AS ERVAS NOS RITUAIS DE UMBANDA: MAGIA E PODER DA NATUREZA.

Abstract

Developed as a dissertation of master in Religious Sciences, this theoretical research has as its theme the herbs in Umbanda, syncretic religious segment created in Brazil by adding elements of Catholicism and spiritism with African cults brought by black slaves. This dissertation is guided by the studies of anthropology, sociology and other related sciences, presenting works of scholars in this area, as Rudolf Otto, Mircea Eliade, Terrin and Gilbert Durand, witht heir theory about the imaginary. The first section provides general fundamentals on the sacred and the Umbanda, with its history and principles of their cults. The second focuses on herbs, known since ancient times for healing and ritual, used in colonial Brazil for African Americans and indigenous people for the same purposes. The third chapter presents a study of the mythology of Gilbert Durand, related to the theory of the imaginary, presenting day time and night-time regimes of the images toanalyze themy thic structure, composed of schemas, archetypes, symbols and myths; and in the final part discusses the mythological analysis of the myth of Ossaim, orisha of herb sin African religions.