Carnival and National Identity in the Poetry of Afrocubanismo

1. Felipe Pichardo Moya’s “La comparsa”: Afro-Cuban Carnival as Sinister Spectacle

1 Felipe Pichardo Moya’s “La comparsa” Afro-Cuban Carnival as Sinister Spectacle El lector que viva o haya vivido en Cuba habrá visto en las noches de carnaval , o en ocasión de festejos públicos, pasear por las calles abigarradas comparsas formadas por las capas inferiores de la sociedad. A la cabeza de la comitiva poliétnica marcha un sujeto, negro generalmente, sosteniendo una pintarrajeada linterna de papeles multicolores, no siempre desprovista de efecto artístico. Tras él, otros individuos con disfraces chillones y con otras muchas linternas, y rodeándolos a todos una muchedumbre en la predominan los negros, gritando con voces destempladas, y con frecuencia aguardentosas, una cantinela repetida hasta la saciedad con monotonía desesperante. [The reader who lives or has lived in Cuba will have seen passing through the streets on carnival nights or during public festivities, multi-colored comparsas made up of the inferior strata of society. At the head of the poly-ethnic procession marches a subject, usually a Negro, holding up a lantern daubed with multi-colored paper, not always lacking artistic merit. After him, other individuals with gaudy costumes and with many more lanterns, and surrounding all of them a crowd in which Negroes predominate, screaming, with untuned and frequently drunken voices, a chant repeated endlessly and with exasperating monotony.] Fernando Ortiz, Los negros brujos Madera de esclavos, carne de barracón, tribu refractaria a la hygiene social y corporal, canalla inmunda: eso es el cuerpo de una comparsa. [The temperament of slaves, flesh of the slave barracks, a tribe refractory to social and corporal hygiene, filthy riffraff: that is the body of a comparsa.] Ramón Vasconcelos, “La fuga hacia la selva” The publication of Felipe Pichardo Moya’s “La comparsa” in the Cuban magazine Gráfico in March 1916 corresponded to a period during which racial tensions in Cuba were especially acute. Memories of the Racist Massacre of 1912 were still fresh, and many whites lived in fear of AfroCubans , their customs, and especially their alleged potential for future rebellions. According to De la Fuente, in the years following the massacre, 26 · Carnival and National Identity in the Poetry of Afrocubanismo rumors often surfaced that “blacks were preparing to avenge the killings of 1912” (81). “The first of these rumors circulated in 1913, after the Liberals ’ electoral defeat,” and allegations of an imminent and supposedly wellprepared black uprising emerged again in the final months of 1915, prior to the general elections of 1916 (81). During the same period, haunting images of murderous and lascivious black brujos and ñáñigos were irresponsibly disseminated by the sensationalistic press, and served to stir up an ever-increasing sense among the middle-class majority that concerted efforts needed to be made to suppress Afro-Cuban religions and other cultural manifestations. Spectacles that involved large gatherings—such as carnival comparsas—were specifically targeted since they were seen to pose the greatest threat to public safety, to the nation’s civility, and to its image in the eyes of foreign tourists. That traditional Afro-Cuban comparsas were subjected to intense official criticism and negative press during the years following the Racist Massacre is hardly surprising since it was widely held that these collective festivities were atavistic throwbacks to the slave era and hotbeds of moral depravity and criminal violence. In this chapter, I will argue that even if it is an important precursor to the poetry of Afrocubanismo, Felipe Pichardo Moya’s widely celebrated poem about an Afro-Cuban carnival ensemble is essentially a faithful reflection of the time in which it was written, and that his depiction of a comparsa is very much in keeping with contemporary attitudes toward these and many other expressions of African-derived culture. In her brief remarks on “La comparsa” in her book Sugar’s Secrets, Vera Kutzinski notes that it is ironic that the poem was “written and published at a time when actual comparsas were banned in Cuba” (181). Though her observation is not completely off the mark, it does not adequately address the nature of the bans that were put in place, nor does it reflect the particular circumstances surrounding comparsas in 1916. First of all, when considering the long-running controversy that surrounded AfroCuban carnival ensembles in the early decades of the Cuban Republic, it is important to keep in mind that despite the numerous official bans against them, it was not at all uncommon for Afro-Cubans to defy the authorities by parading through...