Pretos-velhos in Umbanda
This paper presents the cult to old slave’s spirits in Umbanda, today in Rio city : the cult to pretos-velhos (literally « old Blacks »). Based on fieldwork elements, the complex portrait of such spiritual entities highlights less visible aspects of slavery’s memorial reconstruction in an actual context of redefinition of this past into Brazilian society. The ethnographic approach focuses on the characteristics given by the adepts to theses spirits, on some elements of their life stories and on umbandistas’ lived experiences with « old Blacks ». At the same time ancestors, slaves and healers, pretos-velhos cause several interpretations, which notably point out the polysemy of a term such as ancestrality. Besides, their relationship with a black catholic saint, são Benedito, reveals an afro-catholic syncretism into Umbanda’s ritual practice. At least, the paper ends reporting the possibility, for umbandistas, of a new visibility in public arena for the symbolic scope of brazilian black slave’s image.