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Trinidad Orisha

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Trinidad Orisha

Trinidad Orisha, also known as Orisha religion and Shango, is a syncretic religion in Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean, originally from West Africa (Yoruba religion). Trinidad Orisha incorporates elements of Spiritual Baptism, and the closeness between Orisha and Spiritual Baptism has led to use of the term "Shango Baptist" to refer to members of either or both religions. Anthropologist James Houk described Trinidad Orisha as an "Afro-American religious complex", incorporating elements mainly from traditional African religion and Yoruba and including some elements from Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism), Hinduism, Islam (especially Sufism), Buddhism, Judaism (especially Kabbalah), Baháʼí, and Amerindian mythologies.

"The religious practice involves a music-centered worship service, in which collective singing and drumming accompany spirit possession and animal sacrifice (typically goats, sheep, and fowl)."

Trinidad Orisha's beginnings and development in the Caribbean "can be traced back to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when Africans were brought to the island to work on colonial sugar plantations."

Over time, as local religions were suppressed under colonial rule, Orisha practitioners disguised places of worship using Christian paraphernalia, which eventually began to be used in some ceremonies. Some Catholic elements were adopted, and as globalization continued and cross-cultural engagement intensified, the religion adopted increasingly diverse practices and beliefs from around the world, entangling into the syncretic religion it is today.

Trinidad Orisha practice involves call-and-response singing accompanied by a trio of drums. Orisha drums are double-headed bi-tensorial cylinders derived from Yoruba bembe drums (similar to the Cuban Iyesá drums and Venezuelan Fulía drums). The drum that is lowest in pitch is called the bo or congo. The lead drum is called "center drum," "big drum," or bembe. The smallest drum, highest in pitch, is called umele. The first two drums are played with a single stick plus hand combination, while the umele is played with a pair of sticks. All of the sticks are curved at the end, and resemble a shepherd's staff or crook. The language of the songs has been referred to as "Trinidad Yoruba" and is derived from the Yoruba language.

The one supreme god in Trinidad Orisha is Oludumare, the Yoruba supreme being who created the aye, the world of the living, visible to us, and the orun, the invisible spiritual world of the gods, spirits, and ancestors.

Orisha spirits, also referred to as gods, are the messengers of Oludumare, communicating through possession during spiritual rituals such as the feast. Yoruba categorizes the orisha into several categories:

While not Christian, many Orisha spirits are equated with Christian saints. Orishas include:

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