Afro-Latin Religious Philosophy: Santería and Candomblé Worldviews

Santería, also known by practitioners as Regla de Ocha or Lucumí, and Candomblé, its closely related Brazilian counterpart, both developed among enslaved West Africans, predominantly of Yoruba origin from what is now southwestern Nigeria and Benin, transported to Cuba and Brazil respectively from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Both traditions center on the veneration of orishas (orixás in Brazilian Portuguese), a pantheon of deities associated with natural forces and human domains of experience — among them Elegguá/Exú, guardian of crossroads and communication; Yemayá/Iemanjá, goddess of the sea and motherhood; Changó/Xangô, deity of thunder, fire, and justice; and Obatalá/Oxalá, associated with wisdom, purity, and creation — each linked to specific colors, foods, rhythms, and days, and approached through possession trance, divination, sacrifice, and elaborate initiation hierarchies.