Abakua in Cuba 19th Century

8/12/2019 Abakua in Cuba 19th Century

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Informants told the Cuban anthropologistthat Petit had realized that the only way forigos to survive mid nineteenth-centurypolice attacks on them would be to necessar-ily include whites among their ranks. Thisexplains why he sold them the secret, becametheir padrino (religious sponsor), and even

used the money they paid to buy the freedomof other enslaved igos. Lydia Cabreracites in her book many anecdotes in which Pe-tit seems to be very intelligent, was a devoutCatholic and polyglot, and had supernaturalpowers. It seemed that the igos should beeternally grateful to him. According to one ofthe informants:

Andrs Petit was a traitor; he sold the

Ekueto the whites! You must have heard thisa thousand times. TraitorWhat a foolishthing to call him. Just say no. Andrs Petitwas not a traitor. Andrs Petit did not keepone bit of those thirty ounces of gold heasked of them to do their bidding, to makethem part of the group,Akanarn Ef OkbioMukarar.2

Cabrera adds that it was Petit who intro-

duced the Christian crucifix into the igoaltar, and goes on to suggest that by allowingwhites to join this society, it was the very first

According to historians, the first igojuegowas established in Havana in the1830s, at the height of the profitableslave trade. It modeled itself on the myth of thesacred fish, Tanze, that a woman called Siknfound one morning when she went down to theriver. Her priests explained to her that Abas

(God) had been reincarnated in that fish, andthat having it in their possession would makethe tribe stronger.1 In Havana, the igos,who were mostly of Carabal descent, took thismyth as their founding cornerstone and prom-ised not to reveal it to anyone. Notwithstand-ing, in 1857, a mulatto by the name of AndrsPetit, from the village of Guanabacoa, sold thesecret for 30 pieces of gold to whites who were

creating their ownjuegobecause black igoswould not accept them.

Until the middle of the twentieth cen-tury, Andrs Petit was considered by most tobe a traitor, a sort of Judas who sold out hisbrethren for 30 pieces of gold. Yet, ever sincethe publication by anthropologist Lydia Ca-brera of El Monte (1954), and particularlyLa sociedad secreta abaku narrada por viejos

adeptos(1959), the reputation of Andrs Pe-tit has taken a significant turn: he went frombeing a traitor to a savior of that society.

ReflectionsontheRacePro

bleminCuba

The Death and

Resurrection ofigos Jorge Camacho

Professor

University of South Carolina, Columbia

Cuban. Resident of the United States


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son, and told her stories about their lives, andwhat they had heard from their brothers, their

cofrades.This new way of seeing Petit is evenmore surprising when we consider that nineyears earlier, Lydia Cabrera had published an

time that anyone attempted to bridge the twocultures, creating a sort of interracial broth-

erhood that defied colonial laws. All this wassuggested by Cabreras informants, the verysame people who spoke to her in the first per-

Masked Abaku dancer known as Idem or Ndem


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for Cubas revolutionaries; on the other, hisappearance cast doubt on the emancipatorynarrative that Cuban historiography has re-peated ad nauseumthat both groups un-problematically joined forces during the wars

for independence (1868-1898). This nar-rative is based on the writing of Jos Martand the teleology of the one hundred-yearstruggle.Yet, Mart criticized the igosfor being a secretand terrible organiza-tion. His April 1, 1893 article in Patriarecy-cled old colonial fears while it also markedlycelebrated Toms Sur, a seventy-year oldAfrican. Sur had abandoned some brothers

who still preferred the drum,5wanted to ed-ucated himself and contribute to the revolu-tionary cause with his most beloved possess-sionshis sonsbecause he too had foughtin the previous war, and if they [didnt] dowhat [he] did, then [those] three [were] not[his] sons.6

In a previous article for this very publi-cation, I analyzed Marts chronicle and saidthat in it we could read the dual rhetoric ofdebtand fearthese types of associationsinspired in the Cuban Revolutionary Party(PRC).7Fearbecause Mart, like all otherintellectuals at the end of the nineteenth cen-tury, distanced himself from the tremendoussecret order of Africans, with [their] bylaws,a mysterious, dangerous and terribleorder.Debtbecause the Delegate used this oppor-tunity to commit blacks to fighting for Cuba,for which reason he reproduces a letter he hadsupposedly received from the orders vener-able director,Juan Pascual, who confirmedthat from that moment on the organizationwould donate funds to help fill the indepen-dence war coffer.8Mart went on to say thatblacks had been the only ones to have won

their freedom along with the revolution.9

This allowed me to conclude that Martsrhetoric of debt is guided by the followingobjectives:

article in Orgenescontaining a contrary viewthat Petit had sold the secret to the whites,and that it was because of this treacher-ous act that whites could become igos.One informant told Cabrera that Petit ex-

plained that it was because of their moropo[head] that whites had to be admitted, so thatiguism could survive in Cuba.Those whofirst joined were gente de arriba [people fromthe top], military and religious men,titledpeople and Cuban aristocrats.3This story, orat the very least, what we know about Petitslife, is immensely important for understand-ing the way in which Cuban society today is

changing its perception of the igos andtheir religion.

Why is it so important? Because if wejudge Petit according to these reports, hewould be a quintessential Cuban, being amulatto, Catholic, igo, kimbisaand abo-litionist is a perfect emblem for ethnic andreligious symbolism in the nineteenth cen-tury. In other words, the greatest personifica-tion of what Ortiz called transculturation.In fact, in his book Los bailes y el teatro delos negros(1951), Ortiz speaks of Petit as agreat reformer, as the architect of an inge-nious synchronyof Congo and Catholic ele-ments.4Ortiz does not make reference to theigos, but rather to the regla KimbisathatPetit also founded. The problem with thatis that Petit is intimately tied to legend andpopular knowledge, which might explainwhy there is research interest in him now,after so many years of being ignored. Whyis this the case, when Ortizs theory has beenthe most important factor for understandingCubas racial and cultural mix, at least sincethe middle of the twentieth century?

The answer to this question can be

found in a series of factors that convergedall at one time, and others that contradictthe Cuban Revolutions racial rhetoric. Onthe one hand, Petit was much too religious


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chronicle, asked himself: Could the Abakube a dangerous and terrible organization, andalso have a venerable director?10My answeris yes,so long as the order agreed to educateitself, contribute funds to the PRC, and come

out against Spain.By the end of the nineteenth century,

igos were not simply considered a crimi-nal organization, but also a political one,since many of them were accused of conspir-ing against the government, and sent to pris-on in Ceuta. Of course, such accusations canalways be fabricated, and serve as another wayto publically denigrate them, and get rid of

people the State considered to be undesirable.This is not Cabrera Peas opinion. When hespeaks of the debtto which Mart gets themto commit, he is guided by Aline Helgs views:that one of this rhetorics objectives is toeliminate any obligation to pay reparationsfor their ill treatment in the past.11Cabrerafinds no evidence to support this thesis, butthe problem is that this rhetoric of debt isnot limited to this goal only. It is symbolicand works more like a sort of blackmail (aharsh word, but I can find no other) or honorargument with which to get them to commit.Perhaps Marts own personality can help usunderstand this. He was greatly influenced bySpains historical preoccupation with honor,the Golden Age; he was a poet and idealist,and saw this debt almost as an agreementamong gentlemen. However, I agree with Ca-brera when he says that the concept of debtthat was taken on by blacks predated Mart.12This is exactly what I said in my article, whenI mentioned Calixto Garca Iiguez, ManuelSanguily, and the Juan Bellido de Lunas alle-gory, in 1875. Helg does not express this, andlimits herself to a very superficial analysis of

Mart.I also agree with Cabrera when he saysthat Mart saw in education a necessary andvalid good, or as he called it, a way to open

1) To unite white and black Cubans, thuserasing any ill feelings one group might havehad towards the other.

2) To get blacks to once again fight forthe independence of Cuba, even though they

had already received their definitive freedomfrom the Spanish government in 1886, andshouldnt have to fight again.

3) To assure whites of the goodnessofblacks, and that they would not violently riseup against them after the war, and

4) To challenge the Autonomist Partysright to claim the liberationof the slaves in1886, when in reality this credit belonged to

the Mamb soldiers, according to Mart andother independence supporters who rose upin 1868.

Despite the fact that Mart used this rhet-oric to promote his political agenda, he doesnot mention that slaves were not given theirfreedom in 1868, and that racism among therebel leadership continued. So, Mart remainssilent about both things, and not only in hispiece on the secret order of Africans. Healso omits the story of the Aponte rebellionof slaves and freemen, and about others whorose up way before Cuban fighters fought theSpaniards for their freedom. Like it or not,all this amounts to a manipulation of historyand the voices he includes in his texts. Moreimportantly, in his chronicle about the Africanorder, Mart accepts Sur and his friends ontwo conditions: that they abandon the drumand learn to read, and that they come out infavor of a war against the Spanish govern-ment. What more could he want? What elsecould he ask of them?

This rhetoric would reappear many yearslater in Cuba. It serves only the political in-terests of those in power, or those who re to

wield it. It is not recognition for the rightsof the Abaku religion, association or cul-ture. In another issue of ISLAS, Miguel Ca-brera Pea, upon reading this very same Mart


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be a new way to interpret this association, andthe mulatto from Guanabacoa was the per-fect vehicle through which to achieve this. Itcould be no other way for those who thoughtthat Andrs Cristo de los Dolores Petit was

the veritable personification of God on theEarth.16

The demonization of the Abaku con-tinued in Cuba during the Revolutions firstforty years. This changed only in the 1990s.The Cuban government became more open toreligions, Pope John Paul visited Cuba, andthe Catholic Church began to play a moreactive role in society. In this context, Afro-

Cuban religions also reaped benefits, so muchso that between 1991 and 2008, more than 38books on Santera were published in Cuba.This coincides with the period during whichAndrs Petits reevaluation begins, and a firstbook about his life,Andrs Quimbisa(2001),by Mara del Carmen Muzio, is published. Itfollows the footsteps of this famous Havanaresident from the Guanabacoa neighborhood,and discovers that the person about whomLydia Cabreras informants spoke really ex-isted. Yet, some facts dont jibe with what theysaid.

To begin with, Petits will, which Muziofound after much searching in a number ofHavana churches, reveals he was illiterate,could not even sign his name, died at theage of 48, and was buried in the habit of aDominican friar. According to Rafael RocheMonteagudos transcription, in his bookLa polica y los misterios en Cuba (1908), inwhich there is a certain Andrs Netit (a pos-sible typo), and that despite the fact historyhad completely blamed him for his treacher-ousact, it was not only the bakok eforwhowas responsible for the admission of whites,

but also the efi ebrit.17

In other words, therewas not only one nigo group that spon-sored whites, but two. Andrs Petit was theissufor the bakok efor.Nevertheless, Muzio

the way to upward mobility.13 Neverthe-less, I still believe that in calling the Abakuorder terrible, criticizing its religion, andindirectly criticizing blacks for wanting toperpetuate illiteracy among Cubans, Mart

was speaking from a position of cultural su-periority. Judging by his chronicle, for Martand so many others, it was necessary to avoidAfricans imposing their religion on whites,which is why they had to accept criollo cul-tural forms. Cabrera accepts Marts lack ofknowledge about the subject, and tries todefend him by saying that in that era (1893)there was no literature about the Abaku nor

about African culture, in general.14 On thecontrary, though, Mart wrote this chronicleat one of the most heightened moments ofinstitutional repression against the igos,and during a publicity campaign supportedby a number of intellectuals, among themBachiller y Morales. In 1876, the GovernorGeneral of Cuba prohibited igo compar-sas, and police agent Trujillo y Monegas wrotea report that was published in Havana withthe title Los igos, su historia, sus prcti-cas, su lenguaje con el facsmile de los sellosque usa cada uno de los juegos o agrupaciones(1882). Surely Mart knew of or had readthose reports, and was not unaware of thedangerthey symbolized. The Abakus badreputation continued for all of the nineteenthcentury, and even increased at the beginningof the twentieth, which explains why AndrsPetit is nothing more than a ghost in all thosepolice reports. This changes only when LydiaCabrera publishes La sociedad secreta abaku.So why assume that Mart could have done itearlier? In the prologue to her book, Lydia Ca-brera tells us something that other researcherswho studied that organization have not, that

she was not interested in their criminal butrather religious character, and even more soin the poetics we thought to have seen in theirmaterials.15This explains why there needed to


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still believes in the centrality of Petit in thisstory, and emphasizes his importance for thelater development of Cuban culture, becausenot everyone had Petits future vision thatCuba was making enormous strides towards a

great degree of not only racial but also cul-tural miscegenation.18

A worrisome thing about this type ofinterpretation is not the incongruences or thelittle evidence we have to help us clarify whatthis mans role in the passing of the Abaku se-cret to the whites entailed. Most worrisome ofall is thinking Petit did this because he had avisionof the future, and not understanding

that there were forces greater than human onesbehind this process of syncretism in Cuba, andthat white society was trying to normativizeand assimilate blacks into Cubas hegemonic,white and Catholic culture. Excerpts from adocument/testimony called El Sayn de SantoDomingo, which Muzio includes in his book,are quite revealing along these lines. It ex-plains the reasons for the creation of the reglaKimbisa, whose primary purpose was (andstill is) to help those who lived trapped in themillennial practices they inherited from Af-rica to free them of those dark practices andideas[and adapt them] to the newly emerg-ing, evolutionary condition of the spiritualprogress they were making at that time.

Christian Catholicism catechized andconverted the entire race of slaves and free-men, but it was never able to rid them of theirAfrican religions [for which reason Petit] de-cided to establish a religious institution thatcould include, join and harmonize Christianmorality, [because] this new religion was cre-ated so that those able to understand it bedrawn to it, [and] conserve the most essential,useful and best aspects of African religions in

a human, more acceptable and more civilizedform.19

Anyone who reads these paragraphs andis familiar with the traditional forms of sub-

jugation to which different ethnic minoritieswere subjected in Spanish America will noticethat syncretism is lauded because if offers oneway of leaving in the past practices usuallycondemned for being darkor savage,and

reforming them so they evolveaccording tothe spiritual progress that was dawning forthem.Thus, the creation of the regla Kimbisadid not come about in a desire for brother-hood or for creating something new and dif-ferent from what the conquerors had broughtfrom Europe, but rather because it was theonly way to harmonize Christian moralitywith whatever was essential, useful and best

about the African religions. The blend wouldbe more human and definitively civilized.This was the path that many reformers andthinkers followed from the nineteenth andinto the mid-twentieth century in Cuba. Inpractice, it resulted in a way of slowly dilut-ing the rights and traditions of blacks withina powerful, white cultural framework.

If this indeed was how Petits regla wasfoundedand we remember that Ortizpraised it in his bookwe would have toadmit that he was motivated by a markedlyEurocentric view of culture whose clearest ex-pression could be found in colonial lawthecondemnation of whites, and the impositionof the Castilian language and Catholic reli-gion on the island. We must recall that duringthe colonial period the State urged and forcedslaves to assimilate to the Catholic religionsprecepts. It also indoctrinated them by usingthe catechism for bozal [recently imported]blacksand even the decree of April 4, 1888,which forced all African cabildos to becomeCatholic brotherhoods, to avoid blacks beingable to conspire against the Spanish govern-ment. Muzio ignores this issue and supports

the integrationist view of Petit created byLydia Cabreras Ortizian ethnography. Hisinterpretation owes more to Cabreras bookthan to the one that had prevailed till the


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nineties. In fact, in 1982, ethnographer En-rique Sosa was still claiming that igos andcommunist ideology did not go well together,which is why he called Andrs Petit a igo,brujero, santero, cristiano,and milagrero.20

It is no wonder that Sosa, who that year hadwon the Casa de las Amricas prize, said:

As happened with the curros,the igossuffered and will suffer earthshaking shocks solong as social development, which in socialismscase is accelerated, is imposed on them. Hencethe urgency, the immediate need to exhaustivelyresearch them before the complete disappearanceof anachronicsecret societiesin a communistsociety that should, on the other hand, takeadvantage of their great wealth as a constitu-

tive element of our national history and culture(emphasis mine).21

What else could Sosa say? At the triumphof the Revolution, when the State declareditself to be socialist, all religions were con-demned. The records of the Partys First Con-gress made special mention of this. Accordingto Sosa, of course, there was a desire to inves-tigatethe igos, but their association hadno place in the islands present or future. Itbelonged to an earlier time and was an anach-ronism, which justified the States assaultonit, just like colonial authorities had done ear-lier. In other words, igos were the purviewof the Ministry of the Interior (MININT),but not a reliable or integratable elementof revolutionary society. This explains why inhis book Sosa frequently cites Arstedes Soto-navarros article Las intenciones secretas delabaku (1972), which was published in thejournal Moncada, in which many old-fash-ioned, stereotypical arguments are repeated.According to Sotonavarro:

More than 90% of youth who have

joined the sect have criminal backgrounds orare being sought by the authorities. They arethe sort who solve their problems in a machoway, and seek the opportunity to make histo-

ry(via bloody acts) and later take an oath.Ifthey do not become incarcerated they are notconsidered proven men. They engage in black-mail to discredit ekobios[brothers]and alsouse effeminate men and their braggartwomen

to create scandals about a particular member,and thus damage his manly prestige. Anotherstrategy often employed by the Abaku mafiais to make an aggression of many against oneperson.22

This extremely prejudiced descriptionof the Abaku was part of the campaignthe government waged against them and allother religions. It was also part of a policy

for eradicating words of African origin frompopular speech, for example: the personal ref-erent aserethat is so commonly used amongCubans, which is of Abaku origin. Accord-ing to writer Ena Luca Portela, in her bookEl viejo, el asesino, y otros cuentos (1999),this word was held as vulgar. Portela writesthat in primary school, where I studied, wechildren were entirely prohibited from us-ing it, since, according to the teacher, in theAfrican jungle the word in question meant agroup of stinky monkeys.23Nevertheless, thiscampaign to impose a negative and anti-socialview of igos contradicts new studies thatemphasize Petits transcultural and integra-tionist work, and the Abakus commitmentto the nations liberation project. In this newcontext, there is no talk of blood; what isemphasized are their ties of mutual aid, theiractive role in the struggle for Cubas indepen-dence, and their participation alongside thegovernment at Playa Girn. Once again, theproblem is in the fact that there is very littleor no evidence of this participation, as is thecase with Petit, as well. Everything we knowcomes from the testimony of the old men and

sympathizers to whom the ethnographers andhistorians turn.For example, it has been said that when

the eight medical students were shot by the


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ma cena (1976). All of them did somethingdifferent with religion: they made it an instru-ment of liberation, a weapon against the colo-nial (or neocolonial) State, which is why thisrhetoric lost its political worth at a time when

blacks became free or the Cuban Revolutiontriumphed. According to Sosa, the igosand all other religions, including the Afro-Cuban ones, were an anachronism.So, whatdo we need democracy for? What do we needreligion for? It really doesnt matter if thisparticipation by igos against the Span-ish government or invading troops at PlayaGirn has not been documented, or belongs

only to the oral tradition of groups that havetraditionally been marginalized, even duringthe Revolution, and aspire, as would anyoneelse, to be heard and recognized by their gov-ernment. Neither does it matter that religionand free association are the inalienable rightof each and every human being regardlessthe kind of government that controls thecountry. No. For Muzio, as for many othersin Cuba, the presence of the Abaku at dif-ferent, important historical events has earneda perspective different from the one thatfrightened police agents like Trujillo Mona-gas promoted. There is not only talk of theAbaku trying to rescue the students in 1871,but also that after the Guerra Chica Maceoreceived an Abaku escort, or that the leaderswho supplied Havanas and Matanzas rebelforces were Abakus. Moreover, as part ofour more recent history, 95% of the Matanzasbattalion that fought at Playa Girn in 1961was Abaku (emphasis mine).28

In other words, what is important nowis to reveal a curriculum that confirms theposition the Abakus have with the Party onbehalf of the Nation and Revolution. Conse-

quently, a need for documents to prove thesedeeds is now irrelevant because as researcherJess Guanche says, a fundamental source forthe study of Cubas current syncretic religions

Spanish government on November 27th, 1871,a group of igos tried to forcefully rescuethe students, which got them executed. Thisstory had resurfaced before, but had alreadybeen rejected due to lack of evidence. In his

book El fusilamiento de los estudiantes(1971),Luis Felipe le Roy y Glvez confirmed that thenight the students were killed, the Spanishwent out to the street and killed five blacksat different places throughout the city: Thismassacre of five blacks has been the object ofmuch speculation [and] brought about theinvention of a very novelesque version of theseevents, one that says that there was an upris-

ing of sworn igos that day, according tosome, or of loyal slaves, according to others,who wanted to forcefully rescue the eight stu-dents who were going to die.24The aforecitedarticle by Cabrera Pea points to this thesiswhen it makes references to the heroic char-acter of the Abakuand mentions the shoot-ing of the medical students.25Mara del Car-men Muzio does the same thing when she citesLey Roy and adds that this legend grows evenmore beautifulwhen we hear the igo tes-timonies that confirm that one of the medicalstudents was an Abaku, which justified thathis brothers rise up to rescue them.26 If thisstory is true, adds Muzuo, the student whowas shot certainly had to belong to the firstjuegoof whites that Petit established, whichwas the only one in existence that year.27 Ina country where everything is subordinatedto politics, it is clear that a reevaluation ofthe Abakus secret society has to involve theparticipation of revolutionaries. This type ofstory may allow their struggle to earnthegovernments recognition.

As I showed earlier, this is not a new pro-cess. Mart had already used it in his article

for Patria.Alejo Carpentier had done the samefor Haitian blacks in El reino de este mundo(1949); Miguel Barnet in Biografa de un ci-marrn(1955); and Gutirrez Alea in La lti-


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Notes:

1- There are various versions of this myth. For more about its meaning and different versions, see LydiaCabrera, La sociedad secreta abaku narrada por viejos adeptos. Miami: Ediciones CR, 1970.

2- Cabrera, Lydia. Op. cit., 53.3- Idem, La ceiba y la sociedad secreta abaku.Orgenes. Revista de Arte y Literatura7:25 (1950): 17.4- Ortiz, Fernando. Los bailes y el teatro de los negros. (La Habana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1983): 330.5- Mart, Jos. Obras CompletasV. (La Habana: Ciencias Sociales, 1963-1975): 324.6- Ibid, 325.7- El miedo y la deuda en las crnicas de Patria de Jos Mart.ISLAS2: 9 (2008): 34-46.

8- Mart, Jos. Loc. cit., 324.9- Ibid, 325.10- Cabrera Pea, Miguel. Jos Mart y el futuro de los negros.ISLAS5: 16 (2010): 29.11- Ibid, 22.12- Ibid.13- Ibid, 27.14- Ibid, 29.15- Cabrera, Lydia. Op. cit., 11.16- Ibid, 30.17- Muzio, Mara del Carmen.Andrs Quimbisa. (La Habana: Ediciones Unin, 2001): 61.

18- Ibid, 66.19- Ibid, 95-97 passim.20- Sosa Rodrguez, Enrique. Los igos. (La Habana: Casa de las Amricas, 1982): 144.21- Ibid, 15.22- Ibid, 324.23- Portela, Ena Luca. (El viejo, el asesino, yo y otros cuentos.Florida: Stockcero, 2009): 39.24- Le Roy y Glvez, Luis Felipe. El fusilamiento de los estudiantes. (La Habana: Ed. Ciencias sociales,

1971): 139-40.25- Cabrera Pea, Miguel. Op. cit., 27.26- Muzio, Mara del Carmen, Op. cit, 70.27- Ibid, 71.28- Ibid, 73.29- Guanche, Jess. Procesos etnoculturales cubanos. (La Habana: Letras cubanas, 1983): 16.

fers the repost. Those who accept only docu-mentary evidence to validate a historical factwill consider that there is no reason whatso-ever to take the word of a few clever old men;those who, like Guanche, Muzio, and Cabrera,

believe the opposite, will have no problemadorning portraits of Mart and Maceo witha note saying they too were igos.

is their oral tradition, which today is as validand valuable as an important historic docu-ment.29Is this a case of naivety, political ma-nipulation, or a legitimate desire on the partof researchers to recover heretofore repressed

voices from the nations history? As happensin the case of Andrs Petit and Jos Mart, Iam afraid that the answer to that question willdepend on a question a faith, and on who of-

Documents

Abakua in Cuba 19th Century