An encounter with Santeria and the Spirits in Cuba
Deisy has just gone into a trance. A half-filled glass of water is sitting on the table in front of her and she’s staring at it intently. After a brief silence she jerks her head up and locks her gaze on to me with no hint of recognition; suddenly I’m a stranger to her. She surveys the others gathered around the table through narrowed eyes. There’s an energy sharpening her features that wasn’t there when she sat down a couple of minutes earlier. Then she begins,
“The
spirit tells me …”
In some countries it’s called witchcraft, but usually only by those who are prejudiced. In Cuba it’s known as Santeria, a syncretic religion comprising Catholicism and Yoruba beliefs brought to the island with slaves from West Africa in colonial times. Prohibited from practicing their own religion, slaves fused it with the Catholicism of their masters. These beliefs, under the guise of Christianity, evolved in the harsh conditions of the sugar and tobacco plantations, and beyond. Today Santeria is probably the most widely practiced religion in Cuba, among both the white and black population. Evidence of it is everywhere, in the exclusively white garments worn by those being initiated into the faith, in the multi-coloured beads believers wear in honour of their saint or orisha, and in shrines set up in homes across the island.
Deisy is one such practitioner; she is known locally as a santera, a holy woman who has special gifts which she uses for the benefit of others, for those who call on her help. The version of Santeria she practices is blended with spiritism; spirits of the dead guide and advise her, offering remedies for personal predicaments and physical ailments. My predicament, she believes, is the consequence of a malign influence in my life, and Deisy is determined to break that influence. She urges me to allow her to call on the power of her spirits to help break what I personally believe to be a run of bad luck. The ill-fated, potentially disastrous, events that have overshadowed my life for the last couple of months have worried me, but I’m not convinced that a spell is at work or an “evil eye” is on me.
Deisy is a heavyset black woman in her early sixties. She is short and round in both body and face. With her button black eyes and ebony hair, she is the gingerbread woman. When she smiles there’s a sparkle about her that makes her look content with life. Natasha, a Russian neighbour, and my friend Liliana, a grandmother who is a Jehovah’s Witness, are also with us at the table. Liliana explains, “I’m a Witness but I’m also Cuban. Santeria is where my roots are buried, it’s my culture, and it’s what I grew up with. Besides, I want to cover my back; it’s like an additional insurance, just in case …”
Her psychic journey through my house continues up the stairs to the two bedrooms, one on either side, and on to a strange room “stuck to the roof.” It’s an attic. She’s never seen one and scarcely knows what it is. Then she stops, looks puzzled and asks pointedly, “Who is Aurelio?” I’d forgotten about Aurelio, my Spanish boarder from a decade previously. Hearing his name discomfits me, evoking old concerns about how seriously I may have offended him by helping myself to his supply of milk. “Aurelio is not the source of your troubles. Envy is the source of your troubles. There is a couple, a foreigner and a Cuban, man and woman, you must be wary of.”
I ask Deisy to tell me more but after these revelations her message becomes disappointingly vague. She urges me to undergo a rompimiento, spell-breaking ceremony, in order to be free. Then she shudders, inhales deeply, exhales noisily, and closes her eyes. When she opens them moments later, the energy, that look of being possessed has gone. I don’t know what to say…
Natasha rises and fetches some coffee. Deisy swallows hers in two short gulps and asks, “Does it make any sense to you?” That the details of my house were entirely accurate neither pleases nor displeases her. When I mention my perplexity as to whom this mysterious couple might be, Deisy advises that patience and an open mind will hint at their identity. In the meantime, there is the spell-breaking ceremony, for which I have to buy honey, a candle, a cigar, fresh white flowers, basil, cinnamon and a small bottle of rum. Deisy will return on Tuesday to perform it.
On Tuesday morning I’m ready for Deisy. Finding the cinnamon was the only difficult part of my shopping list. Fortunately, Liliana directed me to a local vendor specialising in the sale of ingredients favoured by practitioners of Santeria. In a tiny apartment ensconced in a courtyard reached via labyrinthine passageways of a decaying colonial-era building, an ancient mulatto with oriental features and green eyes welcomes me. Flowers, mostly white, but also sunflowers, were arranged in his living room together with a selection of herbs, honey and multi-coloured beads. The anciano puffed on a Cohiba cigar as he handed my purchase to me. On my way out I greeted a white-robed teenage girl, who seemed bemused to see a foreigner hurrying off embracing a clutch of ingredients for a Santeria ceremony.
Deisy arrives early and accompanies me to my bedroom to begin the ritual. We place a basin of water in the centre of the room. Motioning me to approach, she lights the candle, takes a swig of rum and begins chanting words in Yoruba in deep heavy tones, without removing her gaze from the water. When she has added a few drops of honey to it, Deisy commands me to step into the basin. The chanting intensifies, becoming deeper and more urgent, more masculine. Taking rapid puffs of the cigar she “cleanses” me with the bouquet of flowers and herbs in downward sweeping motions. With a piece of hard dry bread, she completes the ritual by brushing me vigorously with it, until only crumbs are left floating on the water. To end, she takes something that looks like a ball of chalk and draws a circle around me.
The chanting ceases and Deisy leaves the room. I feel no different, a little nonplussed, perhaps. When I take her some coffee, she stresses that I must bundle the clothes used in the ceremony into a bag together with any remaining bread and get rid of it today, as far away as possible. “Take it to the cemetery. That’s the best place for a malign influence, among the dead, where it can do no harm. I have removed the evil from your life. You are free now.”
In the weeks that followed I reflected repeatedly on this woman’s clairvoyance. She couldn’t have “cheated” since I had no photos of my house with me in Cuba and never described the layout to her, or indeed to anyone. As for the mysterious couple, the source of the “malign influence,” Deisy’s psychic journey had taken her right to them. But it was only on my return to Ireland two years after meeting Deisy did I discover – via two friends – who they were and what they had been up to. Believing them to be friends had blinded me to the obvious…they were the couple living in my house: a Cuban woman and her English husband whom I had regarded as friends.
A version of this article was originally published in the magazine Kindred Spirits
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