The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #138380   Message #3171776
Posted By: Azizi
16-Jun-11 - 10:01 PM
Thread Name: ADD: Songs from Trinidad
Subject: RE: ADD: Songs from Trinidad
Here's that hyperlink:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santer%C3%ADa

Here's another quote from an online page about the syncretism of African religions and Catholicism:

In hiding their animistic religion behind Catholicism, enslaved Yorubans identified Olodumare with the Christian God and hid each orisha behind one or more Catholic saints. They associated the trickster Eleugga with either St. Anthony of Padua, St. Martin de Porres, or St. Michael the Archangel. Sometimes the association was made based on a perceived "common trait" of both the saint and the orisha. So Obatala was associated with Our Lady of Mercy, because she wears white, which is Obatala's color. The thunder-spirit Chango was associated with St. Barbara, a saint commonly believed to protect people from lightning. Yemaya was associated with Our Lady of Regla (a Cuban Madonna who protects sailors), Ochun with Our Lady of Charity (possibly because charity means "love"), Babalu-aye with St. Lazarus (portrayed as a sick man on crutches) and Ogun with St. John the Baptizer (who lived in the wilderness) or with St. Peter the Apostle.

These associations were made in Cuba, so they exist only among Cubans. The Yoruba in Africa do not recognize these Catholic saints, and although Santeria's sister religions worship some of the same spirits, they tend to associate them with different saints. (For instance, the Haitian equivalent of Eleugga is called Legba, and is associated with St. Peter the Apostle.) Also, a particular saint may be associated with one spirit in one religion and a totally different one in another. "

http://home.earthlink.net/~mysticalrose/pagan9.html