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Chapter 4: The Sacred Harvest
Once more according to Barros, it was the discovery of the New World, however, that had the greatest influence on the introduction of previously unknown plant species to the African continent:
America was a rich source of new useful plants … The varied vegetation of the American tropics, and their natural products, were studied with interest and sometimes with true scientific spirit by Spanish travelers and writers … The seeds of interesting species came to Europe, and some flourished in the climate of Spain and Portugal, as happened with corn and peppers. Others, however, required greater heat; their cultivation in temperate climates was impossible, but they could develop in the tropics of Africa and Asia, where they were taken.5
Also, as I explain in my first book released in English, titled Traditional Brazilian Black Magic:
The history of the discovery and colonization of Brazil [and all Americas] is intertwined with the history of the African diaspora and the slave system that was practiced all over the world. While Europe since ancient times has been the cultural center of the West, Africa has been the commercial center.…Even when the trade market shifted to Asia in the Middle Ages, the African continent remained an important commerce source. By the middle of the thirteenth century, Italy had expanded its commercial activities and dominated trade in the
5. Conde de Ficalho, Plantas Úteis da África Portuguesa (Lisboa: Divisão de Publicaðcões e Biblioteca, Agência General das Colónias, 1947), in Barros, A Floresta Sagrada de Ossain.
Mediterranean and beyond. Inspired by Italy’s activities and success, and with the aim of dominating trade or at least eliminating intermediaries, the Portuguese became pioneers in navigation and exploration, establishing a multicontinental trading system and becoming the world’s main economic power.6
With that, it is possible to see that the plants currently known in the Americas and used in all ways—be they culinary, medicinal, or magical—have, in fact, come from all over the world. The slave trade, as well as the commercial and imperialist voyages from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, were determining factors for this redefinition of Brazil’s flora, which already had an abundance of native species. Like its culture and people, the country’s flora absorbed new elements that had to adapt to the reality of their land for the continuation of life.
On the correlation between magic and cooking in African lands, especially on the introduction of agriculture in Yoruba society, Barros states that this was “considered primarily the responsibility of the women. Agricultural activity was, however, related to magical rituals, which gave women a prominent position in the social organization, since they were the depositaries of the secrets that favored the harvest.”7
Specifically, regarding the use of plants in Candomblé rituals, it is also essential to emphasize the importance of the religious and cultural exchanges made by Iyá Nassô, an enslaved African woman responsible for founding the first Candomblé of Ketu nation in Brazil; Bámgbósé Obitikó, a free African man from the Ketu nation in the company of Obatossi, goddaughter of
6. Oxóssi, Traditional Brazilian Black Magic. 7. Barros, A Floresta Sagrada de Ossain.
Iyá Nassô; Balbino Daniel de Paula, also known as Obaraim, a renowned Orishas priest; and Pierre Fatumbi Verger, an illustrious French researcher who settled in Brazil and who contributed a lot to Afro-religious literature.
