The words, and where they come from

Words of the doctrine

The vocabulary the tradition made for itself, or took and gave a new meaning.

• DaimeThe sacramentFrom the Portuguese imperative dai-me, give me — the opening of the prayer sung in the hymns: give me strength, give me love, give me light. Mestre Irineu renamed the drink with that word in 1931. It is made of two plants: the vine jagube, also called cipó, and the leaf rainha, also called chacrona.
• JuramidamName · spiritThe name Mestre Irineu is said to have carried in the astral. “He lived in this world with this name, but there, in the astral, he received another one, which is Juramidam,” said Luiz Mendes. The hymns use it for the spirit of the Daime itself, understood as the teacher behind every hinário received since.CRUZEIRINHO
• MiraçãoThe visionary stateFrom mirar, to behold — and read in the tradition as mira + ação, looking joined to acting. The word carries that double sense deliberately: the miração is not only seen but requires discernment, since the tradition itself distinguishes it from imagination and projection.
• Hinário · hinoThe hymnsA hymnal — the complete set of hymns one person received, sung through in order from first to last. Hymns are held to be received rather than composed, and the hinários are the tradition's scripture. Mestre Irineu's is O Cruzeiro.
• BailadoThe danceThe danced work. Three steps only — march in two, waltz in one, mazurka in three — kept in ranked lines, men on one side and women on the other. The tradition holds that the Queen of the Forest set its length by the turning of the tides.
• FirmezaBearingFirmness. The steadiness a long work asks of the body and the attention, and which the tradition says the work itself develops.
• Irmandade · fraternidadeThe communityBrotherhood and sisterhood. Irmandade is the older Portuguese word for a lay confraternity — Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Carmo, and the like. Fraternidade is the feeling rather than the body: solidarity, cooperation, love of neighbour.
• LinhaCurrentA line: a current or phalanx of spiritual force, and by extension the ritual and the set of hymns that call it. Hence Linha de Arrochim, Linha do Tucúm.Linha De Arrochim
• SalveGreetingHail. An exclamation of reverence, originally in Salve Jorge, the greeting to Saint George, and now a general Brazilian greeting as well.
• DefumaçãoOpening riteThe smudging that opens a work — rosemary, benzoin, lavender, sage, cedar, rue, guiné. The tradition compares it to washing the hands before a meal, and adds that it means nothing unless the conduct changes too.
• VivasAcclamationsThe ritual acclamations, given standing and facing the cross, in a fixed order that begins with the Divine Eternal Father and the Queen of the Forest. They are withheld at healing works, at concentrations, on Holy Thursday and on All Souls.

The Queen, and the saints kept from Catholicism

Brazilian popular Catholicism supplied most of the calendar. The feast days below are the dates the doctrine kept.

• Rainha da Floresta · Nossa Senhora da ConceiçãoDecember 8 · Queen of the ForestThe luminous woman Mestre Irineu saw in the moon during his forest diet, who gave him a hymn and the instruction to found a doctrine. He first knew her as the Queen of the Forest and later named her as Our Lady of the Conception. Rainha is also the name of the leaf in the drink, and a plantation of it is called a reinado — a kingdom.
• JesusO Mestre · O Rei · O SalvadorCentral to the doctrine as Redeemer, and named in the hymns by all four of those titles. Mestre Irineu described the Daime itself as the blood of Christ.
• São João BatistaJune 24 · Saint John the BaptistPatron of the doctrine. The first hinário in Santo Daime history was sung on his vigil in 1935, and his feast is still the most festive night of the year, carrying the bonfires and the forró of the Brazilian Festa Junina.Flores de Sao Joao
• São Miguel ArcanjoSeptember 29 · Saint MichaelThe archangel invoked against fear, despair and loss of faith. His hymns serve twice over: a calendar feast in September, and a healing line whenever it is called for.São Miguel
• São SebastiãoJanuary 20 · Saint SebastianThe Roman soldier shot with arrows, left for dead and healed by Irene before being beaten to death on his return to Diocletian. In the Afro-Brazilian correspondences he is read as Oxossi, the hunter — though the same tables elsewhere give him as Ogum.São Sebastião
• São JorgeApril 23 · Saint GeorgeBeheaded at Nicomedia in 303. The dragon he kills is read as the plain figure of good over evil; in Umbanda and Candomblé he is Ogum, warrior of iron and of the roads, which makes him particularly present in works of healing and spiritual battle.
• Santo AntônioJune 13 · Anthony of PaduaThe Franciscan of Lisbon who died at thirty-six in Padua and was canonised the following year. Patron of the poor and of lost things; in the doctrine he is also the patron of guardianship.
• São PedroJune 29 · Saint PeterThe fisherman of Bethsaida named Kepha, the stone. Crucified upside down at his own request under Nero. With Anthony and John he completes the three June feasts.
• São LonguinhoMarch 15 in Brazil · Saint LonginusThe centurion who named Christ the Son of God at the cross, and who tradition merges with the soldier of the spear — his name comes from the Greek word for one. Invoked, like Anthony, for things that have gone missing.
• São Francisco de Assis1181–1226 · Saint FrancisFounder of the Franciscans. His poverty, his service and his regard for the natural world sit close to the doctrine's own emphases, and his prayer is among the most widely sung in the tradition.São Francisco
• Nossa Senhora AparecidaOctober 12 · Our Lady of AparecidaThe small dark terra-cotta Virgin drawn from the Rio Paraíba in two pieces by fishermen around 1717, after a night of empty nets — and then a catch so heavy they feared for the boats. Patroness of Brazil.
• Nossa Senhora do Perpétuo SocorroJune 27 · Our Lady of Perpetual HelpA fifteenth-century Byzantine icon in Rome, in which the Child looks not at the viewer but at the instruments of the Passion. Invoked in the doctrine especially at works of healing.

The Afro-Brazilian lines

Present in the doctrine from Maranhão, and formally part of ritual practice in the ICEFLU line. The sources are explicit that this differs by lineage: at Alto Santo the works stay closer to a plain Christian practice.

• UmbandaTraditionThe Brazilian religion of African matrix that joins Candomblé, Spiritism and Catholicism, founded through the medium Zélio Fernandino de Moraes and the spirit Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas. Its orixás carry Catholic correspondences, and many hinários in this archive are dedicated to its entities.Baixinha
• Os Pretos VelhosMay 13 · The old Black eldersSpirits who lived and died in slavery and freed themselves through spiritual illumination — pictured as elders bent under lived wisdom, white-haired, with a pipe. Their day is the thirteenth of May, the date the Lei Áurea ended slavery in Brazil.Chaveirinho
• Exu Tranca RuaAugust 24 · Guardian of the waysCaptain of the crossroads, defender of women and of the oppressed, commanding a falange divided in seven. The cult is tied to the day of São Bartolomeu and to Oxumaré, who carries souls from earth to heaven.
• Iemanjá · JanaínaFebruary 2 · Queen of the oceanThe feminine principle of creation and of moonlight, protector of fishermen and of those who survive shipwreck; her offerings are flowers, perfume, mirrors, sent out onto the sea. Identified variously with Our Lady of Navigators and with the Immaculate Conception.O Justiceiro
• NanãAncestral wisdomMatriarch of the orixás, Lady of the Depths, owner of the mud that humanity was made from — the eldest of them all, and in Afro-Catholic correspondence Saint Anne.
• Obaluaê · AtotôHealing and transformationOrixá of healing and of the earth. Atotô Obaluaê is the greeting: silence for the great king of the Earth. Son of Nanã, raised by Iemanjá.
• OmolúNovember 2 · Death and passageOrixá of death and transformation, owner of the cemetery, who conducts those passing out of life. Syncretised with São Lázaro, and in some houses the same figure as Obaluaê.
• TerreiroPlaceThe consecrated ground, usually open-air, where Afro-Brazilian rites are held. Daime works happen indoors, but the terreiro is the inheritance behind how its Umbanda works are understood.

The forest

Beings and figures of the Amazon, which the doctrine took in as it found them.

• CurupiraGuardian of the forestShort, red-haired, with his feet turned backward so that his tracks lead the wrong way. He protects the trees and the animals and torments those who destroy them — though he is fair, and leaves in peace anyone hunting to eat. Children he takes return after seven years, taught.
• Beija-florHummingbirdFlower-kisser. The bird that hovers, and flies backward, and drinks from the flower — which is why the tradition reads it as a figure for spiritual agility, and why the members of the Linha de Arrochim are called its hummingbirds.
• Mãe d'Água · TarumimSpirit of the watersWater mother, and provider of sacred wisdom rather than only of water — a figure standing where the Tambor de Mina and pajelança of Maranhão meet the river spirits of the Amazon. She is named in Mestre Irineu's hymn Formosa.O Cruzeiro
• Linha do TucúmThread · hymnThread hand-twisted from the young leaves of the tucúm palm, made at Céu do Juruá in Amazonas — gathered without killing the palm, and entirely biodegradable. It is also the name of a hymn, sung as a hymn of strength.

Places and people

• Alto SantoRio Branco, AcreOriginally Alto da Santa Cruz — the land some seven kilometres outside Rio Branco that the community moved to in May 1945, after the police raid of 1942. Mestre Irineu lived and died there, and the line that stayed carries its name.
• Vila Céu do MapiáFounded January 21, 1983The community Padrinho Sebastião's people founded on the Mapiá stream, off the Purus. In 1989 the surrounding land became a national forest. It is the seat of ICEFLU, with about a thousand residents.
• Padrinho · MadrinhaTitlesGodfather and godmother. The titles the tradition gives its leaders — Padrinho Sebastião, Padrinho Alfredo, Madrinha Rita.
• PuxadoraThe one who pullsThe lead singer, always a woman, seated nearest the altar. She begins every hymn, sets the tempo and holds it, and carries hinários of a hundred hymns and more from memory. The instruments follow her and the congregation follows them.
• Fardado · fardadaUniformed memberA member who has been through the fardamento and wears the farda, with the six-pointed star pinned to it. Those who have not are paisanos, and take the last places in the line, behind the fardados.