The Practice of Baptism in Cuba and its presence in Santeria: Traditions

Christening is one of the traditions oldest that exist.

This act of consecration has accompanied civilizations throughout time, positioning itself as the most important religious initiation rite that exists.

Pre-Columbian cultures used water and herbs in this type of ritual, and Catholicism had conceived baptism using the so precious liquid.

In the same way, the European, Asian and African peoples followed this ceremony, with water and faith, as we mentioned earlier, the converging points in each of the initiations.

The baptism is a tradition that remains in force in Cuba: Religious and cultural phenomenon

The christening tradition is in force in Cuba of these times, where each religious sect develops this ceremony according to its beliefs and under its rules.

It is common to mention that a large group of newborns receive the Catholic baptism every day despite the fact that their family professes another type of religion or knowing that in the future they will not be governed by the Catholic faith.

Fact that is contradictory at first glance, but that behaves in this way.

The beginning of a religious life through baptism

People see in the christening the beginning of a religious life, in which they not only pursue the procession of their faith, because in this act they also seek divine protection and distance from evils and disturbances.

In popular slang it is believed that those who have not been baptized are more likely to suffer calamities.

Fact that has not been proven, but that has created social pressure and influence on human beings.

The presence of the baptism in the practices of Osha-Ifá

The Yoruba religion, like so many other religious currents, integrates baptism within its practices.

It is one of the branches of faith in which the newborn receives Catholic baptism and then begins in Yoruba practices through the delivery of the hand of Orula and the warrior Orishas.

When the person reaches the required age and has the economic conditions to do so, he becomes Osha and before beginning this consecration, secret ceremonies are performed for the previously initiated, which under the lens of the religious are considered, like a baptism, and properly speaking in terms natives of the Santeria Rule.

Similarly, similar ceremonies occur before the man is consecrated as an Ifá priest.