Brujería: Getting Witchy in Latin America

by Brian Alcamo

Those who have visited already know that Latin America is filled with excitement, adventure, and even magic. 

The term brujería has come into public consciousness in the past few years. Beyond cool looking social media posts, the practice has a long and extensive history. In fact, brujería is a bit of a catch-all word. Literally translated to “witchcraft,” the word also refers to multiple spiritual practices historically employed by Caribbean, African, and indigenous Latin Americans. Generally speaking, brujería includes honoring the planet earth (through goddesses such as Oshun and Elegua), cleansing, ancestor worship, and lighting candles. Sometimes, wearing specific clothes, singing or chanting, and preparing sacred offerings are part of practices as well. 

Yoruba, for instance, is a thousands-year old religion hailing from West Africa. It blended with indigenous practices and Roman Catholicism to form Santeria (also called Lucimi). An Afro-Cuban religion that emerged in Latin America during the 15th and 16th Century in response to Spanish colonization, the religion lives on to this day. It is a complex folk religion with an entire pantheon of Orishas— manifestations of Oludumare, or God. Most of these deities were borrowed from Yoruba, and some of them have alter egos among the Catholic saints. They are often exclusively communicated with through collaboration with trained, initiated followers. Santería favors ritual correctness over personal belief, so if you want to try your hand at accessing some of the religion’s power, make sure you find a trustworthy santero.

A Santería Celebration in Cuba

While Santería is the result of colonization, Spanish colonizers didn’t come to the Americas in the name of religious syncretism. In fact, they even brought the Inquisition, their brutal and forceful campaign for religious uniformity, with them to the New World. Compared to what they were like on the Iberian Peninsula, 16th Century Colonial witch hunts were even worse, with stake burning and extreme violence towards indigenous people being common. 

Spain’s Inquisition failed in its home territory, and it didn’t go well in the Americas, either. Unfortunately, just because religious policing failed doesn’t mean that people didn’t get hurt. Women suffered the most from violent religious extremism in the name of colonization, as they mingled in markets and often shared homemade remedies that traversed taboo racial boundaries as well as the boundaries of science and religion.

One of these remedies, known for its vitality-promoting properties, was chocolate. The drink has been cultivated in the Americas for at least the past 3,000 years. It originated as a status symbol, and was served to royals, diplomats, and at weddings. Its caffeine content, flavor profile, and power it held in indigenous communities scared Spanish colonizers from the get-go. 

Vocabulary for Your Next Séance

• Hechizo - spell

• Caldera - cauldron

• Varita mágica

• Séance - sesíon espiritista

• Magía - magic

Spanish colonizers immediately prohibited many Aztec health plants like psychedelic mushrooms, but kept chocolate around, even adopting the beverage for themselves (probably because they realized that it was delicious). It eventually became a mass-market phenomenon, with people drinking it every day as opposed to reserving it for special occasions. Chocolate’s popularity became a symbol swept up in the developing patchwork Latin American culture, which was a melting pot of indigenous, African, and Spanish cultures. 

Chocolate cooks prepared the beverage by first creating a paste made out of ground cacao, vanilla, and annatto, along with other spices, storing it in blocks to be used later. When someone wanted a cup of chocolate, they would whip the paste with hot water until foamy.  To indigenous Mesoamericans, chocolate represented vitality. Men and women alike drank it for strength and power. Women most often prepared the chocolate, and men constantly said that they were being bewitched through the inky beverage, bringing their suspicions to the table at every meal (but never considering that they could cook for themselves to avoid sneaky spells). 

Independent, single women who were economically active were easy pickings for witch hunters, since few people could seem to wrap their heads around the possibility that a woman could make her own living. They used potions to slip through the very low glass ceilings of wiferey, motherhood, and sexual submission. Women made good money with their witchcraft, and the entire practice subverted men’s long-assumed intellectual and economic power over them. These feelings were tenfold in Latin America, where Spanish colonizer’s guidebooks could not match Indigenous women’s knowledge of their native continent. Unfortunately, this made indigenous women big targets for the inquisition.

Magical hot chocolate sat at the intersection of witchcraft and colonial strife. To European colonizers, the drink represented dissent, with racial, religious, and gender conflicts sitting at the bottom of each cup of cocoa. Once tried and found guilty of witchcraft, women most often went to prison.

A Cocoa Tree

In an attempt to control witchcraft, the Spanish Inquisition pushed magical practices to far-flung corners of society, following an “If I can’t see it, then it doesn’t exist” model of control. Women, who lost their autonomy after marriage, used brujería to regain control in their relationships while their husbands maintained the right to beat and cheat. Using chocolate as the basis of magic making was a way for women to transform their quotidian servitude into an act of power. Clearly, it worked, since governmental authorities were scared to let them continue without punishment. What they ended up doing, though, was incubating popular magical belief and religious culture beyond their dominion of control.

Even chocolate’s significance was eventually infused into indigenous converts’ new Catholic practices, with peoples leaving cacao offerings to Jesus. The Spanish conquerors could not keep up with their subjects’ creativity, losing track of the myriad ways Indigenous and African spiritual practices were growing, transforming, and even merging with their beloved Catholicism. Santería is the byproduct of centuries of creativity in the face of colonial might, and even Mexico’s Dia de Muertos merges indigenous practices with the Catholic All Saints Day. Walter Mercado, for all his pizzaz and pageantry, is yet another example of Latin America’s consistent grip on mysticism that goes beyond the monotheistic.

Nowadays, modern day brujas, brujos, and brujx are reclaiming the long-held taboo of the sexual enchantress and harnessing mysticism. Many are now publicly vocal about their power. Like their ancestors before them, young Latinx people are adopting brujeria to connect with their heritage, mysticism, and creativity. So, the next time you dissolve a tablet of Ibarra in your milk for a cup of hot chocolate, remember that you could be on the verge of casting a spell in line with centuries-old magic. 

Thumbnail photo by Tengyart.

Spending the Holidays in Latin America? These are 5 Phrases You Need To Know.

Felices Fiestas compadres! If you’re spending the holidays in Latin America, you might notice that we Latinos do things a little different. After learning these five phrases, you’ll be tossing back coquito and making sure you’re first in line to eat lechón. But be warned...you may find yourself a little more than tipsy on New Year’s Eve, eating exactly 12 grapes while swinging empty luggage around the block.

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(Puerto Rican coquito)

If you find yourself in Puerto Rico in December, you may hear a lot of rumbling about a parranda. A parranda is a Puerto Rican music tradition and THE social event of the season. Expect a group of friends at your front steps playing loud live music until you let them in. Trumpets, guitars, the whole works. It’s a pachanga, baby! Once inside, the guests are greeted with treats like mofongo (mashed plantains), arroz con dulce (rice pudding), and coquito, whose coconut-sweet goodness puts American eggnog to shame. Warning: NEVER, I repeat, NEVER say whose recipe you liked better. Doing so is a slippery slope and you will become the social pariah of the holidays. Seriously, don’t mess with Puerto Ricans and their coquito.

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Nochebuena

Nochebuena is the night of Christmas Eve. In a lot of Latin American cultures, this is a bigger feast than Christmas Day itself, and it features a big family dinner centered around lechón. Physically, lechón is a roasted pig, but emotionally it’s much much more than that. Cooking it takes sweat, dedication, and a whole lot of love. In Cuban tradition, lechón is cooked in a ‘Caja China’ (a large box) below hot coals. Alongside this good food is a night of drinking and dancing until you stumble your way over to Misa De Gallo (Midnight Mass) which concludes the Christmas celebrations.

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Para pedir Posadas:

(A holiday-themed pinata fest)

In English, this literally translates to ‘asking for a place to stay.’ The translation may sound odd, but the tradition is rooted back in the biblical story of the Nativity. Celebrated in multiple Latin countries, Las Posadas begins on December 16th and ends on Christmas Eve. These nine days or ‘novena’ represent the nine-month pregnancy of Mary. What follows is this: two people dress up as Mary and Joseph and visit houses designated as “inns.” The community walks down the street, singing songs until one house finally lets them in. At the end of each night, everyone celebrates with Christmas carols, food, and piñatas for the kids.

¡Cantemos villancicos!

“Let’s sing carols!” ‘Villancicos’ are Christmas Carols, and the people who sing them are called ‘Cantantes de Villancicos.’  No matter which Latin American country you’re in, you’ll find yourself singing. Make sure to pack some herbal teas and keep that voice warm, because you’ll have a tiring but delightful evening. Here are some villancicos en español (that aren’t “Feliz Navidad”) to get you into the spirit. 

¡Feliz Año Nuevo! / ¡Feliz Año!

 (Año Nuevo in Cartagena)

Just like their other celebrations, Latinx people throw the best New Years parties, infused with some special traditions. Some are universal, like eating twelve grapes (each representing one month of the year) as a symbol of good luck. Others are a bit more unique. In Colombia, people walk around the block with an empty suitcase for hopes of traveling more in the New Year. In Chile, you must sweep the house from inside out to erase the past. For Cubans, throwing a bucket of water outside does the trick. All over Latin America, traditions run deep when ringing in the new year!

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We hope you enjoy your holiday season, and if you find yourself in Latin America, don’t forget to take these phrases with you! Felices Fiestas!

Comment below and let us know your favorite tradition!

The Year of the Spanish Language

The Year of the Spanish Language

Earlier this year, Spain’s Minister of Culture, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, declared "The year 2019 will be declared the Year of the Spanish Language” as part of the Marca España initiative.

Marca España has stated that the Spanish language is “a global agent that produces wealth, identity, culture, and brand which still has great opportunities for expansion and development in the digital era. It is expected that in 30 years there will be over 700 million Spanish speakers.”

There will even be tax incentives (up to 90%) for activities which promote the initiative to help try to drive participation among the private sector. Among these initiatives will be a study grant to generate more university student exchanges, appointing celebrities as “Spanish language ambassadors,” and the designing of a digital platform in Spanish & Portuguese to offer free content in the fields of literature, film, music, art, and science. 

This plan has not been accepted across the country, however, as Spain’s all-encompassing attitude with the proposal has caused some hesitation in Latin American countries. De Vigo was specifically warned that the plan would not be welcomed outside Spain by the director of the Real Academia Española, Darío Villanueva, and of the Cervantes Institute, Juan Manuel Bonet, but has decided to go ahead with it anyway. 

Even in Spain, political groups, apart from the governing Popular Party, have also criticized the plan specifically Basque and Catalan citizens  as they see it as an attack on their own languages. Francisco Javier Pérez, the Venezuelan secretary general of ASALE stated that the desire by Spain to reign control over the common language was “at the very least worrisome.” 

Carmen Millán, director of the Caro y Cuervo Institute in Colombia has a bit of a more optimistic look by stating that “...this is not about rivalries, it is about a sense of belonging to a common language.”

While it remains to be seen whether the effort will succeed in a similar fashion as the cultural promotion efforts of the French, it is without a doubt starting a conversation within the Spanish-speaking community about the need to preserve and promote their beloved language. 

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We hope you've enjoyed learning about how Spain is working to make 2019 The Year of the Spanish Language! Do you think the Marca España initiative will be positive for the promotion of the Spanish language? Comment below!