Santeria? Voodoo? What’s the Difference?
David Silva at the San Diego CityBeat gently chides the national media for picking up the story of a local building fire that harmed and killed no-one simply because the AP labeled it a “Voodoo supply shop”.
“…the first reports of the fire that gutted Centro Botanico La Santisima in Grant Hill early Sunday morning contained a single detail that caught the attention of news editors across the country: The little shop on Imperial Avenue supplied materials to practitioners of Voodoo. That changed everything. “Fire destroys Voodoo supply shop in San Diego,” declared The Associated Press within hours of the blaze. The story went on to state that an unattended candle in the store might have started the fire. Dozens of newspapers from here to the East Coast quickly picked up the AP story. The San Diego Union-Tribune ran with it, as did the New York Daily News, Denver Post, San Francisco Chronicle and the Fresno Bee. The stories all led off with the same juicy fact: A “Voodoo store” had burned to the ground.”
Silva makes the distinction that Centro Botanico La Santisima, far from being a place catering to practitioners of Voodoo/Vodou, in realty served the local Santeria community. He goes on to interview a local santero, who, in turn, takes pains to express that these are two separate religious systems.
“There was just one problem with every one of the stories: Centro Botanico La Santisima wasn’t a Voodoo supply store. It catered to practitioners of Santería, an obscure religion that, like Voodoo, has distant West African roots but has as much to do with Voodoo as Catholicism has to Judaism. “Santería is very different from Voodoo. We have some of the same saints, but other than that, we’re something else entirely,” says Carlos Perez, a santero—or priest—at the Santería shop Botanica Santa Barbara on El Cajon Boulevard. “Santería is a religion—Voodoo is more like witchcraft.” Practitioners of the various forms of Voodoo would likely take exception to that characterization. For them, Voodoo is as much a religion as Santería. But Perez’ point is clear: Santería is not Voodoo.”
As for Silva himself, he admits that he didn’t realize the difference until he interviewed Kyle Leite (who has been mentioned on this blog before), a local Pagan, and practitioners of Stregheria, who set him straight on the nuances of African diasporic religions. Silva’s piece ends with a regret that journalistic sensationalism has overshadowed a tragedy in someone’s life, and for the local Santeria community.
“Perhaps lost in all the confusion, unfortunately, is that the loss of Centro Botanico La Santisima was disastrous for those who depended on it.”
In the end, “getting religion” means more than defining “fundamentalist” correctly, it also means doing a bit of background research so you don’t mislabel a religious supply store that has been burned down. Just as you wouldn’t mischaracterize an Episcopal church as a Catholic church, even if they have similar origins and styles of practice, so too do the more “exotic” minority faiths deserve the dignity of simple accuracy.
One response so far
You are right that both Santeria and Voudoun deserve the dignity of simple accuracy. Too bad Carlos Perez doesn’t feel that way.
Santeria and Voudoun are less like Catholicism and Judaism and more like Catholicism and Episcopalism.
I am willing to grant that Carlos Perez knows his Santeria but since he doesn’t think Voudoun is a religion he clearly doesn’t know much about Voudoun.