Afro-American religion

Example of Louisiana-Tradition Voodoo altar inside a temple in New Orleans.

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.

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, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, USA	Catholicism Syncretism
Regla de Arará	Cuba	Fon	Puerto Rico
Regla de Palo	Cuba	Kongo nkisi	Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, USA, Venezuela	Also called Palo Mayombe, Las Reglas del Congo, Palo Monte
Haitian Vodou	Haiti	Fon	Cuba, Dominican Republic, USA, Canada
21 Divisiones	Dominican Republic	Taino, Fon, Yoruba, Kongo	Dominican Republic, USA
Louisiana Voodoo	Southern USA	Fon	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, Igbo: doctoring) traditions.
Winti	Suriname	Akan, Yoruba, Kongo
Kumina	Jamaica	Kongo
Spiritual Baptist	Trinidad and Tobago	Yoruba	Jamaica, Bahamas, USA	Protestantism Syncretism, since the early 19th century
Hoodoo	Southern USA	Kingdom of Dahomey or Fon	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.

* 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:

• Sanse (also known as Puerto Rican Vudú) (Fon, Puerto Rico)
• Xangô de Recife (Yoruba, Brazil)
• Xangô do Nordeste (Yoruba, Brazil
• Tambor de Mina (Yoruba, Brazil)

New religious movements

Some syncretic new religious movements have elements of these African 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)
• Black Hebrew Israelites (Judiasm, USA)
• Rastafari movement (African-influenced Judeo-Christian, Jamaica); and
• 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

• African traditional religion
• Afro-Brazilian Religion

References

Further reading

• Charles Spencer King, Nature's Ancient Religion ISBN 978-1-4404-1733-7
• Charles Spencer King, "IFA Y Los Orishas: La Religion Antigua De LA Naturaleza" ISBN 1-4610-2898-1

External links

• Roots and Rooted