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within the government and religious denominations to Fernández Robaina, Tomás. Hablen paleros y santeros. 2nd work toward overcoming confl icts between them. Fol- ed. Havana: Editorial Ciencias Sociales, 2008. lowing a course that was increasingly open—and not Moore, Robin D. “Music and Revolution.” In Ay, Dios free from dissension—between the 1990s and 2010, ampárame: Sacred Music and Revolution. Berkeley: rapprochement set the standard for a new stage. Th e University of California Press, 2006. new accommodating approach was characterized by Primer Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba. Tesis greater religious freedom, which translated into a cli- y Resoluciones. Havana: Dep. de orientación revolu- mate of cordial respect and a greater awareness of the cionaria del Comité central del Partido Comunista de Cuba D.O.R., 1976. essence that underpins Afro-Cuban religious practices, accompanied by a reduction of prejudice. Greater Hagedorn, Katherine J. Divine Utterances: Th e Performance of Afro-Cuban Santería, especially chapters 6–7. religious tolerance led to a certain permissiveness in Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001. practice, some of it for monetary gain, some of it out of ignorance of traditions. Th e government promoted Heran, Adrian H. Cuba: Religion, Social Capital and Development. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, religious tourism, something that became more preva- 2008. lent from the beginnings of the nineties, and greater Kirk, John M. Between God and the Party: Religion and commercialization of the religion became more wide- Politics in Revolutionary Cuba. Gainesville: University spread, with outrageous fees being charged for initia- Press of Florida, 1989. tions or for the purchase of religious artifacts. Several milestones attested to this new stage of religious tolerance: One of these was the visit of Alaye- Faith: Abakuá Society ■ See also luwa Oba Okunade Sijuwade (Olobuse II) (b. 1930), Día de Reyes en la the Ooni (emperor) of Ifé (the capital city of the Ivor Miller Habana (Víctor Patricio Yoruba people), in 1987. A major religious fi gure from de Landaluze) Nigeria, Olobuse II was treated almost like a head of An initiation club for men in Havana and Matanzas, Food: Ritual Foods and state when he visited Cuba. Other important achieve- Afro-Cuban Religious ments were: the legalization in 1991 of the Sociedad derived from the Ékpè leopard society of West Africa. Traditions Cultural Yoruba de Cuba (Cuban Yoruba Cultural Society) and its recognition as a religious institu- Abakuá, known by its members as Ekório Enyéne Language: Abakuá in Abakuá (a group founded by a sacred mother that is Cuba and its Infl uence tion since 2007; Communist Party bylaws in 1991 on Spanish Usage accepting the enrollment of religious believers into called Abakuá), is a Cuban mutual aid society for men, that organization; and the success of the fi rst edition whose ceremonial activities occur exclusively in the Music: Afro-Cuban port cities of Cárdenas, Havana, and Matanzas. Popu- Religious Infl uence on of Natalia Bolivar’s book, Los Orishas en Cuba (Th e Cuban Popular Music Orishas in Cuba, 1993), referring to the deities and larly referred to as African Masonry, Abakuá is struc- spirits of the Yoruba belief system and its off shoots in tured through lodges, the fi rst of which was created Race: Slavery in Cuba the New World. Th e publication ofFidel y la religión in 1836 by its African-born founders who migrated La sentencia (Belkis (Fidel and Religion, 1985), by Frei Betto, also helped: from the Cross River region of southeastern Nigeria Ayón) With more than one million copies sold, it added new and southwestern Cameroon. In the 2010s, there were spark to the debate about religious beliefs. Th e pope’s more than 150 functioning lodges with more than visit in 1998 contributed to the opening up of a space 20,000 members. Although it is a secretive initiation for all believers, although the pontiff refused to meet society, Abakuá has been referred to unoffi cially as a with practitioners of Santería and its high priests. national symbol of Cuba, due to the participation of its members in the development of Cuban music, arts, Th e full inclusion of Afro-Cuban practitioners and identity. into Cuban society ultimately validated their religious, cultural, and social importance as key participants in In the Calabar region, the Ékpè leopard society the creation of the revolutionary republic Martí envi- was the regulatory institution, in which councils of sioned, “con todos y para el bien de todos” (by all, and free-born titled members established the common laws for the good of all). Th is inclusion of believers aff ected of their communities and regulated trade throughout the ruling ideology and its leadership as well, liberat- the region. Abakuá practice, which includes a ritual ing them from the ghosts of prejudice. An old Yoruban language, body-mask traditions, collective organiza- proverb, illustrating the importance of the inclusion of tion, percussive music, cuisine, cosmology, and gender religious and cultural diversity, says it best: the water relations, is best understood in relation to its African makes the stream, and the streams make the river. sources. Although it was created in the context of a slave society, Abakuá is not a slave culture, as is often assumed. Instead, following the Ékpè model, it was BIBLIOGRAPHY created by free-born Africans as a vehicle for jurispru- Betto, Frei. Fidel y la religión. Santo Domingo: Editora dence and artistry. Alfa y Omega, 1985. In colonial Cuba, the Spanish government Bolívar Arostequi, Natalia. Los Orishas en Cuba. Miami: divided migrating Africans ethnically by encouraging Libros Sin Fronteras Inventory, 1993. those in urban areas to form cabildos (nation-groups).

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Th ese cabildos became important centers for the According to Ékpè and Abakuá mythology, conservation of African languages and cultural practices. Ékpè was discovered or created in a fi shing commu- Carabalí peoples formed several cabildos by the 1750s, nity in the estuaries of what is in modern times the and titled members of the leopard societies were among Bakassi Peninsula, along the Cameroun-Nigeria bor- them. Th e African-born Ékpè members were hesitant der. Called Usagaré in Cuba and Ùsàghàdè (spelled on to initiate their Cuban-born sons, which explains why maps as Usak-Edet or Isangele) in Africa, this place is Abakuá was not established until the 1830s in Regla, a spoken of with reverence on both sides of the Atlantic. small town across the harbor from Havana. Th e altar spaces in Abakuá lodges display objects Abakuá tradition has three lineages, the Efí, Efó, that evoke Cross River cultural history. Th ey often con- and Orú. Each is derived from an ethnic identity in the tain a seven-keyed lamellophone (mbira in Southern Cross River region, known today as Èfìk, Èfúùt, and Africa) to represent the original music of Ùsàghàdè; in Úrúán. Th e term Abakuá memorialized the Àbàkpà the Calabar region lamellophones were once common people of Calabar, who call themselves the Quas. Th e instruments. Abakuá altars also display the signature fi rst lodge was known as Efí Butón, after the Òbútòng of their lodge, a magical sign—based upon the Nsìbìdì community in Calabar. writing of the Cross River Ékpè practice—that is fully known only by the lodge leaders. Other common EARLY LODGE NAMES DOCUMENT objects are the percussion instruments of Abakuá CARABALÍ MIGRATION music, the nkomo drums (ekomo in Efi k), ekón metal gong (nkong in Efi k), and the two seed-fi lled rattles As Carabalí organized themselves in western Cuba, (nsak in Efi k), the forms of which are nearly identical they started using African names for areas of their to Cross River Ékpè instruments. Showing the Catho- environment. Th ey renamed HavanaNúnkue , inter- lic infl uence in Cuba, each lodge has a representative preted into Èfìk as nung nkwe (I have also not seen), Catholic saint upon its altar. Because Cross River Ékpè meaning that Havana was a new place to them. Th ey practice is directly linked to that of the water spirit called Regla ítiá ororó kánde, interpreted into Èfìk as itiat òyóyò Nkàndà (the foundation of great Nkàndà); societies of each community (called Ndèm among the Nkàndà was a key Ékpè grade that was evoked during Efi ks), the female saints are understood as cognates for the foundational Abakuá ceremonies. the link between male Ékpè and female water powers. Abakuá lodges were created in western Cuba ABAKUÁ BECOMES A UNIVERSAL because many Cross River peoples lived there, but INSTITUTION also because Calabar and Cuba shared a similar ecol- ogy. Both have estuary zones of mangrove swamps, Each generation of Abakuá leaders directed their lodge manatees, crocodiles or alligators, and other fauna activities based upon their understanding of the teach- that have deep symbolism for Ékpè. Components ings of the African founders, as well as upon the needs missing in Cuba (e.g., leopards) were represented of the day. Whereas the African founders took decades symbolically. to create a lodge for their own off spring, the Cuban Creoles decided that, in the face of the tremendous Th roughout the nineteenth century, Cuban repression of African-derived institutions, they would lodge names represented communities in the Cala- best defend Abakuá by opening up their ranks to any bar region, becoming indexes for source communi- qualifi ed male, regardless of his ancestry. Th e fi rst lodge ties. For example, the Efí Abarakó Eta lodge founded of white males was created in 1863 by members of some in Regla in 1863 was likely named after the Calabar of Cuba’s elite families who, it was thought, could infl u- community called Mbàràkòm, a ward of Creek Town ence the dominant class perspective on this criminalized foundational to modern Èfìk Ékpè history. Cuban data supports this interpretation, because Mbarankonó institution. Th e result was the universalizing of Abakuá, abarakó is an Abakuá phrase. An Abarakó lodge also making it no longer the exclusive concern of African exists in Matanzas. Th e Efí Mbemoró lodge, founded descendants, but of all communities in western Cuba. in 1846 in Havana, refers to a riverside community Th e legendary founder of this movement was in the Calabar region. For example, Mbemong (by the Andrés Petit (1830–1878), a leader in the Havana river) is an Èfìk settlement on the Great Kwa river, lodge named Bakokó Efó. In southwestern Cam- along the ancient trade route from Calabar to Oban eroon, Bakoko is a Balondo-speaking group; migrants and into Cameroun. Th e Havana lodge Ékuéri Tongó, from there established a Bakoko settlement in Calabar. established in 1848, refers to the Èfìk community of Petit was a free mulatto with strong ties to the Catho- Ékórétònkó. Another Havana lodge, Ekerewá Momí, lic Church and a leader of a Cuban-Kongo practice founded in 1863, is clearly derived from Ekeng Ewa, called Kimbisa, which he helped establish in Havana. a family name from Henshaw Town, Calabar, where Petit fused basic elements from the available initiation in Èfìk, Ekerewá Momí means “Ekerewá is here!” Such systems in Cuba to create spiritual practices without matter-of-fact interpretations of Abakuá lodge names racial distinctions, so that all participants could coex- were possible only through renewed contact with ist as spiritual family members, a radical move in a Calabar peoples. slave society. In 1857, Petit consecrated the objects

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for a new Abakuá lodge; after six years of selecting Because Abakuá initiations proceed as ritual- and organizing its fi rst members, he initiated them in theater enactments of African foundation myths, 1863. According to legend, with initiation fees paid by Ortiz likened them to ancient Greek tragedies (Ortiz the whites, Petit bought the freedom of many enslaved 1950). Each ceremonial action is meant to recreate people. In the process, he and his colleagues trans- the birth of Ékpè in Ùsàghàdè, West Africa, wherein a formed Cuban society. Th e anthropologist Fernando mystic Voice was heard coming from the river, but no Ortiz (1881–1969) labeled his movement the Reform man could fi nd it. Th e Voice, known as the epicenter of Petit (Ortiz 1954, pp. 70–71), and as late as 1996, of Ékpè and Abakuá practice, was captured only when Petit was referred to as “forger of the Cuban nation” a royal female known as Sikán (from Nsikan, an Ìbìbìò (Mosquera p. 256). name meaning “What is greater than God?”) fi lled her Th us, in 1863, the fi rst lodge of whites, called water pot at the river, and the sacred fi sh known as Okóbio Mukarará Efó (white brothers of Efó), Tánze (from Tánsí, an Éjághám name meaning “Lord was established. In Cuba, okobio is interpreted as Fish”) entered it, eventually becoming incorporated “brother”; in Èfìk, as “it belongs to us” (fi guratively, into Ékpè. “brother”). In Balondo (Èfúùt), mukara is “white per- Using a specifi c step-by-step process, Abakuá son.” Soon afterwards, many Chinese descendants also initiations narrate their epic myths through descrip- joined Abakuá, so lodge members came from African, tive chanting and gestures. At the center of the story American, Asian, and European backgrounds. is Nasako, the diviner who foresaw the coming of the Why did the white brothers want to join? One Voice, then organized local leaders into an Ékpè lodge reason is that as in Freemasonry, Abakuá emerged as and gave them titles that memorialize their contribu- a parallel tradition of underground cells whose mem- tions. For example, Abakuá processions moving to bers participated in the anticolonial struggle. As the and from a nearby river led by the masquerade dancer fi rst War of Cuban Independence began in 1868, all Eribangando are performances that narrate the fi rst the rebel leaders from across the island were members appearance of this mask to defend Sikán as she left of Freemasonry lodges. Many Abakuá members in the the river with the Voice. In another example, when Havana-Matanzas region were also Freemasons and the yellow and white chalk are introduced in Abakuá used both institutions for organizing rebel activities. rites, the story of the title Moruá Engomo is enacted In Calabar, for very diff erent reasons, several to explain how one ancestor brought the coded chalk European merchants were initiated by Ékpè leaders in into Ékpè practice. Th e chalk is used to draw magical the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In order to symbols, known as anaforuana or gandó in Cuba, that have the support of Ékpè councils while recouping fees authorize all ritual actions, just as a signature author- from their local debtors, these whites paid high fees for izes a bank transaction. membership but had no say in the actual functioning But the Cuban signs comprise a huge corpus; of Ékpè lodges and their ceremonial activities. Lydia Cabrera collected more than 500 examples in her 1975 book Anaforuana. Paralleling the Abakuá ABAKUÁ TITLES AND THEIR FUNCTIONS language, these signs show little infl uence from Span- ish or the Roman alphabet; instead, they are derived No one has complete knowledge of Abakuá; initiation from the Nsìbìdì codes of the Cross River region, a can be a lifetime process with many stages, each hav- form of secret communication through signs drawn, ing rigorous protocols designed to safeguard knowl- gestured, or spoken that is part of Ékpè practice. As edge of the society’s inner mechanisms. Information Percy Talbot documented in the early 1900s, the about Abakuá practice, history, and mythology is Éjághám-speaking community of Oban had a com- compartmentalized into the teachings of each title; plex system of Nsìbìdì signs that resembles those in therefore, titleholders have specialized knowledge per- Abakuá (Talbot). taining to their own functions. Th is collective practice is taught in debates between masters and apprentices Once initiated, the Abakuá neophyte is reborn who study for years to learn the language and its many as abanékue (or obonékue), in Èfìk meaning “admit- interpretations. ted into Ékpè.” Abanékues are highly regarded because Most young men are initiated when they are they are the soldiers of Abakuá trained to carry on the between seven and twenty-one years of age, with tradition; if they excel, and a position opens when an exceptions. Traditionally, once a neophyte asked or elder titleholder dies, they may take it. Initiation in agreed to be initiated, a process of inquiry about his Abakuá is for life; as the Abakuá say, “what is written character and moral behavior began that could take cannot be erased,” a reference to the chalk marks made up to two years. Th e mother of the neophyte had the on the bodies of initiates. fi nal word on whether her son was morally qualifi ed Th e three categories of Abakuá titles are Obón, to join. If the neophyte was accepted, he was known Indiobón, and Etenyén obón. In Èfìk, obon is “ruler” as ndisime (accepted for initiation); in Èfìk, nsidime or “king,” whereas Etinyin is “our father”; therefore means “ignorant.” Initiations take place every few Etiyin Obong would be “our father who governs us.” years, or whenever several ndisimes are ready. Indiobón is likely derived from Ndian, the estuary

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Abakuá initiation. An initiate wearing a blindfold participates in the 18-hour initiation ceremony. A man in front holds the ritual empegó drum, and behind the initiate is a representation of íreme, a spiritual fi gure from Abakuá. HÉCTOR DELGADO AND ROLANDO PUJOL

river in Cameroun where Ékpè was born, according that authorizes all ceremonial acts. In West to legend. Africa, a hunter who killed a leopard and Th e following is a partial list of Abakuá titles, brought the animal intact to his paramount their functions, and West African sources: ruler would receive an Ékpè title for his actions. In the Oron communities on the Ìyámbà is the head of a lodge in both Cuba Cross River, Èkpényòng was the name of and West Africa. Th e word Ìyámbà is derived an Ékpè title. In Cuba, as Ekuenyón is from Éjághám, where ayamba means “open preparing a ritual drink called mokúba, he the way”; it is a directive, so if one wants is referred to as Ekuenyón Bakasi, likely after to enter a compound, one could say a mba the Bakassi Peninsula where the Ùsàghàdè (make us open the way); Ìyámbà is plural community is located. (let us open the way). Th e Ìyámbà Ékpè title In Cuba, Íreme Éribángandó is a masquerade means “the Ékpè that clears the way.” dancer who leads the processions. Mythi- In Cuba, Íreme Anamanguí wears a black cally, this mask cleared the path for the and white costume and is the only mask Èfúùt (Efó) princess who, after discovering to work in the nyóro (funerary rites) where the Voice in an African river, brought it Nyámpe (Death) is a principal fi gure. In back to her community. Along the way, she Calabar, the Nyàmkpè mask functions was blocked by a serpent and a croco- in the burial rites of an Ékpè titleholder, dile, the guardians of the sacred waters. where nyóró dances are performed. In In southwestern Cameroon, crocodile is Arochuku communities up the Cross River, gando, so Cubans interpret Eribá as the an Ékpè mask with a black and white body name of the ancestor who helped the suit performs the same function while visit- woman escape Gandó the crocodile. ing the corpse during funerals. In Cuba, Íreme Mbóko represents the sug- In Cuba, Ekuenyón is remembered as a hunter arcane, which he carries in one hand and who brought all the fees to the baroko of with which he strikes those who do not Usagaré, but as a special fee, he brought a perform their tasks well. In Èfìk and Ìbìbìò, leopard whose skin was used to cover all mbòkò means “sugarcane.” the instruments. To begin the ceremonies In Cuba, Íreme Nkóboro, referred to as the of some Cuban lineages, Ekuenyón stands Abakuá police, is the masquerade per- at the entrance of the hall to summon the former who guards the Eribó (mother) Voice of the leopard, the resonant sound drum in processions during initiations. In

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Èfìk communities, Mkpokporo (literally, In Cuba, Mosóngo is a title with custody of skull) is the name of an Ùkwà war society the Voice of the Leopard. In West Africa, mask that leads processions, guarding the Mosóngo is an Éjághám Ékpè title that is female mask that comes afterwards. the equivalent of Ìyámbà, the administra- In Cuba, the Fambá titleholder guards the tive head of a lodge. Among the Àbàkpà entrance to the temple (Fambá) so that (Qua-Éjághám) of Calabar, Mosóngo is a only those authorized may enter. In West family name. Africa, èfámbá is a hidden display of Ékpè In Cuba, Nasakó is known as a diviner who artifacts, originally assembled in a sacred learned from the oracle about the birth of forest, but among Calabar lodges, they Ékpè and organized those who became the are displayed inside an Ékpè hall. Èfámbá fi rst titleholders into the society. In West is the highest form of teaching in Ékpè, Africa, Nasakó was an ancestral god known when the esoterics are revealed to those by the Ngolo clan in Ndian Division in titleholders who make the appropriate southwest Cameroon (and, by extension, sacrifi ces. the Oroko tribe) and exalted by the Ékpè In Cuba, Mokóngo represents the jurispru- society there. Moreover, the people of the dential aspect of Abakuá, as well as the Ngolo clan invoked the spirit of Nasakó military power to execute it. Mokóngo is a whenever there was a serious problem in lodge leader mythically known for bravery, the land. Th ere is also a traditional fam- thus the famous term Mokóngo Ma Chebere ily lineage of Nasakó ancestry, called the (Mokóngo the valiant) that led to the BoNasako family (family of Nasakó). Cuban popular phrase qué Chébere (how positive or wonderful). Among the Balo- ndos (Èfúùt) of southwestern Cameroon, NATIONAL AND POPULAR CULTURE Mukóngo is an executive offi cer of the Having been well organized and kept underground in Ékpè society with a representative masquer- the colonial period, Abakuá was later celebrated as a ade performance. culture of resistance in popular music. By the 1850s, In Cuba, Moní Bonkó is the custodian of Cuba’s fi rst national music, the contradanza and the the Bonkó Enchemiyá drum, an early Èfìk related danzón, had titles and sonic elements that sacred object. In West Africa, Ebonkó is referred to Abakuá. During the Wars of Independ- the Sacred Mother of Ékpè, who ultimately ence (1868–1898) popular theater also had many represents the life-giving and healing pow- references to Abakuá masquerade performers as a ers of the drum. Among the Èfúùt (Efó) symbol of cubanía (Cubanness). With the birth of people of Calabar and Cameroon, Muri is the modern son with rumba sections in Havana in a title for the clan head; customarily, each the 1910s, Abakuá codes and rhythms became essen- Muri has the Ékpè title of Ebonkó, thus tial to the genre. In the 1920s and 1930s, an artistic Muri Bonkó. movement called Afrocubanismo emerged in Havana, In Cuba, there are two titles with the name seeking to defi ne a national culture while drawing Moruá, Moruá Eribó and Moruá Yuánsa, inspiration from the working-class cultures of African both of which are masters of the coded descendants. sign language of Abakuá, known as Nsìbìdì Being anticolonial and endemic to Cuba, in Africa. In Cuban lore, Moruá Eribó Abakuá became an important symbol for the Afrocu- brought the chalk used to write the signs banistas, who included leading intellectuals such that authorize all ritual actions. Moruá as Ortiz, Nicolás Guillén (1902–1989), Alejo Car- Yuánsa is custodian of the music. In West pentier (1904–1980), and Lydia Cabrera (1900– Africa Ékpè, Mùrúàs are chanters who 1991); also participating were the composer Ernesto carry wooden rattles (ekpat) and perform Lecuona (1895–1963) and the singer Rita Montaner Nsìbìdì, most commonly during the burial (1900–1958), as well as the painter Wifredo Lam rites for an important elder, an Obong (1902–1982). All of them used Abakuá themes in Ékpè. In West Africa as in Cuba, there are their work as a key facet of Cuban identity. two types of Mùrúàs, known as Mùrúà Among the important musicians of Cuban pop- Nyàmkpè and Mùrúà Òkpòhò. ular music were Abakuá members Ignacio Piñeiro In some Cuban lodges, Mosóko represents (1888–1969), a member of the Abakuá group Efóri the bamboo stick in the ceremony. In Nkomón, who founded the son group Septeto Calabar, the bamboo stick is an impor- Nacional in 1927, and Chano Pozo (1915–1948), a tant symbol representing the authority to member of the Munyánga Efó group, whose composi- display Ékpè masquerades. Th e staff s of tions and performances with jazz great Dizzy Gillespie titleholders are often made of bamboo for in the late 1940s helped create the bebop genre and this reason. established Afro-Cuban jazz globally. Following this

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legacy were the Abakuá musicians Julito Collazo Mosquera, Gerardo. 1996. “Elegguá at the (Post?) Modern (1935–2004), who migrated to the United States to Crossroads: Th e Presence of Africa in the Visual Art play with Katherine Dunham’s troupe in the 1950s, of Cuba.” In Santería Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, edited by Arturo Lindsay. Washington, and Orlando (Puntilla) Ríos (1947–2008), who D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. arrived in the 1980s. Th ey among others extended the Abakuá musical impact on jazz music, setting the Ortiz, Fernando. “La ‘tragedia’ de los ñáñigos.” Cuadernos Americanos 52, no. 4 (July–August 1950): stage for unprecedented cultural exchanges between 79–101. West African Ékpè and Cuban Abakuá members in Ortiz, Fernando. Los bailes y el teatro de los negros en el the twenty-fi rst century. folklore de Cuba. Originally published 1951. Havana: Letras Cubanas, 1981. RECONNECTING THE ÉKPÈABAKUÁ Ortiz, Fernando. Los instrumentos de la música afrocubana, CONTINUUM vol. 4. Havana: Cárdenas y Cía, 1954. After recognizing Calabar place names and phrases in Talbot, Percy Amaury. In the Shadow of the Bush. London: Abakuá chanting, leaders of the Èfìk National Asso- William Heinemann, 1912. ciation in the United States invited a contingent of Th ompson, Robert Farris. Flash of the Spirit: African Abakuá to their national meeting in 2001 in New York and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. New York: City, where the two groups exchanged songs, percus- Vintage, 1983. sion music, and masquerade ensemble performances. Selected Discography Th e matter-of-fact recognition through the perform- “Afro-Cuban Suite,” 1989. Dizzy Gillespie/Max Roach in ance of inherited traditions by both groups led to a Paris. BMG Music. CD 09026-68213-2. series of further encounters that escalated the trans- “Iya” and “Aguanille Bonko,” 1992. Irakere: Selección de atlantic communications to extraordinary levels. In exitos 1973–1978. Havana: Areito. 2003, the Obong (Paramount Ruler) of Calabar, while meeting with Cuban Abakuá in the United States, called them his children and invited them to Calabar. ■ See also In 2004, at the invitation of Donald Duke, governor Faith: Arará of Cross River State, two Cuban Abakuá traveled to Language: Lucumí Calabar, where they were able to confi rm that Ékpè Juan Mesa Díaz and Abakuá practices were mutually intelligible. In 2007, Ékpè and Abakuá met onstage in the Musée Quai Branly in Paris for four command performances. A lesser-known religion related to the Ocha-Ifá and Th ese events inspired the Abakuá leaders in Cuba Vodou faiths that developed in Cuba. to reevaluate their inherited phrases and ceremonial actions based upon new information from West Africa. Arará is an Afro-Cuban religion that combines ele- ments of the Ocha-Ifá system as well as Vodou. While combining elements of both of these reli- BIBLIOGRAPHY gions it still retains its own uniqueness. Arará is Books and Articles the umbrella term for people who were introduced Brown, David H. Th e Light Inside: Abakuá Society Arts. into Cuba as slaves from the sixteenth into the nine- Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003. teenth centuries. Th ey came from the Ewé and Fon Cabrera, Lydia. La sociedad secreta Abakuá: Narrada por ethnic groups that were settled in Dahomey, West viejos adeptos. Havana: Ediciones C. R., 1958 Africa, later known as the Republic of Benin. Th e Cabrera, Lydia. Anaforuana: Ritual y símbolos de la inici- term comes from a corruption of Allada (or Ardráh), ación en la sociedad secreta Abakuá. Madrid: Ediciones a city-state that was conquered by the kingdom of Madrid, 1975. Dahomey. Cabrera, Lydia. La Regla Kimbisa del Santo Cristo del Buen Along with Oyó and Benin, Dahomey rounded Viaje. Miami: Colección del Chicherekú en el exilio, out the trio of cities on the west coast of Africa that 1977. were called the Brother Kingdoms, which served as the Kubik, Gerhard. “Lamellophone.” In Th e New Grove spiritual centers of the African religions that form the Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., vol. 14, base of Arará. Th e Brother Kingdoms were founded by edited by Stanley Sadie. New York: Grove Press, 2001. Oduduwa, the mythic ancestor of the Yoruba people, Matibag, Eugenio. Afro-Cuban Religious Experience: from the sacred city of Ilé Ifé in the ninth century. Cultural Refl ections in Narrative. Gainesville: Oyó and Benin (to a lesser degree) became the cent- University Press of Florida, 1996. ers for the Ocha-Ifá religion, while Dahomey was the Miller, Ivor. “A Secret Society Goes Public: Th e Relationship center for Vodou. Between Abakuá and Cuban Popular Culture.” African Studies Review 43, no. 1 (April 2000): 161–188. Starting in the middle of the sixteenth century, Miller, Ivor. Th e Voice of the Leopard: African Secret absolute monarchy was the prevailing system in Societies and Cuba. Jackson: University Press of Dahomey. All the structures of power depended on Mississippi, 2009. the strictest obedience to the royal fi gure. Th e king

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