A woman is standing over a furnace and stirs with a wooden stick in a bowl of boiling water and herbs while chanting in what sounds like an African language. She frowns in concentration as she has to make sure that the words she says are correct, otherwise the herbs she is boiling won't release their healing properties. The way she prepares this rite shares a resemblance with traditional African religions, which also have a large focus on nature and use incantations. This woman is a Christian Catholic and invocating the help of Orishas, or angels, as she prepares her broth.
Orishas are one part of the religion that is called Santeria which is practiced on the Caribbean Islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and parts of South-America. This religion finds its origin with the enslaved people who were forcefully transported to these areas from the 16th century up to the 19th century, bringing their beliefs with them. These traditional African religions all believed heavily in the presence of spirits and ancestors which were made of pure energy, invisible but always present. The spirits controlled the world and counteracted malignant forces which would upset the balance of energy, causing famines, disease or natural disasters. In most traditional African religions, ancestors were guides to come into contact with these spirits. It is for this reason that both ancestors and spirits have a place in the Santeria. Ancestors themselves were represented by small wooden figurines, heads, or faces which were placed on small shrines or altars.
To come into contact with these spirits and ask them for help, guidance or blessing a ritual or invocation would be required. In some regions a sacrifice of an animal, plants or roots would be required, while in other regions a person would simply be required to live in a certain way to please and gain respect from the ancestors. Invocations and rites had both physical and spiritual importance, as in social circles these rites gave a degree of legitimation to things like naming, weddings, justice and the commission of authority figures.
African religious practices came to the Caribbean with the arrival of African enslaved people and free men from the 16th up to the 19th century. They combined their beliefs with the Catholicism practiced by the colonizers. Santeria comes from the Spanish word Santos which means 'the worship of Saints'. The followers of this religion believe that the Gran Dios, or God, created the universe and has a great many Orishas, or angels, and deceased ancestors below him who serve as intermediaries. These Orishas, in the Cuban Santeria also represented the four natural elements and are also worshipped in the Catholic churches built across the island.
Text by Peter Fioole, based on original published research (see further reading) and the NEXUS1492 documentary El Retumbar del Caribe Indígena by Pablo Lozano.
Photo: Present-day home altar in the northern Dominican Republic, showing influences from Amerindian, African, and Christian belief systems (photo courtesy of Pablo Lozano).
Murell, N.P., 2009. Afro-Caribbean religions: an introduction to their historical, cultural and sacred traditions. Philadelphia (PA): Temple University Press.
Pešoutová, J., 2019. Indigenous Ancestors and Healing Landscapes: Cultural Memory and Intercultural Communication in the Dominican Republic and Cuba. Leiden.