Andrea Millet is 11 years old. She likes ballet, history classes and making cakes. Yet in the poor urban community where she has lived all her life, Andrea is treated differently from the other girls her age. Local mothers never invite her round for tea, and loitering teenagers keep their distance when she passes in the street. Sometimes journalists stake her out and snatch a picture or ask awkward questions. But Andrea doesn't complain. Instead, she just keeps her head down and gets on with the business of growing up.
"At the moment school is the most important thing in my life. Everything else," she says, her voice trailing off, "has to come second place right now." But despite her wish to be left in peace, the Brazilian public just can't get enough of Andrea. The 11-year-old has sacred blood coursing through her veins - she could become the leader of a religious cult called Candomble.
More than 150 years ago, the young girl's great-great-great-grandmother helped found this Afro-Brazilian movement.
From these early roots, hundreds of Candomble "Houses", similar to churches, were established across Brazil, preserving the old ways of Africa in the New World. Many thousands of Brazilians, both rich and poor, still adhere to Candomble's strictures, believing in spirits possessing the body and the sacrifice of animals. Two years ago, the last leader of the Gantois House - one of the biggest and most revered in Brazil - died. And while the mourning goes on, Andrea and her fellow believers have been forced to suspend the business of worship.
Without their leader, the Gantois House, in Salvador, north-east Brazil, has fallen prey to intrigue, recrimination and family feuds. Only when an ancient ritual takes place will this time of upheaval end. The gods and the buzios - a runic-style divining system involving seashells - will be consulted and a future leader, known as the Mother, will be chosen. But only a direct female descendant of the original slave founder can inherit the position. Right now, there are three potential candidates in the wings. Andrea is one of them. Candomble is shrouded in mystery. No one, apart from its initiates, knows what really happens once the doors of a House are closed. After centuries of prejudice, the clandestine religion still holds secrecy dear to its heart. Although the more esoteric rituals, including sacrificial slaughter and the initiation procedure, are hidden from sight, other ceremonies are open to religious sympathisers who may not be full initiates. These main festivals are designed to celebrate African deities, known as the orixas.
No one knows the exact number of committed believers that practise Candomble. But according to recent data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, there are believed to be more than half a million worshippers in Brazil. The popularity of Candomble is strongest in Salvador, in the north-east of the country. Because the colonial city was Brazil's first capital and centre of the slave trade, it was consequently the birthplace of Candomble.
Compared with the 500,000 slaves imported into the US, Brazil was by far the world's largest consumer of enforced labour, trafficking some four million Africans across the Atlantic. Wanting to quell feelings of homesickness and rebellion, individual slave owners sought to acquire workers from different tribes, reasoning that it would be easier to control their African labour with cultural and linguistic barriers. According to Dr Ubiratan Castro de Araujo, of the African Oriental Studies Centre in Salvador, Candomble was one of the unforeseen by-products of this imposed tribal blending. "Africa does not have the same organised pantheon that we have in Brazil," he says. "Each community there had a religious tradition with their own orixa, which they worshipped. It is only because slavery threw so many different people together that an entire religious system was developed in Brazil that just wasn't there on the old continent."
Because Candomble - which means "to pray" - is primarily an oral tradition, the truth about the original founders of the religion in Brazil has long been lost. One version of the story is that three Nigerian women, former slaves and possibly sisters, founded the first House of Candomble in 1830.
After the original Mother of the Ane Iya Naso Oka House died, a succession battle ensued between the two remaining women. The loser of this contest was Maria Julia da Conceicao Nazareth, who chose to start her own House. She leased some land from a French man called Gantois and founded the Ile Omi Ane Iya Mase, or Terreiro do Gantois. The year was 1849 and Julia, the Mae do Santo (mother of the saint), was Andrea's greatgreat-great grandmother.
Although originally built in the countryside, away from Salvador's prying authorities, the Gantois is today surrounded by the city's slums. Yet despite its reputation, the House looks as down-at-heel as the rest of the neighbourhood. A torn white flag hangs limply from a flagpole, while inside, the dirty-white painted walls make it resemble a forgotten village hall.
The central room, used for the House's larger rituals, is lined with school assembly-style benches. An air of decrepitude invades the Gantois, masking any sense of the lavish ceremonies that take place once its doors are closed. For Andrea, who was born opposite the Gantois and has lived in the area all her short life, this shabby appearance is unimportant. She has only one wish as far as the House is concerned: to go back to the time when her grandmother was still alive. A time when the spirits were strong.
Monica Millet and her aunt, Carmen Oliveira da Silva, have spent most of their respective lives wondering whether they will be the one. As the daughter and sister of the previous Mother of the House, they also carry the sacred blood that makes them eligible to inherit the position.