New Abakua Suite, prelude to the MogiNganga

To Ediel González

Because of false political miscegenation, much is known about Abakuá mythology, but little of its political ascendancy; when it emerged as the Ekpe Society, putting an end to the slave trade, basing the economy on palm oil[1]. The process was obviously more complex than merely political, but it implied a clear purpose of resistance; which is extremely original, since in that same process, the Ekpe society was an emerging, unconventional alternative[2].

In fact, it would be as a result of this that the Calabar region would lose its commercial supremacy, with the railroad; which allowed the relocation of colonial authority to Lagos, without depending on the coastal privilege of the Efik culture. This would undoubtedly demonstrate great maturity and political will, to negotiate a commercial specialization; moving from the assured success of the slave hunt, to an economy of production, not of mere consumption.

This is especially important, conditioning the anthropological narrative, which explained trafficking in culture; without considering that, even if exceptionally, there were degrees of extreme maturity and will in this regard. The same would happen with the Igbo geronto-democracy model, which is common to the Cameroon area; including that Efik culture, and the complex cosmogonic movements with the Efut and Efor, from which the myth Ekpe is taken.

What this highlights is that capacity of this cultural phenomenon in its political emergence, emulating the original crisis; when the decline of the original cult (Ndem), with the development of new lifestyles, broke the social structure. Then, as now, the Ekpe Society was only a mutualist society, interested only in the priesthood; and the latter even with an openly political interest, because of the susceptibility of the traditional priesthood to sorcery; which is what beats in the gender conflict of the founding myth, after the drama of Princess Sikán, of Efut origin[3].

The secret character of the magical aspects of the phenomenon, would be what shows its political, not practical, nature; from the capture of the ekpe in the original ceremonies, producing the sound —but not the vision— that betrays its presence. This is later reduced to liturgical value, strengthening its doctrinal function, in what is already a convention; sufficient to sustain society in its emergence, with a moral code, which legitimizes the individual in his social function.

This would have been the previous cause of Ndem religiosity, due to the social disorganization in the cults of the forest; which empowering the individual with his private practice, returns to that sense with the domestic ascendancy of the female priesthood. As a political phenomenon, the organization of the Ndem cult then becomes entropic, displacing the private potential; which comes to transform itself through the female priesthood, until it also becomes politically conventional.

In any case, what this shows is the political sufficiency of that cultural structure, subsumed by the Cuban one; that in its surreptitious racism, refuses this emergency, since its most serious outbreak in the cabinet of Fulgencio Batista. However, what this process also shows is its inevitable character, as trialectic rather than dialectical; mediating throughout the Cuban internal conflict, as its true backbone, in the resilience of the black world.

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[1] . Cf: Rosalind I.J. Hackett, Religion in Calabar, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 1988, p 42.

[2] . The Ekpe Society appears as a mature entity by the mid XIX century. Cf: Michael Ukpong Offiong The ancestral cult of the Efik and the veneration of saints, Pontificia Facultad Teológica Teresiana, Roma, 1993., p. 28.

[3] . Cf: Rosalind I.J. Hackett, Op. cit., pp 34-35.

Stories with ache, a critical review

Warriors Editions has presented the title Stories with ache, a trilogy of short stories by black Cuban authors; in what seems a naïve effort, attempting to overcome the lack of will for effective integration in Cuban culture; but which, more than that, is the proof of a reality in its own consistency, apart from that lack of will. Thus, as a preamble, this editorial effort may seem socially vindictive, or even be objectively so; but beyond that —vindictive or not— it shows the sufficiency of an incredible culture, condemned to the margins.

Politically, the vindictive scope of this anthology is secondary, because its value lies precisely in its marginality; from which it can reflect on reality, beyond those conventions of the political, in a different scope, as existential. This would have always been the proper meaning of art, at least from that conflictive modernity that confronts it with Reason; but in a dichotomy in which it progressively lost ground, in the face of the crude advance of that conventionalism.

That is another discussion, which helps to put this wonderful anthology in context, but that is also secondary; because what matters here is the reality boiling in these stories, invisible in the falsehood of our political culture. That is also another discussion, just as secondary, but which also helps to contextualize the need for these stories; which with better and worse luck aspired to the realization of their authors, at a time when art itself is declining.

Above all, these are authors who have worked, loved and written stories that were invisible until today; but which now serves as an index and handbook, to navigate the parallel history of black culture in Cuba. This is what makes it necessary, even if against the evolution in which art is already declining of so much conventionalism; because that culture requires its own expression, which could even explain the shortcomings in which the one that covers it fails.

With a prologue of deserved density, this compilation refers to the darkened roots of Cuban black literature; in the tension between Martín Morúa Delgado and Cirilo Villaverde, which perpetuates the whiteness of Cuban negrismo; and in this, it refers to the presence of the black in national literature, with Salvador Golomón in Mirror of resilience. There are many reasons to believe and disbelieve the foundational character of Mirror of resilience in national literature; above all of them —and in both senses— is the moment in which it is known, at the mid-nineteenth century; when the founding myth of the nation is shaped, adjusting the past to legitimize the projection of the future.

Since then, the Negro has always been presented as a passive object of national culture, even if heroic; which is just a political fiction of literature, which does not express that effective reality of cultural miscegenation. That is what makes this anthology pertinent, not precisely as a vindication, which is always unnecessary and effective; but as an access to a reality hidden in its own scope, which that is there, in its own sufficiency, for everyone.

This cosmology, withdrawn and profoundly existential, is what explains the life of the nation, expressed in its culture; and it is the one in these stories, deloused from the profuse editorial activity that characterizes these times. None of them attests to an era, but to a reality, which in its parallelism adjusts the visible one, giving it perspective; and it is good that this work is brought together, as a basis to establish the true canon of national literature.