Alvarez,Alejandro García (Author) and Mora,Luis Miguel García (Author)
Format:
Monograph
Publication Date:
1999
Published:
Madrid: Mapfre Mutualidad
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
CD, Contains digital reproductions of Cuban historical documents from the 16th to the 20th century, as well as, statistics and census data collected during the 18th and the 19th century. Coleccio´n Cla´sicos Tavera; disco no 19. Serie 1, Iberoame´rica en la historia ; vol. 9
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
32 p, Contents: The Caribbean and its food -- People, food, and farming -- Caribbean religions -- Christmas and New Year's -- Carnival -- Food and harvest festivals
A recent editorial in the Trinidad Express quotes V.S. Naipaul in describing the idea that "if people cannot live in the day they would live in the night", as indicated in the greater willingness of people to cross the fine line between legitimate religion and superstition as life becomes more complex and challenging. The `mental darkness' to which the author was referring is the result of "the inevitable accompaniment of social marginalization and economic hopelessness in which so large a part of our population lives." From Montreal to Toronto to New York and the Caribbean there would seem to be a proliferation of new churches (38 in one small Toronto community), and ministers with questionable credentials promising solutions to all problems (`miracles' to be more precise) including childlessness, drug and alcohol addiction, impotence, disease, release from `spells', and depression. All for a price, of course. Two recent cases involving the deaths of teenagers in Trinidad can also serve to highlight the extremes to which this new `religion' has gone. In the first case a 17-year-old girl who became sick at her parents home was taken to her late grandmother's house (apparently a well-known Baptist woman in South Trinidad) where her body was kept for three days after her death (in spite of decay and flies) in the hope that the spirit of her dead grandmother would resurrect her back to life.
