Afro-American religion

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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 the Caribbean Islands and Latin America, as well as parts of the southern United States. They derive of African traditional religions, especially of West and Central Africa, showing similarities to the Yoruba religion in particular.

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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 vodou 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.

Afro-American Religions
Religion Developed in* Ancestral Roots Also practiced in Remarks
Candomblé Brazil Yoruba orishas   Some elements of Dahomey vodou(deities)
and Kongo nkisiAlso called Batuque
Umbanda Brazil Yoruba orishas Uruguay , Argentina Indigenous elements added
(Preto Velho, Cabolho). Founded in the early 20th century
Quimbanda Brazil Yoruba orishas   Veneration of ancestral spirits called
Exus and Pomba Giras
Santería Cuba Yoruba orishas USA,Puerto Rico, Mexico Catholicism Syncretism
Regla de Arará Cuba Dahomey vodou  
Regla de Palo Cuba Kongo nkisi Puerto Rico Also called Palo Mayombe,
Regla de Congo, Palo Monte
Vodou Haiti, Brazil Dahomey mythology Cuba,Dominican Republic,USA
Obeah Jamaica Dahomey vodou Trinidad and Tobago
Winti Suriname
Kumina Jamaica Kongo
Spiritual Baptist Trinidad and Tobago Yoruba orishas Jamaica, USA Protestantism Syncretism, since the early 19th century
Hoodoo USA Kongo   Mostly in southern USA not a religion
but from traditional religion of Africa.


* "Developed in" as indicated in the chart does not refer to the religions' indigenous origins within continental Africa. It refers only to their development in the New World.

Other closely related regional faiths include:

Some syncretic new religious movements have elements of these African religions, but are predominantly rooted in other spiritual traditions. A first wave of such movements originates in the 1930s:

A second wave of new movements originates in the 1960s to 1970s, in the context of the emergence of New Age and Neopaganism in the United States:

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