The faith, one would say, moves mountains. In the state of Pará the faith attracts an ocean of people, at least 2 million, who every year participate of the “Círio de Nazaré”, one of the biggest religious processions of the world, that happens every October in Belém.
 
The devotion to Nossa Senhora de Nazaré (Our Lady of Nazaré) started in Pará in 1700, when, at the margin of the Murutucu River (where today we find the Sanctuary of Nazaré), a small image of the saint was found, and then started to be worshipped.
But Pará also shelters the most varied devotions: Spiritualists, “umbandistas”, Protestants, Jews… To still more foster the pluralism and to strengthen the inherited traditions of African peoples, the Secretary of Culture of the State inaugurated last year in Belém the Afro-religious Cultural Space, the first of that kind in the state, which represents more than three thousand communities in Pará.

Good energies

Another traditional party occurs in the day of Saint John, on June 24. It is the Saint John’s “Banho de Cheiro”, some perfumed water made from a mixture of traditional Amazonian herbs and used by its adepts for getting free of bad energies and attracting good ones. It is in the “Ver-O-Peso market, one of the postcards of Belém, where the adepts can find these herbs, the answers to the yearnings for happiness: patchuli, macacaporanga, mucuracaá, catinga de mulata, priprioca, among others.
 
Deusarina da Silva Correa, known as “Deusa”, 51, director of the “Ver-O-Peso” Herb Sellers Association, says that there are herbs good for everything: “from the attraction of love to the cure of cancer”. “Many times the tents look like doctor's offices, full of customers asking for aid”, she says.

The scents, the herbs and charms are so strong traces in the Amazonian culture that even umbanda if molded according to Pará. It is estimated that there are today about five thousand umbanda worship places which adopted characteristics of the local culture. It is the case of the "encantados", entities that already passed through the Earth and simply didn’t die, they just “enchanted” themselves. The “encantados” show themselves in the form of “caboclos”, cowboys, princes and princesses, or still in the form of elements of the nature.

Sugestions of Interviews

Erveiras (Herb sales) and Erveiras Association at Vero-O-Peso
Tel (091) 3252-3886

Círio de Nazaré – Direction Publicist
Tel (091) 3249-9491 / (091) 3249-0535

Mother Inez (umbanda)
tel (091) 3222-2586 / (091) 8188-4365

Mother Kátia Hadd (umbanda)
Tel (091) 9996-8379

Afro-Religions Cultural Space
Tel (091) 3223-1245