Botanica Yemaya & Chango

Botanica Yemaya & Chango is the botanica megastore of Miami, but maybe not of Hialeah. This botanica has a lot of everything, and not only for practitioners of the Yoruba religion (Santeria), but for anyone interested in spiritual matters, fortune telling, curious people, and even those only looking for incense or scented oils.
Before I move on, let me clear out some smoke. Santeria is not a curse and/​or an evil spell practice. It is an ancient religion from Africa, transplanted and adapted to the Americas. It developed a type of symbiosis with Catholicism in order to survive the extraction from Africa and that is how it not only survived but grew. Unfortunately, and this is my personal opinion, Santeria practitioners love obscurity, disinformation and sometimes even confusion, partly because they have been discriminated against, and partly because the have been banned. But crazy as it may sound, this religion is becoming more and more mainstream, and more common than an NRA affiliation card.
Back to the Botanica Yemaya & Chango, this place is like a store worthy of Lincoln Road. They have huge images of saints and virgins, all of very good quality and quite nice. They also have clothes, books, decks of cards, amulets, necklaces, bracelets, hats, scarves, etc. For practitioners, they have everything necessary to build shrines and things that you need for rituals and such. They also have lots of herbs, incense, oils, as well as glass skulls and things that may help your spirituality.
Now, this is not a normal shop. You will see very strange things, after all, this is an African tradition that believes in animal sacrifices. The mildest would be African warrior masks and African religious artifacts, the weirdest would be… well, I’ll just say it’s unsettling.
Why do I come here? Well, I think they have good prices on incense, herbs, aromatic woods like palo santo, sage, etc. I like to burn stuff that smells good, I like to smudge, and I’m getting into scented oils, and truly, this place has lots of stuff. And while I come for that stuff, I snoop around and see what this botanica is all about. I like learning about everything, so why not learning about Santeria?
The people that work here will mostly ignore newcomers. I have been here a few times and still get ignored. I guess since I am not buying hundreds of dollars (or thousands, like some do) worth of merchandise, or asking for advice about relationships, I am just a figment of their imagination. Not the warmest people, and not the most welcoming environment, but a very large selection if you practice Santeria or if you want to become involved in the Yoruba religion.
Obatala lives here…