Borrowed into English from Portuguese around 1935–40
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An even faster growing form of worship is spiritualism, which has more than 10 million followers who practice everything from African fetishism and nature rites to macumba, the Brazilian version of voodoo.
From Time Magazine Archive
In 2017, the Investigator solved a 74-year mystery when it found the wreck of the SS Macumba, a merchant ship sunk during a Japanese air raid off Australia’s Northern Territory.
From Fox News ● Apr. 23, 2019
They spoke but little English, and it was mostly through a few words that Alec Ross knew, of the Peake, Macumba, or Alberga tribes that we could talk to each other at all.
From Australia Twice Traversed, Illustrated, by Giles, Ernest
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
