Mãe Olga de Alaketu: A Pan-African priestess in the era of decolonization and dictatorship

• In Event: Mid-20th Century Black Resistance Struggles - Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean, pt. 1

Description for Program

African Decolonization movements raised Brazilian diplomatic interests in Africa during the period of the military dictatorship (1964-1985). Throughout the twentieth century, the Candomblé religion figured centrally as an example of surviving African culture in Brazil, which to some, uplifted the ideology of racial democracy. Candomblé religious leaders forged Pan-African connections between Bahia and West Africa as part of parallel cultural movements led by Black activists and artists, who denounced claims to racial harmony in Brazil, and instead sought to highlight their African origins and ongoing political commitments for mutual decolonization and liberation. Among these transatlantic travelers was the Candomblé priestess Mother Olga do Alaketu (Olga Francisca Régis, 1925-2005), who was born into African family lineages as a descendant from the royal family of Ketu, making her a recognized source of African heritage in the public eye. Drawing from newspaper sources, this paper discusses Mother Olga’s anti-imperialist stance in public conversations that were increasingly concerned with the potentially polluting forces of racial mixture and Brazilian modifications through folklorization, which stood in stark contrast to the preservation of “African purity” maintained through transatlantic connections in the Candomblé temples.

Author

• Jamie Andreson, Simmons University