Take a look around. The stone bore in front of you bore witness to the rise of one of Brazil’s great religious traditions. In this area, known as Pedra do Sal, many terreiros, or candomblé temples, were born – including the oldest temple in Rio, the Ilê Axê Opô Afonjá, which dates back to 1886, two years before slavery was abolished in Brazil.
A woman named Eugênia Ana dos Santos, known as Ma Aninha, founded the terreiro. Born in Salvador on July 13, 1869, she had African heritage and was and a devotee of the deity Xangô. At 17, she came to Rio from Bahia and founded her terreiro in Santo Cristo, according to the project Passados Presentes and historian Maria Clementina Cunha.
Ma Aninha stayed in Rio de Janeiro through the first decade of the 20th century before moving to Salvador in 1910, where she founded another terreiro, one of the oldest in that city. Her terreiro in Rio remained open, led by her priestesses. In the 1940s, it was moved to the Coelho da Rocha neighborhood in São João de Meriti, Baixada Fluminense, where it continues today.
But history books do not recognize Ma Aninha as the foundational religious leader that she was in both Bahia and Rio de Janeiro. That is why the ghost of her first terreiro wanders to this day, waiting for someone to stop and listen to this beautiful story.