Class - Tony Kail - Fieldwork with the Saints: Santeria in the American South

This class was filmed at the 2024 Tennessee Folk Magic Festival in Nashville, TN at aromaG's Botanica. Santería, an African religion derived from the spiritual traditions of the Yoruba people of Nigeria and transported to Cuba during the slave trade, has existed under a cloud of suspicion since its introduction. Early media reports of human sacrifice and black magic would link the religion to criminal activity. These rumors would follow the religion into the U.S., where a campaign of fear haunts devotees even today. In regions like the rural southern United States, Santería is one of many spiritual traditions that encounter resistance in a region known colloquially as the ‘Bible Belt’. #santeria
Anthropologist Tony Kail takes readers inside the religion of Santería to find the truth about this mysterious tradition. Guided by a Cuban elder in the religion, Kail is invited into ceremonies where members fight for the lives of innocent victims struck by sorcery. His fieldwork begins to reveal a world that exists where keepers of this tradition must navigate around the norms and outsiders in local society in order to survive. Several months later Kail boards a plane to Cuba where he would witness the Yoruba religion firsthand on the soil where it was preserved as the tradition of Santería. Fieldwork with the Saints: An Ethnographic Journey into Santería in the American South chronicles Kail’s journey into the challenges, daily life and stories of those who keep this ancient tradition alive in the American South.
Tony Kail is an ethnographer and writer. He holds a degree in cultural anthropology and has researched magico-religious cultures for more than twenty-five years. His work has taken him from Voodoo ceremonies in New Orleans to Haitian Botanicas in Harlem and Spiritual Churches in East Africa. Tony worked to create a Memphis Hoodoo Folklife Museum inside of the A. Schwab store on Beale Street. He is the author of: A Secret History of Memphis Hoodoo: Rootworkers, Conjurers & Spirituals as well as the book Stories of Rootworkers & Hoodoo in the Mid-South. anthrofolk.com/
Buy his book Fieldwork with the Saints on amazon here: www.amazon.com...
Tn Folk Magic Festival website: tnfolkmagicfes...
aromaG's Botanica website: aromags.com

[@Lululila67]

this is great!

[@Coralu23]

Your pronunciation is fantastic...Ashe y bendiciones! Omo Obatala here 🤍🤍🤍