This is the catalogue for the collection at the Museu Afro-Brasileiro in Salvador, the capital city of the state of Bahia. In it, the anthropologist Jocélio Teles dos Santos explains that this collection is an incentive to make comparisons, resignifications, continuities, and discontinuities between Afro-Brazilian religious art and the art produced in Africa. He adds that as Afro-Brazilian history and culture are included in the curricula at primary and secondary schools, the publication of this catalogue reinforces the view that black religion and world views are an essential part of Brazil’s national heritage. The African portion of the collection includes pieces from Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau and, mainly, Benin, the former Republic of Dahomey. The catalogue also includes images of African objects, such as: masks, musical instruments, anthropomorphic sculptures of divinities, ritual vases, objects used in divination, weapons, instruments for weighing gold nuggets and dust, fabrics, and ancestral dignitaries’ thrones, among other items. The Brazilian section consists of works by the artists Carybé [Héctor Páride Bernabó, who was originally from Argentina] and Agnaldo Silva da Costa, as well as some religious works. 

This document underscores the importance of the collection housed at the Museu Afro-Brasileiro (MAB), which was opened in 1983 in the city of Salvador, Bahia. As with collections in other Brazilian institution, this one facilitates comparative studies between Afro-Brazilian material culture and religious art. The MAB holds almost 800 pieces that were collected during the course of research projects conducted in Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as objects that have been acquired or donated, and even loaned by the Bahia community involved in candomblé, a cult with authentically African roots  

Raul Lody (b. 1952), the anthropologist and specialist in Afro-Brazilian religions, published a number of studies on this subject, including Vinte e um bastões cerimoniais [21 ceremonial scepters] (Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional, 1990); “Dezoito esculturas antropomorfas de orixás”[see doc. no. 1110529]; and others that were more focused on the theme such as “Yorubá: um estudo etno-tecnológico de 50 peças da coleção arte africana do Museu Nacional de Belas-Artes” [doc. no. 1110532]; and “Coleção Arthur Ramos” [doc. no. 1110525].

Other published articles and studies on this subject by noted specialists that have already been filed in the ICAA digital archive include: Catálogo ilustrado do Museu Folclórico, by Oneyda Alvarenga [doc. no. 1110523]; Cosmologias e altares, by Maria Lúcia Montes [doc. no. 1110528]; Cem anos de arte afro-brasileira, by Marta Heloísa Salum [doc. no. 1110524]; and Para nunca esquecer. Negras memórias. Memórias de negros,published by the Museu Histórico Nacional [doc. no. 1110530]. 

There are several articles that complement this document, including Arte e religiosidade afro-brasileira, by Vagner Gonçalves da Silva (São Paulo: Câmara Brasileira do Livro, 2008); the one by the medical doctor and ethnologist [Raimundo] Nina Rodrigues (1862–1906), “As bellas-artes nos colonos pretos do Brazil: a esculptura” [doc. no. 1110427], that addresses the presence of sculptures brought from Africa or produced by African slaves and their descendants in Brazil; another is “Religiosidade africana no Brasil; Arte afro-brasilidade” [doc. no. 1110519], jointly written by the sociologist Marcondes de Moura and the artist Emanoel de Araújo; and, finally, “Esboço histórico: o elemento negro nas artes plásticas” [doc. no. 1110463], by the anthropologist Marianno Carneiro da Cunha.