A Cup of Water Under My Bed

Santería (“Way of the Saints”) is a polytheistic, syncretistic Afro-Caribbean religion that blends the beliefs of West African Yoruban people with Roman Catholicism. Beginning in the 16th century, enslaved people on Cuban sugar plantations covertly preserved their religion in the Spanish colony and incorporated aspects of Roman Catholicism, the only religion permitted in the colonies. Santería worship practices involve deities or spirits known as orishas, who often have parallel Catholic saints, because orishas were often hidden behind images of Catholic saints to camouflage the preservation of West African religious practices. For example, Hernández’s father venerates the deity Elegguá, who is equated to the Catholic Saint Lazarus, also honored in her family. Believers like Hernández’s father leave offerings to these deities in various forms, including the candy in the dish the author encounters under her parents’ bed and later in her father’s shed. Practices may involve rituals of healing, like the one Hernández takes part in alongside her father, divination, and making offerings. Initiates may also be active Roman Catholics, and Santería appears in diasporic Afro-Cubano communities throughout the United States.