Christine Ayorinde

Afro-Cuban religions - especially the practice of santeria, based on West African traditions - are an essential aspect of contemporary Cuban identity, Christine Ayorinde argues, and their existence has forced the current revolutionary state into bizarre and contradictory positions. Ayorinde's bold assertion confounds official pronouncements about the irrelevance of religion in a modern socialist state. The revolutionary leadership has acknowledged the centrality of Cuba's African heritage, while upholding the idea of a nationhood that transcends racial difference. Ayorinde proposes that the conflict between the desire to recognize the country's African roots and the offical commitment to a secular state has created a complex, often paradoxical situation. Despite an ideological campaign to create a new, rational society, African-derived religions are emerging today for the first time from a position of marginality. Cuba now is beset with a sense of disorientation as well as a return to old habits and patterns, including racial inequality. Based mostly inside Cuba, Ayorinde's research includes interviews and conversations with individual Cubans, including practitioners of Afro-Cuban religions from different ethnic backgrounds. Ayorinde also interviewed both religious and atheist commentators on Afro-Cuban religions and culture, including academics, journalists, party officials, and members of governmental and nongovernmental institutions, many at the forefront of efforts to give santeria greater recognition as a central component of the national culture. In addition, the book offers a fresh historical overview of changing religious forms and attitudes in Cuba, examining the encounter with European culture and the Roman Catholic Church, religious practice among slaves in the 19th century, the concept of racial fraternity articulated by Cuban patriot Jose Marti, and the witchcraft scares of the early decades of the 20th century, when religious practices were associated with criminality. Its emphasis on the period since 1959 and on the current decade places it on the cutting edge of studies that examine contemporary Cuban culture.

This study of the  lengua  or ritual language of Palo Monte Mayombe, an Afro-Cuban religious practice of western central African origin, reveals its Kikongo etymology. This finding is important as the "African" elements of the  lengua palera  were previously assumed to be a confluence or mixture of various Bantu languages. The authors of this book argue that, despite strategies of simplification, restructuring and phonetic accommodation prompted by Cuban Spanish, the  lengua palera  apparently contains no non-Kikongo African elements.

Page 1. Hispanic American Historical Review 86:2 Copyright 2006 by Duke University Press Book Reviews General Historia general de América Latina. Vol. 3, parts 1 and 2, Consolidación del orden colonial. Edited by alfredo castillero calvo. Coedited by allan kuethe. ...

Afro-Cuban religions - especially the practice of santeria, based on West African traditions - are an essential aspect of contemporary Cuban identity, Christine Ayorinde argues, and their existence has forced the current revolutionary state into bizarre and contradictory positions. Ayorinde's bold assertion confounds official pronouncements about the irrelevance of religion in a modern socialist state. The revolutionary leadership has acknowledged the centrality of Cuba's African heritage, while upholding the idea of a nationhood that transcends racial difference. Ayorinde proposes that the conflict between the desire to recognize the country's African roots and the offical commitment to a secular state has created a complex, often paradoxical situation. Despite an ideological campaign to create a new, rational society, African-derived religions are emerging today for the first time from a position of marginality. Cuba now is beset with a sense of disorientation as well ...

This study of the  lengua  or ritual language of Palo Monte Mayombe, an Afro-Cuban religious practice of western central African origin, reveals its Kikongo etymology. This finding is important as the "African" elements of the  lengua palera  were previously assumed to be a confluence or mixture of various Bantu languages. The authors of this book argue that, despite strategies of simplification, restructuring and phonetic accommodation prompted by Cuban Spanish, the  lengua palera  apparently contains no non-Kikongo African elements.

... After thinking for a moment, he took his sharp axe and began to cut down a huge tree. Its trunk was so wide that it could not comfort-ably be encircled by the arms of five people. When he had finally felled it, he stripped away the branches with his battle machete. ...

... This program arose out of meetings between the Congressional Black Caucus and Fidel Castro. ... Yet as the writer Kenan Malik points out in his essay “Against Multiculturalism,” this means that cultural attachments become more important than political capacity. ...

... In 1812, Jose Antonio Aponte, a free black of Yoruba origin who was a carver of religious statues, an Ogboni, and a member of the famous cabildo Chango Teddun, united a number of white ... 76Christine Ayorinde establish a steamship line running between Africa and Cuba. ...

... christine ayorinde whether the Regla de Ifá has remained a separate cult from the regla de ocha or whether they have fused into the Regla de Ocha–Ifá. ... The Cabildo Iyessá Moddú San Juan Bautista, founded on 24 June 1845, has as its patron the oricha Oggún Arere. ...