Santería / Lucumí

Tradition·Founded 1800 CE·several million worldwide

Yoruba Religion → Santería / Lucumí

Branch

Core Tenets

3 — a sample of the center, never the sum All 3 →
The shared center — held across the tradition
The saints' faces kept the orisha alive. Syncretism was strategy: Santa Barbara's feast fed Shango for centuries. The masks can now come off, and often do. Go deeper — context →
Initiation makes the priesthood. The orisha is seated in the head (kariocha); lineage godparents carry the ashe forward — no self-made santeros. Go deeper — context →
The egun come first. No orisha is greeted before the ancestors — the dead of the lineage open every ceremony. Go deeper — context →

Cosmos & Afterlife

how reality is built, and what follows death
After death

The dead are tended; the ancestors (egun) come first in every rite

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