A Refuge in Thunder

The Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé has long been recognised as an extraordinary resource of African tradition, values, and identity among its adherents in Bahia, Brazil. Outlawed and persecuted in the late colonial and imperial period, Candomblé nevertheless developed as one of the major religious expressions of the Afro-Atlantic diaspora. Drawing principally on police archives, Harding describes the development of the religion as an "alternative" space in which subjugated and enslaved blacks were able to cultivate a sense of individual and collective identity that stood in opposition to the subaltern status imposed upon them from the dominant society. Harding works creatively against the biases of the primary records, culling out evidence of a religious and cultural orientation which emphasised healing, the reconstitution of family and identity, refuge and release from slavery, and the ritual redress of colonial and imperial power imbalances (especially master-slave tensions). Placing Candomblé within the larger context of Afro-Brazilian "alternative" spaces, Harding further examines the relationship between the religion and a variety of other black religio-cultural forms in nineteenth century Bahia: lay Catholic confraternities, work-groups, drum-and-dance gatherings, fugitive slave communities, families, aesthetic values, and rhythmic orientations.Rachel E. Harding is Associate Director of the Gandhi Hamer King Center for the Study of Religion and Democratic Renewal at the Iliff School of Theology.