Casa de las Religiones Populares is on the 13. Street, at its intersection with 10. Street in Vista Alegra neighborhood.

Monday - Saturday 09:00 - 18:00

The House of Popular Religions, an extension of the House of the Caribbean, is located one block down the street from the Casa del Caribe in the Reparto Vista Alegre. It is a cozy and emblematic space that takes people to the motherland who feels himself as an Afro-descendant ancestry, or anyone who is interested in Cuba’s idiosyncratic home-grown religions.

The rooms are used for temporary and permanent exhibitions based on various objects such as paintings, crafts and altars from different belief systems, including Santería, Voodoo, Regla de Palo Monte, Regla Conga and Regla de Ocha, which developed in different parts of the country, each shaped by the traditions of the homelands of the African slaves and all influenced by the Catholicism of the Spanish settlers, Spiritism and non-Catholic Christianity of the Europeans and the Americans. The theme of the house covers all popular Afro religiosity, not only in Cuba, but also in Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Animal bones, dried leaves and rag dolls presented alongside church candles, crucifixes and images of the Virgin and Child. Costumes, songs in Yoruba, Congo or Creole, take the visitor back to the African ancestors that one day arrived in the Caribbean in the midst of the violence.

The large house also has its patio, which they call Palenque, another term that links us to the black resistance and struggle that took place in Cuba. There is also a leafy ceiba tree in the center of the patio, which represents Great Bwa, the protector of the trees in Voodoo. The patio is a space where the feeding ceremony of the ceiba, and the traditional Nganga and the Cajón for the dead take place.

Music groups, representatives of traditional popular culture, give highly interactive concerts every evening in the garden, and meetings are held from time to time with the participation of artists and intellectuals.