Lukumí or Regla de Ocha, most widely known as Santeria, is a set of related religious systems that fuse Catholic beliefs with traditional Yorùbá beliefs. It is practiced by descendants of west African slaves in Cuba, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Panama, and in Hispanic population centers in the United States such as Florida, New York, and California. It was originally referred to as Santería (literally, Way of the Saints), a derisive term applied by the Spanish to mock followers' seeming overdevotion to the saints and neglect of God. The slaves' Christian masters did not allow them to practice their various west African animistic religions. The slaves found a way around this by concluding that the Christian saints were simply different manifestations of their various gods. The masters thought their slaves had become good Christians and were praising the saints, when in actuality they were continuing their traditional practices.

Lukumí ritual is highly secretive and primarily transmitted orally. Known practices include animal offering, ecstatic dance, and sung invocations to the spirits. Chickens are the most popular form of sacrifice; their blood is offered to the orisha, or lesser guardian deities, who correspond to Christian saints. Drum music and dancing are used to induce a trance state in participants, who may become possessed by an orisha and speak with the orisha's voice. One's ancestors are held in high esteem in Lukumí.

Many animal rights activists take issue with the Lukumí practice of animal sacrifice, claiming that it is cruel. Followers of Lukumí point out that the killings are conducted in the same manner as many food animals are slaughtered and are not needlessly sadistic. Additionally, the animal is cooked and eaten afterwards. (The similarities between Lukumí sacrifice and other forms of slaughter for food may be of little comfort to animal rights supporters or activists who are vegetarian.) In 1993, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah that animal cruelty laws targeted specifically at Lukumí were unconstitutional, and the practice has seen no significant legal challenges since then.

The common name for these practices, Santeria, is misleading, as the Roman Catholic saints do not figure in its cult practices.

External links

• Full text of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=508&page=520)
• ReligiousTolerance.org Page on Santeria (http://www.religioustolerance.org/santeri.htm)

Santeria is also the name of a reggae-ska fusion band from Munich, Germany.

Santeria is also the name of a song by the ska band Sublime.