The Epigenetic Consequences of Ritualized Toxicological Vectors

Palo Mayombe is an ancient African religion that has been documented as parallel to “Santería”; it was developed in Cuba primarily by enslaved communities, and today it is preserved as an active, yet dangerous, practice.

The Chemical Reality of Ritual Practice 

Not exactly because of the possibility of angering some ancestral spirit; I am referring to exposure to ritual mixtures that are used daily with a variety of extremely toxic, reactive, and dangerous substances ranging from quicksilver (elemental mercury) to organic matter of various origins.

Theological Geography and Materialism 

You see, these ancestral practices, found today throughout most of Latin America (especially those regions that were specifically important ports during the African diaspora, such as Cartagena de Indias in Colombia or the Caribbean in general) and in various Latin communities around the world, have a theological peculiarity in their rituals: unlike the Ocha tradition, or what is incorrectly called Santería, they focus their rituals on materials rather than spiritism or divination.

A small nganga. Source: TURTLETREE Images

A Public Health Crisis in the Domestic Sphere 

This has become a genuine public health problem among its practitioners, the toxicity is not concentrated in a single ingredient that we could easily blame, such as elemental mercury, which is used as a central protective element; it is sprayed in homes, cars, and in various other forms, in excessively high, concerning concentrations. But rather these rituals use specific mixtures of organic and inorganic components, cemetery soil with unknown microbiomes and likely contaminated with metals from old coffins, and even raise the possibility of exposure to runoff caused by improper embalming or the general disposal of a corpse. Let us recall that many Afro-Caribbean and Ibero-American colonial cemeteries used less industrial embalming than the United States, so the toxicological profile of the soil differs, and the profile of historical U.S. industrial contamination is ruled out; however, practices such as direct burials during the era of slavery emerged in these cemeteries, which in turn produce their own uncharacterized toxicological profile.

Neurological Epigenetics and Organometallic Synthesis 

The synthesis of these metals and other ingredients forms organometallic compounds whose toxicity is cumulative, especially for the brain. The ease with which these compounds cross the blood-brain barrier, combined with their sustained toxicity concentrated in specific areas of the brain, suggests that we may be observing a phenomenon relevant to transgenerational neurological epigenetics with a toxicological emphasis, or, in other words, how these environmental toxins ultimately modulate the epigenome of these communities in the medium and long term.

The Ritual Vector: Sarabanda and the Cauldron 

The Nganga (the correct term for this ritual “soup”) is the primary vector of exposure; for this article, we will use the most academically documented and, for our purposes, the most toxic one: the nganga of Sarabanda, the deity of metals and war.

The Animate Physical and Spiritual Container 

The cauldron is both a physical and spiritual container. It contains a nfumbi, the spirit of a deceased person. This spirit is responsible for carrying out the palero’s orders and, of course, must be fed with blood, alcohol, and tobacco.

Anatomy of Exposure: The Multi-Layered Cauldron 

The preparation of a nganga begins with soil from a cemetery and various other locations, again, diverse phytochemical profiles that remain uncharacterized,  our greatest unknown variables; a middle layer containing metals, iron, mercury, and red precipitate (mercuric oxide in solid form, usually a powder); an organic layer with chicken and snake remains in an active state of decomposition; and a top layer containing this “food” for the nfumbi. What we can glean from this process is that the cauldron ends up being handled in enclosed domestic spaces; it is, by all accounts, a vector of chronic cumulative exposure that conventional toxicology has not yet fully characterized. The cauldron, turns out not to just be the physicial embodiment of a spirit, but the physical embodiment of a variety of health problems.

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