In this Book

summary
As much a storyteller as an ethnographer, Lydia Cabrera was captivated by a strange and magical new world revealed to her by her Afro-Cuban friends in early twentieth-century Havana. In Afro-Cuban Tales this world comes to teeming life, introducing English-speaking readers to a realm of tenuous boundaries between the natural and the supernatural, deities and mortals, the spiritual and the seemingly inanimate.

Here readers will find a vibrant, imaginative record of African culture transplanted to Cuba and transformed over time, a passionate and subversive alternative to the dominant Western culture of the Americas. In this charmed realm of myth and legend, imaginative flights, and hard realities, Cabrera shows us a world turned upside down. In this domain guinea hens can make dour Asturians and the king of Spain dance; little fat cooking pots might prepare their own meals; the pope can send encyclicals about pumpkins; and officials can be defeated by the shrewdness of turtles. The first English translation of one of the most important writers on African culture in the Americas, the collection provides a fascinating view of how African traditions, myths, stories, and religions traveled to the New World—of how, in their tales, Africans in the Americas created a New World all their own.

Table of Contents

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  1. Cover
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  1. Title Page, Copyright Page
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  1. Contents
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  1. Introduction to the English Edition
  2. pp. vii-xii
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  1. Introduction to the Spanish Edition
  2. pp. xiii-xvii
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  1. Bregantino Bregantín
  2. pp. 1-19
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  1. Chéggue
  2. pp. 20-21
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  1. Eyá
  2. pp. 22-24
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  1. Walo-Wila
  2. pp. 25-28
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  1. Two Queens
  2. p. 29
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  1. Papa Turtle and Papa Tiger
  2. pp. 30-56
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  1. Los Compadres
  2. pp. 57-83
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  1. Mambiala Hill
  2. pp. 84-96
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  1. The Easy Life
  2. pp. 97-102
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  1. Apopoito Miamá
  2. pp. 103-111
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  1. Tatabisaco
  2. pp. 112-117
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  1. Arere Marekén
  2. pp. 118-121
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  1. The Green Mud of the Almendares
  2. pp. 122-126
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  1. Suandende
  2. pp. 127-131
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  1. Sokuando!
  2. pp. 132-134
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  1. Ñoguma
  2. pp. 135-140
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  1. Hicotea’s Horse
  2. pp. 141-143
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  1. One-Legged-Osain
  2. pp. 144-149
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  1. The Amazing Guinea
  2. pp. 150-158
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  1. The Letter of Emancipation
  2. pp. 159-162
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  1. The Mutes
  2. pp. 163-165
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  1. The Watchful Toad
  2. pp. 166-169
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