cause the ceremony of baptism utilizes holy water for the rejection of the devil, everything that is sprinkled with this liquid is considered by the paleros to be "baptized" and purified. Evil spirits are believed to be frightened away and "burned" by the touch of holy water.

The palero or mayombero who is "Christian" works with the forces of God, whom they call Sambia, a corruption of the Congo name for the deity Nsambi. The "unbaptized" or paleros judios, work with Kadiempembe, the name given to the devil by the Congos...All paleros work with the spirits of nature, such as trees, plants, rain, river water, and animals. "Christian" paleros also work with the spirits of the dead, but only with "good" spirits. "Unbaptized" paleros work exclusively with the spirits of suicides, criminals, and evil witches (ndoki). (Gonzalez-Wippler, 1989:238-239.)

Every mayombero must make a nganga or sacred cauldron with which he practices his magic. Inside are kept the various symbols of Palo Mayombe, including human bones, which

are described in Chapter Three. The spirit of the nganga obeys its owner's orders which are given in a secret ceremony conducted by the Mayombero. The rituals stem from the Mayombero's belief in God, or Sambia who "made menga, blood, to give life to the first man and woman. Then, through their ears, he blew in intelligence so that they could know and understand things. He taught this first couple everything they had to know in order to survive. He also taught them how to prepare an nganga to work either good or bad. So, presumably, Sambia left this decision of choosing between good and evil to man and woman. But he reserved for himself the right to punish the practice of evil, and this practice he punishes with death, which he created to inflict on mankind for the sin of disobedience." (Gonzalez-Wippler, 1989:240-41.) Sambia, then, gives the Mayombero both permission and power to punish evil with evil. It is this power that can make Palo Mayombe a particularly menacing belief system if used as such by practitioners. It is, however, important to note that although the inherent evil nature of Palo Mayombe suggests a causal association between the belief system and crime, such a linkage has never been proven.

The Basic Foundations of Santeria In Santeria: An African Religion in America (1988), Joseph Murphy describes the basic foundations of this belief system. "The Yoruba call God Olodumare, the 'owner of all destinies'. Olodumare is the ultimate destiny of all creation; from him all existence comes forth, and to him it all returns... Olodumare is incarnated in the world as force, called ashe. Ashe is the blood of cosmic life, the power of Olodumare toward life, strength, and righteousness. Ashe is like a divine current that finds many conductors of greater or lesser receptivity. For the Yoruba, these channels have rhythms that can be teamed and used...We can speak of three basic approaches to a highly populated spiritual world: the way of values through honoring ancestors; the way of power through relationships with spiritual beings; and the way of order through divination. Values, power, order - the ways of ashe. Values... Ashe is present in the human line of continuity with the past. Every generation owes its being to the one before it. Each provides the conditions for the generation to follow. The Yoruba venerate ancestors because they recognize that the community of the present must look to the past for moral example. The experience of the elders provides the precedents and authority for juniors to grow in ashe. Power... Alongside the moral ashe of the ancestors, the Yoruba find spiritual strength in relationships with a pantheon of spiritual beings called orishas. The orishas are personifications of ashe that can be put at the disposal of human beings who honor them... Priests and priestesses of the orishas act as leaders of Yoruba worship. They undergo long and careful training in dance styles, prayer songs, and herbal healing. A priest or priestess grows in ashe by his or her growing confidence in the mysteries of the orishas....The Yoruba show their deepening relationships with their orishas through sacrifice, ebo. In gifts of animals and plants, human beings honor the orishas and dispose them to offer gifts in return... The orishas offer health, children, and wisdom; human beings render sacrifice and praise. Each needs the other... Order... Perhaps the most reflective of the ways of ashe is that of Ifa, the path of divination. Through Ifa the Yoruba can discern the will of Olodumare in the events of the world. Ifa reveals that in chaos there is order, in chance destiny. Ifa ... requires ten to fifteen years of arduous training to learn, and masters of the art are called babalawos, The fathers of the mystery." They are perhaps the most respected of all Yoruba priests, and the mystery they can reveal is Olodumare's destiny for all beings, human and orisha...Babalawos are generally senior men whose beaded jewelry and tools mark them as high priests. They sit flat on the ground with legs outstretched, their tools before them. Querents approach, asking the babalawo to consult ifa in order to learn the will of Olodumare as it touches their particular problem. Any problem great or small may propel Yoruba to a babalawo: failures in conception, a lost lover, persistent bad luck, an upcoming journey. Through Ifa, the babalawo will give the querent a formula for action to meet and resolve the problem in the light of the will of Olodumare....