Afro-American religion

Afro-American religions (also African diasporic religions) are a number of related religions that developed in the Americas among African slaves and their descendants in various countries of Latin America, the Caribbean, and parts of the southern United States. They derive from African traditional religions, especially of West and Central Africa, showing similarities to the Yoruba religion in particular.
==Characteristics==
These religions usually involve ancestor veneration and/or a pantheon of divine spirits, such as the loas of Haitian Vodou, or the orishas of Santería. Similar divine spirits are also found in the Central and West African traditions from which they derive — the orishas of Yoruba cultures, the nkisi of Bantu (Kongo) traditions, and the Vodun of Dahomey (Benin), Togo, southern Ghana, and Burkina Faso. In addition to mixing these various but related African traditions, many Afro-American religions incorporate elements of Christian, indigenous American, Kardecist, Spiritualist and even Islamic traditions. This mixing of traditions is known as religious syncretism.
==List of traditions==
Afro-American Religions	Afro-American Religions	Afro-American Religions 	Afro-American Religions 	Afro-American Religions
Religion 	Developed in* 	Ancestral roots 	Also practiced in 	Remarks
Candomblé 	Brazil 	Yoruba 	 	Some elements of Dahomey Vodun (deities) and Kongo nkisi. Also called Batuque.
Umbanda 	Brazil 	Yoruba (mainly) 	Uruguay 	Syncretism. Mixed the Yoruba's deities (Orishas) with the Bantu's veneration of ancestral spirits (Preto Velho), indigenous elements (Caboclos and Caciques), Allan Kardec's Spiritism and Catholicism. Founded in the early 20th century.
Quimbanda 	Brazil 	KongoWitchcraftBrazilian Shamanism	  	Veneration of ancestral spirits called Exu and Pomba Gira
Santería 	Cuba 	Yoruba 	Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Haiti, USA 	Catholicism Syncretism
Regla de Arará 	Cuba 	Dahomey 	Puerto Rico Dominican Republic 	 
Regla de Palo 	Cuba 	Kongo nkisi 	Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, USA, Venezuela 	Also called Palo Mayombe,Regla de Congo, Palo Monte
Haitian Vodou 	Haiti 	Dahomey mythology 	Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, The Bahamas, Brazil, USA, Canada 	 
Louisiana Voodoo 	Southern USA 	Dahomey mythology 	USA 	
Obeah 	Jamaica 	Igbo 	Trinidad and Tobago, Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Grenada, Barbados, Guyana, Suriname, Belize	Similar to Hoodoo, derives from the Igbo 'obia' (or dibia, ) traditions.
Winti 	Suriname 	Yoruba, Dahomey, Kongo 	  	
Kumina 	Jamaica 	Kongo 	  	
Spiritual Baptist 	Trinidad and Tobago 	Yoruba 	Jamaica, Bahamas, USA 	Protestantism Syncretism, since the early 19th century
Hoodoo 	Southern USA 	Kongo, Dahomey, Togo 	USA 	 
Abakua 	Cuba 	Ekpe 	  	society of the Annang, Efik, Ibibio, Ekoi and Igbo
Orisha 	Trinidad 	Yoruba 	New York City 	Originally Yoruba, later syncretized with Catholicism.
* Does not refer to the religions' indigenous origins in continental Africa, but only to their development in the New World.
Other closely related regional faiths include Dominican Vudu in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rican Vudu in Puerto Rico, Xangô de RecifeXango de Recife and Xangô do Nordeste in Brazil, Tambor de Mina in Brazil and Candomblé Ketu in Bahia, Brazil.
==New religious movements==
Some syncretic new religious movements have elements of African traditional religions, but are predominantly rooted in other spiritual traditions. A first wave of such movements originated in the early twentieth century:
* Santo Daime (folk Catholicism and Spiritism, Brazil);
* Moorish Science Temple of America (Islam and Christianity, USA)
* Nation of Islam (Islam, USA)
* Rastafari movement (Abrahamic, Jamaica)
* Espiritismo (mixture of Taino and Kongo beliefs, Puerto Rico)
A second wave of new movements originated in the 1960s to 1970s, in the context of the emergence of New Age and Neopaganism in the United States:
* União do Vegetal (Brazil, entheogenic, since 1961);
* Vale do Amanhecer (Brazil, Spiritism, since 1965);
* Ausar Auset Society (USA, Kemetism, Pan-Africanism, since 1973); and
* Black Buddhist Community in America (USA, Buddhism, since the 1960s).
==See also==
* African traditional religion
==References==
===Further reading===
*Charles Spencer King, Nature's Ancient Religion ISBN 978-1-4404-1733-7
==External links==
* Roots and Rooted