Religious Oppression

Topics: Slavery, Jamaica, Caribbean Pages: 3 (998 words) Published: March 26, 2013
Oppressed Religion.
Since the beginning of time, human beings have created various cultural categories that have helped with the development of today’s society. Within the Caribbean society, it has been the Taínos job to develop these cultural characteristics that through time have evolved and have been part of our daily lives. Fishing, hunting, farming are cultural and labor traditions passed down to today’s society and have evolved due to new technology. Religion on the other hand, is one of the social/cultural categories that has always, in away, been oppressed. This paper will analyze the effects that slavery has resonated on the lives of people living in the Caribbean by looking at this from a religious perspective; how Afro-Caribbean people have adopted these old religious ceremonies and how they have maintained them for such a long time. The Taínos developed religion in the Caribbean, a form of worship to their trinity gods: a male-like god, female-like goddess and another god that took form of a dog. The male god represented cassava and volcanoes, the female goddess represented sea and moon and the dog-like god would be in charge of taking care of the departed. The priest or shaman in charge of the worship ceremonies was the cacique, who was also the person in charge of the village. “The Taínos had no written language, and what is known of their customs and belief-systems was recorded by early European observers” (Ferguson 8). Conquistadors saw the Taínos’s religion as witchcraft, demon-like, banning it from the islands and the same happened when African slaves arrived. Cuban anthropologist, Fernando Ortiz created the term transculturation, which basically means the merging or combination of two or more cultures. This made it easier for conquistadors to help some taínos and slaves transition from one religion to another. The small amount of people that did not transition to Catholicism was not a threat to the government ruling in the Caribbean....
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