In Cuba’s African-origin religions, tobacco is attributed the magical property of chasing disgrace and mishaps away from men, animals and plants.

Habano puffers from the whole wide world, and especially from Cuba, consider the exhaling smoke that wraps them as magical. Just as our ancestors did, both Indians and Africans, religious practices in our culture were and will always be present in the sacred rite of sniffing, touching and inhaling a cigar.

Our Indians used it as a key element within their religious system and their magic. They also used to get in touch with spirits through the rising smoke that, according to them, was acting as a messenger of the gods.

Taino aboriginals believed in the magical powers of the behiques (tribe priests) to communicate with the dead, to figure out the fate of the Cemi –a mysterious and supernatural force- and tell the future. These priests used to talk with the spirits that lived in the Country of the Absentees during a ceremonial mass called cahoba. The process consisted of using a Y-shape pipe to absorb powder into the nostrils. The behiques were also medicine men and used to tell their “patients” to chew tobacco and other herbs to heal.

In this blend of autochthonous religions, worshippers of natural forces, slaves and freedmen learned to use tobacco, its leaves and smoke as a soul cleanser and a means of communication with otherworldly ancestral spirits, two things they benefited from greatly. There’s no religious ceremonial in our country that doesn’t kick off with cigar smoke exhalation and the usage of its fumes to evoke deities, a scent that shrouds its enigmatic powers in a cloud of mysticism.

The Reglas del Palo Religious expressions generally known as Reglas de Palo Monte hailed from the vast region of central Africa. They began coming ashore during the 16th century and continued their forced migration all they way into the 19th century. Its worshippers are endowed with a Nganga or fundament, a place inhabited by guarding spirits that guide their sacred-magic rituals. Their purposes follow just one straight line: the defense and protection of its owner, godchildren or associates.

The Reglas de Palo are based on direct contact with the dead. Followers of this religious practice speak with their Nganga or fundament in its own dialect and sing in whispers, blowing rings of smoke with the burning end of the cigar placed inside the mouth. This is an intimate form of communication with the spirit trapped inside the fundament and inside its owner’s mind. The spiraling billows of smoke send the message to Sambia, the Higher God among these practitioners.

The Abakua Secret Society Slaves coming from different ethnic groups were also brought to Cuba, chiefly from southeast Kalabar and Cameroon. Centuries before their arrival, Abakuas were social entities that collected money to help free their enslaved siblings. This group of men are the ones that make up the Abakua Secret Society.

Before 1959, members of this secret society in Cuba –pejoratively referred to as ñañigos- were mostly cigar factory laborers and port workers. One of their main objectives is to help the widows and children of their brothers, and fight against social injustice.

The highest aspiration of Abakua members is to be appointed Iremes, the ancestral spirits, ghosts and souls of ancestors, the founders of the Kalabar powers. In Cuba, they are called diablitos and are characters stripped of any human vestige that were able to help their people outstandingly, therefore they’re recognized and venerated by the crowd.

Before being vested with the ceremonial disguise, they must be cleansed with cigar smoke, conveying the transition from human to spirit. The rising smoke recycles the values of that vital energy and turns it into something spiritual. The ritual is repeated when the signatures or anaforuanas are drawn on the floor, or when their drums are submitted to the sublime smoke of a cigar to be purified and handed in to the intimacy of the surrounding world.

The Regla de Ocha or Santeria Regla de Ocha or Santeria can be defined as the cult to the fundaments, the seats of sacred deities they are the absolute owners of. Santeria takes root and ingrains itself in the rich cultural values of the Cuban people and their daily quest for their true identity.

In Regla de Ocha or Santeria, as well as in the complex divinatory system of Ifa –in the oddunes or letters of Oddi Wori and Ogbe Ate- tobacco and its properties are born. Some of its owners are Eleggua, Oggun, Ochosi and Osain, plus all the male Orishas who are offered burning cigars as the highest gifts. Babalu-Aye, the Orisha of the diseases, welcomes tobacco with pleasure, and so do all the guarding spirits of the house. When a Santeria priest wakes up in the morning, he offers them coffee and a cigar, either burning or not. This act is the maximum satisfaction of delight in the form of a gift offered to the guardians and construed as the salvation of the people.

As we’ve seen above, all of our religions are said to stem from Acha (applied in Regla de Ocha) or Sunga (Reglas de Palo), or Endabo (Abakua Secret Society). In a word, tobacco is a blessing and a benign power endowed with the magical property of chasing disgrace and mishaps away from men, animals and plants.