Africa-Rooted Religion Not `Voodoo' -- Priestess Disputes Hollywood Image

The stories were jarring. Someone tried to burn a dog at the stake. Supposedly, several hundred animals a year were being sacrificed. Practitioners of Santeria, Voodoo and Satanism were suspected in the ritualistic killings.

All of this was reportedly taking place in San Francisco. Carole Migden, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, reacted swiftly, proposing legislation that would ban the sacrifice of animals to appease any deity.

But before the supervisors acted, members of the Bay Area's Santeria community stood up. Once again, they felt their religion was being misconstrued and misunderstood. They said they didn't burn dogs at the stake. That they were being lumped in with devil-worshipers. They didn't even believe in the devil. To them, the controversy over animal sacrifice harkened back to stereotypes of zombies and people sticking pins in dolls.

"The ideas people have associated with Voodoo, that's not our religion. That's like a Hollywood invention," said Maria Concordia, a Santera - or priestess of Santeria - from Oakland.

Concordia and another Santera, Rosa E. Parrilla, were in Seattle this past week to lecture and give private spiritual consultations.

The number of people in Seattle who follow the Santeria faith and its variations is small, maybe 100, said Concordia and Parrilla. And Seattle Animal Control enforcement supervisor Don Jordan said he knew of no animal sacrifices here linked to Santeria.

Nonetheless, the controversy over animal sacrifice and religious freedom is of national significance. Religious and government leaders alike are awaiting a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. It will rule on the constitutionality of a 1987 law passed by the Hialeah City Council in Florida that banned animal sacrifice within the city limits.

City officials said the sacrifices were cruel to animals and unhealthy for people, while attorneys for adherents of Santeria, numbering about 70,000 in South Florida, contended the city was violating the First Amendment by trying to outlaw a religion council members found offensive.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the city-county Board of Supervisors modified Migden's proposed law before approving it on an 8-1 vote last year. The amended ordinance removed specific references to religion; it prohibited the killing of animals in any ritual, except if done in conformance with state kosher food laws and primarily for food consumption.

Ken White, deputy director of San Francisco's Department of Animal Care and Control, said the animal sacrifices caused him "tremendous concern." Workers found the bodies of animals whose markings indicated they had been cruelly treated. Some of the killings may have been done by individuals who had simply read books about a particular religion and were acting on their own, White said. But he added not everything is known about the various religions, though those who spoke at public hearings put their religion's best face forward.

Concordia, the priestess from the Bay Area, said animal sacrifice is not done often in Santeria. When it is done, the animal is sacrificed quickly and without mistreatment, she said. And it never is done with dogs or cats, she added.

"Everything in the planet has energy. Blood has the highest energy. Every animal we use, their blood has a certain type of energy that the priest knows," said Concordia.

When someone kills a chicken simply to eat it, the energy goes nowhere, she said. But when a Santeria priest invokes certain prayers and pours the blood over ritual objects - she won't divulge details - the animal's life force will go to a specific, positive purpose, such as healing someone or opening up opportunities for a person, she said. Generally, the animal - a chicken, goat or turtle, for example - is eaten later, she said.

Concordia and Parrilla, both Puerto Ricans, said Santeria is a Cuban and Puerto Rican variation of a thousands-years-old religion rooted in Africa. It began in Nigeria, where it is called Ifa. In Haiti, it is called Vodun, a word used by the Fon tribe in Africa for "spirit." Voodoo is a corruption of the word Vodun.

"Vodun is the word used in academic literature and what Haitians use. Voodoo is what white people use, as in `voodoo economics,' and what Hollywood popularizes," said James Green, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Washington. Green concurred that Vodun is not "monsters coming from the grave" but a legitimate folk religion.

Concordia said adherents of Santeria and other forms of the religion believe in one God, called Oludumare - Yoruba for God. In Vodun, the concept is the same but God is called Gran Met, or great master. God is the creator of everything.

In Santeria, Vodun, Ifa and other forms of the religion, God or Oludumare is thought to be removed from humans. "We can't communicate with God directly. We need intermediaries. They are deified ancestral spirits, called orisa," said Concordia. In Vodun, they are called loa, and represent aspects of God, like intellect, love and justice.

Some of the orisa are similar to saints in the Catholic Church, said Concordia. During the slave trade in the Caribbean, slaves who were forced to practice Christianity outwardly prayed to Jesus and to the saints. But they inwardly were praying to the orisa, whose characteristics were similar to those of Jesus and various saints, she said.

Concordia said public misperceptions still abound about Santeria and other variations of the religion, whose adherents are called oloorisas, or children of the orisa.

She said ancestor worship is an important element of Santeria, but "when I say worship, I don't mean get down on your knees and worship your ancestors as if they are gods. It is reverence. You have to respect your ancestors. We are energetically and genetically connected to them even after they die. We owe them our prayers. We pray that they elevate to God and they pray we have a good life on earth."

Followers of Santeria believe in reincarnation, and they also believe in sympathetic magic - that is, understanding the energy base for everything in the world, said Concordia.

"We use those concepts to make medicines to heal," she said.

For example, she might use a certain herb to make a bath to help change the energy composition for someone who is sick. Or she may discover that the energy of Elegba, the orisa who controls opportunity, is negative with someone who can't find a job. She might direct the person to cleanse himself at a crossroads, like a street intersection, with a sacrificial offering of toasted corn, smoked fish and pennies to reverse the energy level and invoke Elegba's help.

But she acknowledged that individuals "with a bad streak" could take those principles and use them to hurt others. One example would be putting things in a doll to cause difficulties or illness.

"That is not a common practice and I hope there are more of us than them," she said, adding that her religion mandates its adherents not harm others.

Concordia said a number of African Americans are looking at various forms of the religion because of its positive representation of their ancestry. She added, however, that it should not be construed as a black religion, but rather as a religion that came from the Yoruba people in Africa. "We are all one people. It doesn't exclude people based on skin color, nationality or anything else."

Concordia said people should not try to learn forms of Vodun or Santeria on their own. "You can't invent rituals for yourself," she said. They need to be taught by a priest or priestess, she said. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Books available

For more information about Santeria and other forms of this ancient African religion, Mandala Books and Gallery, 918 N.E. 64th Street, carries books on the subject. 527-2979. On June 20, John Turpin, an Ifa minister, is scheduled to speak from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Brechemin Auditorium of the University of Washington Music Building. 932-7723.