Santeria in Venezuela Introduction
Why this religion?
We choose Santeria as religion to study because it has a big impact on our culture and our past environment. We also choose Santeria because many people around Europe and Asia have none or little knowledge about it and we want to expand the awareness of this religion.
Why this culture?
We want to focus the impact of this religion in Venezuela because is where we come from and where we raised as human beans also because in our daily life we have seen the cultural change that this religion has produced, and we want to document this phenomenon. Culture of Venezuela
Population: 31 519 000 (INE, 2016 est.)
Religions: Catholic 71%, Protestant 17%, Santeria 3%, Atheists 2%, Agnostics or indifferent
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Afro-descendant populations develop the Catholic faith mixed with African religions called Santeria.
Santeria
Santeria was brought to the New World by slave traders more than four centuries ago, but it was in Cuba, when it was a Spanish colony, that Santeria developed extensively. In order for the religion to exist and not be flogged during its practices, the Yorubas gave characteristics of the Catholic saints to their deities. This is how Santeria was born: a mixture of ancestral rites of the African Yoruba with the traditions of the Catholic Church. (Wikipedia, 2017)
Venezuela before Santeria
The different tribes of Venezuelan aborigines were believers of their own mythology, worshiping diverse gods that represented nature. In 1498 with the arrival of the Spanish empire to Venezuelan lands, Christianity was implanted, gaining followers until it became the dominant religion of the country. (Wikipedia,
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In a remarkable case of reciprocal cultural influence, the popularity of Santeria in Venezuela ended up strengthening this religion in the same Cuba. As Santeria expanded through the middle and upper classes of Venezuela, an increasing number of Venezuelan worshipers traveled to Cuba to visit temples and sacred places, and to consult directly with the santeros priests. Anxious to receive the dollars of the Venezuelan tourists, at the end of the eighties the Cuban government began to promote these visits and to make the santeria temples part of the touristic tourist itineraries. (Reid, 2007)
In Venezuelan streets and markets santeros offer statuettes and in recent times are offering idols of criminals who have been assigned characters of veneration in said religion. Among them stand out robbers, murderers or syphilitic and thieves prostitutes. (Yubero,
Though Cuba is where the celebration of La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre originated, each year, her statue, which was smuggled out of Cuba in 1961, is ferried by boat to Miami Marine Stadium. The reason for smuggling the statue, a scant two years after Fidel's revolution, was because the Catholic religion was not allowed to be openly practiced within Cuba. In recent years, a mass has been celebrated to honor La Virgen at the Hialeah racetrack. Taking all these South Florida celebrations into account, one could say that the Virgin plays an important role in the lives of many Cuban men and women who make the journey from Cuba to the free shores of the Florida coastline. They rely on her for protection and guidance while journeying across the Caribbean Sea.
In Santeria, Yorubas then continue to worship and honor the Orishas and to practice their strong religious beliefs. The Yoruba rituals are modified and made similar to that of the Catholic religion. As aforementioned , when the Africans where brought to Cuba and the other New Lands they saw themselves forced to disguise theri ancestral religion and to embrace the church of theri captors. This created a complex religious mixture of beliefs. Because of its roots in Africa the worship of the saints has been a misunderstood religion, sometimes reffered to as unciviliazed and almost always viewed as a dark religion or a devil worshipping religion.
Cuba has long since been considered as an island-nation without any necessary affiliation with the Catholic Church. In fact, prior to the 1960s, Cuba was considered the most "secularized" country within Latin America, with only a mere six percent of the population attending church on a regular basis. Instead, the practice of the African based voodoo religion of Santería has prevailed. Experts estimate that 70 percent of the Cuban population practices Santería. This religion was brought to Cuba by African slaves and combined the virtues of Christianity and with their native African beliefs. It is associated with Catholicism because Afro-Cuban deities have been associated with Catholic saints since colonial Cuba. The Afro-Cubans did this in order to evade religious persecution by the Spaniards who considered a...
Lundahl, Mats, and Lundius, Jan. Peasants and Religion: A socioeconomic study of Dios Olivorio and the Palma Sola Movement in the Dominican Republic. New York: Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group, 2000.
The oppression from the Spanish born was so hated, that when the new country of Mexico created its Constitution, they decided to outlaw slavery completely in their new country. This was not a foreign idea. Some of the countries of Europe had already begun to do the same. Now along with the idea of no slavery, the Mexican people decided to adopt the Catholic Religion as their national faith. This is because their mother country, Spain, which had created them, was a Catholic Country and it was what they knew and practiced.
On July 14th, 17189, a shot was heard around the world: the Bastille had been stormed. Propelled by Enlightenment ideas, a rigid class system, and resentment with the monarchy, on this day the French decided to take matters in their own hands. In the next three years, the French overthrew their monarch and established a government and constitution that promised equal rights for all. As the saying goes, history repeats itself. So was the case in Latin America. By 1810, revolutionary fervor had spread to Venezuela. The revolution here was caused by similar reasons. As a colony of Spain, Venezuela did not have a representational government or equality for all its citizens. Peninsulares, or European-born Spaniards, held all the important governmental positions. Like the nobility in France, Peninsulares did not have to pay taxes. Their children (as long as they were also born in Europe), had many educational opportunities. Below the peninsulares were the creoles, or Venezuelans of Spanish descent. Creoles owned much of the land, but they were considered inferior to the peninsulares. Like the bourgeoisie in France, creoles had to pay high taxes and were subject to strict regulation. Creoles were disappointed in what they saw as social and political inequality, and desired to obtain self-representation in the government. At first hesitant, creoles declared their independence amid the weakening of the Spanish crown and the spread of the Enlightenment ideas. The Venezuelan Revolution was influenced by the French Revolution by the spread of Enlightenment ideas, social inequality, the discontent of creoles, and their desire to gain independence from France and form a new democratic government.
To begin, most Africans have come from societies with traditional African religious backgrounds unrelated to Islam or Christianity. As a whole, African religious traditions combine belief in a Supreme Being with the worship of other gods and ancestors and use ritual and magic to mediate between human beings, nature, and the gods. In many African languages, there is no word for God, because in their tradition every thing and place embodies God. Many African religions have common tenets. They share a belief in a community of deities, the idea that ancestors serve as a way to communicate with these deities. They also share the belief...
Sex offenders. These people have sparked much debate in the years past and also quite a lot now in the present time. No matter where one could go, one will always hear stories and news reports of incidents of adults being involved with children in a sexual manner or of some poor woman being raped. An example of this could be a preacher touching the altar boys, a man forcing himself onto a woman he held at gun point in an alley, it may just be an average run of the mill creep offering kids candy at a playground hoping to get something in return, or unfortunately it could just be a drunk person seen urinating outside, but that is the day and age we live in. The list is endless unfortunately and these offenders some in a variety of shapes,
Explanation- This article gives examples of how indigenous people used to live before the colonization of Christopher Columbus. After the appearance of Christopher Columbus in Mexico different ethnic groups were distributed amongst different states along with their different languages. In the state of Oaxaca there around sixteen different ethnic groups which the Mixtecs and the Zapotecs are the two main ethnos who have continued to expand amongst the territory. During the Spanish conquest the Mixtec and the Zapotecs’ religion was mostly based on belief in the vital force that animated all living things, meaning that they worshiped the land and the creator. Throughout this day there are still indigenous people who believe and practice their ideology, and the “modernized” are set to practice Catholicism.
African-Inspired religions have also prevailed when they were forced to come to the Americas. Voodoo and Santería are some of the main religions practiced in Latin America.Voodoo is commonly practiced in Haiti and Santería is practiced throughout Cuba and Puerto Rico. Santería times their rituals to those of the Catholic church, such as Easter and Christmas.
The Yoruba people, who were brought over from Nigeria as slaves, came to the Caribbean in the 1500’s with their own religion, which was seen as unfit by the white slave owners. Most plantation owners in the Caribbean were members of the Roman Catholic Church, so they forced their slaves to disregard their native religions and become Catholic. Soon, the slaves realized that they could still practice their West African religion as long as it was disguised as Catholicism, and Santería was born. Now it’s practiced in the United States, Cuba, the Caribbean, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Great Britain, Canada, Venezuela, and Panama.
is a unique way of life with rich cultural and spiritual roots. The word Santeria is a syncretistic
Venezuela is a country located on the northern coast of South America, bordering the Caribbean Sea, Brazil and Colombia. Venezuela is a country full of beauties and contrasts where people can find beautiful beaches, plains, mountains, and even the majestic highest waterfall of the world (Angel Falls). Also, oil rich nation, one of the upper 10 exporting countries worldwide. During more than four decades, this country lived in full democracy until 1999, when a former military officer, who was involved in a military coup years ago, Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias won the presidential elections, and who remained in the government until he died in 2013 from cancer.
Only 2% of people are known to practice Protestantism. The Venezuelan population consists of many different ethnicities including Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Arab, German, African, and other native
The first Catholic priests came to South America with the conquistadors and through social and political force superimposed 16th century Catholicism upon conquered peoples and in subsequent generations upon slaves arriving in the New World. Catholicism has, likewise, frequently absorbed, rather than confronted, popular folk religious beliefs. The resulting religion is often overtly Catholic but covertly pagan. Behind the Catholic facade, the foundations and building structure reflect varying folk religious traditions. (2)