Priestess promotes Orisa religion in Southern California

Chief Fama chanted as she stood on a straw mat in a bamboo-walled room behind her home near San Bernardino, Calif.

The priestess sprinkled water in a white ceramic pot containing a single sacred kola nut and then prayed to God for peace, longevity, protection and good health. Her husband, Chief Ifabowale Sohma Somadhi, shook an "iroke," a long wooden object filled with metal pieces used to communicate with a spirit of Orisa devotion.

Across the world, millions were participating in similar ceremonies.

Derided for centuries as a "primitive" religion, its practice banned by slave owners in the United States and elsewhere, Orisa devotion has thrived amid attempts to stamp it out. It flourishes in villages in Chief Fama's native Nigeria, in cities in Brazil and Cuba, and on a quiet side street in a semi-rural neighborhood in Southern California.

Chief Fama, 54, has become one of the best-known leaders of the religion in Southern California, with a store in San Bernardino that sells articles for Orisa ceremonies, books and a quarterly Orisa newspaper.

Judith Castro is so awed by Chief Fama's knowledge of Orisa worship that in 1999, she traveled from her home in Puerto Rico to undergo her initiation as a priestess in San Bernardino.

"I wanted it done correctly," Castro said by phone from Puerto Rico.

"I admire Chief Fama because she has a wisdom in the religion which is unbeatable compared to anyone I know in the diaspora," Castro said, referring to those who practice Orisa devotion outside West Africa.

No one knows exactly how many people practice the faith, largely because the stigma it still carries leads many Orisa devotees to pray in private, said Terry Rey, an associate professor of religion at Temple University in Philadelphia and co-editor of "Orisa Devotion as a World Religion." Rey said the stigma stems from a Eurocentric condescension toward African traditions. Estimates are as high as 100 million adherents, with most of those followers living in Africa and Brazil, he said. Tens of thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands live in the United States, Rey said.

Chief Fama, whose full name is Fama Adewale-Somadhi, said she has no idea how many Orisa devotees live in the Inland area.

Many Latin Americans practice a form of Orisa worship called Santeria, which embraces elements of Catholicism, including the veneration of saints. Orisa devotion's traditional tolerance of other religions, and similarities between Orisa worship and Catholicism -- including communicating to a single God through saints in Catholicism and through spirits in Orisa devotion -- led to the development of Santeria, Rey said.

Far from the Hollywood stereotypes of African religions, Orisa worship does not involve evil spells or sticking pins in dolls to harm others, Chief Fama said. Tenets include karma, truthfulness, venerating ancestors, and loving and respecting others.

Followers offer food to Olodumare -- the name for God in the Yoruba language of southwestern Nigeria and elsewhere in West Africa -- through the Orisa spirits. Sometimes the food is yams, cornmeal or catfish. Other times, it is a slaughtered chicken from a wired-in pen in Chief Fama and Chief Ifabowale's backyard.

Gustavo Souto grew up as a Catholic in Uruguay, but it wasn't until after he happened upon Chief Fama's store in the early 1990s that he felt a true connection with a religion. The San Bernardino man said Orisa worship fills him with peace and contentment.

Souto, 45, attended a recent Saturday ceremony at Chief Fama and Chief Ifabowale's shrine. The couple prays at the shrine every morning. Several times a month, they lead a longer ceremony with fellow Orisa worshippers to commemorate special days for community worship, just as most Christians gather Sundays.

The ceremony began with prayers to God and the blessing of ordinary bottled water, which was used to purify the atmosphere for the rituals.

"That our lives be as smooth as this palm oil -- no problems," Chief Ifabowale said as he poured an offering of the oil from a bottle into the white pot. Chief Ifabowale, clad in traditional loose-fitting Nigerian white pants and shirt, then sipped from a bottle of Seagram's Extra Dry Gin and sprayed it on a cloth-covered wooden statue as another offering.

Amid the wooden icons were still more offerings: honey, bananas, palm wine, molasses and a dish arrayed with several types of dried beans.

E-mail David Olson at dolson(at)PE.com

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)