18 - His First True Love-Santeria, Part 1

Like most other African tribes in the process of creating a systematized, tangible religion, the Yoruba conceptualized God as an unknown mysterious, creating force. Beneath the omnipotent god is a pantheon of orishas, gods and goddesses that are extraordinarily human. There are many orishas in this vast pantheon. Some African authorities say the number exceeds 600. However, only a few of these are known and paid homage to throughout Latin America and the Caribbean particularly is this true in Cuba.

As various African families were brought to the New World through the slave trade and the Caribbean trade route, their religious practices became influenced by the surrounding beliefs, customs, and languages. Each Caribbean island has developed its own version of Santeria, although similar, as is evident in Haiti. This brought great diversity into the magical ceremonies of the African slaves. In Cuba, the Yoruba slaves became known as Lucumi. As a result of religious persecution that the Lucumis suffered at the hands of the Roman Catholic colonial Spaniards, they camouflaged their collective deities under the iconolatry of the Catholic sainthood. This was the beginning of Santeria.

As mentioned in several paragraphs above, Ruben had many gifts but none caught his attention or devotion as Santeria. Throughout my life my mother has told me stories of Ruben’s involvement in this religion. In most cases she is convinced, and I am not here to dispute the veracity of her claims, that many of the bad things that occurred in her later life after meeting him, was due to the Santeria influence.

I have been raised with the belief that Santeria is an evil religion and one not to be taken lightly or scorned. We have always been aware of Santeria iconology. Many times have my mother come to visit my wife and I and is startled by some arrangement of decorating accents, such as; shells of all various sizes and color, shot glasses, salt shakers, candles, etc and the infinite amount of arrangements of the mentioned items.

A good example of this is; some years ago atop of a coffee table my wife and I had arranged a large and very beautiful conch shell surrounded by a beautiful set of gold covered shot glasses given to us by family after a trip to Mexico. Upon entering my house, my mother saw the arrangement and immediately took the shell and placed it on one side of the room and placed the shot glasses on the opposite side of the room. After her explanation for this befuddling exercise was; that arrangement was used by Santeria in one of their ceremonies. The only thing missing was the whiskey in the shot glasses and the chicken blood over the conch shell – we understood. Several days later we throughout the shell and stored the shot glasses, out of respect for my mother.

The intensity of abhorrence, by most, to this religion is as big as its devotion by its few followers or santeros. There appears to be no middle ground in this struggle. Those that hate it will tell you that its evil and one must avoid its influences at all costs and fight its very dark nature. For they will tell you; that Santeria is devil worship dressed in white robes and followed by crosses and other catholic regalia to blind the unbelievers.

Several things that have been ingrained in to my consciousness is to never accept gifts from a known santero or someone who is sympathetic to that religion and never give a santero a picture of you or allow them to take one. The claim is that they can cast a host of spells through the gift or picture and even introduce evil spirits by way of these items.

The conjuring of spells or divination by many means is foreign to us in our modern society but those that have experienced it first hand will tell you tales that can make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up with fright, as you will see. For the most part it has been easy for me to steer clear of this religion and thus avoid any potential, even if just imagined, influence.