Notes

However, Brazil is in a different situation. Though American popular culture also plays an important role in Brazil, the term Mami Wata is still unknown despite an escalating creolisation process. As mentioned, the differences between the local ethnic religions have already started to become blurred in the new environment of the Brazilian metropolis. This development will enforce the creolisation process that ‘may also involve an element of unification and innovation featuring the explicit airing of ethnic-cultural differences in rituals’ (van Stipriaan 2002: 92). Orixás will lose some of their local distinctive identity and acquire new roles, similar to the developments in Surinam. After being marginalised by mass evangelism, Western education and government policies in the twentieth century, Watramama and the Surinamese Winti religion have remerged in Western temples of art and culture, as van Stipriaan highlights. Winti has become reappraised ‘as a way of life and a form of spirituality relevant to them [the Afro-Surinamese intelligentsia]’ (van Stipriaan 2002: 92). Increasing scholarly interest and the support of specialists such as Afro-Surinamese migrants in the Netherlands have moved Watramama from the spectrum of a folk religion (Winti) into ‘the upper social echelons in Suriname and the Netherlands’ (2002: 92). The same is happening in Brazil where Afro-Brazilian culture – in particular elements of the Bahian Candomblé – has become part of an elite vision of Brazil. The interest shown by the intelligentsia in Afro-Brazilian heritage seems to exaggerate the reality of the marginalised Afro-Brazilian religions. The orixás have moved from religious confinement to popular culture and even elite culture, with its museums, art galleries, theatres and literature. One can find sculptures and paintings of orixás in the galleries of urban Brazil and even in European and North American museums and art galleries. Orixás are now part of the global culture. In particular the water goddesses have the potential to offer an alternative in a globalised world without losing their local identity.