Santeria
Santeria is an Afro-Cuban religion whose roots rest in the African indigenous rituals of the five kingdoms around Nigeria (Benin, Togo, Ghana, Senegal, and Congo) before the slave trade. Despite these regions having distinct languages and religions, there was a common overarching worship of nature and deities known as orishas. This system of beliefs was brought to Brazil and Cuba, particularly the latter, by enslaved people in the 18th century. However, they were banned from practicing their religion and so they syncretized their orishas with Catholic saints to preserve their own beliefs without the knowledge of their masters. Santeria is founded on the formation of personal relationships through initiation, divination, medium-ship, and sacrifice between practitioners of the religion and the deities, who offer their wisdom, protection, and success. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Santeria is not a primitive religion as I had assumed it to be but a fairly complex system that blends elements of a variety of diverse faiths and culture. I found it remarkable that unlike other contemporary religions, Santeria is not rooted in Indo-European polytheism or the dualistic theory of good versus evil but instead from a cosmological thinking involving the nature of the universe. I noticed that Santeria worship is accomplished with the aid of a babalawo (priest) or other elders and adheres to the use of elements of nature and ritual sacrifices. The orishas, who are messengers between the divine and the human world, perform miracles for worshippers and must be appeased during times of misfortunate. They cannot be communicated with directly and are called upon by priests through possession, ritual, trances, sacrifice, and divination. Through the use of nuts and shells, the priest is capable of great insight and the divination ceremonies entail tossing of artifacts and assessing their position upon falling.