Santería: Orishas

In the African Yoruba tradition there are over 600 Orishas.  In the New World this number has decreased to about 20 major Orishas who are worshiped.  Each Orisha controls some aspect of existence and possesses certain anthropomorphic (or humanlike) personality traits rather like the Greek gods.   Each god also favors certain colors, numbers, days of the week, or sacrificial animals, etc.  These character traits are made known through the "aptaki" or stories about each of the gods similar to the myths surrounding the Greek gods.  There is for example an aptaki about the creation of the universe and of the other Orishas through Olodumare. 

At the right is one of the more popular Orishas, Babalú-Ayé or Saint Lazarus.  His powers include the ability to cure and cause illness - especially smallpox - and control all types of leg ailments.  Why do you think he would be such a popular saint?   Below we can see a close-up of Lazarus' feet with sacrifices of money and cigars.

Believers in Santería understand that the gods' actions are not always good because each god has a humanlike personality and the gods interact with each other as humans do.  Thus unlike in the Judeo-Christian tradition, there is not a black and white dichotomy of pure good (God) and pure bad (the devil).

Here is a list of some important Orishas, their correspondences in Catholicism to the saints, and some of their characteristics.

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