"Santo do pau oco."

Let us talk about slightly different things this time, yes? "Santo do pau oco" is an expression used in Brazil to refer to someone who is fake, literally translated as "hollow-wood saint". There are many legends about the origin of this expression, one of them being that images of christian saints were hollow, and so the mine workers would hide gold inside them to keep it away from the government fiscalization.

Another version, much more popular around my area, is that the slaves would also make the saints hollow, and then hide an image or representation of their own deities inside the statue. Like that, when they were forced to pray to the christian saints, they would continue following their religion in secret. There is some, but little, proof of both those legends, and some say that the slaves found to hide other statues inside the saints were brutally punished for it.

This makes me wonder how important their deities were then, and how they are now. We have many afro-brazilian religions derived from a mix of the native african beliefs with christianity. Now, when I say 'native african' I do generalize because Africa is a very big continent with numerous countries and an incredible diversity in its people and beliefs of each region. Here, it's rare to see beliefs preserved from one specific area, even more so since the slaves used to be mixed from different tribes and entirely different regions to avoid organization and familiarity, which could make them more confident to go against their masters.

If the second of the theories for the "santo do pau oco" expression is true, did it have an important role in preserving their original beliefs and finally molding them into the many afro-brazilian religions we have? And even if it wasn't as told, it could be that the slaves would notice similarities between their deities and these saints and associate them, as many neopagans do today. While I'm not a great fan of linking the Gods and Goddesses together and making them to be 'one', I do understand they share similarities, some more so than others, and in a situation like slavery and forced conversion this link between them can be important.

I haven't studied much on these religions we have, though I have friends who are followers of them, and they interest me deeply. Perhaps it's the fact I love learning about religions of all kind. While my heart doesn't always lie here in Brazil, I am curious about these lands and how much they have to offer in history, and I do love them. Sometimes I feel like I can never find a one stable home, because I'm not a brazilian woman. But I'm not american, I'm not arab, I'm not european. At the same time, I'm all of those. Usually, if you're a complete mix of ethnicities, you're simply a brazilian and nothing else, because that's what most of our people are.

Then again, maybe my detachment has to do with my Gods not being from this hemisphere, or perhaps the fact I was raised in an american house. My mother and I speak english to each other at all times, she raised me as her mother raised her (my grandparents came to Brazil after WWII), and I was 'forced' to learn portuguese simply for survival, since I didn't know almost any of it before I went into school. Even now, all these years later, I feel so out of place in this country. But if I go somewhere else, that won't change.

So I want to learn as much as I can about our own diversity, too, and the history of these lands. Sitting around solving problems from overseas won't help if I don't look at the problems from my own land, and there are many things to be fixed here.