247 p., Discusses the diasporic origins of Palo Mayombe, a Kongo-Cuban religious tradition, while seeking to analyze how it fulfills, in a new transplanted setting, the spiritual needs of a given segment of the Cuban immigrant population in the United States—designated here as the “strangers in a new land”—“serving not only as a healing mechanism but also a vehicle towards the preservation of ethnic and cultural identity.”
Discusses the ways in which Santeria gatherings produce an alternative use of otherwise stigmatized language for 'gay' practitioners. Through the use of distinctive language to reference all of these populations, we may rethink the relationship between identities and practices, and within that, gender presentations vis a vis identities.
Lachatañeré,Rómulo (Author) and Ayorinde,Christine (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2005
Published:
Princeton, NJ: M. Wiener Publishers
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
156 p, Distinguishes between the two most important religious forms - the Regla de Ocha (Santeria), which promotes worship of the Oshira (gods), and the traditional oracles that originated in the old Yoruba city of lle-lfe', which promote a more animistic worldview. Africans who were brought to Cuba as slaves had to recreate their old traditions in their new Caribbean context. As their African heritage collided with Catholicism and with Native American and European traditions, certain African gods and traditions became more prominent while others lost their significance in the new Afro-Cuban culture. This book, the first systematic overview of the syncretization of the gods of African origin with Catholic saints, introduces the reader to a little-known side of Cuban culture.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
191 p., Comparing Cuban American and African American religiosity, this book argues that Afro-Cuban religiosity and culture are central to understanding the Cuban and Cuban American condition. It interprets this saturation of the Afro-Cuban as transcending race and affecting Cubans and Cuban Americans in spite of their pigmentation or self-identification.
Explores the association of altars with religious practice known as Espiritismo or Spiritism in the Caribbean culture, particularly the Indians and Congo. Attributes of Espiritismo; Distinction of an Espiritismo altar from other non-Christian altars assembled in observance of the Caribbean religions; Relation of Espiritismo with the religion Palo Monte Mayombe in Cuba.
301 p., Throughout the 20th century, various Cuban regimes have tried to eliminate the practice of religions of African origin by combining repressive legislation and coercive social practices that stigmatized practitioners as culturally backward, socially deviant, and mentally deficient. Religious practitioners, however, used the state apparatus to continue worshipping their African deities, sometimes challenging government officials' excessive application of the law or devising ways to evade their scrutiny. Through an analysis of archival documents, newspapers, works produced by practitioners, oral history interviews and published ethnographies, this dissertation examines the strategies practitioners of Ocha-Ifá - also known as Santería - employed as they continued practicing the religion of their ancestors and participating in the national projects of the twentieth century. Focusing on the period after the 1959 revolution, this dissertation argues that revolutionary policies that were designed to discourage the practice of religions of African origin actually facilitated its continued practice and development in unintended ways.