Rewriting the African Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean by Robert L. Adams Jr

Author:Robert L. Adams Jr. [Adams, Robert L. Jr.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138383074
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2018-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

West African Ékpè history and aesthetics in Cuban Abakuá chants

Ékue Usagaré akuaramina Usagaré

Ékpè began in Usagaré

(Cuban Abakuá march)

Cuban Abakua lore indicates that ‘Usagaré’ was the source community of their society in West Africa. Cross River Ékpè also regard ‘Usaghade’ as a source for the esoteric aspects of their traditions. Lying near the coastal Atlantic border of Nigeria and Cameroon, ‘Isangele’ is close to the city of Calabar in the Cross River basin. Isangele is the colonial name; locals call it Usak-Ade, essentially the same pronunciation as that of Cuban Abakuá.

Prince Mosongo, a member of the noble founding family of Usaghade, wrote a history of his community called An X-Ray on Bakassi Peninsular, claiming that ‘I have been directed by our Ancestors and unanimously agreed by the entire tribe to present this book.’ Mosongo (1995, p. 5) aims to ‘provoke intensive research into our various Isangele controversial clans, that would enable us to invite specialists to finally provide explicit chronologies for our events and summarize our history …’ In their search for their local history, little did Cross River people expect that evidence would be found in the chants of their spiritual descendants, the Cuban Abakuá. During the early period of the transatlantic slave trade, according to legend, the Èfìk traders of Old Calabar received fundamental elements of Ékpè from Usaghade (Miller 2009, pp. 46–47). After making elaborations, they transmitted their ‘modern’ form of Ékpè throughout their trading empire.

From a Cross River region far northwest of Usaghade, Ìbìbìò musicologist Samuel Akpabot learned that, as in Cuba, local mythology points to the transmission of Ékpè from Usaghade: ‘Tradition has it that Ékpè originally came from a place called Usangade [sic] where the Efot ethnic group live in the [peninsula near] Calabar; it was they who let the Ìbìbìò people of Uruan into the secrets of the cult.’ Part of the evidence for this history is that Ìbìbìò Ékpè use a non-Ìbìbìò language in ceremony. Akpabot (1975, p. 32) wrote:

Members of the Ékpè society greet one another with these code words: Cantor: Uyo bari bari nya nkpe … These words are not easy to translate into English since they are not Ìbìbìò words and their origin is not easily traceable. They are more like nonsense words with a special meaning to Ékpè society members.

The terms are Éjághám or Balondo, two languages common in southwestern Cameroon, of which Usaghade forms a part. Prince Mosongo agreed that Ékpè sources are ‘traced from Usak-Edet (Balondo land) in Cameroon. This is reinforced by the fact that most Ékpè songs [in southwest Cameroon] are in Balondo language’ (Mosongo 1995, p. 80). As seen from these examples, linguistic evidence is fundamental to the identification of the sources of Ékpè in West Africa, a method already used to identify the West African source regions of Cuban Abakuá (Manfredi 2004; Miller 2005).

After searching the archives in Calabar, the only musical recordings I found were made by Èfìk Ékpè; there were none by Ékpè musicians from Usaghade, Oban, and other ethnic settlements with Ékpè traditions.

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