to Orisha Main
In The Beginning
Cuba is a land of two melting cultures.
Catholicism intertwined with African Yoruba religion giving birth
to a new religion: Santeria, the cult of the Saints. Here the
traditional Catholic saints merged with the African Orishas and
a new vibrant religion is born.
At the beginning of the XVI century,
when the Spanish started importing African slaves into Cuba, the
Yorubas of West Africa had a very elaborate religious liturgy
and a religious culture older than Christianity. The center of
Yoruba religion was music itself. They had a complex liturgy of
songs, dances and chants dedicated to a pantheon of several dozen
gods and saints or "orishas." The Yorubas for use in
their religious rituals developed many instruments. For example,
the making of a batá or a religious drum, begins with a
ceremony performed before the cutting down of the tree.
Because of the nature of the extensive plantations that existed
primarily in Cuba and Brazil, where there were large number of
slaves and minimal supervision in the "barrancón,'
the compounds where the slaves were kept after their labors, the
African traditions were kept alive. Another factor was that the
catholic church had a policy that conversion of non-believers
should be a gradual thing and native beliefs be incorporated into
the peoples liturgy, as opposed to the protestant ethic of Anglo
America where the goal was to obliterate the original culture
and replace it with the master's version of Christianity. Thus
in Cuba the original orishas were transformed and blended with
Spanish saints. Thus Chango became St. Barbara, Oshun became The
Virgin of Mercy (La Virgen de la Caridad, Patron Saint of Cuba),
and Babalú Allé became St. Lazarus and so on.
So it came to pass that the African religions were conserved in
Cuba. Not only that of the Yoruba but also the Congo and Carabalí.
Throughout the centuries in the 'barrancones" and "cabildos"
a complex religion consisting of ritual, songs and dances were
kept alive. Meanwhile, colonizing agents, mainly English and French
were busy taking over the African continent and destroying their
cultural heritage and their way of life. Thus it is interesting
to note that much of the ancient African religions are better
preserved in Cuba and Brazil than in Africa itself!
to page
2
to page
3
back
to the orishas main
