Carlos Aldama's Life in Batá: Cuba, Diaspora, and the Drum

1. Fundamento

15 * Umi * Batá drumming is used to support Afro-Cuban Santería. Santería is a “danced religion” based on Yoruba religious concepts disguised under and influenced by Catholic ideology and symbols. The foundation of Santería was established during the colonial period; subsequent developments in Cuba and other reaches of the diaspora, like California, are evolutions from this base. The original development began with the increased importation of enslaved Africans after 1762, when the British briefly occupied the island and opened it to trade more than ever before. The development of Santería took off even more in the early decades of the nineteenth century, when Cuba moved to replace Haiti (whose economy was destroyed by the only slave revolt to establish a black nation in the Americas) as the world’s largest sugar producer. To do so Spanish Cuban planters brought more African labor to work the cane fields and refining machinery. Concurrent civil strife among the several Yoruba groups of West Africa resulted in even more enslaved. Yoruba in Cuba Large numbers of Yoruba from all ranks of society arrived in Cuba at a time when slave care (lodging, etc.) improved and a fairly even ratio of male to female as well as old to young Africans was established.1 Their arrival also coincided with the last decades of slavery, which was abolished inCuba by1886. For example, from 1850 to1870, Yoruba subgroups Fundamento 1 Carlos Aldama’s Life in Batá Umi 16 suchastheEgba,Ijesa,Ijebu,andOyoformedonethirdofalltheenslaved Africans brought to Cuba. Like Salvador da Bahia (Brazil), during much of the nineteenth century Havana could be considered a Yoruba city in the Americas.2 This situation positioned the Yoruba to preserve their ownlifestyle(religion,music,etc.)andtomarkCubancultureinunique ways. The experience of the Yoruba in Cuba exemplifies both continuity with Old World African traditions and innovation in response to New World conditions. Whereas in Yorubaland each subgroup had only self-identified with a local community, in Cuba they gradually developed a wider shared identity. They became an ethnic “nation” (nación) alongside, although distinctfrom,other“nations”ofrelatedyetdiversepeopleswhofounded new, common identities in Cuba.3 In Yoruba language “olukumi” means “my friend”; as colonial officials heard this greeting they began to identify the Africans who used it by the same term. So it is that the name for the Yoruba nation in Cuba became Lucumí. Lucumí ethnic identity in Cuba is closely related to Yoruba culture from Africa and forms one of the main bases for the Santería religion. SomepeoplerefertoSanteríaas“Lucumíreligion”or“Lucumí.”Santería is dominated by Yoruba traits and the ritual language used in Santería prayers, chants, and songs is dominated by Yoruba vocabulary and Yoruba phonetic and syntactic structures.4 There has been influence from Catholicism and Kardecian Spiritism, but the foundation is Yoruba. “Fundamento” means the root of Lucumí identity, which first developedinnineteenth -centuryCuba.Ithasinherentpower,whichispassed down from generation to generation through various ritual objects, socialorganizations ,andactivities.Thecraftedandconsecratedbatáthemselves ,groupsofbatádrummersandassociatedlineages,andcommunal religious celebrations with music are examples. Based on fundamento, the nationalethnic designationofLucumícameto describedistinctlanguage ,culturalattributes,physicalcharacteristics,andwaysofbehaving. Like Carlos, many in Cuba are direct descendants of Yoruba. Atthesametime,thosewhowerenotYorubabybloodcouldbecome part of the Lucumí “nation.” The gradual disappearance of African-born blacks in Cuba after slave importations ceased, intermarriage across ethnic groups, and religious conversion of non-Yoruba and even white Fundamento Umi 17 Cubans forced the tradition to expand or perish.5 The Lucumí “nation” became detached from the ethnic group that had developed it and took on a life of its own.6 Being Lucumí “began to rest less on [one’s] ethnic descent...thanonthespiritualpath[one]followed.”7ThisgreaterinclusivenessallowedLucum ítraditiontosurviveandtothisdayfacilitatesits spread. People in several locations around the world, with and without connections of family descent, consider themselves to be “Yoruba.” In Nigeria, the batá drum is an important symbol of Yoruba identity. Fittingly , the Afro-Cuban batá tradition as described by Carlos Aldama is one of the most powerful markers of Yoruba-Lucumí identity in Cuba and everywhere it has spread. The Lucumí of Cuba are part of what anthropologist J. Lorand Matory has called the Yoruba Diaspora. He contends that the Yoruba Diaspora consists of all the peoples that practice Yoruba-derived culture. Regions throughout Yorubaland reflect the various subgroups that together founded the Lucumí nation in Cuba. The city of Old Oyo in the north was the seat of the Yoruba Empire. Prepared by Barbara Beckmeyer, Lark Simmons...