In Santeria we call God Olodumare, Olorun or Olofi (three names for one force). Olodumare is God the creator. Olorun is God the owner of heaven (sometimes perceived as the Sun). Olofi is seen as God the ruler over the earth. But these three names for God are all seen as one generative force that created all of the universe.

Olodumare created everything: heaven, earth, the animals, and breathed life into humanity. Olodumare is beyond any gender labels but I personally prefer to refer to Olodumare as the divine feminine generative force or “She”. According to our patakis (legends), Olodumare created everything, created the Orishas (Her oldest children) and assigned a portion of Her ashé (power, life force) to each of the Orishas. She gave them dominion over nature and mankind. Then Olodumare departed, rather annoyed with humanity and our annoying tendencies, and left the Orishas to tend to our affairs. For this reason, Olodumare is perceived as a distant and relatively uninvolved creator goddess. While we do praise Olodumare with every ritual invocation, we actually interact on a daily basis with the Orishas.

Depending on how you break down the word Orisha, it either means “selected head” (as in God’s selected ones to rule) or “streams of consciousness” (as in the currents of ashé that emanate from Olodumare). The Orishas have a vested interest in mankind. They intercede on our behalf when we pray to them, engage them with ebó (offerings) and they change our destinies for the better. The Orishas can also put obstacles in our way to test our character or to see if we will conduct ourselves with integrity, humility and respect. The Orishas are not gods and goddesses, but they are Olodumare’s divine chosen children who watch over us. In many ways it was natural for Christian missionaries to compare the Orishas to Saints. Saints are not God, but they are divine messengers who intercede on the behalf of humanity when we pray. The parallels were clearly there, and missionaries took advantage of that to begin drawing Lucumí initiates into Catholic worship.