Ivor L. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781934110836
- eISBN:
- 9781604738148
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781934110836.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This book shows how African migrants and their political fraternities played a formative role in the history of Cuba. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, no large kingdoms controlled ...
More
This book shows how African migrants and their political fraternities played a formative role in the history of Cuba. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, no large kingdoms controlled Nigeria and Cameroon’s multilingual Cross River basin. Instead, each settlement had its own lodge of the initiation society called Ékpè, or “leopard,” which was the highest indigenous authority. Ékpè lodges ruled local communities while also managing regional and long-distance trade. Cross River Africans, enslaved and forcibly brought to colonial Cuba, reorganized their Ékpè clubs covertly in Havana and Matanzas into a mutual-aid society called Abakuá, which became foundational to Cuba’s urban life and music. The book’s author’s extensive fieldwork in Cuba and West Africa documents ritual languages and practices that survived the Middle Passage and evolved into a unifying charter for transplanted slaves and their successors. To gain deeper understanding of the material, the author underwent Ékpè initiation rites in Nigeria after ten years’ collaboration with Abakuá initiates in Cuba and the United States. The book argues that Cuban music, art, and even politics rely on complexities of these African-inspired codes of conduct and leadership. The book is a tracing of an African title-society to its Caribbean incarnation, which has deeply influenced Cuba’s creative energy and popular consciousness.Less
This book shows how African migrants and their political fraternities played a formative role in the history of Cuba. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, no large kingdoms controlled Nigeria and Cameroon’s multilingual Cross River basin. Instead, each settlement had its own lodge of the initiation society called Ékpè, or “leopard,” which was the highest indigenous authority. Ékpè lodges ruled local communities while also managing regional and long-distance trade. Cross River Africans, enslaved and forcibly brought to colonial Cuba, reorganized their Ékpè clubs covertly in Havana and Matanzas into a mutual-aid society called Abakuá, which became foundational to Cuba’s urban life and music. The book’s author’s extensive fieldwork in Cuba and West Africa documents ritual languages and practices that survived the Middle Passage and evolved into a unifying charter for transplanted slaves and their successors. To gain deeper understanding of the material, the author underwent Ékpè initiation rites in Nigeria after ten years’ collaboration with Abakuá initiates in Cuba and the United States. The book argues that Cuban music, art, and even politics rely on complexities of these African-inspired codes of conduct and leadership. The book is a tracing of an African title-society to its Caribbean incarnation, which has deeply influenced Cuba’s creative energy and popular consciousness.
Ivor L. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781934110836
- eISBN:
- 9781604738148
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781934110836.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This introductory chapter discusses the main themes and research methodology used in the presented study. This book tells the story of how several generations of West Africans, who were enslaved and ...
More
This introductory chapter discusses the main themes and research methodology used in the presented study. This book tells the story of how several generations of West Africans, who were enslaved and forced to migrate to the Caribbean, were able to regroup to form communities in which their specific philosophies and lifeways could be taught to their off spring. It details how the Abakuá mutual aid society of Cuba was recreated in the 1830s from several local variants of the Ékpè leopard society of West Africa’s Cross River basin.Less
This introductory chapter discusses the main themes and research methodology used in the presented study. This book tells the story of how several generations of West Africans, who were enslaved and forced to migrate to the Caribbean, were able to regroup to form communities in which their specific philosophies and lifeways could be taught to their off spring. It details how the Abakuá mutual aid society of Cuba was recreated in the 1830s from several local variants of the Ékpè leopard society of West Africa’s Cross River basin.
Ivor L. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781934110836
- eISBN:
- 9781604738148
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781934110836.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter is based largely on Abakuá narratives about the arrival of Carabalá Ékpè members and the various stages in their process of recreating Ékpè in Cuba. They created the first Abakuá lodges ...
More
This chapter is based largely on Abakuá narratives about the arrival of Carabalá Ékpè members and the various stages in their process of recreating Ékpè in Cuba. They created the first Abakuá lodges and established the three major “ethnic” lineages: Efí, Efó, and Orú. Most of the Abakuá language used to tell this story is contained in chants used even today in ceremonies.Less
This chapter is based largely on Abakuá narratives about the arrival of Carabalá Ékpè members and the various stages in their process of recreating Ékpè in Cuba. They created the first Abakuá lodges and established the three major “ethnic” lineages: Efí, Efó, and Orú. Most of the Abakuá language used to tell this story is contained in chants used even today in ceremonies.
Ivor L. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781934110836
- eISBN:
- 9781604738148
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781934110836.003.0010
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This epilogue describes an encounter of Abakuá and Ékpè in Calabar at the International Ékpè Festival in 2004. This event greatly impacted Abakuá and Ékpè groups, who are confirming their local ...
More
This epilogue describes an encounter of Abakuá and Ékpè in Calabar at the International Ékpè Festival in 2004. This event greatly impacted Abakuá and Ékpè groups, who are confirming their local history through the practice of their counterparts.Less
This epilogue describes an encounter of Abakuá and Ékpè in Calabar at the International Ékpè Festival in 2004. This event greatly impacted Abakuá and Ékpè groups, who are confirming their local history through the practice of their counterparts.
