Voice of the Leopard: African Secret Societies and CubaIn Voice of the Leopard: African Secret Societies and Cuba, Ivor L. Miller 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. Miller'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, Miller underwent Ékpè initiation rites in Nigeria after ten years' collaboration with Abakuá initiates in Cuba and the United States. He argues that Cuban music, art, and even politics rely on complexities of these African-inspired codes of conduct and leadership. Voice of the Leopard is an unprecedented tracing of an African title-society to its Caribbean incarnation, which has deeply influenced Cuba's creative energy and popular consciousness. |
Contents
Introduction | 3 |
1 Arrival | 37 |
2 The Fortified City | 66 |
3 Planting Abakuá in Cuba 1830s to 1860s | 89 |
4 From Creole to Carabalí | 103 |
5 Dispersal | 119 |
6 Disintegration of the Spanish Empire | 140 |
7 Havana Is the Key | 153 |
Epilogue | 179 |
Cuban Lodges Founded from 1871 to 1917 | 183 |
Comparing Ékpè and Abakuá Masks and Their Symbols | 193 |
Abakuá Chants and Their Interpretations in Cross River Languages | 201 |
Glossary | 215 |
Notes | 221 |
References | 301 |
339 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Abakuá leaders Abakuá lodges Abakuá members Abasí African Andrés Flores Ápapa Arsenio Rodríguez Atakpa babalawo Bakokó Balondo baróko barrio Bongó cabildos Cabrera Cameroon Carabalí ceremony Ceuta chants Chino Mokongo clave colonial comm communities comparsa creoles Cross River Ékpè Cross River languages Cross River region Cuba Cuban Abakuá culture dance Deschamps-Chappeaux documented drum Ebúton Èfik Efó Efóri Efut Ejagham Ekoi Ékpè Ékpè leaders Ékue El Chino Engineer Bassey Eribó Essien Etubom Fernando fundamento Goldie Guanabacoa Havana Ìbìbìò Ignacio Piñeiro initiation interpreted Íreme Iyámba Jesús María juego king Kongo language leopard lineage Lukumí Lydia Cabrera Maceo masquerade Matanzas means Mgbè Mukarará ñáñigos Ndèm Nigeria nineteenth century Nkisi nyányigos Oban Obong Old Calabar Ortiz Orú Palo Monte pers phrase recorded Regla ritual Rodríguez rumba Sése settlement slaves society southwestern Cameroon Spanish symbols Talbot term tradition Uruan Usagaré Usaghade Voice West Africa Yorùbá