Afro-Brazilian

Alice Santana's Afro-Brazilian Tarot through Lo Scarabeo carries the orixas and traditions of Brazil's African religious heritage into a full deck, with Giuseppe Palumbo's watercolors, cartoon-trained, bold and story-forward, doing what the archive review judges the deck's most successful work in the majors. Candomble and its sibling traditions are living religions, and the deck functions best as an introduction shaped for the card table, the pantheon and its stories rendered warm and legible. The review's honest gradient, majors stronger than minors, is common where a rich pantheon meets tarot's fifty-six card procedural underbelly; the big figures get the big treatment. Palumbo's simplicity is a genuine virtue with unfamiliar material, keeping the introductions clear. It suits readers approaching Afro-Brazilian tradition respectfully from outside, Brazilians of the diaspora finding their heritage on cards, Lo Scarabeo collectors, and admirers of comics-trained illustration. Practitioners of the traditions themselves will know what the deck simplifies, and why.