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Throw the chamalongo
Palo Monte is a living Afro-Cuban religion descended from the Kongo peoples of Central Africa. It is not Yorùbá and it is not a branch of Santería, though the two have lived side by side in Cuba for two centuries; it is not “black magic”, a name given to it by those who policed it. What follows is for education: what scholars and the tradition's own elders have recorded about the nganga, the people who keep one, and the ways a palero asks a question. A consultation belongs to a tata or yaya nganga and to the dead they work with, and nothing on these pages stands in for one.
Throw the chamalongo
A throw, not a consultation.
This simulation reproduces the mechanics of a chamalongo throw — pieces fall, each lands pale face up or dark face up, the pale faces are counted — and publishes no reading of the count.
What most paleros use: four pieces of coconut shell.
Pale inner face up
Dark outer face up
Each piece is an independent fair coin from the browser's secure random source; a real piece of shell is curved and favours one face, and a real throw is made before a prenda by someone entitled to make it. Nothing about this throw is stored, sent or remembered.
Palo Monte is an educational section. Satin Cradle is not a tata or yaya nganga, a palero, an initiated practitioner or an oracle, and does not offer consultations. Nothing here is needed for any practice, and nothing on these pages is for sale.