Brujería

Brujería is the Spanish-language word for 'witchcraft'. People of both sexes can practice; men are called brujo(s), women are called bruja(s). There is no sound etymology for this word, which appears only in Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, and Galician (other Romance languages use words derived from Latin strix, -igis, originally an owl). The word may be inherited from a Celtiberian substrate or it may derive from the Latin plusscius, -a, -um (> plūs + scius), a hapax attested in the Cena Trimalchionis, a central part in Petronius's Satyricon, and meaning roughly 'that knows a lot'. Pluscia could have arisen from rhotacization of the /l/ and voicing of the /p/, pluscia > pruscia > bruscia > bruxa (Port.) > bruja (Sp.). Across the Afro-Latin diaspora, many forms of spiritual practices have emerged: Haitian Vodou, Cuban Santería, and Brazilian Candomblé and Umbanda. However, what sets Brujería in Puerto Rico apart is the unique blend of “religiosity and spiritualized materialism” Isabelo Zenón Cruz made the assessment that Puerto Rican vernacular religions (and really any Afro-Latino religions) have been only studied by folklorists but not comparative religionists due to “classist and racist assumptions” Unlike many other Caribbean religions that derive from Africa, Brujería is not based on stable community, hierarchy, or membership. Instead, practices are more dependent on the ritual preferences of the actual participants. Because of the spontaneity of the spirits, it is impossible for institutionalized doctrines of worships to be enforced on followers and practicers of Brujería. Within sacred altars of brujos, lessons of practitioners, and brujería rituals lies ties to African ideologies, Catholicism, and Spiritism; explaining the erasure of hierarchical order. Before Spiritism was developed, Taíno Indians and African slaves in Puerto Rico developed the convictions that there exists spirits and those spirits can be communicated with. This becomes mixed with the convictions of spiritual worship introduced by Catholic colonizers. Early leaders of Spiritism found interest in Brujería amongst liberal, emancipation minded groups in the late nineteenth century; begging the interest for further research of the correlation between politics and Brujería. Early Brujería can be traced back as far as the 1500s when the archbishop of Santo Domingo and fifth bishop of Puerto Rico, Nicolás Ramos, recorded his recollections of ‘black brujos who engaged with the devil in the shape of a goat and, every night in front of this goat, cursed God, Santa María, and the sacraments of the Holy Church.’’ Ramos wrote, ‘‘sserting that they did not have nor believe in a god other than that devil…they performed these rituals in some fields ,…not in dreams since there were some people who saw them.’’ These people, Ramos continues, ‘‘tried to make them refrain from their doings through chanting and holy gifts , and with all this came to me.’” This perpetual demonization of elements of African worship set up the forefront to the centuries of demonization of Brujería practices.