The terreiro is the house-and-compound that is the fundamental unit of Candomble and of Umbanda, and it is at once a place of worship, a community and a line of descent.
Not a congregation
A terreiro is not a congregation that gathers and disperses but a religious family gathered around a presiding priest or priestess, the pai or mae de santo, into which members are initiated and to which they belong. The compound contains the shrines of the orixas, the rooms for initiation and seclusion, and the barracao, the hall where the public ceremonies of drumming, song and possession are held. The house is the setting for the whole life of the tradition, from the private work of initiation to the great festivals at which the orixas descend to dance among their people.
Lineage and survival
Each terreiro traces its authority to the house in which its founder was initiated, so the terreiros form lines of descent, and the oldest houses of Salvador in Bahia carry particular prestige as founts of tradition. The institution was the means by which the religion survived slavery and long persecution, since the house could preserve and transmit knowledge within a bounded community, and the terreiro remains the guardian of that knowledge. In recent decades leading terreiros have been recognised as sites of cultural heritage, a public standing that follows a long history in which they were policed and suppressed.