the popularity of the saint in the place”, says sociologist Reginaldo Prandi, author of the book Mitologia dos Orixás. Of course, the association is not exact: unlike Catholic saints, orixás are entities with virtues and defects, and their followers believe that they know the fate of each and every mortal. Well, we just need to talk a little bit about the relationship between the orixás and Umbanda, a genuinely Brazilian religion that emerged in the 1930s in Rio de Janeiro from the combination of elements from Candomblé, Catholicism and Spiritism. Like candomblé, umbanda also worships the orixás. But umbanda practitioners represent these deities with different images, in addition to worshiping three other spirits, the preto-velho, the caboclo and the pomba-gira. None of them appears in candomblé.
democratic altar
See how the five main entities of Candomblé and Umbanda relate to Catholic women
ORIXA: Yemanja
SAINT CATHOLIC: Our Lady of the Conception
Iemanjá is the goddess of great rivers, seas and oceans. In Umbanda, she is worshiped as the mother of many orishas and identified with Nossa Senhora da Conceição — one of the Catholic manifestations of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus. In candomblé, she is represented as a black woman and wears African clothes.
ORIXA: Iansã
SAINT CATHOLIC: Santa Bárbara
Wife of Xangô, the Iansã of candomblé and umbanda is the goddess of lightning, winds and storms. In Catholic doctrine, she corresponds to Santa Barbara – also a protector against lightning, storms and thunder.
ORIXA: Xangô
SAINT CATHOLIC: Saint Jerome and Saint John
For both candomblé and umbanda, Xangô is the god of thunder and justice. He is associated with two Catholic saints: Saint Jerome, who at the end of the 4th century translated some books of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, or Saint John, who preached religious conversion and baptized Jesus
ORIXA: Ogun
SAINT CATHOLIC: Saint Anthony and Saint George
For Umbanda and Candomblé, Ogun is the orixá of war, capable of opening paths in life. For this reason, he is usually identified with Saint Anthony, the “matchmaker saint”, or with Saint George, a warrior saint who is represented killing a dragon.
ORIXA: I hope
SAINT CATHOLIC: Jesus
In umbanda and candomblé, Oxalá is the deity that created humanity — that is why he is equivalent to Jesus, one of the manifestations of the triune God of Catholicism (father, son and holy spirit). In addition to having modeled the first human beings, Oxalá also invented the pestle to prepare yams and is considered the creator of material culture.
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– What is the difference between Protestants and Evangelicals?
– What is Yoruba mythology like?
–How does an offering to the orixás work?