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ORIXAS: OS DEUSES VIVOS DA AFRICA
(ORISHAS: THE LIVING GODS OF AFRICA IN BRAZIL) Abdias do Nascimento
IPEAFRO/Afrodiaspora, Rio de Janeiro, 1995. Text in Portuguese and English. 170 pp., 74 color photos, glossary, references, bibliography, list of exhibitions. $79.95 hardcover.
To some degree, the social structure of Brazil today is what we might have if the South had won the Civil War: a small and infinitely wealthy white landed elite, a smallish professional class largely descended from relatively recently arrived European (and Japanese) immigrants, and an immense and immobile underclass of mostly mixed African, native American, and European ancestry. Although at least seventy percent of Brazilians are part African, degree-of-color prejudice ("the lighter the better") is universal. In such a context, this coffee-table book is a bit unusual, documenting as it does the life and works of an 83-year-old Afro-Brazilian painter who has spent his life fighting to identify, present, and defend the African elements in Brazilian culture. Described as a "poet, scholar, dramatist, essayist, politician, propagandist, and organizer," Abdias do Nascimento is also a fine painter who portrays the symbols and figures of the Afro-Brazilian Candomble or Macumba religion...