Can someone tell me something about the religion "Santeria"?

Can someone tell me something about the religion "Santeria"?

It is a west African Yoruban Religion. Pretty good reading!!! Read here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santer%C3%ADa

the way of the saints, or la regal DE la Ochoa, believe in powerful spirits, who like the catholic saints, were once human beings who were made worthy, when alive to posses powers over the forces of nature, they became godlike, and are referred to as the Trix's. They also believe in a creator God, named Altamira, who after creating the universe, and appointing the Trix's, left us to create other universes

Santeria is a religion practiced in Southern Florida, Cuba, and other places where Spanish Catholics brought African slaves to the new world. These people had been kidnapped from West Africa, but they brought their ways of religion with them. They believed that underneath one great deity were many under deities that represented different elements of the world and of life: wood, fire, iron, love, war, agriculture, etc. To these under deities prayer was offered in exchange for assistance.

Their Catholic masters forbade the practice of their religion, so they masked the identities of these under deities, "Krisha's," behind particular Catholic saints, getting under the radar of the slave drivers.

Worship in this tradition takes place in small group settings where sacrifices of small animals, plants, and other things lead up, often, to a possession of sorts where an Irish "rides" the priest or priestess presiding. The Irish then speaks to the people present through the priest or priestess.

If you want to know more, I highly suggest "Santeria: The Beliefs and Rituals of a Growing Religion in America," by Miguel A. De La Torre.

Santeria is structured just like the Catholic Church. With the same results; the membership worships Church authority instead of the original Deity. What else is new?