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5 Religions of African Origin in Cuba A Gender Perspective MARÍA MARGARITA CASTRO FLORES (ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ADRIANA PREMAT AND MARSHALL BECK) To tackle the issue of gender in the study of religion constitutes a challenge in Cuba today, given that the subject has not received much previous attention. Moreover, the topic is of interest because, in spite of the widespread legitimation of women’s rights in contemporary Cuba, such recognition has not necessarily translated into a widening of the scope of action for women, particularly in the religious sphere, where they are subject to socio-historical factors in the form of norms and prohibitions. The presence of factors tending to marginalize women at the core of religious beliefs in today’s Cuba reflects the influence of the different religious systems that were brought together as the result of colonization. The European colonial presence was accompanied by two main religious currents that nurtured the Cuban religious expressions of today. One was the sui generis Catholicism professed by the European colonizers, plagued with discrimination against women and influenced, in turn, by several centuries of domination by Islam, a religion that in its practice excluded women from consideration as independent social entities. The other current, consisting of the beliefs that arrived with African slaves of various ethnicities, is the main object of the present analysis. These beliefs were carried by men and women who were selected randomly, based on the utilitarian criterion of their economic potential, and gave rise to some of the main religious systems in Cuba today, such as Regla de Ocha or Santerı́a, Regla Conga or Palo Monte, and the male Abakuá secret societies, among others. In time, the religions brought by the slaves underwent modifications, but they also retained certain principles and precepts. Even today, among the values that were maintained, the subordinate role of women in the exercise of many religious practices stands out. This is a reflection of the secondary role attributed to women in society. The roots of this subordination must be sought in the socio-historical framework within which contributing ethnic groups developed until the moment of their brusque uprooting, as well as in the social context into which they were subsequently inserted. The discriminatory treatment of that which is feminine in aspects of African culture was reinforced in the Caribbean by the conquerors’ attitude to women— particularly African women, given the conquerors’ Eurocentric racism and con- 55 Religions of African Origin in Cuba tempt for other peoples. A characteristic element of this process was “evangelization ,”1 a project that resulted in and justified the mistreatment of blacks. A different culture and religion were imposed, with the final goal of destroying the African’s original vision of the cosmos. According to the civil and ecclesiastical laws that established norms for the Catholic education of slaves,2 conversion had to encompass baptism, communion, confirmation, marriage, and training into the Christian doctrine. In practice, these regulations were retained mainly in form, though they generated a transculturation process in some cases, and in other cases resulted in forced acculturation.3 As a consequence, some African values disappeared and others survived, hidden and incorporated, transformed—without being dissolved—into the substratum of a new nationality that was slowly forming. These surviving values contributed to an explicit, qualitative differentiation within the religious sphere, evident in the features of the deities, among other things. In the words of Fernando Ortiz: “the black gods are generally very happy; they do not feel the philosophizing agony and ethical interventionism of the white gods, and they like to come down [to earth] to have fun with their faithful, like over-familiar pals” (1991: 92). In summary, the African woman was the object of machista reaffirmation, the result of the imposition of a series of patriarchal regimes. The feminine was subordinated not only to the colonizer, but also to the colonized male. This abused woman became the carrier of racial, cultural, and religious mestizaje (mixing). STEREOTYPES AND ETHNIC GROUPS IN AFRO-CUBAN RELIGIONS In any society, stereotypes of human groups are formed and become social preconceptions . In Cuba, these stereotypes affect the religious sphere in a number of ways, manifesting themselves in a multiplicity of extant expressions about religion, and more specifically, about those of African origin. This stereotyped vision is present in some sociological approaches to the topic. On the one hand, there exist material and spiritual factors that make the practice...

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