A description of the organisation of Santeria, into extended families rather than a central structure.
Organisation
Last updated 2009-09-15
Organisation
There is no central organisation in Santeria.
A vital unit of the Santeria community is the 'house' called a casa or ilé. This is often the house of a senior Santeria priest, who heads an extended family:
He, or more often, she, is the head of the ilé in the deeper sense of 'family'. She or he is 'godmother' or 'godfather' to a family of sisters and brothers en santo, in the spirit.
In the minds of its members, the core function of the ilé is to honor the spirits and receive from them in turn guidance and assistance in all of life's endeavours.
The Orishas offer their children spiritual experience and heavenly wisdom which is marked by progress in the initiatory hierarchy of the ilé. The ilé sets out a path of spiritual growth, a road en santo.
Joseph M. Murphy, Working the Spirit: Ceremonies of the African Diaspora, 1994
Colonial buildings in Havana ©The members of the ilé relate to each other in much the same way as members of an extended biological family. There may be an elaborate hierarchy based partly on the levels of spiritual development that family members have reached.
An ilé may be large or small. Ilés are independent but may join up for special occasions.
Membership is taken seriously, and members are expected to take part in the life of the ilé. Many people are involved with Santeria to a lesser extent, without becoming members of an ilé.
Initiation
Members mostly join as adults, usually after feeling that a particular Orisha has called them to do so.
Many testify that it was their experience of a life-threatening illness which first prompted their devotion to an Orisha.
Illness, they say, is a call from the Orisha, a crisis to a waken one to one's destiny as a servant of the Orisha.
Their subsequent pact with the spirit reflects both their respect for the power of the Orisha to claim their lives and their gratitude for the Orisha's agency in effecting a cure.
Joseph M. Murphy, Working the Spirit: Ceremonies of the African Diaspora, 1994
Initiation is a solemn and life-changing event for the follower and unites them with their Orisha, and with other followers of that Orisha.
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