ORIGENS
Santería, also known as Regla de Ocha, La Regla Lucumí or Lukumi, is a syncretic religion of West African and Caribbean origin influenced by Roman Catholic Christianity. Its liturgical language, a dialect of Yoruba, is also known as Lucumí.
Santería is a system of beliefs that merges the Yoruba religion (which was brought to the New World by enslaved West Africans sent to the Caribbean to work on sugar plantations) with Roman Catholic and Native American traditions. These Africans carried with them various religious customs, including a trance for communicating with their ancestors and deities, animal sacrifice and sacred drumming and dance.
DEVELOPMENT
It has grown beyond its Yoruba and Catholic origins to become a religion in its own right, and a powerful symbol of the religious creativity of Afro-Cuban culture.
The centre of the religion is Cuba, but it has spread to the USA and other nearby countries, particularly after the Cuban revolution in 1959.
For a long time Santeria was a secretive underground religion, but it's becoming increasingly visible in the Americas.
Revolutionary Cuba clamped-down on Santeria at first, but over the last 15 years or so the government tolerated it more and more and now allows it to flourish. Cynics say that this is because Santeria brings considerable hard currency to the island.
It's difficult to know how many people follow Santeria, as there's no central organisation, and the religion is often practised in private. Some estimates go as high as a hundred million Santeria believers worldwide.
