martina ahlert and lior zisman zalis.
years of life / anos a vida
cohort. 2025-26
project. Years of Life: Trajectories of People and Enchanted Spirits in an Afro-Brazilian Religion
location. Maranhão, Brazil
medium. exhibit
Maria Lina dancing during her birthday celebration. Tenda Espírita de Umbanda São Raimundo, Santa Rita e Santa Filomena
The project “Years of Life: Trajectories of People and Enchanted Spirits in an Afro-Brazilian Religion” explores memory, its material forms, and the ways archives are produced and activated within Afro-Brazilian religions in Maranhão, with a focus on the Terecô of Codó, approaching photographs and oral narratives as living archives continuously engaged in religious practice.
Terecô is an Afro-Brazilian religion of probable Bantu origin, incorporating Jeje and Nagô elements. In this religious tradition, practitioners interact with spiritual entities known as encantados through spirit possession and a series of religious commitments known as obrigações (ritual obligations). Although terecô is practiced in different parts of Brazil, its historical birthplace is the city of Codó, in the state of Maranhão. One of the principal settings where terecô is practiced is the tendas (ritual houses), a ceremonial space usually located at the back of the homes of pais de santo and mães de santo (male and female religious leaders). They organize religious ceremonies and provide spiritual guidance and care for individuals who show signs of mediumship.
Developed in collaboration with five religious houses — Tenda Espírita de Umbanda São Raimundo e Santa Filomena (Pai Elias), Tenda Espírita de Umbanda Nossa Senhora da Conceição (Mãe Teresinha), Tenda Espírita de Umbanda São Domingos (Mazé and Francisca), Tenda Espírita de Umbanda Santa Helena (Luizinha), and Tenda Espírita de Umbanda São Jorge e Nossa Senhora da Conceição (Maria do Lebão) — the project took the contexts of the enchanted spirits’ birthday celebrations as its primary point of departure, involving the documentation, digitization, and recording of collections and histories related to the trajectories of both people and enchanted spirits, and led to the creation of MATA – Research and Archives of Encantaria, an initiative designed to sustain this collective work of research, preservation, and digitization while developing archival practices grounded in the dynamics of these traditions.
[What are these photographs to you?]
“All the ones I have here, I love them very much. I really do. To me, they are like relics. These things don’t disappear, only when God takes me... They’re relics to me—when I’m feeling low, I take them out and look at all of them. They’re memories.”
The Mãe de Santo Teresinha
“This photo on the banner is a keepsake. Because people die, but they always remain alive in our hearts. So we keep the photos as a way of remembering.”
Dona Mazé
archives of celebration.
Before photography became widespread, in the city of Codó, in the interior of Maranhão — as in many parts of Brazil — the privilege of visual recording was limited to specific moments in people’s lives, such as celebrations, birthdays, baptisms, and rituals of death and mourning. It is no coincidence that, when we began our research on terecô, an Afro-Brazilian religion rooted in this city, we noticed that in the houses of worship we frequented, a large part of the photographs kept in albums, on walls, in drawers, and in cupboards by our interlocutors consisted of images of religious festivities held in these spaces. Personal archives were, to a great extent, archives of celebration.
Festivities in terecô houses were — and continue to be — key occasions, and during these moments local photographers were often invited. Their analog cameras produced many of the images we have access to today, images that also tell the story of these houses and, by extension, the history of terecô itself.
After more than ten years of fieldwork with the community of terecozeiros — or brincantes, as they also call themselves — we took the opportunity of this project to revisit these images that were continually shown to us. To look at them is also to think with them, and with those who shared them, carefully narrating their time and the people who inhabited it.
The collection we present, and seek to set in motion, is an opportunity to reflect on memory, and at the same time on terecô and the ways memory operates within an Afro-Brazilian religious community. It is also an opportunity to engage in archival practice not merely as a means of cataloguing or gathering materials, but as a way of perceiving how the past is materialized, and how it is narrated, preserved, and activated through these material forms.
Tenda Espírita de Umbanda Nossa Senhora da Conceição, 2025.
Tenda Espírita de Umbanda Nossa Senhora da Conceição, 2025
Tenda Espírita de Umbanda São Raimundo, Santa Rita e Santa Filomena, 2025
Tenda Espírita de Umbanda Nossa Senhora da Conceição, 2025.
doutrinas (ritual songs).
the celebration as an opportunity for memory.
Our focus centered on one of the most recurrent events in these personal archives: the birthdays of the encantados — spiritual entities cared for within these practices, who inhabit and move through the bodies of the brincantes. The photographs portray the celebrating entities, the godfathers and godmothers of the house, the gifts, decorations, birthday tables, and the people and entities who took part in these gatherings.
Bringing this archive together is the result of a long-standing and ongoing relationship with several of the houses we have worked with, while also opening this material to multiple lines of reflection — both for the study of memory and for the study of Afro-diasporic religions. As with any visual material, these photographs make visible the relations between people and entities, between different houses, and, in doing so, offer a way of thinking about these relations within the terecô.
“But if I hadn’t taken photos [at the celebrations], I would never have seen any of it. I would never have seen the crowd of people that gathers there, at my doorstep.”
[And what do you think about the photos?]
“To me, they matter a lot. Because if we didn’t have these photographs, you could come here to record and I could say ‘yes, it happened,’ but where is it? I want to see it. When you see it, we know it’s true.”
The Mãe de Santo Luizinha
[And the birthday photos?]
“I find them very beautiful, because it’s their birthday. All the children of the house are there, and then we take that photo. We keep it to look at—the birthday celebration of Maximiano and Cabocla da Pedra Fina.”
The Mãe de Santo Maria de Lebão
the enchanted and the people.
Today, terecô is organized around cult houses led by mães and pais de santo, where rituals take place and a wide range of entities are received in the bodies of women and men. While much of religious experience unfolds within these ritual spaces, the presence of the encantados — as these beings are broadly known — also extends into everyday life, marking the homes and streets of Maranhão and shaping the lives of those with whom they relate.
The entities received in the houses of Codó are highly diverse. Encantado is a general term used within terecô, but these beings are also present across a range of Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous religious practices, particularly in the North and Northeast of Brazil. They move through Tambor de Mina, Pena e Maracá, Pajelança, Jarê, Toré, Catimbó, Jurema, and Umbanda, among others, circulating across different territories and regimes of care.
Most encantados are understood as beings who once lived on earth as humans and disappeared without undergoing death, becoming enchanted; others have always existed as spirits. They are organized, among other ways, into families formed through relations of blood and of consideração — a term that refers to bonds of affection, adoption, and care that also produce kinship.
Encantados do not have a single history or a fixed ontology. Rather, they are known and perceived in multiple ways, depending on how they “present themselves.” Received in the bodies of men and women, they also manifest in dreams and through a range of bodily sensations, through which they communicate with people.
dancing with pai de santo Aluízio Mota. Tenda Espírita de Umbanda São Raimundo, Santa Rita e Santa Filomena, 1980–1990
Tenda Espírita de Umbanda São Raimundo, Santa Rita e Santa Filomena, 1980–1990
Tenda Espírita de Umbanda Santa Helena, late 1980s
dancing with pai de santo Aluízio Mota. Tenda Espírita de Umbanda São Raimundo, Santa Rita e Santa Filomena, 1980–1990
codó, land of force.
The most prominent family within the terecô of Codó is that of Légua Boji Buá da Trindade, a set of entities associated with rural life, cattle, fishing hooks, and work in the fields. According to what is told and sung in the houses, the family of Légua is one that “moves a lot,” with movement as one of its defining traits. At the same time, despite this constant mobility, many of these entities affirm Codó as their place of origin and dwelling — that is, a territory where they have established a network of relations marked by visits, passages, and incorporations, unfolding alongside their movement through the world.
In Codó, a town in the interior of Maranhão, it is said that terecô was originally practiced in forested areas, in the fields, and especially along the banks of a lagoon known as Lagoa do Pajeleiro. According to local narratives, terecô began “in earlier times,” in the era of the “old vodunsos,” as the entities received by men and women were called. Their presence is tied to Black presence in this region of Brazil and to the histories of violence and forced labor that shaped the colonial context.
In earlier times, the entities’ dwellings were located in forests and in elements of the natural world. Over time, they also came to establish them within the domestic spaces of terecô practitioners. Still, rivers, stones, and trees remain key sites of reference for some encantados.
The relationship between these entities, their practices, and the forests of Codó is also reflected in another name for terecô: tambor da mata (drum of the forest). The city is historically associated with a particular religious force and is currently home to more than 300 ritual spaces. It is understood both as a place of strength and as the dwelling of a wide range of entities. At the same time, beyond its geographic and cartographic reference, it is also a “line of work”—the line of Codó, or of the forest — that is, a way of operating in the world through religion.
Tenda Espírita de Umbanda São Raimundo, Santa Rita e Santa Filomena
Tenda Espírita de Umbanda Nossa Senhora da Conceição
during the birthday celebration of her encantado. Tenda Espírita de Umbanda São Jorge e Nossa Senhora da Conceição
Tenda Espírita de Umbanda São Raimundo, Santa Rita e Santa Filomena
enchanted birthdays.
A terecô practitioner may receive, over the course of their life—or even within a single night of ritual — multiple entities. With some of them, ongoing relationships are established, especially with the one considered the head of the person. When an entity or encantado is confirmed or “fixed” in the head — that is, when it becomes a constant companion — a specific ritual is performed to mark this relationship.
"It was very good, we were very happy, everyone would gather here. Me and the girls would bake cakes — it was a birthday just like for a person...for Bambu Verde and for Sebastião.”
Socorro, daughter of the mãe de santo Luizinha
In many houses, this ritual is known as the “birthday of the encantado”. The celebration resembles, in many ways, a person’s birthday. Its preparation involves decorating the space, preparing or buying food and drinks, sending invitations, and organizing gifts. On the day of the celebration, invited houses, as well as people and entities, are received in the ritual space, where a table with cake, drinks, and small offerings awaits. After the arrival of the celebrating encantado, “happy birthday” is sung, gifts are received, and tributes are made.
Afterwards, the men responsible for the drums and gourds, accompanied by those who “pull” the songs — known as doutrinas or pontos — play for hours, marking the incorporation and dance of the entities, often extending through the night.
Years of Life / Anos de Vida
Pai de santo Elias
Mãe de santo Maria do Lebão
Mãe de santo Terezinha
Tenda Espírita de Umbanda São Raimundo, Santa Rita e Santa Filomena
Tenda Espírita de Umbanda Nossa Senhora da Conceição
Tenda Espírita de Umbanda São Jorge e Nossa Senhora da Conceição
Tenda Espírita de Umbanda São Raimundo, Santa Rita e Santa Filomena
about mata.
MATA – Research and Archives of Encantaria is a collaborative research initiative dedicated to exploring the intersections of archive, memory, and encantaria within Afro-Brazilian religious contexts, particularly in Maranhão. Coordinated by Martina Ahlert, Lior Zisman Zalis, and Conceição Lima, and developed in collaboration with the Laboratório de Antropologia Política at the Universidade Federal do Maranhão (LEAP–UFMA), the project advances long-term strategies for documenting, preserving, and activating collections linked to these practices, while engaging with archival forms grounded in the social and spiritual dynamics through which such memories are produced and sustained.
Project Coordination
Martina Ahlert
Lior Zisman Zalis
Project Team
Adson Luis Barros de Carvalho
Conceição de Maria Teixeira Lima
Marcos Carvalho Lamy
Research Collaborators
Antônio José Pereira
Elias Alves dos Santos
Francisca Maria Viana de Souza
Luiza Lopes Duarte
Maria Benedita Dias
Maria do Socorro Sousa Galvão
Maria José Viana de Souza
Nayrine Francisca Sousa Siqueira
Teresinha de Jesus Guilion Trindade
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Citation: Ahlert, Martina and Lior Zisman Zalis. “Years of Life: Trajectories of People and Enchanted Spirits in an Afro-Brazilian Religion." SPIRIT HOUSE: A Crossroads Project. July 2026. Date Accessed. https://www.crossroads-spirithouse.org/ahlert-and-zalis
Martina Ahlert is an anthropologist, professor and researcher at the Federal University of Maranhão, in northeastern Brazil. She is a productivity fellow of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). She holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Brasília (2013) and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Museum, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (2018). She has been studying topics related to the home and Afro-Brazilian religions since 2010, particularly the Terecô of Codó, a subject on which she has written a series of articles and published the book Encantoria: An Ethnography of People and Spirits (2021).
Lior Zisman Zalis is a doctoral candidate in post-colonialism and global citizenship at the Centro de Estudios Sociais, Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal, with a funded research project on the political influence of spiritual entities and religious communities in Codó, Maranhão, Brazil. He was a research fellow in the project Bridging the Sacred at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York (2024-2025). He holds a master’s degree in comparative studies from Universitat Pompeu Fabra and has collaborated with institutions such as MACBA, Hangar, and La Escocesa. His research interests include cultural studies, anthropology, history, and sociology in Latin America, focusing on the intersections of religion, memory, politics, and post-colonialism.
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