What is Quimbanda?

Quimbanda is an Afro-Brazilian tradition focusing on the spirits known as Exu and Pombagira. It is inherently syncretic, and incorporates the ritual technologies and cosmologies of Bantu and Yoruba, syncretized with European conceptions of Sorcery and Witchcraft, and incorporates Indigenous materia magica and herbal modalities.

While the term was popularized in the 20th Century by the spiritist tradition called Umbanda, its roots lay in pre-existent African practices where kimbanda meant ‘healer’ and ‘priest’ in a larger collectivity of traditions also called umbanda, cabula, and often pejoratively macumba. Quimbanda has many expressions, from its inclusion in Umbanda and some Candomblês, to those traditions called 'de raíz’ where the spirits are engaged with on their own terms, outside the doctrines of other faiths. 

Kimbanda (Congo Roots)

Macumba (Brazilian Resistance, Candomble, Caboclos)

Magia Negra (Demons)

Quimbanda (20th Century)