Le Cri - The ritual musics

slavery, the beliefs and religions still endured among the black population. These beliefs took the appearance of a mixture with the catholic religion or were practised in clandestinity and thus preserved the roots of African people.

Candonguero, name of a typical angolan drum, gave its name to Candomblé, group of rites and ceremonies present especially in the North-East of Brazil (Nordeste) and Salvador de Bahia.

Directed by a Pai de Santo (or more often by a Mai of Santo), the Candomblé ceremonies are characterized by a devotion with the African gods, primarily from Yoruba, Fon and Gun (Worship of Vodun) origins.

There are several forms of Candomblé in Bahia, according to origins of their followers : Gegê-Nagô (resulting from the Yoruba and Fon worships), Ijexa, Congo-Angola, Candomblé de Caboclo (which gathers African and Brazilain traditions).

During the ritual ceremonies, the song, the percussion and the dance play an essential part. The songs are based on the incantation of the Mai of Santo, repeated in chorus by the participants. The dance often evokes the mythology of the gods and corresponds to precise and codified rhythms.

The percussion plays thus in accompaniment or solo particular rhythms for each god, like Aguerê for Oxosi or Bravum for Ogum, god of war.

With the atabaque and the agogo, the percussions fully take part in the rite, calling Orixas and causing the trance of the initiates.

After the abolition of slavery in 1888, a lot of Blacks coming especially from Nordeste settled in the peripheries of the big southern cities like Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo in search of work.

Other forms of worships thus developped, like Macumba in Rio and São Paulo, or Umbanda, impregnated by white magic, and Quimbanda, calling upon the black magic, these last two rites being especially present in the campaigns and among the poor populations.

These various forms preserve the same base : duality of natural and supernatural worlds, faith in creative energy Axê and in Orixas, apparent synthesis with Catholicism.

In Macumba, Oxala thus takes the name of Jesus-Christ and Iemanja, goddess of the sea, that of the Virgin Mary.

Little by little, especially since the Forties, the places of worships (Terreiros) left the shade to be today omnipresent in the life of million of Brazilians from all origins.

The liveliness of the ritual music is such that it gave rise to almost all the modern musics of Brazil like the Samba or the Reggae Samba. These " street" versions are perhaps less directly impregnated with religiosity but keep the authenticity of the first afro-brazilian rituals.