When I journeyed to Brazil to spend time with my friend and fellow anthropologist Maria Pimpa-Junqueira, to explore ties, similarities and differences between the Afro-Brazilian religious practice of Candomblé with Afro-Cuban Lucumi (Santeria), one of the differences I noticed almost immediately was that Candomblé practitioners used the Yoruba language in ritual with a far better understanding of meaning than Afro-Cubans. They also used kola nuts from Africa in various ritual practices, where for the most part Cubans had substituted cocoanut. Mae Maria remarked that this had much to do with the fact that contact with Africa was never lost, and that a lot of the later trade that was established between continents served to supply the very large African diasporic religious community in Brazil.