I had the pleasure of viewing the talk Thrones of the Gods and Altars of the Soul given by Daniel Rodríguez. Rodríguez is an altar builder that specializes on the religion of santeria. He played a huge part in constructing the Santeria birthday altar in the Spirited Things exhibit. He is specifically an Obá Oriaté, which is the person who determines tutelary orishas in bajada (santeriachurch.org). He is the person who helps people find their guardian orishas. He was invited to give a more in depth background into the Santeria religion being this Obá Oriaté and being a follower.

Rodríguez starts of by giving the definition of the word santeria. He describes that this religion is a mix of African Diaspora religions and Christianity hence the beginning of the word. He goes on to describe certain religious practices of the followers such as animal sacrifice, garments of clothing, and certain unheard-of healing practices. Not gruesome, disgusting practices, but changing habits and daily activities based on what is wrong with you. He then starts to talk about different types of altars and how younger or people starting off in the religion should not have big or fancy altars. He states that altars are supposed to grow with the person not be constant. This is important to discuss because the birthday altar in the museum is very extravagant and not many people have such an advance form of the altar. He then brings the audience into the exhibit to answer specific questions and talk about specific parts.

The talk is extremely specific to the concept of altars. As stated before, he first talks how altars need to grow with the person. The objects need to be earned and should be based on where you lay in the hierarchy of Santeria. Rodríguez says there are people who get initiated into the religion and then buy religious aspects for his altar of a more powerful member off the internet. “For many priests and priestesses, it takes years to acquire objects for their entire stable of orishas” (Brown, 94) Speaking of hierarchy, Rodríguez spoke about how the altar in the exhibit is structure. There are many levels, the higher the stand means the more powerful the orisha is. Obatala, some say, is said to be the equivalent of Jesus and is the highest standing on most altars. For example, in the book “Santeria Aesthetics”, there is an article Toward an Ethnoaesthetics of Santeria Ritual Arts written by David H. Brown and within the articles there are pictures of different altars, and they all have obatala standing over the rest of the orishas. This concept is important in any hierarchy of the altar but height is not the only factor. How far a deity stands is from the center of the altar is very important. The closer the orishas are to the middle the more influential they are to the person. Most of the altars seen in the Brown altar are very small and only have the most influential deities. Obatala, Ochun, Yemaya, and their birthday altar god. The other deities present were dependent on the orishas that represent that person the best.

This talk was well worth attending. Getting a firsthand look at someone whose life has been devoted to practicing Santeria and learning the meaning of each altar. He was a very energetic speaker and you can tell he was passionate about what he was talking about.

(Seth Epling)