Proper Nouns
Female vodou priestess who acts as a mother, protecting and presiding over her spiritual house
Mambo
supernatural animating vital force that should prompt humility, respect, reciprocity. it is connected to tonali and can be associated with parts of human bodies
Axé
These powerful entities are characters who exist and occupy our world. They associated with ancestors sometimes, and are active agents according to African traditions that combined with Catholcism and can be drawn upon and accessed via ritual processes/cleansing processes
Orishas
This religious movement that originated in Latin America in the late 20th century. It combines Christian theology with Marxist socio-economic analysis to address poverty and oppression, saying that God gives preferential option to those in marginalized groups.
Liberation Theology
This man is the Peruvian author of A Theology of Liberation, who critiqued development as a solution to poverty
Gustavo Gutierrez
A hired Haitian “witchdoctor” who works with “both hands” to cast spells
Bocor (Bokor/Boccor)
Like the Spanish “cristiano,” this is an umbrella term for evangelical and Pentecostal protestants in Brazil
Crentes
A personification of death, she is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees
Santa Muerte
This Cuban-Kongolese tradition is part of the “left-hand path” of resistance to Christianity, looking to the power of heated cauldrons, bones, dirt and other power to resist Jesus and Christian saints
Palo
the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador, this man spoke out against social injustice and violence amid the escalating conflict between the military government and left-wing insurgents that led to the Salvadoran Civil War.
Oscar Romero
Literally “great big angel,” an animating principle, breath of life, Catholic soul in Vodou
Gwo Bon Anj
In Central and South America this term for "mixed race" or "mixed blood" denotes a person of combined Indigenous and European extraction. In some countries it also has an acquired social and cultural connotation.
Mestizo
This bible is used in the vast majority of Latin American Protestant churches
Reina-Valera
New religious movement where ayahuasca is a sacrament for ritual transportation and communication with spirits
Santo Daime
a Brazilian politician who served as president of Brazil from 2019 to 2023. A right-wing nationalist, law-and-order advocate, and former army captain who expressed admiration for the military government that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985.
Jair Bolsonaro
A bush priest who knows Catholic rites
Pret Savann
These colonial settlements begin in Sinaloa and Paraguay and last until Jesuit expulsion in 1767. They were places where Spanish colonial administrators and Jesuit missionaries in the Americas converted indigenous people to Christianity through teaching them farming and crafts
Reducciones
This skeletal figure embodies the Mexican attitude toward life and death, which is a blend of indigenous and European traditions. She represents the humor and beauty of life, and reminds people to honor their ancestors and live fully. Her visage is often included in art, pottery, and textiles and painting during Dia De Muertos.
La Catrina
Insurgent group that became a legal political party of El Salvador at the end of the country’s civil war in 1992. During their rise to power they were backed by Cuba.
FMNL (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front)
This Nicaraguan Jesuit priest recounted the Solentiname community's reading of the Gospel
Ernesto Cardenal
religious leader that can bridge the worlds through rituals and practices that provide contact with the orishas
Olorisha
In Umbanda, this term describes a spiritual energy/entity that attaches itself to a person, usually vulnerable, and affects their life in a negative way.
encostos
meaning "yard" or "shrine" in Portugese, these consecrated sites are sacred for Afro-Brazilian religious practice and places of worship for the Candomblé faith
Terreiros
a complex polytheistic religion that is indigenous to Nigeria. It is also known as Ìṣẹ̀ṣe or Oriṣa religion. It has evolved over the past two thousand years and has influenced other religions, including Santería in Cuba and Candomblé in Brazil
Yoruba
When this Jesuit was assassinated by government militias in El Salvador in 1977, his close friend Oscar Romero went through a dramatic political and religious transformation
Rutilio Grande