Daoism in Brazil: The Globalization of the Orthodox Unity (Zhengyi) Tradition
Abstract
The Daoist Society of Brazil (Sociedade Taoista do Brasil) was founded by Wu Jyh Cherng (Wu
Zhicheng 武志成), a Taiwanese immigrant, in 1991. Today the Society operates two temples in
Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, and is the only religious organization in South America that is
affiliated with the Daoist Society of China in the Orthodox Unity (Zhengyi 正一) lineage. The
group, however, is not made up of other immigrants or Brazilians of Chinese descent; rather the
entire group and current priesthood consist of Brazilians of non-Chinese ancestry.
This essay examines the history and development of the Daoist Society of Brazil and its
members’ understandings of Daoism through site visits and interviews conducted in December
2009. From this I develop a theory of the particular characteristics of Brazilian religious culture
that enabled the formation of a Zhengyi Daoist community outside of ethnically Chinese people.
The practices of the two temples thus represent a hybrid of Chinese and Brazilian cultural forms
that have been negotiated through a complex assessment of how to maintain authentic religious
traditions in a non-traditional cultural context. Although the transcultural practices of the Daoist
Society of Brazil can only be fully understood in these particular terms, the Society also
represents an important case study in the more general phenomenon of the globalization of
religious cultures and the formation of transcultural religious identities.
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