EsoteriaA library of sacred & hidden knowledge
Liber XXXIV · Vodou & Hoodoo

Liber XXXIV · Vodou & Hoodoo · Chapter I: Candomblé & Umbanda

The Great Terreiros of Salvador: Casa Branca, Gantois, Afonjá

The great Candomblé terreiros of Salvador da Bahia: Casa Branca, the Gantois and Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá, their priestesses, Ruth Landes and their heritage status.

7 min read 1,654 words Updated

The great terreiros (temple communities) of Salvador da Bahia are the oldest and most celebrated houses of Brazilian Candomblé. Three of them, the Casa Branca do Engenho Velho, the Terreiro do Gantois and the Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá, all of the Ketu (Nagô) nation and linked by descent, have shaped how Candomblé is practised, studied and recognised, largely through the authority of the women who led them.

Nagô Houses and the Making of Ketu Candomblé§

Salvador, capital of colonial Brazil until 1763 and a major port of the Atlantic slave trade, received large numbers of West Africans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many of them Yoruba-speaking people known in Brazil as Nagô. Their religious life took organised form in terreiros, communities with a sacred compound, a hierarchy of initiates and a calendar of festivals for the orixás. For the religion as a whole, see Candomblé and Umbanda.

Candomblé is divided into nações, "nations", that preserve different African heritages: Ketu or Nagô (Yoruba), Jeje (Fon and Ewe) and Angola or Congo (Central African). Salvador has celebrated houses of each, such as the Jeje terreiro known as the Bogum and the Angola house Bate Folha, founded in 1916. But the Ketu houses of the Casa Branca lineage became the most famous and, through the work of scholars and the prestige of their leaders, came to be treated as the model of "pure" African tradition, a status scholars now examine critically.

A terreiro is more than a temple. The great houses occupy large plots with separate small houses (ilê or casas) for individual orixás, sacred trees, a central hall (barracão) for public ceremonies, living quarters and gardens of ritual plants. Each is led by an ialorixá (mother of saints) or babalorixá (father of saints), supported by a hierarchy of initiates and by the ogãs, men who act as patrons and protectors.

Casa Branca do Engenho Velho: The Mother House§

The Ilê Axé Iyá Nassô Oká, commonly called the Casa Branca do Engenho Velho, is regarded as the oldest surviving Ketu terreiro in Brazil. Oral tradition attributes its founding to African women, among them a priestess remembered as Iyá Nassô, and places its first meetings near the church of the Barroquinha in central Salvador, in the early or middle decades of the nineteenth century. The precise date and the details of the founders' identities are debated, and some accounts link them to Catholic lay brotherhoods of Black women in the city.

The community later moved to its present site in the Engenho Velho neighbourhood, where it occupies a hillside of shrines and sacred trees, with a boat-shaped shrine to Oxum in the square at its entrance. Under a succession of ialorixás it trained many of the priestesses who would found or lead other houses, and it is often called the "mother" of the Ketu lineage.

In 1984 Brazil's national heritage council approved the listing (tombamento) of the Casa Branca, the first time an Afro-Brazilian religious site was protected as national heritage. The decision, reached after a public campaign by intellectuals, artists and the Black movement, was a turning point in the recognition of Candomblé as part of Brazil's cultural patrimony.

The Gantois and Mãe Menininha§

The Ilê Iyá Omi Axé Iyamassê, known as the Terreiro do Gantois after the land on which it stands, was founded in 1849 by Maria Júlia da Conceição Nazaré after a dispute over succession at the Casa Branca. The house has remained in the hands of her female descendants. In the 1890s its leader received the physician Raimundo Nina Rodrigues, whose studies of Afro-Bahian religion, though shaped by the racial theories of his time, are among the earliest written records of Candomblé.

The Gantois's most famous leader was Maria Escolástica da Conceição Nazaré, Mãe Menininha do Gantois (1894–1986), who led the house from 1922 until her death. Gentle and diplomatic, she welcomed scholars, artists and politicians, and the songwriter Dorival Caymmi celebrated her in his "Oração de Mãe Menininha" (1972). By the end of her life she was among the most respected religious figures in Brazil, and her prestige helped to shift public attitudes toward Candomblé from fear and contempt to recognition.

Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá, Mãe Aninha and the Obás of Xangô§

Eugênia Anna dos Santos, Mãe Aninha (1869–1938), was initiated in the Casa Branca lineage and in 1910 founded the Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá in São Gonçalo do Retiro, on what was then the edge of Salvador. Dedicated to Xangô, the orixá of thunder and justice, the house became renowned for its strict adherence to what Aninha regarded as authentic Yoruba practice.

In the 1930s, with the help of the Bahian babalawo Martiniano Eliseu do Bonfim, who had studied in Lagos, Aninha established the Obás de Xangô, a council of twelve ministers of Xangô modelled on the royal court of Oyo. The title was conferred on respected men of the community and later on prominent friends of the house, including the photographer and ethnographer Pierre Verger and the novelist Jorge Amado. In 1937 Salvador hosted the Second Afro-Brazilian Congress, organised by the journalist and ethnographer Edison Carneiro, in which Aninha's house took a prominent part.

Aninha's successors continued this public role. Maria Bibiana do Espírito Santo, Mãe Senhora (1890–1967), led the house from the early 1940s until her death and received many visiting scholars. Maria Stella de Azevedo Santos, Mãe Stella de Oxóssi (1925–2018), led it from 1976. In 1983 she joined other leading priestesses in a public statement rejecting the syncretism of the orixás with Catholic saints, arguing that Candomblé was a religion in its own right that no longer needed a Catholic mask. She also wrote books on her tradition and was elected to the Bahian Academy of Letters.

Ruth Landes, Edison Carneiro and the "City of Women"§

The American anthropologist Ruth Landes carried out fieldwork in Salvador in 1938 and 1939, guided by Edison Carneiro. Her book The City of Women (1947) portrayed the great Ketu terreiros as communities ruled by women, a "cult matriarchate" in which the senior priestesses held authority and most men played supporting roles. She also wrote about male priests in some other houses, including men who did not conform to conventional gender roles, which made her work controversial at the time.

Landes's picture has been both influential and debated. Carneiro's Candomblés da Bahia (1948) and Roger Bastide's The African Religions of Brazil (1960) offered their own syntheses, while J. Lorand Matory, in Black Atlantic Religion (2005), argued that the idea of a female-led, purely African Nagô tradition was partly constructed in dialogue between Bahian leaders, transatlantic travellers to Lagos and foreign scholars. Rachel E. Harding's A Refuge in Thunder (2000) traced the nineteenth-century history of Candomblé as a space of Black autonomy under slavery. Scholarship now recognises both the real authority of women in these houses and the role of writing in shaping their reputation.

Police, Heritage and the Terreiros Today§

For much of their history the great terreiros practised under police control. Candomblé ceremonies were raided in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and in Bahia terreiros were long required to register with the police and obtain permits for ceremonies. This requirement was abolished by the state government in 1976, after years of pressure from priestesses and their allies.

The terreiros have since become recognised landmarks. After the Casa Branca, the Opô Afonjá, the Gantois and other houses in Salvador were listed as national heritage in the following decades, and their festivals draw devotees, visitors and officials. They nonetheless face pressures from urban development, disputes over land and attacks by religious opponents. Their leaders continue to insist that the terreiro is first a place of worship and community, where initiates are made, the orixás receive offerings and possession by the orixás is part of ritual life (see Spirit Possession in Afro-Atlantic Religions). The orixás honoured there have close relatives in Cuba, described in Santería and the Orishas.

Frequently asked questions§

What is the oldest Candomblé terreiro in Brazil?§

The Casa Branca do Engenho Velho (Ilê Axé Iyá Nassô Oká) in Salvador is generally regarded as the oldest surviving Ketu terreiro. Its founding date is uncertain, but tradition places its origins in the nineteenth century among African women in the city.

Who was Mãe Menininha do Gantois?§

Mãe Menininha (1894–1986) was the ialorixá of the Terreiro do Gantois from 1922 until her death. She became one of Brazil's best-known religious leaders and helped Candomblé gain public respect.

What are the Obás de Xangô?§

They are a council of twelve honorary ministers of the orixá Xangô created at the Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá in the 1930s by Mãe Aninha, modelled on the court of the Yoruba kingdom of Oyo.

Can visitors attend Candomblé ceremonies in Salvador?§

Many terreiros hold public festivals at which respectful visitors are welcome, usually with expectations about dress and conduct. Initiations and many rites remain private to the community.

Sources and further reading§