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• Foreword: The forest as moral document / John F. Szwed and Robert F. Thompson
• Introduction / Isabel Castellanos
• Translator's notes / David Font-Navarrete
• El Monte
• Bilongo
• Oluwa Ewe
• Tribute to the owner of El Monte
• How to prepare a Nganga
• The magical and medicinal treasure of Tata Nfindo
• The Ceiba
• Ukano Bekonsi
• The Royal Palm
• Ukano Mambre
• Botanical encyclopedia (Aba-Zarzaparrilla).

"First published in Cuba in 1954 and appearing here in English for the first time, Lydia Cabrera's El Monte is a foundational and iconic study of Afro-Cuban religious and cultural traditions. Drawing on conversations with elderly Afro-Cuban priests who were one or two generations away from the transatlantic slave trade, Cabrera combines ethnography, history, folklore, literature, and botany to provide a panoramic account of the multifaceted influence of Afro-Atlantic cultures in Cuba. Cabrera details the natural and spiritual landscape of the Cuban monte (forest, wilderness) and discusses hundreds of herbs and the constellations of deities, sacred rights, and knowledge that envelop them. The result is a complex spiritual and medicinal architecture of Afro-Cuban cultures. This new edition of what is often referred to as "the Santería bible" includes a new foreword, introduction, and translator notes. As a seminal work in the study of the African diaspora that has profoundly impacted numerous fields, Cabrera's magnum opus is essential for scholars, activists, and religious devotees of Afro-Cuban traditions alike"-- Provided by publisher.

• Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Enter the Igbodu 1 Part I. Vodou
• 1. Of Dreams and Night Mares: Vodou Women Queering the Body 27
• 2. Hector Hyppolite el Meme: Between Queer Fetishization and Vodou Self-Portraiture 49 Part II. Lucumi/Santeria
• 3. A Chronology of Queer Lucumi Scholarship: Degeneracy, Ambivalence, Transcorporeality 103
• 4. Lucumi Diasporic Ethnography: Fran, Cabrera, Lam 133 Part III. Candomble
• 5. Queer Candomble Scholarship and Dona Flor's S/Exua/lity 181
• 6. Transatlantic Waters of Oxala: Pierre Verger, Mario de Andrade, and Candomble in Europe 212 Conclusion: Transcripturality 251 Notes 255 References 261 Index 273.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In Queering Black Atlantic Religions Roberto Strongman examines Haitian Vodou, Cuban Lucumi/Santeria, and Brazilian Candomble to demonstrate how religious rituals of trance possession allow humans to understand themselves as embodiments of the divine. In these rituals, the commingling of humans and the divine produces gender identities that are independent of biological sex. As opposed to the Cartesian view of the spirit as locked within the body, the body in Afro-diasporic religions is an open receptacle. Showing how trance possession is a primary aspect of almost all Afro-diasporic cultural production, Strongman articulates transcorporeality as a black, trans-Atlantic understanding of the human psyche, soul, and gender as multiple, removable, and external to the body.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Con los ancestros en la espalda (...); Págiina legal; Índice; Agradecimientos; Prólogo; Parte 1; 1.1 Santos, santeros y santería; 1.2 Experiencias multisituadas, personas y creencias; 1.3 Lugares clave, espacios y contextos; 1.4 ¡Aquí parece Cuba!; 1.5 Organización del texto; Parte 2; 2.1 Cosas de negros; 2.2 Santería e Ifá; 2.3 Espiritismo; 2.4 Palo monte mayombe; Parte 3; 3.1 De esclavos a negros brujos; 3.2 Ajiaco criollo (...); 3.3 El navío transatlántico recorre América; Parte 4; 4.1 Revolución cubana; 4.2 Periodo especial; 4.3 Exilio sudamericano en Cuba

• 4.4 La santería en perspectiva internacionalParte 5; 5.1 Etnografía de la memoria (...); 5.2 "Carga los santos que nos vamos pa' Chile" (...); 5.3 El sistema religioso de la santería (...); 5.4 "Traficando orichas" (...); 5.4.1 Las tienditas; 5.4.2 El barrio Franklin; Parte 6; 6.1 "Cruzando fronteras" (...); 6.2 Instalando la comunidad fuera de casa: (...); 6.3 "Buscando aché", ; 6.4 "Gente de pollera" (...); 6.5 "La calle de las brujas" (...); 6.5.1 La tiendita de Chacho y la botánica de Pepe; 6.5.2 Mercados populares; Parte 7; 7
• .1. "Folé-owó" (...); 7.2 "Iború Iboyá Ibocheché" (...)

• 7.3 "El aché viene de Cuba" (...)Conclusión; Bibliografía

• Part I. Ordinary home cooking
• Part II. Kitchen work
• Part III. Kitchen talk
• Conclusion.

Honorable Mention, 2019 Barbara T. Christian Literary Award, given by the Caribbean Studies Association Winner, 2017 Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion, presented by the Society for the Anthropology of Religion section of the American Anthropological Association Finalist, 2017 Albert J. Raboteau Prize for the Best Book in Africana Religions presented by the Journal of Africana Religions An examination of the religious importance of food among Caribbean and Latin American communities Before honey can be offered to the Afro-Cuban deity Ochun, it must be tasted, to prove to her that it is good. In African-inspired religions throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, and the United States, such gestures instill the attitudes that turn participants into practitioners. Acquiring deep knowledge of the diets of the gods and ancestors constructs adherents' identities; to learn to fix the gods' favorite dishes is to be "seasoned" into their service. In this innovative work, Elizabeth Perez reveals how seemingly trivial "micropractices" such as the preparation of sacred foods, are complex rituals in their own right. Drawing on years of ethnographic research in Chicago among practitioners of Lucumi, the transnational tradition popularly known as Santeria, Perez focuses on the behind-the-scenes work of the primarily women and gay men responsible for feeding the gods. She reveals how cooking and talking around the kitchen table have played vital socializing roles in Black Atlantic religions. Entering the world of divine desires and the varied flavors that speak to them, this volume takes a fresh approach to the anthropology of religion. Its richly textured portrait of a predominantly African-American Lucumi community reconceptualizes race, gender, sexuality, and affect in the formation of religious identity, proposing that every religion coalesces and sustains itself through its own secret recipe of micropractices.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Cover; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Contents; List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part I. Ordinary Home Cooking;
• 1. Space, Time, and Ache;
• 2. Kitchen, Food, and Family; Part II. Kitchen Work;
• 3. Engendering Knowledge;
• 4. Gendering the Kitchen; Part III. Kitchen Talk;
• 5. Tasting Affliction;
• 6. Walking the Talk; Conclusion: Micropractices in Macrocosm; Notes; Glossary; Selected Bibliography; Index; About the Author.

Honorable Mention, 2019 Barbara T. Christian Literary Award, given by the Caribbean Studies Association Winner, 2017 Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion, presented by the Society for the Anthropology of Religion section of the American Anthropological Association Finalist, 2017 Albert J. Raboteau Prize for the Best Book in Africana Religions presented by the Journal of Africana Religions An examination of the religious importance of food among Caribbean and Latin American communities Before honey can be offered to the Afro-Cuban deity Ochun, it must be tasted, to prove to her that it is good. In African-inspired religions throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, and the United States, such gestures instill the attitudes that turn participants into practitioners. Acquiring deep knowledge of the diets of the gods and ancestors constructs adherents' identities; to learn to fix the gods' favorite dishes is to be "seasoned" into their service. In this innovative work, Elizabeth Perez reveals how seemingly trivial "micropractices" such as the preparation of sacred foods, are complex rituals in their own right. Drawing on years of ethnographic research in Chicago among practitioners of Lucumi, the transnational tradition popularly known as Santeria, Perez focuses on the behind-the-scenes work of the primarily women and gay men responsible for feeding the gods. She reveals how cooking and talking around the kitchen table have played vital socializing roles in Black Atlantic religions. Entering the world of divine desires and the varied flavors that speak to them, this volume takes a fresh approach to the anthropology of religion. Its richly textured portrait of a predominantly African-American Lucumi community reconceptualizes race, gender, sexuality, and affect in the formation of religious identity, proposing that every religion coalesces and sustains itself through its own secret recipe of micropractices.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• La furia del agua dulce = The fury of the sweet water
• Oggún no lo quiso = Oggún's will
• La guerra de los brujos = The war of warlocks.

• Spirits at the crossroads of belief and pragmatism
• Spiritism and the place of the dead in Afro-Cuban religion
• On good mediumship: science, revolution, and legitimacy
• Encounter, selfhood, and multiplicity
• Development as cosmogony: ritual and materialization
• Epilogue: biographical intersections.

Despite its powerful influence on Cuban culture, Espiritismo has often been overlooked by scholars. Developing the Dead is the first in-depth exploration of contemporary Espiritismo in Cuba. Based on extensive fieldwork among religious practitioners and their clients in Havana, this book makes the surprising claim that Spiritist practices are fundamentally a project of developing the self. When mediums cultivate relationships between the living and the dead, argues Diana Espirito Santo, they develop, learn, sense, dream, and connect to multiple spirits (muertos), expanding the borders of the self. This understanding of selfhood is radically different fromEnlightenment ideas of an autonomous, bounded self and holds fascinating implications for prophecy, healing, and self-consciousness. Developing the Dead shows how Espiritismo's self-making process permeates all aspects of life, not only for its own practitioners but also for those of other Afro-Cuban religions.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Spirits at the crossroads of belief and pragmatism
• Spiritism and the place of the dead in Afro-Cuban religion
• On good mediumship: science, revolution, and legitimacy
• Encounter, selfhood, and multiplicity
• Development as cosmogony: ritual and materialization
• Epilogue: biographical intersections.

Despite its powerful influence on Cuban culture, Espiritismo has often been overlooked by scholars. Developing the Dead is the first in-depth exploration of contemporary Espiritismo in Cuba. Based on extensive fieldwork among religious practitioners and their clients in Havana, this book makes the surprising claim that Spiritist practices are fundamentally a project of developing the self. When mediums cultivate relationships between the living and the dead, argues Diana Espirito Santo, they develop, learn, sense, dream, and connect to multiple spirits (muertos), expanding the borders of the self. This understanding of selfhood is radically different fromEnlightenment ideas of an autonomous, bounded self and holds fascinating implications for prophecy, healing, and self-consciousness. Developing the Dead shows how Espiritismo's self-making process permeates all aspects of life, not only for its own practitioners but also for those of other Afro-Cuban religions.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction : transnational Santería assemblages
• Electric Orisha
• Transnational caminos
• Pacts with darkness
• Scent of empire
• Contaminating femininities
• Epilogue : a death at dawn.

SanterIa is an African-inspired, Cuban diaspora religion long stigmatized as witchcraft and often dismissed as superstition, yet its spirit- and possession-based practices are rapidly winning adherents across the world. Aisha M. Beliso-De JesUs introduces the term "copresence" to capture the current transnational experience of SanterIa, in which racialized and gendered spirits, deities, priests, and religious travelers remake local, national, and political boundaries and reconfigure notions of technology and transnationalism. Drawing on eight years of ethnographic research in Havana and Matanzas, Cuba, and in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay area, Beliso-De JesUs traces the phenomenon of copresence in the lives of SanterIa practitioners, mapping its emergence in transnational places and historical moments and its ritual negotiation of race, imperialism, gender, sexuality, and religious travel. SanterIa's spirits, deities, and practitioners allow digital technologies to be used in new ways, inciting unique encounters through video and other media. Doing away with traditional perceptions of SanterIa as a static, localized practice or as part of a mythologized "past, " this book emphasizes the religion's dynamic circulations and calls for nontranscendental understandings of religious transnationalisms

• Author's NotePreface: DespedidasAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Transnational Santer a Assemblage
• s1. Electric Orich
• a2. Transnational Camino
• s3. Pacts with Darknes
• s4. Scent of Empir
• e5. Contaminating FemininitiesEpilogue: A Death at DawnGlossaryNotesReferencesIndex.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Santer a is an African-inspired, Cuban diaspora religion long stigmatized as witchcraft and often dismissed as superstition, yet its spirit- and possession-based practices are rapidly winning adherents across the world. Aisha M. Beliso-De Jes s introduces the term "copresence" to capture the current transnational experience of Santer a, in which racialized and gendered spirits, deities, priests, and religious travelers remake local, national, and political boundaries and reconfigure notions of technology and transnationalism. Drawing on eight years of ethnographic research in Havana and Matanzas, Cuba, and in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay area, Beliso-De Jes s traces the phenomenon of copresence in the lives of Santer a practitioners, mapping its emergence in transnational places and historical moments and its ritual negotiation of race, imperialism, gender, sexuality, and religious travel. Santer a's spirits, deities, and practitioners allow digital technologies to be used in new ways, inciting unique encounters through video and other media. Doing away with traditional perceptions of Santer a as a static, localized practice or as part of a mythologized "past, " this book emphasizes the religion's dynamic circulations and calls for nontranscendental understandings of religious transnationalisms.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Situating the iyawo
• Iyawo experience
• Iyawo rules
• Iyawo social relations
• Relating to the orisha
• Two (or more) worlds
• Interview and survey participants
• Survey
• Research methods.

In the Afro-Cuban Lukumi religious tradition - more commonly known in the United States as Santeria - entrants into the priesthood undergo an extraordinary fifty-three-week initiation period. During this time, these novices - called iyawo - endure a host of prohibitions, including most notably wearing exclusively white clothing.A Year in White, sociologist C. Lynn Carr, who underwent this initiation herself, opens a window on this remarkable year-long religious transformation. In her intimate investigation of the ""year in white"", Carr draws on fifty-two in-depth interviews with other participants, an online survey of nearly two hundred others, and almost a decade of her own ethnographic fieldwork, gathering stories that allow us to see how cultural newcomers and natives thought, felt, and acted with regard to their initiation. She documents how, during the iyawo year, the ritual slowly transforms the initiate's identity. For the first three months, for instance, the iyawo may not use a mirror, even to shave, and must eat all meals while seated on a mat on the floor using only a spoon and their own set of dishes. During the entire year, the iyawo loses their name and is simply addressed as ""iyawo"" by family and friends. Carr also shows that this year-long religious ritual - which is carried out even as the iyawo goes about daily life - offers new insight into religion in general, suggesting that the sacred is not separable from the profane and indeed that religion shares an ongoing dynamic relationship with the realities of everyday life. Religious expression happens at home, on the streets, at work and school. Offering insight not only into Santeria but also into religion more generally, A Year in White makes an important contribution to our understanding of complex, dynamic religious landscapes in multicultural, pluralist societies and how they inhabit our daily lives.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Creolization-the coming together of diverse beliefs and practices to form new beliefs and practices-is one of the most significant phenomena in Caribbean religious history. Brought together in the crucible of the sugar plantation, Caribbean peoples drew on the variants of Christianity brought by European colonizers, as well as on African religious and healing traditions and the remnants of Amerindian practices, to fashion new systems of belief. Creole Religions of the Caribbean offers a comprehensive introduction to the syncretic religions that have developed in the region. From Vodou, Santeria, Regla de Palo, the Abakua Secret Society, and Obeah to Quimbois and Espiritismo, the volume traces the historical-cultural origins of the major Creole religions, as well as the newer traditions such as Pocomania and Rastafarianism. This second edition updates the scholarship on the religions themselves and also expands the regional considerations of the Diaspora to the U. S. Latino community who are influenced by Creole spiritual practices. Fernandez Olmos and Paravisini-Gebert also take into account the increased significance of material culture-art, music, literature-and healing practices influenced by Creole religions.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Patakís from the composites of Okana
• Patakís from the composites of Eji Oko
• Patakís from the composites of Ogundá
• Patakís from the composites of Irosun
• Patakís from the composites of Oché
• Patakís from the composites of Obara
• Patakís from the composites of Odí
• Patakís from the composites of Unle
• Patakís from the composites of Osá
• Patakís from the composites of Ofún
• Patakís from the composites of Owani
• Patakís from the composites of Ejila Shebora

Since ancient times the Yoruba of West Africa created sacred stories - patakís - to make sense of the world around them. Upon arrival in the New World, the Yoruba religion began to incorporate elements from Catholic and Native traditions, evolving into Santería and new patakís were born, adding to the many chapters already found in the odu of the diloggún - the sacred oral teachings and divination system of the Yoruba, or Lucumí, faith. Comparable to the myths of ancient Greece and Rome and rich with jewels of wisdom like the I Ching, these Santería stories are as vast as the Hindu Vedas and as culturally significant as the parables in the Torah, Talmud and Christian Bible. DILOGGÚN TALES OF THE NATURAL WORLD presents more than 40 patakís that shed light upon the worldview of Santería. Each story in this collection, reassembled from the oral tradition of the African diaspora, is centred on a spiritual principle in nature: the waxing and waning of the moon, solar and lunar eclipses, the phenomenon of shooting stars, the separation of sky and earth and the origins of the animals and birds who play key roles in Santería symbology. Revealing the metaphysics, theology and philosophy of the Yoruba people, this volume shows these stories to be as powerful and relevant today as they were to the ancient Yoruba who once safeguarded them. Includes more than 40 myths, stories and histories from the Lucumí tradition Reassembles the oral fragments from the African diaspora into coherent stories Demonstrates that the African peoples, specifically the Yoruba, had deep philosophies and metaphysics involving nature and the natural world

The secrets of Santeria, Voodoo and Obeah are among the oldest enigmas in the world. Their roots go back to pre-historic Africa - perhaps even beyond that. From the 16th century onwards, the slave trade brought these ancient mysteries to the West, where they blended strangely with traditional Christianity: the ancient African gods became identified with legendary saints. This integration of the two faiths slowly evolved to form the many varieties of Santeria, Obeah and Voudoun that are widely practised throughout the world today. Their characteristic dancing and drumming seem able to invoke strange states of mind in which almost anything is possible.Even stories of zombies - the walking dead - still persist. Is there a rational explanation for them? Contemporary Voudoun priests, priestesses, magicians and enchanters use rare herbs and spices as well as charms, dolls and talismans to control the natural world in ways that science cannot always explain. Accounts of their inexplicable successes are examined in depth. Most intriguing of all are the claims that are made for their love philtres and aphrodisiacs. What powers do these old religions still possess?
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Las tres mujeres de Orula
• Los refranes de Ifà
• Las historias de Ifà y algunas transculturaciones
• Historias de Orula.

• I bow my head to the ground : Santeria thrones and rituals
• Ver para creer (seeing is believing) : the Prendas and ritual of Palo Monte
• It's my war now : the private sphere of Santiago's daily practice
• I am not from here : espiritismo and the congo spirits of the dead
• Afterword: ¿Y la otra? (and the other one?) : the nature of our collaboration.

In the summer of 2000, two award-winning photographers, Claire Garoutte and Anneke Wambaugh, were in Santiago de Cuba, a city on the southeastern coast of Cuba. A chance encounter led them to the home of Santiago Castaneda Vera, a priest-practitioner of Santeria and Palo Monte. Out of that initial meeting, a unique collaboration developed. Santiago opened his home and religious practice to Garoutte and Wambaugh, who returned to his house many times over the next five years, cameras in hand. The result is "Crossing the Water", an extraordinary visual record of Afro-Cuban religious experience. A book of 157 striking photographs, many of which are in colour, "Crossing the Water" includes images of elaborate Santeria altars and Palo spirit cauldrons, as well as of Santiago and his godchildren, members of his large religious 'family', engaged in ritual practices: spirit possession, the feeding of the spirits, and private and collective healing ceremonies.As the head of a religious community, Santiago helps his godchildren with contentious relationships, physical ailments, emotional crises, and the hardships of poverty. He combines different traditions to achieve healing and harmony: not only Santeria and Palo Monte but also Espiritismo, a Cuban version of nineteenth-century European Spiritism. For Santiago and his followers, the three religions together form a coherent theological whole. Santiago eventually became Garoutte's and Wambaugh's godfather and spiritual leader, and "Crossing the Water" is informed by their experiences as practitioners of Santeria and Palo Monte. Their text provides clear explanations of the objects and practices depicted in the images. Describing the power and meaning of human-spirit interactions, and the sights, sounds, scents, motions, and sensations of many ritual practices, "Crossing the Water" takes readers deep inside the intimate world of Afro-Cuban spirituality.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)