The term syncretism in cultural matters is not widely used, since concepts such as cultural miscegenation, fusion and others are more widely used. Regardless of the convenience of one or the other term, it is clear that in culture there is a mixture of trends that end up forming new manifestations.
The concept of syncretism in this sense has been used by cultural anthropology to refer to the process by which two different traditions that are forced, by some historical circumstance, to live together for a prolonged period of time, experience a gradual assimilation of the culture and elements of the other, resulting in a new and unique cultural expression formed from the mixture of both.
Syncretism in cultural manifestations is very common in architecture, music, fashion or gastronomy. On the other hand, it also occurs in relation to languages, as is the case with Spanglish, a very widespread hybrid "language" in some territories of the United States in which Hispanic culture has merged with Anglo-Saxon.
Religious syncretism is the product of the union of two different religious traditions that are mutually assimilated, resulting in the birth of a new cult with elements and products of both. In conclusion we can say that religious syncretism is a process that develops or occurs slowly and spontaneously, when two religious traditions are forced to coexist in a harmonious way. In this sense, the encounter between the two traditions generates an initial clash that is resolved through a gradual process of accommodation and assimilation, this accommodation being the state of consciousness of the other's culture, and assimilation implies the fusion of both traditions to generate one. new, different from the previous ones.
