This text discusses the use of audiovisual resources like cinema and video by Afro-Brazilian Religions practioners in two ethnographical contexts of Amazonia, namely the urban areas of Cururupu and Belém. In Cururupu, the production of amateur videos commissioned in a local audiovisual store serves as a source of self-recognition and enables the discussion and continuous experience of the rituals. In Belém, a documentary film on the cosmovision of Tambor de Mina, the most widely practiced Afro-Brazilian religion in the city, was made through a partnership between a father of saint (afro-brazilian religion priest) and a filmmaker using federal government funding. Setting out from these ethnographic examples, I explore how audiovisual resources are employed by a religious tradition whose reproduction is based on a centuries-old orality. The text points to the advantages and potential uses of these kinds of audiovisual narratives by anthropologists as a means of access to native cultures.
Afro-Brazilian religions; Tambor de Mina; visual anthropology; cinema; video