Sacred Spaces and R eligious Traditions in Oriente Cuba
a volume in the religions of the americas series Series Editors: davíd carrasco and charles h. long
Sacred Spaces and Religious Traditions in Oriente Cuba Jualynne E. Dodson african atlantic research team michigan state university In collaboration with josé millet batista casa del caribe santiago de cuba university of new mexico press e albuquerque
2008 by the University of New Mexico Press All rights reserved. Published 2008 Printed in the United States of America 13 12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5 6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dodson, Jualynne E. Sacred spaces and religious traditions in Oriente Cuba / Jualynne E. Dodson in collaboration with José Millet Batista. p. cm. (Religions of the Americas) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. isbn 978-0-8263-4353-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Holguín (Cuba : Province) Religious life and customs. 2. Sacred space Cuba Holguín (Province) 3. Afro-Caribbean cults Cuba Holguín (Province) I. Millet Batista, José. II. Title. bl2566.c9d63 2008 299.6097291 62 dc22 2008024176 Book design and type composition by Melissa Tandysh Composed in 10.5/14 Minion Pro Display type is Incognito
Dedicated to the Spiritual and Historical Lives of Vicente Portuondo Martin of Santiago de Cuba and Olga Batista of Holguín. Vicente Home Going! Tower of Power! Moves Humbly Home Going Service Calls! Broad of Frame & Shoulder Carries Ancients Knowledge Guide Today! Limbs of strength and agility Affected Deep Rituals. Sent Power Messages Rising Beyond. Dancing body, Swift Fluid. Moved to Ancestor Rhythms. All Felt Strong!!! Greater Service Now Beckons Make Ready Our Giant. Serve Between Both Worlds. Gift of Olodumere Received. Prepare Prenda to Release. Jualynne E. Dodson, 2002
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Contents List of Illustrations and Maps Editors Foreword Preface by the African Atlantic Research Team Acknowledgments viii ix xi xiii Introduction 1 Part I chapter 1. Contours and Concepts 21 chapter 2. African Cosmic Orientation: Core Commonalities 39 chapter 3. What Sacred Spaces Do 61 Part II chapter 4. Palo Monte/Palo Mayombe 81 chapter 5. Vodú 104 chapter 6. Espiritismo 124 Part III chapter 7. Land of the Dead Beginnings: Muertéra Bembé de Sao 147 chapter 8. Findings and Conclusions 160 Notes 177 Glossary of Select Terms 189 Bibliography 192 Index 205 Color plates follow page 18 vii
Illustrations Maps Map 1. Cuba within the Caribbean 4 5 Map 2. Cuba political map with Oriente provinces 23 Map 3. Slave trade era map of West and Central West Africa, including eight principal trade regions and ports of embarkation 26 Map 4. Nineteenth-century Oriente palenque sites 30 Map 5. Proximity of Oriente to Jamaica and Haiti 31 Map 6. Los Hoyos neighborhood in city of Santiago de Cuba 65 Plates follow page 18 Figure 1. Drummers in Santiago de Cuba Figure 2. Public sacred space visible for community view Figure 3. Moncada nganga of Los Hoyos Figure 4. Espiritismo space, Bayamo Figure 5. Artistic sidewalk ceramic tile by Wilfredo Lam Figure 6. Cosmogram of Palo Monte/Palo Mayombe in Oriente Figure 7. Palero in ritual gestures to his nganga Figure 8. Closeup of part of a nganga Figure 9. Image of Native American Indian Figure 10. Tabletop portion of a Las Tunas Vodú community Figure 11. Sacred space of Santiago Vodú community Figure 12. Hunfo Festival del Caribe Figure 13. Vevé-like image showing Haitian and Cuban flags Figure 14. Portion of an Espiritismo Cruzado sacred space Figure 15. Babalú Ayé in a sacred space of El Cobre Figure 16. Cordon ritual of Espiritismo de Cordon Figure 17. Cazuela of Santiago de Cuba Figure 18. Part of a Muertéra Bembé de Sao space viii
Editors Foreword In 1947 Don Fernando Ortiz in his book Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar coined the terms transcultural and transculturation as expressions of descriptive and methodological orientations to the reality of Cuban culture and religion. The terms were used by Ortiz to describe the dynamic processes produced by the interaction of indigenous, European, and African cultural elements and modes in the history and formation of Cuban culture. Dodson s work is the result of a long-term research project that she began in 1996. Subsequently she was joined by her graduate students, and during the last phases of research by the African Atlantic Research Team of Michigan State University in collaboration with the Popular Religions Study Team of the Casa del Caribe in Santiago de Cuba. Thus, the very structure of research embodied in a concrete manner the nature and meaning of a contact zone. Jualynne Dodson s book Sacred Spaces and Religious Traditions in Oriente Cuba echoes overtones of Ortiz s initial formulation. Not only has Dodson returned to Cuba, the same site of Ortiz s original research, but she has also revisited, supplemented, enhanced, and critiqued some of Ortiz s original assumptions. Ortiz did not limit his study to simply ideas and ideological formulations, but as the subtitle of his book, Tobacco and Sugar indicates, he was interested in the material modes of culture as expressed in the work of agricultural production. Sacred Spaces and Religious Traditions in Oriente Cuba represents both a continuity and discontinuity from the work of Ortiz. In the first instance Dodson s work concentrates on the province of Oriente whereas most studies of Afro-Cuban religions have concentrated on Havana and the areas close by. Dodson s work also continues this concern for materiality but in so doing, she undertakes a radical critique of Ortiz. Her study, while presupposing the gross economic nature of economic and material productions, is unique in its understanding of the materiality interwoven in the Afro- Cuban sacred sites of religious spaces. ix
There have already been too many books that have discussed Afro- Cuban religions as examples of syncretism or have simply attempted to outline the beliefs of these religions. In undertaking the study of one of the reglas congo, of Vodú of Espiritismo, and of Muertéra Bembé de Sao, Dodson s work opens us to a new orientation to these religious realities. And she does this by concentrating on what she has called sacred sites. From a conventional point of view, one might regard these sites as altars. Dodson is careful to avoid the term altars, for in common parlance it does not convey the structure, meaning, and depth of the spaces. These spaces are seen by her as sites of transcendence, power, and significance. The transcendent power is present precisely because of the material and sensuous nature of the sites. They carry a meaning of transcendence precisely because they are simultaneously the embodiment of histories, meaning, and values on the mundane level. This study will have the great value of redirecting research on the nature of sacred sites, and more importantly, on the African substratum of Cuban culture and religion. x editors foreword
Preface The African Atlantic Research Team (AART) is a mentoring collective that attempts to socialize as well as educate graduate and undergraduate students to the rigors and demands of academic production. AART was founded on the principle of collective and integrated engagement and we have worked to refine practical applications that step beyond normative boundaries of social science research, investigative methods, and the socialization of students. In that regard, Sacred Spaces and Religious Traditions in Oriente Cuba is situated within a distinct epistemological posture that we endeavor to practice: one that embraces collective foundations of scholarly as well as everyday knowledge production. The character of this book reflects and speaks to the intellectual development of the entire African Atlantic Research Team. Inspired by the call for serious exchange of ideas and scholastic excellence, team members have worked in Oriente sites for several years. Through collaborative data collection and analysis of those findings, we have grappled with conceptual issues identified by the project and presented from the field. Production of the book has ebbed and flowed into fruition through a dynamic interplay of love and care that transcends demands of rigorous social science research and/ or the requirements of academic writing. Within this atmosphere of AART s work, members gave the same care and support to Professor Dodson that she has given to us. We have worked with Dodson on Sacred Spaces and Religious Traditions in Oriente Cuba to challenge her to present the dignity and in tegrity upheld within sacred practices of Cuban indigenous religions in Oriente. Practitioners of these are authentic in their rituals, not backwater articulations to Western Cuba s lead. We believe we have contributed in highlighting the religious traditions, the devotees, and the region, as the book also raises important questions and conceptual clarities about the construction of African Diaspora knowledge systems in the Caribbean. We hope those who read this book will do so within a mindset that links xi
the collective approach that was foundational for the work that produced it. We feel Sacred Spaces and Religious Traditions in Oriente Cuba exemplifies such a focus and represents intentions and goals that are critical to our team. The book explores several issues significantly absent from the cannons of scholarship in our disciplinary arenas. It opens the eastern region of Oriente, an area central to any study of Cuba but one terribly neglected. Equally, this volume situates the island-nation as a significant tributary to the study of African Diaspora in the Caribbean. Sacred Spaces and Religious Traditions in Oriente Cuba prioritizes religion in the modality of life-practices of Oriente s African descended population, and retains that priority in the methodological approaches we took in gathering the research data, as well as in our conceptualization of the spiritual and material lives of Oriente inhabitants. We believe this posture challenges the individualistic approaches of most scholarship. This volume also supports investigative approaches pioneered by colleagues and teachers at Casa del Caribe in Santiago de Cuba. That cultural organization led the way in studying indigenous religious traditions of Oriente. For AART, this entire enterprise has served as a model for book production and the final editing was equally important in that learning process. Rosemary Carstens, the copyeditor, helped refine Sacred Spaces and Religious Traditions in Oriente Cuba with superior skill and expertise. She deftly comprehended the subject matter in its context and then proceeded to retool the language to a level of excellence we believe the work deserves. We thank her for helping Dodson, our mentor and teacha, in the final stages of production. This project has been a labor of love and unwavering dedication. It represents our united blood, sweat, and tears; It is, because we are. On behalf of the African Atlantic Research Team Sonya Maria Johnson Alexandra P. Gelbard Shanti Ali Zaid Harry Nii Koney Odamtten xii preface
Acknowledgments We give thanks to those who have gone before and made it possible for us to be at this moment and time. Eternal debt to Dr. Ruth Simms Hamilton of Michigan State University, whose intellectual life and groundbreaking conceptual work greatly influenced this book. There are at least two hundred or more persons whose help was indispensable to this volume s completion. Indeed, there never would have been a book without the Oriente practitioners who took our research team into their communities and shared their sacred spaces. Among the many we extend special appreciation to are Raphael, Angelita, Juan Gonzales ( Madelaine ), Don Chino, Madre Los Angeles Felicola ( Madridia ), Eva Fernandez, Norec Mozo, and everyone at Casa del Caribe. It is equally impossible to consider acknowledgments without including the Millet and Rosa América households of Santiago de Cuba, Flora Gilford s family in the United States, and the entire African Atlantic Research Team. I am indebted to Sonya Maria Johnson, Shanti Ali Zaid, and Alexandra Pauline Gelbard for years of steadfast trust, commitment, and hard work. Sonya has been present since the envisioning to the completion of this project and, because it has taken so long, I also dedicate this work to Ceiba and Caoba, the next generation. xiii
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Introduction Spaces constructed by religious practitioners of Oriente represent their understanding about the sacredness of their world. They also incorporate ideas about what it means to be human as they express portions of the collective history of a particular religion and its followers. Images in this book show sacred spaces that were built between 1998 and 2007 by contemporary practitioners in Oriente Cuba, and they reflect categories of human religious meaning. The sites also are distinguishable through particularities of the adherents who built them. As director of the African Atlantic Research Team, I guided five team members in the investigation of four religions that are indigenous to Cuba, as they are practiced in Oriente: Palo Monte/Palo Mayombe, Vodú, Espiritismo, and Muertéra Bembé de Sao. Many will notice that we do not include the more well-known Cuban religious traditions of Regla de Ocha or Santería. These practices were omitted because our intent was to better understand traditions that have received little if any academic focus and to explore a geographic area of Cuba that is rarely the subject of research projects. With the exception of Espiritismo, the indigenous religions we studied are Africa-based. This means that beyond the complexity of meanings derived from practitioners and their religious activities, the spaces contain customs handed down from colonial African descendants and integrate an alternative, Africa-based 1
epistemology or knowledge system about what it means to be human. Within that epistemological core, the spaces also exemplify an alternative temporal modality; they exist as an alternative model of time. Enslaved colonial Africans transported this other model of time to Oriente as part of an epistemological foundation, a cosmic orientation, and used both understandings to create ritual behaviors that became underpinnings of new religious traditions. Cuban religions vary according to where continental sacred fragments originated, when traditional rituals were established in Oriente, and depending upon materials and ritual activities, when and how these were combined to construct the practices. However throughout the region, the cosmic orientation or epistemology, with its alternative model of timed human possibilities, persisted as the overarching sacred perspective. The images of spaces presented in this book are from each of the four researched religions and symbolize the inherited and shared cosmic orientation, the specification of a tradition, as well as the particularities of individual practitioners. The book offers an interconnected examination of the history and entrenched understandings of the four indigenous religions. It may be the first systematic exploration of these traditions in their Oriente context, and we have taken the opportunity to reflect on what the spaces say about sacredness within regional religious practices. We want to attempt to qualify some of what is unknown about Oriente and indigenous religions as performed there. In addition this volume is equally attentive to examining alternative models of time, space, and other important ideas concerning the meaning of being human as expressed by the traditions. Our presentation is enhanced by color photographs of Oriente spaces. Literature Most scholarship about Cuba s religious traditions is concerned with the black population and their Africa-based behaviors. These works have focused on research conducted in western provinces of the island, areas in or near the cities of Havana, Matanzas, Trinidad, and so on. There is an abundance of published work about these regions and it appears in such disciplines as history, anthropology, ethnomusicology, criminology, sociology, ethnology, and psychology.1 Only a small amount of these materials is in English and few, if any of these materials, include research conducted in the five current provinces created from the older region of Oriente (see map 2).2 2 introduction
Definitive research into Cuban religions was made popular in the first half of the twentieth century by the internationally renowned scholar Don Fernando Ortiz (1881 1969). Ortiz was impressed with the black Cuban population s continued use of Africa-based spiritual customs, ritual dances, musical instruments, song traditions, linguistic variations, plus other ac - companying cultural expressions and material objects.3 He was interested in how such a continuation of cultural manifestations affected race relations in his country. Ortiz conducted some of the earliest anthropological research and writing on the topic, in Spanish and English,4 but he barely mentioned Ori ente and there is no evidence that he collected data or wrote about the eastern region. Rómulo Lachatañeré, another Cuban writer and one who worked with Ortiz, corresponded with the elder scholar and suggested the need for investigating religious practices in Oriente. Lachatañeré contended that procedures in the east could be different because of different historical and cultural factors that influenced and distinguished the region from Cuba s western areas.5 There are no indications that Ortiz engaged the contention but, despite this methodological omission, Ortiz is primarily responsible for introducing international academic and general reading audiences to the documented presence and continuation of Africa-based practices in Cuba. Ortiz s ongoing groundbreaking investigations also established a conceptual canon about Cuban cultural customs. He proposed that these were not practices assimilated into existing European definitions of cultural behavior or religious activities but were created from African descendants basic understandings about life as they contacted and exchanged with different ethnic groups and with members of other cultural groups on the island. Later, Charles H. Long and Mary Louise Pratt would explore such colonial spaces of inequitable power distribution where this cultural mixing, exchanging, and grappling for social presentation were distinct phenomena, contact zones. 6 But Ortiz saw that Cuba s processes of cultural creation were not merely representations of prevailing academic ideas about assimilation and acculturation. He suggested that essential details of the island s racial composition and historical development were not unilateral processes of cultural acquisition Africans behaving like Europeans. Rather, Ortiz argued that, to be fully understood, sociocultural changes that took place in Cuba required a more interactive conceptualization. He proposed transculturation as the pivotal concept to describe Cuba s colonial cultural mixing wherein groups grappled, fought, and dynamically combined their ideas of appropriate behaviors for introduction 3
Map 1: Cuba s location within the Caribbean and its relationship to other land spaces of the region. The island is 750 miles long, approximately 22 miles wide at its western point, and 124 miles wide at its widest point in the east. (From Cuba. Washington DC: United States Central Intelligence Agency, 1994.) 4 introduction
introduction 5