Santería (Lucumí) and the Orishas: History, Ifá and Practice

Santería, more properly called Lucumí or the Regla de Ocha, is an Afro-Cuban religion devoted to the orishas, divine powers of Yoruba origin who govern the forces of nature and human life under a supreme God, Olodumare. It took shape in nineteenth-century Cuba among enslaved Yoruba people, who preserved their religion within Catholic-sanctioned mutual-aid societies and identified the orishas with Catholic saints. Today it is practised by hundreds of thousands, and perhaps far more, in Cuba, the United States, Latin America and beyond.

Yoruba Religion: The African Foundations§

The Yoruba are one of the largest peoples of West Africa, living mainly in south-western Nigeria and neighbouring Benin. Their traditional religion recognises a supreme creator, Olodumare (also called Olorun, "owner of the sky"), who is remote from daily affairs, and a large number of orisha (òrìṣà), divine beings who rule particular domains: the crossroads, iron, the sea, rivers, thunder, smallpox, wisdom. Many orishas were also associated with specific towns and lineages; Shango, for example, was linked to the royal house of the Oyo empire.

Central concepts include àṣẹ (ashé in Cuban spelling), the divine power that makes things happen; orí, the personal destiny carried in each person's head; reverence for ancestors (egún); and the importance of divination to discover the will of the orishas and the path of one's destiny. Religious life is organised around houses of initiated devotees rather than a central church.

From West Africa to Cuba: Slavery and the Cabildos§

The nineteenth-century trade§

Cuba became the world's leading sugar producer after the collapse of Saint-Domingue's plantations in the Haitian Revolution. Its demand for labour sustained a large slave trade, much of it illegal after Spain agreed to abolish the traffic in 1817–1820, which continued until the 1860s. At the same time, the collapse of the Oyo empire in the early nineteenth century and the wars that followed sent large numbers of Yoruba captives into the Atlantic trade. Many came to Cuba, where they were known as Lucumí, a name of debated origin. Slavery in Cuba was finally abolished in 1886.

The cabildos de nación§

Spanish colonial practice permitted Africans of the same "nation" to form cabildos, Catholic-sanctioned brotherhoods with a patron saint, which provided mutual aid, burial and festivities. Lucumí, Arará (Fon-speaking), Congo, Carabalí and other cabildos held dances and processions, especially on the feast of the Epiphany (Día de Reyes, 6 January). Within these institutions Yoruba religious knowledge was preserved, reorganised and adapted to Cuban life. Authorities increasingly restricted the cabildos in the late nineteenth century, and religious houses (ilé) led by individual priests and priestesses became the main form of organisation.

The historian Miguel W. Ramos has argued that Oyo-Yoruba traditions, such as the cult of Changó and the sacred batá drums, gained a particularly dominant position in shaping Afro-Cuban religion. David H. Brown's Santería Enthroned (2003) shows how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Havana and Matanzas leaders actively innovated, creating the ritual forms and lineages that came to be regarded as tradition. Alongside Lucumí, other Afro-Cuban religions developed, notably the Kongo-derived Palo Monte and the male secret society Abakuá, of Cross River origin.

The Orishas and Their Catholic Counterparts§

In the Lucumí system each orisha has characteristic colours, numbers, foods, songs, dances, emblems and a Catholic saint with whom it is identified. Scholars once described this as a mask for African worship; most now see a more complex relationship in which many devotees sincerely honour both saint and orisha, while understanding the African dimension as the deeper or more powerful one. Leading orishas include:

• Eleguá (Elegba, Eshu): owner of the crossroads, roads and doors, messenger between humans and orishas, and trickster. He is honoured first in every ceremony. Saint: the Holy Child of Atocha or Saint Anthony of Padua. Colours: red and black.
• Ogún: orisha of iron, tools, labour, war and the forest, the force behind technology. Often paired with Saint Peter in Cuba. Colours: green and black.
• Obatalá: senior orisha of purity, wisdom, peace and the shaping of human bodies, "owner of all heads". Saint: Our Lady of Mercy (La Virgen de las Mercedes). Colour: white.
• Yemayá: mother of the sea and of life, nurturing and formidable. Saint: the Virgin of Regla, patroness of Havana's harbour. Colours: blue and white.
• Oshún: orisha of rivers, sweet water, love, fertility, beauty and wealth. Saint: Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, Cuba's patroness. Colours: yellow and gold.
• Changó (Shango): orisha of thunder, lightning, fire, drumming and dance, remembered in myth as a king of Oyo. Saint: Saint Barbara. Colours: red and white.
• Oyá (Yansa): warrior orisha of winds, storms and the cemetery gates, Changó's companion. Saint: Our Lady of Candelaria. Colours: maroon or many colours.

Other important orishas include Babalú Ayé, lord of disease and healing, identified with Saint Lazarus, whose shrine at El Rincón near Havana draws large pilgrimages each December, and Orúnmila (Orula), orisha of wisdom and divination, identified with Saint Francis of Assisi.

Devotees keep the sacred presence of their orishas in consecrated stones and objects held in lidded vessels (soperas), maintained on home shrines and periodically fed with offerings. These vessels, rather than statues, are the true focus of devotion. Catholic images and lithographs often stand alongside them.

Ifá Divination and the Babalawo§

Divination is central to Lucumí life, since it reveals the will of the orishas, the source of a person's problems and the offerings (ebó) needed to restore balance. Several systems exist:

• Obí, simple divination with four pieces of coconut, used by many initiates for yes-or-no questions.
• Dilogún (diloggún), divination with sixteen cowrie shells, performed by initiated priests and priestesses of the orishas (santeros and santeras).
• Ifá, the most elaborate system, reserved for the babalawo ("father of secrets"), a priest of Orúnmila. In Cuban practice babalawos are men.

In Ifá the babalawo casts a divining chain (ekuele or opele) or manipulates sacred palm nuts (ikin) to generate one of 256 signs called odu, sixteen principal signs and their combinations. Each odu is associated with a body of oral verses, proverbs and stories (patakí in Cuba) that the diviner recites and interprets in relation to the client's situation. The system is shared across the Yoruba world; in 2005 UNESCO proclaimed the Ifá divination system of Nigeria a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. The anthropologist William Bascom's Ifa Divination (1969) remains a classic study of the West African system.

Each year Cuban babalawos announce a Letra del Año, a collective divination for the year ahead that is widely discussed across the island and the diaspora. Ifá can be compared, as a learned system of signs and interpretation, with other divinatory arts such as the history of tarot, though its religious basis and oral literature are distinct.

Initiation, Ritual and Community§

Godparents and houses§

Lucumí is organised in religious "houses" (ilé) led by a padrino (godfather) or madrina (godmother), who initiates godchildren and forms ritual lineages traced back to nineteenth-century Cuban founders. Devotees typically progress through stages: receiving beaded necklaces (elekes) of the principal orishas, receiving the "warrior" orishas (Eleguá, Ogún, Ochosi and Osun), and, for those called to priesthood, full initiation.

Making ocha§

Full initiation, called kariocha or asiento and informally "making saint", consecrates the initiate to a ruling orisha who is said to be "seated" or "crowned" on the person's head. It involves several days of private ceremonies, after which the new initiate, called an iyawó ("bride" of the orisha), wears white and observes restrictions for a year. Initiation is understood as a rebirth that aligns the person with their orí and their orisha.

Drumming, possession and offering§

Public ceremonies include drum feasts (tambores or bembés) honouring the orishas with songs in Lucumí, a liturgical language derived from Yoruba, accompanied by the consecrated batá drums or other ensembles. During these celebrations an orisha may "mount" an initiated devotee, who then dances, speaks and blesses participants as the orisha. Offerings range from fruit, flowers, candles and cooked foods to, on certain occasions, the ritual sacrifice of animals. Practitioners understand animal offering as feeding the orishas with life force, carried out by trained priests; in most cases the meat is then cooked and eaten by the community.

Santería in the United States and the Hialeah Case§

Lucumí came to the United States with Cuban and Puerto Rican migrants in the early and mid-twentieth century, and on a much larger scale after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, which sent hundreds of thousands to Miami, New York and elsewhere. African American interest also grew: Walter King, later known as Oba Ofuntola Oseijeman Adefunmi I, was initiated in Matanzas in 1959 and in 1970 founded Oyotunji African Village in South Carolina. Joseph M. Murphy's Santería: An African Religion in America (1988) documented the religion's life in New York.

During the 1980s the religion faced suspicion fuelled by the Satanic panic and sensational media coverage that confused it with crime and "devil worship". In 1987 the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, led by Ernesto Pichardo, announced plans to open a public house of worship in Hialeah, Florida. The city council responded with ordinances prohibiting ritual animal sacrifice while leaving other forms of animal killing lawful.

In Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, decided on 11 June 1993, the US Supreme Court unanimously struck the ordinances down. Writing for the Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy found that the laws were neither neutral nor generally applicable: they had been drafted to target one religion's practice. The decision remains a landmark of American religious-freedom law.

Candomblé and Umbanda: Brazilian Comparisons§

Candomblé§

In Brazil, especially in Bahia, enslaved Yoruba (called Nagô), Fon (Jeje) and Central African peoples created Candomblé, a religion closely related to Lucumí. Its temples (terreiros) are organised by "nations" such as Ketu (Yoruba), Jeje and Angola, and are often led by powerful women, the mães-de-santo, a feature highlighted by the anthropologist Ruth Landes in The City of Women (1947). The orixás (Exu, Ogum, Oxalá, Iemanjá, Oxum, Xangô, Iansã) correspond to the Cuban orishas, with similar saint associations, and initiation, drumming and possession follow comparable patterns. The festival of Iemanjá on 2 February in Salvador draws vast crowds.

Umbanda§

Umbanda emerged in the early twentieth century in Rio de Janeiro and its surroundings; tradition dates its founding to 1908 and the medium Zélio Fernandino de Moraes. It combines Kardecist Spiritism, Catholicism and Indigenous and African elements. Its ceremonies focus less on the orixás themselves than on spirits of the dead who work under them, such as caboclos (Indigenous spirits) and pretos velhos (spirits of elderly enslaved Africans), who give counsel and healing through mediums. Umbanda is thus a distinct, Brazilian-born religion rather than a branch of Candomblé.

These traditions belong to the same Atlantic family as Haitian Vodou, whose lwa include the Yoruba-derived Ogou, and they differ from African American hoodoo and rootwork, which preserved African magical knowledge without a pantheon or priesthood.

Frequently asked questions§

Is Santería the same as Voodoo?§

No. Santería (Lucumí) is a Cuban religion of Yoruba origin devoted to the orishas, while Haitian Vodou developed in Haiti from Fon, Yoruba and Kongo traditions and serves the lwa. The two share African and Catholic influences but have different spirits, languages, rituals and histories.

Why is it called Santería?§

"Santería" means roughly "the way of the saints", referring to the identification of the orishas with Catholic saints. Many practitioners prefer "Lucumí" or "Regla de Ocha", regarding "Santería" as an outsider's label that obscures the religion's African character.

What does a babalawo do?§

A babalawo is a priest of Orúnmila who practises Ifá divination, interpreting 256 signs (odu) and their associated verses to advise clients and prescribe offerings. In Cuban tradition babalawos are men and perform specialised ceremonies that other priests do not.

Do Santería practitioners sacrifice animals?§

Some ceremonies include the ritual sacrifice of animals, usually poultry, performed by trained priests, and the meat is generally eaten afterwards. The US Supreme Court protected this practice in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah (1993).

What is the difference between Candomblé and Umbanda?§

Candomblé is a nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian religion centred on the orixás and closely related to Cuban Lucumí. Umbanda, founded in the early twentieth century, blends African, Indigenous, Catholic and Spiritist ideas and centres on spirits of the dead who work through mediums.

Sources and further reading§

• Santería Enthroned: Art, Ritual, and Innovation in an Afro-Cuban Religion — David H. Brown, 2003
• Santería: An African Religion in America — Joseph M. Murphy, 1988
• Working the Spirit: Ceremonies of the African Diaspora — Joseph M. Murphy, 1994
• The Empire Beats On: Oyo, Batá Drums and Hegemony in Nineteenth-Century Cuba — Miguel W. Ramos, 2000 (MA thesis, Florida International University)
• El Monte — Lydia Cabrera, 1954
• Ifa Divination: Communication between Gods and Men in West Africa — William Bascom, 1969
• Santería: Correcting the Myths and Uncovering the Realities of a Growing Religion — Mary Ann Clark, 2007
• The City of Women — Ruth Landes, 1947
• The African Religions of Brazil — Roger Bastide, 1978 (French 1960)
• Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 — US Supreme Court, 1993