Throughout the Caribbean and up into the United States, slaves shipped over from Africa brought more than just their bodies and music. With the various tribal groups came a variety of stories and belief systems as well. Most of us have heard of Voodoo and all the misconceptions that accompany it, but other religions assumed some characteristics of the dominant Catholic faith in Latin and South America in order to blend in.
In Cuba one of those religions practiced among the African population was Santeria, or Regla de Ocho – the Kingdom of Ocho. Ocho was the primary deity of the religion, which chose the name Santeria - way of the Saints - in order to disguise their traditional practices of worship. By pretending they were worshiping individual Catholic saints and not the Gods who lived in Ocho's realm they kept the Catholic Church happy.
Of course if the Church had ever shown up at a Santeria ceremony they might have a different reaction; heck, if they'd even understood any of the doctrine being taught they would have closed it down pretty quick. They would have been appalled by the fact that Santeria didn't believe in the existence of evil. All men are capable of performing good actions, some just haven't being able to get it together but don't need to be frightened by threats of hell into doing it.
Jorge Luis Alvarez Pupo is an Afro-Cuban photographer who grew up with this religion as the spiritual base of his community. So when he set out to create a record of the ceremonies and the way a belief system can affect a person's way of seeing the world around him or her, he had the advantage over the casual observer of already being in tune with the significance of events.
Article comments
1 - Father Loves Me
I appreciate the tone of the article. Media in general tends to portray the religion negatively. My comment centers around the following passage:
"Regla de Ocho " the Kingdom of Ocho. Ocho was the primary deity of the religion, which chose the name Santeria - way of the Saints - in order to disguise their traditional practices of worship."
The religion is actually referred to as Regla de Ocha. Ocha isn't the primary deity; rather Orichas are primary to the religion. Oricha is a word for a group rather than a single entity.
Also, the name Santeria wasn't chosen to disguise anything. The slave owners in Cuba actually used Santeria as a derogatory term because they believed the slaves were worshiping saints in an extreme fashion.
2 - Richard Marcus
Father Loves Me:
Thank you for your letter and I appologise if I misrepresented or misunderstood aspects of the history and belief system of Santeria. Thank you for supplying readers with those corrections, I appreciate it anyway if nobody else does.
I'm glad that you did understand that I wasn't passing judgement and was doing my best to describe the religion(s) as neutrally as possible. I only brought the religion up because of the subject matter of the photographs in the book which are truly amazing.
I believe you can see samples of some of the work in this book at the link to his web site that I included in the article. As you appear to know quite a bit about the religion you will probably appreciate the photos far more than an unintiated person like me.
Thanks again
Richard Marcus