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Santeria Moves to Cyberspace
For generations, the Santeria religion has used colorful beads, animal sacrifices and sacred drums to honor its orishas or African deities. Now comes a new icon in worship: the Internet. At least a dozen web sites are dedicated to the Afro-Caribbean faith, which combines frican Yoruba beliefs with Roman Catholicism.``It's cyberspace Santeria,'' said Ernesto Pichardo, a babalawo or Santeria priest who founded the Church of the Lukumi in Hialeah.``Our diviners have traditionally logged their sessions in notebooks. Now they are using computers'' said Pichardo, whose church is building its own web site. Some Santeria followers, though, are not convinced that the Internet is the best way to get their message across. They are concerned that amateurs are spreading misconceptions about Santeria on the superhighway, and that others are using cyperspace chat rooms to stir up controversy.
One such controversy involves a Yoruba world congress that took place in San Francisco in July. Some Santeria followers from South Florida were offended that the congress organizers invited a Santeria group from Cuba who they view as sympathetic to Fidel Castro. The issue has become a hot topic on OrishaNet, a Santeria web site produced in Seattle.``The proper place to discuss these issues is in the traditional press, which reaches more people'' said Rigoberto Zamora, a Santeria priest in Miami.; Santeria was born in Cuba hundreds of years ago, when slaves from west Africa practiced their outlawed faith by disguising their deities as Roman Catholic saints.
The merging of African and Western faiths also occurred in other countries, among them, Brazil, where thousands practices Candomble, and Haiti, home to voodoo. Santeria rituals are rooted in countryside folklore, such as the sacrifice of chickens and goats to thank the gods for a good harvest.; But in the United States, where Santeria is practiced by an estimated four million people -- mostly in Florida, the East Coast and the West -- the religion is adquiring American technology and know-how. Babalawos waged a legal battle that led to a U.S. Supreme Court in 1993, striking down a Hialeah city government ordinance that banned animal sacrifices. The emergence of Santeria web sites is another indication of the religion's assimilation into U.S. culture, some say.
``A lot of people are becoming interested in Santeria, and many of them are U.S.-born people who are familiar with computer technology'' said Nontsizi Cayou, an expert on Santeria who teaches at the San Francisco State University. Some of these new followers are African-Americans who are attracted to a religion that has its origins in the Yoruba culture of Nigeria. Cayou, for example, also directs the Wajumbe cultural institution in San Francisco, an Afro-American center that sponsored the international Yoruba congress in July.The Internet sites contain general information about Santeria, such as historical and religious background. Some sites also have pictures of Santeria practices, and a description of the orishas, the rituals and a glossary of Yoruba phrases.
There is legal advice such as an explanation of the 1993 Supreme Court decision, and practical tips, such as how to maintain Ilekes or Santeria necklaces. Most of the electronic information is in English, which may alienate older Santeria followers, who are more comfortbale in Spanish, said Pichardo, who is developing a bilingual web site on the religion.
`The technology can't replace the personal experience and exhange,'' said Pichardo.``But what the techology does is give the lay person a broad base of information prior to engaging in the ritual.
Copyright © 1997, Sun-Sentinel Company and South Florida Interactive, Inc.
