A gray tabby cat became an unwitting star of a viral video after being caught peacefully drinking water from the cups dedicated to Eleguá on its owner's altar, the Cuban Leisy Llanes (@leisyllanes on TikTok).
The nine-second clip shows the feline—a tabby with golden-yellow eyes and a decorative collar—standing on the altar, surrounded by wine glasses, bottles, a wicker basket filled with candies and colorful popsicles, dollar bills, and other ritual objects.
Upon discovering the scene, the owner asks him, "Hey, what are you doing?" The cat stares at her intently and, without flinching, continues drinking as if nothing is happening.
The video was tagged with the hashtags #elegua and #agua, confirming that the altar is dedicated to Eleguá, the orisha guardian of roads and crossroads in Cuban santería, and one of the first to receive offerings in domestic religious practice.
The water on Eleguá's altar serves a ritual function: to "awaken" or refresh the presence of the orisha. Along with the water, the usual offerings include sweets, corn, coconut, rum, and tobacco.
The humor of the situation— a cat shamelessly drinking holy water while its owner watches in disbelief— sparked interaction on social media. The video has garnered over 447,800 views, 41,700 likes, and nearly five thousand shares since its publication on May 14.
This type of content resonates with a deeply rooted tradition of everyday humor within the Cuban community on social media, where unexpected domestic situations involving pets or children interfering with practices of Afro-Cuban religion generate a lot of empathy and laughter.
It's not the first time an Eleguá altar has been at the center of a moment like this. In June 2025, a Cuban mother recorded her young son eating the popcorn placed as an offering, with a reaction of disbelief and humor that was quite similar and also went viral.
The very description that Leisy Llanes wrote for her video captures the sentiment of thousands of followers who identified with the scene: "She's overdoing it."
Filed under: