Living Santería

In 1992 Smithsonian anthropologist Michael Atwood Mason travelled to Cuba for initiation as a priest into the Santerían religion. Since then he has created an active orisha “house” and has initiated five others as priests. He is a rare combination: a scholar-practitioner who is equally fluent in his profession and his religion. Interweaving his roles as researcher and priest, Mason explores Santerían as a contemporary phenomenon and offers an understanding of its complexity through his own experiences and those of its many practitioners. Balancing deftly between a devotee's account of participation and an anthropologist's theoretical analysis, Living Santerían offers an original and insightful understanding of this growing religious tradition.