Where Men Are Wives and Mothers Rule: Santería Ritual Practices and Their Gender Implications

The History of African American Religions

by Mary Ann Clark

While much theological thinking assumes a normative male perspective, this study demonstrates how our ideas of religious beliefs and practices change in the light of gender awareness. Exploring the philosophy and practices of the Orisha traditions (principally the Afro-Cuban religious complex known as Santería) as they have developed in the Americas, Clark suggests that, unlike many mainstream religions, these traditions exist within a female-normative system in which all practitioners are expected to take up female gender roles. Examining the practices of divination, initiation, possession trance, sacrifice, and witchcraft in successive chapters, Clark explores the ways in which Santería beliefs and practices deviate from the historical assumptions about and the conceptual implications of these basic concepts. After tracing the standard definition of each term and describing its place within the worldview of Santería, Clark teases out its gender implications to argue for the female-normative nature of the religion. By arguing that gender is a fluid concept within Santería, Clark suggests that the qualities of being female form the ideal of Santeria religious practice for both men and women. In addition, she asserts that the Ifa cult organized around the male-only priesthood of the babalawo is an independent tradition that has been incompletely assimilated into the larger Santería complex. Based on field research done in several Santería communities, Clark’s study provides a detailed overview of the Santería and Yoruba traditional beliefs and practices. By clarifying a wide range of feminist- and gender-related themes in Cuban Santería, she challenges the traditional gendering of the religion and provides an account that will be of significant interest to students of Caribbean studies and African religions, as well as to scholars in anthropology, sociology, and gender studies.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published June 23, 2005

About the author

Mary Ann Clark is both a published scholar and an explorer of speculative fiction. As a recognized authority on the Afro-Caribbean religions, primarily Santería/Lukumi, she has published three academic books: Then We Will Sing a New Song: African Influences on America's Religious Landscape (Roman & Littlefield, 2012), Santería: Correcting the Myths and Uncovering the Realities of a Growing Religion (Praeger Publishers, 2007) and <>Where Men are Wives and Mothers Rule: Santería Ritual Practices and Their Gender Implications (University Press of Florida, 2005).

Mary Ann's newest passion is speculative fiction including her debut novella The Baron’s Box: A Story from the Bardo. In this account of one woman’s journey through a surprising afterlife, Sara discovers the Empyrean isn’t heaven and the Nether Realm isn’t hell, and the Bardo is at all what she expected. Her only hope is working together with Sam, her compeer, to deliver The Baron Samedi’s box to his sister, Kore, the Queen of the Dead. Before Sam and Sara can receive the gift hidden in The Baron’s box, they must discover who they were, why they were thrown together on this journey, and, most importantly, what they mean to each other.

Growing up on the high plains of Colorado, Mary Ann received her undergraduate degree from Creighton University. She earned an MBA from the University of Houston, and started her own technical writing company. There she managed the writing of computer documentation and other types of procedure manuals.

After almost 20 years as a technical writer, she went back to school and earned a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Rice University, in Houston, Texas. Currently, she is a faculty member at Yavapai College in Prescott where she teaches Comparative Religion.

Reviews

[Morgan M. Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does a good job at looking at the roles of women and womanliness in Santería (Lukumí) practice. No especially keen new insights, but a good overview. Where the book falters a little is the under-theorizing around the place of gay men and lesbians, and it skips over completely the issues surrounding trans practitioners, which surely would have strengthened a number of her arguments. Still, an important contribution for when it was publish in the early 2000s, and a great quick read.

[Edgar Nieves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clark realizan un estudio del género en la sentaría y en sus prácticas. sobre todo, argumenta sobre cómo la santería es una religión dominada por la mujer donde, a diferencia de las religiones occidentales, la mujer no es tratada como inferior y donde puede tener posiciones de poder. Es un estudio muy interesante e iluminador para nuevas reflexiones del género, en particular considerando las creencias del yoruba.

[Mary Ann Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Explores the philosophy and practices of the Orisha traditions, principally the Afro-Cuban religious complex know as Santeria, as they have developed in the Americas and suggests that, unlike many mainstream religions, these traditions exist within a female-normative system in which all practitioners, regardless of their own understandings of their sex, gender or sexual orientation are expected to take up female gender roles in the practice of the religion. In spite of a growing body of feminist analysis, much theological thinking assumes a normative male perspective. Not only are many of the major thinkers across religious traditions men but the descriptions of both the gods and human beings seem to imply that maleness is the norm; the gods and the people incorporated into theological thinking are presumed to be male unless they are specifically identified otherwise.

Explores how our ideas of religious beliefs and practices change in the light of gender awareness. Because it challenges not only Western theological traditions but also misogynistic attitudes promulgated by some scholars and practitioners, this book is provocative. By arguing that gender is a fluid concept within these religions it suggests that the qualities associated with being female form the ideal of Santeria religious practice for both men and women. In addition, it argues that the Ifa cult organized around the male-only priesthood of the babalawo is an independent tradition that has been incompletely assimilated into the larger Santeria complex.