title: Living Santera: Rituals and Experiences in an Afro-Cuban Religion
author:  Michael Atwood Mason 
description: <b>Michael Atwood Mason</b> is an anthropologist and exhibit developer at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, where he was a co-curator of the permanent African Voices exhibition.
zlib_text:  
   
   
   
   
   AFRO-CUBAN DIASPORAN RELIGIONS: 
          
  A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE        
   
  LITERATURE AND SELECTEDANNOTATED                
  BIBLIOGRAPHY 
   
  Sara M. Sanchez  
           ICCAS Occasional Paper Series 
  August 2000 
   
   
  
   
   
  Afro-Cuban Diasporan Religions: 
  A Comparative Analysis of the Literature 
                                                                              Sara M. Sanchez 
   
  “The coercion and resistance, acculturation and appropriation that typify the 
  Caribbean experience are the most evident in the Creolization of African-based 
  religious beliefs and practices in the slave societies of the New World. African 
  religions merged in a dynamic process with European Christian and Amerindian 
  beliefs to shape syncretic theologies that provide alternative ways of looking at the 
  world ‘in a certain kind of way.’ Powerful repositories of inner strength and cultural 
  affirmation, the Caribbean’s African-derived syncretic religions and healing 
  practices . . . have