Old-blacks:

sacred and magic at the crossroads of religions

Abstract

Based on Roger Chartier concepts of practices, representations and appropriation, and collective memory by Maurice Halbwachs, we propose to analyze how the umbandist character of the old-blacks are appropriated nowadays. Oral history methodology allowed us to study how the experience of consulting and visiting regularly the old-blacks influences the constructions of perspectives, values and expectations of these consultants, through the recreation of black slavery memory in Brazil. It was possible to analyze, above all, how the religious dialogues are interpreted through this sacralized slave.