1. Dia de San Lazaro - Sancti Spiritus


    Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

    On December 16, I was in Sancti Spiritus, relaxing, planning and showing my wife Susie where I’ve been hanging out for the past three years. I’ve got a lot of great friends there, including our buddy Sam. Sam knows a lot about the layers of humanity all around him. Cuba is a remarkable society, a blending and mixture of so many times and places. One of the most facinating things about Cuba is the remaining influence of the old African religions that came with the slave trade.

    One of those religions is called Yoruba. Before they were arrived in Cuba, some African groups practiced a religion centred around the Babaoa tree. They made the harsh crossing to the Caribbean, and discovered another tree, the Selva. The Selva tree was similar in size, shape and texture, and so it became the centre of the new Afro-Carribean religion.

    Slave men were not allowed to congregate. To allow that would be to allow the possibility of rebellion. The plantation owners ignored the women as unimportant, and in failing to recognize the transfer of the religious priesthood from the men to the women, they ensured that the African soul would never be erased and defeated from Cuba.

    The Dia de San Lazaro is the high holy holiday for the Yorbua religion.

  1. Dia de San Lazaro - Sancti Spiritus


    Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

    On December 16, I was in Sancti Spiritus, relaxing, planning and showing my wife Susie where I’ve been hanging out for the past three years. I’ve got a lot of great friends there, including our buddy Sam. Sam knows a lot about the layers of humanity all around him. Cuba is a remarkable society, a blending and mixture of so many times and places. One of the most facinating things about Cuba is the remaining influence of the old African religions that came with the slave trade.

    One of those religions is called Yoruba. Before they were arrived in Cuba, some African groups practiced a religion centred around the Babaoa tree. They made the harsh crossing to the Caribbean, and discovered another tree, the Selva. The Selva tree was similar in size, shape and texture, and so it became the centre of the new Afro-Carribean religion.

    Slave men were not allowed to congregate. To allow that would be to allow the possibility of rebellion. The plantation owners ignored the women as unimportant, and in failing to recognize the transfer of the religious priesthood from the men to the women, they ensured that the African soul would never be erased and defeated from Cuba.

    The Dia de San Lazaro is the high holy holiday for the Yorbua religion.