Historic Temple Saved: Legacy Members Receive Special Thanks.

Around June 2023, I wrote a short article for the Legacy Newsletter entitled ‘Yoruba Temple in Brazil under Threat’, where I shared details of a petition to save Terreiro da Casa Branca, one of the oldest African religious temples in Bahia, from the risk of collapse. It is an important site of Afro Brazilian historic and religious memory, and two Yoruba freedwomen, Iya Nasso and Marcelina da Silva, who were C19th Candomble priestesses, who were enslaved in Brazil, and believed to be closely linked to this temple associated with the Xango deity.

Lisa Earl Castillo, an academic who has conducted extensive research and published work on Afro Brazilian History and Anthropology, provided me with the details of a decisive victory and positive outcome to the campaign to save the temple. The illegal construction threatening the temple was stopped, the land was donated to the temple, and the government agreed to construct a building on it to house a museum dedicated to the history of Casa Branca. A deed for the land was drawn up, which the temple should have received when it was recognised as a national historic heritage site in the 1980s, and is a result of a struggle that has been going on for almost 200 years.

Lisa said, ‘The temple’s struggle against the invasion was made possible by the visibility the problem got in the press and social media. On behalf of the temple’s senior priests and priestesses, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Legacy for its solidarity with the fight for justice’. She went on to say Legacy’s solidarity in the Casa Branca’s struggle was very important in the context of diasporic dialogue, and that if anyone from Legacy ever visits Bahia, she would be very pleased to take them to the temple.

Old News: https://www.updates.legacy1995.ng/2023/04/14/brazilian-temple-under-threat/