Afro American Religious and New Age Practices

Abstract

Definition Afro-American religions in Latin America resulted from complex syntheses between the religious traditions of the different African ethnic groups that were joined by slavery in the Americas, local indigenous traditions, and Catholicism (the religion of the colonizers). They comprise a wide variety of practices and groups, from the domestic-based but highly structured Caribbean Santería and Brazilian Candomblé to the María Lionza groups of Venezuela and the tendas of Umbanda in various Southern Cone metropolitan areas. The ways in which these religions have interacted with the New Age movement – whose success among Latin America's urban middle classes has been widely documented – are an important question of research.