Santería

Santería also known as "La Religión" or "The Way of the Saints," is an Afro-Caribbean religion derived from traditional beliefs of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. The Santería/Yoruba religion is comprised of a hierarchical structure according to priesthood level and authority. Orisha "ile" or temples are usually governed by Orisha Priests known as Babalorishas "father of orisha" or Iyalorishas "mothers of orisha", and serve as the junior Ile or second in the hierarchical religious structure. The Babalorishas and Iyalorishas are referred to as "Santeros(as)" and if they function as diviners of the Orishas they can be considered Oriates. The highest level of achievement for males is to become a priest of IFA (eee-fah). IFA Priests receive Orunmila who is the Orisha of Prophecy, Wisdom and all Knowledge. Ifa Priests are known by their titles such as "Babalawo" or "Father Who Knows the Secrets". Ifa Ile or Temples of Ifa serve as the senior to all Orisha Ile in the Traditional Orisha-Ifa / Santeria Community. The Sacred Oracle of Ika-Fun or Ika Ofun serves as confirmation.

History

Santería is one of the many syncretic religions created in the New World. It is based on the West African religions brought to the new world by slaves imported to the Caribbean to work the sugar plantations. These slaves carried with them their own religious traditions, including a tradition of possession trance for communicating with the ancestors and deities, the use of animal sacrifice and the practice of sacred drumming and dance. Those slaves who landed in the Caribbean, central and south America were nominally converted to Catholicism. However, they were able to preserve some of their traditions by fusing together various Dahomean, baKongo (Congo) and Lukumi beliefs and rituals and by syncretizing these with elements from the surrounding Catholic culture. In Cuba this religious tradition has evolved into what we now recognize as Santería. Today hundreds of thousands of Americans participate in this ancient religion.[citation needed] Some are fully committed priests and priestesses, others are "godchildren" or members of a particular house-tradition, many are clients seeking help with their everyday problems. Many are of Hispanic and Caribbean descent but as the religion moves out of the inner cities an into the suburbs a growing number are of African-American and European-American heritage. As the Ifá religion of Africa was recreated in the Americas it was transformed. Today as it moves into mainstream America we can expect further transformation.

"The colonial period from the standpoint of African slaves may be defined as a time of perseverance. Their world quickly changed. Tribal kings and families, politicians, business and community leaders all were enslaved in a foreign region of the world. Religious leaders, their descendants, and the faithful, were now slaves. Colonial laws criminalized their religion. They were forced to become baptized and worship a god their ancestors had not known who was surrounded by a pantheon of saints. The early concerns during this period seem to indicate a need for individual survival under harsh plantation conditions. A sense of hope was sustaining the internal essence of what today is called Santería, a misnomer for the indigenous religion of the Lukumi people of Nigeria.

In the heart of their homeland, they had a complex political and social order. They were a sedentary hoe farming cultural group with specialized labor. Their religion based on the worship of nature was renamed and documented by their masters. Santería, a pejorative term that characterizes deviant Catholic forms of worshiping saints has become a common name for the religion. The term santero(a) is used to describe a priest or priestess replacing the traditional term Olorisha as an extension of the deities. The orishas became known as the saints in image of the Catholic pantheon." (Ernesto Pichardo, CLBA, Santeria in Contemporary Cuba: The individual life and condition of the priesthood)

As mentioned, in order to preserve their authentic ancestral and traditional beliefs, the Lukumi people had no choice but to disguise their orishas as Catholic saints. When the Roman Catholic slave owners observed Africans celebrating a Saint's Day, they were generally unaware that the slaves were actually worshiping their sacred orishas.[2] In Cuba today, the terms "saint" and "orisha" are sometimes used interchangeably. The term Santería (also known as "the Way of the Saints"), was originally a derisive term applied by the Spanish to mock followers' seeming overdevotion to the saints and their perceived neglect of God. It was later applied to the religion by others. This "veil" characterization of the relationship between Catholic saints and Cuban orisha, however, is somewhat undermined by the fact that the vast majority of santeros in Cuba today also consider themselves to be Catholics, have been baptized, and often require initiates to be baptized. Many hold separate rituals to honor the saints and orisha respectively, even though the disguise of Catholicism is no longer needed.

The traditional Lukumi religion and its Santería counterpart can be found in many parts of the world today, including but not limited to: the United States, Cuba, the Caribbean, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Great Britain, Canada, Venezuela, Panama and other areas with large Latin American populations. A very similar religion called Candomblé is practiced in Brazil, which is home to a rich array of other Afro-American Religions. This is now being referred to as "parallel religiosity" (Perez y Mena, SSSR paper 2005) since some believers worship the African variant that has no devil fetish and no baptism or marriage and at the same time they belong to either Catholic Churches or Mainline Protestant Churches, where there is a devil fetish. Lukumi religiosity works toward a balance here on earth (androcentric) while the European religions work toward the hereafter. Some in Cuban Santería, Haitian Vodun or Puerto Rican Spiritualism (Afro-Latin Religions) do not view a difference between the saints and the orishas, the ancestor deities of the Lukumi people's Ifa religion.

There are now individuals who mix the Lukumí practices with traditional practices as they survived in Africa after the deleterious effects of colonialism. Although most of these mixes have not been at the hands of experienced or knowledgeable practitioners of either system, they have gained a certain popularity.

[edit] Deities

Olóffi (Father/Creator) / Olórum (Son) / Olod-dumare (Spirit)

* Elegguá
* Obbatalá
* Babalú Ayé
* Aggayú
* Ochosi
* Oduduwa
* Oggun
* Olokun



* Yemaya
* Changó
* Orúla
* Osaín
* Ochún
* Oyá
* Xenaoth
* Yewá

Each orisha has its specific nickname, symbols, offerings, music, archetype, etc..

[edit] Beliefs and rituals

The sacred belief system of the Lukumi prevent non-adherents from participating in ceremonial rites. Nearly all Lukumi ceremonies are reserved for priests and the newly initiated.

Santería was traditionally transmitted orally, although in the last decade a number of books have been published on the tradition. Practices include animal offering, dance, sung invocations to the orishas, and sprinkling elemental mercury around a home.[1] Of these the most controversial is animal sacrifice. Followers of Santería point out that the killings are conducted in a safe and humane manner. The priests charged with doing the sacrifice are trained in humane ways to kill the animals. Furthermore, the animal is cooked and eaten afterwards by the community. In fact, chickens, a staple food of many African-descended and Creole cultures, are the most common sacrifice; the chicken's blood is offered to the orisha, while the meat is consumed by all. The practice of animal sacrifice was historically common in many religions, most notably Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam. In Judaism, for example, Mosaic Law requires altar sacrifices of three kinds: sin offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings.

Trees are also offered to the orisha. Drum music and dancing are a form of prayer and will sometimes induce a trance state in an initiated priest, who become possessed and will channel the orisha, giving the community and individuals information, perform healing etc. (see Yoruba music). One's ancestors (egun) are held in high esteem in Lukumí. All ceremonies and rituals in the Lukumi religion begin with paying homage to one’s ancestors.

The Yoruba believe in a creator who is called Oloffi (God). There is no specific belief in a devil since the Yoruba belief system is not a dualistic philosophy - good versus evil, God versus a devil. Instead the universe is seen as containing forces of expansion and forces of contraction. These forces interact in complex ways to create the universe. All things are seen to have positive aspects, or Iré, and negative aspects, or Ibi. Nothing is seen as completely good or completely evil but all things are seen as having different proportions of both. Similarly no action is seen as universally as wrong or right but rather can only be judged with the context and circumstances in which it takes place. In this context the individual is seen as made up of both positive/constructive impulses as well as negative/destructive impulses. Similarly, an individual's talents and facilities are seen as having a potential of both positive and negative expression. Therefore, there is a great deal of attention and focus on each individual striving to develop good character and doing good works. Good character, or Iwapele, is defined as doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do, not out of fear of retribution or as a way of seeking rewards, but simply because it is right. All humans are seen as having the potential of being good and blessed people (no original sin), although they have a potential to make evil choices, and the universe is seen as benevolent.

[edit] Persecution

African spirituality was actively suppressed and outlawed during slavery. On the African continent, native traditions were viewed as inherently backward and primitive by the European colonizing forces who set out to actively 'civilize' the natives through a number of mechanisms including torture and execution[citation needed]; kidnapping the young and putting them in boarding schools; and bribery or other material incentive. Intimately implicated and complicit in this process were Christian missionaries, who charged themselves with saving the souls of the native peoples by converting them from their millennia-old traditional spiritual practices to one of several forms of Christianity.

Within the European and North American Christian culture, African spirituality has been historically demonized, sensationalized, and distorted. Hollywood’s portrayal of African traditions has been mired with gross distortions and exaggerations. The historic repression of African spirituality in the context of slavery has as well as racism, cultural imperialism and supremacy have also played significant roles. The notion that a legitimate, sophisticated spiritual philosophy could have originated in Africa flew in the face of widespread distortions in Europe and North America of that time about the backwardness of African culture.

[edit] Controversies and criticisms

* Some animal rights activists take issue with the Yoruba practice of animal sacrifice, claiming that it is cruel. In 1993, this issue was taken to the United States Supreme Court in the case of Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. The Supreme Court ruled that animal cruelty laws targeted specifically at Yoruba were unconstitutional;[2] the Yoruba practice of animal sacrifice has seen no significant legal challenges since then.
* There have been a few highly publicized cases where injuries allegedly occurred during Lukumi rituals. One such case reported by The New York Times took place on January 18, 1998 in Sayville, New York, where 17-year-old Charity Miranda was suffocated to death with a plastic bag at her home by her mother Vivian, 39, and sister Serena, 20, after attempting an exorcism to free her of demons. Police found the women chanting and praying over the prostrate body. Not long before, the women had embraced Lukumi. The mother in question, Vivian Miranda, was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and is currently confined in a New York State psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.[3]

* There have been some wildly inaccurate movies about the religion as well, such as the 1987 movie, The Believers, and the 1997 Spanish-Mexican-American movie Perdita Durango, which depicts a couple who follow fantasized Santeria beliefs and practice human sacrifice and the consumption of aborted fetuses.

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