In Porto Alegre, capital of the southern State of Rio Grande do Sul, the local regional variation of Afro-Brazilian religion is known as Batuque (drum playing). There, religious congregations are associated with five main nations: Oyó, Ijexá, Nagô, Jeje and Cambíni or Cànbína (perhaps from Cabinda, in Angola). In the late 1950s most houses belonged to the Nagô nation, but today the dominant one is Ijexá, while the former has nearly disappeared. Each nation is considered a 'side' (lado) or 'branch' (ramo) of the African tradition, but their differences lie in such minor ritual features (singing order, drum rhythms, sacrificial protocols) that some say it is impossible to separate them. In fact the prevailing ritual modality in Rio Grande do Sul today is not Batuque, but the so-called Linha Cruzada (tangled thread) which emerged in the 1960s as a combination of both Batuque and Umbanda elements (Oro, 2002, pp. 354-55;  
Correa 1992). Umbanda is a genuinely Brazilian religion which stemmed from the interpenetration of Afro-Brazilian religions, European Catholicism, Kardecist Spiritism, Amerindian healing traditions and others. The idiom of nations is rarely heard among Umbanda practitioners, signaling its distancing from an African identity.