Afro-American religions (also African diasporic religions) are a number of related religions that developed in the Americas among African slaves and their descendants in various countries of Latin America, the Caribbean, and parts of the southern United States. They derive from African traditional religions, especially of West and Central Africa, showing similarities to the Yoruba religion in particular.
Characteristics[]
These religions usually involve ancestor veneration and/or a pantheon of divine spirits, such as the loas of Haitian Vodou, or the orishas of Santería. Similar divine spirits are also found in the Central and West African traditions from which they derive — the orishas of Yoruba cultures, the nkisi of Bantu (Kongo) traditions, and the Vodun of Dahomey (Benin), Togo, southern Ghana, and Burkina Faso. In addition to mixing these various but related African traditions, many Afro-American religions incorporate elements of Christian, indigenous American, Kardecist, Spiritualist and even Islamic traditions. This mixing of traditions is known as religious syncretism.
List of traditions[]
Afro-American Religions | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Religion | Developed in* | Ancestral roots | Also practiced in | Remarks |
Candomblé | Brazil | Yoruba | Some elements of Dahomey Vodun (deities) and Kongo nkisi. Also called Batuque. | |
Umbanda | Brazil | Yoruba (mainly) | Uruguay |
Syncretism. Mixed the Yoruba's deities (Orishas) with the Bantu's veneration of ancestral spirits (Preto Velho), indigenous elements (Caboclos and Caciques), Allan Kardec's Spiritism and Catholicism. Founded in the early 20th century. |
Quimbanda | Brazil | Kongo Witchcraft Brazilian Shamanism |
Veneration of ancestral spirits called Exu and Pomba Gira | |
Santería | Cuba | Yoruba | Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Haiti, USA | Catholicism Syncretism |
Regla de Arará | Cuba | Dahomey | Puerto Rico Dominican Republic | |
Regla de Palo | Cuba | Kongo nkisi | Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, USA, Venezuela | Also called Palo Mayombe, Regla de Congo, Palo Monte |
Haitian Vodou | Haiti | Dahomey mythology | Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, The Bahamas, Brazil, USA, Canada | |
Louisiana Voodoo | Southern USA | Dahomey mythology | USA | |
Obeah | Jamaica | Igbo | Trinidad and Tobago, Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Grenada, Barbados, Guyana, Suriname, Belize | Similar to Hoodoo, derives from the Igbo 'obia' (or dibia, ) traditions.[1] |
Winti | Suriname | Yoruba, Dahomey, Kongo | ||
Kumina | Jamaica | Kongo | ||
Spiritual Baptist | Trinidad and Tobago | Yoruba | Jamaica, Bahamas, USA | Protestantism Syncretism, since the early 19th century |
Hoodoo | Southern USA | Kongo, Dahomey, Togo | USA | |
Abakua | Cuba | Ekpe | society of the Annang, Efik, Ibibio, Ekoi and Igbo | |
Orisha | Trinidad | Yoruba | New York City | Originally Yoruba, later syncretized with Catholicism. [2] |
* Does not refer to the religions' indigenous origins in continental Africa, but only to their development in the New World.
Other closely related regional faiths include Dominican Vudu in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rican Vudu in Puerto Rico, Xangô de Recife[3] and Xangô do Nordeste in Brazil, Tambor de Mina in Brazil and Candomblé Ketu in Bahia, Brazil.
New religious movements[]
Some syncretic new religious movements have elements of African traditional religions, but are predominantly rooted in other spiritual traditions. A first wave of such movements originated in the early twentieth century:
- Santo Daime (folk Catholicism and Spiritism, Brazil);
- Moorish Science Temple of America (Islam and Christianity, USA)
- Nation of Islam (Islam, USA)
- Rastafari movement (Abrahamic, Jamaica)
- Espiritismo (mixture of Taino and Kongo beliefs, Puerto Rico)
A second wave of new movements originated in the 1960s to 1970s, in the context of the emergence of New Age and Neopaganism in the United States:
- União do Vegetal (Brazil, entheogenic, since 1961);
- Vale do Amanhecer (Brazil, Spiritism, since 1965);
- Ausar Auset Society (USA, Kemetism, Pan-Africanism, since 1973); and
- Black Buddhist Community in America (USA, Buddhism, since the 1960s).
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ Eltis, David; Richardson, David (1997). Routes to slavery: direction, ethnicity, and mortality in the transatlantic slave trade. Routledge. p. 88. ISBN 0-7146-4820-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=kuXEzQZQmawC&pg=PA88.
- ↑ Houk, James (1995). Spirits, Blood, and Drums: The Orisha Religion in Trinidad. Temple University Press. http://www.amazon.com/Spirits-Blood-Drums-Religion-Trinidad/dp/1566393507.
- ↑ Xango de Recife
Further reading[]
- Charles Spencer King, Nature's Ancient Religion ISBN 978-1-4404-1733-7
External links[]
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original article was at Afro-American religion. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. |