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Originally Posted by Chirimoya
Santeria (Cuba), vodou (Haiti), candomble (NE Brazil) and the 'religiosidad popular' rituals in the Dominican Republic... they are all very similar. There are many anthropological studies that trace all these syncretic beliefs to their African roots.
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In my opinion, they are all the samething.
Sure, there might be some minute differences, but its all pretty much the same.
However, its important to point out that these "religions" or "cults" (depends whose talking about this and their feelings towards this type of stuff) are a blend of African and European religious items, beliefs, prayers, among other things. There might be some native Taino influences, but that is hard to prove since the Taino's form of praying and "pleasing the Gods" is very similar to how these contemporary religions please their own God or Gods (ie. leaving food for the spirits, dancing, praying or using statues of Gods or saints, etc)
These religions are new world creations, they may have similarities to African religions and European religious (albeit, people have a tendency of ignoring the European part of these religions, such as the use of Catholic saints, etc) and thus are uniquely Hispanic or Latin American in nature. A blend of two or more cultures once again, except this is in religious terms.
It's also important that some of the superstitious belief that exist along mediterranean Europe (Spain, Portugal, Southern Italy, etc) are very similar to the belief of these new world religion, such as the belief in the evil eye, etc.
In southern Italy, for example, they even have "pray houses" where Italians leave a section of a doll (a leg, a head, or some other part) and some how those sections are suppose to represent that particular section in the person's body and thus, the Gods or spirits are suppose to heal it via the representation of the doll to the person. There are plenty of other similarity with new world religions as well.
My point in all of this is the following, these are unique new world religions. It's a result of the mixing of peoples from around the world that is prevailant in these region of the planet.
Thus, let's treat them as new world creations, because that's what they truly are.
They might have influences from many places, including Africa, Europe, maybe even from native indians, but that does not erases the fact that these religions came into their modern existence after the cultures began to mix, rather than before.
BTW, many Dominicans of all classes refer to curanderos and/or brujos from time to time. Of course, its more prevailant among the lower classes, but most Dominicans of all classes will visit a curandero or brujo at one point in their lives.
Of course, this is very hush hush, at all levels of society as well.