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Liber XXXIV · Vodou & Hoodoo

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

Quimbanda: Exu, Pombagira and Brazil's Spirits of the Street

What Quimbanda is: the Afro-Brazilian tradition of the Exus and Pombagiras, its roots in Kongo, Yoruba and Iberian magic, its rituals and its demonisation.

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Quimbanda (also Kimbanda) is an Afro-Brazilian religious tradition devoted to the Exus and Pombagiras, the male and female spirits of the street, the crossroads and the cemetery. It grew out of the same urban religious world as Umbanda in the early twentieth century, first as a label for the "lower" magical work that Umbanda's reformers wished to exclude, and later as a tradition in its own right with temples, initiations and a large following in Brazil and, increasingly, abroad.

What Quimbanda Is: Definitions and Debates§

In Brazil several religions of African origin coexist: Candomblé, which preserves the worship of the orixás (Yoruba deities) and their counterparts from the Fon and Kongo traditions; Umbanda, a twentieth-century religion combining African, Indigenous, Catholic and Spiritist elements; and regional traditions such as Batuque in the south (see Candomblé and Umbanda). Quimbanda occupies a contested place among them.

For some scholars and practitioners, Quimbanda is not a separate religion but the "left line" (linha da esquerda) of Umbanda, the work done with Exus and Pombagiras in sessions alongside the "right-hand" spirits such as the caboclos (Indigenous spirits) and pretos-velhos (spirits of old enslaved Africans). For others, especially in Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo, it is an independent tradition with its own houses, priests, initiations and theology, in which the Exus and Pombagiras are the principal spirits rather than auxiliaries. Many houses combine both, and the boundaries vary from one terreiro (temple) to another.

The name itself carries history. In Angola a kimbanda was a ritual specialist who healed, divined and dealt with the spirits of the dead, and the term travelled to Brazil with enslaved people from West-Central Africa. By the early twentieth century, Rio de Janeiro's police and press used words such as macumba and quimbanda loosely for any Afro-Brazilian ritual they considered sorcery.

From Èṣù to Exu: The Messenger Becomes a Spirit of the Street§

The name Exu comes from Èṣù, the Yoruba orisha of the crossroads, communication and change, known in Cuba as Elegguá (see Santería and the Orishas) and closely related to Legba of the Fon and of Haitian Vodou (see The Lwa). In Candomblé, Exu remains an orixá: the divine messenger who opens the way, receives the first offering in every ceremony and carries sacrifices to the other deities. His trickster character and the phallic imagery of some of his Yoruba sculptures led Christian missionaries and later Brazilian Catholics to identify him with the Devil, an identification that Candomblé priests have long rejected.

In Umbanda and Quimbanda the word took on a different meaning. Here the exus are a class of spirits of the dead: men who in life were rogues, gamblers, sailors, vagrants, sorcerers or outlaws, and who now work as guardians at the boundaries between worlds. They are known collectively as the povo da rua, the people of the street. Each bears a name and title, such as Exu Tranca-Ruas (Street-Locker), Exu Caveira (Skull), Exu Tiriri, Exu Marabô or Exu Sete Encruzilhadas (Seven Crossroads). Some Quimbanda lineages arrange them in "kingdoms" (reinos) associated with places such as crossroads, cemeteries, forests, the sea and the souls of the dead, each ruled by spirit chiefs.

Devotees describe the exus as powerful because they are close to human life: they know poverty, violence and desire. They protect the house and its mediums, and they open and close paths.

Pombagira and Maria Padilha§

The female counterparts of the exus are the Pombagiras (also Pomba Gira). Most scholars derive the name from Bombogira or Pambu Njila, a Kongo-Angolan spirit of the crossroads venerated in the "Angola" nation of Candomblé. In Umbanda and Quimbanda the Pombagiras are spirits of women who lived outside respectable society: courtesans, dancers, Romani women, betrayed lovers and queens of the night. Among the best known are Maria Padilha, Maria Molambo, Pombagira Cigana (the Gypsy), Sete Saias (Seven Skirts) and Rainha das Sete Encruzilhadas (Queen of the Seven Crossroads). In possession they laugh, flirt, drink champagne or sweet liqueur, smoke and give frank counsel on love, sexuality and money.

Maria Padilha has a documented European history. María de Padilla (c. 1334–1361) was the mistress, and some said secret wife, of King Pedro I of Castile, and Castilian legend credited her with bewitching him. In the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries her name appears in Spanish and Portuguese love spells recorded in Inquisition trials, where women invoked "Maria Padilha and all her company" alongside demons. The literary scholar Marlyse Meyer traced how this Iberian figure travelled to Brazil, and the historian Laura de Mello e Souza documented similar love magic in colonial Brazil. In Brazil she merged with Kongo crossroads spirits to become a queen among Pombagiras.

The anthropologist Kelly E. Hayes, in Holy Harlots (2011), studied a devotee of Pombagira in Rio de Janeiro and argued that the spirit gives voice to women's experiences of desire, betrayal, violence and economic hardship, offering a moral world in which female power is acknowledged rather than condemned.

Umbanda, "Black Magic" and the Making of Quimbanda§

Quimbanda's identity was shaped by Umbanda's own history. As Umbanda organised itself from the 1920s onward, with federations and a national congress in 1941, many of its leaders sought respectability by aligning it with Allan Kardec's Spiritism (see Spiritualism) and with Christian charity. They presented "white" Umbanda as a religion of healing and moral evolution, and pushed practices involving blood offerings, cemetery work and harmful magic into a category they called Quimbanda, the "black magic" of the lower spirits, a division echoing the old European contrast between white and black magic.

Some mid-twentieth-century writers went further and grafted European demonology onto the exus. The Umbanda author Aluízio Fontenelle, in a book titled Exu published in the early 1950s, is often cited for presenting the exus as a hierarchy whose chiefs bore the names of demons such as Lucifer, Beelzebub and Astaroth, a scheme drawn from French grimoires such as the Grand Grimoire. Later Quimbanda literature sometimes retained these correspondences, so that the tradition now contains a layer of European ceremonial magic alongside its African and Brazilian roots. Scholars such as Stefania Capone have shown how these classifications reflected struggles for legitimacy within Afro-Brazilian religion rather than ancient doctrine.

Ritual Life: Giras, Offerings and Pontos§

Quimbanda ritual centres on the gira, a ceremony usually held at night in which mediums, accompanied by drums, songs and clapping, receive the Exus and Pombagiras in possession. The spirits greet the congregation, drink, smoke cigars or cigarettes, dance and hold consultations in which visitors ask for help with work, love, health, family conflict and protection. Mondays are widely associated with the exus and the souls of the dead, and Fridays with some lines of Pombagira. Black and red are the dominant colours of Quimbanda, worn by mediums and used on altars.

Each spirit has pontos cantados, sung invocations, and pontos riscados, signatures drawn with chalk on the floor, comparable in function to the vèvè of Haitian Vodou (see Vèvè and Sacred Symbols). Many houses keep a small shrine near the entrance, the tronqueira, where the guardian exu of the house is served. Offerings, called despachos or trabalhos, may be placed at crossroads, cemetery gates, forests or the seashore, and commonly include cane spirit, champagne, cigars, red roses, candles, perfume and padê, a dish of manioc flour mixed with palm oil. Some houses also make animal offerings in initiations and major rites.

Devotees understand these exchanges as a relationship of reciprocity with the spirits rather than a guarantee of results, and many leaders insist that spiritual work accompanies, rather than replaces, medical, legal and practical help.

Persecution, Pentecostal Critique and Global Spread§

Afro-Brazilian religions were policed for decades under laws against "charlatanism" and "spiritism", and Quimbanda, as the most stigmatised, suffered most from the image of sorcery. Since the 1980s the strongest critics have been Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal churches. The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, founded by Edir Macedo in 1977, became known for televised exorcisms of spirits it identified as exus and pombagiras, and Macedo's book on the orixás and spirit guides portrayed them as demons. Brazilian human-rights groups have documented attacks on terreiros, threats to practitioners and the destruction of altars, and since 2007 Brazil has marked a national day against religious intolerance each 21 January.

At the same time, Quimbanda has spread far beyond Brazil. Houses and initiates now exist in Portugal, elsewhere in Europe and in North America, and books and online communities in English have introduced the Exus and Pombagiras to readers interested in the left-hand path and in African diasporic religion. Some Brazilian practitioners welcome this spread; others warn that the spirits cannot be served properly outside a lineage.

Frequently asked questions§

What is the difference between Umbanda and Quimbanda?§

Umbanda works mainly with caboclos, pretos-velhos and other "right-hand" spirits and has historically presented itself as a religion of charity and healing. Quimbanda centres on the Exus and Pombagiras, the spirits of the street; some regard it as Umbanda's "left line", others as a separate religion.

Is Exu the Devil?§

In Afro-Brazilian religions Exu is not the Devil. In Candomblé he is the orixá who carries messages between humans and deities, and in Umbanda and Quimbanda the exus are spirits of the dead. The identification with Satan came from Christian missionaries and was later reinforced by some writers who borrowed demon names from European grimoires.

Who is Maria Padilha?§

Maria Padilha is one of the most popular Pombagiras. Her name comes from María de Padilla, the fourteenth-century mistress of King Pedro I of Castile, who was invoked in Iberian love spells recorded by the Inquisition and later became a spirit queen in Brazil.

Is Quimbanda practised outside Brazil?§

Yes. Since the late twentieth century Quimbanda houses have appeared in Portugal, elsewhere in Europe and in North America, and English-language books have made it known to a wider public, though Brazilian lineages remain the centre of the tradition.

Sources and further reading§