Although the Catholic religion officially embraces 94 percent of the population of Brazil, black Brazilians today maintain their African traditions and keep alive their religious faith, often camouflaged behind Christian saints; cults of African origin are widely practiced by the oppressed, whatever their skin color. The same is true in the Antilles. The voodoo gods in Haiti, Cuba’s bembé, and Brazil’s umbanda and quimbanda are more or less the same, despite the greater or smaller transfiguration that rites and original gods have undergone through American naturalization.
