"Fascinating because it brings together in a single book information drawn widely from the several disciplines of geography, botany, history, and anthropology to provide an account of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candombleacute;. in a competent and readable manner." Sandra Lauderdale Graham, author of House and Street: The Domestic World of Servants and Masters in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro Candombleacute;, an African religious and healing tradition that spread to Brazil during the slave trade, relies heavily on the use of plants in its spiritual and medicinal practices. When its African adherents were forcibly transplanted to the New World, they faced the challenge not only of maintaining their culture and beliefs in the face of European domination but also of finding plants with similar properties to the ones they had used in Africa. This book traces the origin, diffusion, medicinal use, and meaning of Candombleacute;'s healing pharmacopoeia the sacred leaves. Robert Voeks examines such topics as the biogeography of Africa and Brazil, the transference and transformation of Candombleacute; as its adherents encountered both native South American belief systems and European Christianity, and the African system of medicinal plant classification that allowed Candombleacute; to survive and even thrive in the New World. This research casts new light on topics ranging from the creation of African American cultures to tropical rain forest healing floras.