The Power of the Dead
Spirits, Socialism, and Selves in an Afro-Cuban Universe
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v3i2.161Keywords:
Afro-Cuban religion, Cuban socialism, personhood, Special Period, spiritismAbstract
This paper aims to conceptualize the relationship between the main Afro-Cuban religious practices and the experience of varied social and economic difficulties in Havana, and in particular, the role of the dead—the muertos—in its articulation. I argue that the dead are not just to be seen as socio-historical idioms or representations but as constitutive elements of a Cuban religious personhood, which must be discerned, acknowledged and objectified through one’s actions in the world. Achieving harmony in relation to oneself with one’s environment at any given moment thus requires a theory of self, and in the ritually and cosmologically fluid Afro-Cuban religious sphere this is most effectively given by the spirit mediumship cult of espiritismo cruzado.
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References
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Bolívar, Natalia. 1990. Los Orichas en Cuba. Cuba: Ediciones Union.
Bolívar, Natalia, and Roman Orozco. 1998. Cuba Santa: Comunistas, Santeros y Cristianos en la Isla de Fidel Castro. Madrid: Editorial El Pais.
Bolívar, Natalia, and Carmen Gonzalez Diaz de Villegas. 1998. Ta makuende yaya y las relgas de Palo Monte: mayombe, brillumba, kimbisa, shamalongo. Havana: Ediciones Union.
Brandon, George. 1997 (1993). Santería from Africa to the New World: The Dead Sell Memories. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Eckstein, Susan. 2003 (1994). Back from the Future: Cuba under Castro. London and New York: Routledge.
Figarola, Joel James. 2006. La Brujeria Cubana: El Palo Monte, Aproximacion al Pensamiento Abstracto de la Cubania. Santiago de Cuba: Editorial Oriente.
Fuentes Guerra, Jesus, and Grisel Gomez. 1996. Cultos Afrocubanos: un Estudio Etnolinguistico. Havana: Editorial Ciencias Sociales.
Goldman, Márcio. 1985. “A construção ritual da pessoa: a possessão no Candomblé,” Religião e Sociedade, 12.1, 22–54.
Gordon, Avery. 1997. Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Hagedorn, Katherine J. 2001. Divine Utterances: The Performance of Afro-Cuban Santería. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Lachatañaré, Romulo. 2001. El Sistema Religioso de los Afrocubanos. Cuba: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
Lambek, Michael. 1989. “From Disease to Discourse: Remarks on the Conceptualization of Trance and Spirit Possession,” in Colleen Ward ed. Altered States of Consciousness and Mental Health: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. London: Sage Press, 36–61.
Limonta, Illeana Hodge, and Yalexy Castaneda Mache. 1998. “El Espiritismo Cubano en Los 90,” http.//www.clacso.org
Mederos, Aníbal Arguelles, and Illeana Hodge Limonta. 1991. Los Llamados Cultos Sincrtéticos y el Espiritismo. Havana: Editorial Academia.
Ortiz, Fernando. 1940. “Los Factores Humanos de la Cubanidad,” Revista Bimestre Cubana, 2.XIV (La Habana) (March–April), 161–86.
Palmié, Stephan. 2002. Wizards and Scientists: Explorations in Afro-Cuban Modernity and Tradition. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.
Toren, Christina. 1999. Mind, Materiality, and History: Explorations in Fijian Ethnography. London: Routledge.
Published
2010-01-15
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Espirito Santo, D. (2010). The Power of the Dead: Spirits, Socialism, and Selves in an Afro-Cuban Universe. Fieldwork in Religion, 3(2), 161-177. https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v3i2.161
