Religion in Cuba - Santeria in Cuba

Santeria in Cuba

The arrival and endurance of Santeria (also known as Regla de Ocha) in Cuba is the result of multiple contributing factors. The roots of Santeria stem from Nigeria and were transported to Cuba by way of the Lucumi people. However, the Lucumi people only consisted of about 8% of the overall slave population in Cuba from 1760 until about 1850. With such low numbers to draw upon, the religion was under constant attack in the form of dilution through more dominant numbers in the form of reproductive outsourcing and the cruelty inflicted through the employment of slavery.

Between 1800 and 1850 almost the entire population in Cuba consisted of people of African descent. This factor created a sense of uncertainty for Plantation owners because of tensions amongst the slave population. The slave rivalries eventually resulted in an ever-rising loss in production. The method for combating the losses yielded that an increase in the Lucumi population would serve the plantation best. Lucumi people are known to be hard workers and are mild mannered.

As result of increasing import of slaves the population of the Lucumi rose sharply to about 34%. Attributing to the increase of Santeria was that many other slaves and freemen began to practice the religion of Santeria, thereby increasing the span of influence and affiliation in a more diverse manner. The disposition of colonialism brought a significant strain on all religions outside of Catholicism. Over the course of a 90-year span, the Lucumi maintained the practice of the religion of Santeria. The religion of Santeria encompasses sacrificial food, song, dance, costumes, spiritual deities and the use of artifacts. In the beginning the Lucumi and other worshippers of Santeria would have to practice in secret.

They would create hasty areas in which they would conduct structuralized practice of Santeria and return to their colonial life after. However, the practice of Santeria on a more regular basis takes place not on the sugar plantations but in the urban areas. The syncretism that modernized Santeria was introduced when high-class mulattoes needed to find ways to alleviate ailments such as stress or sickness. There was no formal medical aid available to the community at the time. In light of this disposition high-class Mulattoes pulled from whatever resources that they could find. They employed the practices of Christian taught house slaves with Afro-Cuban healers and Spanish curanderos.

The Afro-Cuban healers and Spanish curanderos served as the only medical practitioners in Cuba and were responsible for treating both the Black and White population. The distance between the city and the countryside made it very difficult for slaves to participate in the syncretism of Santeria with Catholicism and Christianity. This was due to geography. Most of the European religious churches were located the urban areas or towns and to attend services would require traveling over long distances, which would interfere with the sugar production. In the urban areas slaves worked alongside freemen and White Cubans in a less restricted atmosphere.

They were educated and trusted to perform skilled labor and given a great deal of responsibility. They served in a number of diverse jobs, which acted as a catalyst for the syncretism of Santeria with Catholicism and Christianity. Not every slave in Cuba complied with the employment of slavery. Cimmarones, as the Cuban slave owners labeled them, were a group of slaves who fled captivity and formed communities consisting of thousands of people. They took refuge in the wilderness and the mountains of Cuba where they maintained the practice of Santeria. They were considered a very serious threat to the colonial government's hold on slavery and oppression.

The Cimarrones were able to elude capture and to provide aid and shelter to other escaped slaves. Over the course of time they developed the means to communicate with other surrounding secret camps via the plantation slaves and friendly White Cubans. Other slaves and freemen who lived in rural areas formed secret societies and groups in which they exercised their religious beliefs of Santeria out of public view to avoid colonial reform and oppression. After the abolishment of slavery Palenque, the Cimarrones establishment was converted into a town named El Cobre after surviving for fifty years.

In the religion of Santeria the emphasis of conscious existence binds the understanding of nature, the higher powers, and the channels of lineage together through ritual practice and clairvoyance. The circle is a symbol that is divided into three sections that begin at the core with people and extend out into two other sections being ancestors and finally divinities. The significance of people at the inner core stand to represent the present day of existence and understanding in the form of perception with in the individual as he or she can interpret the information surrounding them.

The outer layer of the ancestor represents the heritable understanding that the individual carries with them as a source of how and why to interpret values of perception within a given realm. The outmost layer represents divinity is the value of knowledge, direction and understanding that is acquired from Orishas and personal experience. The existence the circle represents is not a fixed plain of understanding but stands as an interchangeable ever-evolving and rotating sense of awareness and being. Santeria lineage is structured in the connection through Sibs (a group of kin) with each Sib being traced back to a common male ancestor linking the bloodlines to the religion. “There were three different routes for the transmission of Orisha worship. A child could inherit an Orisha from either its mother or father and continue their worship of it. In this case a triangular relationship existed between the child, the parent, and the Orisha”.