Lucumí
There was a time when all the orichas lived apart from one another, each one living in their own land, ruling as kings and queens. In those days, nobody knew of any orichas outside of their own territory.
This was an era when Death roamed the earth, dressed all in black and performing her grim work in the cover of night. In the confusion of darkness, Death could take anyone she wanted, and only Oggun and Oshun’s territories seemed to be exempt from her predations. This attracted the attention of the other orichas, so they held a meeting where they decided to go to the house of a famous Man of Knowledge who lived in Ara Ifé Ocha, to try to get to the bottom of this situation.
When they arrived, they saw that this Man of Knowledge was divining using dark seeds split in two and connected with a chain. He also wore a necklace of green and yellow beads. They didn’t know why he used these things, but they looked suspiciously like those used by Ochún and Oggún, and the chain looked just like the one Death used to tie up her victims. None of the orichas dared to report their suspicions to Olófin out of fear that this Wise One might be a friend of Death’s.
This went on for some time, until one day Obatalá appeared on earth, saying, “I trust I am not late.”
After the orichas finished saluting Obatalá, he continued, “I am Olófin’s representative, and in accordance with Olófin, I envelop the good and I expose the evil. You have not dared to say anything about this Wise Man because you feared he might be a friend of Death; therefore, I was forced to come here.”
Obatalá looked up toward the heavens, saying, “I was given sixteen rays of sunlight by Olófin and was ordered to seek unification among all of you. But due to your lack of understanding and each of you believing you have more power than the other, the results have not been good even after such a long time.
“Here we are, in the sacred house of Ifá where Olófin also lives. This place you do not wish to acknowledge, because you don’t wish to recognize that this Wise Man you see before you is the direct spokesperson of Olófin, here to deliver Olófin’s mandates and to whom Olófin has entrusted her powers. This old Wise One, whose name is … Orunmila.”
At this, Orunmila came over and saluted Obatalá and proceeded to consult Ifá. The oddun that appeared demanded they immediately bring the green and yellow beads together and put a white flag up in the house. He went on to explain that the green was his own identifying color and that the yellow belonged to Ochún, who represents half the world, gold, the blood that runs through our veins, and life itself. The seeds and the chain belonged to Oggún, who represents the other half of the world and who is the oricha of death by order of Olófin.
He continued, “That is why Death has not killed anyone here in Ara Ifé Ocha. Now that you acknowledge Olófin’s wishes that you unite and recognize me today, tomorrow, and for always, I will put these idefás (Ifá bracelets) on each of you so you will be under my protection and so the doors will always be open for the children of Olófin.”
Ever since then, the orichas have lived together, and to this day this unification is reflected in the homes of santeros and babalawos, where you can see the orichas living together in the same canastillero cabinets.
“The lives of all who have passed away are in the memory of Ifá.”
When Adechina and so many other oricha priests were brought to Cuba as slaves, they were determined to re-create their culture in this hostile new land, but they faced monumental hurdles along the way. In Africa, every oricha had their own religion with their own initiation ceremony, each very different than the other orichas, and only priests of that particular oricha and babalawos were allowed to attend the ceremonies. Therefore, in Yorubaland you had, and still have, hundreds, maybe even thousands of orichas, each with their own separate religions. But the chances were slim to none that Yoruba culture would survive in Cuba in this form. So their culture might persevere, the alagua laguas (highly respected elders) formed mutual aid societies organized as cabildos, and created a new Lucumí culture where a number of major adaptations were conceived.
Using the knowledge found in Ifá’s odduns, combined with the ritual knowledge remembered by the most respected oricha priestesses and priests, they organized the orichas into a pantheon based on the relationships found in Ifá’s patakís. This was a major development because now instead of having many oricha religions as in Africa, the Lucumís had constructed one religion for the many orichas. This process, however, was often anything but smooth as various factions wielded their considerable power in defense of the traditions they held dear. In fact, not long after Ña Monserrate (Obatero) was forced to relocate to Matanzas with the help of Adechina, she found herself embroiled in another epic battle of wills … and orichas.
Living in Matanzas was a powerful santero by the name of Ño José Ikúdaisí. With Ño José, the personal relationships santeros and babalawos have with the orichas took a very strange twist. For some unknown reason, Yemayá had somehow angered Ño José Ikúdaisí, and he had vowed never to have anything to do with the powerful oricha of the seas! When the parents of the now-famous Ferminita Gomez took their daughter to be initiated, Ño José Ikúdaisí refused to initiate her to Yemayá, consecrating her to Ochún with the name Ocha Bí instead. Soon after her initiation, things began to go horribly for her. A short time later, Ferminita Ocha Bí went to Obatero’s cabildo to seek help. The elder santera saw the young initiate with the shells, and during the consultation it came up that the source of Ferminita’s troubles was that she had been initiated to the wrong oricha and that she should have been consecrated to Yemayá. Ña Monserrate immediately took the steps necessary to re-initiate Ocha Bí to Yemayá. Of course this did not sit well with Ikúdaisí, and it was only a matter of days before the war began. In Matanzas people still talk about this war that was fought not only on a political realm, but in the realm of the orichas between two extremely powerful santeros.
The opening battle began when one night Ikúdaisí went to the door of the Obatero’s to perform a magical ritual to teach Obatero a lesson, but his plans were dashed when Changó possessed the sleeping Obatero who ran to the door to confront Ikúdaisí. Finding himself face-to-face with the enraged Changó, the santero was scared out of his wits. Accounts say that he stumbled, fell, and then ran all the way home in a panic. Changó then performed rituals to remove the ogu (witchcraft). When Changó left Ña Monserrate’s body, she was confused and had to be informed what had transpired by her neighbors who had been awakened by the uproar. When the santera was told what had happened, she was furious.1
This war went on for months until finally one day Changó showed he had less patience than his daughter Obatero. He again possessed the santera and grabbing an eduara (thunder stone), Changó openly stomped over to Ikúdaisí’s house in the middle of the day. Standing right in Ikúdaisí’s doorway, the mighty oricha held up the thunder stone and began to roar prayers to the heavens. Immediately, the skies began to darken and a huge thunderstorm erupted over Matanzas, and Changó stomped off. Moments afterward a lightning bolt hit right on the spot where the oricha had been standing. The next day Ikúdaisí died mysteriously and Obatero was considered the winner of the war.2
Through agreements, alliances, struggles, and outright wars such as this one the Lucumí religion was formed. It was now organized in such a way that the familial relationships between the orichas were emphasized. For instance, in Nigeria Yemayá is the oricha of the Ogún River whose worship is centered at Abeokuta, while Ochún rules the Ochún River, having her center of worship at Oshogbo. In Lucumí, we emphasize the relationships where, for example, Yemayá and Ochún are sisters with Yemayá ruling over the seas and Ochún presiding over all the fresh water such as streams and rivers. Many of the details of the orichas’ relationships with one another are recounted in the itáns (histories or parables) found in Ifá.
The alagua lagua elders also condensed the many initiation ceremonies into a core ceremony, which they based largely on initiation rituals for Changó that had been brought from Oyó. From this core they made adaptations to accommodate specific rituals and ingredients for each of the orichas. Finally, they expanded the kariocha so the initiate would receive a number of orichas instead of just one. This was an important adaptation because there is a general rule in the religion that you can’t view or work with an oricha that you have not actually received yourself. So with each santera or santero receiving a number of orichas during their initiation, it became possible for them to participate in initiations for all the different orichas. This innovation gave the Lucumí religion the flexibility needed to ensure the survival of the different orichas in Cuba. In Lucumí, priests of all the different orichas come together to form a community who interact and participate in ceremonies for each of the orichas. During the Lucumí kariocha the new initiate receives several orichas and all the orichas are saluted, prayed, and sung to during the ceremony. This is very different from Nigeria where only priests of one oricha are allowed to be present. The only exception is that babalawos may participate in the various ceremonies for the different orichas due to their exclusive knowledge of all the deities. To this day it is still next to impossible to perform initiations in the New World in the way they are done in Yorubaland.
Traditionally in Yorubaland, oricha priests often did not receive their orichas in full to take home with them. Instead they worshipped their oricha at the igbo where they were initiated and often only received a consecrated tool to take home with them. For example, the Obatalá priest Salakọ in William Bascom’s Sixteen Cowries described how new priests were given only a piece of bone or ivory to take home with them, and though many priests could be mounted (possessed) only the official ẹlẹgún could actually speak. For many of the cults in Yorubaland, the idea of receiving the oricha as part of the initiation process was undesirable and even nonsensical. Why give birth to and worship a young version of the oricha when you could go to the shrine and directly worship the ancient one that has been worshipped and gained power there for centuries? Many of the oricha religions would also look upon the idea of receiving one’s own oricha in full as being overly individualistic, which in turn could threaten the position of the main shrine and its internal hierarchy of priestesses and priests. In Cuba on the other hand, a single centralized shrine would constantly be in danger of being confiscated or destroyed by the white ruling class. With every priest having their own oricha, each santera became their own secret cell of the religion.
It must be remembered that besides being a religion and a culture, Santería was also very much a resistance movement where slaves could actively oppose the slave owners’ culture by secretly retaining and living their own culture. In fact, the plots to initiate several armed uprisings were born in the Lucumí cabildos, such as the famous Cabildo Changó Tedún, whose leader José Antonio Aponte is said to have attempted a massive rebellion in 1812. Merely being in the religion was considered an act of resistance in and of itself by both blacks and whites. And during many periods in Cuban history, santeras and santeros had to keep the religion very much underground to avoid the harsh punishment, or even death, they might receive if they were discovered.
Also very importantly, the Yoruba drumming traditions were brought to the shores of Cuba and spread by babalawos such as the master carver, drummer, and Ifá priest Atanda (Baba Eyiogbe), the master drummer Añá Bí, and Adechina himself.3, 4 The consecration of the drums as well as the rhythms of the orichas became particularly strong for the batá drumming tradition, with its three drums consecrated to the oricha Añá by babalawos. In Africa the rhythms played on the batá drums were for Changó and eggun, so the other orichas’ rhythms had to be adapted to the batá drums. Other drums, although rarely seen these days, such as those for Olokun, were also built, consecrated, and played by babalawos who passed on their knowledge to Cuban santeros.
Less significant changes were also made, such as in some of the ewe and eran (plants and animals) to accommodate the fact that not all of the plants and animals used in Africa could be found in Cuba. The most crucial plants, such as the plants known as achés, which are indispensable for initiations, were imported from Africa and others were either substituted or dropped altogether. The Native American influence on Santería is most strikingly noticeable in the use of two of their most sacred plants, corn and tobacco, in many rituals. Corn, although of Native American origin, is now used ritually by the Yorubas in Nigeria as well.
The hybrid makeup of the Anagó or Lucumí language mirrors the coming together of the various Yoruba, Native American, and Spanish cultures that came to define the Lucumí culture, allowing our cultures to survive and even thrive in extremely hostile territory. The Anagó/Lucumí language is derived from a number of Yoruba cultures such as Oyó, Ifé, Iyesa (Ijesha), Takua, Iyebú (Ijebú), and Egguado (Egbado) with influences from other Afro-Cuban cultures such as Arará (Fon), Bantu, Taino Indian, and the Cuban Creole culture with Spanish influence. The language was altered to accommodate the different Yoruba dialects, particularly the Oyó and Egbado influence. Most noticeable was the new Lucumí/Anagó dialect’s loss of the Yoruba languages’ tonal structure, which was replaced with accents taken from the main Cuban language, which is Spanish. Although many times the accents would approximate those tones to some degree, the Spanish influence remains strong.
Since much of the Anagó/Lucumí language is based on a mixture of dialects from at least 200 years ago when the Yorubas were brought to Cuba en masse, we must sound very strange to modern day Yorubas. Despite the dated and mixed dialect, some Lucumís were still able to hold conversations with Yoruba sailors they encountered landing at Cárdenas port in Matanzas, Cuba as recently as the 1950s. But since the Lucumí dialect is based on a version of Yoruba that is more than 200 years old, the Lucumí speakers must have sounded much like a person from the days of the American Revolution would sound to us today in the United States.
The different dialects, as well as oró iyinle, archaic words used in secret aspects of odduns such as incantations, were brought together to help form a new Yoruba-Cuban language called Anagó. In similar ways, the alagua laguas who headed the cabildos pulled together the various regional Yoruba oricha cults to forge a religion with a condensed pantheon of the most important orichas from the various regions of Yorubaland. Modern English became much more than the Anglo and Saxon Germanic languages after it absorbed Norse and local British languages as well as the French of the Norman invaders. In a similar way, Lucumí culture became more than its source culture by forging the elements of all the cultures affecting them to create a unique Lucumí cultural identity.
Several aspects of the Lucumí culture and religion never existed in Cuba or Africa before being created by the alagua laguas in Cuba in the 1800s and early 1900s as well.
In his truly ground breaking work The Cooking of History, Palmié revealed how ethnologists, starting with Fernando Ortiz in the 1930s and carried on by virtually every ethnologist since, made Santería valid by showing how its roots came from the Yoruba peoples of what is now southwest Nigeria. Marveling at how much of the language and culture had been retained by babalawos and santeros, the researchers began to look everywhere for signs of Yoruba culture, which was immediately noticed by the santeros themselves. Those studying the santeros refused to see the santeros’ agency in assuming the aspects of Western culture that suited their own needs and desires, or more importantly, that the way the santeros used Western culture for their own ends was an act of resistance in and of itself. The early babalawos’ and santeros’ genius in their artful repurposing of Western and Christian culture allowed the orichas to not only survive but to thrive in the Diaspora, whereas in the African homeland oricha worship is barely surviving. Ethnologists since Ortiz have thus focused almost exclusively on the Yoruba aspects of the religion that had an unintended effect on the very religion they were studying. Santeros, now seeing that the Yoruba aspects of their religion gave them a new found validity, began to alter the religion to make it more Yoruba so they might gain more acceptability and respect from Cuban society. Certain babalawos and santeros went as far as to take information they found in the ethnologists’ own libraries and adding it to the religion to make it more Yoruba.5 The ethnologists were thus responsible for the Yorubization of the religion, and over the years more and more santeros accepted the ethnologists’ myth that Santería was a somehow degraded form of a pure Yoruba religion, and have continued to try to change the religion to fit this warped viewpoint. Unfortunately, this myth is still believed by many ethnologists and santeros alike.
Although changes were certainly made to ensure the survival of the religion, remarkably the Lucumí alagua laguas managed to preserve rituals and rules of the religion that now appear to have been lost even in their homeland in Africa. Wande Abimbola, who is the Awishe (official spokesperson) for all of African Ifá, acknowledges in his book Ifá Will Mend a Broken World that the Diaspora managed to keep alive a number of the rituals and rules that have been forgotten in Africa.
William Bascom is widely considered to have been the foremost academic authority on the Yoruba up until his death in 1981.6 Bascom, along with his Cuban-born ethnologist wife, spent years studying the religion in Havana and Matanzas. Bascom and his famous French colleague Pierre Fatumbi Verger are known for writing the most intensive studies comparing Yoruba and New World versions of Ifá and oricha worship to date. In 1965 Bascom came to the startling conclusion that the religion is actually much stronger in Cuba than it is in Yorubaland. Further, Bascom agreed with Verger on his prediction that before long the Yoruba might be traveling to Cuba or Brazil to learn about their own religion.
That prediction came true fifteen years later in the form of none other than the Ooni of Ifé, traditional spiritual and political ruler over the entire Yoruba people, and the Awishe Abimbola. Scholar and obá oriaté Miguel Ramos affirms he was present at a 1980 meeting where Wande Abimbola informed the group that he had been sent there on a mission by the Ooni. He was to investigate the oricha Traditions in the Western Hemisphere to see how New World priests could aid in recuperating some of what had been lost in Africa.7 Remembering such details is strong evidence that the differences we see in traditional Lucumí were well-thought-out changes, rather than the kind of haphazard ones that would result in the kind of degradation and loss of ritual knowledge that would befit the accusations that are sometimes leveled against the Lucumís. It also points to the oft-neglected fact that Yoruba culture changed in Africa as well as it had in the New World.
Cultures, like languages, are living things that grow and change. As they come in contact with each other, they adapt and borrow from one another. The Yorubas absorbed elements of culture from other Yoruba subgroups, neighboring nations, as well as influence from colonialists. The Lucumís in turn melded a number of Yoruba cultures and languages, along with aspects of other African cultures that had come to Cuba, as well as some Taino Indian and Spanish influence. Therefore, effectively the Lucumí religion might be considered in some ways to be a regional variation, but still its own entity.
The effects of colonialism and slavery were every bit as damaging for the Yorubas who remained in Africa as it was for the slaves taken to Cuba. For instance, slave raids became so extreme that entire towns were burned to the ground with every member of the town being sold into slavery. It has been said that virtually the entire population of Ketu, the center of Ochossi worship (the oricha of the hunt), was sent into slavery in Cuba and Brazil. Thus, Ochossi almost ceased to exist in Africa because virtually all of the priests ended up in Cuba and Brazil where Ochossi became an important oricha. The ability to accommodate and adapt useful aspects of other cultures is one of the Yorubas’ most impressive characteristics.
It is probably this trait that helped the early slaves to adapt to their new world so successfully when they created the Lucumí religion. And, most famously, the early Lucumís cleverly hid their religion behind the guise of the Catholic saints that they had been forced to worship, causing the religion to be known as Santería and its priests as santeras/os. But the early Lucumís went much farther than to merely hide the orishas behind the saints. They deliberately subverted Christianity to fit their own culture. Using only the aspects of the western religion they found useful and which fit their own worldview, the Lucumís changed Christianity to fit into a Lucumí framework rather than the other way around. To find evidence of this, you simply have to ask a santera or santero to describe any of the saints. You will quickly realize they are not describing a saint at all, but an oricha. And you will be hard pressed to find a santera who is able to describe even the most basic characteristics or history of any Catholic saints. Furthermore, you will find virtually no evidence of Christian concepts or worldview in Santería. So rather than the saints and name Santería being evidence of Lucumí submission to a conquest by slave owners, instead we find an intentional subversion of the western religion which became an act of resistance in and of itself.
These adaptations gave the Lucumí religion the flexibility to survive and even thrive in its new home in Cuba. In fact, not only has this flexibility allowed Santería to survive, but to grow exponentially to become a world religion in its own right.8
Ifá in the United States
The first step in the globalization of the Lucumí religion was when it crossed the Florida Straits into the US. Ifá and the Lucumí religion in general came to the United States in the form of the babalawo Pancho Moro (Ifá Morote). The famous musician, Mario Bauza, would travel to Cuba regularly to receive spiritual guidance from the elder babalawo Quintín Lecón, and each time he would attempt to persuade Lecón to come to New York. Finally, in 1946, the Associación de San Francisco headed by Lecón, sent his godchild Pancho Moro to New York to bring the religion to the United States. What eventually would become a thriving Lucumí community grew up around Pancho Mora in New York. On December 4, 1955 Pancho Mora held a tambor for Changó. Two attendees, Julito Collazo and Francisco Aguabella, were religious batá drummers who had moved to New York from Cuba after a tour with the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe. Attendees were stunned when these two began to sing the old Lucumí chants, and soon many of the attendees were packed tightly around the two, listening attentively.
Julito Collazo and Francisco Aguabella were the first sacred batá drummers to come to the United States. Julito’s mother, Ebelia Collazo, was a well-known santera in Cuba who had been initiated in Regla, Cuba, by the famous and immensely powerful Latuán, who ruled over much of Havana’s religious practice. Julito was extremely knowledgeable about the religion, although he was not initiated as a babalawo until the 1980s when he made his Ifá in Cuba at the hands of the famous elder Quintín Lecon, padrino of Pancho Mora. Just a couple of years later, he participated in the first plante (kofá and abo faca initiation ceremony) in San Francisco on August 8, 1988. It was during this ceremony that I had the good fortune of meeting Julito, who became my oyugbona.
Slowly the community began to spread from this small core of knowledgeable practitioners, but it wasn’t until 1961 that the first person was initiated as a santero on US soil. The first initiation was performed in New York City by the pioneer Mercedes Nobles (Oban Yoko), a priestess of Changó, the oricha of fire, thunder, dance, and drum. During the 1960s and ‘70s the religion gained popularity among the growing Cuban-American population as many Cubans came to the United States to escape the revolution. Involvement in the tradition became seen by many as a measure of one’s Cuban-ness and as a means to retain their Cuban identity in the alien culture of the United States. It also gave Cubans an alternative way to gain prestige; in Miami, white Cubans—who just a few years before had disparaged Santería because to them it was associated with lower-class blacks—began to be initiated as santeros and babalawos.
Although Pancho Mora arrived in 1946, the first documented priest as well as the first babalawo to come to the United States, it wasn’t until 1970 that babalawos started to be initiated on US soil. Up until then, those wishing to be initiated as Ifá priests were forced to travel to Cuba to have the ceremonies performed. History repeated itself as once again, due to the absence of Odun/Olófin, initiations of new babalawos had to wait until someone could sneak the sacred attributes of Odun/Olófin into the country, this time from Cuba. Finally, a babalawo by the name of Carlos Ojeda (Osá Rete) was able to have his Olófin smuggled in from Cuba, reportedly by a Trinidadian diplomat. The first babalawos were initiated in Miami by Diego Fontela, using Ojeda’s Olófin within a year. Since his was the only Olófin in the country, any babalawo who wanted to initiate someone to Ifá in the United States had to borrow Ojeda’s Olófin. For years, this gave Carlos Ojeda unprecedented power in the United States as he effectively controlled who would and would not be initiated in the entire country.9
In the early days, there were few well-trained and experienced babalawos, olorichas, and drummers in the United States, and many of them would only teach those willing to undertake intensive apprenticeships similar to those undergone in Cuba. This kind of apprenticeship was unfamiliar to many Americans and proved to be unpopular. This led many practitioners to begin to look toward other resources to learn from, and many budding young priestesses and priests began to pore over ethnographic works such as those by Ortiz and Cabrera. These, as well as the few books written by actual practitioners, became virtual bibles for many practitioners in the United States who used them to fill the gaps in their knowledge of the religion.
Santería began to become popular outside the Cuban-American community as more and more people found themselves attracted to this alluring Cuban religion that was so deep, mysterious, and powerful. For some, particularly African-Americans, information from ethnological books about Yoruba Ifá and oricha worship began to have a greater influence, and some practitioners began to incorporate practices hailing from Africa. Others cherry-picked aspects of African practices to justify changes. For instance, some Lucumí iworos used William Bascom’s Sixteen Cowries as evidence that they could now read all sixteen signs of the diloggún, though the same book cautioned that the vast majority of priests in Africa read only the first twelve signs just like the Lucumís.10
In the 1970s, as books on Ifá for the exclusive use of babalawos made their way to the open market we started seeing some santeros using the books to read the shells as if they were Ifá. Needless to say, this is hardly traditional and an insult, not only to babalawos but to the santeros who worked so hard and sacrificed so much to preserve the rich oral traditions associated with the diloggún.11
Some felt that if a practice was used anywhere in Yorubaland it justified grafting that practice on to their own invented forms of the religion, respecting neither the Lucumí or the African traditions. More traditional practitioners consider this to be a slap in the face of our ancestors; the slaves who displayed such courage and genius in the face of immense hardships to preserve our traditions. In fact, some consider such inventions to be the greatest single threat that our tradition faces today.
The religion began to be extremely fractured in the US, and myriad variations and inventions in religious practices began to appear, often justified with, “That’s how it’s done in our ilé (oricha house).” Many such innovations are referred to as inventos (inventions) or worse by many traditional Lucumí practitioners. It became more common for a godchild to leave an ilé than in Cuba, where the level of attachment, loyalty, and respect expected of a godchild is much greater. In the US it is not terribly uncommon for a godchild to remain in an ilé for only a short time and jump from ilé to ilé with great frequency. Oftentimes a person will leave an ilé when they learn the level of commitment and respect expected of them. In a traditional Cuban-style ilé, a person who is unwilling to work hard to help their godparents will simply not be taught. Other times, the fault lies with a godparent who is abusive or only interested in making money off of the godchild. Then there are what we in the religion call spiritual tourists. We have found this to be an American phenomenon where people go from religion to religion collecting initiations.
The general health of the religion improved dramatically when the Mariel Boatlift began in 1980. With the massive influx of Cubans from a wide range of races and classes came a large number of knowledgeable olorichas and babalawos. Many of them found themselves appalled at the lack of knowledge and the way rituals were being carried out in the US. If these newcomers met resistance from those who saw them as a threat to their dominions, they also found many people who were eager to learn from experienced priestesses and priests.12 Not long after this it became somewhat easier for people to travel to Cuba, either legally with permission from the US State Department or by evading the laws and entering Cuba via Mexico or Canada. The Cuban government encouraged the surreptitious travel by not stamping the passports of Americans entering from Mexico or Canada, relying only on the Cuban visas for documentation of their entry and exit. This allowed more people to become initiated or simply go to learn in Cuba, and after 1979 exiled Cubans were allowed to enter Cuba again, and were free to connect or re-connect with elders on the island.
African-Americans were among the first to travel to Nigeria in search of an even more African form of the religion. Although many of the early pioneers had been initiated in the Lucumí tradition, the African-Americans were opposed to any traces of Christianity such as saints, which they associated with slavery. As the tradition had its roots in Yorubaland, they were eager to go to what they considered to be the source of everything in Santería, and while the oricha traditions had changed in Africa these trailblazers helped to open up a dialogue between Africa and the Diaspora. This new interest from overseas helped the struggling oricha traditions in Africa to gain popularity once more, and have been aided by their Lucumí sisters and brothers along the way.
One of the earliest pioneers, Walter Eugene King (Ofuntola), became the first African-American to become initiated as an oloricha in Matanzas, Cuba, on August 16, 1959. By October 1970, he had founded the Yoruba Village of Oyotunji in Sheldon, South Carolina. He began the careful reorganization of the Orisa vodu priesthood along the traditional Nigerian lines, becoming initiated to Ifá in Abeokuta, Nigeria, in 1972. In 1977, apparently following William Bascom’s advice that the Yorubas might go to Cuba to learn about their religion, Ofuntola brought in the Lucumí oriaté Ernesto Pichardo to consecrate the orichas Babalú Ayé and Oba for Oyotunji in the Cuban tradition. In June 1981, Ofuntola returned to Nigeria, this time to the sacred city of Ifé, where he was granted an audience with the Ooni (King of Ifé), who ordered his coronation as an obá, and he became His Royal Majesty Obá Ofuntola Oseijeman Adelabu Adefunmi I. In the summer of 1985, he commissioned Ernesto Pichardo to initiate one of his wives as a priestess of Babalú Ayé. As Oyotunji was in need of songs for the orichas, Oyotunji’s Master Drummer took advantage of Pichardo’s visit to record the Lucumí songs sung by Pichardo during his visit. Thus, Oyotunji artfully combined several religious practices from the Yoruba of Nigeria, the Fon of Dahomey, and the Lucumí of Cuba to fit their needs, creating what might best be described as a kind of hybrid Orisa-Lucumí-Vodun religion.
On occasion, the differences between Santería and how the religion is now being practiced in Africa and by neo-traditionalists in the US have created friction between the groups. Sometimes these differences in rules and rituals cause many heated exchanges between the two groups. For example, in the last twenty years some areas such as Ilé Ifé have begun to initiate women as Ifá priests, which has become the cause for friction between the two groups. The neo-traditionalists claim the Lucumís are sexist for refusing to recognize women Ifá priests, and the Lucumís counter that any Ifá initiation is invalid if Odun/Olófin (a manifestation of the Supreme Being) is not present in the igbodún. Remember, Odun was considered so crucial that in the 1800s, it led Adechina to risk his life to return to Africa in order to receive Odun and return to Cuba so babalawos could be initiated on the island. This view regarding the importance of Odun’s presence during Ifá initiations are still shared by Yoruba nations such as the Ijebú, Ode Remo, and Ibadan.
The Lucumís have also found themselves being criticized for changes made to ceremonies over the years, such as the receiving of several orichas during the initiation rather than merely receiving Elegguá and their tutelary oricha. The role of obá oriaté, the expert master of ceremonies presiding over the initiation of new santeras or santeros in the Lucumí religion, became a matter of contention, as this position does not exist in Africa.
As I have mentioned, in Nigeria oricha worship consists of hundreds if not thousands of separate religions, and the babalawos are the only priests who work with them all. Neo-traditionalists as well as a number of Yorubas are now propagating the idea of Ifá as the umbrella religion for the disparate oricha cults found there. This becomes similar to the Cuban model, except in place of oriatés and olorichas performing most aspects of oricha initiations, the African model would have the babalawo officiate over each and every one of the rituals in an oricha initiation. In fact, neo-traditionalists have openly stated that if their view were to prevail, the role of the oriaté would cease to exist entirely and their position would be completely usurped by the babalawos who would perform all the rites in the initiation ceremonies for the orichas. As attractive as one might think this would sound to Lucumí babalawos, with all the frictions that have at times transpired between oriatés and babalawos, Lucumí babalawos are vehemently opposed to this. Although the present role of the oriaté may not have existed in Africa, it became an important part of our religion as it evolved in Cuba. Though in the past the babalawos may have performed the work that is now the role of the oriatés, since at least the 1930s the oriatés have been the ones directing initiations.13, 14 Soon after, the babalawos and the oriatés apparently came to an agreement defining the roles of the oriaté and the babalawo during initiations, and the Lucumí babalawos have honored that agreement ever since.
Though elders of both traditional Lucumí and African forms of the religion generally hold an immense amount of respect for each other, the fact remains that in a number of ways they are now different religions, with different histories and different forms of adapting to the conditions facing them. Two hundred years of separation has led the two traditions to assume different trajectories, but the two traditions have much to learn from each other. In various regions of Yorubaland there are ese Ifá (Ifá verses) that are not found in Cuba, and in traditional Ifá form, Lucumí babalawos are eager to add to their knowledge of Ifá. As Awishe Wande Abimbola acknowledges, the Lucumí priests have much to teach the Africans about rituals. In the oddun, Ogbe Di, Ifá predicted that one day our knowledge would be scattered all over the world and that babalawos would have to go to each other to deepen their knowledge. This prophesy of the migration of Ifá fully came to pass as the exodus to the United States served as the springboard for the globalization of the religion that is now being practiced all over the world. Practitioners can be found not only throughout Latin America, particularly in Venezuela and Mexico, but also in France, Austria, England, the Netherlands, and even Russia.
The secrecy of La Santería is still maintained as we are still actively persecuted and discriminated against. This fact was illustrated in 1993 by the landmark case of The Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye vs. The City of Hialeah contesting laws enacted in Hialeah, and copied by many major cities in the United States denying our religion’s right to perform animal sacrifices. The case, brought before the Supreme Court by the church and the ACLU, resulted in a major victory for the Lucumí religion and other religions with similar practices. Although the Lucumí argument prevailed the persecution persists in the United States and elsewhere. In 2009, the practice of animal sacrifice in our religion was back in front of the federal courts in the case of Jose Merced, President Templo Yoruba Omo Orisha Texas, Inc., vs. The City of Euless where the religion once again prevailed against a city determined to end the practice of animal sacrifice. This discriminatory attitude becomes all the more amazing and more than a little ironic when virtually every study you find remarks on how the religion is growing exponentially worldwide. All indications point to a rapid expansion, although the secrecy surrounding the religion prevents an accurate count of how many practitioners there actually are. One conservative estimate found in Migene Gonzáles-Wippler’s Santería: The Religion is as high as one hundred million in Latin America and the United States alone, although I personally believe that number is a bit high.
Through the hard work and sacrifice of the alagua laguas, who are our most-respected elder babalawos and oricha priests who arrived as slaves, and from a multitude of Yoruba oricha religions, gave birth to one all-inclusive religion that became known as La Regla Ocha, Lucumí, or La Santería. Rather than being a degraded form of Yoruba religion, as some would suggest, the Lucumí religion is its own religion, derived from the Yoruba religions brought to Cuba by Yoruba slaves. On Cuban shores these same African slaves and their direct descendants gave birth to the new Lucumí culture, religion, and identity. The Lucumí tradition or La Regla Ocha (the way of the orichas) is one religion worshipping all of the orichas instead of many religions worshipping each of many orichas, which is perhaps the biggest difference between our African brethren and us. The priest of Changó, of Ochún, of Yemayá, of Obatalá, of Ifá, the babalawo, and the obá oriaté can all say, “We are Lucumí!” The Lucumís have withstood the greatest of hardships and not only survived, but have thrived. Holding to the principles and means by which the alagua laguas used to ensure the survival of the culture, together the Lucumís have the numbers and the power to thrive and grow for generations to come.
The new religion that was given birth to is uniquely Cuban, but its African roots quickly become apparent to anyone who finds themselves at a Lucumí ceremony with its African-derived songs, dances, chants, and prayers. The Lucumi religion is mostly Yoruba, but it is the Yoruba of Adechina, Adé Bí, Efunché, Latuán, and Obatero, and it is their genius and courage that we follow. From Africa to the hostile land that was Cuba they brought the orichas inside themselves, sometimes literally, and transformed it into the religion it is today. That religion has not only survived, but it has thrived and become a world religion.
At the beginning of virtually every ritual is the moyuba. The moyuba means “I salute you,” and that’s exactly what it is. It usually begins with saluting Olófin and soon carries over to saluting our egguns, all the babalawos in our Ifá line, all the olorichas in our line in Ocha, and all the members of our family who are ibae. This is followed by identifying ourselves by our birth name, our oddun, our name in Ifá, and our name in Ocha. The moyuba tells the orichas who we are and where we came from, because where we came from is who we are. The prayer continues with “Emí awó ni Orula (I am a priest of Orula).” Once initiated, this is the other part of who we are: we are Lucumí. Our language, our culture, our songs, our prayers, the way we dress, everything we do in our lives is Lucumí. It is who and what we are.
Somos babalawos … Jurado para ayudar la humanidad.
Somos babalawos Ifareando en la Habana donde se Ifarea al duro,
sin guantes.
Somos babalawos …
We are babalawos … Sworn to aid humanity.
We are babalawos … Working Ifá in Havana, where they work Ifá
the hard way, without gloves.
We are babalawos …