Luis Nicolau Parés covers African religions practised in the Gulf of Benin region and how they both endured and were transformed in Brazil. Parés analyses the concept of nation, using it to track people's origins and classify the African-derived cults from the colonial period to the present day. For the author, the identification of a group with a specific African nation, both in Brazil and other regions of the Americas, is a discursive and ideological resource that can be flexible and geared towards achieving social legitimacy and religious authority.