Lydia Cabrera’s ‘The Abakua Secret Society’ and its West African Sources

FAIN: RQ-266042-19

Smith College (Northampton, MA 01060-2916)
Patricia Gonzalez (Project Director: November 2018 to present)

Preparation of an English translation of La Sociedad secreta Abakua (The Abakua Secret Society), Cuban writer Lydia Cabrera’s (1899-1991) landmark study of the Afro-Cuban Abakua religious society. (36 months)

We propose a scholarly English translation of La sociedad secreta Abakuá - Lydia Cabrera's landmark study of the Cuban Abakuá initiation society. Researched in Havana and Matanzas from 1938 to 1959 and published in Spanish in Havana in 1959, the book is a primary document about the adaptation of a specific African heritage to the Caribbean region. This monograph is the most substantive document of the speech and cultural history of any diasporan group originating from the West African Cross River area, yet it remains inaccessible to English-speaking scholars including the very Nigerian and Cameroonian specialists most qualified to identify the sources and meanings of Abakuá terms and practices. The Abakuá example is also important to Americanists more generally, as it demonstrates the expansion of an African-derived identity into the wider population of European, Asian and Amer-Indian descendants, evolving from a racial/ethnic category into a cultural community.

Associated Products

The Sacred Language of the Abakua (Book)
Title: The Sacred Language of the Abakua
Author: Lydia Cabrera
Editor: Edited by Ivor L. Miller & P. González Gómes-Cásseres
Abstract: In 1988, Lydia Cabrera (1899–1991) published La lengua sagrada de los Ñáñigos, an Abakuá phrasebook that is to this day the largest work available on any African diaspora community in the Americas. In the early 1800s in Cuba, enslaved Africans from the Cross River region of southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon created Abakuá societies for protection and mutual aid. Abakuá rites reenact mythic legends of the institution’s history in Africa, using dance, chants, drumming, symbolic writing, herbs, domestic animals, and masked performers to represent African ancestors. Criminalized and scorned in the colonial era, Abakuá members were at the same time contributing to the creation of a unique Cuban culture, including rumba music, now considered a national treasure. Translated for the first time into English, Cabrera’s lexicon documents phrases vital to the creation of a specific African-derived identity in Cuba and presents the first “insider’s” view of this African heritage. This text presents thoroughly researched commentaries that link hundreds of entries to the context of mythic rites, skilled ritual performance, and the influence of Abakuá in Cuban society and popular music. Generously illustrated with photographs and drawings, the volume includes a new introduction to Cabrera’s writing as well as appendices that situate this important work in Cuba’s history. With the help of living Abakuá specialists in Cuba and the US, Ivor L. Miller and P. González Gómes-Cásseres have translated Cabrera’s Spanish into English for the first time while keeping her meanings and cultivated style intact, opening this seminal work to new audiences and propelling its legacy in African diaspora studies.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/sacred-language-of-the-abaku/oclc/1125130325&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: WorldCat listing
Secondary URL: http://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/T/The-Sacred-Language-of-the-Abakua
Secondary URL Description: Publisher's listing
Access Model: Book
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Type: Edited Volume
Type: Translation
Type: Scholarly Edition
ISBN: 9781496829443
Translator: Patricia Gonzalez Gomes-Casseres & Ivor L. Miller
Copy sent to NEH?: No

La sociedad secreta Abakua (Article)
Title: La sociedad secreta Abakua
Author: Ivor L. Miller
Abstract: This is a summery of the history of the Abakua Society in Cuba with reference to Lydia Cabrera.
Year: 2020
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Ediciones UNAULA, Medellin, Colombia

Book review of Henry Lovejoy's 'Prieto Yoruba Kingship in Colonial Cuba during the Age of Revolutions (Article)
Title: Book review of Henry Lovejoy's 'Prieto Yoruba Kingship in Colonial Cuba during the Age of Revolutions
Author: Ivor L. Miller
Abstract: A book review of the study of Yoruba heritage in Cuba with reference to Lydia Cabrera.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://journals.openedition.org/etudesafricaines/31936
Access Model: open access
Format: Journal
Publisher: Cahiers d'Etudes africaines

La Nganga, centro motor cosmico (Article)
Title: La Nganga, centro motor cosmico
Author: Patricia Gonzalez Gomes-Casseres
Abstract: The Nganga is the center of power for the Congo derived religion in Cuba called Palo Monte, Mayombe or Kimbisa. The article describes the relationship between the object of worship or depositary of the spirits, and the Tata, owner of the magic powerful cauldron.
Year: 2020
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Ediciones UNAULA, Medellin, Colombia

Translation. The Ceiba Tree (Article)
Title: Translation. The Ceiba Tree
Author: Translated by Patricia Gonzalez Gomes Casseres
Author: Lydia Cabrera
Abstract: Cabrera describes in this article the importance of the Ceiba Tree in all African derived religions in Cuba.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: http://https://www.worldcat.org/title/latin-american-ecocultural-reader/oclc/1159603897?referer=di&ht=edition
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois

Death, Ikú and the Spirits in Afro-Cuban Religions (Article)
Title: Death, Ikú and the Spirits in Afro-Cuban Religions
Author: Patricia Gonzalez Gomes-Casseres
Abstract: The article describes the significance of rituals, stories, and traditions around death in Afro-Cuban culture. The spiritual world prevalent in all African traditions fulfills a key role in death rites. Included in the investigation were Yoruba, Congo and Carabali heritages. Texts by Lydia Cabrera were fundamental for the study.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: http://https://www.worldcat.org/title/death-dying-in-hispanic-worlds-the-nexus-of-religions-cultural-traditions-and-the-arts/oclc/1153756861&referer=brief_results
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Brighton : Sussex Academic Press, 2021

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