The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that rituals of Santeria (1) — a religionsimilar to voodoo and originated in Cuba and Brazil — are permittedunder the Constitution.
Investigators recovered the remains of more than 500 animals afterexecuting a search warrant Wednesday at a home in the Feltonvillesection of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, according to the city’s chapterof the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Thegroup’s director of law enforcement said he believes the animals — themajority of which were chickens — were sacrificed as part of aSanteria religious ritual.
The animals included “dozens ofsheep, goats … every type of farm animal you can think of,” thePhiladelphia SPCA’s law enforcement director, George Bengal, said.
The SPCA believes two sets of remains are those of small primates, possibly monkeys.
PhiladelphiaSPCA enforcement officers were first called to the home over theweekend to tend to two emaciated dogs. The organization said that afterobtaining a search warrant, its officers found the home littered withanimal remains. The officers also found an AK-47, ammunition, dozens ofknives and an altar with candles, the group said.
Philadelphia police were called after that, and Wednesday’s search resulted.
(1) Santería is a syncretic religion. It is a system of beliefs that merge the Yoruba religion (brought to the New World by slaves imported to the Caribbean to work the sugar plantations) with Roman Catholic and Native American traditions.[2]These slaves carried with them various religious traditions, includinga trance for communicating with their ancestors and deities, animalsacrifice and sacred drumming.
In Cuba, this religious tradition has evolved into what we nowrecognize as Santería. In 2001, there were an estimated 22,000practitioners in the US alone,[4]but the number may be higher as some practitioners may be reluctant todisclose their religion on a government census or to an academicresearcher.