The World of Eshú and Pomba Gira

Chapter 3 – pomba gira

To talk about Pomba Gira is to continue talking about Eshu, she is a female Eshu. The origin of her name is Bantu de bombogiro. The current name in Quimbanda is Pomba, which means pigeon, and Gira, something that spins. This is a very accurate definition since she is never in the same place, but always returns to the same places, she is restless as a dove and moves very fast. She is Eshu´s perfect companion, she is always represented as a very sensual, attractive woman who gives and provides pleasure. Pomba Gira knows all the secrets of love and enjoys using this knowledge.

She is the protector of free women. Women have the full right to choose and seduce the male they choose and Pomba Giras show this by choosing the Eshu they prefer: they have full freedom to move through all fields.

Pomba Gira is another energy that works to provide happiness for those who ask for it, but from a feminine point of view. She will listen to you sooner than Eshu will, but she will also take revenge sooner if you make her angry, since she will behave like a true woman.

Her favourite drink is champagne, but she will accept any sweet drink you find, especially, strawberry-flavoured drinks since it is an aroma Pomba Gira loves.

Cigarettes must be fine and better if they are blond and menthol flavoured tobacco.

Her favourite foods are always expensive foods. She is very capricious but she can afford it, because what people ask her well deserves this sacrifice in offerings.

You can also offer her the same food as Eshu, but she will never drink in china like him but in glass.

She is usually found at crossroads.

She eats raw eggs without breaking them with some dendé over them.

Dendé and honey flour is what she likes the most.

Pomba Gira´s purpose is love, pleasure and sexual freedom. She will make possible impossible connections.

She is mainly invoked for night business and this is where she is most worshipped. With just one red rose and a glass of the best champagne your business will prosper and you will earn much more money.

Men who want to have a good lover who pleases them do not hesitate to ask her for help. She knows all the secrets of sex and how to attract men to women like flies to manure.

You only have to ask her for help and she will help you. Do not forget, she always asks for something more in return. Not only you should take care of her and thank her with offerings, but you should also be eternally grateful.

Pomba Gira is part of Eshu's organisation chart. She is in one of the two kingdoms of Eshu, in Eshu Kalunga, but she also has her own organisation chart which I will describe next.

The main head is Her Highness Rainha Pomba Gira. You may ask her anything, her power is infinite and she gives everything, but she is too capricious to always give you what you want: if she feels like it, she will listen to you, if not, you will go completely unnoticed.

Rainha Das Encruzilhadas, Rainha Da Lomba, Rainha Da Praia and Rainha Das Ciganos depend on her. Each of these queens is in charge of different phalanxes that obey and follow their orders.

Rainha Das Encruzilhadas is the owner of roads and crossings, of everything that moves and advances. Everything that is born and grows is part of her. She will make you go forward or will paralyse you forever: you will be a puppet in her hands. Her different phalanxes act in the same way, i.e. opening and closing roads. Her phalanxes are:

–Pomba Gira 7 Encruzilhadas

–Pomba Gira 7 Saias

–Pomba Gira 7 Cuores

–Pomba Gira Rozinha

–Pomba Gira Menina

–Pomba Gira Roza

Pomba Gira Rainha Da Lomba is above Pomba Gira Das Encruzilhadas. She sees and observes everything. She is bold, warlike, and fast and protects women above all. She does not like sick or dependent relationships. She likes self-confident but honest women. She also helps women of the streets, who deserve enormous respect. Her phalanxes are:

–María Padilla

–María Farrapo

–María Mulambo

–María Quitería

–María Mirongueira

–Pomba Gira 7 Cobras

–Pomba Gira 7 Catacumbas

–Pomba Gira Dos Fornos

–Pomba Gira Da Kalunga

–Pomba Gira Das Almas

Pomba Gira Rainha Da Praia is the owner of water and true, clean and pure loves. She removes moorings done to you and she makes people of the opposite sex closer to you, but only those that are worthwhile. Her phalanxes are:

–Pomba Gira Beira d’agua

–Pomba Gira Da Praia

–Pomba Gira Menina Da Praia

–Pomba Gira Das Almas Da Praia.

Pomba Gira Rainha Das Ciganos is the owner of fun, everything that is esoteric, easy money, beauty and attraction. She helps you to obtain things fast but you also lose them fast. Things are not to be kept but to keep changing. She always gives you what you need at the time. Her phalanxes are:

–Pomba Gira Cigana Da Praza

–Pomba Gira

–Cigana Do Pandeiro

–Pomba Gira Cigana Da Rúa

–Pomba Gira Cigana Menina

–Pomba Gira Cigana Do Povo

–Pomba Gira Cigana Do Oriente

–Pomba Gira Cigana Do Amor

–Pomba Gira Cigana Da Fe

–Pomba Gira Zoraida

–Pomba Gira Zonoroida

The use of flowers has a different meaning for Pomba Giras:

– White roses are used for peace and health, especially for children. You may offer them to Pomba Gira Menina, among others.

– Red roses are used for unbridled passion and active sex and you may offer them to any Pomba Gira you like.

– Yellow roses should be offered especially to the Ciganas since they attract lovers and extramarital relationships.

– Jasmine flowers are offered to Praia because they are the most self-sacrificing.

– Daisies are used to hide feelings and can also be offered to any of them.

– Violets can be offered to any Pomba Gira from Kalunga since they represent solitude.

– Gladioli are for Pomba Gira das Encruzilhadas, they represent burning desires and fidelity in love.

– Don't forget that carnations are always for Eshu since they represent impulsivity, attraction and hidden loves.

Everyone knows more or less who Pomba Gira is: a female Eshu who has the strength and power of seduction in all her weapons. She is charming, suggestive, striking, attractive, and interesting and a sorceress.

As in the case of Eshu, Pomba Gira also gets paid for all the works. However, she is different in the sense that you must not make her angry because then, she becomes very fierce and there has never been an angry woman worse than her.

Her anger has no limits and she will do whatever she can to dismantle your life, she will never get tired of hurting you for nothing. She enjoys doing it. Therefore, you must have a very clear idea that if you are going to ask her for help, you must not leave her in the lurch, speak badly about her, or stop caring for her, or you will taste her anger.

You can ask Pomba Gira anything that is related to love, sex, passions, etc.

This is the world she dominates, feelings are her field. She will help you get what you need even if it means doing harm to another person for free, she does not care: if you do not respect the other person, she does not either. She will not judge you because she does not care: she also always gets everything she wants.

You can ask for a true and stable love to any Pomba Gira Da Praia. They are sweeter and more traditional: for them not everything is worth in love.

Pomba Gira always moves at will and although she is Eshu's wife, she does not keep stable principles with him or with anyone else.

If Pomba Gira helps you, it's because she feels like it, it is not because you ask for it, it depends on her mood in that day.

Attraction is her strongest point and sensuality her intelligence: with these two weapons she can move the whole world and deceive anybody. She is an accomplished actress and does not believe in feelings but in passions, she moves by instinct and before being hurt, she hurts you first.

She does not understand apologies or forgiveness: if you have failed, you have failed. There are no second chances. She does not like the weak, she is the goddess and enables love and she would do anything to achieve it.

Love and sex are connected with her: love and sweetness belong to Pomba Giras of Praia, fun and easy money to Ciganas and problems of moorings to Kalunga.

Just as she helps you to get a love, she cleanses you of any mooring that has been made to you or the person you care about. Anger and revenge from Kalunga’s Pomba Giras are immense and their effectiveness is very fast. You cannot tell them what to do, you must let yourself go in their hands and entrust yourself to them to come to fruition.

Chapter 4 – quimbanda

To talk about Quimbanda does not mean to talk about black magic, as to talk about Umbanda does not mean to talk about white magic: such things do not exist. Both Quimbanda and Umbanda have their own lines and rules.

Quimbanda is a religion within the Afro-Brazilian cult and has the following influences and syncretism: Bantu, Indigenous, Catholic, Nagô or Menina, modern spiritualism and Oriental currents.

We must bear in mind that due to the syncretism between Eshu and the devil there is a lot of misunderstanding. In addition, due to the lack of information, Quimbanda is sometimes believed to be a kind of Satanist cult.

The Eshu of Quimbanda is simply an egun, the spirit of people who belonged to the cult.

Quimbanda means sorcerer.

Quimbandas are sorcerers who during slavery, both in African Bantu and in Brazil, were known for their quimbandero works which included being in a trance, smoking cigars, drinking and being in contact with the dead.

Many of these Quimbandas resembled the things they represented and worshiped. After their death, many were considered to be the messengers of Eshu whom they had served faithfully in life. According to the Bantu and the Indigenous traditions, the spirit of the shaman or sorcerer returns to earth through the trance of some living sorcerer.

Quimbanda is not synonymous with devil, with darkness, or with witchcraft. Like in any spiritist expression, it is a way to move forward in daily life, trying to progress spiritually having people around us, i.e., our friends who with their advice and strength give us joy in times of affliction.

The magic of Quimbanda is not to do evil. The use we make of it is our fault and not the entities’ fault.

In the beginning there was only Nzambi, the owner of all secrets.

Nzambi was a great mass of energy that could explode, and it did: millions of pieces of matter became a star, a planet, etc. And from there all the elements of the universe began to separate and the universe became bigger and bigger. Then, Nzambi decided to create a being that could go through all the different spaces. Thus, focusing on a point he created Eshu. Eshu was made both man and woman at the same time and was given 7 powers (hence the origin of number 7 in him for everything):

– To have the key that opens the boundaries between one space and another, between light and dark, between hot and cold.

– To be free to choose between the good and the bad.

– To have knowledge of everything and memory of all things from birth, as well as the ability to enrich his wisdom following his own experiences.

– To be able to create beings by precipitating his own energy on the matter without life.

– To travel in time.

– To understand all creatures.

– To divide and create beings similar to him but inferior in powers and faculties, if required.

This would be the origin of our Eshu in Quimbanda.

Eshu had the mission of going through all the different spaces where Nzambi could not go, especially in the areas where nothingness and darkness reigned. Eshu was made a dark red colour, with a lot of moving particles, bright as torches, thus allowing him to be in all spaces of light or darkness: his colour is his life.

According to a legend of his origin, when Eshu saw his own power, he decided to crown himself king of the dark areas and get by without Nzambi.

Since he had the power to create, he created 7 beings of himself. These beings had his same powers and faculties but to a lesser degree. These are the 7 kingdoms:

– Rei Das 7 Encruzilhadas

– Rei Das 7 Cruzeiros

– Rei Das 7 Liras

– Rei Da Kalunga

– Rei Das Almas

– Rei Das Matas

– Rei Da Praia

Each of these kingdoms was divided into 7 territories and each of the kings into 7 parts so they could be everywhere.

The power of Eshu to divide himself resulted in that each new part had a new personality. Each time one of them was born, it was divided into 7.

The first 57 were the most powerful and became the leaders of the others. Everyone who had enough energy to carry the name of Eshu was given a name as well as a mission within the territory.

Those who had no power and stayed on the lowest scale were not given any mission or power. They formed a group and went to speak with the first of all, told him their problems and the king gave them some energy. He took their spirits and moved them to material bodies: the first men.

These men were androgynous and could not have offspring. When they died, the king had to use his energy again to put the spirits back into a body. All this took a lot of time and too much energy and weakened him. Then, the king thought how he could solve such problem: he had the key that opened and closed the limits.

Therefore, he thought about separating them by sex, but they got angry. He answered them that, from then on, their spirits would have no body because he would only make bodies with definite sexes. However, they rebelled against him and thus they could never be neither man nor woman, and their space became the darkness.

This group was called quiumbas, spirits without light who harmed people.

This would be a brief history of the origin of Eshu in this religion.

Eshu is its main god and the energy that is in nature. He is the messenger of men to the Orishas. From this force emerge the others, spirits that were once in transit in this planet and that wrapped in energy evolve to reach higher levels, trying that this stage they have to live is of great spiritual light so they can achieve the evolution they are looking for. That is why there is an organisation chart in Quimbanda, in which we can see their task and the place where they are.

Quimbanda emerged at the beginning of the 20th Century. Ancient Macumba was transformed into sorcery and this into Quimbanda. Eshu is its basis and an element of nature that is part of a whole. It is the cult of Eshu as the owner of the Earth, the communicator with the Orishas and also the one closest to humans.

At first, to speak of Quimbanda was to speak of the astral police that removed everything that could disturb humans.

In order to belong to Quimbanda, a spirit had to choose you first. This spirit would manifest itself by making someone sick and there would be no medication to cure that person.

The clairvoyant would then discover that one of the person´s ancestors was a Quimbandero and that the spirit of the dead was responsible for everything. He would leave the person alone if he served as a professional medium, healer, sorcerer or macumbero. The medium would be instructed by the interested spirit.

Quimbandas were usually clairvoyants. They absorbed the blood of the animal sacrificed during the initiation ceremony. A divination test then followed, in which buried objects had to be found.

Talismans and amulets with snails, wild boar teeth, deer horns and burned portions of hearts of different felines, nails and crushed snake skin had to be made.

When imposed, the amulet had to insert the same substances of the amulet within the person’s body. Hence, a small incision was made in the left forearm and the medicinal powder was placed at the tip of the client's tongue.

When Quimbanda arrived to Brazil it changed, evolved and mixed with black magic.

Quimbanda also works with entities other than Eshu and Pomba Gira. I will not talk about them now but I will name them for your knowledge. These entities are:

– Ciganos

– Ciganas

– Bahianos

–Affricans

–Quiumbas

–Eguns

Each entity has its own evolutionary degree of light.

There are also 7 lines (linhas) of spirits of known Quimbanderos who worship Eshu. These groups are:

Linha das Almas is led by Eshu Tranca Rúa das Almas and is commanded by Omulu and Eshu Caveira. The spirits are those of sorcerers.

Linha Nagô is led by Eshu Ganga. African spirits of yerberos and religious of Eshu.

Linha Mista is led by Eshu das Campinas. Different peoples, races and countries, especially gypsies and their spirits.

Linha dos Cemitérios is led by Omulu. They are the prisoner spirits of the laws of karma.

Linha Mossurubi is led by Eshu Kaminaloa and they are African sorcerers.

Linha Malei is led by Ogun Megue and they take care of the cemetery doors.

Linha Caboclos Quimbandeiros is led by Eshu Pantera Preta. They are chiefs and sorcerers of the Guarani Indians.

They come from the Bantu, from the peoples of Angola-Congo. It is a combination between the Menina culture, Nganga and Tatâs 8 Spirits of the Quimbandist chiefs of the Bantu nations.

They are spirits of the night and the cult is done at night.

They are messengers who work with spirits during the night. In life they were important characters.

Baptism is done with blood and ceremonies with sacrifices, dances and banquets.

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