This post is the second in my series introducing you to the Afro-Cuban religion of Santería (Lukumi, Regla de Ocha). This is the religion I practice alongside my participation in the local Unitarian Universalist Congregation. In this post, I will talk about the cosmology or world view of this religion. Future posts will consider our relationship with our ancestors, and finally, I will do an introduction to the Orisha, the deities of this pantheon. If you want to know more about this religious tradition, I would encourage you to pick up my book Santeria: Correcting the Myths and Uncovering the Realities of a Growing Religion available from Amazon.com as either a hard cover or ebook.
Cosmology is the understanding a society has of the place of each individual in the larger scheme of the cosmos and their relationship with the other beings in that cosmos.
The Yoruba people and their religious descendants use a calabash similar to the one at the top of this page to represent their vision of the cosmos. In this understanding, the entire universe is all of one piece with both visible and invisible elements. The upper portion of the calabash is called orun, often translated as “heaven.” However, orun might more accurately be called “the invisible world.” It is juxtaposed with the lower half of the calabash, aye, or the visible world.
Various types of beings inhabit these two portions of the world in a hierarchy of power. At the highest level is the great God, Olodumare, the creator of everything. Sometime the great God is thought of as a trinity ofOlodumare, Olorun, (the owner of orun), and Olofi, (owner of the palace that is the visible world). However, it is probably more correct to think of Olorun and Olofi as nicknames or praise names of the great God. As the owner of both the visible and invisible portion of the cosmos, Olodumare is praised as the owner of everything.
As the great God, Olodumare, is accompanied by other beings, including the deities known as the Orisha who serve as Olodumare’s ministers, messengers and children, and humanity, both the living and the dead. Although Olodumare is often referred to as he/him, that is a misrepresentation as the great God is beyond human categories, including gender. Inhabitants of Orun, the invisible world, include not only Olodumareand the Orisha but also the Egun, our human ancestors, and other human beings.
We are all familiar with the makeup of the visible world, which includes living people, plants and animals and all natural and manufactured goods. While some parts of creation are confined to one or the other portions of the cosmos, the boundary between the worlds is permeable, allowing human beings and the Orisha to move between the visible and invisible worlds and serve as the links tying the two portions together.
Santería and its religious cousins believe in a form of reincarnation. The Yoruba-based traditions say that Orun is our spiritual home, the place we go to after death to rest and become refreshed. Aye is the marketplace where we come to enjoy life and make our mark on the world. After a period of time in Orun, those who have lived good lives are entitled to return to enjoy the pleasures of Aye, while evil people are thrown away like broken pots. This is very different from some other traditions who see this world as a vale of tears and reincarnation as a punishment for not achieving a high level of enlightenment. I find this to be a positive and life-affirming view.
The boundary between Orun and Aye is porous as people are born and die, moving back and forth between one portion of the cosmos and the other. The Orisha, the deities of tradition, also move between one portion of the world and the other. The mythology tells of the time when they lived in the visible world and moved easily between it and the invisible world of Olodumare. At some point they gave Aye over to humanity and withdrew into Orun. However, they continue to influence their human followers and visit in dreams, visions, and ritual actions. Initiated members of this religious community receive objects imbued with the essence of the Orisha. These are installed on home altars and present another way the deities are present in the visible world.
Beings and objects at all levels of the Yoruba cosmos contain the force known as ashé. The scholar Robert Farris Thompson described ashé as “the power to make thing happen.” This is a force, like electricity or gravity, that can be stronger or weaker and can be used by people and the Orisha to change things in the world. In a certain way of thinking, Olodumare is the personification of this force, but it exists to a greater or lesser extent in all things and, like electricity, can be moved around. Thus priests, who themselves have more ashé than other people, can use their ritual knowledge to enhance the ashé of themselves and others. Santería and its sister religions are healing traditions whose principal aim is to make life better through the movement of this power.
Each human being is believed to be composed of several visible and invisible elements including the physical body, the breath of life, a soul, and a powerful destiny. When a baby is born its first action is to take a breath. Because breathing is common to all people, the breath is believed to be that part of each person that gathers us together into a common humanity.
Before birth, according to Yoruba mythology, each person chooses or is given a destiny for this lifetime. This destiny contains the individual’s life plan including where and to whom they will be born, their attributes and capabilities, their deity (s), their basic life plan and the time of their death. It is their destiny that makes everyone unique. This destiny is not only a plan, but also a personal deity. The one deity whose only concern is the individual, the only deity that will never desert them no matter what.
According to this cosmology, all of us are unique individuals sharing in our common humanity. All of us have ashé, which helps us achieve our best life within the destiny chosen for this lifetime.
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