From samba and carnival to food, music and religion, African culture is everywhere in Brazil.
The cultural heritage derives from the roughly four million slaves that were brought into the country over a 300-year period, at least four times as many as into the United States.
Brazil was the last country to abolish the slave trade in 1888. More than half of Brazilians now identify themselves as black or mestizo, according to the latest census.
Rio de Janeiro now has the most famous carnival in the world, attracting around 1.1 million visitors to the city this year and with 5.3 million people attending street parties, according to the English-language newspaper The Rio Teams.
Carnival, which is celebrated throughout Brazil, combines samba – music and dance that grew up in the neighborhoods blacks from Brazil – and the Catholic tradition of celebrating the Lenten period brought by the colonialists Portuguese.
Carnival celebrations in Salvador. Carnival is the biggest holiday in Brazil, attracting millions in celebrations leading up to Shrove Tuesday, before the start of Lent. The origins of Carnival combine the Catholic festival celebrations of Portuguese colonialists and the music and dance of African slaves.
See too: African dance.
After the abolition of slavery, the rituals of former Catholic colonists and their former slaves merged to form the origins of modern carnival, according to the Rio Times.
One explanation for the origins of carnival is that it started in a Catholic church, Nossa Senhora do Rosario, built by slaves in the 1700s, whose masters wanted them to convert to the Catholicism.
“The blacks who were part of this congregation, most of them came from Congo,” said João Carlos Desales, a tour guide who took CNN around Rio de Janeiro.
“So they were able to organize a party where they would choose a man and a woman, and they would be the king and queen of the Congo. This party ended up being the beginning of the carnival celebrated in Brazil.”
Even many of the Brazilian Catholic saints are considered African heirs.
São Bento, whose name is remembered in the church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário, was a North African slave who promised to devote himself to Catholicism if he became a free man, Desales said.
The patron saint of Brazil, Nossa Senhora Aparecida, a black clay statue of the Virgin Mary, was – according to some – found by runaway slaves on their way to Quilombo, a slave community fugitives.
Quilombola communities continue throughout Brazil to this day.
Luis Sacopa, president of the association of Quilombos, runs a restaurant with his 17 family members in a patch of jungle in what is now an expensive suburb of Rio de Janeiro.
Grandparents found this piece of land after escaping slavery.
The family waged a legal battle to keep their land from the threat of eviction and now have official protection for their right to remain.
“Thank God, we were successful and we are still here at the end of our dispute,” Sacopa said. “Thank God, the family has united, we are fighting and winning the fight against the elite in this expensive neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro.”
Sacopa said he was able to resist the eviction with the help of his Orixás, gods of the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria, Benin and Togo.
In Brazil, the religion is known as Candomblé, and it has a large following in some Afro-Brazilian areas, particularly in Salvador, in the state of Bahia.
Also in Inside Africa: Why do Tanzanians believe in witchcraft?
Candomblé was banned in Brazil until the 1950s, but it influenced much of the country's food and music.
At Sacopa's restaurant, he serves feijoada, a typically Brazilian dish, originally created by slaves from the owners' leftovers.
A new African Heritage Historic Circuit opened in Rio de Janeiro in 2010 to help tourists and descendants of slaves reconnect with the slavery of the past.
The project started after workers who installed a new drainage system in the central districts of Saude and Gamboa discovered hundreds of personal objects belonging to African slaves, according to Rio Teams.
Archaeologists have established that this was the site of the 19th century slave trade complex, Valongo Wharf or Valongo Quays.
Many of the findings are now on display at the Gardens of Valongo, the newspaper reported.
Another discovery in recent years is the remains of a slave cemetery in the courtyard of a house in downtown Rio de Janeiro.
Renaldo Tavares, an archaeologist studying the discovery, said: “These are human remains mixed with the city's garbage. This shows how society in the 19th century treated slaves.
“Bones, pieces of pottery, pieces of construction, roof tiles, animal remains, pieces of food, society threw all kinds of things here. The slaves were considered garbage by society”.
Ana Mercedes Guimarães, the owner who discovered the bones in her patio, said: “When we started a renovation in our house, we found all these bones. We thought it was a family grave, but there was so much we thought had been a serial killer.
“But then we calmed down and talked about it and called a lawyer and the police. And he said don't worry, let's not charge him, it's probably something very old.
"A neighbor told us, a long time ago, his street was a slave cemetery."
Brazil's third city, Salvador, in the state of Bahia in northeastern Brazil, has some of the strongest links to Africa.
Salvador was Brazil's first colonial capital and its central district, Pelourinho, is now a UNESCO world heritage site, was the first slave market in the New World from 1553, according to UNESCO.
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