In Brazil, if you need answers, see a cowrie-shell thrower
A mystical Afro-Brazilian tradition thrives in a changing country
Mãe carmem has long been in conversation with the orixás, Afro-Brazilian deities who embody the forces of nature. They dance easily into her thoughts and her dreams. But communing on behalf of others takes work. In a room on the outskirts of Salvador, on Brazil’s north-eastern coast, she takes out 16 cowrie shells—shaped like coffee beans, cream-coloured, with a seam of serrated teeth. She shakes them, murmuring incantations in Yoruba, a west African language, then rattles them onto the board. Oxumarê, the god of rainbows, rattles rain upon the roof in unison.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “She sells seer shells”
From the May 21st 2022 edition
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