Full story here.

BELFORD ROXO, Brazil -- Beyond the storefront churches and sidewalk bars on Rio's gritty north side, where the asphalt ends and dirt roads begin, Brazil gives way to Africa.

The sound of atabaques, or African drums, rises in the night air from a squat brick house, and a full-throated tenor sings incantations in the ancient Yoruba tongue of Nigeria.

Inside, slightly bored children play quietly while women in swirling skirts dance in a circle, chanting to invoke the Orixas -- the gods worshipped by their African ancestors.

This is Candomble, a religion once banned in Brazil, now emerging into public acceptance while overcoming fierce and even violent competition.

Brought to Brazil by African slaves, religions like Candomble, Tambor de Mina, Batuque and Umbanda long had to be practiced in secret, its deities disguised as Catholic saints -- the sea goddess Iemanja, for instance, who became the Virgin Mary.

But even after slavery was abolished in 1888, Candomble was still considered backward, if not blasphemous -- the province of the poor and dispossessed.

Now Afro-Brazilian religions are flourishing across Brazil, even in the middle class.
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So basically you have religions that have persisted in secret since African slaves were first brought over finally seeing the light of day in the age of human rights and democracy. And, of course, you've got Christian factions making asses of themselves. Interesting, no?

Every religion is made to control the one that want's to believe in it.
That's why it was banned in brazil,They didn't want candomble to have more influence then christianity.

But ofcourse you're aloud to worseship any religion you want these days(with all the democracy and free rights).

interesting and refreshing...i wonder what other religions will start to emerge as it seems the christian stigma is now fading and people are realizing that one god isn't the only way...

what's that prediction about old gods rising?

Well, considering how many Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims there are, obviously one god isn't the only way. However, I think that notion has a grip on the American continents, though it seems that grip is indeed slipping.

As for old gods rising, I couldn't honestly tell you. I can, however, recommend a great novel based upon that premise. It's called American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Best fiction I've read in a long, long time...

it was ragnorak, but it would apply to current times...the old gods died due to the one powerful coming to power...and now the old gods are arising again...african religions aren't the only ones on the rise, and in a way with the churches losing so many of their followers now to more...gnositc and ancient world based religions...so, the old gods are rising again...what interesting turns could this bring?

Ragnarok? Wasn't that simply the death of the old gods and the world, to make way for a new age? At least, that's how I read it from the myths...

who can decipher poems and predictions from actuality, it just gives me something to ponder...maybe it's just popular theory that it's a time that already happened...kind of like nostradamus's predictions...after all it was a seer that inspired the poem.

"One was born greater than all,
he was empowered with the strength of heaven and earth;
he is said to be the wealthiest of princes,
closely related to all the families.

Then will come another, even mightier,
though I do not dare to name his name;
few can now see further than when
Odin has to meet the wolf

http://www.spiritpathways.com/ragna.html

or maybe it's just a nice poem left for interpretation, has the horn been blown yet?


http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~cherryne/edda.html

good stuff

The Old Ways Never died. That was an illusion, as with most things the worship of the Celtic Gods, the Germanic Gods and Tll the Other just went into Hiding.
Eventually they had to come out into the open again.

I don't mean to burst your bubble there, Necro, but the article is about African religions. If there were actually Celtic and Norse worshippers in the Americas who were hiding their religion for fear of persecution, they would have come out by now...and I'm sure the British Isles and the Scandanavian peninsula would be teeming with them.

Sorry, just trying to make a point about suppressed religions, not put those religions in Africa/ Brazil.
Hel, the bible even says that at one time the worship of Yaweh was suppressed and so the just started to worship in secret, so no surprise that that is the norm where beliefs that are close to the heart.

From the article...


Animal sacrifices.





It is fucking 2005!


Do I need to make any other comment?

?

Animal Sacrifices are still around today... Voodoo for one apparently still uses them.


Shadowborn, The druids in Britain claim to have been tuaght in an unbroken line.... I dont neccesarily believe them, but they claim it. So do some witrches and Pagans.

i don't know about hiding, but many countries are teeming with keltic witches...these two cultures it would seem have become very cliche among the neo pagans of today...sadly very little of it would seem based on archeological discovery.

damn those romans! they even tried outlawing underground burials on them...fascinating that they created the catacombs under rome to place their deceased...so few people, so many miles of...saints.

*makes a note about loving the history channel*

i'm sure human sacrifice would be just as welcome...if it was legal.

i hear this claim from witches and even wiccans much more than the few i come across that discuss their druidry..it seems there's one on another forum who openly admitted that what they do is recreation...one just has to look at the irish form of catholicism to understand the path it all went.

People love to look original...the same feeling that makes people pretend to be the inheritors of dead religions makes people say "I used to listen to <insert name of band here> long before they sold out and got popular..."

that's why i tend to just leave it alone at witch...that's a timeless term to describe one who works with naturally occuring energies, but the kelts did have some amazing gods!

i like my archetypes.