The Babalawo - Secrets of Santeria Revisited

Growing up Catholic in Miami, I heard all kinds of stories about Santeria. People talked about dead chickens on doorsteps, curses, and spirits taking over people’s bodies. Even the people who didn’t practice it all said the same thing: “I don’t believe in Santeria, but I respect it.” That’s enough to terrify a little Cuban kid, and honestly, it still scares me.

So I went back to my hometown to face that fear. My mom is a lifelong Catholic who has quietly started visiting a babalawo (or babalao, as we say in Miami), and she takes me to meet Fernando, the Santeria priest who told her things she swears he had no way of knowing. Santeria, also known as Lucumí or Regla de Ocha, is an Afro-Cuban religion with roots in West Africa’s Yoruba culture. Fernando explains how enslaved people in Cuba kept their orishas alive behind the faces of Catholic saints. Then he takes me to a botanica hidden in a residential neighborhood, where the animals for sacrifice wait in their cages.

I also sit down with Cynthia Duncan, Ph.D., a scholar of Cuban culture who is also an initiated priestess. She explains what the orishas are, why the rituals are secret on purpose, what really happens during an animal sacrifice, and whether Santeria can ever be used to hurt someone.

This episode first aired back when the show was called Pretend Radio. College professors still play it in their classrooms, and it’s still one of the most personal stories I’ve ever told.

About our guest: Cynthia Duncan, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Hispanic Studies at the University of Washington Tacoma. She has spent more than 35 years studying Latin American literature, film and culture, with a focus on Mexico and the Hispanic Caribbean. She wrote Unraveling the Unreal: Fantastic Fictions in Latin America (Temple University Press, 2010). She is an initiated priestess of Ochún and part of the religious community in Palmira, Cuba, and the city of Cienfuegos named her a Distinguished Daughter in 2005.

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Written and Produced by Javier Leiva

Music by Joe Basile | thechicken.net

© 2026 Creative Babble LLC

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