In the northeastern States of Pernambuco, Paraiba, Alagoas and Sergipe, Afro-Brazilian religious practices are known as Xangô, the name of the Yoruba or Nagô thunder orixá, a first indication of the importance of this nation in its genesis. According to oral memory in the late nineteenth century, the oldest Xangô congregations in Recife claimed Nagô, Jeje, Angola and even Malê (Muslim) identities (Ribeiro, 1952, pp. 35, 75). Today Nagô is the dominant nation, though others such as Chamba and Congo are also recorded. Interestingly, here the idiom of nations is replicated by the Maracatu Nação, the secular drumming-dancing performance that emerged around the coronation of African kings and queens in colonial Catholic brotherhoods and today forms part of Recife's Carnival. Xangô ceremonies are usually contrasted with other local religious practices such as Catimbó and Jurema, devoted to the worship of Brazilian spiritual entities (encantados and mestres), with strong influence from Amerindian traditions and pejoratively perceived by Xangô practitioners and intellectuals as forms of 'low spiritualism'.