15335: Hermantin: Miami-Herald- Animal sacrifice all in a day's work (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Wed, Apr. 16, 2003

Miami Herald

Animal sacrifice all in a day's work
Police get lessons in religious rituals
BY DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@herald.com

When Miami-Dade County police were called to a home in South Miami-Dade,
they found people slicing up chunks of goat meat and plucking feathers from
chickens. Blood spattered the feet of some of those in the house.

''You're killers! You're all going to jail!'' one officer yelled as the
elderly residents began to panic.

The commotion and threats didn't end until a call was made to a local
anthropologist and a police detective who explained to the officers on the
scene that what they had encountered was a routine and legal Santería
ritual.

No arrests were made and police left.

The followers of religions whose practices such as animal sacrifices, the
casting of spells and use of ''magic'' powders can seem alien to many
officers.

''We really need more cultural sensitivity,'' said Jackie Ben, a longtime
Santería priestess. ``Officers need to be educated in all these religions.
Many of them tend to think that being a part of this religion means you are
involved in criminal activity.''

Hoping to promote greater sophistication among South Florida law enforcement
agencies, anthropologist Rafael Martinez and Nelson Reyes, a North Miami
Beach police detective, led a weeklong course on ritualistic religions at
Miami police headquarters last month.

Officers from around the county learned about Santería, Palo Mayombe and
Haitian vodou, religions with roots in Africa fused with Christian
traditions. The influx of exiles and other immigrants has brought tens of
thousands of practitioners in these religions to South Florida.

PARAPHERNALIA

The first day of the class, Martinez and Reyes laid artifacts on a table in
a training room of Miami police headquarters: a three-foot high doll found
in the bushes of Sewell Park, on the Miami River near the Orange Bowl,
dressed in red and black. Machetes used in rituals of Palo Mayombe -- a
Congo religion which worships the dead -- still smelling of chickens.
Seashell-studded heads of Elegua, an important Santería deity.

The vast array of artifacts surprised Assistant State Attorney Stephen
ImMasche, a longtime Miami resident who knew only casually about the mix
between old African faiths and Christian iconography.

Now, he can rattle off the names of Santería deities such as Ogun and
Changó.

Like many who have taken the class over the years, ImMasche has dealt with
the religions sporadically because he did not how to recognize the faiths.

''I've had cases where people were hesitant to talk about it but I didn't
explore it,'' said ImMasche, who specializes in domestic violence.

``And I didn't explore it because I didn't have that knowledge to cross the
cultural barrier.''

A LITTLE RESPECT

Ben, the Santería priestess, visited on the third day of class. Officers
need to respect the religions, she said, as they would Christianity or
Judaism.

For example, Ben said, some Santería ceremonies cost in excess of $5,000.

And at these ceremonies, officers may encounter worshipers in a trance. To
the santeros, the worshiper is possessed by an orisha, or deity.

Martinez teaches officers to not directly question the possessed person, but
to ask an elder priest to break the trance -- or ''dismiss'' the orisha.
Otherwise, it may offend the practitioners.

''Many times, officers are judging the rituals according to their
perceptions, their upbringing as Christians,'' Martinez said. ``They
immediately equate it to devil worshiping.''

There are up to 100,000 Santería practitioners in South Florida, according
to Mercedes Sandoval, a professor of anthropology at Miami-Dade Community
College.

BORN IN CUBA

Born among the slave population of colonial Cuba, the religion combines
elements of Catholicism with practices of African nations. It not only
outlived slavery, it spread among Cubans of all backgrounds.

In South Florida communities, even more people have become initiates --
including many non-Hispanics and even some police officers, Martinez said.

Sandoval said it is harder to estimate the number of practitioners of Palo
Mayombe or Haitian vodou because these faiths are much more secretive.

Martinez estimates that the number of those who worship Palo Mayombe, or
paleros -- perhaps about 30,000 -- has grown exponentially with Santería
because many people practice both faiths.

The number of practitioners of Haitian vodou also likely has grown to the
tens of thousands, Martinez said.











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