One Tradition, Many Descendant Traditions Worldwide

Yoruba religious practice, carried across the Atlantic by enslaved Yoruba people during the transatlantic slave trade, became a foundational source for several distinct but related religious traditions that developed in the Americas, including Santeria, or Lucumi, in Cuba, and Candomble in Brazil, each of which adapted core Yoruba concepts including orisha veneration and elements of divination practice into new forms shaped by their specific colonial and diasporic contexts, while Yoruba religion itself has continued as a living tradition in Nigeria and among Yoruba communities elsewhere in West Africa. This shared origin, combined with genuinely distinct historical development in each location, means that scholars of African diaspora religion treat Yoruba religion, Santeria and Candomble as a related family of traditions rather than as identical practices under different names, each with its own specific institutional structures, initiatory requirements and liturgical particulars that deserve separate and careful treatment rather than being collapsed together. This entry, along with the separate entries for Santeria and Candomble elsewhere in this atlas, reflects that scholarly distinction while applying the same general caution regarding restricted, initiation-based liturgical material to all three related traditions.