Amazing what you'd learn daily when you pick on different
topics on Wikipedia...I recently stumbled on this, and here are my findings.
Surprising that majorly the Yoruba Ifa religion and language have found their
way throughout the world and is now expressed in practices though given
different names in places such as Trinidad (Trinidad Orisha), the Republic of
Benin, Togo, Brazil, Cuba (Lucumi), Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guyana, Haiti,
Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Argentina (Santeria), the United States,
Uruguay, and Venezuela among others. As interest in African indigenous
religions (spiritual systems) grows, Orisha communities and lineages can be
found in parts of Europe and Asia as well. It is not just a vague idea among
the ardent followers within these countries, it is occasionally celebrated, and
all the Orishas are worshiped just the way our forefathers did.
In Cuba as well as Argentina, the worship of Orisa has been
given a native dialect...and been called Santería as far back some hundreds
years ago. Interesting it has evolved, and included some aspect of their
personal culture, and Santería or Regla de Ocha, La Regla Lucumí or Lukumi is a
syncretic religion of West African and Caribbean origin influenced by Roman
Catholic Christianity when slaves from Yoruba to other parts of the world.
These Yorubas carried with them various religious customs, including a trance
for communicating with their ancestors and deities, animal sacrifice and sacred
drumming and dance.
In current time, the religion still stands in its purest
state though with altered names but still you'd hear terms such as Olorisha:
which are the priest, and Iya-onifa (priestess)...these people are called these
Yoruba names in all these part of the world...and there is the issue of some
over three million Yourba race taken to Argentina, the Bahamas, Jamaica,
America, and other parts of the world. There is the issue with Afro-Argentines,
to the Yoruba-lineages within the Caribbean, Tobago, and other parts of the
world...
Photo of Yoruba People of Argentina Celebrating Ifa and Egungun
Day in Caseros, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.
Quite disheartening that Jesus, a Jewish prophet who came
around some 2013 years ago could have easily displaced our heritage and culture
which is been revered by the same people who brought Christianity merely as a
tool for winning our hearts, before enslaving us....You'd still ask, what is
wrong with Nigeria and Africa at large? What is wrong with seeing Europeans
worshiping the Ibo's gods as well as the Yorubas? Why does everything we own
seem totally inferior to us? I hope fellow traditionalists like myself find
some soothing comfort in this findings....
Written by Adewande Shangodeyi
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