A Tribute to Don C. Ohadike: In Response to Toyin Falola's ... · PDF fileLovejoy, Henry, UCLA PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITH CONSENT OF AUTHOR A Tribute to Don C. Ohadike: In Response to

Lovejoy, Henry, UCLA PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITH CONSENT OF AUTHOR

A Tribute to Don C. Ohadike: In Response to Toyin Falola's Keynote Address Given at the “Orisa Music and Dance Symposium” H. B. Lovejoy

Don C. Ohadike was born in 1941 in the city of Jos, Nigeria and was considered to be among the best and most productive scholars of his generation in the field of African history and, more specifically, West African history. His scholarly work covered several areas, including anti-slavery and anti-colonial resistance movements in Africa and the African Diaspora. His most recognized contribution was the book entitled Pan-African Culture of Resistance: A History of Liberation Movements in Africa and the Diaspora. Ohadike defined the pan-African culture of resistance as a protest-based pattern of behavior – a cultural heritage – that is shared by all people of African origin. Ohadike challenged us to take African retentions in the New World seriously. In 2005, Ohadike passed away at the age of 63 while working on a book, which was published posthumously in 2007, entitled Sacred Drums of Liberation: Religions and Music of Resistance in Africa and the African Diaspora. This book is part of a body of emerging diasporic literature that seeks to interrogate how Africans held strongly to the trilogy of religion, music and dance as a mode of dialogue with their ancestors, a symbol of strength, a means of cultural expression and an idiom of identity.

Ohadike provided a splendid synthesis whereby the centrality of drums – especially the sacred African drum – was at the heart of the pan-African culture of resistance. According to Ohadike, sacred drums must be consecrated and charged with supernatural forces. They are not just musical instruments; they are communication tools used to transmit oral traditions. The language that sacred drums speak can be regarded as texts that one can learn to read and write. Every African community has its own set of sacred drums and sacred languages, which can be understood only by those who have gained a passionate knowledge of the lineage group. Ohadike often referred to the example of Yoruba bàtá drums. He stated, “Only those that understand certain dialects of the Yoruba language can comprehend its language.”

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Sacred Drums of Liberation, however, had many methodological problems mainly because it was still a work in progress. It was only based on secondary sources and Ohadike tried to tackle multiple themes which became fragmented into many ideas. As a result, the chapters did not follow thematic patterns and it tended to over-generalize African music in the Atlantic World. Today’s panel is not only a response to the “Orisa Music and Dance” conference, but it is also a tribute to Ohadike and his unfinished work. I want to expand on the scholarship of the Florida symposium and also correct some over-generalizations committed by Ohadike by focusing only on bàtá drums.

I will begin today by talking about the foundation and the spread of Yoruba culture to the Americas during the first-half of the nineteenth century. Based on evidence obtained from shipping records, I am arguing how the majority of people involved in the Yoruba diaspora were from Oyo because the Oyo Empire collapsed between 1817 and 1836. Moreover, it is argued that the continued use and spread of bàtá drums to Brazil, Cuba and Trinidad reveals a vision of Oyo paradigms symbolically interconnected across the Atlantic World. Paying closer attention to specific cultural features, such as bàtá drums, can lead to a better understanding of the linkages across the Atlantic during the period of slavery and indeed afterward.

The following map illustrates Yoruba diaspora to the Americas after 1800 when about half a million Yoruba-speakers arrived over a 60 year period. The Yoruba diaspora has been estimated based on shipping records incorporated into the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. Just over 200,000 went to Brazil with a majority first landing in either Bahia or Rio de Janeiro. Some were taken through an internal slave trade to other parts of the Portuguese colony, such as Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul or Recife in Pernambuco. Others could have arrived directly to Recife. An estimated 125,000 went to Cuba, mainly to the provinces of Havana, Matanzas and Santiago de Cuba. Although it has been difficult to estimate, a substantial amount went to Trinidad after the late-1820s on slave ships originally destined for Cuba but “liberated” by British emancipation efforts. Collectively, another 175,000 went to Trinidad, Granada, the Bahamas, the southern U.S., Saint Domingue, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Venezuela and other places throughout the Caribbean and the Americas. Other Yoruba-speakers included in the lump sum of 175,000 never endured the Middle Passage at all and were instead taken to Sierra Leone also by the British. Based on the Slave Trade Database and studies focused on the Yoruba diaspora, the three key destinations for Yoruba-speakers in the Americas were Brazil, Cuba and Trinidad in that order. Final considerations are Yoruba cultures found in urban centers in North America, such as Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Toronto, but they mainly arrived after the period of slavery. Other Yoruba-derived cultural groups are also found in parts of Uruguay and Argentina most likely migrating from Porto Alegre. Others might have migrated northwards in Brazil to São Luís, Maranhão, but again probably after the period of slavery.

Yoruba arrivals in the Americas in the nineteenth century coincided with the disintegration of the Oyo Empire between circa 1817 and 1836. On this map, at the

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height of Oyo c. 1780, its boundaries included the approximate territory within the red dotted lines. Please note that the empire would have included the towns of Ilorin, Ogbomoso and Ibadan, but not Owu. The collapse of Oyo has a very complicated history. To summarize very briefly, the disintegration of Oyo was associated with a Muslim uprising at Ilorin in 1817, the Owu War (c. 1820–1825), and the declaration of Ilorin as an emirate within the Sokoto Caliphate (1823). Those events further coincided or contributed in the destruction of many Yoruba towns and settlements, such as the abandonment of the capital district of Oyo by 1836, which is circled in yellow. On this map, the Oyo Empire by circa 1823 had begun to collapse and the towns of Ilorin, Ogbomoso and Ibadan were technically lost, although their loyalty to Oyo would fluctuate. Ijebu, Ijesa aand Ife territories had always remained independent of Oyo.

Although the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database is a useful research tool, the estimate of how many Yoruba were forcibly moved across the Atlantic raises questions of which Yoruba are in question, and what the concept of “Yoruba” and related terms, such as Nâgo or Lucumí, may have meant. The widespread use of the term “Yoruba” as a cultural and linguistic designation dates only to mid-nineteenth century, but had been used by Muslims in West Africa since at least the sixteenth century. Yoruba-speakers in Brazil were often referred to as “Nagô” and sometimes “Mina” or even “Mina-Nagô.” In Cuba, Yoruba-speakers were generally referred to as “Lucumí.” In Trinidad, Nâgo and Lucumí were used on "official" identifications, although Lucumí did not seem to be particularly popular. From very early on, however, the popular designation became Yarraba. Contrary to the Americas, individuals from Yorubaland identified themselves first and foremost with their home towns in a number of states, such as Oyo, Ogbomoso, Ijebu, Ijesa, Ekiti, Egba, Egbado, Owu, amongst many others.

Detailed registries from the British Mixed Commission in Havana provide a glimpse into what the ethnicity of Lucumí slaves might have been like. These registries were unique because they provided the following information: an African name, a Christian name, sex, age, nation, height and a brief physical description of the person. The brief physical descriptions typically described injuries incurred prior to or during the Middle Passage, but sometimes included descriptions of facial scarifications. The most remarkable detail in these registries appeared in the nation column, which included different Lucumí sub-classifications or Yoruba sub-groups. This example was taken from the slaving vessel the Indagadora leaving Lagos in 1832. This ship contained a total of 134 slaves from the Lucumí nation: 131 were given the sub-classification of Lucumí Ayllo, or Oyo, while 3 were Lucumí Lleba, or Ijebu.

Although some ships only contained Lucumí captives, such as the Igadadora, other ships had a mixture of Lucumí people and other people from different parts of West Africa. Yoruba-speakers were mixed with people classified as Popo Mina, which indicated Gbe-speakers taken from the port of Little Popo, and Mina Fante meaning Gbe-speakers taken from the Gold Coast. There were also shuffled in with Arara who would have been Gbe-speakers from Allada and Carabalí which generally referred to Igbo and Ibibio people taken from Bonny and Old Calabar.

From the registries containing details only to Lucumí, I have counted a total of 2,129 Lucumí captives aboard 12 different slave ships originating at Lagos heading to Cuba between 1828 and 1835. There were no registries in the year 1831and I have been unable to locate more registries of this nature before 1828 or after 1835. These ships were

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captured and “liberated” by the British in Havana and supposedly taken to Trinidad. I have yet to confirm the arrival of these slave ships in Trinidad. By counting the total number of Lucumí slaves from these registries, I have organized them into two tables based on Lucumí sub-classifications and non-Yoruba classified as Lucumí. Robin Law, a respected historian of Yorubaland, has helped me classify the colonial terms into modern-day uses of Yoruba sub-groups. I have provided the colonial classifications in parenthesises. As these tables show, the majority of Lucumí slaves were Oyo at 45.6 percent. Ogbomoso represented approximately 22.5 percent of the sample, but they should be considered a part of the former Oyo Empire. Ogbomoso was located between Ilorin and Ibadan and part of the Oyo Empire before 1817. By 1823, Ogbomoso was no longer a part of the Oyo Empire because internal conflicts had turned that region of Yorubaland into utter chaos.

This is a pie chart which illustrates the table. The other Yoruba sub-groups in this sample represented relatively smaller percentages. They were Egbado, Awori, Egba, Ijebu, Ijesa and Efon. The constituted all together about 7.9 percent of the total. It is worth noting that the Awori and Egbado and Egba were tributaries to the Oyo Empire up until the early-1830s. The red lettering represents Yoruba sub-groups connected to the Oyo Empire. People from Ijebu, Ijesa and Efon always remained independent from Oyo. Based on the evidence of this sample, people from Oyo and tributaries to Oyo constituted 73.5 percent of the people taken to Cuba or Trinidad. There were also 301 Lucumí people from this sample with no sub-classification represented 14.1% of the total, meaning the total figure of people from Oyo could be even higher. Non-Oyo only constituted just over 10 percent of this sample.

There were other groups of people included in this sample who were not Yoruba, but classified as Lucumí. They represented 9.8 percent of this sample. They included people from Kakomba or Gur at 3.8 percent, Nupe at 3.4 percent, Hausa at 1.3 percent, and others at 1.3 percent, which included people classified as Mosi, Lagi, Boni, Egrugá, Opu, Gwari Bacuo and Boju. I am currently trying to figure out some of these sub-classifications, although some are obvious such as Gwari and Boju. Although people from Kakomba, Nupe and Hausaland make sense in this context, others do not since Mossi people are located in Burkina Faso.

The period between 1828 and 1835 reflected the aftermath of the Owu War, the declaration of Ilorin as an emirate within the Sokoto Caliphate and the beginning to the abandonment of the capital district of Oyo. Before the disintegration of the Oyo Empire, the Aláàfin, or king of Oyo, controlled a large administration which carried out political and ceremonial tasks centered at the city of Oyo. Sango is one of the most recognized Orisas in the Yoruba pantheon and the Sango cult became central to the politics, society and culture of the Oyo Empire. The Sàngó cult, much like other Yoruba cults, is remarkable for its elaborate ritual, and abundance of symbols, which had specific functions in the kingdom and beyond. It must be stressed that bàtá drums “belong” to Sango and were hence linked to Oyo’s political administration. In Recife there is a cult dedicated to Xangô. In nineteenth century Cuba, there was the infamous Lucumí cabildo named Chango Te-Dum, meaning, “Sango arrives with a roar!” In Trinidad, there is also a Shango cult. In each of these Yoruba-derived religious organizations in Brazil, Cuba and Trinidad, bàtá drums are found and used.

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Sàngó devotees and bàtá drummers have continued to play active roles in Sàngó cults throughout the Atlantic World. The following images are bàtá sets from West Africa, Brazil and Cuba. Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate an image of bàtá drums from Trinidad thus far. Bàtá drums are easily identifiable in that there are at least three double-headed drums of three different sizes. As noted, bàtá drums from West Africa and Cuba have the shape of a lopsided hourglass, while bàtá from Porto Alegre and Recife have a more oval or conical shape respectively. As Norton has recently told me, the shapes of double-headed bàtá in Brazil can also vary. It is worth noting how bàtá from Rio Grande do Sul are painted in Sango’s colors, red and white, which is a characteristic unique to Brazil. To complicate matters, bàtá sets in Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Maranhão and sometimes in Trinidad are single headed drums also called bàtá. Single headed bàtá do not exist in West Africa or Cuba. Double-headed bàtá are also identifiable because they have ritualistic materials sealed inside the drum said to be òrìsà Ayan. This is not possible with single-headed drums.

Yoruba sacred drums, especially those that are double-headed, have become increasingly recognizable as a global phenomenon in recent years. The importance of Yoruba sacred music as a form of intellectual culture has an important role in developing transnational identities shared among Yoruba cultures found throughout the Atlantic world. By listening to this drum language and by tracing the path of these drums, I maintain one can accurately historicize Oyo’s migration in diaspora. I have argued that because Oyo collapsed between circa 1817 and 1836 a majority of Nâgo, Lucumí and Yarraba slaves going to Brazil, Cuba and Trinidad were connected to the Oyo Empire. The sample of slave registries from the British Mixed Commission in Havana between 1828 and 1835 supports an argument for at least Cuba and by extension Trinidad. By identifying double-headed bàtá trios in association with Sango worship in Cuba and Trinidad corroborates this assertion. In the case of Brazil, the question becomes more complex since detailed shipping registries are probably non-existent, yet double-headed bàtá are predominantly located in Porto Alegre and Recife, not Bahia and Rio de Janeiro. Why then are they not found in Rio de Janeiro or Bahia, two areas that absorbed the largest number of Yoruba-speakers after 1800? Does this mean that there was a greater Oyo presence in Porto Alegre and Recife? I will now turn the microphone over to the other panelists, and experts of Yoruba and Yoruba-derived bàtá music, so that they can have a turn at answering the question, “What exactly are bàtá drums saying?” On the third night of my first trip to Havana, I was taken by Ernesto Valdés Janet,1 to a gathering in a one-car garage in the sea-side suburb of Cojímar towards the Playas del Este. I would later learn that what I saw was a ritual introducing a new member into the Afro-Cuban cult, Osha-Ifá. This cult is rooted in West African religious practices and has a strong link to Yoruba culture, generally called Santeria in Cuba. The drums I saw that night were a trio of double-headed drums, called bàtá, playing complex polyrhythms, all the while driving the singing. A man with a high, shrill voice called out phrases, which the spectators responded to. For some time the music was the central focus until a procession danced in, leading the female initiate, dressed in white, into the middle of the crowd. This musical celebration was intended to publicly recognize and 1 Since 1972, Janet has been editor of Documentos para la Historia y la Cultura de Osha-Ifá en Cuba, 61 vols., (Regla, Havana). Proyecto Orunmila is a team of Cuban anthropologists conducting research into Osha-Ifá (Yoruba-derived religious cult found in Havana and Matanzas).

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praise the completion of the girl’s initiation and rite of passage. Since that experience in 2001, my interest into the history and variations of Yoruba-derived cultures and an examination of similar drum cultures found in West Africa, Brazil, Cuba and Trinidad. The widespread use of the term “Yoruba” as a cultural and linguistic designation dates only to mid-nineteenth century, but had been used by Muslims in West Africa since at least the sixteenth century (refer to Law 1997). Individuals from Yorubaland identified themselves first and foremost with their home towns in a number of states, such as Oyo, Ijebu, Egba, Owu, amongst many others. Yoruba also refers to a language group that is shared throughout Yorubaland, found in parts of modern-day Nigeria, Benin and Togo. By identifying where double-headed bàtá trios are found today, it is argued here that one can accurately trace the migration of one Yoruba sub-ethnic group, namely Oyo, via the transatlantic slave trade to key areas in the Americas. The migration of Yoruba can be discerned from shipping records from the first half of the nineteenth century which have been incorporated into the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (Eltis, et al, 2006). Hence, the major areas affected by the Yoruba diaspora in the Americas can be identified rather systematically. David Eltis has estimated that of the half million Yoruba arrivals in the Americas after 1800, just over 200,000 went to Brazil, 125,000 to Cuba and another substantial amount went to Trinidad, arriving indirectly via Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cuba (see Eltis 2004).2 The following map (plate 1) illustrates the ways in demonstrating the migration of Oyo according to slave trading records. Note that the majority destined to Brazil, landed in Bahia and then were taken through an internal slave trade to other parts of the Portuguese colony. Those landing in Trinidad largely came after 1834 on slave ships originally destined for Cuba or Sierra Leone but were “liberated” in British emancipation efforts (Trotman 2007: 215). The migration of people from Oyo, through an examination of bàtá drum culture, is symbolized in the variations of that drum culture found throughout Latin America. Since bàtá drums in all four areas share cultural tendencies, early-nineteenth century references to African drumming provide clues showing how bàtá drum culture could have adapted, developed and thrived within the four separate social contexts. To follow the path of these drums reflects the migration of Oyo-Yoruba to Brazil, Cuba and Trinidad via the transatlantic slave trade. This paper is broken down into three sections: The first part will highlight ethnographical details of bàtá drums, both physically and spiritually, found in West Africa, Brazil, Cuba and Trinidad. The second will analyze the complex social context of West Africa in the first half of the nineteenth century, specifically related to the collapse and dispersal Oyo-Yoruba in diaspora. And the last will examine historical sources relating to general terms of African drumming in the Americas, typically found in relation to annual festivals, in each of the three different colonial slave societies.

2 The remainder, in comparatively smaller figures, went to Granada, the Bahamas, the southern U.S., Saint Domingue, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Venezuela and other places throughout the Caribbean and the Americas. Final considerations were the Yoruba speakers who never endured the middle passage at all and were instead taken to Sierra Leone, again by the British, but at most, those figure total no more than several thousand. Still, those numbers are relatively unsubstantial when compared with Brazil, Cuba and quite possibly Trinidad.

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The Many Faces of Bàtá Bàtá drums have been chosen because they are easily identifiable – physically, spiritually and culturally – in relation to the political administration of the former Oyo Empire. The earliest ethnomusicological and anthropological studies related to bàtá culture began to appear in the early-20th century with observations made into the 21st century (see Bascom 1992; Benkomo 2000; Corrêa 1992; Euba 1990; Frobenius 1968; Glazier 1983; Houk 1995; Lovejoy 2008; Marcuzzi 2005; Mason 1992; Ortiz 1954; Rodriguez 1997; Querino 1988; Thieme 1969; Timi de Ede 1961;Verger 2000).3 Compared with West Africa and Cuba, not much work specifically on bàtá culture in Brazil and Trinidad has been done on the importance of these drums, even though there are major works related to Yoruba-derived cultures. This study attempts to fill at least some of that void related to the drums ethnography through a comparison of the drums from all four regions. Physically, a given ensemble must consist of at least three drums, generally in three sizes – small, medium, and large. They are always doubled-headed or bi-membranophones. Furthermore, the total size of an ensemble is not limited to three drums in West Africa, whereas that restriction generally applies to sets in the Americas (see Thieme, Corrêa and Ortiz). To complicate matters, single-headed drum trios have been referred to as bàtá in Brazil and Trinidad, but never in West Africa and Cuba. In terms of physical shape, the bàtá drums discussed forthwith are ensembles of at least three drums exclusively of the double-headed drum family. The following images are examples of bàtá drums from West Africa, Brazil and Cuba (See plates 2, 3 and 4). Stephen D. Glazier, a Trinidadian anthropologist, specifically refers to bàtá drums from Trinidad, which provides a tidy description and definition of the drums seen in the three images.

The musical instruments used in Shango ritual consist of a set of three drums. The drums are covered with goat skin held in place by twine rather than by pegs. These instruments are double- rather than single-headed (Glazier: 135).

An image of double-headed bàtá drums from Trinidad has been difficult to obtain thus far. As noted, the bàtá bi-membranophones from West Africa and Cuba have the shape of a lopsided hourglass, while bàtá from Brazil have a more oval or conical shape. Furthermore, bàtá sets in Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Trinidad can be large single headed drums known as atabaque, when played in the right context are called bàtá (refer to Bastide 1958 and Verger). Final considerations are secular bi-membranophones trios, also called bàtá, which are played in non-ritualized settings. The drums analyzed here are ones specifically used in rituals and ceremonies connected to Orisa worship. Orisas are the deities at the heart of Yoruba and Yoruba-derived religious beliefs and practices. They have many practical functions, and by design are easy to carry. They can be used as a form of entertainment, in ritualized

3 Bascom originally did his field work in Yorubaland in the late-1940s early-50s. Frobrenius made his observations of New Oyo in the 1910s-20s. Querino was working out of Bahia in the 1920s and Verger in Brazil and West Africa in the 1950s.

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settings related to Orisa worship and as drums of war used to mobilize troops, re-enforce morale and/or intimidate opponents. These drums are present in annual festivals including music, food, and drink, which in Latin American slave settings developed within the conventions of Catholic and Protestant processions. Spiritually, bàtá have a special relationship with the Orisa Sango, fire-god of thunder, war and drumming (Frobenius). According to Akin Euba a Nigerian ethnomusicologist, it is believed that “Bátá is used by masquerades and is also the official ensemble of Sàngó” (Euba: 33). The royal cult of Sango, much like other Yoruba cults, is remarkable for its elaborate ritual and abundance of symbols, especially the colors red and white (Wescott and Morton-Williams 1962: 28). Note how the drums from Porto Alegre (plate 3) are painted in those colors best illustrating this spiritual relationship. In that context, they should be considered as religious icons, sacred objects and historical artifacts, said “to belong” to Sango. Bàtá drums and Sango worship have continued to develop alongside other organized religions. Even though bàtá drums found their way to Americas, they never left Africa and adapted to the changing social contexts because they are still being used in ritualized settings in parts of Yorubaland today. Islamic and Yoruba cultures had interacted long before Christianity arrived on the coast in the early-1840s (Peel 2000). In Latin America, bàtá culture entered via the transatlantic slave trade and adapted to different colonial slave societies; predominantly Catholic, in the case of Brazil and Cuba, and in the case of Trinidad, mostly Protestant. Before the British capture of Trinidad in 1797, Catholicism had been the dominant religion in Trinidad, owing to the early influences of French and Spanish immigrants (Howard 2004: 158). Thus, irmandades, cabildos and brotherhoods organized often around a patron saint that have syncretized with certain African gods (see Brown 2003; Karasch 1987). In Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco, São Jerônimo is Sango’s Catholic counterpart, while in Rio Grande do Sul he is known as São João. In Cuba, he appears as Santa Barbara and in Trinidad he is St. John of the Cross. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Yoruba speakers in Brazil were often referred to as “Nagô” and sometimes “Mina” or even “Mina-Nagô.” Yoruba-speakers were a minority in Brazil’s total slave population. These terms were documented in different Brazilian regions well before the 19th century. According to João José Reis and Beatriz Gallotti Mamigonian, “The mission to follow the Yoruba on the Brazilian side of the Atlantic takes along the slave routes within the country and poses an additional question of identifying them among the other African slaves” (Reis and Mamigonian 2004: 78). In Cuba, the situation is comparatively as complex as the Brazilian context. Yoruba Speakers were often and generally referred to as “Lucumí” and had also been documented well before the nineteenth century (see Law). Most studies on the Yoruba diaspora appear within the context of slavery and have understandably stressed the importance of Brazil and Cuba because they were the last two countries in the Americas to abolish slavery, 1888 and 1886 respectively (Trotman: 211). Recent studies of Yoruba religious practice in the Americas have begun to extend beyond Brazil and Cuba to include the smaller territories of the eastern Caribbean, like Trinidad and Grenada, where there were smaller communities of Yoruba. As David V. Trotman argues, “Even the few earlier anthropological publications on Yoruba religion in Trinidad have either explicitly stated or implied an origin in the slave period. The

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establishment of a community or communities of Orisa worshippers in Trinidad must be dated by the arrival of Africans “liberated” from slave ships operating after 1807 and the bulk of those who came after emancipation [in 1834]” (211). African culture in Trinidad is referred to as “callaloo,” and the establishment of the beginning of Orisa religious practice of ‘Shango,’ as it is popularly called in Trinidad, unlike Brazil and Cuba, was a post-slavery phenomenon.

Through a preliminary analysis of a collection of bàtá rhythms from West Africa, Brazil, Cuba and Trinidad the music appears completely different from one another, while similarities surrounding their polyrhythmic culture remain the same (listen to CDs Bascom; Dias 2003; Lacerda 1996; Marks 2001; Marks 2001; Rodriguez 1995; Simpson 1961). A proper ethnomusicological study comparing the traditions associated with the drum language is long overdue. Bàtá are “talking drums” that can recreate speech patterns and tones of the Yoruba spoken language. As William Bascom has observed since the 1950s, “there is a true drum language and the drums actually “talk,” reproducing the melody and the rhythm of the sentence, and approximating the quality of consonants and vowels by fingering the head with the left hand.” Myths, legends and proverbs can be sung on the drums, and they have been used as devices to transmit histories and legends orally, as well as issue commands. A comparison the many manifestations of myths transmitted through drumming might yield new and important discoveries. The Dispersion of Oyo into the Diaspora The capital of Oyo was located close to the Niger River and controlled trade routes along the forest-savanna divide. In the hinterland of the Bight of Benin, Oyo was once a dominant kingdom that had reached its height by the turn of the nineteenth century. It had established hegemony over the adjacent Nupe and the Borgu kingdoms, and had long been connected with the Central Sudan via trade routes with the north. The total area of the Oyo kingdom at its greatest extent cannot be calculated with any precision, but must have been around 18,000 square miles (see Law 1970). In the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, the Aláàfin, or king of Oyo, controlled a large administration which carried out political and ceremonial tasks centered at the city, also called Oyo. According to legend, it is believed that Sango was an early Aláàfin (some say the third, while others say the fourth or fifth) (Law). Regardless of the historical accuracy of whether or no Sango ever was a real person, the Sango cult became central to the politics and society of Oyo. As an Orisa, Sango was a god of war, and implicitly, bàtá drums had useful functions on the battlefield. These drums, therefore, were present in the many wars associated with Oyo’s rise and collapse. The relative dominance of the Oyo Empire, through its military and trading networks, ensured that few of its citizens and those of its subject tributary kingdoms crossed the Atlantic as slaves in any sizable figures before the end of the eighteenth century. Bàtá are no doubt linked to Oyo’s society and involved directly or indirectly with Oyo’s political administration, the Sango cult, and thus present, during the many wars associated with its collapse. The disintegration of Oyo (1817 – 1836) was a main factor in the arrival of nearly 500,000 Yoruba-speakers to Brazil, Cuba and Trinidad. The collapse occurred as a result of a series of complicated events, beginning with a Muslim uprising at Ilorin in 1817, and continuing with the Owu War (c. 1820–1825), the

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declaration of Ilorin as an emirate within the Sokoto Caliphate (1823), and the destruction of many towns and settlements and even the abandonment of the capital district of Oyo in 1836 (Peel: 33-40). The Muslim uprising in 1817 and the declaration of the emirate of Ilorin in 1823 marked an Islamic push from the north, which became more complicated when Owu attempted to protect traders moving to the coast. Ijebu raiders were kidnapping Oyo traders which provoked a wide-scale conflict between Oyo, Owo and Ijebu. With the aid of displaced refugees in Ilorin, Owu was destroyed by 1821, but continued raiding for several more years (Awe 1973: 68). When the Ilorin general, Afonja was killed in 1823, Alimi’s son Abudusalami took charge of Ilorin, declaring his allegiance to the Sokoto Caliphate. Soon after Oyo’s eastern provinces separated and refugees migrated east and south beyond the borders of the old kingdom. A last consideration was the independence of Dahomey, which had been tributary to Oyo, but after 1823 was heavily involved in the wars that constituted the collapse of Oyo. The resulting migration and displacement of Oyo and other Yoruba that occurred with the decline of the empire in the first half of the nineteenth century continued to mix up the population in and around Oyo. This outward dispersion of Oyo led to other wars and the displacement of other towns and settlements of other Yoruba sub-ethnic groups. That displacement provided a constant array of Yoruba-speaking slaves for the key ports in the Bight of Benin, especially Ouidah, Porto Novo, Badagry and Lagos (Onim). The last ships leaving Lagos was in 1861 and the last slave ship to arrive in the Americas was in 1867. The collapse of Oyo was related to the spread of jihad in the Central Sudan. In 1817 Afonja, a general at Ilorin, though not a Muslim himself, decided to enhance his position by welcoming Fulani support. He invited to Ilorin an influential Fulani cleric, known to the Yoruba as Alimi was appointed by ‘Uthmān d. Fūdī, who soon proclaimed jihad against “pagan” Oyo. The Muslim uprising won widespread support among Muslims already in Oyo, which was already a multi-ethnic city at the time. This support provoked revolt among Oyo’s cavalry, which was centered at Ilorin, not Oyo. Ilorin was the military outpost for Oyo where the army and especially the cavalry were stationed. The cavalry especially was mainly Muslim because horses came from the north, and those who knew how to take care of horses came from the north – as slaves and as Muslims, often “Hausa”. In 1823 Ilorin officially became part of the Sokoto Caliphate and not just a frontier area for jihad. Alimi’s war-bands, known as jama’a, spread further and deeper south into the Oyo kingdom.4 Between 1831 and 1833, a last attempt to throw off the Muslim regime at Ilorin failed when the Aláàfin Oluewu was killed and Oyo’s remaining habitants fled south. The Muslims, many of whom were Fulani, overran nearly all the provincial towns in the northern and western parts of Yorubaland and even destroyed the capital at Old Oyo (Peel: 33). The capital district was abandoned by c. 1836. And the shattered fragments of Oyo’s political structure were reconstituted at New Oyo and especially at Ibadan. It has been speculated that before the 1830s, much of Oyo would have remained relatively in tact; however, it would have lost most of its control of the outer regions of its soon-to-be former kingdom. Bolanle Awe acknowledges that many Oyo citizens who 4 This is Arabic, Hausa and hence Yoruba term that means “people” as in “faithful” and hence “community” – the term has special significance, but they were also very definitely “war-bands.”

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were unwilling to submit to Fulani rule, in consequence of the jihad, fled southward toward the coast or were enslaved in the north. The demographic profile of slaves leaving the Bight of Benin during the 1820s and 1830s included many young male adults, who were most likely victims of the violence associated with Oyo’s collapse. As the civil wars moved further south in the late 1830s and through the 1840s more and more of the “civilian” population fell victim to slave traders, which is reflected in the unprecedented numbers of women and children among the captives sold to Bahia. Abeokuta was founded in the early-1830s as a refugee settlement mainly comprised of Egba-Yoruba. Most of Oyo’s civilian population would have been enslaved and taken to the coast straight through the 1840s and 50s. Ijebu continued to be the principal supplier of slaves to the coast at Lagos. It is worth noting that by the 1840s Brazilian ex-slaves began returning to form settlements particularly in Lagos, while by this time Christian missionaries had already arrived on the coast. West African Drumming in the Nineteenth Century Before Islamic principles ever came to Oyo, the Sokoto Empire was established in Hausaland between 1804 and 1808 and continued afterwards as an Islamic state, inspired by the Islamic teachings of ‘Uthmān d. Fūdī. His political and religious ideas of the jihad against the Hausa in Sokoto have been preserved in a considerable quantity of Arabic documents.5 Veit Erlmann has provided selected passages and partial translations from these texts in relation to “allowability” of Hausa music in Sokoto during the years of Muslim reform. These texts assume major significance for the study of the historical development of African music in what used to be the Sokoto Empire and surrounding areas because these Arabic texts were written prior to any European contact and come to represent a rare African perspective. ‘Uthmān d. Fūdī was opposed to “pagan” beliefs and practices because they were non-Islamic. This opposition extended to the practices of the “Yoruba” and specifically Oyo. Many of the documents collected by Erlmann demonstrate Islamic attempts to regulate Hausa music, and which also reflected the general attitude to non-Islamic music in general. In 1806 Uthman wrote, “The Muslims only beat the drum, and similar instruments for a legal purpose, such as wishing to gather the army together, or to signify its departure, or the setting up of camp.” Written on Nov. 20, 1808, “The war-drum is not forbidden, since it raises morale and overawes the enemy. The wedding-drum such as the tambourine is allowed.” The war-drum, the drum to gather an assembly, and the wedding-drum, were among the allowed instruments in Sokoto, but those prohibited were drums generally used “for purposes of mere entertainment” (see Erlmann 1986: 42, 43-44 and 17). Obviously these regulations demonstrate that non-Islamic drumming was not allowed and certainly the war-drums of Sango would have been a target of such regulations during the Muslim uprising at Ilorin in 1817. Islamic attitudes toward music in jihad would have extended into Oyo and opposed bàtá drums either directly or indirectly. It can be safe to assume that the Islamic attitudes to non-Islamic drumming most likely viewed bàtá drums as the epitome of non-

5 The vast majority of these reflect themes of classical Islmaic scholarship like theology (taw�īd), jurisprudence (fiqh), and �ūfism (ta�awwuf). The sources not only present first rate legal texts of Islamic cultural fundamentalism in West Africa, but they also afford a unique perspective of Islamic attitudes to music in Sokoto.

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Islamic culture and promoted non-Islamic religious beliefs. Consequently, Sango’s drums would have been an easy target of Islamic reform and the enslavement of bàtá drummers, and anything else associated with Sango, could have been seen as quick fix to remove non-Islamic cultures from the West African social and political context of the early-nineteenth century. Aside from all the oral traditions, the first actual reference to bàtá, albeit a brief one, comes from the city of New Oyo in the early-1880s. Reverend Samuel Johnson (1846-1901) was the first to label bàtá as “drums belonging to Sango.” Johnson was born in Hastings, Sierra Leone and Johnson’s parents would have been enslaved when Osogun was attacked by Oyo and the Fulani Muslims in 1821. Johnson worked for the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and in 1881 he returned to what is now New Oyo where he recorded the political, social and cultural traditions of his former countrymen. As an Anglican missionary, however, he frowned upon Orisa worship. As a missionary, diplomat and historian, The History of the Yorubas has been used time and time again by notable African historians, such as Robin Law, who have subsequently mapped out the entire political structure of the former empire, starting with the Aláàfin (king). Musicians were a part of that administration. Johnson noted, “the Isugbins were members of the palace orchestra and numbered about 210 persons” (Johnson 1921: 58). It can be reasonably assumed that Sango’s ensemble was certainly represented somewhere among the Isugbins. The earliest European reference to drums from Oyo comes from Hugh Clapperton (1788 to 1827), a Scottish traveler and explorer of West Central Africa.6 In Feb. 1826, Clapperton was in the capital “Eyeo” and observed the use of drums. Clapperton made several obsertations about music, such as this example, “The chief was seated outside of his house, surrounded by about a hundred of his wives, and musicians with drums” (Clapperton 2005: 121). According to Johnson the most important festival in Oyo was known as the Bèrè festival. He stated, “the Bèrè festival took place toward the end of the agricultural year in Oyo between February and March” (Johnson: 60). It has been dubbed Oyo’s most important festival for these three reasons: First, people paid tribute to the Aláàfin in the form of bèrè grass. Second, it marked the new agricultural year for the bèrè grass and fields were burned to promote new growth. And third, it marked the time of year when the Aláàfin would count the total number of years of his reign (see Babayemi 1973). Clapperton wrote in his travel journal, “A number of people arrived from different parts to pay their annual visit to the king” (118). This annual festival honored not only the Aláàfin, but would have also revered the Orisa Sango. Clapperton’s references of this festival, whereby Sango was heavily represented, surely included at least one bàtá drum ensemble. It is reasonably assumed that bàtá drums would have been represented in many of Clapperton’s references to drums in Oyo. Oral traditions and early references to observations of drumming in West Africa by Fulani leaders and European explorers demonstrate that bàtá have been present in the region from well-before the turn of the nineteenth century. Clapperton’s description of drumming imply that bàtá drums were most likely being used in Oyo during the Bèrè festival of 1826 and that Oyo’s political administration was still pretty much intact. Although neither written source specifically refered to bàtá drums, the Arabic ones constitute probably the first major corpus of historical evidence so far discovered in 6 Clapperton also made observations of drums in Sokoto.

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Africa exclusively on African attitudes toward African music. This remarkable evidence demonstrates Islamic attitudes toward non-Islamic drumming, providing a unique perspective as to what type of music was considered permissible and within what context. Batuques and Xangó When discussing bàtá drums from Brazil immediate problems of identity arise because there are regions with single-headed bàtá trios and regions with double-headed trios. Single-headed drums referred to as bàtá generally appear in Salvador, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro. This is puzzling because approximately 88 percent of all 200,000 Yoruba-speakers going to Brazil landed in Bahia and many went from Bahia via the internal slave trade to Rio (Reis and Mamigonian: 92). Since the majority of slaves going to Brazil went either to Bahia or Rio, much of that scholarship has focused on those regions. By locating Brazilian bàtá bimembranophones in Porto Alegre and Recife one can visualize how Oyo slaves went came from the Bight of Benin, mainly to Bahia – and perhaps directly to Recife – and then from Bahia down to places like Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre. Contrary to what the slave trading figures would have us believe, it is noted here that Yoruba slaves landing in Porto Alegre and Recife have somehow been able to continue double-headed bàtá drum culture. In those places the houses of Candomblé have specific names, O Batuque do Rio Grande do Sul and O Culto Xangó do Recife. Xangó is the Portuguese spelling of Sango. This is not meant to say that Oyo-Yoruba could not be found in Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, it is only intended to show the complexity of Brazil, which was the largest importer of slaves in the entire history of the transatlantic slave trade. Being a “Mina” in nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro, as Mary Karasch has noted, had taken on several meanings. Under Mina could include Fanti, Ashanti, Gbe, Hausa, or Nupe, as well as Yoruba groups. Both the populations in Bahia and Rio were overwhelmingly Central African, as well as a growing sense of a unique “Brazilian” identity by the first half of the nineteenth century (Karasch: 25-27). It is suggested that Oyo slaves who remained in Bahia and Rio adapted to the Afro-Brazilian communities that had already begun to emerge. Portuguese sources often referred to drums in colonial times as batuques, tabuque or tambor. These colonial terms appeared in abundance throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But these terms are methodologically problematic because they refer to any type of drum, drumming, and dancing of any African origin found in Latin America. Rarely do these references provide detailed descriptions about actual drums themselves. These general colonial terms often referred to the use of African drums in ritualized settings especially during annual festivals or as a means of resistance to slavery, either directly or indirectly. In each colony, however, references to drums or tambores generally occurred in association with an annual festival usually derived from Catholic values that was manipulated by slaves into an avenue of African cultural expression. During colonial festivals black kings and queens were often crowned and new brotherhood officials elected (see Karasch and Kittleson 2006). The precursor to Brazilian Carnival was the Entrudo. Banned in 1853, the Entrudo is said to have ‘withered away’ by the 1860s.” During this annual festival black kings and queens were often crowned. Chroniclers of Porto Alegre, like Antonio Álvares Pereira Coruja (1806-1889), described, “There on

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Sunday afternoons gathered blacks of various nações [nations], who with their drums, sang and danced, forgetting the grief of slavery, without causing problem for the police” (Kittleson: 32). Especially during the Farroupilha Revolution between 1835 and 1845 and before and after the Paraguayan War between 1864 and 1870, municipal legislation and police leaders cracked down on batuques and slave dances in Porto Alegre. The political climate in Brazil was as tumultuous as West Africa during the same period. In 1808, the Regency Era began when King João VI moved the Portuguese monarchy to the New World. King João returned to Europe in 1821 bequeathing Brazil to his eldest son Pedro. In 1822, Pedro I proclaimed himself Emperor and Brazil became the first country in the Americas to install a monarchial state free from European control. The Brazilian Empire was earned through the Wars of Independence during the 1820s. By April of 1831, Pedro I was forced to abdicate and return to Portugal. He vested Brazil to his eldest son, Pedro II, who was only five years old at the time. For the subsequent decade, Brazil remained in a state of politcal chaos until Pedro II’s fourteenth birthday. In attempts to re-establish politcal order in the various provinces, the 1830s ended with six major slave uprisings. Nagôs and Nagô-Minas were well documented participants in the Wars of Independence of the 1820s and the major slave uprisings around Bahia and Rio de Janeiro in the 1830s. Based on evidence of Nagôs and Minas involvement in the Malê slave rebellion, the collapse of Oyo in Africa indicates that sometimes Oyo slaves devoted to Islam had landed in Bahia and Rio de Janeiro. The most important slave rebellion involving Nagôs happened in Bahia in 1835 when Nagôs fought for freedom. By this time, the displacement of Oyo had not yet occurred and Nagôs, who were able to organize, had most likely been victims of the Muslim uprisings and the Owu wars. According to Reis and Mamigonian, “The ethnic equilibrium enjoyed back home probably collapsed in the Bahian context, and political power was certainly reversed” (94-95). According to criminal records, over 400 Nagô were arrested suggesting that many could have come from Oyo and were Muslim. The rebels were known as Malês, a term derived from the Yoruba word Imale, meaning Muslim. Muslim preachers and their followers formed the core of the rebellion. The earliest reference to bàtá drums in Brazil, comes from Manuel Querino (1851-1923) and his book about African customs in Bahia. Querino’s studies on Candomblés took place in Salvador, Bahia at the turn of the twentieth century. Published posthumously, Querino defines bàtá as, “Small concave tabaques [drums] that Africans beat with the left hand on the smaller circle; and with the right [hand] he beats the instrument’s larger circle with a type of stick” (Querino: 34). Most of his observations of African culture remained generalized and many glaring errors in his conclusions are now apparent in the 21st century. What is most remarkable, however, is that Querino identified double-headed bàtá in Bahia in the 1930s where generally none are found today. This suggests that more research is required into the disappearance of double-headed bàtá in Bahia since the 1920s. Just as Catholic venerated several saints under the same roof, the Nagô Candomblé inaugurated a tradition of gathering and worshiping Orisas from different regions and ethnic groups under the same ceiling; thus, the convergence of all Yorubas into a unified Nagô identity. The way in which Orisas were to be honored in Brazil added a new ritualistic dimension to an already established Afro-Brazilian community. A

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southward flow of Bahian-acculturated Yoruba increased significantly after 1835, fed by the fear of their participation in another slave uprising and by the pressures on the slave market after the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1850, which created a vigorous internal slave trade to the more prosperous provinces of the country. In contrast, a large Nagô community existed in Rio Grande do Sul, where consequently bàtá bimembranophones appear today. In this city manumission records suggest that West Africans represented the vast majority at 67 percent of the manumitted or freed African community (Reis and Mamigonian: 103). Lucumí of Santa Barbara Like West Africa and Brazil, direct written references to bàtá drums in the first half of the nineteenth century do not exist. Spanish colonial records did, however, refer to African drums and drumming with terms such as “tambor” (drum) and in phrases such as “bailes de tambores” (dances with drums). The year after Clapperton first recorded the bèré festival in Oyo, one of the earliest known references to the term tambor and Día de Reyes appeared together in one document in Cuba. Juan Martínez wrote to D. Cicilio Ayllón, Governor of Matanzas that 9 negros from a group of 13 cimarrones (runaways) were captured on the night of January 6th, 1827. They were accused of uniting with the dotación (plantation) of Francisco Prieto and making a lot of noise, “with the beating of three tambores that was heard over a wide region.”7 Tambor, like batuques, is a problematic term because it could refer to any type of drum, drumming and dancing of any African origin. Although bàtá drums can be a trio, this document does not specifically indicate what type of drums were used that night, nor does it specify from which nación those slaves came from. Tambor consistently appeared in relation to an annual festival known as the Día de Reyes (Day of Kings) held on January 6th. Changó is the Cuban spelling of Sango. The earliest documented evidence of Chango’s presence in Cuba is displayed on the Lucumí bandera (banner) from a nineteenth century cablildo (brotherhood or mutual aid society). It reads, LA SOCIEDAD DE SOCORROS MUTUOS NACION LUCUMI DE SANTA BARBARA, AÑO 1820. It was also more commonly known as the cabildo Changó Tedum (Sango arrives with a roar!). As early as 1820, therefore, Lucumí slaves had already organized into a cabildo in Havana, which was centered on Changó. The use of Santa Barbara established that slaves of Yoruba descent had begun to recognize Changó in his Catholic form from at least the 1820s onward. Drumming was clearly equated with civil unrest and a target of regulation in colonial Cuba. The day before Dia de Reyes in 1841, José Maria de Torres, a police officer, wrote to the Governor of Matanzas, “In your utmost compliance, I am prepared, that which orders your office, related to not permitting negros from going out onto the streets with tambores tomorrow.”8 According to the 1842 Code, Article 51 stipulated, “slave dances with tambores could be permitted at parties during afternoon hours

7 Juan Martínez por D. Cicilio Ayllón, Matanzas, 7 January 1827, Archivo Historico Matanzas (hereinafter AHM), Matanzas (hereinafter AHM), Gobierno Provincial ‘Cimarrones,’ legado 12, numero 17. Document taken from the Conde de Lagunillas, which were property registries and manuscripts from haciendas. 8 Comunicación al Gobernador Político y Militar de Matanzas, José Maria de Torres por la Inspección de policía del cuartel de ‘Fernando’ (sic) Séptimo, Matanzas, 5 January 1841, AHM, Fondo Provincial Religioso Africana, expediente 1, legado 1. (my translation).

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provided they are supervised by some white person, and no slaves from any other estate attend” (Knight 1970: 129-124; see also Goveia 1970 and Hall 1971). As I have argued, the word tambor is referred to in colonial sources as an identifiable icon representing the quest for African autonomy and therefore implicitly the target of regulation. Colonial authorities had mixed attitudes toward African dances and the accompanying drumming, which was dependant on the region in question. There was also the underlying fear that the drumming and dancing could inspire rebellion as they often did (see Lovejoy 2008). Slave rebellions, which had been endemic on the island of Cuba by the mid-1830s, proved to be most serious threat in the Spanish colony. Lucumí slaves have been documented in slave rebellions before the nineteenth century. In 1812, the Cuban government accused José Antonio Aponte, a free black man, of conspiring to overthrow colonial rule and slavery. Throughout the 1820s mainly Lucumí slaves were documented in slave rebellions. In 1835, Hermengildo Jáurequi, leader of the Lucumí cabildo and Juan Nepomuceno Prieto, a retired militia officer, planned what is known as the Lucumí Conspiracy. They fought against slavery and the Cuban government (Reid 2004: 119). By 1842, the infamous Reglamento de Esclavos (Slave Code) was implemented to control the slave population. Two years after, “libres de color” (free people of African decent), lead a revolt in collaboration with slaves, Cuban whites, and British abolitionists, in order to overthrow slavery and Spanish rule on the island. The Military Commission arrested hundreds of people, predominately of African decent, and many Yoruba speakers, slave and free, were documented therein. The Slave Code had little immediate effect on rebellions, particularly the Conspiracy of La Escalera (1844) which also involved many Lucumí slaves. Fernando Ortiz undertook what is arguably the earliest and most extensive study of bàtá drum culture to date and also provided what appears to be the first written reference to bàtá in Cuba (Ortiz 1995 and 1984). Between 1952 and 1955, Ortiz published a five-volume series called Los Instrumentos de la Música Afro-Cubana, whereby bàtá drums were truly dissected, both physically and spiritually. His conception of ethnic reconfiguration in Cuba’s multiracial society was groundbreaking for the time in which he was publishing. He also conducted numerous interviews of former slaves and/or their direct descendents. One such tradition was recorded by Ortiz about bàtá drums, he wrote, “a Yoruba named Añabi was brought to Cuba and he consecrated the first batas in 1830” (Ortiz 1954: 24). With the earliest references of Santa Barbara in Cuba, the references to tambores in association to the Día de Reyes and Lucumí led uprisings in colonial Cuba, Ortiz’s collection of oral traditions claimed the first bàtá set were consecrated in the 1830s, which certainly conforms to time and place. Furthermore, the shapes of bàtá sets between West Africa and Cuba are the most similar. The Shango Cult The case of Trinidad provides anomalous examples of bàtá membranophones in British colonies of the Caribbean, much like those found in Bahia and Rio de Janeiro. By the nineteenth century “callaloo” referred to all African cultures in general. Yoruba as well as other African cultures became callaloo culture through music and drumming particularly in festivals such as carnival. Fragmented elements of Yoruba culture, for example, are apparent in many New World cultures, modified by particular geopolitical and historical circumstances, and are expressions of deeply entrenched cultural

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grammars, as is the case with Trinidad and bàtá drum culture. As Trotman argues, the “Shango” cult emerged as a post-slavery phenomenon. The Yoruba immigrants initially segregated themselves in a separate village in the capital, Port of Spain, and the already diverse population of Trinidad augmented by an influx of African-born peoples, primarily Yoruba and Kongolese. The 1834 abolition of slavery in the British colonies did not take effect until the end of 1838. Several thousand Africans from Sierra Leone landed in Trinidad, either as “liberated” Africans or as voluntary migrant indentured laborers (Howard: 161-162). In Trinidad, African drumming in colonial festivals has been documented as early as 1820. Mrs. A. C. Carmichael, the wife of a planter in Trinidad in 1820, described scenes of a Christmas festivity that consisted of “all-night dancing to the accompaniment of drums” (Stuempfle 1995: 23). After emancipation (1834-1838), a celebration developed to commemorate emancipation which was held on August 1. The festival became known as Canboulay (Cannes Brulées or Burnt Cane) and it was based on burning cane fields after harvest. Africans organized themselves into bands with kings, queens, and other royal figures. Sometime during the 1840s Canboulay was moved from August 1 to Carnival around Ash Wednesday. Skinned drums, feared by the British, were banned in 1884.9 The passing of the Peace Preservation Ordinance in 1884 empowered the Governor of Trinidad to prohibit torch processions, drumming, dances, and assemblies of ten or more persons with sticks. It appears as though skinned drums remained obsolete on the island for at least 50 years after that drum ban was enforced. Drumming, however, is virtually impossible to regulate. The British gained control of the colony after France and Spain in the late eighteenth century. They inherited a culturally and linguistically diverse society, one that included a large percentage of free persons of color; a significant number of French Creoles who had migrated there; and Hispanophones from Venezuela (see Howard and Trotman). Many scholars believe that the integral nature of traditional African cultures in daily life led to the maintenance of “Africanisms” in language, religion, family structure, and institutions. Hard evidence of Oyo is found in registries of “liberated” slave ships taken by the British Mixed Commission in Havana and re-routed to Trinidad. These registries are remarkable in that they were meticulously detailed. They included African names, Christian names, sex, age, nación (place of birth), height and any body markings, which sometime include descriptions of facial scarification, which was practiced among the Yoruba. In these 22 registries, the nación goes beyond the typical Lucumí classification to include sub-groups, like Ayo, or Ijesha. The slave ship Negrita was bound from the River Lagos on the Coast of Africa to the Island of Cuba. According to registries of the slaves taken in Havana on Apr. 22, 1833, there were 477 Negroes, 431 were registered as being “Lucumí Ayo.”10 On June 22, 1833, reports from Trinidad state, “189 Captured Africans on board the “Negrita” arrived from the Havana Incl. Letter from the British Members of the Mixed Commission stating the circumstances of the case and the reason for her being placed

9 Refer to Peace Preservation Ordinance, 25 Jan. 1884, National Archives, London (hereafter NA), Commissioners Office (hereafter CO), 297/10. 10 Register of Negroes of the Negrita, Mixed Commissions, signed by Juan Cascabo, Havana, Apr. 22, 1833, NA, Foreign Office (hereinafter FO), 84/129.

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under Quarantine.”11 When the ship arrived in Havana it was placed in quarantine dua cholera pandemic and the slaves on board, most of whom had contracted the diseasewere kept in Havana’s harbor for nearly a month and a half and then sent to Trinidad. As the slave ship Negrita demonstrated, albeit tragically, Oyo slaves were documented leaving Cuba destined for the British colony.

e to ,

12 Quite possibly, the earliest reference to double-headed bàtá from Trinidad comes from Glazier in the 1970s (refer to quote in the introduction). Yoruba cultural influences remain evident in the annual Carnival in Trinidad (see Simpson and Houk). Celebrated the week before Ash Wednesday, Orisa worship is practiced. Carnival revelers “playing mas” parade in costumes mirroring those found in costumes worn in the festivals of Benin and Nigeria where Sango is again heavily represented. But much like Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, Trinidad has membranophones which are physically dissimilar from bàtá sets found in West Africa and Cuba and more research into the 20th century is required. Oyo Drums in Diaspora The emergence of Yoruba culture in Latin America appears to modern scholars to have been strong and out of proportion to the relative size of Yoruba arrivals. Throughout the three-hundred-and-fifty year history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, about a million Yoruba arrivals made up less than 9 percent of all Africans carried to the New World (Eltis 2004). Oyo culture was dominant in Yorubaland prior to the turn of the nineteenth century. The collapse of Oyo in Africa set in motion widespread flight and migration as many different Yoruba-speaking groups joined together in new environments that included many non-Yoruba speakers across the Atlantic. This paper, has systematically sought to categorize the similarities and differences between bàtá sets from West Africa, Brazil, Cuba and Trinidad. The direct evidence of Oyo migration relies on slaving records and the appearance of bàtá bi-membranophones associated with the Orisa Sango. The war torn Old World closely resembled New World slave societies that were ripe with rebellion. This evidence shows the resiliency of Oyo culture to survive jihad, cholera pandemics and the road to the abolition of slavery in the Americas. Sango’s drums were played and worshiped differently because they developed and evolved out of different types of violent and oppressive societies. Their association with different cultures and religions, whether Islamic or Christian, was also the only common thread they shared. Nineteenth century terms, such as drum, tambor and batuques, which mostly refer to African drumming continuously surfaced in the documentation in association with the most important annual festivals found in each region, namely, Bèrè, Entrudo, Día del Reyes and Canboulay. Indirectly, Sango’s drums serve as a model, which can be projected backwards into nineteenth century references of drum, batuque or tambor, colonial terms which frequently and specifically referred to African drums and drumming in either ritualized settings and as a form of resistance. The social trauma through forced migration was dampened in the colonies as like groups of African ethnicities formed to redefine their social identity, especially on the basis of language, religion, and music. Brazil and Cuba continuously faced the problem

11 July 16, 1833, NA, CO, 714/ 157. 12 This tragic example demonstrates how a l are other examples from Cuba, but I have yet to sort through the data and find supporting documentation in Trinidad.

18


of slave uprisings involving Nagô and Lucumí slaves. The story was different on the island of Trinidad in the wake of British emancipation. Further research into colonial attitudes toward African drumming in colonial slave societies, especially in the first half of the nineteenth century, might provide more clues as to why bàtá sets from West Africa and Cuba have more physical similarities than bàtá sets from Brazil and Trinidad, where stricter laws and regulations related to drumming may have been enforced.

19


Figures

Plate 1. Map illustrating the migration of Yoruba-speakers to the key destinations in the Americas. Note this map only considers the major areas where Yoruba-speakers landed. Map drawn by Annabelle Chedevergne and Henry Lovejoy, January 2008.

Cuba

Salvador, Bahia

Recife

Porto Alegre

Rio de Janeiro

Trinidad Sierra Leone Liberia

N

Plate 2. Bàtá trio from near Old Oyo, Nigeria. Photo taken by William Bascom in 1953.

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Plate 3. A large bàtá drums from Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Photo taken by Henry Lovejoy, Aug. 2006.

Plate 4. Bàtá drums from Havana, Cuba. Photo taken by Fernando Ortiz in 1954.

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A Tribute to Don C. Ohadike: In Response to Toyin Falola's ... · PDF fileLovejoy, Henry, UCLA PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITH CONSENT OF AUTHOR A Tribute to Don C. Ohadike: In Response to