tain the age-old beliefs that they had always held. Yet, at the same time, it was necessary to adapt to the conditions of the New World in order to avoid undue persecution from their masters. Thus, it has been argued "that slaves used a veneer of Catholicism to hide their traditional religious practices from the authorities" (Brown 298).
The result of this situation in the New World was the syncretization, or merging, of two widely different belief systems--Catholic Christianity and West African spirit worship. It has been noted that such syncretization is typical among believers of "ecstatic" religions, as seen in voodoo. Thus, "those whose social circumstances render them peculiarly receptive to the ecstatic call change as society changes" (Lewis 832). Other writers have pointed out that the syncretism which occurred between West African voodoo and European Christianity reflected an effort on the part o
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