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The Island of Crossed Destinies Human and Other-Than-Human Perspectives in Afro-Cuban Divination

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The Island of Crossed Destinies Human and Other-Than-Human Perspectives in Afro-Cuban Divination The Island of Crossed Destinies human and other-than-human perspectives in Afro-Cuban divination Anastasios Panagiotopoulos Ph.D. in Social Anthropology The University of Edinburgh 2011 I, Anastasios Panagiotopoulos, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own and I am the sole composer of it. I also confirm that the work has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. i Abstract This thesis focuses on the significance and articulation of divinatory practices in Cuba a place where a number of different religious traditions (mainly of African and European origins) have come to coexist. Reflecting on the particularities of my ethnography, I concentrate on three such traditions: Ocha/Ifá , Palo Monte and Espiritismo . However, rather than engaging with them as different ‘traditions’ or assuming their syncretic character, I attempt to explore the way in which they constitute distinct but related perspectives on human destiny or, as my friends and informants put it, on people’s ‘path’ ( camino )perspectives, that is, which continuously constitute and recalibrate each other. Echoing the work of authors such as Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, I try to illustrate the nature of these perspectives by bringing to the fore the ways in which different divinatory practices instantiate and embody the efficacy or ‘point of view’ of different ‘other-than-human’ beings be they deities or the dead. Thus, while in the case of Ocha/Ifá and its oracles, I concentrate on the relation between ‘humans’ and the orichas (deities), my discussion of divinatory practices within Palo Monte and Espiritismo places the emphasis on the relation between ‘humans’ and various kinds of the dead ( muertos ). Treating these relations as an exchange of perspectives between ‘humans’ and ‘other-than-human’ entities, I argue for the need to focus on ‘ontology’ and the indigenous understanding of these entities’ ‘nature’ in order to avoid both ‘reductionist’ and ‘constructivist’ renderings of divination; in other words, to avoid the theoretical limits of ‘syncretic’ or ‘purist’ readings of the (Afro-)Cuban spirit world and its efficacy. This emphasis on ‘ontology’ leads me to construe divination as ‘perspectivism’ and to treat it as both a theoretical strategy and an ethnographic challenge. iii Contents Acknowledgements...................................................................................................viii Foreword .....................................................................................................................xi INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 1 ‘Me and you are complete strangers...’.................................................................... 1 Socio-historical context............................................................................................ 8 (a) The colonial era (1511-1898) ......................................................................... 9 (b) The (‘pseudo’-) Republic years (1902-1958)............................................... 13 (c) The Revolution years (1959-present) ........................................................... 17 ‘The Europeans lacked perspectivism’ .................................................................. 21 Going past ‘syncretism’ ......................................................................................... 24 Outline of the thesis ............................................................................................... 31 CHAPTER 1 DIVINATION AND DESTINY ................................................................................ 35 The Others.............................................................................................................. 35 Divination and Destiny .......................................................................................... 40 A final comment: entities ‘against’ traditions........................................................ 58 CHAPTER 2 HUMAN DESIRES AS DIVINATION: the perspectives of the ‘alien’ muertos and the nfumbi .............................................. 61 Broken caminos : the ‘alien’ muertos ’ vain effort to relate .................................... 65 Brujería : the muertos ’ involvement in human desires........................................... 75 CHAPTER 3 SENSING THE DEAD: the perspectives of ‘affine’ muertos ........................................................................... 93 Celia’s muertos ...................................................................................................... 94 A mass of and for the dead: the public face of ‘necrographies’........................... 106 The potentials of ‘necrographies’......................................................................... 114 CHAPTER 4 OBJECTS AS ORACLES, ENTITIES AS MYTHS: the perspectives of the orichas ................................................................................. 123 v An example of a consultation with the Ocha/Ifá oracles .....................................126 Objects and Myths................................................................................................136 Ikú lobi ocha : the dead give birth to the deities ...................................................142 CHAPTER 5 IMMANENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE: the space and direction of the entities and their perspectives ..................................145 Wizards and... their discourses.............................................................................147 Immanence and Transcendence ...........................................................................155 Immanence and Transcendence of deities: the orichas of Ocha/Ifá ....................160 Immanence and Transcendence of muertos : ‘affines’, ‘alien’ and nfumbi ..........170 CHAPTER 6 DIVINATION AS PERSPECTIVISM ....................................................................185 From ‘animism’ to ‘perspectivism’......................................................................186 From (Amerindian) ‘perspectivism’ to (Afro-Cuban) ‘divination’ (via Inner Asia).....................................................................................................190 The perspectives of muertos .................................................................................199 (a) ‘Alien’ muertos ...........................................................................................199 (b) Nfumbi ........................................................................................................202 (c) ‘Affine’ muertos .........................................................................................205 The perspectives of the deities .............................................................................207 Instance 1: consulting the Ocha oracle; the muertos interfere.............................210 Instance 2: a muerto leading to Ocha ...................................................................214 Instance 3: the palero who remained with his nfumbi .........................................217 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................223 Glossary....................................................................................................................231 References ................................................................................................................233 vi Acknowledgements I consider this thesis to be the culmination of a long personal and academic journey in which I had the privilege to be supported by many individuals and institutions. My academic formation began in Greece, in the Department of Sociology of the University of Crete to which I would like to express my gratitude. Particularly, I owe a debt of gratitude to academics, Maria Gianissopoulou, Myron Acheimastos, Kostas Gounis, Eleni Fournaraki and Stavros Kostadakopoulos, as well as friends and colleagues, Thanos Markianidis, Dimitris Sideris, Thomas Kiaos, Padelis Makris, Maria Kochliou, Katerina Paouri, Katerina Vetta and Katerina Stefopoulou. My deepest regards go to the warm and intellectually stimulating environment of the Department of Social Anthropology of the University of Edinburgh, all its members of staff, colleagues and friends, as well as the College of Humanities and Social Sciences for funding my Ph.D. I would like to thank particularly the late Charles Jedrej, as well as Magnus Course, Joost Fontein, Sue Renton, Hyunchul Kim, Miltos Hadjiosif, Maria Tzika, Vasiliki Apostolopoulou, Aggeliki Mitropoulou, Rebecca Rotter and Naomi Richards. During my long stay in Edinburgh, I have also benefited from the invaluable friendship and companionship of Evangelos Chrysagis, Maria Stathopoulou, Elpida Pavlidou, Yakov Boglev, Giorgos Karagiannakis, Tijana Rakic, James Pattison and Michelle Lloyd. Special thanks for her friendship, intellectual nourishment and for smoothening the ‘Greek- ness’ of this thesis, to Angela Riviere. During my stay in Cuba many people made it a doubly welcoming place. I owe debts of gratitude to the Cuban Institute of Anthropology ( Instituto Cubano de Antropología ) as my host institution, and especially Rafael Robaina, Nelly Esposito and Lazarito; foreign researchers and academics who, have since become friends, Diana Espirito Santo, Ana Stela Cunha, Geraldine Morel, Katerina Kerestetzi and Valerio Simoni. My warm regards also go to fellow ‘yumas ’ Grigoris Tassiopoulos and Yesenia. Last,
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