Pretos-Velhos in Umbanda: What I Learned Through Listening

It Was Not One Conversation, but Repetition

When I think of the Pretos-Velhos, what comes to me first is not one single memory.

It was not one specific phrase that explained everything to me. Nor was it one particular consultation that, from that moment on, made me understand who they were.

It was more like repetition.

It was seeing, gira after gira, how people arrived before them.

Some came with simple questions. Others carried deeper pain. Some spoke a lot. Others could barely begin. There were people carrying shame, fear, exhaustion, guilt, or problems they might not have been able to say out loud in many other places.

And still, before a Preto-Velho, something seemed to open.

In Umbanda, the Pretos-Velhos are entities associated with ancestry, wisdom, humility, and patience, carrying a deep spiritual memory connected to the history of Black people in Brazil.

But that definition, by itself, does not explain what I saw happening.

Because, in practice, before any explanation, there was a presence that calmed people, did not seem rushed, and made them feel they could speak.

Over time, I realized that perhaps this was one of the first teachings of the Pretos-Velhos: before guiding someone, it is necessary to create a place where that person can open up.

The Embrace That Created Space

Many times, the consultation began before any words were spoken.

It began in the way the Preto-Velho received the person.

Sometimes it was a look. Sometimes a blessing. Sometimes a simple sentence, spoken calmly. And many times, it was an embrace.

Over time, I began to realize that this embrace was not only affection.

It could also be spiritual work.

There was something in it that reminded me of the passe, but it came entirely through the gesture of the embrace: it welcomed, calmed, and seemed to reorganize the person from within.

It was as if that gesture helped create a safe space.

A place where the person could breathe, lower their guard, and speak.

It was not only tenderness. It was presence, care, and, many times, a silent form of energy work — without explanation, display, or spectacle.

I saw many people arrive closed off and, after that first moment of welcome, begin to tell what had truly brought them there. Sometimes a person began by speaking of one thing and, little by little, reached something deeper.

The Pretos-Velhos had this ability to open space: without forcing, invading, or pressuring, only creating a simple and steady trust.

When Pain Could Be Spoken Without Fear

Over time, especially during the period when I served as head cambono and accompanied more closely the work of the chief Preto-Velho of the terreiro, I began to see situations that marked me deeply.

Not out of curiosity.

Nor from any desire to know about other people’s lives.

But because, standing there beside them, it was impossible not to notice the depth of some consultations.

There were very difficult forms of pain, carrying shame, guilt, fear, confusion, old suffering, or simply a deep exhaustion with life.

And one of the things that impressed me most was the way the Preto-Velho received all of that.

He did not become shocked, did not judge, did not treat the person as if they were the problem itself, and did not diminish what was being said.

There was a way of listening that did not make the pain heavier, but also did not pretend it did not exist.

Many times, I had the impression that the consultation helped the person understand their own problem better. Not because a ready-made explanation was given, but because the conversation was guided with calm, care, and naturalness.

Little by little, something reorganized itself: through a word, a question, a story, or simply because someone listened without turning it into judgment.

Even in difficult situations, there was a lightness that never seemed superficial to me. It was not laughing at pain, nor treating serious problems as small. It was a way of not allowing suffering to occupy the entire space.

The Preto-Velho helped the person breathe, look at the situation with some distance, and notice where choice, responsibility, care, or change might still exist. It was not a rushed kind of hope. It was an older, more patient hope, one that did not deny the weight of life, but also did not allow the person to become completely confused with it.

The Wisdom That Came in the Form of Story

Another thing I gradually noticed about the Pretos-Velhos is that many teachings did not come as direct explanation.

They came as story.

Sometimes a story told to one person during a consultation.

Sometimes to a small group within the mediumistic circle.

Sometimes to everyone present in the gira.

They could be stories of difficulties overcome, stories of life, stories connected to the memory of slavery, or stories of the Orishas — the myths that, within Afro-Brazilian traditions, help transmit meanings about life, nature, destiny, choices, and human paths.

But these stories rarely appeared disconnected from the moment.

They came within a context.

They appeared because some pain, doubt, or situation needed to be seen in another way.

A Preto-Velho could tell a story to speak of patience without simply saying, "be patient." He could speak of humility without turning it into a sermon. He could bring an Orisha myth to show that certain conflicts of human life had already been thought about, narrated, and crossed many times before us.

At the time, I had not yet studied much about the Orishas. Many names, qualities, and relationships were still confusing to me. But even before looking for books or more organized explanations, I was already hearing stories inside the terreiro.

I also saw Pretos-Velhos, at times, make reference to tools connected to ancestral African traditions, such as búzios, or cowrie shells. Some also referred to the Odus, paths of wisdom present in Ifá traditions and in Afro-diasporic systems of divination.

That caught my attention because it showed that, behind the simplicity of the conversation, there was a connection with ancient forms of reading, guidance, and transmission of knowledge.

The stories told by the Pretos-Velhos did not seem to come only from the individual experience of one entity. Many times, they touched a larger memory, shaped by ancestry, tradition, and orality.

Over time, I began to understand that these stories did not function as a class.

They functioned as a path.

A person listened to a story and, at some point, could recognize themselves in it.

Perhaps this is one of the great strengths of oral tradition: it does not only deliver information. It creates a mirror.

Ancestry as a Living Presence

Over time, I came to understand that speaking about the Pretos-Velhos is also speaking about ancestry.

Not an ancestry that is distant, trapped only in the past.

But a living presence.

In Umbanda, the Pretos-Velhos carry a deep spiritual memory connected to the Black experience in Brazil, including the mark of slavery. This theme needs to be approached with respect, without romanticizing pain and without turning suffering into an easy explanation.

In my experience, however, the center of this presence was not only in the pain that had been lived.

It was in what had crossed through that pain: dignity, patience, wisdom, and the ability to care even after having known so many forms of suffering.

Perhaps that is why the presence of the Pretos-Velhos has such a particular strength within Umbanda. They seem to carry a wisdom that crosses generations, but does not arrive as a burden. It arrives as conversation. As blessing. As story. As silence. As a simple word spoken at the right time.

This wisdom does not belong only to the past. It continues working in the present, in the way a person is welcomed, a pain is heard, and an old story can illuminate a situation being lived now.

What Is Learned by Being Nearby

One of the most important things I learned while accompanying the Pretos-Velhos did not come from a direct explanation.

It came from being nearby.

As a cambono, my role was not to occupy the center of the consultation. It was to assist, respect the space of the entity and of the person being helped, and sustain that moment with discretion.

Even so, being there taught me.

Not through the intimate content of the conversations.

But through the movement that kept repeating itself.

Different people arrived at the terreiro carrying concerns, pain, doubts, fears, and forms of exhaustion that were their own. Some situations seemed simple from the outside. Others carried a complexity that was difficult even to imagine. But before the Pretos-Velhos, all of them were received with care.

Over time, I began to realize that it did not make much sense to compare suffering. Each person arrives with what they are able to carry, and perhaps one of the first gestures of respect is to recognize that.

Serving within Umbanda changed this way of seeing in me. Not because my own problems stopped existing, but because, by taking part in work directed toward caring for others, I began to realize that life was much wider than whatever was worrying me in that moment.

Helping someone does not erase our own pain, but it can change the place that pain occupies within us.

What I Am Still Learning

Today, when I try to explain who the Pretos-Velhos are in Umbanda, I realize that any definition feels small.

I can say they are entities connected to ancestry, wisdom, humility, and spiritual counsel. I can say they work through the word, through listening, through the passe, blessing, welcome, and patience.

All of that helps.

But for me, the Pretos-Velhos were understood much more through living alongside them than through definition.

I understood them by seeing people open up, by seeing pain treated without judgment, by seeing old stories illuminate present problems, and by seeing simple words reach places that long explanations might not reach.

With the Pretos-Velhos, I learned that listening is also spiritual work.

And that, sometimes, wisdom does not arrive to solve everything at once. It arrives slowly, sits beside us, speaks softly, tells a story, and waits until we are mature enough to hear it.

Entre mundos.

And perhaps some answers only appear when someone offers us enough silence to speak.