On Monday night, the orixas and Afro-Brazilian identity returned with force to the Rio de Janeiro Sambadrome on the second night of parades, delivering a message against religious intolerance.

The night began with the birth of the orixa Logun Ede, a deity of wealth and abundance, whose floats narrated his spiritual journey from Africa to Brazil, where he currently has a large number of followers.

In fact, a devotee of Logun Ede, the famous singer Anitta, co-wrote the lyrics of the samba, which praise the qualities of the orixa and speak of his willingness to “challenge consensus.”

The artist said that one of her motivations for participating in the parade, at the invitation of the Unidos da Tijuca samba school, was to combat intolerance against religions of African origin, as intolerance remains “very strong” in Brazil, a country where conservative evangelical churches are on the rise.

The parade by the Beija-Flor samba school was also an ode to cultural syncretism, paying tribute to an important samba artist and carnival leader, Laila, who had extensive classical musical training and was devoted to both Jesus and the orixas.

One of the floats was essentially a moving pantheon, with niches alternating between African and Christian saints; another featured a European-style theater filled with musicians dressed in feathered costumes.

“Make the sign of the cross and mark the ‘pemba’ (a cone-shaped chalk used in the Umbanda religion),” said the song that accompanied the parade.

The text reads, “The moment when the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro receives the news of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for “I’m Still Here.” This is enough to make even the hairs on your big toes stand on end. Carnival and cinema reestablishing national culture. What pride, Brazil!”

The Salgueiro samba school, with an enthusiastic crowd that cheered non-stop, got straight to the point by presenting a parade about protection rituals from all the religions coexisting in Brazil.

One of the most impressive floats of the night featured two golden horses moving their legs as they carried objects typical of the amulets used by enslaved people during the colonial period.

Of the four schools that paraded on Monday, only Vila Isabel did not reference African heritage, although its parade was still filled with fantastic beings, such as a flying Halloween pumpkin and a ghostly train covered in cobwebs.