Identity Politics in Santeria: Examining Gender and Sexual Identity

MLA Program
Identity Politics in Santeria

A paper submitted for the Master of Liberal Arts Degree, Temple University
Faculty Advisors: Michael Szekely, PhD Terry Rey, PhD
Darasia Selby April 9, 2012
Darasia Selby Spring 2012
Contents
Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 2 A History of Santera ................................................................................................................................. 8 Santera Beliefs ....................................................................................................................................... 11 Santera as a Lived Tradition ................................................................................................................... 16 Gender in Santera .................................................................................................................................. 18 Sexual Identity in Santera ...................................................................................................................... 36 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 45 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................................. 46

Introduction
It is a warm day in late May of 2008 in Philadelphia. My friend and I are on our way to see a
priestess of Yemoja.1 I had learned via the Internet that a Yoruba-Lucum priestess was holding a class about the tradition.2 I had been reading about the orishas since 2005 when, in one of my African-American Studies classes at Temple University, my professor mentioned a story involving the orisha Shango.3 I was so intrigued that I began reading books and searching on the Internet for anything I could find about the orishas. I even built makeshift altars all over my apartment, incorporating the colors and symbols I had learned were associated with the orishas. But I had not yet met a practitioner, and everything I read said that you really didnt know anything in the tradition until you learned from someone who actually practiced it. The website said that I had to email the priestess in order to register for the class. She responded to my email asking me to call her. She warmly asked why I was interested and was intrigued that I had learned of the orishas in my undergraduate studies. She said it was okay for me to bring a friend and gave me her address. I am very nervous as I walk into her home, not sure what to expect. I find that her home is spacious and full of colorful art. Delores, as she introduced herself to us, is from Jamaica and the colors of the islands were reflected in everything in her home. She tells us that I was the only one who responded to her but that I had seemed so excited that she hadnt wanted to cancel.
1 2
Yemoja is the orisha, or deity, of the ocean in the Yorb tradition of West Africa. Yorb refers to the Yorb spiritual tradition of the Yorb peoples of West Africa. Lucum refers to the dialect of Yorb spoken during the Yorb tradition in Cuba and thus the Cuban branch of the Yorb traditionis often called Lucum. Though many practitioners utilize Santera and Lucum interchangeably, some practitioners, such as the priestess in this description, prefer to utilize Yorb and Lucum interchangeably. 3 Shango is the orisha of thunder and lightning.
My friend, Diane, and I sit on her sofa and Delores begins to share with us her path in the Lucum tradition. She tells us she has been in the tradition for many years but had rejected initiation at first. It seemed like too hard of a process for me at that time. And, to be honest, I did not want to cut my hair, something that is required for initiation. I had very long dreadlocks. See? She shows us a picture of her and, yes, she did have long dreadlocks; they fell almost to her feet! And then guess what happened when I initiated 11 years ago? Yemoja said I could never have long hair again! So even after I initiated I have had to keep my hair short. I am so intrigued by the idea that a deity could tell someone that they could not have long hair! I had learned from the books I had read that this was a living tradition and that the deities are involved in every aspect of life. I cant resist asking a question. How do the deities speak? Oh, in a variety of ways, Delores says. Through diloggun the orishas can speak to us. When we initiate all of the orishas speak through the diloggun. The other way is when they possess their priests through spirit possession. Sometimes they come and tell us things we shouldnt do.4 I had read about spirit possession too. And now I had a real live priestess to ask the question I had been dying to know What does being possessed feel like?
Diloggun refers to a specific divination involving sixteen cowrie shells.
Delores laughs at my excitement. Its different for different people. Most people dont even know they are possessed. For me it kind of feels like observing a scene but with the shades pulled down so that the scene is a bit unclear. Diane and I look at each other and I know we are thinking the same thing: Sounds freaky but interesting at the same time! After sitting with Delores for about two hours, talking about the tradition and just getting to know each other, she decides to invite us to her shrine room. Diane and I ascend the stairs behind Delores as she leads us into a small room. I can barely decide where to place my eyes first. All around the room there are beautiful pots, dolls, figurines, and other decorations of every color imaginable. Shrine room sounds like such a serious, stoic phrase compared to the vitality and movement reflected in this room. Delores begins pointing to various pots and explaining what they represent. This one here is Yemoja. She points to a large blue pot that sits in a basket and is surrounded by different plates of various sizes. The pot sits on a shelf at the head of the room and it is clear that she holds center stage in the room. She has all of the plates because my particular road of Yemoja is called Mayelewo5 and she likes to throw plates. I instantly think of the plate smashing that occurs at Greek weddings and work to suppress a giggle. There was a big yellow pot next to the blue one. Is that one for Oshun?6 I ask. I had read that Oshuns color was yellow.
5 6
Many orishas have different roads, or manifestations, of their particular energy. Oshun is the orisha of fresh water.

Yes, very good! Delores said. I have Yemoja and Oshun together because they are both my mothers. Whatever I do for one I must do for the other. So even though Yemoja is who I am crowned7 to I must honor Oshun as my mother was well.
I was confused by what Delores meant by pointing to a pot and saying, This is Yemoja. How can Yemoja be a pot? Or be inside of a pot? But I had the feeling that all of those answers would come in due time. For that moment I simply relished in the fact that I had finally met a priestess and, after leaving Delores house later that afternoon, I knew that I was going to become even more familiar with this tradition. Little did I know how quickly and deeply this tradition would become a part of my life. ***** This was my first real live experience with Santera, and since becoming acquainted with the Lucum/Santera8 tradition I have longed to write about it, not just from the viewpoint of my own experiences, but also in an attempt to share the utter beauty and, dare I say, magic of the tradition its ability to create spaces of beauty and creativity through song, dance, and performance, as well as its ability to change and transform the spirit through the wisdom and truth shared through divination, ritual, and coming face to face with the ancestors and orishas.
7 8
Crowned is a term used in Santera used to describe initiation. It can be used synonymously with initiated. Both the terms Lucum and Santera can be used to describe the branch of the West African Yorb traditions Cuban branch. Lucum is the name the Yorbs who were transported into Cuba called themselves, considered by many scholars to be a Creolized form of a Yorb word meaning my friend. Santera was the name Catholics gave to the Santera, meaning the way of the saints, emphasizing the emphasis the Santera placed on the worship of the Catholic saints they identified with their native orishas. Santera was originally a pejorative term but is now embraced by some in the Santera community, though some still consider the term offensive. Some scholars and practitioners consider Lucum to refer to the non-syncretized version of the Yorb tradition that flourished in Cuba while Santera refers to the syncretized version of the tradition (see Correal). Because many in the community I reference in this paper utilize both terms (and Santera more so), I will also utilize both terms but will predominantly use Santera.
This paper is an ethnography that explores the construction of identity in the AfricanCuban tradition of Santera, particularly in terms of gender roles and sexuality. How do people who practice Santera, a spiritual tradition that is largely ignored in American public space except when being maligned in the media, navigate the complexities of gender and sexual identity? How do both traditional Yoruba and Cuban ideas of gender and sexuality figure in the lives of practitioners? Do they tend to adhere to traditional, whether African or Cuban, ideas of gender and sexuality or do they prefer to live by more modern views of gender and sexuality, however modern is defined by practitioners? How have ideas of gender and sexuality changed throughout the history of Santera? Have there been any significant changes in the views of gender and sexuality since the tradition has taken root in the United States? Since more African-Americans have become practitioners? How largely does odu, the sacred oracles of Santera, influence in ideas of gender and sexuality? I explore these questions through the use of personal interaction and observation with members of the Santera community in Philadelphia and northern New Jersey as well as analyzing several major texts written about the Santera community. This community is made up of both African-American and Latino practitioners, with about an equal amount of each, as well as an equal amount of males and females. There are also a fair amount of homosexual members of this community, making up about 30%; most of them are male and Latino. Formal interviews were not included in this study, and the commentary included here from members of the community is the result of informal comments and conversations, usually taking place during community ceremonies. What is recorded here is simply what I have observed of these Santera practitioners, both in their actions and their conversations, as well
as my own personal experiences. The identities of those whose comments or actions shared here are confidential and some names and details have been altered to ensure confidentially. As a part of my analysis I am also including commentary from Orisha practitioners in Yorubaland (Nigeria) and in other parts of the United States. These comments are intended to provide context for the beliefs and practices of Santera worshippers, particularly when trying to determine how African culture has impacted Santera culture and practice. As a Santera initiate I have had the privilege of observing quite closely how practitioners navigate gender and sexual identity, both within and outside of ceremonial spaces. However, these observations should by no means be considered a general consensus of how Santera practitioners understand gender and sexuality; in fact, I think this paper undercuts any idea that there is a unified consensus among practitioners. Therefore, it goes without saying that there is a myriad of views that could be expressed that simply are not shared here. However, I do believe that the beliefs and viewpoints presented here still serve to advance some newer ideas about how Santera practitioners understand gender and sexuality, particularly as young, educated, African-Americans enter the realm of initiated practitioners.
This ethnography begins with an explanation and history of the Yoruba tradition that was transformed into the Santera tradition via the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Then I will discuss the development of Santera in Cuba and its move to the United States, leading to the first African-American initiates in the 1960s. Then I will analyze some of the more commonlyknown texts on Santera and gender and sexuality and move into the ethnographic portion of the paper that will compare these texts to how practitioners live their lives.
A History of Santera
Not only humans made the Crossing, traveling only in one direction through Ocean given the name Atlantic. Grief traveled as well.9 The Crossing. The Maafa.10 The trans-Atlantic slave trade. Just a few of the names used to describe the tragic horrors of the capture of millions of African people and their transport into the Western Hemisphere. The crossing affected people on both sides of the Atlantic. As the bodies and the grief traveled, so did the sacred, the power of God, the ashe11. Cut off from their homeland, where the Sacred was embodied, they found the Sacred in their new land, finding that the Sacred had no geographical limitations. The Fire, the Earth, the Wind, the Water, the Thunder, the Sky, the Lightning, the Rainbow. All present in this new land and thus the Sacred was present in this new home, despite the circumstances that attempted to remove the Sacred from them, and them from the Sacred. In Haiti, in Brazil, in Trinidad, in Cuba, in the United States, and in all the places where these African bodies had been transported, they resurrected their Sacred traditions, remembering their Ancestors, their rituals, their spirits, and their selves. And this Remembrance has created an unbroken chain of memories, created a process of memory and discovery for those present and those to come. *****
9
Alexander, 289. Maafa is a Swahili word that translates to disaster and is often used to describe the horrors of the African slave trade. 11 Ashe is a Yorb word roughly translated as energy or power. It is often used to describe the energy of the ancestors and the orishas, a persons natural and spiritual gifts and talents, and also is used in an affirmative sense during ritual. In this context it refers to the energy of Spirit. Ashe will be explained later in the paper.
10
The Santera tradition is a syncretic religion, a unique blend of African traditional religion and Catholicism. When the Yoruba people, an ethnic group from what is now Southwest Nigeria and Southeast Benin, were transported to diverse places in the Western Hemisphere like Cuba, Puerto-Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad, Jamaica, Brazil, and the United States, among other places during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, they brought their religious beliefs and rituals with them. In Cuba, as well as in Brazil, Trinidad, Haiti, and the United States enslaved Africans were able to practice their spiritual traditions by hiding their rituals and icons behind the Catholicism of their European masters. Under the authority of the Catholic Church, both enslaved and free Africans were permitted to organize their own councils or clubs, called cabildos in Cuba. These cabildos had various functions, some political, some cultural, and some purely social. It was through some of the cabildos that African traditions were preserved.12 David Brown quotes French ethnologist Roger Bastide as saying, The cabildo incontestably forms the starting point for the African santaria (sp) of Cuba.13 Unable to practice their homeland traditions openly, the Yoruba, as well as other Africans, hid their religion behind Catholicism, the religion of their slave masters. The orishas were syncretized with Catholic saints but many in the Lucum tradition insist that the syncretism was very conscious and deliberate and that even during the time when the followers used Catholicism as a cover, the rituals remained distinctly Yoruba. However, it was the emphasis on the saints that earned the Orisha tradition the name Santera or the way of the
12 13
Canizares, 24 25. Brown, 62.
10
Saints in Cuba. Many Lucum practitioners point to the existence (or persistence) of the oracle of the tradition, the sacred Odu, as proof that syncretism with Catholicism was a conscious process of survival rather and an accidental phenomenon. Lucum practice continued to develop exclusively in Cuba and was brought by Cubans migrating to the United States after the mid-1940s. The original number of Cuban immigrants to the United States was small in comparison to the great numbers that came in 1959. It was at this time that babalawos14 began to practice in New York, New Jersey, and Miami. The first babalawo to practice in the United States was an Afro-Cuban named Francisco Pancho Mora (also called If Morote) who arrived in New York in the late 1940s or 1950. The first If initiation, the ceremony required by all men who are called to become babalawos, took place in Miami in 1969 or 1970. 15 On August 26, 1959 Walter King became the first African-American initiate in Lucum. Another African-American, Christopher Oliana, initiated along with King (though they were initiated together, King is the oldest of the initiated twins). In 1961, Marjorie Quinones became the first African-American woman initiated in the Lucum tradition.16 Since the 1960s, the Lucum tradition has continued to grow in the United States, attracting people of various backgrounds and ethnicities. Most of the members of the Orisha community in the United States, including African Americans, trace their religious lineage back to Cuba. Even those Black initiates who have worked hard to remove the Catholic and Latino
14 15
Babalawo is the Yorb word meaning Father of secrets and refers to male priests of the orisha Orunmila. Brown, 92. 16 This is based on personal knowledge. Most initiates, particular African-Americans, are familiar with this history.
11
influence on the Orisha tradition still trace their lineage back to those santeros and santeras17 who entered the United States via Cuba. Since African-Americans have started to become initiated, the biggest African-American Orisha community is in New York City, with sizable communities located in Philadelphia, Houston, and Oakland. I consider my personal community to exist in both Philadelphia and New York City/North Jersey. Though still regarded by many as a dark tradition, full of witchcraft and voodoo dolls, the tradition is beginning to become more recognizable in mainstream media. Many practitioners of Santera have been taking intentional strides to change the image of the tradition. The novel The Accidental Santera, by Irete Lazo, featuring a scientist who comes to embrace Santera, is just one example of how practitioners are utilizing various means to inform the public about their multi-faceted tradition.
Santera Beliefs
Santera beliefs feature a rich cosmology of a hierarchy of spirits. The highest of these spirits is Oldmar, one of the more common names for God (along with Olofi and Olorun). Oldmar is the source of ashe, or spiritual energy, and Oldmars ashe permeates the entire universe, through rocks, trees, animals, and people. Tobe Correal, a priestess of Yemoja, explains ashe as, the divine essential nature of all things. It is the life force that radiates and streams from the Invisible Realm to the realm of matter, between the Orisha and us, and between all that exists in Creation.18
17 18
Santeros and santeras are male and female initiates of Santera, respectively. Correal, 25
12
Oldmar is considered a remote entity (often described as being too tired or too offended by the petty, sinful affairs of humans) who interacts with the world through the orishas (often called saints in Santera, especially among Latino practitioners), the next in line in the spiritual hierarchy. The orishas are the divine messengers of God, often compared to the angels in Catholic cosmology. Correal explains that Yoruba practitioners know that God manifests Itself to humans in a multiplicity of forms and that Orisha energies are living embodiments of this multiplicity.19 The orishas are identified with forces of nature and in the patakis, or the mythical stories found in the Odu corpus about the orishas, they are featured as larger than life characters that play tricks on humans and are prone to the same fears and shortcomings of their human worshippers. There are seven major orishas in Santera belief and these orishas, with the exception of Ogun, are the principle orishas received during initiation.20 These seven orishas are: Elegba, orisha of the crossroads, representing chance, multiplicity, and paradox Ogun, orisha of iron and war, representing brute force and technology as a force of progress in the creation and sustenance of civilization Obatala, orisha of the mountains, representing wisdom and fatherhood Yemoja, orisha of the ocean, representing motherhood Oya, orisha of the wind and the cemetery, representing transformations Shango, orisha of thunder and lightning, representing justice and male sensuality
19 20
Ibid, 17 Ogun is received by practitioners in a smaller form before initiation. Full Ogun, as it is called by santeros is conferred after initiation into the priesthood.

Oshun, orisha of the rivers, representing sweetness, wealth, and feminine sensuality Other prominent orishas are Olokun (orisha of the deep ocean, representing wealth, unconscious knowledge, and, because of the slave trade, ancestors who died during the
13
passage), Ochsi (orisha of the hunt, representing swiftness and the law), Aganju (orisha of the volcano, representing the depth of emotion) and Babaluaiye (orisha of sickness and health). These orishas, along with others, are not received in the initiation process unless one is initiating to one of these orishas but are usually received at some other point in an initiates lifetime. The orishas, as messengers of Oldmar, not only own particular aspects of nature and life but they also own people. Through divination (another salient feature of Santera), one discovers which orisha owns ones head and the orisha determined is considered to be ones guardian and spiritual parent, a spiritual entity that guards, protects, and guides one throughout life. 21 The orisha who acts as guide helps the practitioner align with ones destiny, which one chooses before Oldmar and Orunmila, the orisha of destiny and who stands as a witness to all of creation. Therefore, Santera belief teaches that one chooses ones family, race, gender, sexual orientation, and unique calling before one is born. Agreements made about what one will do on Earth largely remain unconscious and can be completely neglected if alignment is not pursued. Next in the hierarchy are the ancestors (called egun or egungun in Yoruba; often referred to simply as spirits in Santera). Egun are particularly important to practitioners as
21
The head, in Yorb thought, is the vehicle of divine consciousness and is the receptor of spiritual energy.
14
they are the primary defense, the first spirits to be approached when help is needed, especially about daily, mundane matters. Before initiation practitioners do extensive work with their egun, their ancestors, by participating in misas, or spiritual ceremonies, intended to allow contact with egun. 22 These ceremonies open up a world of spiritual knowledge to practitioners, allowing them to receive advice on everything from ancestral issues that need to be handled spiritual, money and career, love, and suspected enemies. As mentioned above, divination is a strong feature of Santera practice. Through divination practitioners can receive concrete answers from their egun, their orishas, or If in regards to how best pursue their destiny. There are three forms of divination: obi divination, diloggun initiation, and If divination. 23 Obi divination is the simplest and is allowed by even non-initiates, though training is needed to decipher the messages. Diloggun divination is divination performed with sixteen cowrie shells that are considered to be the mouthpiece of the orishas. Each orisha that one receives has cowrie shells that can be read by a skilled diviner. If divination can only be performed by babalawos and is considered to be the most precise form of divination. One of the most misunderstood aspects of Santera is animal sacrifice. Blood is considered to be the one of the most powerful of elements and has an enormous amount of ashe. Joseph Murphy sees blood sacrifice as the primary way practitioners deepen their relationships with the orishas, who are part and parcel of nature. In gifts of animals and plants, human beings honor the orishas and dispose them to offer gifts in return. Life for life,
22 23
Misa is a Spanish word for mass and is a ceremony very similar to a sance. Obi is the Yorb word for kolanut a nut used in divination. In Santera, obi refers to the coconut that is used for divination.
15
ash for ash, humans grow in the divine exchange of energy.24 Raul Canizares explains that the instruments of the orishas need periodic sprinklings of sacrificial blood in order to remain efficacious, or alive. 25 Animal sacrifice, though, does not happen nearly as often as non-practitioners may be led to believe. Initiation ceremonies or the reception of an orisha always includes a blood sacrifice, as the blood is seen as necessary in order to bring forth life. There is no ocha without the blood, is a common phrase repeated among practitioners when explaining the need for blood sacrifice. 26 Animal sacrifices consist of four-legged animals (called four legs among practitioners) such as goats and rams, and birds (called feathers among practitioners) such as hens, roosters, pigeons, and quails. The more common sacrifices include other gifts, such as candles, flowers, or fruit. Another commonly misunderstood aspect of Santera is spirit possession. Though it can be argued that every religion, as a structure that brings meaning to life, a method of piecing together and understanding both the joys and the pains of life, is indeed lived in the daily lives of practitioners, the aliveness of the Lucum tradition deserves special note. One reason for this is because the very vehicle of earthly existence, the physical body, is centered as a receptacle of spirit, both in the sense of the personal soul that is housed within it and the possibility of the ancestors and the orishas possessing the physical body. Through initiation to ones head orisha, the body is ritually prepared and marked to receive the energy of the orisha. Thus the physical body is understood, not as a sinful instrument in need of control, but a necessary medium for
24 25
Murray, 15 Canizares, 87. 2626 Ocha refers to the initiation ceremony in Santera. It is a Spanish pronunciation of the word orisha.
16
the spirits to minister to, comfort, and aid the larger community. Through spirit possession the community interacts directly with the egun and the orishas to receive guidance and instruction. The ministry of the orishas through their initiated priests and priestesses creates a spiritual community where authority is not housed in a single, historical text, but flows through relationship with the messengers of God. This creates a particularly dynamic religiosity, where most practitioners are not interpreting texts to explicate meaning but where meaning is developed and interpreted in the present.
Santera as a Lived Tradition

Just as the cosmology of Santera consists of a hierarchy, so does the practice. Santera communities in the United States generally consist of houses, often referred to as ils, the Yoruba word for houses. Houses are led by an elder priest or priestess (sometimes both if a husband and wife both lead the house) who teach and guide their spiritual students, referred to as godchildren. Godparents are usually referred to as madrina or padrino (Spanish words meaning godmother or godfather respectively) or Iya and Baba (Yoruba words meaning mother and father) and represent their godchildren in all aspects of the tradition, presiding over misas, divinations, and other ceremonies, including the initiation ceremony. New practitioners, called alejos27, a Yoruba word meaning outsider officially join an il by going through the eleke ceremony. Elekes, called collares in Spanish, are long beaded necklaces decorated with the colors of the orishas. Alejos receive elekes for Elegba, Obatala, Oun, Yemoja, and Shango after undergoing a spiritual cleaning. The reception of the elekes
27
Called aleyo by most Santera practitioners.
17
for the aleyo signals to both the orishas and the Santera community that he or she is a child of the orishas and also confirms the relationship between godparent and godchild. After this ceremony the aleyo eventually receives the warriors, called guerros in Spanish, a set of orishas that will guard and protect the aleyo. Elegba, a miniature version of Ogun, and Osun (an orisha that guards the or28) are received during the warrior ceremony. After this ceremony the path of an aleyo to ocha, or initiation, is very individualized. Until initiation, the aleyo is at the bottom of the community hierarchy and is only allowed in certain ceremonies. Once initiated, a new priest or priestess is always junior to those initiated before him or her. One is not considered an elder in Santera until one has either initiated sixteen people or has been initiated for thirty years, whichever requirement is met first. One of the primary reasons behind Lucum traditions vitality in the lives of practitioners is because the houses of practitioners serve a dual role of home and temple. Because both egun and orishas have physical objects that house their energy, egun and orisha shrines are constructed in the homes of practitioners. It is not at all unusual to walk into a santeros or santeras home and see a corner of a room full of pictures, candles, and other mementos, or see entire rooms full of colorful altars decorated with candles and ceramic pots dedicated for the orishas. In Lucum, the sacredness of spirit and banality of quotidian life fuse together to
28
Ori is the Yorb word for head. While it does refer to the physical head in this context it refers to ones consciousness or spirit.
18
create a colorful, magical tradition wherein spirits sometimes cannot be differentiated from the worshippers. As one practitioner explained, My saints are me and I am my saints.29
Gender in Santera
It is a chilly fall day in Philadelphia in October 2008. My godsisters and I are on our way to our godmothers house and there is an air of excitement in the car as we make our way from West Philadelphia, the area of the city where we live to North Philadelphia where our godmother lives. We are excited because we are each going to receive our first reading, or divination session. Once we get to our godmothers house we got into her car and settle in for the hourand-a-half drive to north New Jersey, just outside of Newark, where we will be meeting David, the priest who will do the reading. Our godmother explains that this reading will mark our heads meaning that the priest will be able to tell us which orisha owns our heads, as well as tell us various aspects about our lives that will be helpful for us as we progress along our spiritual paths. We each have fun guessing who will be a child of which orisha. My godmother and my godsisters are convinced I am a child of Yemoja, the mothering orisha that rules the oceans. One of my godsisters is somewhat of a tomboy so we all think she will definitely be a child of a male orisha, maybe Shango or Ogun. My other godsister is a little bit more difficult for us to guess, but we think she is probably a child of Yemoja or Oshun. My godmother sincerely hopes she will not be a child of Oya, the orisha of wind. In Santera, a priest or priestess of Yemoja cannot initiate a child of Oya and vice-versa. If one of us is a child of Oya
29
Alexander, 270
19
we will not be able to remain in my godmothers il. We all become quiet as we consider that we may find out information today that will change our relationships forever. We finally pull up to the house after our long drive and, after walking up many stairs, we are greeted by a young and energetic Latino man. I was expecting someone older but David seemed only a bit older than me; he seemed to be in his early thirties. We each greet Davids shrine, where he had a giant wooden container, called a batea, for Shango. The batea was covered with red and white beads and next to it stood a large wooden two-headed ax with a red and white beaded handle. As a child of Shango, David had put a lot of work into ensuring that Shangos shrine was beautiful. I did the beadwork myself! he said excitedly. My godsisters and I, one after the other, lie prostrate before the shrine and shake a red and white maraca while we ask Shango for his protection and support on our spiritual paths. I find it quite poignant that I was saluting Shangos shrine, the first orisha I had heard mentioned in that prompted my further research into African traditions, on the day of my first divination session. My godsister Diane received her reading first. David sat on a straw mat and Diane sat before him, sitting on a low stool, her left foot on top of a piece of coconut. The shells? David holds his hand open as he addresses my godmother. She pulls out a small blue bag out of her purse, along with the $60 Diane gave her for the reading, and hands it to him. He shakes the bag open and counts eighteen cowrie shells. He puts two aside and places the other in a small gourd. Omi tutu, ona tutu, ashe tutu David begins to perform the libation I had witnessed my godmother do on several occasions. Then suddenly, David begins speaking rapidly in

Spanish, afterwards explaining that he was simply praying in his native language, asking the
20
orishas to guide and bless the divination session. He prays some more and then asks Diane to name all of her ancestors. I was happy that she was going first so that I could prepare to list my ancestors names at my turn. After more prayers, David takes the cowrie shells in his left hand and casts them onto the mat. He counted the shells and called out a number to my godmother. He then casts the shells again, counted, and called out a second number. I did not know then but what David was doing was counting the number of cowrie shells facing up. The number of cowrie shells facing up indicated what odu the orisha in this case, Yemoja was speaking in. David begins telling Diane various aspects of her life, from issues with family to the need to change her job. At the end of the session he told Yemoja he wanted to mark her head. Who should I begin with Iya? David asked my godmother what orisha he should begin to inquire about first.Shango. David asked the shells. No, not Shango. Who else? Ogun? Ogun was a no as well. It turned out that my tomboyish godsister was a child of the orisha Yemoja! Yemoja is your mother. She has claimed your head, David tells Diane. She seemed just as shocked as we all were. We would have never guessed a female orisha owned her head. I am up next. I am nervous about the information I am going hear but excited to see which orisha will own my head. I am also a bit skeptical. I had read about these kinds of readings, called diloggun readings, but how was supposed to know this was accurate. David prays and asks me to give the name of my ancestors. I do so and David continues praying. Then he casts the shells and counts them, and casts and counts again. He looks at the

shells and looks up at me. Do you work at a non-profit, or a school, or something? Some hybrid of the two? David was right! I explain to him that I work at a school that operates
21
during the regular school year that is also a year-round non-profit. Yemoja doesnt like you working there. You need to change jobs. Quickly. I sit before David, shocked. I really like my job! He then begins to explain a few more things about my life, and even some issues concerning my sisters pregnancy. He then begins to ask which orisha owns my head. Who should I start with Iya? Yemoja. If that one she points to Diane is a Yemoja than this one certainly is. David asks the shells. Nope. Who else? No?! My godmother looks puzzled. I am so surprised. Okay. Ask Oshun. David asks the shells. Yes. Oshun owns this childs head. And Oshun wants you to initiate quickly. By this time next year, you will be initiated. David was right. I was initiated almost a year to the day of that reading. Because of the high cost of initiation (mine was $8,000) I stayed at my job until after I was initiated and resigned soon afterwards. On our way back to Philadelphia we all discuss the readings and the information we received. Its obvious we are all relieved that we can all continue to be in the same il. No one was too surprised that I was a child of Oshun; she is Yemojas sister and their children often have similar characteristics. The big surprises came from my godsisters. No one expected tomboyish Diane to be a daughter of Yemoja and no one expected Michelle to be a daughter of a male orisha. Her reading revealed she was the child of Elegba. We were quickly learning that how we conceive of masculinity and femininity did not necessarily correlate to the energy of the orishas and how they choose their children.
22
As we ride back my godmother tells me that, because I am a child of Oshun, I will need to receive my hand of Ifa30 in order to become an apetebi.31 Oshun is the wife of If so you will need to receive If quickly. Oshun is the supreme apetebi. Wow! I get to receive If! I didnt really understand what all that entailed but being the supreme of anything sounded good to me. What does the apetebi do? I ask. The apetebi has an important role, my godmother says. She is the babalawos assistant. Oh cool! She assists him divination? I ask. No, not really. She sets up his divination mat and tools for him. She brings him his coffee. She makes his plate for him when he is done divining. Its a very important role. The car is silent. I know what my godsisters were thinking and I know they know what I am thinking. My godmother, though she is older, is a very independent woman. She has an important job in the city and is working on her PhD. Why she thinks that bringing a man coffee and making a man a plate is important is beyond me and I am actually quite shocked at her words. Well, it is really important! she suddenly exclaims and we all laugh. I am glad the ice is broken. Iya, I begin, you know that I dont have a problem cooking and assisting priests. But why do I need to receive an orisha in order to bring a babalawo coffee? Is there not something more that an apetebi is supposed to do? Well, how else is the babalawo going to do his job if he is hungry? Or thirsty? The apetebi keeps him comfortable while he works, my godmother replies. I saw Michelle smirk. Okay, Iya, I said. But does an apetebi get to divine
30
Hand of If refers to an ceremony where one receives the physical manifestation of Orunmila, orisha of divination an destiny. 31 Apetebi is the Yorb word meaning wife or assistant. When women receive the Hand of If, they become apetebi of If.

as well? Is there some sort of female equivalent to the babalawo? Oh no! she replied,
23
seeming surprised at the thought of it. Apetebi is the highest position for a woman in If. And women cannot divine with If. See, the babalawo interprets odu. Odu is female and means womb. We have odu, we are odu. But we cannot see the orisha Odu, which is what men have to see in order to be babalawos. So we do not need to initiate to If the way men do. We already have what they need to receive in order to become babalawos. Then we should be able to divine, right? It seems we are the natural If priests then, not men. Right? I am genuinely trying to understand my godmothers line of reasoning. My godmother seems exasperated with my questions. No, women do not divine. Not with If. We can divine with diloggun. But the highest divination is for the men. Thats the way it is. That day was my first experience with gender difference in Santera. Until that point I had been impressed with the fact that both men and women could be initiated priests and priestesses; in my former Presbyterian church, women were not involved in any public part of the worship service and were only permitted to help prepare for the service before or prepare for the fellowship after service. I came into Santera, then, expecting that men and woman would have equal participation in the community and until then that was exactly what I had experienced. I was more than a bit thrown off when I first saw what, it seemed to me, was obvious sexism. Up until this point, the only inequalities of power that I had witnessed existed between aleyo and initiate and between inexperienced and experienced initiates. Both were completely reasonable to me; it made sense that alejos could not participate in certain aspect of ritual and that initiates would have various roles based on their level of knowledge. But I had not seen
24
any assigned roles to men versus women. My godmother explained to me at a later time that If worship was different than Orisha worship and that If was male-dominated. My first divination session with a babalawo a few months after it was announced I would initiate to Oshun introduced me to the world of If. If is the system of worship dedicated to Orunmila who, like the other orishas, is a messenger of Oldmar (God). Orunmila, however, as the orisha of divination, speaks for and interprets the energy of all of the other orishas and thus for many has an elevated position. Babalawos, then, as priests of Orunmila, are sometimes viewed as the high priests of the tradition while initiates of the other orishas are priests or priestesses, presumably with less authority than the babalawos. I learned that while both men and women could receive a hand of If, only men (straight men, to be exact) could take the next step to become a babalawo and that, once a man became a babalawo, he could never initiate someone to another orisha, even if he himself was initiated to another orisha. For example, a babalawo who was initiated to the orisha Obatala before initiating as a babalawo would never be permitted to initiate anyone except to the orisha Orunmila. The role of If in Lucum has been highly contested throughout the traditions history and is still a hotly debated topic among practitioners. My own initiation inadvertently served as a space of contention as my godmother invited three babalawos to participate in my initiation ceremony, much to the frustration of those initiates present who prefer not to have, or do not understand the purpose of, babalawos at Orisha initiations. Joseph Murphy (1981) offers an explanation for the view of the babalawo as an authority of Orisha worship:
25
Knowledge of the Yoruba culture and the cults to the orisha relied on the most centralized and portable repository of Yoruba history and culture: the odu of the If oracle. These odu were deep in the memory of the babalawos who, with princes and peasants, were carried in the holds of the ships of the Middle Passage. Santera was generated from these odu and the babalawo priesthood assumer authority in a condensed system of cult to the orichas.32 It is upon ifa, then, that the ceremonial structure of Santera rests. 33 However, not all practitioners hold this view. David Brown notes the division between Orisha-centric houses and If-centric houses and the fact that though babalawos possessed great knowledge of Lucum myth and ritual, they did not, and could not, do everything. Babalawos could not make (initiate) priests of the cults of the orichas of the Lucum pantheon, and they could not divine with the orichas own mouths, the cowrie shells through which the orichas speak34 David Brown gives a longer history of the power struggle between babalawos and olorias,35describing the key players and ideologies that have fueled this war.36 What I am more interested in is the fact that in Lucum, If is indeed male-dominated (only males can become If priests) while, in much of the literature on Santera, Orisha worship is considered to be female-normative. How is it that If is masculinized and Orisha is feminized? Is this a natural function of these two systems that originated in Yorubaland in West Africa, acting as a model for the ideal of gender balance? Or is it a New World creation, carved out of the immediate concerns and struggles of enslaved Africans?
32 33
Orichas is the Latino version of the spelling of the word orishas. Murphy, 227-28. 34 Brown, 149 35 Olorisa means owner of orisha in Yorb and is used to describe any orisha initiate. 36 Brown, 143-157.

In his article Is There Gender in Yoruba Culture?37 J. Lorand Matory asserts that, despite much debate over the idea38, the idea of gender indeed exists in pre-colonial
26
Yorubaland, the birthplace of the Yoruba people. Matory explains that gender is not a theory or a general premise about how everything in all societies works at all times. Rather, it is the descriptive rubric for an aspect of society that is, the learned ways in which reproductive roles are assigned and meaningfully interpreted an aspect of society that was once assumed to be merely natural (517). Therefore, if the Yoruba assigned meaning and social roles to reproductive roles, they indeed had gender, though gender could be imagined very differently than it is imagined in the West. Matory expounds on both language and iconography to drive home his point, and I can agree, even with my limited knowledge of Yoruba history and language, that ideas of gender seem to exist in ancient Yoruba thought and are embedded in ancient odus of the Odu If39. The orishas themselves display an incredible array of gender role diversity. For example, the orisha Obatala, the orisha of fatherhood, actually has both male and female manifestations. Obatala is the one orisha who can, as a parent to an initiate, can be both a mother and a father. (I know a priestess who is a double Obatala;; Obatala is both her mother and father.) Yemoja, the great mother who rules over the oceans, is depicted as a fiercely protective mother who, in her manifestation of Yemoja Okoto, carries a dagger in her mouth and rules over naval battles. Oya, the orisha of the wind and of the dead, is a queen as well as a warrior who accompanies
37 38
Matory ,2008 See Oyeronke Oyewumis book The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. Minneapolis: MN: University of Minnesota Press ,1997 39 Odu If refers to the sacred oracle of the If divination system and is the basis for all divination in traditional Yorb and Cuban Santera.

her husband Shango into battle. Oshun, the orisha of the rivers who represents female
27
sensuality, is often depicted as a beautiful and delicate woman, but in some of her aspects, she is so warlike that she wears a beard. The acceptance of varied gender expression and the rejection of the idea that femininity equates to passivity allows for female practitioners of Lucum to express strong, assertive, and even aggressive traits rather openly. Understanding that the orisha that owns ones head may or may not align with ones physical and biological sex also contributes to this complexity and, according to a Yoruba understanding of destiny that is found within Lucum, one chose which orisha would own ones head before one was born; therefore, a male being owned by a female orisha and vice-versa is anything but accidental or arbitrary. This flexibility, then, also allows for males to demonstrate what typically would be considered feminine traits. However, there are some aspects of Lucum tradition where gender roles and expressions are rather rigid. For instance, women are always expected to wear skirts in ceremony, even personal divination sessions, while men, not oddly enough, are expected to wear pants. This is the case even when initiates are initiated to orisha that are their gender opposite. Even when entering the home of an initiate priest or priestess, if a woman wants to salute the orisha shrine, one must be wear a skirt or wrap something around her waist to simulate a skirt. When asked why this is the case, many practitioners simply reply that when women do not wear skirts, it is an offense to the orishas (accept in the case of the orisha Osain, the orisha of medicinal herbs, who does not like women and would prefer for women not to wear skirts). When pointing out that the ancient Yoruba probably did not have skirts in the same way that we currently have skirts, I was simply told that what is most important is to
28
follow tradition. When I asked an African-American babalawo why women need to wear skirts in the tradition, it was explained that it is important to honor the gender norms of the body one chose to be born into. However, it is relatively easy to discern that, though destiny is appealed to, the argument still largely rests on culture, as gender norms are not natural but only exist within culture. In her book Where Men are Wives and Mothers Rule: Santera Ritual Practices and Their Gender Implications, Mary Ann Clark asserts that Santera is a female-normative tradition. She begins by stating: Much philosophical thinking assumes what is known as the normative male perspective. Not only are the major thinkers across traditions men, but the descriptions of both the gods and human beings imply that maleness is the base case that is, the gods and the people incorporated into the philosophical thinking are presumed to be male unless they are specifically identified otherwise.40 She then continues by saying, just as the manly woman formed the ideal of Christian female saintliness, qualities associated with being female form the idea of Santera religious practice for both men and women.41 Though Clark does provide analysis that shows that Santera can and does empower women in ways that other Western traditions (perhaps Catholicism as the spiritual tradition that many santeros and santeras also adhere to) do not, I find her conclusion that Santera is a female-normative tradition to be over-reaching to the point that she either disregards very obvious examples of male privilege or diminishes the struggles that female practitioners who are currently challenging male privilege in the tradition endure.
40 41
Clark, 2 Ibid, 22

For instance, very early in her text, Clark says:
29
With a couple of exceptions, all ritual roles are equally open to both men and women The best known exceptions are the divination specialists known as babalawo and the sacred drummers. Both manipulate sacred objects that are understood to be female entities that do not want to be seen (in the case of the odu of the babalawo) or touched (in the case of Aa, the spirit inhabiting the sacred drum) by women. However, there are American women in training for both of these positions. A female divination priesthood, whose priests are called either iyalawo (mother of secrets) or iyanif (mother of If), parallel to the babalawo is becoming institutionalized in some religious communities.42 Clark does not call into question the understanding of sacred objects that do not want to be seen or touched by women. Could these very ideas have been created and reproduced to ensure that women are barred from certain positions? Chief Fama, a Nigerian born iyanif has been at the forefront of the movement to accept the position of iyanifa into Orisha practice in the United States. While she does uphold the understanding that the orisha Odu does not want to be viewed by women (women already have odu, just as my godmother told me), Chief Fama insists that viewing Odu is not a necessity for becoming a babalawo and thus cannot be used as an argument against allowing women to fully initiate as priests of Orunmila.43 How did such a belief develop, then? From the literature and recorded Lucum history, it is rather difficult to pinpoint exactly when such a concept and practice developed. Clark suggests that when Yoruba practice was first transported to Cuba via the slave trade the first practitioners were Orisha initiates and, once babalawos started arriving in Cuba they were met by a thriving Orisha religious community. Although that community welcomed them, the cult of Orunmila was
42 43
Ibid, 27 Fama, 24.

incompletely integrated into the new united Orisha tradition.44 This suggestion is quite
30
probable, especially considering that If worship and the presence of babalawos is almost nonexistent in Candomble, the Orisha tradition in Brazil. It seems that babalawos were the latecomers of diasporic Orisha worship and thus had to create an indispensable, exalted position for themselves. It was Orisha communities in Cuba that created the position of the oriat, or ritual specialist who presided over Orisha ceremonies, and most of the earliest oriats were women, which could have led to the male-only rule of the cult of If in order for them to carve a unique space in an already-established community. Whatever the reason for the male-only rule in If practice, it is clear that this practice is a disruption, rather than a continuation, of traditional Yoruba practice. In fact, a Nigerian babalawo and good friend of mine told me at one point, Lucum babalawos are scared of women. They neither appreciate nor understand womens energy. This is why they try to control it. This is why they say that only men can initiate to If. This is why they rob the women, only giving them two ikin. 45 He also explained to me that in Africa, while If and Orisha worship are different, they are not separate systems as they are in the West and that, though he is a babalawo, he can still initiate people to the orishas that he is initiated too and does not understand the idea that babalawos cannot initiate people into Orisha priesthoods, which is a Lucum restriction. Not only does Clark not seriously reflect on the presence of female prohibitions in If, she also does not mention the harsh treatment women often endure when challenging these views, with women often leaving Santera practice for more traditional Yoruba communities
44 45
Clark, 68 Ikin are the nuts that are used during If divination. In Lucum practice, men received at least 16 ikin when they receive the Hand of If. Women receive 2.
31
where the role of Iyanif is accepted. Many Santera practitioners in my personal community will not even discuss the possibility of a role of Iyanif or view it as a newly created role in response to the feminist movement. I personally think its something people have made up, you know, since that white woman did it *initiated as an Iyanifa+, one of my older godbrothers, a Latino, remarked. 46 One of the babalawos I know well, who frequents Nigeria quite often to study with his godfather, says that the Iyanifa role exists in Nigeria, yet not in his particular religious lineage. Some lineages accept it, others dont, he explained. I think its fine for women to do it, but I guess some dont have the time, with raising children and all. Interestingly enough, in some parts of Nigeria, even though women can become iyanifas, they cannot always divine while all babalawos divine. I have learned from a seasoned Latino babalawo that the role of apetebi in Lucum has changed dramatically over the years. It used to much more involved, he explained. There were some women who were better diviners than their husbands who were babalawos. I knew one babalawo who would stare at the board like an idiot and would have to call his wife in to help him read the letters. But nowthe apetebis know nothing. Its very embarrassing. Its almost like they are glorified waitresses. 47 Glorified waitresses is actually a very accurate description. I have personally observed that, whenever babalawos are in the room, the expectation is that women should wait on them. I honestly have no aversion to waiting on people, particularly my elders who are
46
Reference to Patri Dhaifa, a white, Jewish woman who was the first American woman to be initiated as an Iyanifa. 47 The Opon If, the board on which babalawos divine. The letters refer to the odus that are inscribed on the Opon If.

providing the type of service that babalawos provide. I have a babalawo who comes to my
32
home to perform divinations for people, or to just socialize, and I always provide food and drink (which I know is one reason he likes to visit as often as he does). However, each time he visits, I learn something new about the tradition and so I consider it to be a fair exchange. But I have literally watched apetebis run around the kitchen to serve the babalawos and, once the babalawos are seated and served, the women sit or stand in another room away from the men and eat apart from them Recently, my godsister Diane became an apetebi and she observed similar dynamics during her ceremony. What offended her most was that one of the male initiates, who had just undergone the same ceremony she had, sat at the table for dinner with the babalawos. Shocked, she mentioned her discomfort to the other women present, and they all agreed that it was not right for a new initiate to sit with the babalawos. Her frustration increased when she realized her knew close to nothing about the tradition. He didnt even know who Yemoja was. When I mentioned her, he asked, Yum Yum? Who is Yum Yum? So what qualifies him to sit and eat with the babalawos, especially when there were apetebis present that just assisted in his initiation? It can only be that hes male. My godsister was the only African-American female present. Most of the women were Latina, with one white woman and a Black woman from Trinidad. Diane remarked that the Latinas felt that the way the men were being pampered at the table was more reflective of Latino culture than it was the actual tradition. I told them that we *Black people+ dont do that. We tend to separate children and adults, with the adults at the big table. Men dont get a special status just because theyre men.
33
While my godsister may be grossly generalizing as she speaks for all Black people, I have to mention here that, as a Black woman, while I have seen women do more of the cooking and serving during large holiday gatherings, the women always ate at the table with the men, while the children had a smaller, separate table. This is just one example of the contention that often exists within the Lucum tradition with the flattening of Latino culture with the actual practices of the Lucum tradition. Clark also oversimplifies the participation of women in animal sacrificing. Although both men and women priests are entitled to sacrifice the birds and other small animals classified as feathers and both men and women can receive the initiation known as cuchillo (Sp., knife) entitling them to use a knife to sacrifice the larger animals, premenopausal women generally do not use a knife in sacrificial rituals at all and postmenopausal do not perform such sacrifices if a qualified male is available. 48 This isnt quite the case. There are some members of the Santera community who believe women do not have the right to sacrifice animals at all. One of my godbrothers, a Latino priest of the orisha of the volcano, Aganju, once said to me, This is not a feminist religion. You need to know. Women cant feed four legs.49 Women cant feed feathers. Some priests believe that the orishas will not accept any sacrifice that is made by a woman. A Latino babalawo explained to me once that the prohibition of women sacrificing animals comes from the idea that it is dangerous for women to sacrifice while menstruating. Thats just too much blood. Blood is a hot element. So if a woman sacrifices while she is bleeding. . . thats just too much heat and it causes an imbalance. So people just say, Women
48 49
Clark, 27. Four legs refers to four-legged animals that are sacrificed for the orishas, like goats.

cant sacrifice so that we dont risk the chance that a woman will sacrifice during the time when she shouldnt.
34
In Matorys earlier work Sex and the Empire That Is No More: Gender and the Politics of Metaphor in Oyo Yoruba Religion, he gives a rather extensive overview of the history and politics that shaped the development of the Yoruba traditions spiritual beliefs and practices. Most relevant to this paper is his research on the worship of the orisha Shango. Shango, the orisha of thunder and lightning, is a deified king of Oyo who historically had mostly female followers. According to Matory, Shango was considered to be a possessing God and his physical incarnations association with conquest by horse is responsible for much of the vernacular concerning possession, where the spirit mounts the possessed and the possessed becomes the spirits horse. Such parlance regarding possession is used even today within Lucum, for possession of both the orishas and the ancestors. Even Shangos male initiates had the potential to become horses and thus were called iyaws, or wives, of Shango. During the time when the Oyo kingdom flourished, where worship of Shango was central, male initiates donned female hairstyles, clothing, and jewelry, solidifying their relationship to Shango as his wives. For her part, Clark spends a significant amount of time expounding on the use of the term iyawo among Santera practitioners: When we look at the terms to describe priests, we notice that initiates at all levels are given the title iyawo during the time of their initiation. Iyawo does not, as one might expect, mean novice or initiate; rather, it is a common Yoruba term meaning wife, younger than the speaker. This implies that every initiate is gendered female during the duration of the initiation event. 50 She further explains:
50
Clark, 26
35
Not only is the initiate, regardless of anatomical sex, placed in the position of new wife relative to his Orisha; he is also subordinate to all of those who have gone before him into the service of the Orisha. In terms of power and authority, all priests are female relative to the Orisha51 In contradistinction to other religions and forms, which require anatomical females to renounce their feminine nature in order to gain religious and spiritual status, within the Orisha-worshipping community men must take on femaleidentified roles in order to become priests and raise their statusThus, taking on a wifely gender designation increases rather than decreases a mans prestige. 52 While Clark is correct in her understanding of the term iyawo I think she is overstating the supposed female-normativity of Santera, especially when she says, Santera is a not an egalitarian religion; rather, all relationships are based on a system of spiritual age-grading that is independent of gender, physical age, or other characteristics.53 Certainly, spiritual age is a very important component of identity in Santera. In any mixed gathering where not everyone knows one another, people will ask, How old are you? and they are usually not asking about chronological age; they are asking, How many years have you been initiated? However, that does not mean that all relationships among practitioners are based on years of initiation, or spiritual age. Physical age is also important and, depending on the ceremony, an older person may receive a special honor or privilege even if he or she is not initiated. Iyawo does indeed mean wife, but I have found that being married to the orisha is not the primary focus of the iyawo status. When I was an iyawo, no one said to me that I was a wife of Oshun. What I heard time and time again, from my godmother, my godfather, and other elder priests was that I was a baby. All of the various taboos and rules for iyawos wearing white for a year, eating with a spoon, not getting caught in the rain, etc. were
51 52
Ibid, 43 Ibid, 44 53 Ibid, 45
36
explained as being necessary because I was a baby; my energy field was very open because of the initiation ceremony, and I needed to be protected. This explanation of being a baby as opposed to a wife is far more widespread, from my experience; not just as an iyawo but also as an elder (I am still quite young but I have already initiated someone, thus I have an iyawo) priestess who has witnessed instructions given to other iyawos. So while Clark is correct in her definition of the word iyawo, I would hesitate to rest an argument of the female-normativity of Santera on the definition of the word when it is not the definition that is emphasized by the community. While I do find Clarks analysis of the role of the iyawo in traditional Yoruba society as a woman who loses status but gains status because of her husband (in the case of Santera, the orishas would be husbands regardless of gender), one of the dangers of labeling Santera as female-normative is that the sexism and male privilege that does exist in the tradition gets ignored. More analysis of male privilege and sexism will be discussed in the next section of this paper.
Sexual Identity in Santera

If straight people knew just how many gay people were in this tradition, my godbrother, a Latino priest and a gay man says to me and other practitioners as we sit and chat after a ceremony, they probably wouldnt want to have anything to do with this tradition.

In his book Queering Creole Spiritual Traditions, Randy Conner highlights the
37
participation of lesbian, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders in African-inspired traditions in the Americas. He connects cosmology with practice, as I do with the construction of gender roles, claiming that the orishas display a variety of sexual practices in their various manifestations. Elegba, for instance, sometimes disapproves of homosexuality and may reject gay men as initiates. On other occasions, however, he appears to accept expressions of sexual and gender complexity.54 Obatala is an androgynous deity, or a motherly father.55 Ogun doesnt like gays too much and Shango is hostile toward transgender, gay, and bisexual males while also linked to homosexuality and has an effeminate road *aspect+.56 Yemja, in her warrior aspect. is linked to transgender female-born persons and to bisexual and lesbian women,57 Oshun is a woman in love with women58 and Oya is a patron of gay and bisexual men and perhaps also of transgender male-to female persons.59 As a practitioner, I must say that I have not heard of these different examples of sexual fluidity among the orishas, though this does not mean that they do not exist. In the Lucum community of which I am a part, homosexuality and bisexuality is accepted but not because of a belief that the orishas are sexually fluid, but because, as reincarnated souls, we should expect that some people will reincarnate with sexual desires that are not considered normal because their soul may be more male or female, despite the physical body. This fluidity of belief,
54 55
Ibid, 65 Ibid, 68 56 Ibid, 70 57 Ibid, 72 58 Ibid, 73 59 Ibid, 75
38
coupled with the understanding that a male can be claimed by a female orisha, and vice-versa, leaves room for the acceptance of variance in sexual expression. However, bias still remains. For some practitioners, gay men are automatically feminine and lesbians are automatically masculine, no matter if their behaviors and mannerisms fit into the commonly held ideas of masculinity and femininity. For example, one practitioner I know received a divination from babalawos and was told that she should not undergo the initiation ceremony with her current godfather because of his sexuality. The babalawo told her she needed to initiate through a masculine man. She was confused by his statement. What makes them think my godfather is not masculine? Because he is gay? He is not girly; many people do not know he is gay until he tells them.
Sometimes assumptions are made about a persons sexuality because of the orisha that owns their head. An African-American priestess of Oya that I know has a teenage son who is initiated to the orisha Oshun. She said that when he found out Oshun owned his head, he wondered if he no longer liked girls, to which my gay godbrother responded, Hes not gay or he would not be concerned about liking girls! Still, he insisted that his mother take his question seriously. She had to intentionally point out the straight male Oshun priests in the Santera community, noting that it was hard because most of them are gay. Her son was still not satisfied until she introduced him to a straight, Black initiate of Oshun. He was just so scared at first and I can understand why; Oshun represents female sensuality so what does that mean when a man initiates to her?

Interestingly, the very concept that allows for sexual fluidity, the understanding that
39
males can initiate to female orishas and vice-versa, with spirit possession by a being that is of a different gender a very real possibility, nonetheless maintains rigid ideas about sexuality. Recently, a friend of mine who has been a priest for over thirty years told me about a time when he and his sister, a priest of over forty years, went to a Lucum celebration and there was a gay male priest of the orisha Aganju, the very masculine orisha of the volcano. When I got there and saw this gay Aganju, I knew I needed to warn my sister. So I go out on the porch to call her and she is actually driving down the street already. I tell her, Theres a gay Aganju here. She says, A gay Aganju? Shit! Hell no! Im going home! I had to convince her to stay. Confused, because I know neither this priest nor his sister dislike gay people, I ask, So what was the problem? He explained, Back in the day, when I was first initiated, a gay man would not be initiated to Aganju. If he was gay and he was marked as a child of Aganju, he would be initiated to Obatala, you know, because he is male but he is not rough like Aganju. The idea that a feminine man could be initiated to Aganju was considered to be an imbalance. About that, I had two questions: What if he was gay, but not feminine? And why would a gay, feminine man initiating to Aganju not be considered a restoration of balance? He responded, Well, all gay men are considered feminine, no matter if they arent really that feminine, you know? Because they like men, they are feminine just like women who like men. But I dont know why it would not be considered a restoration of balance to initiate a gay man to Aganju or Ogun or Shango or the manly orishas. Its common now but everyone thought it was very strange back then.

This conversation caused me to better understand my own orisha lineage. With the
40
ancestors featuring centrally, it is important for practitioners to remember both ones biological and spiritual lineage. In giving the names of the priests who came before me, my godmother told me the story of a woman named Ibu Illari from Cuba, who was one of the earliest initiates of my orisha lineage. She was marked to initiate to Shango. But she was lesbian and they felt that Shango would be to masculine for her. So to soften her, they crowned her to Oshun. How someone can decide to initiate a person to an orisha other than the one marked in divination is beyond me. But thats what happened to her. Meant to be a priest of Shango, she was initiated to Oshun. Considering these two examples, a safe assumption, with more examples of course, is that gay men cannot be hardened by initiating to a masculine orisha and must instead initiate to a softer orisha so as to maintain balance while lesbians can be hardened by initiating to a masculine orisha and must initiate to a softer orisha to maintain balance. So balance is the goal but how one achieves this balance is determined by both the biological sex and the sexual orientation of the potential initiate. If the assumption is that women are naturally soft so that a woman who is naturally more hard should not initiate to a hard orisha, then shouldnt a man, who by his nature is hard, but who happens to be more soft, initiate to a hard orisa? If this was the case, both soft males and hard females would initiate to orishas that epitomize what the potential initiates should be according to their biological nature. And for the lesbian Ibu Illari, this is what occurred. But for the gay male Aganjus, Oguns, or Shangos, they initiated to the orishas that relate more to their sexual preference (or

rather ideas about their sexual preference) and their social label as soft men, not their biological nature.
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The assumption behind this disjuncture seems to be the idea that a man who wants to express himself in a feminine way is more acceptable than a woman who wants to present herself in a masculine way (which could support Clarks idea of Santera female-normativity). Recently, I met a friend of one of my goddaughters who is a pre-op FTM (female-to-male) and currently refers to himself as he. My goddaughter explained that he is interested in the religion but is concerned that he would have to wear a skirt and refer to himself as she in order to be accepted. When she asked how transsexual people are treated in the tradition, I told her that it seemed a bit mixed. I have been to one drumming ceremony where a female priestess of Oya, who was obviously a post-op MTF, was treated as an equal. The orishas who possessed the bodies of priests and priestesses in the room seemed to have no comment on her transexuality, just as they never make comment on homosexuals. However, on one occasion, I was in the presence of four priests who were debating about the appropriate rules of transsexual initiations. One priest had a godchild, a MTF who was marked for Yemoja, and he wanted to initiate this person as a female. Thats how she sees herself, so why not? he rationalized. One of the priests, an oriat, responded, If he was born with a wee-wee, hes male. Biologically, hes male. DNA wise, hes got an X and a Y chromosome, so he is male. He then explained that he would feel very uncomfortable referring to a male as a female during the initiation ceremony and during the iyawo year but would have no issues with using the preferred gender pronoun after the year, because in that ocha room and in the iyawo year, you are to accept how you are born. The other two priests were split down the middle, one
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agreeing with the first priest and one agreeing with the second. (I was actually an iyawo at this time and it is not considered appropriate to chime in on these matters during this period.) When I asked a babalawo what he thought about this FTM friend of my (and his) goddaughter, he said, You know, Iya, it would be simpler if this were a man wanting to be recognized as a female. No one cares as much. But a woman wanting to be a man. . .no, no one really likes that. I had to ask myself whether or not a lesbian like Ibu Illari who was considered hard and was meant to a priest of Shango, would be forbidden to be a priest of Shango because she was interpreted as wanting to be a man, a greater taboo than a man wanting to be recognized as female like a gay male Aganju. But is it possible that a gay male Aganju, with his soft nature is also being interpreted as a woman wanting to be a man, which is why initiation to the manly Aganju was (and still is, for some) forbidden? When asked this question directly, no one seems to have a clear response. I hesitate making definite statements without researching more cases of gays and lesbians being initiated to different orishas than the ones for which they were marked, but it seems to me that masculinity, and what it implies, is considered a distinctive social category not available to those not born biologically male or those biological males who, because of their sexuality, are viewed as feminine. Femininity, however, is a capacious category to which biological females, even hard ones, and feminine males are resigned. This, again, could support Clarks notion of Santera as a female-normative tradition but, instead of simply celebrating this as an example of female-empowerment, I question the idea of masculinity as a unique category that needs to be protected and view this as being much more problematic than she does. This seems, too, to be the reason why gay

men are forbidden from full initiation into If; these men are not real men. They are feminine and are thus placed into the female category. For many practitioners, though there is fluidity of acceptance of various sexual
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preferences, destiny plays a key role within the understanding of sexuality, regardless of the individual practitioners orientation or feelings. For instance, one practitioner I know who is not yet initiated was told during a reading that though she identifies as queer, the odu that came on the board for her indicates that she needs to be the epitome of traditional ways, and this includes her sexual practices. The babalawos basically told me I shouldnt be gay, she explained. One of them explained that in traditional Yorubaland, sex was only between men and women, missionary style. And thats what I have to do as well, no matter my attractions. When I asked how she felt about that, she replied, Im okay because I know the orishas know best. When I asked a gay priest of Obatala what he thought about her reading, he responded, Thats bullshit. How can we even know how people in traditional Yorubaland had sex? Oh so everybody was just getting it in missionary style, no variations? Its stupid to think everyone in one society had sex the same way. One African-American babalawo I know who lives in the South believes that, contrary to the acceptance of LGBT people in the Orisha community in the United States, the orishas are deeply offended. While Randy Conner says in his book that some of the orishas are offended by homosexuality, mainly the very masculine ones, this babalawo insists that all orishas are offended by such a practice. 60 All this gay shit is not what the orishas are about. They are about family, men and women marrying and reproducing. Not men sleeping with men and
60
Conner, 70

women sleeping with women. The African babalawo I know agrees, saying that gay priests and priestesses in Africa are disowned by the community or, at best, no one takes them seriously and would not seek out their services.
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If, the priesthood of Orunmila, is currently as resistant to gays as they are to women. Gay babalawos are extremely taboo, though some babalawos suspect some men suppress their homosexuality to become babalawos. The idea is that the household of a babalawo needs to mimic the relationship between Orunmila and Odu, a babalawo explained. So the babalawo needs to marry a feminine person who symbolizes Odu, a Yoruba word for womb. When I pointed out that some babalawos arent married, he explained that any man who aspires to be a babalawo will marry because marriage completes the role of babalawo. Many within the Lucum resent the ban of gays and women into If. I think it has less to do with Odu than with Cuban machismo, one African-American priestess complained. They just dont want women to have power. And of course they just cant accept gay men. If is a cult of testosterone, all those men wanting to be served by everyone else and being flirtatious with all the women. Just an excuse for bad behavior if you ask me. Two other women I know who identify as lesbian were both told through If divination that they should not be with women. One was told that her greatest lessons in life would come from being married to a babalawo while the other was told she was going to have many children and so being with a male would make that task easier. Both women are unsure as how to proceed. Its all about free will. Even the babalawo said that I do not have to marry a babalawo if I do not want to, but just understand my life would be better if I did.

Conclusion
The purpose of this paper was to elucidate how gender and sexuality is conceived of and
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worked out by Santera practitioners. In conclusion, while there are still many questions to be answered, I think this current study adds vitality to the of discussion of gender and sexuality in Santera particularly in comparing how views gender and, especially sexuality, have changed in the relatively short time that Santera has been in the United States. One area I touched on just slightly in this paper that I will continue to look at is how race plays a part in the Santera community. Just as there has been tension between If and Orisha worshippers there has been tension between Latino and African-American practitioners, for a variety of reasons, but mainly because African-Americans are accused of disrespecting the Lucum tradition by incorporating more traditional African rituals and customs. My future research will look further into this aspect of identity politics in Santera as well continuing to look at sexuality and gender, particularly focusing on the women and men who are actively resisting sexism and male dominance in Santera, both in the Orisha and If worship, the possibility that some of the roles and rules of initiation are meant to protect masculinity, as well as how Shango and Ogun have shifted within the imaginaries of Lukumi practitioners as compared to the native Yoruba imaginations of these two popular orishas.

Works Cited
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Alexander, Jacqui. Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory and the Sacred. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005. Brown, David. Santera Enthroned: Art, Ritual, and Innovation in an Afro-Cuban Religion. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Canizares, Raul. Cuban Santera: Walking with the Night. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books. 1993. Clark, Mary Ann. Where Men are Wives and Mothers Rule. Gainsville, FL: The University of Florida Press, 2005. Correal, Tobe Melora. Finding Soul on the Path of Orisha. Berkeley, CA: The Crossing Press, 2003. Adwl-Somadhi, Fama. Fundamentals of the Yoruba Religion: Orisha Worship. San Bernardino, CA: Il Orunmila Communications, 1993. Matory, James. Sex and the Empire that is No More: Gender and the Politics of Metaphor in Oyo Yoruba Religion. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. ----- Is There Gender in Yoruba Culture? Orisha Devotion as World Religion: The Globalization of Yoruba Religious Culture. Olupona, Jacob K. and Terry Rey, eds. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. Murphy, Joseph. Ritual Systems in Cuban Santera. Philadelphia, PA: PhD Dissertation Temple University, 1981.

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MLA Program

Identity Politics in Santeria

Darasia Selby April 9, 2012

Darasia Selby Spring 2012

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Diloggun refers to a specific divination involving sixteen cowrie shells.

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Canizares, 24 25. Brown, 62.

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Santera as a Lived Tradition

Called aleyo by most Santera practitioners.

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Ibid, 27 Fama, 24.

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Ibid, 43 Ibid, 44 53 Ibid, 45

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Sexual Identity in Santera

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Ibid, 65 Ibid, 68 56 Ibid, 70 57 Ibid, 72 58 Ibid, 73 59 Ibid, 75

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