By Gabrielle Oliveira de Abreu
Historian and researcher at ISER
Over the past month, we have witnessed the intense search by Lázaro Barbosa, a 32-year-old man who between 2007 and 2021 committed a series of crimes, having intensified and barbarized his practices while trying to escape the siege mounted by public security forces in the Goiás region. There were many press vehicles that They spread false information that the criminal was acting based on Afro-religious precepts and that members of the terreiros were covering him up. These “explanations” came from some of the police officers involved in the search for Lázaro, who carried out violent investigations in these religious spaces. By harshly questioning the members and damaging artifacts from the terreiros, the police said they had confirmed the association. Quickly, a great and necessary mobilization of Afro-religious leaders from the Midwest tried to deny the rumor.
This is a recent example of how the practice of African-based religiosities is constantly linked to negative elements, even though Lázaro did not actually belong to Umbanda or Candomblé. However, the lack of full understanding of Afro-Brazilian religiosities is much older and dates back, especially, to the first half of the 20th century. In this context, Afro-Brazilian religious practice was severely restricted and criminalized by the Penal Code in force at the time. The result of such repression was the confiscation of more than 500 pieces related to Afro-religious cults by the Rio de Janeiro police during the period. These items had been in the custody of the Civil Police Museum since then, and had not undergone any type of archival treatment or been exposed to the Rio public as a valuable historical-religious collection.
The almost century-old seizure of these pieces culminated in the movement “Free Our Sacred”: a meeting of religious people, researchers, black movement activists and civil society organizations who, since 2017, have been pressing for the objects to be sent to an appropriate memory center and, finally, to be treated and properly disseminated as important portraits of intolerance of the past, which is still faced in the present. Headed by iyalorixá Little Girl of Oxum, the movement's struggle inspired the creation of the documentary Our Sacred (2017) by Quiprocó Filmes, a production company that became another ally in the campaign’s claim.
The fight over the relocation of the pieces finally ended on June 19, 2021, when it was signed the terms of concession of the items for the Museum of the Republic. Together with the Liberate Nosso Sagrado movement and the people of terreiro, ISER celebrates another step towards overcoming religious racism and achieving authentic freedom of faith in Brazilian territory.
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