Oral Traditions from the African Diaspora E-Book

Petra Vogler

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 128

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

In the book Oral Knowledge Traditions from the African Diaspora the author reflects upon existing knowledge traditions embedded in the cultural systems of two major islands of the Atlantic Ocean, namely Cuba and Cape Verde. The traditions portrayed encompass stories, myths, legends, rituals, songs, prayers and oracle systems touching upon existing belief, religious and spiritual systems.

Leseprobe

CONTENT

Introduction

Modern Myths – Oral Narratives of the Cape Verdean Archipelago

Abstract

Localization of the Cape Verdean Archipelago

Language Usage on Cape Verde

Popular Cape Verdean Myths/Estórias

3.1 The Myth/Estória of the Ox Blimundo

3.2 The Myth/Estória of Ti Lobo y Chibinho and its Binomial Structures

Conclusion

References

Patakí (Patakines) and Divination Systems in Cuba and their foundation in the Ifá Oracle

Abstract

Facts and Thoughts related to the History of Cuba, the Period of Atlantic Slavery and the Reality of the African Diaspora

Religion and Cuban Society

Cuban Santería (Regla de Ochá, Regla de Ifá, Regla Lucumí)

The traditional Ifá Oracle and Divination System

4.1 The roots of the Cuban Ifá Oracle and divination system

4.2 The Archetypes of Ifá

4.3 The Odu or categories of Ifá divination and the Ifá literary corpus

4.4 Ese Ifá

4.4.1 The Structure of Ese Ifá

4.4.2 Aspects of Style in Ese Ifá

4.4.3 Content of Ese Ifá

4.4.4 The Dramatic Basis of Ese Ifá

4.5 The old Oracle of Ifá in the Opelé System

4.5.1 The Paraphernalia of Ifá divination

4.5.2 The mythology of Ifá- the Ifá Creation Myth

New Oracle of Ifá in Cuba

5.1 Patakí/Patakines as a direct descendant of the Yoruba Itan

5.2 Paraphernalia of Ifá Divination in Cuba

Final observations and assumptions

References

Death and Migration in the Cuban tradition of Palo Monte Mayombe

Abstract

Myth, Religion and Cuban Society

Origin of Palo Monte Mayombe

Nsambi and the supernatural beings of the Congos

The philosophical system of Congo rites

The Nganga and the Performative Arts

Congo Dances: Mani und Yuka

Concluding thoughts

References

INTRODUCTION

In the book ‘Oral Traditions from the African Diaspora’ the author reflects upon existing knowledge traditions embedded in the cultural systems of two major islands of the Atlantic Ocean, namely Cuba and Cape Verde. The traditions portrayed encompass stories, myths, legends, rituals, songs, prayers and oracle systems touching upon existing belief, religious and spiritual systems. The articles are organized in chronological order as per the research agenda, so starting with the first one on Cape Verde (2018) and the second and third one on Cuba (2019 and 2021).

The first article ‘Modern Myths, Oral Narratives of the Cape Verdean Archipelago’ deals with examples of famous Cape-Verdean’ modern (majorly) oral narrative manifested in the form of myths such as the story about the ox Blimundo. The narration of myths/estórias – in Cape Verdean Creole (crioulo) -, can be seen as a way to accompany processes of individuation and identification as well as a means to support identity-creation and -stabilization.

The second and the third articles are based on research into two major Cuban ethnic groups, namely la lucumí or yoruba (lucumi being the liturgical language of the Santería tradition) of West African origin and la conga or the bantu of Central African origin. Accordingly, two large belief or spiritual systems can be differentiated: La Santería/Regla de Ochá, also called La Regla de Ifá or Lucumí (Yoruba), and Palo Monte/Las Reglas de Congo, also called La Regla de Mayombe (Bantu), in short regla lucumí and regla conga (cf. Cabrera 1993: 70). The second essay ‘Patakí (Patakines) and Divination Systems in Cuba and their foundation in the Ifá Oracle’ looks into the oral tradition of sharing myths in form of stories and the predominant divination systems of the island. The third essay ‘Death and Migration in the Cuban tradition of Palo Monte Mayombe’ elaborates on the central beliefs circulating around the veneration of spirits and natural earth powers.

I

MODERN MYTHS - ORAL NARRATIVES OF THE CAPE VERDEAN ARCHIPELAGO

Abstract

The interpenetration of the two major cultural groups that formed the basic societal structures of the Cape Verdean islands, the “Europeans (above all the Portuguese)” and the “West-Africans” in their roles as colonizers and colonized, disembogued into the development of a Cape Verdean culture (o caboverdiano) and into a process of creolization (crioulização). Although apparently in today’s society a harmonic form of ethnic living-together seems to be installed in Cape Verdean everyday life, ambivalence with regards to perceiving and acknowledging African and European roots and influences still prevails in many aspects of individual and social existence. As important still oral cultural practice, the narration of myths/estórias – mostly in Cape Verdean Creole (crioulo) -, can be seen as a way to accompany processes of individuation and identification as well as a means to support identity-creation and -stabilization.

Keeping in mind that Atlantic slavery was abolished selectively in 1857 and in totality in 18781, the long history of inequality has left its traces and led nowadays to a vivid reflection process of this personally embodied ambivalence as well as to a strong search for subjective individuation and identification. Further more the Cape Verdean archipelago is also an area that has always been shattered by “a dynamic admixture of phenomena – ecological crisis, epidemic disease, the advent of South Atlantic steamship service, experimentations in free soil, and imperial renewal – (Williams, D. 2015: 160).”

As a pedagogical system the myths/estórias – such as “Ti Lobo” and “Blimundo” – can help Cape Verdeans to better understand the opposing sides and contrasts of social and personal life, to integrate their European and African past and to cope with everyday situations and big problems the archipelago was facing in the past and is still facing today.

1. Localization of the Cape Verdean Archipelago

„Falho de condições próprias que poderiam tornar rentável a exploração de um território geograficamente limitado e pequeno, o archipelago, se por um lado ganhou o justo epíteto de terra da fome, por outro, pela ausência dessas mesmas condições favoráveis, tornou-se o cadinho de uma rica experiência social (…) (França 1962: 7).“

The objective of this article is to portray Cape Verdean society (being a very young culture that came into existence only in the 1460s) by means of its modern oral narrative manifested in form of myths/estórias. Although apparently in today’s society a harmonic form of ethnic living-together seems to be installed in Cape Verdean everyday life, ambivalence with regards to perceiving and acknowledging African and European roots and influences still prevails in many aspects of individual and social existence.

The Cape Verdean Islands (la “Republica de Cabo Verde”) is a nation on a volcanic archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa, 700 miles west of Dakar/Senegal. It’s known for its Creole-Portuguese-African culture, traditional moma music that combines Blues with Latin American rhythms and melancholic Portuguese Fado and also for it’s semi-arid climate.

The nine islands are spatially divided into two groups:

The Barlavento Islands (windward islands, above the winds): Santo Antao, Sao Vicente, Santa Luzia, Sao Nicolau, Sal and Boa Vista and

The Sotavento Islands (leeward, below the winds): Maio, Fogo (the active volcano, last eruption 2015), Brava and Santiago, home of the current capital Praia and of the old capital Ribera Grande).

Cape Verde is a land with very limited agrarian resources, permanent aridity (on most of the islands), a constant situation of water scarcity2, and periods of depopulation by disease, starvation, and malnutrition. Some of the islands are completely desolated and the 500.000 inhabitants have seen many periods of severe drought in the past. In his story “Landflucht (rural depopulation)”, Pedro Duarte describes scenes of everyday life of the people in the old capital Ribera Grande during one of this periods of dramatic aridity (cf. Duarte in Stauffer 2016: 11-21).

“The islands’ broken topography and erratic rainfall were significant constraints upon the emergence of an Atlantic plantation society. The flight of landed Africans into the interior and the predations of pirates and disease placed additional limits on the consolidation of a plantation society. Nevertheless, land use and the socio-economic relationships among the titleholders of entailed estates (morgados), merchants, rendeiros, mariners, degregados, forros, slaves, lancados, and maroons generated a dynamic of hybriditiy, ladinization, and creolization that would make the archipelago, especially Santiago, an exemplary case study of Atlantic creole societies that launched the Atlantic revolutions of sugar, tobacco, and rice (Williams 2015: 161).” The historic centre of Ribera Grande was the first European colonial settlement in the tropics. After the island was discovered by either Antonio da Noli or Diogo Gomes (both are attributed with the discovery) in the 1460s, the settlement was built in a valley inside a large stream named Ribera Grande and became an important port for trading slaves from Guinea Bissau and Sierra Leone to Brazil and the Caribbean. Transcontinental slavery made the old capital that today is called Ribeira Grande de Santiago3 the second richest city in the Portuguese realm. It is home to the eldest colonial church in the world – Nossa Senhora do Rosario – constructed in 1493-1495. In the historical course of the emerging Atlantic slave system however, the importance of Santiago and the other islands of Cabo Verde was apparently ephemeral in the larger arc of the Atlantic past (cf. Williams 2015: 161).

Due to its location on the maritime routes with the Americas and the South of Africa, the Cape Verdean archipelago had nevertheless great strategic importance and played a vital role in the rise of the Atlantic world. More than three centuries the islands were the pivot point of the trans-Atlantic slave trade (that had its roots in the older African slave trade), exile for political prisoners of Portugal4, and place of refuge for the religiously persecuted during the Spanish-Portuguese inquisition. Further more it “remained a vital node for a multinational and multilingual assortment of people, information, and goods in north – south and east – west maritime transit (Williams 2015: 161).” The expansion of the Portugal global empire that (due to its inventions in ship-building) lasted around five centuries, began in the 14th century with the discovery of the Atlantic islands of Madeira and the Azores and with the establishment of trade posts and settlements along the African West coast. Some of them were fortified and far from local populations. In the middle of the fifteenth century, the Sotavento islands (Santiago and Fogo) served as testing grounds for early modern European maritime expansion in the Atlantic (cf. Williams 2015: 160). “The archipelago was drawn into a far-flung network of commerce, capital, labour, and ideology that connected to other Atlantic islands, Europe, and the Americas (Williams 2015: 161).”

The interpenetration of the two major cultural groups that formed the basic societal structures of the Cape Verdean islands, the “Europeans (above all the Portuguese)” and the “West-Africans” in their roles as colonizers and colonized, disembogued into the development of a Cape Verdean culture (o caboverdiano) and into a process of creolization (crioulização). Pidginization and creolization between the Portuguese and the Africans was allowed; ethnical mixture primarily occurred on the Atlantic islands of Cape Verde and Sao Tome that were colonized by a minority of Portuguese settlers and African slaves. The “Atlantic Creoles” as the historian Ira Berlin (1941) called West Africans who (from the 15th century onwards) also travelled as interpreters, negotiators and merchants on European merchant-ships and worked at the different trade posts and settlements. On the Cape Verdean islands families consisting of free men and women and slaves originated and a new Creole culture developed. Often European fathers didn’t have a free wife and children, a situation that is said to have caused discomfort to many over the years. They all played a major role in the development of Pidgin and Creole languages allowing them to communicate with a big number of people from diverse mother languages. Of course people of different origin had to find own ways to communicate.

With the increase of collaboration between the Portuguese government and the British East India Company in 1838, the Cape Verdean islands experienced their second time of commercial florescence. With the construction of a floating coaling station at Porto Grande on São Vicente the archipelago became an important centre of coal storage, Mindelo5 becoming the most relevant harbour. Permanent coaling facilities were built by British firms in 1850 and so the British crown began to exploit a steam route to the South Atlantic (cf. Williams 2015: 169). Mid of the nineteenth century “Cape Verde was a poor island colony that suffered from isolation, inadequate natural resources, harsh weather cycles, and an insecure labour force (Williams 2015: 163).” Many reports of those years refer to slave flight, especially in times of famine and disease, although the 1857 census gives notice of local slaveholders still managing to find the necessary means to maintain a creole’s labour force (cf. Williams 2015: 163). Many Cape Verdeans started to emigrate to New England and found work in the whaling sector. Atlantic slavery was then selectively abolished in 1857 and in totality in 1878. Until the II World War the coal industry provided plenty of work for local labourers, but with the collapse of the economy this income source got reduced more and more and completely ended when the British coal industry went into decline in the 1980s.

After many years of struggle Cape Verde gained independence from Portugal on July 5, 1975. Parallely to an overall democratisation process in Sub-Saharan Africa, there was a strong demand for institutional changes in the 1980s, which eventually led to the installation of democracy in Cape Verde in the early 1990s. From the 1990s onwards then, Cape Verde embarked on a process of market-oriented economic reforms that already started at the end of the 1980s under the monopoly rule of the PAICV (Partido Africano da Independencia de Cabo Verde). With the victory of the MpD (Movimento para Democracia) in 1991, these reforms were widened and (cf. Bourdet 2000: 121).

“The economic reforms introduced in the early 1990s can be grouped under three main headings:

microeconomic measures whose aim is to improve the allocation of production resources and to spur economic growth. These first kinds of measures include the removal of price controls, the privatisation (or, if not viable, the liquidation) of a large number of state-owned enterprises (32 enterprises between 1994 and 1997), the strengthening of property rights in agriculture, the promotion of foreign direct investments, the revision of the Labour Code to increase labour market flexibility, and the modernisation of business legislation.

a market-oriented macroeconomic stance with the separation of fiscal and monetary policies (through the creation of a two-tier banking system) so as to give public policy the tools necessary for the conduct of stabilisation policy.

integration of the Cape Verdean economy into the world economy through the removal of quantitative restrictions on imports, the simplification and lowering of import tariffs, and the introduction of various export promotion measures, like the setting up of export-processing zones in Mindelho and Praia. These third kinds of measures also include a comprehensive tax reform whose aim is to broaden the tax base, improve the efficiency of the tax system and secure a level of tax revenue compatible with the development objectives of the government, as well as a nominal exchange rate peg (first to a currency and after July 1998 to the Portuguese escudo and indirectly to the euro), in order to build up antiinflationary credibility (Bourdet 2000: 122 f.).”

2. Language Usage on Cape Verde