MUCH HAS changed in Brazil since the studies of Roger Bastide in the 1940s, including the religious milieu of the Afro-Brazilian religions. Old trends were confirmed, new directions imposed themselves. Newfangled religions confront the more established ones; old religions take on new forms and convey renewed contents to face increasingly strenuous competition in the religious marketplace. I will deal here with a demographically small religious faction that is nevertheless important in Brazilian culture because of the visibility of its followers: the Afro-Brazilian religions. I will examine the various census figures in an attempt to assess the breadth of Afro-Brazilian religions and will examine some traits of their followers - such as race and educational level. Then, without losing sight of the constitutional and organizational peculiarities of the cults and the terreiros [ritual grounds of the Candomble religion], I will attempt an explanation for the changes these religions are presently undergoing.
