Sacred Spaces and Religious Traditions in Oriente Cuba

Introduction

1 Spaces constructed by religious practitioners of Oriente represent their understanding about the sacredness of their world. They also incorporate ideas about what it means to be human as they express portions of the collective history of a particular religion and its followers . Images in this book show sacred spaces that were built between 1998 and 2007 by contemporary practitioners in Oriente Cuba, and they reflect categories of human religious meaning. The sites also are distinguishable through particularities of the adherents who built them. As director of the African Atlantic Research Team, I guided five team members in the investigation of four religions that are indigenous to Cuba, as they are practiced in Oriente: Palo Monte/Palo Mayombe, Vodú, espiritismo, andMuertérabembédeSao.Manywillnoticethatwedonotincludethemore well-known Cuban religious traditions of Regla de Ocha or Santería. These practices were omitted because our intent was to better understand traditions that have received little if any academic focus and to explore a geographic area of Cuba that is rarely the subject of research projects. With the exception of espiritismo, the indigenous religions we studied are Africa-based. This means that beyond the complexity of meanings derived from practitioners and their religious activities, the spaces contain customs handed down from colonial African descendants and integrate an alternative, Africa-based Introduction  2 introduction epistemology or knowledge system about what it means to be human. Within that epistemological core, the spaces also exemplify an alternative temporal modality; they exist as an alternative model of time. enslaved colonial Africans transported this other model of time to Oriente as part of an epistemological foundation, a cosmic orientation, and used both understandings to create ritual behaviors that became underpinnings of new religious traditions. Cuban religions vary according to where continental sacred fragments originated, when traditional rituals were established in Oriente, and depending upon materials and ritual activities, when and how these were combined to construct the practices. However throughout the region, the cosmic orientation or epistemology, with its alternative model of timed human possibilities, persisted as the overarching sacred perspective. The images of spaces presented in this book are from each of the four researched religions and symbolize the inherited and shared cosmic orientation, the specification of a tradition, as well as the particularities of individual practitioners. The book offers an interconnected examination of the history and entrenched understandings of the four indigenous religions. It may be the first systematic exploration of these traditions in their Oriente context, and we have taken the opportunity to reflect on what the spaces say about sacredness within regional religious practices. We want to attempt to qualify some of what is unknown about Oriente and indigenous religions as performed there. In addition this volume is equally attentive to examining alternative models of time, space, and other important ideas concerning the meaning of being human as expressed by the traditions. Our presentation is enhanced by color photographs of Oriente spaces. Literature Most scholarship about Cuba’s religious traditions is concerned with the black population and their Africa-based behaviors. These works have focused on research conducted in western provinces of the island, areas in or near the cities of Havana, Matanzas, Trinidad, and so on. There is an abundance of published work about these regions and it appears in such disciplines as history , anthropology, ethnomusicology, criminology, sociology, ethnology, and psychology.1 Only a small amount of these materials is in english and few, if any of these materials, include research conducted in the five current provinces created from the older region of Oriente (see map 2).2 3 introduction Definitive research into Cuban religions was made popular in the first half of the twentieth century by the internationally renowned scholar Don fernando Ortiz (1881–1969). Ortiz was impressed with the black Cuban population’s continued use of Africa-based spiritual customs, ritual dances, musical instruments, song traditions, linguistic variations, plus other accompanying cultural expressions and material objects.3 He was interested in how such a continuation of cultural manifestations affected race relations in his country. Ortiz conducted some of the earliest anthropological research and writing on the topic, in Spanish and english,4 but he barely mentioned Oriente and there is no evidence that he collected data or wrote about the eastern region. Rómulo Lachatañeré, another Cuban writer and one who worked with Ortiz, corresponded with the elder scholar and suggested the need for investigating religious practices in Oriente...