Photo, Print, Drawing Santería, La Havana, Cuba
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About this Item
Title
- Santería, La Havana, Cuba
Names
- Ríos Szalay, Adalberto, photographer
Created / Published
- 2006-01-01.
Headings
- - Cuba--Havana
- - Afro-Cuban
- - Cigars
- - Santería
- - Syncretism
- - White dresses
- - Costumes
- - Religious
- - Streets
Format Headings
- Digital photographs--Color--2000-2010.
Genre
- Digital photographs--Color--2000-2010
Notes
- - Title, date, notes, and keywords based on information provided by the photographer.
- - In the streets of Havana appears people dressed head-to-foot in white, a bead necklace providing the only colour in their costume. These are practitioners of Santería, the most popular of Afro-Cuban religions, and the beads represent their appointed orisha, the gods and goddesses at the heart of their worship. With its roots in the religious beliefs of the Yoruba people of West Africa, Santería spread in Cuba with the importation of slaves from that region. Forbidden by the Spanish to practise their faith, the slaves found ways of hiding images of their gods behind those of the Catholic saints to whom they were forced to pay homage. From this developed the syncretism of African orishas with their Catholic counterparts - thus, for example, the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, the patron saint of Cuba, embodies the orisha known as Oshún, the goddess of femininity.
- - Note in Spanish: En las calles de La Habana aparece gente de cabeza a pies vestidos de blanco, un collar de cuentas que proporciona el único color en su vestuario. Estos son practicantes de la santería, el más popular de las religiones afrocubanas, y las perlas representan su orisha designado, los dioses y diosas en el centro de su culto. Con sus raíces en las creencias religiosas del pueblo yoruba de África Occidental, la Santería se extendió en Cuba con la importación de esclavos de esa región. Prohibida por los españoles para practicar su fe, los esclavos encontraron maneras de ocultar las imágenes de sus dioses detrás de las de los santos católicos a los que se vieron obligados a rendir homenaje. De esta desarrollado el sincretismo de orishas africanos con sus homólogos católicos - por lo tanto, por ejemplo, la Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, patrona de Cuba, encarna el orisha conocido como Oshún, la diosa de la feminidad.
- - Purchase; Adalberto Rios Szalay; 2015; (DLC/PP-2015:144).
Medium
- 1 photograph : digital, tiff file, color.
Call Number/Physical Location
- LC-DIG-ppbd- 03641 [P&P]
Source Collection
- Tres Rios photograph collection (Library of Congress)
Repository
- Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
Digital Id
- ppbd 03641 https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppbd.03641
Library of Congress Control Number
- 2022686844
Reproduction Number
- LC-DIG-ppbd-03641 (original digital file)
Rights Advisory
- Publication may be restricted. For information see "Tres Ríos photograph collection," https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/res.791.rios
Online Format
- image