First Class Brazil Oba Crowned in Yoruba Land Keeps Black Culture Alive

Adeyinka Olaiya/

If there is one black history that has refused to black out in 326 years, it’s the story of an Afro-Brazilian freedom fighter beheaded in Brazil by Portuguese slave masters.

Zumbi dos Palmares was a Brazilian of Kongo origin and a quilombola leader, being one of the pioneers of resistance to slavery of Africans by the Portuguese in Brazil. He was also the last of the kings of the Quilombo dos Palmares, a settlement of Afro-Brazilian people who had liberated themselves from enslavement in that same settlement, in the present-day state of Alagoas, Brazil. Zumbi today is revered in Afro-Brazilian culture as a powerful symbol of resistance against the enslavement of Africans in the colony of Brazil.

Zumbi was beheaded on November 20, 1695, but his soul goes marching on through the activities of his descendants.

Today, Zumbi’s great-grandson – the Geleju Adelabu III, His Royal Highness, Oba Mendes Ferreira, has kept the flame of African renaissance burning.

NewsmakersNG learnt that Oba Ferreira completed his traditional coronation rites in Osogbo, Osun State, Nigeria, before ascending the throne of his forefathers as the Geleju Adelabu III in Brazil, a stool that has been classified by the traditional ruling house in the Latin American country as first class.

Born into an African traditional religious family in Alagoas, Brazil, Oba Ferreira is a scholar, writer and teacher of the Yoruba religion.

He had a brief chat with NewsmakersNG, at his ultramodern palace in São Paulo, about his trajectory as a little African-Brazilian who rose from a very discriminatory environment to a distinctive traditional role in Brazil and around the world.

Since he was ordained, Oba Ferreira has built shrines and places of Orisa (Deity) worship in Europe, Africa and the Americas. He worked on joint traditional missions around the world alongside Prof. Wande Abimbola, the Awise Ifa Agbaye. He has also taken the African traditional religion missions around the globe with Chief Yemi Elebuibon, the Araba Ifa from Osogbo.

Oba Ferreira is an authority in the Yoruba arts, culture and language, a linguist who has incorporated the original use of Yoruba language into his traditional religious practices in Brazil.

According to him, his paranormal nature and the gift to be a traditional priest was revealed by Ifa divination. He was then conducted to handling the spiritualism and the deities of his ancestors. He had initiations with several religious leaders and mentors in Africa and Brazil. Tia Marcelina, Mestre Felix, Mestre Aurélio, Mestre Foguinho, Manoel Geleju, Pai Adao and Mestre Berilio Gomes all contributed to his initiation into several traditional religious cults.

Oba Ferreira was also initiated into the Dahomey Cult by Mestre Nicolau Tolentino de Menezes. He joined the Manoel Falefa Cult by Manoel Victorino da Costa in São Caetano, Bahia. After the death of Falefa, he was initiated into ‘Ketu culture and cultism’ by Maria Escolástica de Nazaré (Mãe Menininha dos Gantois) and Manoel Cerqueira de Amorim. He was finally initiated and confirmed as a higher spiritual authority in Brazil by Iyalorisa Regina Pereira Sauze Bamgbose Abitiku.

A recipient of several academic, religious and professional awards, Oba Ferreira has participated in several religious, cultural and academic programs in Brazil and Nigeria. He has been a distinguished guest at the annual Yoruba day celebrations in the Latin American country.