Ritual, Discourse, and Community in Cuban Santeria: Speaking a Sacred World

281 Pages·2007·6.056 MB·English

by  Kristina Wirtz

antHroPoLoGy / reLIGIon Wirtz Kristina Wirtz
R Ritual, Discourse, Santería practitioners in Cuba create and
i
t maintain religious communities amidst tensions,
Kristina Wirtz is assistant professor “In a brilliant creative leap Wirtz analyzes the ways boundary- u
a disagreements, and competition in the absence
of anthropology at Western Michigan making discourse (gossip, chitchat, fault-finding) maintains Santería l of a centralized institutional authority. In Ritual,
,
University. communities that lack unifying social, racial, or ethnic characteristics.” D and Community Discourse, and Community in Cuban Santería,
i
s Kristina Wirtz examines the religious lives of
—Mary Ann Clark, author of Where Men Are Wives and Mothers Rule: c
o santeros in Santiago de Cuba, the second largest
Santería Ritual Practices and Their Gender Implications u
city on the island. Wirtz argues that these religious
Front cover: Procession through the neighborhoods r
s in Cuban Santería communities are held together not because
of Los Hoyos and Los Olmos for Santa Bárbara’s Day. e
“Well-written and compelling in its argument. Ritual, Discourse, , members agree on their interpretations of rituals

a
and Community in Cuban Santería avoids treating religion as some n but precisely because they often disagree on the
privileged realm of the sacred that is separate from human struggles for d issues. Her analysis opens a window into this

C growing world religion.
authority, prestige, and status.”
o
m Speaking a Sacred W orld In rich detail, Wirtz describes how ritual
—Kelly E. Hayes, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis
m events from divinations to possession trances
u unfold and how practitioners reflect upon and
ContemPorary n evaluate their ritual experiences. Thus, religious
i
CUba t life is marked by a series of “telling moments”—
y
i the moments themselves and their narrated
n
representations as they are retold and mined for

C
u religious meanings. Long after the moment occurs,
b the spiritually elevated experience circulates as a
a
narrative, as gossip, and as other forms of public
n
S commentary that may result in skepticism or
a awe. Each retelling holds the promise of another
n
t experience.
e
Drawing on ethnographic research about
r
í
a Santería beliefs and practices, Wirtz observes that
University Press of Florida
practitioners are constantly engaged in reflection
www.upf.com about what they and other practitioners are doing,
how the orichas (deities) have responded, and what
the consequences of their actions were or will be.
Santeros re-create, moment to moment, what their
ISbn 978-0-8130-3064-7
,!7IA8B3-adageh! religion is. Wirtz also argues that Santería cannot
UPF ContemPorary
be considered in isolation from the complex
CUba religious landscape of contemporary Cuba, in
which African-based traditions are viewed with a
mix of fascination, folkloric pride, and suspicion.
Ritual, Discourse, and Community in Cuban Santería
Contemporary Cuba
University Press of Florida
Florida A&M University, Tallahassee
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
New College of Florida, Sarasota
University of Central Florida, Orlando
University of Florida, Gainesville
University of North Florida, Jacksonville
University of South Florida, Tampa
University of West Florida, Pensacola
Contemporary Cuba
Edited by John M. Kirk
Afro-Cuban Voices: On Race and Identity in Contemporary Cuba, by Pedro Pérez-Sarduy and
Jean Stubbs (2000)
Cuba, the United States, and the Helms-Burton Doctrine: International Reactions,
by Joaquín Roy (2000)
Cuba Today and Tomorrow: Reinventing Socialism, by Max Azicri (2000); first paperback
edition, 2001
Cuba’s Foreign Relations in a Post-Soviet World, by H. Michael Erisman (2000); first
paperback edition, 2002
Cuba’s Sugar Industry, by José Alvarez and Lázaro Peña Castellanos (2001)
Culture and the Cuban Revolution: Conversations in Havana, by John M. Kirk and
Leonardo Padura Fuentes (2001)
Looking at Cuba: Essays on Culture and Civil Society, by Rafael Hernández, translated
by Dick Cluster (2003)
Santería Healing: A Journey into the Afro-Cuban World of Divinities, Spirits, and Sorcery,
by Johan Wedel (2004)
Cuba’s Agricultural Sector, by José Alvarez (2004)
Cuban Socialism in a New Century: Adversity, Survival and Renewal, edited
by Max Azicri and Elsie Deal (2004)
Cuba, the United States, and the Post–Cold War World: The International Dimensions of the
Washington-Havana Relationship, edited by Morris Morley and Chris McGillion (2005)
Redefining Cuban Foreign Policy: The Impact of the “Special Period,” edited
by H. Michael Erisman and John M. Kirk (2006)
Gender and Democracy in Cuba, by Ilja A. Luciak (2007)
Ritual, Discourse, and Community in Cuban Santería: Speaking a Sacred World,
by Kristina Wirtz (2007)
Ritual, Discourse, and Community
in Cuban Santería
Speaking a Sacred World
Kristina Wirtz
University Press of Florida
Gainesville Tallahassee Tampa Boca Raton
Pensacola Orlando Miami Jacksonville Ft. Myers Sarasota
Copyright 2007 by Kristina Wirtz
All rights reserved
Chapter 3 contains a revised version of “Santería in Cuban National
Consciousness: A Religious Case of the Doble Moral.” Journal of Latin American
Anthropology 9, no. 2 (Fall 2004): 409–38.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wirtz, Kristina.
Ritual, discourse, and community in Cuban Santería : speaking a sacred world /
Kristina Wirtz.
p. cm.—(Contemporary Cuba)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8130-3064-7 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-8130-3703-5 (e-book)
1. Santeria—Cuba—Santiago de Cuba—Case studies. 2. Communities—Religious
aspects—Santeria—Case studies. 3. Santiago de Cuba (Cuba)—Religious life and
customs—Case studies. I. Title.
BL2532.S3.W57 2007
299.6'7409729165—dc22 2007004257
The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State
University System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic
University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida
State University, New College of Florida, University of Central Florida, University
of Florida, University of North Florida, University of South Florida, and University
of West Florida.
University Press of Florida
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Gainesville, FL 32611-2079
www.upf.com
Kí ikú má ße padrino mío, ¡Mo dúpé !
To Ed and Yasmin, with love

Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Preface ix
Ethnographic Prologue xvii
Acknowledgments xxi
A Note on the Text xxiii
1. Introduction: Telling Moments 1
Part I. Religious Histories
2. “All the Priests in the House”: Defining Santería 25
3. Competing Histories and Dueling Moralities 49
Part II. Religious Experience
4. From Skepticism to Faith: Narratives of Religious Experience 81
5. Skepticism in Faith: Evaluating Religious Experiences in Rituals 104
Part III. Religious Community
6. Respecting the Religion, Advancing in the Religion 135
7. Building a Moral Community out of Critique and Controversy 167
8. Conclusion: The Promise 198
Notes 209
References 229
Index 243
Illustrations
Figures
1. Map of Cuba xvii
2. Map of the city of Santiago de Cuba xviii
1.1. Human-divine kinship connections in Santería 16
1.2. Ritual kinship connections in Santería 16
2.1. Altar to a muerto 32
2.2. Altar to San Lázaro 33
2.3. Spiritist altar of a santera 37
2.4. Altar to a santera’s africanos 37
2.5. Casita of the oricha Eleggua 38
2.6. A muertera gives a client a consulta 39
2.7. Altar to the orichas 40
2.8. A muertera’s altar, with Spiritist and Palo elements 43
3.1. Procession for Santa Bárbara’s Day 56
3.2. The procession greets Changó 57
3.3. Portraits of Reynerio Pérez and his wife, carried in procession 57
4.1. Possibilities for divine communication in Afro-Cuban religions 100
5.1. Ritual participants dance the aro de Yemayá 114
5.2. A santero falls into trance 115
5.3. The lead singer encourages possession trance 116
5.4. Yemayá greets the drums 118
5.5. Yemayá speaks with another ritual participant 119
6.1. Human questions and divine responses 153
6.2. Chain of mediated communication in a divination 162
7.1. Ritual hierarchy in Santería 174
7.2. Itá divination as commentary on ritual and non-ritual events 196
8.1. Tropicana dancers create a living altar to Ochún 207
Table
2.1. Overview of Major Religious Traditions in Cuba 31
Preface
In this book I revisit an enduring question of anthropology: how do commu-
nities coalesce and persist through time? I pose this question about a specific
community of religious practitioners of Santería that I came to know through
my fieldwork in the city of Santiago de Cuba in eastern Cuba. Santería is one of
several often-overlapping popular religions practiced in Santiago de Cuba, and
many religious practitioners combine practices or seek expert services from
what scholars represent as ostensibly distinct religious traditions, such as Palo
Mayombe, Spiritism, Santería, and even Muertería. Even among those who
have been initiated as priests in Santería, different ritual lineages may have
distinct traditions—the best known and most visible such distinction separates
santeros (priests of Ocha) and babalawos (priests of Ifá), although some babala-
wos are also initiated santeros.
These introductory observations suggest the need to demonstrate, rather
than assume, the existence and composition of a local religious community of
Santería. They also raise questions about how such a community differentiates
itself amid the bustle of religious activity and how it regulates its membership
by managing relationships across—as well as within—certain ritually estab-
lished lineages of fictive and genealogical kinship. This issue of how intergroup
boundaries of identity are maintained was articulated by Fredrik Barth (1969)
in a classic essay on how ethnic groups constitute and maintain themselves. In
Santería, no ethnic distinctions are available to naturalize religious community
belonging, although Cuban histories of race and its internal differentiations
into African naciones (ethnicities) during the centuries of Atlantic World slav-
ery permeate local understandings of Santería and other popular religions, al-
beit in what Stephen Palmié aptly characterizes as “complex and ill-understood
ways” (2002b: 197). Santería, for example, clearly derives from what today is
known as Yoruba tradition, recreated in Cuba by enslaved West Africans from
the region of modern-day southwestern Nigeria and Benin. Santería’s modern-
day practitioners in Cuba, however, span all racial and other social categories.
Without clear racial/ethnic distinctions, and without clear-cut differences in