The catalogue for the “Coleção Arthur Ramos” was organized by the anthropologist and museologist Raul Lody, who was with the Universidade Federal do Ceará. The pieces in the collection are made of the following materials: wood, Flanders sheet metal, brass, and painted plaster. The works in the collection have been arranged as follows: 1. macumba and candomblé series; 2. plants, baths, and censers series; 3. bottles series; 4. ethnographic objects of black communities; 5. musical instruments; 6. African objects from the following ethnic groups: Senufo, Kuba, Azande, Fanti-Ashanti, Bacongo, and Bapende. This last group contains pieces of many different kinds, including: musical instruments (percussion and wind); objects for personal adornment (bracelets, ankle pendants, necklaces, fans, and combs); weapons; “edans” (ritual objects from the Ogboni initiation society); ritual objects from the Orishás (divinities of Afro-Brazilian religions); pipes, decorative plumes, and sundry other items. The collection includes 140 pieces that have been documented by 77 black and white photographs

In this essay, the anthropologist and museologist Raul Lody reports that, in 1959, the collection of Afro-Brazilian cult objects belonging to the psychiatrist Arthur Ramos was transferred to the Universidade Federal do Ceará, in northeastern Brazil. In the 1930s and 1940s—especially during the Getúlio Vargas dictatorship that was known as the Estado Novo (1937–45)—there was increased police repression of Afro-Brazilian religions; the authorities seized the ritual objects used in these religions and deposited them in police stations and lunatic asylums.   

Arthur Ramos, a pioneer researcher of Afro-Brazilian religions, gathered up sacred objects for his collection, finding them in religious places of worship and “terreiros” (cult centers), as places with Afro-Brazilian religious temples were known. Lody’s report includes Ramos’ notes and the lists of pieces that were produced by the collection’s first curator, Professor Valdelice Carneiro Girão. Lody explains that Ramos was motivated to amass his collection in order to preserve the legacy of that particular aspect of Afro-Brazilian religiosity. In Ramos’ opinion, furthermore, the “terreiros” should be considered places where the memory of Africa lived on in Brazil. 

Raul Lody (b. 1952) 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 culto afro-Brasileiro: um documento do candomblé na cidade do Salvador” [doc. no. 1110527].

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]; Para nunca esquecer. Negras memórias. Memórias de negros,published by the Museu Histórico Nacional [doc. no. 1110530]; and Catálogo do Museu Afro Brasileiro, by Jocélio Teles dos Santos [doc. no. 1110521]. (4)