Performing Afro-Cuba by Kristina Wirtz

Author:Kristina Wirtz [Wirtz, Kristina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Anthropology, Cultural & Social, Music, Ethnomusicology, Performing Arts, Language Arts & Disciplines, Linguistics
ISBN: 9780226119199
Google: j9FDAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2014-06-05T05:43:10+00:00

Much of this excerpt is difficult to translate, indeed would be difficult for many Cubans to understand, because of Pura’s heavy use of Palo’s ritual register. Some of her pronunciations and grammatical elisions might be considered Bozal, although not to the extent of Obatalá’s speech in the previous section. Other paleros would find everything in her speech quite understandable and formulaic in its use of Palo jargon, even gaining information about the (public) name of her prenda (ritual power object), the powerful spirits associated with it, and her level of spiritual authority. She also followed the usual formula in her overall tenor of brazen challenge that characterizes such invocations: paleros closely identify their own spiritual power with that of the actual physical object of the prenda and its associated spirits and deities. To claim control of a powerful prenda, as she did, is to deny others the possibility of magically harming her. Her prenda works for her, she claimed, because she feeds it, where “feeding” a prenda in Palo or a santo in Ocha means providing offerings and sacrifices to spiritually charge it. But beyond her standard claims about the protections her ritual lineage’s prendas and spirits provide her, she offered that power as a beneficial force that can bring blessings to everyone present. Indeed, her invocation ends by slipping back into a (formal Spanish) formulaic phrase familiar to Spiritism, Ocha, and folk Catholicism, in which the spirits are asked to provide blessings of health, peace, and spiritual development to those who worship them.

Following the Palo invocation, Pura then immediately began a Lucumí invocation to the deceased ancestors that opens all ritual work in Santería. Each time she intoned “Ibayé ibayé tonú” in the same raspy shout as the Palo invocation, another member of the group called out the name of his or her muerto (spirit), for about ten rounds of invocation. The Lucumí phrase she used usually is glossed as “rest in peace.” Following the invocation, a lead singer stepped forward, taking the microphone to begin a series of Spiritist songs, all in Spanish and in a formal register comparable to the opening Catholic prayers. This Palo-Spiritist ceremony, then, opened with a series of contrasting voices and registers, where the section excerpted above stands out as the Palo voice, the palera appealing to the power of spirits who, in life, were enslaved Africans and whose occult practices and Congo speech are Palo’s legacy. On this particular occasion, Pura’s prayers and invocations, and the songs that followed, served to prepare for possession trances in which she and about eight other members of the ensemble would channel their muertos. The larger goal of the ceremony was to pay homage to the figure of the cimarrón, the rebellious, escaped slave.

Pura’s Palo voice, then, was properly authentic, regardless of whether the ceremony was, in fact, a religious event or whether the possession trances that soon ensued were true possessions or choreographed dramatic reenactments of a religious ceremony. After several songs, Pura’s muerto, María del Congo, took possession and greeted the audience, asking for a “missing congo.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.