Brazil’s football team is doing so poorly at the Olympics that people are looking to the heavens for salvation.
Gods – from Afro-Brazilian rites known as Candomble, Umbanda and Macumba – are being invoked.
Helio Sillman, a follower of the Afro-Brazilian rites, staged a Macumba ritual to help the home team and its star player and team captain, Neymar.
He said: “The Brazil team has no Olympic spirit. I am going to ask Odum, the god of strength, to give Neymar ‘good fluids’1 for him to recover the desire to go all out.”
He wore a T-shirt honoring the national side and around his neck, pearl necklaces typical of the religious rites and colored green and gold, the team colors.
Sillman has set up his little voodoo altar in a shop he runs – the name translates as “World of Divinities” – in a big market called Madureira.
The shop is brimming with more than 5,000 amulets, stuff for rituals such as drums, and small statues of gods, such as Yemanja, the goddess of the sea for those who believe in Candomble.
Sillman explains how to summon the higher powers: on a large wooden plate he places 11 dolls side by side, each one representing a member of Brazil’s team. Then, some grapes, grains of rice and sprigs of wheat, all of which represent prosperity. Finally, two candles are lit – one green and one yellow, to send light to the players.
Sillman picks up doll number 10 and moves his left leg forward, then the right one.
“This is Neymar. He runs, he dribbles,” Sillman said Tuesday. “He is going to score goals.”
AFP
Photo source: Decan Chronicle
Gods – from Afro-Brazilian rites known as Candomble, Umbanda and Macumba – are being invoked.
Helio Sillman, a follower of the Afro-Brazilian rites, staged a Macumba ritual to help the home team and its star player and team captain, Neymar.
He said: “The Brazil team has no Olympic spirit. I am going to ask Odum, the god of strength, to give Neymar ‘good fluids’1 for him to recover the desire to go all out.”
He wore a T-shirt honoring the national side and around his neck, pearl necklaces typical of the religious rites and colored green and gold, the team colors.
Sillman has set up his little voodoo altar in a shop he runs – the name translates as “World of Divinities” – in a big market called Madureira.
The shop is brimming with more than 5,000 amulets, stuff for rituals such as drums, and small statues of gods, such as Yemanja, the goddess of the sea for those who believe in Candomble.
Sillman explains how to summon the higher powers: on a large wooden plate he places 11 dolls side by side, each one representing a member of Brazil’s team. Then, some grapes, grains of rice and sprigs of wheat, all of which represent prosperity. Finally, two candles are lit – one green and one yellow, to send light to the players.
Sillman picks up doll number 10 and moves his left leg forward, then the right one.
“This is Neymar. He runs, he dribbles,” Sillman said Tuesday. “He is going to score goals.”
AFP
Photo source: Decan Chronicle