Tambú: Curaçao's African-Caribbean Ritual and the Politics of Memory

Conclusion/Conclui: Are You Ready? Are You Ready to Hear the History of Tambú?: Bo Ta Kla? Bo Ta Kla pa Tende e Historia di Tambú?

Acknowledgments 117 Conclusion: Are You Ready? Are You Ready to Hear the History of Tambú? conclui: Bo ta Kla? Bo ta Kla pa tende e historia di tambú? no one can become what he cannot find in his memories. —Jean améry Yamada Final: the Final call Our discussion of the phenomenon known as Tambú, so immediately resistant to disclosure, has been developed in this book to reveal its manifold transformative abilities. Frequent changes in Curaçao’s economic environment , coupled with similar changes in the island’s philosophical and political climates, have shaped and informed Afro-cultural adjustments to the changing esteem in which the dominant society held the black community and worked to construe Tambú into a multiplicity of types: some with sacred overtones, others more secular in nature. While individually unique, each maintains a hold on tradition by incorporating similar conventional elements of musical rhythm, structure, instrumentation, and style. Tambú constitutes part of a legacy in which Africans throughout the New World have engaged as a means of cultural survival appropriate to their environments. Rituals of great variety were created “that were at once new and immensely dynamic. African in overall tone and feeling, [yet] nonetheless wholly unlike any particular African society” (Price and Price 1999: 28). 118 Acknowledgments 118 conclUsIon/conclUI Donald Hill divides New World rituals into two general types. The first includes those rituals that draw upon the traditions of one particular ethnic group, like “the Orisha of Trinidad and the Lucumi of Cuba [which] are largely Yoruban,” and the seventeen Nanchons (“Nations”) in Vodou, each “thought to be derived from a separate ethnic group in Africa—Rada, Kongo , Ngo, Ibo, and so on”(Hill 1998: 183). Orisha, Lucumi, and Vodou shared other specific similarities as well: each was restricted to the African gods, who would arrive at the ritual one at a time, each ascribed a distinct musical rhythm, played by an ensemble of three drums. Hill’s second ritual type includes those that reflect the union of many nation groups, like the Big Drum of Carriacou, Grenada, “where special rhythms were associated with specific nations” (ibid.: 188); and the carnival of Trinidad, “a symbolic way in which the complex Creole identity is worked out, developed, and refined” (ibid.: 191–192). This second category implies a later development than the first: Orisha, Lucumi, and Vodou are rooted in the early years of slavery, whereas the Big Drum evolved in the mid-eighteenth century and the Trinidad carnival in the nineteenth century. Rituals from this second list also follow more secular lines and exclude acts of possession—as Hill points out, the Carriacou people do not consider Big Drum a religion, and carnival is uniformly considered “secular popular entertainment ” (ibid.: 191). Placing Tambú within this dual paradigm is problematic. In its unique adoption of the ancestors, the African gods, and the creole deities, Tambú unites Curaçao’s divergent African presences. Representing, in the words of Hill, a “‘hub’ of Creoleness,” Tambú can be placed as part of the secondmentioned ritual group. At the same time, its religious intent and adoption of possession firmly situates it within Hill’s first designated category. Yet, again here, Tambú manages to stand apart. In contrast to Orisha, Lucumi, and Vodou, Tambú utilizes only one ritual drum and welcomes the gods and the spirits; deities do not arrive one at a time, but in crowds of eight, nine, ten, or more; and musical rhythm does not dictate deities’ arrival, but instead it is Tambú’s binary structure that commands their appearance.Why Tambú has emerged and developed so differently advances discussions on history and its impact on ritual development, furthering the premise that New World rituals are powerful models for uncovering the cultural intricacies of African–New World history. As a historically linked ritual in motion, Tambú has acquired multiple attachments: Tambú symbolizes both an African past and a New World reality; it is a religion yet also a party; it pro- Acknowledgments 119 conclUsIon/conclUI 119 vides a sense of community to some, while it remains an object of fear and frustration to others. In its varied manifestations, Tambú represents more a process than a product. It emerges as a system of representations, connected to history through a constellation of factors and forces—not simply a consequence of it. Within social contexts where displacement created crises of continuity , tradition emanates with a certain urgency, although...