The spirit of former slaves in Umbanda

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The preto-velho (lit trans.Old Black Man) is, as a pair with the caboclos, the most important spirits in Umbanda. Zélio de Moraes announced the creation of Umbanda as a formalized religion with the Caboclo das Sete Flechas (lit trans. Caboclo of the Seven Arrows). What many don’t know is that before the Indigenous announced the religion Zélio channelled the spirit of Pai Antônio (lit trans. Father Antônio) a preto-velho at his home. Some see this gesture as a symbolic tribute to the African influence in the religion that was going to be announced on the following day.

The pretos-velhos are the essence of the most kind, benevolent and patient spirits possible. Their Christian equivalent would be the angel. In the spectrum from left hand magic to right hand mentioned in the article about the overview of Umbanda the preto-velho would take the most right hand position possible. They usually participate in magical works (trabalho) of healing, cleansing and protection.

The book Um Encontro com Pai João by Wanderley Oliveira (2015) features a preto velho on it's cover.

Origins

• Africanist or post-modernist paradigm

As any other element in Umbanda the origin of the preto-velho will depend on the paradigm that you follow. A newer, post-modernist defends an Africanist interpretation of Umbanda - trying to remove any Catholic and Spiritist element and demoting Indigenous spirituality to an adjecent role.

Under the Africanist reading the origin of the preto-velhos is very simple. The Bantu people in Africa had a stablish worship of ancestors (similar to the rituals done in East Asia). Their elders were called the old ones, elders or ancestors. With the slave trade his worship of ancestors came to Brazil and it comtinues to this day.

• Traditional paradigm

The traditional paradigm, the one we follow in this blog, uses the historicist method. We review all the sources about the subject, newer sources can add new information but in case of any contradiction the priority is given to the older source over the newer source.

In the traditional paradigm all the elements in Umbanda were formed in the most Brazilian way possible - Mixing influences from different cultures and ethnicities and forming something new that is different from any of its individual elements.

The origin of the guiding spirits is connected to the history of Brazil. For the preto-velho the process to elevate him to become an importante national character is based in the process to abolish slavery.

The abolition of slavery in Brazil was a gradual process. First intercontinental slavery was abolished - in practice prohibiting Brazil from bringing more slaves from Africa. After that a new law was passed giving freedom to all newborns from slaves giving start to the gradual process to end slavery. A third law was passed ending slavery for men over the age of 60 and finally the Golden Law was approved in 1888 ending slavery in Brazil. The next year, 1889, landowners band together with the Church and the military and overthrow the monarchy and create the first Republic.

The abolition process was gradual but there was no plan from the monarchy to integrate the former slaves. Millions were freed but with no hope of starting a new life many chose to stay in the plantations. The older slaves, pretos-velhos, didn’t have the strength to continue to work in the plantation and they started to sell services of cure and protection against destruction magic.

At the same time in Europe Spiritism was being discussed in all of the salons of the so called “good society”. Upper and middle class families in Brazil who could afford an education in Europe brought back these new enlightenment ideals of liberalism and the scientific revolution. Groups of mediums started seances in Brazil little after the publication of the Spirits Book by Allan Kardec (1857). Over time as the old generation of pretos-velhos passed away these spirits started  showing up during Spiritist seances.

The oldest representation of a preto velho that I could find comes from the book Lições de Umbanda e Quimbanda na Palavra de um Preto Velho (1984).

Around 1925 (the year of the announcement of Umbanda), one in every three Spiritist centres channelled preto-velhos and caboclos. With less  than 40 years between the abolition of slavery and the announcement of Umbanda together with pseudoscientific ideas of racial differences in intelligence reinforced racial prejudice and relegated these spirits to a lower position in the Spiritist circles. Most seances still channelled spirits considered to be of a higher level of evolution such as priests, Catholic nuns, doctors and lawyers.

Why were caboclos and pretos-velhos reinterpreted from negative to positive characters?

During the 1920s and 1930s two independent movements forced a reinterpretation of the preto-velho and caboclo. One, of esoteric basis, defended a traditionalist idea that the Universal Truth was present in the old traditions of ancient civilizations and over time the inevitable trend is for these traditions to change or wither and disappear. The idea of having contact with the old Indigenous or Africans reignated a hope of reestablishing contact with members of these great lost civilizations, one of these civilizations being the mythical city of Atlantis.

The second movement was the new modernist trend creating a different form of nationalism. The first wave of nationalism came from the liberal movements that strived to create a civic national identity (based on the flag, the anthem and the natural landscapes of the country) as a replacement of the national unity through a king. 

You probably remember the Pocahontas story of the innocent indigenous woman who sang with the animals in the wood and the impossible love with the brave European settler who knew everything about technology and war. We have a similar foundational myth in Brazil with the romance book of Iracema, the beautiful indigenous woman with “the lips of honey and the hair black and the wing of the Grauna (a bird native to Brazil)”.

The liberal nationalism in Brazil was copying the national romantic myths from European countries. The new modernist movement proposed to recreate this national identity with characters that are essentially Brazilian. In their words, like the cannibal indigenous from the Amazon we will “eat” the European culture to create a new national identity. In this effort the caboclo (mixing of Indigenous and Portuguese) and the preto-velho were the perfect candidates for this new national project.

• Literature

The oldest source I could find about the preto velhos is from 1942 with the publications of the First Brazilian Congress of Umbanda (Primeiro Congresso Brasileiro de Espiritismo de Umbanda). It affirms that pretos velhos were slaves or descents of slaves and are in communion with Oxalá and Jesus Christ. It also brings the esoteric view mentioned above that these spirits learned from older and more advanced nations from the past and reached a higher level of knowledge than the current Western culture.

As with the caboclos, Aluizio Fontennelle (1952) mentions that spirits take the form of either caboclos or preto velhos to show humility and simplicity. Attachment to the material world - race, gender, age, height, weight - is a characteristic of spirits of lower level, those more connected to the profane than to the divine. The same way a parent wants to teach something to their kids they may kneel to get down to the same eye level as the child,  pretos velhos are spirits of a higher level who lower themselves to our level so they can communicate to us messages of peace and charity.

Pretos velhos are commonly associated as working under the line of Oxala, Obatala or with the line of souls. It’s common to prepare a cup of coffee as an offering to preto velho on Monday, a day that the Catholic Church used to do mass for souls in purgatory.

 

This article was written by Eduardo Guimarães and registered in the Brazilian National Library. The content is copyrighted. Reproduction for sale or profit is prohibited. With reproduction without a profit motive is allowed with the consent of the author.

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