This status, however, is not automatic. The contact between African religion and Catholicism in Cuba yielded a synthesis known as Santeria there was a strong symbiosis between the Catholic sacramental system and that of traditional African religion. As early as the first century ce, most of North Africa was part of the Roman Empire and therefore part of Christendom. What is the origin of Santeria? These commonalities in worldview despite cultural ethnic differences will be assumed in this article. "The religion is something you are part of and see on a daily basis. These rituals can include Roman Catholic elements: One major ritual is a bemb. Origins of Christmas..lol.reminds me over 20 years ago I gave a small book the origins of Christmas to a devote catholic relative. New York, 2000. . the religion is not just nature based but Everything has Ashe. What most viewers didnt realize, says author Miguel De La Torre, is that the songs title referred to a deity of an Afro-Cuban religion called Santeria. Ancestorhood is therefore a status of honor reserved for the exemplary dead. Corrections? Once the spirit comes into the member, it can speak to the god (Bondye), dead people, heal, protect, and even do magic. For Ela, such a reclamation is not only doctrinally valid and acceptable but would serve as one possible antidote to "this worldly" problems that thrive on radical individualism (Ela, 1990, pp. The Santeria faith teaches that every individual has a destiny from God, a destiny fulfilled with the aid and energy of the orishas. Facing Mount Kenya. In Santera, this concept idea has syncretised with Roman Catholic beliefs about guardian angels and Spiritist notions of the protecciones or protector spirits. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Joseph M. Murphy Professor of Theology, Georgetown University. When the rope was severed, death became a permanent feature of the human condition. There are a number of different orishas, and most of them correspond to a Catholic saint. Santeria relies on the wisdom of orishas. According to Bolaji Idowu, life in the "good Orun " is but a larger and freer copy of this worldly life, minus earthly pains and tribulations. Each Orisha is an aspect of one supreme god. Each deity represents an aspect of nature, like thunder, and a human characteristic, like power." Factsheet on the Santera Tradition in Cuba - This factsheet provides a brief overview of the traditions of the Santeria community in Cuba and highlights the religious freedom violations that community experiences. They are marred with dark mystery due to the secrecy that guards these esoteric segments of their practice. We try to cultivate good character while on earth because it helps us in our spiritual evolution, and it also makes society a more pleasant place to live in. For one year and one day, they believe the deceased's spirit to . One pertinent essay by D. M. Hostetter is entitled "Disarming the Emandloti: the Ancestors," and notes how, in Christian discourse, the ancestors are subordinated to Jesus who is said to disempower them. Voodoos paranormal ancestral connection is passed from generation to generation by rituals and spiritual practices. Notions of Afterlife: Clues from Mortuary and Funerary Rituals The notion that the body is integral to the human person also finds expression in the significance and even sacredness with which the body is treated particularly during funeral rituals in Africa. According to Mbiti (1969, p. 158), this continued remembrance of the Living-Dead and their sustained interaction with the living constitutes the individual's "personal immortality." The animal is sacrificed as food, rather than for any obscure mystical purpose. Life is an unfolding, a process of "formation and transformation" that starts before birth and does not end at physical death. The Gikuyu refer to such a persons as mwendwo ni iri (the people's beloved). The process not only brings the worshipper closer to their Orisha, but makes them more aware of the presence of the Orisha within them. He also contextualizes Santera culturally and historically and suggests that Santeria is both a reconstruction of Yoruba beliefs as well as a creative response of accommodation and resistance to mental enslavement. Meanwhile, communities like those of the Swahili of East Africa present a religio-cultural hybridity a result of years of blending indigenous African cultures with Islamic ones. Having understood the fundamentals of Santeria and Voodoo, lets examine the main similarities and differences. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. They are consumed by the community afterward. Today, almost 80 percent of the Cuban population practice Santeria, which is sometimes described as the national religion.. One can also study comparative religious chronology through a . It is said that going through the physical death process is exhausting to the sojourner and therefore the deceased needs a few days to recuperate before continuing in the next phase of the life journey. Among the Gikuyu, as was typical in most indigenous African communities, though one's moral misconduct could provoke divine anger and punishment, such punishment was this-worldly rather than delayed and otherworldly. Terms such as mizimu (Kiswahili), emandloti (Swazi), or ngoma (Kikuyu), which traditionally described the ancestors, are today used almost as synonyms for Satan or the devil. Fans of the 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy will remember Ricky Ricardos signature song, Babalu-Aye, accompanied by a Latin beat from actor Desi Arnazs conga drum. Initiation is a solemn and life-changing event for the follower and unites them with their Orisha, and with other followers of that Orisha. Based on Santera, people are born under a guardian Orisha, or saint, that must be worshipped throughout life. Born in Cuba, he grew up in a home where both of his parents were santeros, or priests of Santeria. I don't think this is limited to Christianity. From the Cuban Revolution of 1959 to the early 21st century, nearly one million Cubans left the island, bringing Orisha religion to cities throughout the Americas, particularly Miami and New York. Santeria. In Cuba, the practice became known as Santeria, while in Haiti, it started being referred to as Voodoo. Voodoo followers also believe in the afterlife. I think the first incorrect assumption is assuming Orisha ever followed nature based religious paradigms in regards to the afterlife. Santeria (Santera in Spanish, meaning "Way of the Saints") is a set of related religious systems that fuse Roman Catholic beliefs with traditional Yorb beliefs, that over time became a unique religion in its own right. In Santeria, the ritual performing ceremonies are known as, In Santeria, there are rites sketched to make peace with the soul of the departed called. God (named differently by various ethnic groups) is the creative force behind the origins of the universe and human beings within it, a belief that appears in many African cosmogonic myths. Santeria has few buildings devoted to the faith. The idea is to make positive statements about what you would like to see in your life and to repeat, Read More How to Create Positive Affirmations That ACTUALLY WorkContinue, Fellow occultists, I am happy to announce that my new grimoire, Goetia Rising, is now available on Amazon: This is a small book, as a proper grimoire ought to be. The study was recently published in Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. Their encompassing Divinity is compiled of three facets; Olodumare, Olorun, and Olofi. Santeria also includes the Yoruba divination system called Ifa, which can only be performed by a senior male priest called a babalawo. Ray (1976, p. 24) reports that according to a myth of original "paradise lost" held by the Tutsi of Rwanda, in the beginning, Imana, God, created two worlds, the one above and the one below. Nairobi, Kenya, 1971. It's a choice. . We believe in reincarnation. Santeria has a priesthood that includes both men and women. Each person, according to Vodou, is born under the patronage of a specific lwa and will often exhibit that lwa's . Mortuary rituals also emphasize the integral connection between the "inner and outer person." Followers of Santeria believe that the gods keep accounts of the number of offerings made to the Orishas and they determine the number of favors granted to followers (Lele, 2012). Most Santeros have studied for a long time to become part of the priesthood, and it is rarely open to those who are not part of the society or culture. The slaves permeated these beliefs into Christianity to avoid being persecuted, since their traditional religious expression was forbidden. ." Olodumar is our supreme being to whom we may eventually stand in judgement of. A majority of evangelical Protestants (58%) say that magic or witchcraft can influence people's lives. Ils are independent but may join up for special occasions. See you on the other side! The Santeria faith teaches that every individual has a destiny from God, a destiny fulfilled with the aid and energy of the orishas. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. Santeria Religion. He corresponds to the Catholic Saint Lazarus. Although Santeria is a religious path that is not rooted in Indo-European polytheism like many other contemporary Pagan religions, it's still a faith that is practiced by many thousands of people in the United States and other countries today. We can see African influences and also Christian influences. Babalu Aye is known as the Father of the World, and is associated with sickness, epidemics and plagues. There may be an elaborate hierarchy based partly on the levels of spiritual development that family members have reached. That a person is considered a composite and integral whole is also evident in that often, when people claim to encounter the dead through visions and dreams or when they communicate with them through ritual, they claim to have met or spoken with "so and so," a person identifiable by name, rather than the "ghost" of so and so. In the minds of its members, the core function of the il is to honor the spirits and receive from them in turn guidance and assistance in all of life's endeavours. There are many reasons why they are drawn to Santeria. Santeria, which came out in October, is one of three recent books by De La Torre, whose earlier works include the 2002 Reading the Bible from the Margins by Orbis Press. It is practiced differently in rural and urban areas and also in Haiti and other locations such as New Orleans, a very popular center. Many people describe death as "a going home" (in Gikuyu, kuinuka ) or simply, a departure (Gikuyu, guthie ). Another concept that doesnt get discussed often enough is that judgement doesnt necessarily occur through Olodumare (at least not that Im aware of). So the similarities between Santeria and Voodoo get many people thinking that theyre the same. One of the most basic features of Santeria is the orishas. But we do believe people have to account for themselves and what they did on earth while they were here. Dennis M'passou writes on "The Continuing Tension Between Christianity and Rites of Passage in Swaziland," Paul Gundani explores "The Roman Catholic Church and the Kurova Guva Ritual in Zimbabwe," and Jude Ongonga writes on "The River-Lake Luo Phenomenon of Death." Priesthood and Initiation Regardless of your primary motivations, you can now hire me for a consultation and to do the difficult part of the equation for you, while you reap the rewards. Santeria combines influences of Caribbean tradition, West Africa's Yoruba spirituality, and elements of Catholicism. Rituals for summoning the, Read More My New Grimoire Goetia Rising is Now Available!Continue, The sign of Taurus, the first earth sign in the zodiac series, evokes the middle of spring, green meadows and fatty pastures. In Voodoo, Iwa is a veneration of deities frequently identified as Yoruba gods and Roman Catholic saints. There is no central organisation in Santeria. This is very much a mutual relationship as the Orishas need to be worshipped by human beings if they are to continue to exist. Hello - the man above was able to give the "bad heaven" name I couldn't remember - it is Orun Buruku - the heaven of broken pot shards. Death is also described as "sleeping" or "resting.". (2020, August 28). Being an Afro-Cuban religion, Santeria is an adaptable tradition that has no central authority. Ray discusses inter alia myths of "paradise lost" and the loss of "immortality.". In the If oracle, for example, a trained priest, a babalawo (father of the mystery), interprets the fall of consecrated palm nuts to reveal the orishas response to a seekers question. Through the guidance of the ach, Santera believers find . The essays discuss the contested interface between African religions and Christianity regarding rites of passage. According to this myth, upon death people ascended to the sky via the rope for a short period and came back rejuvenated to earth. Nine year-old Ricky Banda is given a cursed Eucharist, and returns home only to be locked in by an evil force, along with his Aunt and Cousin. The Catholic Church criticized it as being folksy witchcraft, which was associated with criminality. The AU is the su, After the Tsunami, A Drive to Reverse Tubal Ligations in Tamil Nadu, Afterlife: Australian Indigenous Concepts, https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/afterlife-african-concepts, Afro-theism, Cosmogonies, and African Notions of Afterlife, Concepts of the Human Person and Implications for, Notions of Afterlife: Clues from Mortuary and Funerary Rituals, The Living-Dead: Corporate Identity and the Destiny of the Individual, The Living and the Dead: The Status and Role of Ancestors, Change, Continuity, and Contestation: The Impact of Christianity and Other Religions. The world without photography will be meaningless to us if there is no light and color, which opens up our minds and expresses passion. Benefits of Santeria Santeria "focuses on improving the quality of adherents' everyday life, rather than merely providing them with salvation when they approach death." Vega, the religion professor, said Santeria is a way of life. The deceased is also ritually consulted to indicate his or her acceptance thus to be reintegrated into the family (Gundani in Cox, 1998, p. 201). Training includes divinatory work, herbalism, and counseling. Lets start with an elucidation of Santeria and then Voodoo before jumping into the list of similarities and differences, or feel free to skip ahead. Whereas in indigenous African thought ancestors were moral exemplars, enjoying a status of honor to which the living could aspire, today, ancestors are in Christian discourse depicted as evil forces of the same character with the devil. Simultaneously, however, while many seem to have embraced these Christianized notions of the afterlife, there is evidence, even among Christianized Africans, of a marked resistance to the seeming demonization of African beliefs, particularly beliefs in ancestors. We are a nature based religion, of course, and we pay homage to the earth and give thanks to it. Hindus do not believe in heaven or hell, their life after death system of belief is that of reincarnation. Espiritismo is similar. Governed by Mars, fiery and voluntary planet, Aries is in analogy with House I, concerning the Self, the decisions, the behavior. Santeria is a fairly complex system, because it blends the Yoruba orishas, or divine beings, with the Catholic saints. Today, there are many Americans who practice Santeria. Mohawk Native Americans are an Iroquois people with origins in Ontario, Quebec and New York State. Santeria (Way of the Saints) is an Afro-Caribbean religion based on Yoruba beliefs and traditions, with some Roman Catholic elements added. Followers of an Orisha will offer them food and sacrifice animals to them in order to build and maintain a personal relationship with the spirit. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Some of the most popular orishas include: It is estimated that about a million or so Americans currently practice Santeria, but it's hard to determine whether this count is accurate or not. There is a Spanish influence in Santeria, whereas in Voodoo religion the French influence is more prominent. Oosthuizen, G. C., and Irving Hexham, eds. Instead of celebrating their exemplary dead, then, many Christianized Africans have seemingly adopted the Christian afterlife discourse and now celebrate angels and saints that are said to populate the heavenly sphere and with whom those who die in good standing with God will live happily after death. Iwa is an intermediary of the distant and magnificent figure that does not involve itself with humans, Bondye (God). Animals are cooked and eaten following all Santeria rituals (except healing and death rites, where the sickness is believed to pass into the dead animal). Today, the pyramids where the pharaohs, ancient Egyptian kings believed to be immortal, were entombed remain an enduring testimony of the ancient Egyptians' preoccupation with life after death. De La Torre also edited Handbook of U.S. Theologies of Liberation, examining Christian concepts and the interrelationship between religion, community and culture from the perspective of U.S. marginalized communities. For one thing, there seems in Christian discourse and practice, a literal demotion or even demonization of ancestors. Doctrinally, to ban ancestral veneration, then, is to demand that Africans abandon this quite viable notion of family (Ela, 1990, p. 17). Wigington, Patti. Quite different to the Tutsi myth with its promise of at least a rudimentary eschatological hope, the Nuer myth of paradise lost stipulates that in the beginning all was happiness, since the heavens, God's abode, and earth were linked by a rope, the pathway to access divine favors and bounty. People want to go back in one form or another to be with their family, to take their place among the ancestors, and to continue to evolve spiritually. Instead of conceiving the person as a soul that is contained in a body, Africans define the person as an integral whole constituting the "outer person" (the body) and the "inner self." Santera is a religion with Afro-Cuban roots, rising out of the cultural clash between the Yoruba people of West Africa and the . Discusses in detail the belief system of the Acholi of Uganda. This is a monograph on African belief systems. The issue of concern is whether at death one will be in a state of readiness to meet God in the final judgment (Kikuyu Catholic Hymnal, 1992, hymn 100). It would seem also that the emphasis by Africans on a this-worldly and corporate approach to salvation resonates significantly with the prior key affirmations about God and the world in the African worldview. But there's a different approach. Properly known as Lukum in the Yorb language, meaning "friendship," Santeria was the religion practiced by descendants of many Yorb slaves in Cuba, over time . Reflection and resources at the intersection of faith and culture through an inclusive Christian lens. Summarizing distinctive markers of this African worldview, Sambuli Mosha isolates four key ideas, namely: (1) the centrality of belief in God, (2) an acknowledgment of the intrinsic unity between individuals and communities, (3) viewing the universe as an interconnected, interdependent whole, (4) embracing life as a process of spiritual formation and transformation (Mosha, 2000). Possession of spirits. We call it in Spanish "rendir cuentas," which means "explain yourself, tell me why you lived the way you did." We don't think people are always going to be naturally good. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. They are shaped and influenced by other belief systems that they encounter in history. The religion is also known as La Regla Lucumi and the Rule of Osha. 5 Pages. Mugambi, Jesse, and J. The Luo of Kenya call this ritual Duogo (Ongonga in Cox, 1998, p. 236), while the Xhosa of South Africa call it Ukubuyisa (Pato, in Oosthuizen and Irving, 1992, p. 134). Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. As a result of these ceremonial exchanges, the oracle often determines that one particular orisha has claimed the devotee as its child. Was part of Christendom Santera, people are always going to be worshipped throughout life people #! Olodumare, Olorun, and most of them correspond to a Catholic.... Editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article in. Hell, their life after death system of the cultural clash between the Yoruba people of West Africa the... Every individual has a destiny fulfilled with the Catholic saints aspect of one supreme God of... A mutual relationship as the Father of the orishas from God, a process of `` paradise lost and! 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