Caribbean

Because of strong European colonial and missionary influence, the predominant form of religion in the islands of the Caribbean Ocean is Christianity. During the period of slavery, the British imparted their Protestant culture and the French and Spanish, their Catholic forms of worship to the enslaved [Page 186]Africans who had been brought to the islands. Over time, Christianity was combined with the Amerindian and African elements through a process known as syncretism. Although there is debate about whether such syncretism produced new forms of religious creations or simply a grafting of European elements onto African practices, it is evident that all three world cultural complexes are present: Amerindian, African, and European. Both views have merit; historically, religion played a revolutionary role in combating slavery and helping the former colonies resist the cultural dominance of Europe. And yet, since each nation was essentially cut off from Africa, over time, people formed uniquely indigenous forms of spirituality that incorporate European ideas.

The best known of these Caribbean syncretist movements are Rastafarianism (Jamaica), Santería (Cuba and Dominican Republic), and Vodou (Haiti and Dominican Republic). Each of these has a history of tenuous relationship with the state and native elites. Each is frequently misunderstood by outsiders but increasingly appealing to a multicultural world, and each borrows heavily from Christianity.

In the Rastafarian religion, Christianity is reinterpreted to support a pro-Black ideology. During the mid-18th century, Baptist and Methodist missionaries brought Christian messianic beliefs to Jamaica, and later, Marcus Garvey brought his Pan-Africanist philosophy to the island. These worldviews melded to form a common identity of Blackness and resistance among an oppressed people. Thus, the ferment was laid for the Rastafarian movement among Black workers in the 1930s. Its goal of the liberation of the oppressed meant cultural opposition to those European beliefs, shared by Whites and middle-class Jamaicans, that vilified Blackness. Hence, the adoption of dreadlocks and beards, the smoking of marijuana during ritual circle celebrations known as “reasonings” or binghi, the distinctive style of Rasta drumming, and the symbolic red, green, and gold colors of the Rastafarian flag—all done out of an aesthetic defiance and with a prophetic sense of destiny. Today, the influence of Rastafarianism has declined sharply as its symbols and rituals have become trendy and adopted by the multiculturally minded all over the world. Still, the faith enjoys significant influence at home and has the distinction of having helped elite Jamaicans rediscover their African heritage.

Beginning in Cuba in the late 16th century, Santería was started by slaves to disguise their forbidden worship of African gods. Slaves baptized by Spanish imperialists were disallowed the practice of the ancestral religion; in response, slaves appropriated the names of Catholic saints for each of their African gods. This subterfuge allowed them to safely worship by speaking in the “code” of Santería or “the way of the saints.”

Santería has been influenced mostly by slaves from the Yoruba region of Nigeria, who worship up to 500 different intercessory spirits called orishas. In Cuba, however, only 16 such orishas are recognized, together known as the Lucumí. The religion holds that every person is born under a different orisha's protection and guidance, and in return, the orisha must be worshipped throughout one's life. To communicate with an orisha requires the practice of divination, in which priests or priestesses tell the inquirer who their orisha is and what it demands. Ceremonies (bembes) are often held to invoke the orishas who then possess their host and participate in the celebration, leaving the host with no memory of the possession.

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