The Afro-diasporic traditions — Haitian Vodou, Brazilian Candomblé and Umbanda, Cuban Santería (Lucumí/Regla de Ocha), Trinidad Orisha, and related traditions throughout the Americas — represent one of the most extraordinary feats of spiritual survival in human history: the preservation, under conditions of chattel slavery and violent cultural erasure, of the religious traditions of West and Central Africa. These traditions center on the Lwa, the Orixás, and the Orishas — divine forces who govern the domains of life, death, love, war, healing, and destiny, and who communicate with their devotees through possession, divination, and dream. They are not museum pieces but living religions with millions of practitioners, sophisticated theological systems, and an astonishing capacity for renewal.
Rumi