Daniel Rodr\u00edguez is an initiated Santer\u00eda priest, specifically a priest of Shango. His talk given on November 15th was focused on Cuban Santeria and was titled \u201cThrones of the Gods, Altars of the Soul. Rodr\u00edguez discussed the concept of Santer\u00eda in today’s society and went over the significance of the Orishas represented in each piece in the birthday altar created in the Fleming Museum.<\/p>\n
Due to recent events in our society, one major point of Rodr\u00edguez lecture was the negative notation associated with Santer\u00eda. This is the reason why the word Santer\u00eda has a negative reaction when said in today’s society because they associate this word with witchcraft. Rodr\u00edguez believed this was a very important topic to discuss to further understand the religion as a whole. He makes a point about the benefits that come from speakers like himself talking to a crowd about what is true about this religion.<\/p>\n
The Afro-Cuban religion Santeria translated into \u201cthe way of Orisha\u201d is a religion that was brought from Africa by slavery to the Caribbean. It is today the fasted nonmainstream religion in the world. It is based on a hierarchy which can be achieved by years of commitment to the religion and the Orishas. Rodr\u00edguez was initiated for 31 years, and over the years he has built himself to be a higher individual in the religion of Santeria, as a priest. When discussing the altar itself that is present in the exhibit in the Fleming Museum, Rodr\u00edguez makes a point to note that this is not what to expect for an individual like himself even though he has been a practitioner of Santeria since he was seven. When first initiated, an individual receives a few objects of a few specific Orisha. Initially, a practitioner only worships a small amount of Orisha and gradually can build up to gain more Orisha to worship. In sum, the altar in the Fleming Museum is a big extravagant representation of Santeria, but it does not represent the personal and simple altars found in homes of common initiates.<\/p>\n
Yemoja is the goddess of this altar. Depicted by the arrangement of the altar, her high stance above all the other gods and goddesses surrounding her tells of her importance. The altar is also framed by blue fabrics, and her vessel is covered with white. Both these colors are associated with Yemoja. The other vessels are representing other gods and goddesses, but due to the shrine being devoted to Yemoja they must lie lower in height to honor her importance. This is an example of how the hierarchy is present in the religion of Cuman Santeria. Specific gods have positions in the religion. It is believed that Obatala is equivalent to Jesus. He is believed to have created all humans and all other Orisha. His high position is represented not only by their height in the altar but also their position from the center. Those closest to the center are thought to be higher in power.<\/p>\n
Daniel Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s talk on Cuban Santeria titled \u201cThrones of the Gods, Altars of the Soul was well worth attending. His topics of how Santeria is seen globally was fascinating to hear. I also took a lot from his analysis of the birthday altar. I knew previously that this was not an ordinary altar presented in average homes, but I was intrigued to hear that an initiate only starts out with very few Orisha to worship. I am curious to know how one gains Orisha to worship, how do individuals know which Orisha are right for them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Daniel Rodr\u00edguez is an initiated Santer\u00eda priest, specifically a priest of Shango. His talk given on November 15th was focused on Cuban Santeria and was titled \u201cThrones of the Gods, Altars of the Soul. Rodr\u00edguez discussed the concept of Santer\u00eda in today’s society and went over the significance of the Orishas represented in each piece […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4542,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4542"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":727,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions\/727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/vlbrenna-rel095fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}