Günter Bayerl Padilha

African Matrix Terreiros Günter Bayerl Padilha

From the restlessness caused by the national image of the North Region being a wild space inhabited only by Indians and river dwellers was born the desire to discover a new face of reality hidden and masked by those who enjoy this wild status of the extreme north of Brazil. This research discusses the dominant thinking in common sense and also remaining in some intellectual niches regarding racial democracy in Brazil and the attempt to accomplish a whitening in the black population. Through a bibliographic survey, it presents relevant aspects of the prominent followers of the Afro-Brazilian cult, Candomblé and Umbanda. In an incursion through the neighborhoods of Boa Vista one discovers an environment marked by the experience of a religiosity with African matrices, which are normally perceived or not valued in the goodist society. Faced with the universe of 21 mapped terraces, a new direction for anthropological studies is glimpsed, that is, the possibility of culturally understanding with the insertion of afro-descendants in the discussion agenda of the academy.