Venezuelans flock to 'spiritism' cult

SORTE, Venezuela -- The reverberating thud of wooden drums rises to a fever pitch as smoke from cheap cigars envelops the candle-lit clearing. The crowd shouts "strength! strength!" as Naudi Jose Ramos jerks and shudders before a fruit-laden altar.

Eyeballs rolled back, limbs rigid, he staggers around the clearing as the mesmerized multitude shuffles reverently back. His assistant, alternately blowing cigar smoke and spraying rum on him, hands him long needles. Ramos pierces his cheeks, arms, chin.

"I am Miguel Antonio Barrios," he pronounces in a gravelly growl, assuming a bent posture. "I was shot in the back 150 years ago. You can find me in the Carabobo cemetery."

To the crowd, Ramos' "transportation" seems a success. People lean in, eager with anticipation over what they see as the arrival of a spirit ready to dispense otherworldly wisdom and healing remedies.

Every weekend, mediums like Ramos and hundreds of their followers flock to the mountain of Sorte, the shrine of Venezuela's syncretic folk religion known as "spiritism," or the cult of Maria Lionza, a green-eyed Indian princess with magical powers said to have lived there 500 years ago.

Some Maria Lionza followers seek cures to health problems or marital strife. Others seek spiritual solace through purification rites or dips in the mountain's streams, which are believed to be sacred.

Angelina Pollak-Eltz, an anthropologist at Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas, estimates that a third to a half of Venezuela's mostly Roman Catholic population adheres to the folk religion, a melange of Catholicism, Indian shamanism and African polytheism. The number is rising, she says, as lower-class Venezuelans become increasingly disillusioned about their chances of breaking a generations-old cycle of crushing poverty.

"People are desperate for help, and they turn to this," says Pollak-Eltz who has studied Maria Lionza for more than 30 years.

The folk religion, which originated among slaves and Indians in central Venezuela, became fashionable in the 1920s, when the mistress of dictator Juan Vicente Gomez became a Maria Lionza priestess.

In 1956, dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez, said to be a devotee, erected a larger-than-life statue of a naked Maria Lionza, astride a tapir and holding aloft a pelvic bone, in the middle of the main Caracas highway. Supplicants still cover the statue with floral wreaths.

Today, Venezuela's poor form the bulk of Maria Lionza adherents. But the folk religion also has attracted a few outsiders, such as Panamanian salsa star Ruben Blades, who wrote a popular song about Maria Lionza.

Most worshippers profess to be Catholics and see no contradiction in their beliefs.

"Whenever I say I'm a spiritist, the priest says that's bad," says Ramos, 29, the Maria Lionza medium. "But I reply that I'm not doing anyone harm, so how can it be bad?"

The folk religion revolves around Maria Lionza herself, but it also imbues historical heroes with deity-like status -- perhaps, Pollak-Eltz says, as an indication of Venezuelans' search for national identity and pride. These heroes from the past rule over "courts" whose saintlike figures change as they capture the public's fancy or fall from favor.

Simon Bolivar, the Venezuelan who freed Andean nations from Spanish colonial rule, for instance, heads the Court of the Liberator. The latest addition to his altar is the country's current president, Hugo Chavez, who is regarded by many poor people as almost a savior.

"Chavez," maintains Maria Lionza follower Omaira Cedeno, "has strong protection from the Court of the Liberator."

According to Pollak-Eltz, however, the image of Chavez, who was briefly ousted in an April coup, is not seen at Maria Lionza gatherings as frequently as it once was.

The African Court, which features a runaway slave leader named Negro Felipe as well as Cuba's African-origin gods, sprang up in the 1960s with the influx of Cuban refugees. A Viking Court took shape in the 1970s, when a television series about Nordic warriors became popular. The Indian Court arose after commemorative coins showing the heads of indigenous chiefs were issued, Pollak-Eltz says.

In the 1960s, the government named Sorte, the mountain where Maria Lionza is believed to have lived, a national sanctuary.

Today, pilgrims from all over this nation of 24 million people flock to the mountain in chartered buses.

"I was operated on three years ago, but I was left with a limp," she says as two children, about 10 years old, writhe on the ground inside circles drawn with white flour.

"They're training to become mediums," she explains. "This mountain has its mysteries."

That night, Cedeno lies on a white sheet on the ground, surrounded by candles and flour-etched symbols. Ramos prepares a hypodermic needle and injects her with an anesthetic. She utters a cry and goes limp.

Muttering incantations, he pretends to slice her flesh with a razor blade and then sew up the "wound." As flies swarm among bottles of liquor, wilting flowers and melting sweets, he places the instruments before the altar.

The next day, swinging gently in a hammock, Cedeno reports her hip is sore but says she feels better already. "It's going to take about three operations," she says. "I have faith this is going to work."

"It's a psychological process," says Pollak-Eltz, the anthropologist. "If you believe in magic, it works. Many illnesses have psychosomatic symptoms.

Chavez's image taken off alters***Should you have any doubt that Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is in serious decline, consider this: His bust is being removed from the altars of his country's popular religion, a renowned anthropologist told United Press International on Monday. Less than four years ago, the syncretistic Maria Lionza cult celebrated Chavez as the reincarnation of Simon Bolivar, (1783-1830), South America's "Libertador" (liberator).

"Today he has Venezuela, tomorrow he'll rule South America, and ultimately the whole world," prophesied Antonio Osuna, leader and medium of a Spiritist temple in El Carpintero in a hillside slum near Caracas. To this correspondent, this was a disconcerting statement because it sounded much like the Nazis' chant: "Heute gehoert uns Deutschland, morgen die ganze Welt" (Today we own Germany, tomorrow we'll own the whole world).

But now the same Osuna who once puffed ceremonial cigar smoke around a wooden image of this "Bolivar incarnate" adorning an altar made from molten candle wax, proclaims: "Bolivar is angry with Chavez." Clearly, the underclass, once Chavez's power base, is as upset over the country's economic decline as the rest of the population. And the poor are the ones who frequent Maria Lionza sanctuaries such as Osuna's in El Carpintero. Angelica Pollak-Eltz, a Viennese ethnologist teaching at the Catholic University of Caracas, told UPI she had not seen a Chavez bust in any of the esoteric "boutiques" she has visited recently. Yet they used to be the hottest items on sale.***

*** As soon as the Santeros learned of Elian's fate (the boy had been rescued at sea, saved from sharks by the appearance of dolphins and after 48 hours in the water under a blazing sun did not show the burns and sores typical of those rescued at sea), they declared that he was a divine Elegua and that if he remained in Miami -- in other words, in exile -- Fidel Castro ``would fall.''

The Elegua had to be returned to Cuba for the protection of an atheist dictator who believes all of the Santeros' prophecies.

Soon after these predictions became known, Castro began his speeches, roaring threateningly, as he always does. Then the marches began, with thousands of little flags suddenly appearing, in addition to (another miracle) identical T-shirts with a likeness of the boy's face, so that he could appear over every Cuban's heart (or at least on their shirts). All sorts of Cubans, captive and free, marched.

As time goes by, the prophecies of the Santeros are becoming increasingly gloomy: Without the child there will be no Castro. Is anyone surprised that an erstwhile Marxist-Leninist believes in prophecies? Hitler, no less a secularist, believed in the auguries of his personal astrologer.

We must remember that it is Fidel Castro and his squandering of lives and property that has caused millions of Cubans to flee, dividing not only families but also the Cuban people. He did not react this furiously when one of his torpedo boats attacked and sank the tugboat Trece de Marzo just off the Cuban coast. Forty persons drowned in this unnatural disaster, among them 10 children. The government has not expressed a single regret over the tragedy.

Why all the noise and all the threats this time, over the return of a boy who was saved from drowning? The only explanation is the incoherence of a man who is struggling with the inevitable: his disappearance and the end of his tyranny and his life. After all, other Cuban dictators, from Gen. Gerardo Machado to Juan Batista, also turned to acts of sorcery in their hours of need. *** Source: "CASTRO'S FEAR OF SANTERO'S PROPHECY"

They did turn to acts of sorcery? And now Castro?

Would not be a surprise.

This info...."Bolivar is angry with Chavez." Clearly, the underclass, once Chavez's power base, is as upset over the country's economic decline as the rest of the population. And the poor are the ones who frequent Maria Lionza sanctuaries such as Osuna's in El Carpintero. Angelica Pollak-Eltz, a Viennese ethnologist teaching at the Catholic University of Caracas, told UPI she had not seen a Chavez bust in any of the esoteric "boutiques" she has visited recently. Yet they used to be the hottest items on sale".....is the most hopeful thing I have read about Chavez and Venezuela.

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