La Habana Vieja, Ciudad de La Habana, Cuba: Casa Editora Abril
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
204 p., Comentado e ilustrado sobre los números y leyendas cubanas afrodescendientes. Sus entradas léxicas muentran deidades, mitos y leyendas, con sus significado, caracterización, así como la impronta africana, europea y cubanas en sus interrelaciones y transculturaciones.
Consists of papers written in 1896 by black students at Mico College, Jamaica, preparing to become elementary school teachers. They were communicated to Professor York Powell by Mr. Frank Cundall, Secretary and Librarian of the Institute of Jamaica. Their bearing on the transmission of folklore renders them specially worthy of attention. They preserve the beliefs of their West African ancestors, while at the same time adopted many of the most familiar of trivial of English superstitions, and have used their acquaintance with Christianity for magical purpposes.
Focuses on African American and Afro-Hispanic literature and folklore. Employs Fernando Ortiz's theory of transculturation. Ortiz makes the case that a new Afro-Cuban identity is created with the intermingling of African, Spanish and native inhabitants of Cuba. Using Ortiz's critical framework as the foundation of this study, critiques of Zora Neale Hurston's portrayal of African American identity. Examines the parallel between her work and that of Lydia Cabrera, a Cuban ethnographer whose work represents Afro-Cuban identity as a transcultural one.
