ABSTRACT
In the early sixteenth century, starting shortly after the official discovery and initial settlement of the lands of the Southern Cross that were to become Brazil, the Portuguese, following a model for colonization that had its origins in the eastern Mediterranean and was worked out in the islands of the Atlantic Ocean (see Greenfield 1979b, 1977a), brought slaves from West Africa to the Americas. The slaves provided the labor needed for the cultivation and processing of sugarcane, which was sold at great profit to consumers back in Europe. To adapt in the hostile new situation of bondage and servitude, those slaves who survived the perilous journey across the Atlantic Ocean undoubtedly turned for understanding and guidance to the beliefs of their home cultures. These worldviews were comprised of rich and varied cosmologies containing a variety of supernatural beings that were attributed causal efficacy in the affairs of this world.
