Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe MIAMI, April 2 (UPI) -- Impatience is mounting in a Miami neighborhood where practitioners of Santeria leave decapitated birds and animals around as sacrifices. The area is along a rail line in Kendall, Fla., operated by CSX, where neighbors routinely find dead roosters and disemboweled goats, the Miami Herald reported Sunday. Advertisement "I've known Santeros, and I've had Santeros as clients," said real-estate agent Larry Salas. "But you have little old ladies pulling up in cars with a trunk full of dead animals, tossing them onto my street. It's disrespectful." Rafael Martinez, a professor of anthropology at Barry University has created a course for local law-enforcement officers to foster better understanding of ritualistic religions, and often takes police officers enrolled in his classes to the site for field trips. "We pick up specimens, as long as they don't smell too bad," he said. CSX spokeswoman Meg Scheu said the neighborhood is the only site along the company's 1,700 miles of Florida rails that has a problem serious enough to warrant complaints from neighbors. Santeria, which originated in Cuba, identifies Yoruba African deities with Roman Catholic saints.
