Tonight I just happened to catch an episode of Criminal Minds. Tonight’s episode, Corazon, was about ritualistic killings.
As soon as I watched the first few minutes of it, I knew it would be worth sharing…
When I tuned in, the investigators had just discovered a body (wearing elekes) that was missing its head and fingers. The head was found a little while later… with its brain removed, tongue cut out, and cowry shells in its eyes and mouth.
Oh, boy….
I was prepared for the worst.
The team showed a college professor photos from of one of the crime scenes. He said that while there were signs of Santeria influences, it seemed to also contain something darker — Palo Mayombe. They talk a bit about the differences between Santeria and Palo, what a Nganga is, etc. It was pretty simplified and I can only imagine how much cussing came from the Palo practitioners who watched this show. I guess it’s a good sign that media has finally stopped lumping all ATRs together, at least. I mean, it’s still in the context of “primitive religions”, “evil”, and “serial killers”, but… whatever.
As television goes, I never get tired of seeing how Santeria gets portrayed…
I was happy to see they at least attempted to fake a song to Elegua Laroye at a tambor, but it was still pretty cheesy.
When the suspect was being question, he became “mounted” and said a bunch of stuff. There were a few words that sounded like Lukumi, but I don’t really know… I doubt it was anything coherent.
The FBI task force asked a nearby latino officer if he could translate what had been said when the suspect was mounted by the orisha. The guy said something along the lines of, “I’m a Puerto Rican Catholic from Orlando and I’ve never heard anything like that.” Classic.
Eventually, the suspect translated what was said — after one of the main characters of the show, Reid, repeated to him the words that the orisha had spoken. The orisha had said that Reid was filled with dark eggun that were eating away at his soul. How dramatic!
Ultimately, the crimes ended up being committed by the professor they had interviewed earlier in the show. He was about the publish his work about Palo Mayombe and the crimes were meant to increase people’s interest in his research.
Compared to most of the other shows that tackle African Traditional Religions, Criminal Mind didn’t do a HORRIBLE job, I guess. I mean, they even did the Omi Tutu prayer — gotta’ give them kudos for that.
Once the killer is caught and everyone is safe, Reid is given an ide of Orula and told to keep it for protection. He’s still wearing it at the end of the episode, so maybe they’ll bring the Santeria thing back into the show at some point. Maybe they’re going to try a new spin on things, a crime-fighting santero. Ok… maybe not…
All in all, it was entertaining. Oh, and I especially liked the fact that the “Bad Guy” was actually someone outside of the religion… It’s about time!
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I liked the show but did not like that they called the religion a “cult”.
[...] a bizarre follow-up to my post about the recent episode of Criminal Minds, which focused on Santeria and Palo Mayombe, there was a pretty interesting news story recently [...]
I was wondering the same thing, on how many paleros were going to be upset, especially showing the nganga, to be honest it did bother me a bit, but the episode was still pretty good.
I’m fine with them showing the nganga because, I mean, it isn’t like it’s a REAL one, anyhow
Especially with good shows, it’s sometimes difficult to forget it’s fiction. That has a lot to do with why I can’t quite understand why people seem so outraged about the episode. It’s not meant to be educational. And even in those few instances were the terms “cult” or whatever were used, it didn’t feel — at least to me — like an attack on the religion. It’s simply how that CHARACTER would think of the religion as they understood it at that moment in the series.