3 The religion of the forest: reflections on the international expansion of a Brazilian ayahuasca religion
Beatriz Caiuby Labate And Glauber Loures de Assis
September 1, 2016 DOI: 10.4324/9781315551425-10 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis |
|---|---|
| Population | Santo Daime religious community in Brazil's Amazonian hinterlands |
| Topics | Ayahuasca |
| Citations | 2 |
| Key points | Describes the origins and early development of the Santo Daime church, founded by Mestre Irineu, as a fusion of Afro-Brazilian, indigenous, and folk religious traditions centered on the ritual use of ayahuasca. |
Abstract
In the 1930s, a new religious community emerged from the rubber camps of Brazil's Amazonian hinterlands, founded by a charismatic leader, Raimundo Irineu Serra, referred to by his followers as Mestre (Master) Irineu. He was born in the impoverished state of Maranhão, the grandson of black slaves, and had no formal schooling. The nascent church of Santo Daime represented a fusion of multiple folk religious and spiritual influences centered on the consumption of a psychoactive beverage best known in the academic literature as ayahuasca, but referred to by the group as daime. The initial community was small and included mostly AfroBrazilian migrants from northeast Brazil. Their social milieu included the rubber camps and military bases in the Amazon frontier, a traditional view of gender roles, and cultural exchange between Europeans, Afro-Brazilians, and indigenous Amazonian peoples. The group remained small, stable, and mostly unknown elsewhere in Brazil until the 1970s.