"Today, Changó Is Changó": How Africanness Becomes A Ritual Commodity in Puerto Rico1

Abstract

After centuries of being persecuted as evil and being vilified as superstitious and primitive, Puerto Rican popular Spiritists, self-defined brujos (witch-healers), have freed themselves from having to resort to all kinds of euphemisms (at least among insiders) to label their practices through defensive mechanisms inherited from colonial times (such as the commonly known syncretism) to camouflage their African-based ritual practices. I would like to argue that under the new politics of multiculturalism, brujos, rather than having to hide their trade, can now operate in a spiritual laissez-faire context as spiritual entrepreneurs facilitated by political and economic large-scale changes,. Instead of being ashamed of or threatened by past stereotypes that labeled them as either heretics or charlatans (Romberg 2003a), brujos are increasingly able to acknowledge their spiritual work as stemming from the magic and healing powers of African orishas or deities, incorporating elements of Santeria in their Spiritist practices.2 More importantly though, these ritual sources, which only a couple of decades ago carried very negative connotations, have acquired a unique positive aura: they are considered the most honored, potent spiritual energies of all.3 A unique exchange between two Puerto Rican brujos, one of whom became also a santero (initiated into Santeria), will reveal the intricate ways in which brujos adopt the gestures of Santeria not as a sign of conversion but because they believe them to be potent, and therefore capable of increasing their personal spiritual power and ability to compete in an expanding market of spiritual healers. This ethnographic case will also illuminate how historical conditions shape ritual practices and belief in their efficacy. Every morning before eight o'clock, as I approached the house of Haydee, the bruja (witch-healer) I worked with as an apprentice in Puerto Rico, I would hear tunes praising the Santeria orishas Ochun, Chango, Yemanya, and Ogun. Even though Haydee is a self-defined espiritista-bruja (a Spiritist medium who performs all sorts of healing and magic works), she and Reina, her assistant, sang and danced to these tunes every morning as a way to get spiritually ready for the consultations of the day. Particularly meaningful was the praise to Ochun, an Afro-Latin deity of Santeria that is syncretized as the Catholic saint La Virgen de la Caridad, the patron saint of Haydee.4 Although La Caridad is the patron saint of Cuba, she is legendary in Puerto Rico as well, probably as a result of the actual migration of Cubans after Castro's revolution, the global circulation of religious icons, and the appeal of her Creole trajectory, depicted in the images and folk narratives associated with her. Moreover, the intense intra-Caribbean circulation of ritual specialists-of a free-flow migration of espiritistas, santeros, and brujos from Santo Domingo and Cuba-and the revolving-door migration of Puerto Ricans between the island and the mainland, have contributed visibly to the Africanization of Puerto Rican brujeria. An ongoing cross-fertilization (Laguerre 1984) of healing practices occurs every time practitioners of Cuban Santeria, Dominican Vodou, and Puerto Rican brujeria meet at joint spiritual gatherings on the island or at initiation rituals anywhere between New York, Miami, Chicago, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. Processes like these must have added symbolic and gestural connections to various African-based religions practiced in the African diaspora.5 Indeed, highlights of the orishas' myths as well their attributes and character are well known to healers and brujos. Haydee would mention the affinity she had with the personal taste and sensuousness of Ochun, the other face of La Caridad, when she chose to wear golden-yellow dresses, the color of Ochun, for spiritual events, and, on an everyday basis, wear fancy dresses, jewelry and perfumes. But here is where the incorporation of things African stops. …

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