Definition
Santería is a common term referring to an Afro-Cuban religious tradition, also popularly known as Regla (“Rule”) de Ocha, intimately linked to its sibling ritual field, Regla de Ifá. It originates from the colonial and slavery-driven era of Cuba (see also Brandon 1993) and is identified as an import and progressive distillation of broad cosmological and ritual elements from central and western sub-Saharan Africa, of predominantly Yoruba (Lucumí, in the Cuban idiom) “inspirations,” as Ochoa (2010: 8–10) frames it, alluding not only to continuities but also to significant transformations. Also, one has to bare in mind the “political” agendas hidden behind labels such as “Afro-Cuban,” “witchcraft,” “animism,” or “syncretism” (see Palmié 2013). Should we have to find a minimum of continuity for the sake of descriptive cohesion, it could be said that a basic element around which ritual praxis and doxa revolve is the cult of the oricha-deities.
Introduction
Divination, spirit...
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References
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Panagiotopoulos, A. (2018). Santería. In: Gooren, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_529-1
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