Robert Lima
LATIN AMERICAN THEATRE REVIEW 1990
https://core.ac.uk/reader/235876410
The body of Cuban drama contains many accretions from African sources. Among the most important of these is the presence of ancient deities from the Yoruba pantheon, a vast hierarchy of spiritual entities termed Orishas who range from the aloof Maker (variously Olofi, Olorum, Olodumare), through the hermaphroditic creative force (Obatalá) and the Mother of the gods (Yemayá), to those associated with specific aspects of Nature (Changó, for one).1 These are the traditional deities still worshipped in what is present-day Nigeria and its environs. Many of the Orishas figure prominently in modern Cuban life and are manifest in the drama of the Caribbean island because they have had a long history there. Religio-mythological beliefs from many sectors of Africa came to the "New World" between 1517 and 1873 with the enslaved peoples of the continent. These cultural elements survived the shock of transplantation and the subsequent break in continuity, first through the preservation of the deeply-rooted indigenous oral tradition by the slaves themselves, and, in due course, through the adoption of written expression for lyrical and narrative literature, old and new, both by educated slaves or freemen and white folklorists. All kinds of African and Afro-Cuban folklore came to the fore in the process and, having been collected in written form, survived alongside Hispanic traditions. Despite the adversities suffered by the Africans through their diaspora and the oppressiveness of those who enslaved them, particularly in regard to their religious practices, their culture persevered. Today, many of the creative works of the Caribbean basin and Brazil are founded on African traditions extant in the Americas, if often in syncretic form.2 Nowhere is this more evident than in Cuba. The island nation's literature is replete with plays, poems, stories, and novels whose focus is Afro-Cuban, that is, whose themes and motifs manifest how integral to Cuban life is the religio-mythological system of belief brought to the island by the Yoruba-Lucumi peoples of western Africa, as well as by those from the Gulf of Guinea
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