Santera

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A practitioner of a spiritual tradition, often associated with Afro-Caribbean religions; someone who engages in rituals and ceremonies for healing and guidance; a person who serves as a mediator between spirits and the community through spiritual practices
2. An individual dedicated to the veneration of ancestors and deities, commonly in the context of Santería; a facilitator of spiritual communication through offerings and sacrifices; a member of a faith that blends African traditions with Catholicism
3. A devotee of a religious system that incorporates elements from Yoruba beliefs and Catholic elements; one who performs divination and healing rituals; a community figure who interprets spiritual messages and oversees ceremonies

Etymology: Spanish "santera" is the feminine form of "santero," meaning someone who makes, sells, or cares for saints' images, built from "santo" (saint). Spanish has long used the word in that older sense of a woman devoted to the saints, and it was carried into English with the religious practice it came to name rather than being reshaped along the way. English took it unchanged, so the word still carries its Spanish spelling and its feminine ending. The practice it names is Santería, a religion that grew in Cuba, where enslaved West Africans, chiefly Yoruba speakers, mapped their orisha deities onto Catholic saints. Those saints were the everyday public faces of the faith, and the match between a saint and an orisha let the older worship continue under a Catholic surface. The Spanish word therefore describes someone who keeps the saints, now applied to a priestess or devotee within a tradition that blends the two systems.