Mauricio A. Font, Alfonso W. Quiroz, and Pamela Maria Smorkaloff
The vast and original body of work left by Cuban intellectual Fernando Ortiz (1881-1969) focuses on the sociocultural and historical manifestations of the island of Cuba. Hoxvever, the theoretical implications of his work surpass national boundaries. In essence, Ostiz’s conceptions delineate a program for interpreting daunting Latin American complexities marked by a freshness of intellect and enduring sophistication. Arguably, the intellectual legacy of Fernando Ostiz is a fundamental pillar for a comprehensive explanation of Latin American uniqueness and continuing evolution. This is one of the key insights stemming frorn the “Fernando Ortiz Symposium on Cuban Culture and History,” organized by the Cuba Project/Bildner Center of The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, March 20-22, 2000. This symposium gathered more than thirty intellectuals, from Cuba and elsewhere, interested in the work and legacy of Fernando Ostiz. For three days, these intellectuals, coming from the rnost diverse academic disciplines and perspectives, participated in intense, open, and sincere exchange. This collection of essays is one result of that memorable symposium.
Together, these studies not only contribute to the study of Oi-tiz’s life, work, and legacy, but also fulfill a glaring need for a general reinterpretation of a truly unique Latin Aillerican scholar. The volume is also an effort to offer fresh perspectives on Ostiz’s contribution to interdisciplinary cultural, historical. artistic, and literary studies of Cuba, Latin America, and other complex societies R-ith growing global interconnections. Ostiz’s work has been internationally recognized since the 1940s and 1950s. However, there is no single monographic interpretation of his life and legacy. Such a project is, admittedly, a challenging and overnrhelming task. The scope and specialization of Ostiz’s interests, and the complex historicalcontext in which he developed his ideas, demand an interpretative study of epic proportions. Very few individual intellectuals could accomplish this task for several reasons, one of the most important being the current scarcity of analytic building blocks for such a synthesis. Since the publication of Ortiz’s master work, Contrapunteo cz~banodel tabaco y el azucar (1940), leading intellectuals in Latin America, the United States, and Europe have hailed the value of his contributions. Nevertheless, the study of his legacy was neglected in the 1970s and 1980s except for reeditions of his major works, and even then mainly in Cuba. Only recently have there been encouraging signals of a renewed international interest in Ortiz’s work.
Beyond the prologues to certain editions of his works, there is no current work in English that collectively reassesses Ortiz’s intellectual universe.’ Three volumes of studies, by now dated, were published in Spanish in the 1950s, in addition to several short academic articles and studies published in Cuba between 1959 and 1990.2Only one previous international conferencemainly devoted to Ortiz’s connections with Italy (Genoa, 1 9 8 9 t h a s had its proceedings published in Italian and S p a n i ~ hIn . ~the 1990s, however, there was increased international interest in Ortiz’s work. In 1998, the InterArnericas Society of Arts and Letters of the Americas produced a modern Ortiz bibliography in English (with Spanish and French versions) that includes a unique catalog of manuscripts and a biographical chronology.~ikewise, Maria Fernanda Ortiz, Don Fernando’s daughter, has contributed to the publication of her father’s works in h ~ a d r i dRecent .~ important projects for the restoration, access, and diffusion of Ortiz’s works, manuscripts, and papers housed at the library of the Sociedad Economica de Arnigos del Pais, are under way, as are similar significant efforts led by Miguel Barnet and the Fundacion Fernando Ortiz in Havana.
This collective volume is an effort to address the current limitations of the scholarship on Ortiz. It seeks to refocus and update the international legacy of Fernando Ortiz, whose concept of .’transculturationn remains a fundamental pillar for the analysis of new, complex, and eclectic Latin American societies and cultures. This revision is done from different perspectives, with the aim of expanding an interdisciplinary field of study that promises great returns in the near future.
Fernando Ortiz lived during a crucial historical transition between two centuries. He was educated in both a Creole American and a European intellectual tradition, but his research led him to the study of African cultural roots in Cuba, a country which at the time was itself in transition from colonial rule to independent status. Ortiz’s personal evolution reflected the intellectual and historical shifts he was exposed to: his initial enlightened positivist ideas evolved toward a multidisciplinary scientific perspective. From the study of law and criminal behavior he diversified to the study of anthropology, religion, and music. From his early political involvement, characteristic of many Latin American intellectuals, he opted for contributing to the development of Cuban associations and civil society. He was intellectually open-minded, a liberal-reformist, and a true polygraph. A nonsectarian thinker, he stood firmly against racism. Ortiz’s work, as most of the participants in the symposium agreed, represents a serenely rational model for several generations of Cuban thinkers who have tried to grapple with the past and present tensions of Cuban reality.
There is an intimate connection between Ortiz’s Cuban and international experiences and the evolution of his works. Born in Havana on July 16, 1881, he traveled with his mother in 1882 to Minorca, where he lived for several years. As a young boy in Minorca, he developed a special sense of identity with distant Cuba. He later studied at the University of Barcelona, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1895. That year he returned to Havana where he studied penal law at the University of Havana until 1898, a period that coincided with the violent struggle for Cuban independence from Spain. He returned to Barcelona in 1899, where he received his law degree in 1900. He then went to Madrid and obtained his doctorate in law in 1901 with a thesis on positivist inspiration under the guidance of Professor Manuel Sales y Ferre.
In 1902, he returned to Cuba and experienced the critical and confused early years of the fledgling Cuban republic. He soon left the island again to perform consular diplomatic duties in La Coruna, Marseilles, and Genoa between 1903 and 1906. In Genoa, he established close connections with the positivist criminologists Cesare Lombroso and Enrico Ferri. In 1906, Ortiz returned to Cuba and published several articles on criminology as well as his pathbreaking Harnpa afro-cubana: Los negros bmjos, his first attempt to understand Afro-Cuban marginal behavior and culture. In 1907, he became a member of the prestigious intellectual and Institutional community of the Sociedad Econ6mica de Amigos del Pais. In 1908, he married Maria Ester Cabrera, the daughter of Cuban reformist-liberal intellectual Raimundo Cabrera, and began to teach law at the University of Havana. From 1910 to 1959, Ortiz directed the publication of the influential Revista Bimestre Cubatza, an organ of the Sociedad Econ6mica. Preoccupied with the corrupt political culture in Cuba, he published, in 1913, Entre cubanos . . . (Psicologia tropical), a social critique that proposed the urgent transformation of Cuban institutions through reformist means and increased attention to cultural, institutional, and educational issues.
During the same period, he contributed to the publication and republication of classic Cuban historical and reformist arorks from the nineteenth century. In 1916, with the publication of Hampa afro-cubana: Los negros esclauos, Ortiz laid the foundations for a historical and eclectic ~nethodologythat eventually led to his concept of transculturation. At the time he was also active in politics and served in the Cuban Congress as a member of the Liberal Party. Disillusioned, he resigned his seat in 1926. In 1923. he also published a historicallinguistic compilation entitled Un catauro de cubatzismos. Subsequently Ortiz founded the influential anthropological and cultural journals Archivos del Folklore Cubano (19241, Surco (1930). and Cu1tul.a Contemporanea (1930). His Proyecto de cddigo crimifzal czlbano (1926) helped lay the foundation for a progressive reform of criminal justice in Cuba, and m.as a major contribution to the country’s legal and institutional framework. In 1926, he also established the Instituci6n Hispano-Cubana de Cultura. a major cultural institution that developed important links between Cuba, Spain, and the rest of Latin America. Ortiz was actively opposed to the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado and, in 1931, went into self-imposed exile in Washington, D.C.. and New York City. In the United States, he engaged in a propaganda campaign against Machado and existing U.S. policy toward Cuba. With the fall of hlachado in 1933. Ortiz returned to Cuba and engaged in active cultural politics during a time of political and educational radicalization. In 1940, Ortiz published his magnum opus Contrapunteo cubano. In the 1930s and 1940s. he also developed his vintage antiracist and antifascist positions.
Having become a n~idower in 1942, Ostiz married Maria Herrera y Gonzalez de Salcedo that same year. In 1945, his second daughter, Maria Fernanda, was born. In 1946, he published his antiracist manifesto El engano de las razas. At this point in his life. he intensified his anthropological, linguistic, and ethnomusicological studies of Afro-Cuban culture with a series of successive monumental publications: La africallia de la m~isicafolkldrica de Cuba (19501, Los bailes el teatro de 10s negros en el folklor de Cuba (19511, five volumes of his Los ilwtt-trmentos de la mtisica afrocz~bana (1952-19551, and Historia ~ l z~~zapelea e czlbana co~ztra10s demonios (1959). In 1954, he was granted a doctorate Honoris Causa by Colunlbia University. Other international institutions also recognized his lifetime of monumental work, including the University of Cuzao and UNESCO. Fernando Ortiz died in Havana on April 10, 1969. at the age of eighy-sex-en.
THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL RELEVANCE Attempts at general interpretations of Latin America’s conlplex and evolving societies and cultures have faced formidable challenges. From the ambitious envisioning of a “cosmic race,” to recent culturalist formulations and theories of modernization, dependency. and revolution, no single abstract interpretation has satisfactorily deciphered the Latin American puzzle. In his body of work, Ortiz brought together the cultural-symbolic and material aspects of so-
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cia1 life in a dialectical fashion. Afro-Cuban religion, forms of consciousness, customs, music, language, and life received his sustained attention. This suggests that Ortiz tended to treat these factors as ontological essentials, realities in themselves, irreducible to either the nlaterial or even historical aspects of the social. His work implies that cultural fixations-traditions, legacies, beliefs, and practices-serve as the basis for stable group and national identities, and require in-depth study. This concept of transculturation pointed to a constant give-and-take across primary cultural traditions. Race and national identity were themselves socially constructed categories in cultural flux. As a result, a key aspect of Ortiz’s approach is its unwillingness to resolve such tension and dissolve cultural counterpoints. Indeterminacy is present in Ortiz’s treatment of the relationship of the cultural with the economic and the historical. Thus, he left us with an image of social organization and culture as a perennial problematic. It is telling in this regard that in his waning years during the 1960s, he would see the revolutionary process of that decade as ‘,a crisis of transculturation.” Indeed, Contrapunteo cubano treats economic and technological determinism in the production of sugar and tobacco as equally inexorably shaping cultural and social phenomena: both staples affect national identity and culture in predictable ways. However, by merely bringing them together to point out their differences, Ortiz returns us to the world of tension, interactions, and perplexity. In the end, then, social organization and culture are seen as pregnant with the possibility for change, from both the evolution of these modalities of production and from the clash between them.
HISTORICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS Ortiz understood, through his view of ajiaco (a typical Cuban stew), that Cuban and Latin American realities were still evolving from seminal ethnocultural ingredients brought together in a unique pot of encounter, conflict, survival, and collaboration. History, that laboratory of the human sciences, needed to be included in the core of his anthropological analysis. The material manifestations of history-the economy and trade that sustained the evolving Arnerican population-had to be integrated in a comprehensive, ambitious, and erudite canvas. A sense of rediscovered identity emerges from such an effort at historical research. Thus, Ortiz does not limit his approach to rigid deterministic historical perspectives. Material and ideological elements combined and continue to be combined in a particularly Latin American blend. From Ortiz, historians can learn the use of an extensive net that meticulously catches essential kernels of historical understanding relevant to the present. It is precisely this long-term historical perspective, this understanding of the unfinished Cuban and Latin American process of combination and recombination, that allowed Ortiz to act with a different perspective from that of the
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Maunczo A Font, Alfonso W Quzroz, atid Pamela .Vlat-ta Snzorkaloff
opportunistic intellectual or politician. In Cuba, Ortiz’s reformist contributions to the building of cultural, educational, and civil institutions underscore the Latin American need for institutional evolution. Education, science, and patience would guide the way toward a veritable Latin American progress. A good cook knows how to moderate the fire under a pot so that the true flavors coalesce rather than be scorched by radical flames. Though deeply attached to Cuban ways and nationalistic hopes, Ortiz also recognized the benefit of foreign influences in the Latin American concoction, as long as these external factors did not choke originalities and identities that had taken centuries to evolve, due to impatient ambition or ignorant force. The particular history and institutions that embody these traditions are at the roots of the unfinished search for a stable and synergetic consensus, so painfully absent in the Latin American saga and its hemispheric, inter-American relations.
LITERARY AND AESTHETIC IMPACT Recent dominant trends in contemporary Latin American and Caribbean literature-trends such as syncretism, the carnivalesque, lo real maraoilloso, theories of identity and culture-may well be situated within the Ortizian notion of transculturation as process. As summarized by Malinowski in his introduction to Contrapunteo cubano, transculturation is a process in which something is always given in return for what one receives, a system of give and take . . . a term that does not contain the inlplication of one certain culture toward which the other must tend, but an exchange between two cultures, both of them active, both contributing their share, and both co-operating to bring about a new reality.”
One could say that the entire history of m-entieth-century literary expression in Latin America and the Caribbean has been one of a growing recognition of the real terms of cultural exchange. This is especially true from mid-twentieth century to the present, when writers from the region began to assert, actively and without apology, that the literature of the old world had been shaped by that of the new, just as nen- world letters had received the influences of the old. That is at the core of the literary manifestos of Alejo Carpentier, Aim6 Cksaire, Jose Maria Arguedas, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Roberto Fernandez Retamar, and many others. Latin American literature in the twentieth century reflects the process of transculturation as defined by Ortiz, through a movement away from nineteenthcentury romanticismo, toward indigenismo and lo real maravilloso, both of which readily cast off notions of “acculturation” in order to address and embrace the much more complex and conflictive process of “transculturation” at work in Latin American reality. The movement away from “discovery” toward
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xvii
self-discovery; the radical rethinking of the 1960s concept of what constituted the very bases for identity; and the critique of Josi. Enrique Rod6’s Ariel as an essential symbol, in favor of CalibBn, the indigenous inhabitant who resists “the civilizing mission,” all parallel the dialectic at work in Ortiz’s rejection of the concept of acculturation and the creation of his own alternative! transculturation. In Contrapunteo cubano, Ortiz identifies tobacco and sugar as the major forces at work in shaping both culture and society. Thus: The one requires continual attention, the other involves seasonal work; intensive versus extensive cultivation; steady work on the part of a few. intermittent jobs for many: the immigration of whites on the one hand, the slave trade on the other; liberty and slavery; skilled and unskilled labor; hands versus arms; men versus machines; delicacy versus b n ~ t eforce.-
This is but one example of the bold new perspective Ortiz brought to bear on Cuban society, one that embraced simultaneity, conflict, inherent contradiction, and hybridity. Ortiz’s later work may appear to belong to the field of literary theory, ethnology, or musicology, or, in interdisciplinary fashion, all three at once. It always was intent on gaining a more complete and inclusive understanding of Cuban culture. By the 1930s, new generations began to look to the interdisciplinary work of the mature Ortiz as a guide for their work. Ortiz was a contemporary of groundbreaking, interdisciplinary thinkers such as the Penivian Jose Carlos Mari5tegui and the Argentinian Ezequiel Martinez Estrada, whose work in Latin American sociology and social history informed subsequent literary production. Alejo Carpentier admits to having ‘.devoured Ortiz’s books,” which led him to new sources of inspiration: inspiration encapsulated in the cry “iAbajo la lira, viva el bongd!” (Down with the lyre, long live the b ~ n g b ! ) . ~ Numerous literary theorists and critics have acknowledged their debt to the Ortizian notion of transculturation, most notably the Uruguayan Angel Rama. of whose 1982 work, Transculturacidn nawatiua en AtnBrica Latirza, critic Jean Franco has said that “[hle adopted Fernando Ortiz’s term .transculturation’ in order to argue that what occurs in Latin America is not simply the substitution of one culture for another, but rather a liberating of energy and creativi5. a transculturation that has saved and transformed culture, language and popular beliefs.” Franco affirms that “transculturation (defined as a particular form of intertextuality in orally transmitted cultures) has given us the great novels of Guimar2es Rosa, Juan Rulfo and Josi. Maria Arguedas.””
THIS VOLUME This volume seeks to highlight the contemporary relevance of Ortiz’s intellectual legacy from different perspectives and voices. Consequently, it is organized
in five pasts in accord with major themes developed by the individual contsibutions. These five pasts are subdivisions in disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields explored in Ortiz’s body of -A-orkand methodological approaches. Each part begins with a short introduction that summarizes the major ideas and propositions of its individual chapters. The first part, “Life and Education.” gathers new biographical studies on Ortiz as well as fresh contributions toward piecing together his early intellectual evolution while he lived in Spain. The second part, “Interpreting Cuban History,” includes fresh historical perspectives on Ortiz’s approaches to history and the Cuban historical, intellectual, and political context in which he participated. The third, “Social Sciences and Law,” centers on the original disciplinary contributions of Ortiz in the study of social realities with a special emphasis on the contemporary relevance of Ortizian formulations to Latin American studies. The fourth part, .’Racial Diversity, Religion, and n’ational Identity,” addresses Ortiz’s contributions to the study of racial issues, religious manifestations, and the formation of identities thereof. Finally, Part V, “Literature and Music.” explores the influential interaction of Ortiz’s work with literary and musical genres. This volume’s bibliography consists of a chronologically organized selection of Ortiz’s works, most of them cited by the contributors in order to provide an overview of his main contributions to different fields of knowledge. A second section of general bibliography lists published secondary literature, manuscript, and audio a n d visual sources cited by the contributors to this volume. For a complete bibliography of Ortiz’s works please refer to Misceluneu 11(InterAmerica, 1998). The director of this project, Jane Gregory Rubin, envisioned the bibliography as a fundamental contribution to the conference that gave birth to this volume. A list of the contributors, with short biographical information on each of them, is available in the last pages of the volume.
NOTES
Introdz~ctton The Intellectz~alLegacy of Fernando Ortzz
XIX
(Havana: Instituto del Libro, 1970); Diana Iznaga, El estudio de1 arte negro en Fer~za/zdoOrtiz (Havana: Instituto d e Literatura y Lingiiistica. 1982); Transcziltzirucidn en Fernando Ortiz (Havana: Editorial Ciencias Sociales, 1989).
LIFE AND EDUCATION
The heterodox style of Fernando Ortiz as a lawyer, anthropologist, and essayist grew out of a tradition of transatlantic migration and his own early childhood experience in Minorca. Ortiz’s daughter, Maria Fernanda Ortiz, relates that even while in Minorca, he cultivated his passion for Cuba, and when he returned there in 1906 he realized that “like any other Cuban I was also confused.” This realization led to his insatiable thirst for interdisciplinary studies. Miguel Angel Puig-Samper Malero and Consuelo Naranjo Orovio reconstruct Ortiz’s intellectual formation in Spain, during the early years of the twentieth century, emphasizing the influence of the Spanish and Italian schools of criminology. Octavio di Leo proposes that Ortiz’s intellectual interest on Afro-Cuban themes began during his initial legal studies in Madrid where he examined the reality of Spanish prisons and visited the Overseas Museum. Maria del Rosario Diaz asserts, based on manuscript sources in Havana, that Ortiz had begun to work on a study of the Chinese underworld in Cuba around 1902 at the same time he was starting to do research on AfroCuban criminal activities.
Fernando Ortiz, My Father Maria Fernanda Ortiz Herrera
Fernando Ortiz was not only my father. He was also my friend, my confidant. and my tutor through “the school of life,” as he used to say. Despite our age difference (I was born when he was sixty-four years old), I was very close to him and to my mother, Maria Herrera. We were a close, happy family. I never entered or left my house without looking for my father, whether he was alone or entertaining people, simply to kiss him and tell him what I was up to. He was always interested in my problems and gave me his attention. He always encouraged me to learn, study, and choose a degree, whichever interested me the most. When I chose molecular biology and genetics, he was thrilled. He would tell me, .’Life, that is a real mystery.” He would make sensible and demanding observations: ‘,The approaching new world is about knowing, not having; one must study and be well prepared.” However, when he saw me busy studying, he would say, with immense understanding, “It is incredible how much a-ork students have to do these days.” If he saw- me stressed over my exams, he would attempt to calm me down: .’Don’t worry, go to bed, get some rest. Don’t worry about being outstanding. I have seen many outstanding students being failures in life.” Above all, my father was a Cuban. He was born in Havana in 1881. At his birth my grandfather solemnly declared, “One more insurrectionist.” but my grandmother had a premonition: “He mill be plenipotentiary consul of a free Cuba.” With time this was to be true (my father was the Cuban consul in La Conlna and then in Genoa), and if my grandfather’s assertion never occurred it was only because my father was alnlays opposed to violence and weapons. Even though he was never a revolutionary, he was an eternal .’inconformist.” as he w-ould say; and a bembdtz, as Cubans generally say, because he would always say what he thought, since he believed that opposing views and being
able to express them was necessary for a person’s intellectual progress and for the general development of mankind. At the age of fourteen months, my father went to live in Ciudadela, on the Spanish island of Minorca. There he spent his childhood and completed his primary and secondary education. His tutor was the great educator Juan Benejam, and he published his first text, Pm’ncipi J Prostes, in Minorcan in 1895. That same year my father returned to Cuba, and began studying law at the University of Havana. Due to the grave problems in our country toward the end of the century, my grandfather decided to send him to Spain again, where he received his degree in law at the University of Barcelona. Later, in 1901, he obtained his Ph.D. in law from the University of Madrid. These initial years in my father’s life. as is the case in anyone’s, were to prove decisive in his education. Curiously, I believe that the great affection he held for Cuba began while he was in Minorca, thanks to his Cuban mother who so desired her son to represent a free Cuba. Following Cuban independence, when the time came to choose nationality, my father opted to be Cuban, but he remained fond of Spain and felt deeply for Spain’s problems as well as Cuba’s. As Gaston Baquero accurately stated in 1997 during the presentation of the new edition of Los instmmentos de la musica afrocubana in Madrid, “One must not forget that Fernando Ortiz was 100 percent Cuban, but also 100 percent Spanish.” It was probably when my father returned to Cuba that he realized that while he was absent he had somewhat idealized Cuba. It was then that he found that there was a lot to be done. He was completely shaken by the configuration of the new Cuban nation and the reform of his Creole class. My father transmitted the love he felt toward Cuba to me when I was very young. I want to illustrate this with an example: My father was an adept painter (a hobby very few have known about). When I was around three years old, we would paint together while I sat on the arm of the couch in front of his desk. The first things he taught me to paint were the Cuban peasant’s hut (bohio), the royal palm tree, and the Cuban flag with its solitary star. My father understood the notion of patriotism; he taught me its meaning and taught me to cherish it. He also encouraged me to identlfy key public figures in our history. His speech in the Sociedad Economica de Arnigos del Pais, on January 9, 1914, illustrates the point: If you wish to recover the lost ideal you must turn to the memory of Saco, the father of our sociology;to Arango, the father of our economy: to Espada, the father of our charity; to Varela, the father of our philosophy; to Las Casas, the father of good government.’
My father’s work, filled with research in the areas of anthropology, ethnography, sociology, economics, and law, was almost entirely dedicated to his country. He studied its aboriginal inhabitants, the African influence in our society. music, dance; he portrayed the country’s economic problems,
Fernando Orttz, M y Father
5
associated with the sugarcane and tobacco industries, in important and pleasurable texts such as Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azzicar, republished recently in Madrid by EditoCubaEspaiia. However, he also left a legacy of projects, speeches, and books that are still relevant today, not only for Cuba but also for the world. I would like to mention his text El elzgal2o de las razas (1946), in which he defends the protection of human rights, even before the signing of the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Through his beloved Sociedad Econ6mica de Amigos del Pais, he defended the need to improve the education system in Cuba. He strove to promote cultural exchange through the Institucibn Hispano-Cubana de Cultura, especially between Cuba and Spain, and welcomed the valuable knowledge that any foreign nation could provide. The Hispano-Cubana was a free institute. open to all ideologies. His objectives and ideals in life, which he tried to instill in me, were knowledge, culture and more culture, the expression of ideas, respect, tolerance, and furthering the knowledge of our country. My father was a learned and cultured man, yet also modest despite his enormous level of culture. He was never afraid of admitting his ignorance regarding specific issues and would always encourage the person he was talking with to thoroughly research the matter under discussion. He would correct his analysis or hypothesis, always through genuine conviction or through finding new information after long hours of research, but never due to intellect~ialcomplacency. My father’s honesty and modesty are reflected throughout his work. I was moved when Professor Castellanos of Miami agreed with this observation. His inquiring spirit and zeal for research, which led him to search for answers to all kin& of social. political, or other quandaries, led him to find coherence in unusual and challenging topics. As he acknowledged, these were two qualities that always attracted him and were ubiquitous in his work. My inquisitive stage, the age of questions through which all children pass (often perturbing adults), was different for me in that my father always encouraged me to continue searching for answers. He was always willing to share his intellectual craving. He did so not only with distinguished intellectuals but also with me, my friends, and all those w-ho approached him searching for answers and craving knowledge or seeking advice. Everyone was welcome regardless of gender, age, creed, or race (as he often stated in Ultra, the magazine published by the Instituci6n Hispano-Cubana de Cultura, a magazine that he founded and directed for many years). Despite his continuous exchange of opinions with many people in discussion groups during different stages of his life, he never indulged in teamwork, never intended to lead a school of thought, and he was certainly an unconditional follower of anyone or anything. My father taught me, or at least attempted to teach me, to think. He believed that thought n-as every human being’s right and obligation. According to him, thinking is one of the hardest things to do because we are all conditioned by
6
M a r k Fevnanda Ortiz Herrera
our background, education, and increasingly by the media. “Thinking is suffering, it involves creating,” he used to tell me. “Look, girl (chica), you listen to everyone’s ideas, and then do your own cooking (cocinadito) and reach your own conclusions.” My father always opposed “sectarianism.” He would insist that respect for others was essential for coexistence and progress. “Your rights,” he would say to me, “end where other people’s rights begin, and you must respect the views of others, even if you disagree with them.” My father’s respect for others was so large that he never told me what to do. When I sought his advice, he would express his own personal view and would inevitably add, “But you must decide, use your own judgment.” While still in good health, there was nothing that he enjoyed more than the company of a keen listener, to talk with absolute freedom about anything with anyone who showed interest in learning. In addition to teaching me to respect and tolerate the views of others, my father also taught me another of his principles: that I had to learn to defend my own position and convictions, and express them with educated manners and the firmness of being honest, especially to myself. My father’s views on defending one’s convictions are clearly reflected in his texts on Afro-Cuban music, as a response to the view that the black drums “did not produce” music. My father contended that the drum did produce music. This was the inspiration behind La afj-icania de la mzisica folkldrica de Cuba and Los bailes y el teatro de 10s 7zgg.grosen elfolklore de Cuba, which we have reedited with Editorial Musica hlundana in Madrid, as well as the five volumes of Los instrumentos de la m~isicaafrocubarza. I want to clarify that my father studied our process of “transcu1turation”-a concept that he introduced for the first time in 19402-and the African influence in Cuba with scientific method and great respect, but he was never involved in the everyday praxis of these matters, as some have tried to suggest. Another prominent characteristic was his complete ideological independence, the importance of which he made me understand. In the 1920s, he was a representative of the Cuban Liberal Party. He told me that after a few years he abandoned it, disappointed to find that politics was full of cormption; he discovered that he would be unable to aid his young country if he was in politics, and after that he never participated in party politics. When I was young, hearing him speak about political parties. I renlember asking him, “Dad, what are you?” and he replied, with his great sense of humor, “I’m a nonconformist,” and “What party is that?” He laughed and said, “KO,I don’t belong to any political party.” “And why?” This last question remained unanswered. I thought he had to belong to some party; as far as I was concerned, all “adults” could talk about politics, and everyone talked about parties. Some years later, when we discussed the issue again and when I was a better conversationalist,I asked him again, “Why do you not belong to any political party?” He said, “Because,
Fernando Ortiz, :My Father
7
chica, when you become part of a political party, you cease to be free, you are no longer able to say what you think, and you must folloal the group’s discipline.’’ My father did not wish to compromise his beliefs. The fact that he abandoned party politics did not mean that he had lost his commitments. He was always committed: to Cuba, to himself, and, of course, to his family. I do not know of any other magazine in any language that can be compared to C’ltra as to useful information, interesting material, and universal cultural values for the general reader. There is nothing like it published in English. As he used to point out, he had been accused of almost everything. I believe that even today his views are misinterpreted. I believe that in order to understand my father’s truly liberal spirit, references to his “Mensajes” in the journal Ultra are essential. I mlould ask all scholars who approach my father’s work to study this magazine, not partially, but as a whole. In 1939, Stella Clemence, a writer and a book fan, director of the Harkness Collection and the Latin American section of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., referred to Ultra in the following terms: “I encourage you to read these messages by Fernando Ortiz and the content and diversity of the articles published in Ultra. I believe that the real value of Ortiz’s scholarship lays there, reflected in his work and his teachings.” My father, as I have already stated, was an eternal “disagreer,” and while he physically could, he fought for Cuba’s moral, social, and racial integrity; he fought for our “cubanidad,” as he used to say. He was a man who approached all problems, even his own and those of his family, with a wide perspective, with the attitude of a genuine daily thinker. He n-as a great Cuban, a great confidant, a great friend, and a great father. I h o p e that Fernando Ortiz’s work will be a reference for future genera-
tions in Cuba and that his ideals of a unique, united, free, culturally rich Cuba, where all trends of thought can flourish, may become a reality for this great nation we have before us. In closing, I would like to quote my father’s words in the section “Afirmaciones de Cultura” of Ultra in 1936: Without mutual tolerance, which is the livening factor behind culture. science is reduced to chatter, religion to sterile ‘fanaticism.’ justice to oppressive despotism, and the power behind social rhythm turns into a suffocating, repelling beast.3
Spanish Intellectuals and Fernando Ortiz (1900-1941) Consuelo Naranjo Orouio and Miguel Angel Puig-Samper Mulero
The influence of the Italian positivist scholars, particularly Cesare Lombroso and Enrico Ferri, has often been associated with Fernando Ortiz’s anthropological work. This influence is clearly reflected in the prologue of Ortiz’s Hampa afro-ctlbana, Los negros brujos (1906), and in his involvement in an Italian magazine directed by Lombroso.’ However, there is less awareness of the influence the first Spanish criminologists and sociologists had on Ortiz’s work and his education in the universities of Madrid and Barcelona. This chapter analyzes Ortiz’s educational and intellectual experience in Spain, and the interactions between him and Spanish intellectuals during important stages of his early and mature career. After his elementary and high school education in the Institute of Mahon, on the island of Minorca, Ortiz returned to Cuba for his college preparatory studies and first years of studies in lam. at the University of Havana, at the time of Cuba’s war for independence in 1895-1898. He subsequently moved to Barcelona, where he finished his law degree in 1900, and then went on to Madrid for his Ph.D.*In Madrid, he came in contact with renowned Spanish positivists, many of them from the Instituto Libre de Ensenanza. These intellectuals had been developing Spanish Krausism-which was first introduced by Juli5n Sanz del Rio and continued by Francisco Giner de 10s Rios-into Krauspositivism. The latter ideology preserved certain notions of the primitive Krausism (such as the notion of organicity and evolution of society), as a-ell as some of its ideals (such as the belief in social regeneration through education), while flirting with the theoretical views of the new positivism and Spencerian evolutionism.3
10
Consuelo ‘Varanjo Oro~~zo and .Wlgue( Angel Puzg-Sanzper Mulero
FERNANDO ORTIZ AND THE SPANISH “LOMBROSO” Among Ortiz’s professors in Madrid, it is important to mention the influence of Rafael Salillas. In 1900, Salillas became the director of the Criminology Laboratory of the School of Philosophy of Law in the Universidad Central de Madrid, then chaired by Francisco Giner de 10s Rios. Giner himself had encouraged new approaches to criminalist anthropology within the Instituto Libre de Ensedanza. Its Boletin had published aspects of these new penal sciences in articles by Joaquin Sama, Pedro Dorado blontero, Alfredo Calderon, and Concepcion Arenal. Their goal was to disseminate the ideas of the Lyon School led by Lacassagne, the Krauspositivists, the Italian positivists, and Correctionalism, the latter probably being the most influential among the Giner de 10s Rios’s group. In 1886, after a period spent considering the reform of judicial institutions for the insane in collaboration with fellow positivist doctor Luis Simarro, Salillas began publishing a series of articles dealing with criminal life in Spain in Revista General de Legislacidn y Jurisprzrdencia. Salillas was also well known for his lectures on anthropology in criminal law at the Ateneo in Madrid, the sanctuary of local positivism. In 1896. he published El delinpsicoldgico y socioldgico con cuente espafiol: el lenguaje Cestudio~fi’lologico, dos vocabularies jergales); two years later he published the second part, El delincuente espariol: hampa (Antropologia picareseal; concluding his trilogy with La teol-ia basica bio-socioldgica in 1901. All of these texts were clearly influenced by Lombrosian and Spencerian positivism, but with an emphasis on Spanish national peculiarities, something similar to what Fernando Ortiz would attempt eight years later in Hampa afro-cubana with regard to the roots of criminal behavior in Cuba. The seal of this Spanish Lombroso in Ortiz’s work is evident, both in his positivist perspective and in the selection of themes for his earlier works. Even after Salillas’s death, Ortiz was interested in Salillas’s notes relating to an 1901 article published in the Revista de Legislacidn y Jurispmdencia on the tia~iigos,the black secret societies in Cuba, as evinced from a letter Ortiz wrote to Jose Maria Chacon in 1927,’Salillas had also discussed the theme in a lecture delivered at the Ateneo in Madrid a few years before. Salillas’s teaching career began in the Criminology Laboratory of the Giner de 10s Rios program, at the same time Fernando Ortiz was studying philosophy of law in the University of Madrid. From information that Salillas himself published in the Reuista de Legislacidn J!Jurisprudencia between 1900 and 1902, as well as in the Anales del Labof-atorio de Criminologia (Madrid, 1899-1900), we know that the laboratory dealt with childhood crime and Lombroso’s views on the origins of moral insanity and crime, the relationship between alcohol and moral insanity, and the notion of abnormality as described by Morel, Lomhroso, Garofalo, hlarro, Durkheim, and Ferri. Before
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founding the School of Criminology in 1903, Salillas collaborated with Giner himself, as well as Simarro and fellow professor Constancio Bernaldo de Quirbs, a Spanish criminologist and sociologist who was one of Giner’s youngest disciples and someone who also left an imprint on Ortiz’s w0rk.j
CRIMINOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY: CONSTANCIO BERNALDO DE QUIROS Young Bernaldo de Quir6s was in charge of the foreign publications section in the Revista General de Legislacibn y.]z~risprudencia,where he published the works of the Italian positivists (Lombroso, Ferri, Nickforo, Manzini) between 1898 and 1901. Texts such as Las nuevas teorias de la criminalidad (1898) and La mala uida en Madrid: Estudio psico-socioldgico (1901) were the result of Bernaldo de Quir6s’s work in the Salillas lab, which he pursued with the cooperation of J. M. Llanas. Llanas also followed the Salillas and the Nickforo and Sigheli (La mala vida en Roma) schools of thought, which were based on the “fieldwork” of marginal groups, much in the same way as Ortiz would do later in the case of ~ a v a n a . ~ After Fernando Ortiz settled down in Cuba in 1902, he continued to correspond with Bernaldo de Quiros, a Spanish criminologist and sociologist who would soon redirect his research toward rural sociology, as a result of his work in the Social Reforms Institute. This new institution was led by Gumersindo de Azcarate, another pillar of Spanish Kraussism, who had lectured Ortiz on Comparative Legislation in Madrid and was one of the first theorists in the discipline.’ Ortiz sent his doctoral thesis to Bernaldo de Quir6s on April 4, 1902. Later Ortiz also sent him the prospectus of La Cziltura Latina, a magazine founded by Francisco Federico Falco, an Italian criminologist living in Cuba, which published contributions by Lombroso, Ferri, Tarde, and Dorado M ~ n t e r o . ~ Ortiz also communicated information regarding scientific activities on the island, which was of interest to Bernaldo de Quiros, as it was useful for the revision of his text ~Vuevasteorias de la criminalidad. In 1903, Ortiz publicized and reviewed an article by Bernaldo de Quirhs on alcoholism in Azuljl Rojo. In his review, Ortiz comments on the virtues of Bernaldo de Quiros article, the originality of his work, and his translations of Lombroso, Ferri, and Nickforo. He places Bernaldo de Quir6s among the most renowned criminologists, along with Dorado Montero and Salillas9 Subsequent letters Ortiz wrote to Bernaldo de Quir6s follonr the Cuban intellectual’~professional itinerary after he was appointed Consul in Con~nain
12
Consuelo ‘Varanjo Oroz 20 and .Vi~guelAngel Pug-Samper Mulero
1906, Ortiz sent Bernaldo de Quir6s his article on “La mala vida cubana,” which was undoubtedly influenced by Bernaldo de Quir6s’s “La mala vida en Madrid.” That same year, Quiros published another article in Derecho y Sociologia, by Ortiz’s invitation. The Spanish criminalist returned the gesture by inviting Ortiz to publish his “Identificacion crimino16gican in the Criminal Sciences Library series. However, Ortiz’s work was published in Havana in 1913 by the La Universal publishing house, under the title La identificacidn dactiloscdpica. Znforme de policiologia y de derecho publico, seguido de las instrucciones tkcnicas para la practica de la identificacidn y del decreto organic0 No. 1.1 73 de 1901, and republished in Madrid in 1916 by Daniel Jorro, on Bernaldo de Quir6s recommendation. Furthermore, Bernaldo de Quir6s wrote a review of Los negros brujos in La Lectura in 1906 and promised he mlould write another one for a German journal of criminal anthropology directed by Dr. Hellwig. From Havana in 1908, Ortiz sent Bernaldo de Quiros a copy of his recently published Para la agonografia espar2ola: Estudio monografico de lasfiestas menorquina.s.1°
ENCOUNTER WITH SPANISH PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY We also have evidence of Ortiz’s relationship with physical anthropologist Federico Oloriz. 016riz was renon-ned for founding an anthropological museum-laboratory attached to the Faculty of Medicine in Madrid and for his works on anatomy and anthropology, especially his Manual de Tkcnica Anatdmica (1890), Distribucidn geograjca del indice cefdico en Espana (1894), and La talla humana en Espana (1896). As a result of these texts, he was considered to be one of the pioneers of the biogeographic perspective in Spanish anthropology. He was also the author of various texts dealing with issues that interested Ortiz during this early stage, including Dactiloscopia (1908) and Manuel pour I’identification des dklinquents de Madrid (1911).11Ortiz shared with Oloriz his work on Afro-Cuban rebellions and Minorcan festivals.12
KRAUSPOSITMSM AND CRIMINAL LAW: PEDRO DORADO MONTERO Apart from the group in Salillas’s lab, to which Ortiz was linked through Giner and the Instituto Libre de Ensenanza, Ortiz was also directly influenced by the work of Dorado Montero, a professor at the University of Salamanca. Dorado had made himself knon-n in Spain through his involvement in disseminating articles on Italian criminal positivism in magazines such as Boletin de la Institucidn Libre de Ensenanza, Revista General de Legislacidn
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y Jz~risprz~dencia, La Esparia Moderna, and Nueua Ciencia Juridica, and above all for his book La antropologia cn’minal en Italia (Madrid, 1889).13 Despite his role in disseminating Italian positivism, Dorado maintained a critical positivist criticism of Lombroso’s school and gradually narrowed his work toward a more eclectic view- nearer to Krauspositivism. Dorado was also influenced by British evolutionists-Darwin and Spencer-from whom he discovered the importance of the empirical method and the notion of society as an evolving organism. This background is evident in his sociological work, especially in El derechopenal en Iberia (Madrid, 1901). However, Dorado never forgot, and in fact he gradually incorporated the ideals of the Giner group. Following Krause and Roder, he considered punishment good and argued the importance of education in social transformation. Dorado thus agreed with the correctionalist views held by Giner and Arena1 in his quest for reconciling the Krausist metaphysics of his teachers with the new criminal positivist views, something seemingly impossib1e.l’ Letters preserved in the Biblioteca Nacional Josi. Marti and in the archive of the University of Salamanca show that Ortiz and Dorado begun their correspondence in 1900. In 1900, Dorado answered Ortiz’s queries on sources and bibliography for his work on the civil reparation of crime victims, which was the subject of his doctoral thesis. Dorado recommended that Ortiz should consult the records of international conferences on crime, the publications of the Societi. des Prisons de Paris, and the works of Demogue. Barrows, Tallaik, Leonardo Bertano, and the Scuola Positiva.’j Reading Ortiz’s thesis, one can see that Dorado’s recommendations were followed. Before traveling to Havana, Ortiz sent Dorado a copy. Ortiz maintained contact with Dorado while working in the Cuban consulates in Conina and Genoa. From Genoa, Ortiz notified him in 1904 that he would be publishing La Cultura Latina. Upon returning to Havana in 1906. Ortiz sent his Hampa afro-cubana to Dorado for his “authorized criticism” of what would be-according to Ortiz-a great work involving studies such as “Negros curros,” “Los negros fiiiiiigos,” “Los negros criminales,” “La negra prostituta,” and .’La mala vida de 10s chinos en Cuba.” Ortiz wanted to conduct a detailed study of crime in the island, “so rich in original observations.” In August 1906, Dorado rushed to respond and congratulate Ortiz for the quality of his text and his dedication to research. He also inquired after the magazine Derecho y Sociologia, in which Dorado had published the article “El derecho jes la fuerza?” that same year. In October 1906, Dorado announced that he would be writing a review of Ortiz’s book in Reuista de Legislacidn. Dorado also expressed his solidarity regarding the United States’ intervention in Cuba’s fight for independence by stating, *‘Itrust that you will emerge victorious from the test which, as a nation, you appear to be subjected to at present.” In November 1906, Ortiz also received the
14
Consuelo .’Larunlo Orouo and .2figzrel Angel Putg-Sumper Mulero
text that Dorado had mentioned in previous letters, De criminologia y penologia (published in Madrid in 1906), which contained a number of articles, such as one dealing with the crime culture (matonismo) in Spain. Ortiz intended to use these works for writing Los negros CLLTTOS, as he believed that these characters were nothing but the crystallization of Andalucian matonismo within the African and colonial context of Cuba. Ortiz thanked Dorado for including his works in a bibliography of Rmista de Legislacidn de Madrid and told Dorado of his future involvement with Bernaldo de Quir6s on a project for identifying criminals.16In 1908 Dorado confirmed that he had received Ortiz’s text Para la agonografia espatiola and asked him whether he had received, in turn, El correcionalismopenal y sus bases doctrinales. During the next year, Ortiz praised Dorado as a true master in a note, published in Cuba y Amkrica, in whch he also referred to the state of criminal anthropological studies in Spain.” The receipt of Ortiz’s La reconquista de Am6rica: Reflexiones sobre el panhispanismo one year after its publication served as an opportunity for Dorado to reply on June 13, 1911 to Ortiz’s stern stance against the revival of Spanish cultural imperialism. Although he understood the recent historical circumstances of the quarrel. Dorado noted that he thought Ortiz’s words were too hostile, not only toward Spanish imperialists but also toward Spain. At the same time, he advised Ortiz not to take the “Oviedans” too seriouslya probable reference to Rafael Altamira and his group. Dorado considered that their entire campaign revolved around “games of artifice.” In his last letter from Salamanca on June 28, 1913, Dorado again congratulated Ortiz for his text La identificacidn dactiloscdpica, which he considered to be the best project he had seen in the field, and also asked whether he had received his Psicologia criminal, which Dorado had sent in 1912.18
THE SOCIOLOGY OF MANUEL SALES Y FE& Another Spanish intellectual nrhom Ortiz admired and studied under was Manuel Sales y Ferre, one of the most prominent representatives of Krauspositivism. Sales is considered to be the founder of sociology in Spain. He had a bnlliant intellectual evolution ranging from pure Krausism to positivism, with a strong influence from Spencerian evolutionism. His views were reflected in several publications in the fields of anthropology and prehistoric studies. some of which were also published in the Boletin de la Institucidn Libre de Erzsefianza. Sales had an intense academic life in Seville, where he founded the Ateneo and a technical-scientific library of Krausist inspiration. He moved to Madrid in 1889 to head the Sociology Department. The first few years in Madrid he published Estudios de Sociologia (Madrid, 1889) and Tratado de Sociologia (Sevilla, 1894-1897), books with a clear positivist perspective. In 1900, he was appointed vice secretary of the International Institute of Sociology in Paris.
Spanish Intellectuals and Fer~zandoO7Ti.z (190G19413
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Sales founded the Sociology Institute of Madrid in 1901, where Ortiz delivered lectures on November 27 and December 7, 1901. Ortiz later published them as part of his Para la agonogmfa espaiiola (19081, in which his sociological concerns become evident through his studies of popular festivals. Following the model of Tylor and Raul de la Grasserie. Ortiz produced a detailed ethnographic study that tackled the survival of folkloric forms to envision extinct social relationships. A letter written by Sales to Ortiz, dated Madrid, April 29, 1902. reads: I received your farewell letter. dated December 29, and then a second one, dated March 12, informing me of your arrival. V[;e are grateful for the kind memories you hold for all of us, and correspond to them deeply regretting your absence. The Institute is running well, though financially less stable. I hope it will not delay in starting its publications: we will send you copies. Everyone remembers you and wishes your prosperity, especially )-our true friend. If your engagements enable you to work on Sociology. do not hesitate to send us a copy of your work.19
When Sales died, Ortiz wrote about him for the January 1911 issue of Havana’s El FQaro. Ostiz described himself as Sale’s disciple and remembered his lectures and the Sunday group excursions led by Sales with admiration and pleasure. Thanks to the excursions of the Sociology Institute, Ostiz managed to fathom the great landmarks of Spanish history and acquire knowledge on modern criminal science from the “infected galleries of the correctional facility in Alcal%de Henares, where Don Manuel left me so that I could experience it for several days and study it closely.”20 His relationship to Sales provided Ortiz knowledge of social life in all its expressions. “families in humble homes; poverty in hospitals and asylums; the army in barracks: criminals in jails and correction centers; the clergy in cathedrals and sacristies: arts in monuments and museums.” From the purest of positivisms, Ortiz noted that his master taught him and his fellow- students sociology as if it were the anatomy, physiology. and pathology of townships. With regard to Sale’s political ideology, Ol-tiz mentioned his republicanism, skepticism, and Americanism, with the ever-present premise of the regeneration of Spain.21
FERNANDO ORTIZ’S DOCTORAL THES1S:THE ITALLAN POSITMSTS Apart from seeking advice from his Spanish professors for his doctoral thesis, Ortiz also contacted Enrico Ferri and Rafaele Garbfalo requesting a bibliography on civil reparation for the victims of crime. Ferri answered in a letter from
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Consuelo llaranjo Orouzo and Mtgziel Angel Pt~zg-SamnperAMulero
Rome dated February 6, 1900, recommending his text Sociologia criminale, published in Torino; Garofalo advised him to consult his text Nuovi studi sulla riparazione dovuta alle vittime del reato, published by the Scuola Positiva in 1892. There Ortiz found other authors of interest, such as Melchiore Gioia and Herbert Spencer. Garbfalo, then procurator general of Rome’s court, recommended consulting the essays presented before the penitentiary conferences in Paris and Brussels.” Ortiz submitted his doctoral thesis before the Faculty of Lamr of the Universidad Central in Madrid on December 13, 1901. The theme was ‘*Olvido que se ha tenido de la victima del delito” (.’Neglect Suffered by the Victims of Crime”), which was later published in hladrid under the title Base para u n estudio sobre la llamada reparacidn ciz~il:Concepto y divisidn del dafio personal del delito. Id. De su resarcinziento: ‘Vecesidad social de que kste sea efectivo (1901) (Basis for the Study of So-called Civil Reparation). Although biographies of Ortiz suggest that he had some problems with the members of the panel that judged his thesis, the records indicate that he received outstanding marks. It is worth remembering that the panel’s president, Vicente Santamaria de Paredes. belonged to the same ideological group as Ortiz’s tutors in Spain; he was a shareholder in the Instituto Libre de Enseiianza, later a collaborator of the Social Reforms Institute, and a relevant member of the organicist and evolutionist theories in sociology. It is not difficult to understand Santamaria’s affinity with Ortiz’s positions in his doctoral thesis.23 As his Spanish and Italian tutors recommended, in his doctoral thesis Ortiz used the works of the main representatives of Italian positivism, Lombroso, Ferri, Garofalo, Rossi, C a r r a ~ aFrench ; ~ ~ criminalists Lacretele, Tarde, Lanessan, Greau, Littre, Ferk; English evolutionists Darwin, Spencer, and the anthropologist Lubbock; and Bernaldo de Quiros’s Las nuevas teorias de la criminalidad. The Italians’ influence began to show in young Ortiz’s first articles, published in Havana by the journals A z u l j l Rojo. Cuba y Amkrica, Derecho y Sociologia, El Mundo Ilustrado, and El Fgaro. I11 these articles, Ortiz praised Lombroso and his scholarship, and he expressed his views on the presidium in Havana and other aspects of criminology and criminal anthropology, always from a positivist p e r ~ p e c t i v e . ~ ~ His first active work with Italian positivists began in 1905, with the piece “La criminalita dei negri in Cuba,” in the Archivio di Psichiatria, Medicina Legale ed Antropologia Criminale (Torinol. which was directed by Lombroso. Ortiz’s article was followed by other articles, relating to suicide among blacks and criminal superstition in Cuba. That year he also published Los negros brujos in Havana, with a prologue that was published in the same journal in 1906 by Lombroso. In four letters, written in 1905 and 1906, Lombroso wrote to Ortiz to congratulate him on the publication of Los negros brujos
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and the journal Derecho y Sociologia, as well as for applying the notion of atavism in black witchcraft. In one of the letters, Lombroso confirmed that he had received Ortiz’s text on “El suicidio de 10s negros, la criminalidad y la violation,” which he insisted should be submitted for publication in the Archivio. Lombroso also suggested that he should research cranealfisiognomic and tactile anomalies anlong blacks, as well as hypnotic spiritual phenomena, witchcraft, and the use of certain food substances and fetishes that could affect the nervous system. After sending Los negros brujos to Ferri. Mariani, NicCforo, and Abele de Blasio, Ortiz received various letters in 1906 praising his contributions to psychology and anthropology. Nickforo also commented that he had read the text with great pleasure, as well as Ortiz’s article on Lombroso in the Archiuio, which he had reviewed for the Picolo de Trieste. Nickforo stated that he had witnessed the same phenomena in Europe that Ortiz had noted among blacks in Cuba when studying criminal life, local customs, and primitive forms of witchcraft. Acknowledgment of Ortiz’s work reached such a high level that in 1906, Mariani, the editor of the Archivio, requested his signature for an Album of Honor to be presented to Lombroso. In another letter in 1906, Mariani helped Ortiz contact other renowned criminalists Guillermo Ferrero, Antonio Marro, Abele de Blasio, and Bruno Franchi. Between 1908 and 1910, Ortiz received letters from Mariani and Ferri Blasio, confirming that they received his publications and requesting that he send them physical anthropological objects from Cuba. Also, Mariani kept him informed on the organization of the Criminal Anthropology Congress, and Antonio Russo thanked him in 1910 for his potential contribution to I1 P~”ogressodel Diritto Criminale of Palermo, then under the direction of Emanuele Carnevale. In 1913, Ortiz began corresponding with one of Lombroso’s daughters, Gina Ferrero Lombroso. She confirmed the receipt of Identficacidn dactiloscdpica and published one of its chapters in the Archivio in 1914 under the title “Le origini antiche della d a c t i l ~ s c o ~ i aA. “complete ~~ copy of Identficacidn dactiloscdpica was translated into Italian and placed at the Criminal Anthropology Library. In another undated letter, Ferrero commented on the difficulty of finding an academic translator for Ortiz’s book, which was why this text was never actually published in Italian. Despite World War I, Ortiz continued to exchange his publications with Italian professors. In 1915, he received a letter from Marcelo Finzi, Ferrara’s teacher, thanking him for sending Identficacidn dactiloscdpica, which Finzi was considering using in one of his lectures at the Scientific Police and Criminal Studies Institute in the University of Bologna. During that same year, Mariani confirmed he had received La fi’losofia penal de 10s espiritistas: Estudio de fi’losofi’a juridica (Havana, 1915), which was edited by Ortiz, and mentioned the book in the Cuban Collection, La Habana antigzra y rnode~na.~’
18
Conszlelo .'at”anjo Orotzo and .2rlzgf~elAngel Puzg-Samper Mulero
The letter that perhaps brought Ortiz the most satisfaction during this period alas one from Ferri in 1926. According to Ortiz, Ferri praised Proyecto de cddigo criminal cubano, which a-as about the 1921 Italian Criminal Code. Ferri confided to Ortiz that Cuba could be at the level of the most civilized countries in regard to the reform of the crimlnal justice system, far ahead of countries such as Germany, Switzerland. Poland, Peru, Argentina, and others that had recently introduced new criminal codes L8
SPANISH REVIEWERS OF THE CRIMINAL CODE PROJECT In the spring of 1926, Ortiz asked Jost. Maria Chacon to help him contact the director of the Revista de Legislacidn y Jur-isprz4de?zcia in Madrid, to inquire about the possibility of publishing the Proj~ectowith a prologue by one of the two most prestigious Spanish criminalists: Quintiliano Saldafia or Luis Jimenez de AsGa.” The former had been a professor of criminal anthropology at the University of Madrid since 1911 and a former professor at the School of Criminology founded by Salillas. Saldana was renowned for developing a criminal biotypology more advanced than that of the Italian scholars; as a criminalist, he was responsible for the reform of the criminal code in Spain and thus very interested in Ortiz’s project, which he favorably quoted in El atentado social and Cupacidad criminal de luspenonas sociales. Despite the failure of a Spanish publication of the Prq18ecto.Saldafia maintained a good relationship with Ortiz, whom he met in hladrid in 1928, and sent him his La criminologie nouuelle (Paris, 1929), a text used at the University of Paris.30 When Ortiz attempted to send Jimenez de Asua his Proyecto however, there were problems. Jirnknez de Asua. a professor of criminal law in the University of Madrid, had recently traveled t o Cuba. and upon his return to Spain he was deported to the Chafarinas Islands. In a letter dated May 18, 1926, Ortiz confided: I had written a letter with a copy of my project on the Criminal Code, but on the very same day in which I intended to send it we learned of your deportation, and therefore abstained from sending it. as it was unlikely to reach you easily, due to censorship and other security measures which are usually applied to notoriously dangerous individuals. According to your government you fall in this category. Cubans and Spanish alike regretted the news here as I doubt there is any Spaniard visiting Havana after independence who has won more sympathy for your nation than you have, without the recourse to racial, religious or language ties, but simply through the showing of self worth and the community of ideas with the young Anlerican spirits.
Aside from thanking him for his support, whlch would continue over the years, Jimenez de Asua sent Ortiz a copy of an article which he had pub-
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lished in La Libertad in Madrid, on “La reforma penal en Cuba” (“The Penal Reform in Cuba’’), in which he praised Cuban criminalists, including Ortiz, and favorably critiqued the project for the new Cuban criminal c0de.3~
ORTIZ AND SPANISH REGENERATIONISM: MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO Miguel de Unamuno was another influence on Ortiz, despite their somewhat ambiguous relationship, especially in regard to the quest for American regeneracio~zismo.~~ In response to Ortiz’s letter dated May 7, 1906, in which Ortiz praised Unamuno for his article “The Burial of Don Quijote,” Unarnuno sent Ortiz the following letter, dated June 1, 1906: My dear friend: Trusting that you had not yet read it. yesterday I sent you a copy of my Vida de D. Quijote y Sancho, a text in which I have discussed many of the views you approach in your article “La vida de las ideas” in El Mundo. Through this article I have been able to witness the horrible damage which this culture of cboteo [teasing] creates, becoming, as you put it, la desgracia criolla [the Creole disgrace], and the terrible custom of qualifying anything which rises above the vulgar ideals of routine life as a boberfa [sillinessl. Argentineans use the term macanas. which means the same as boberius. It is a very peculiar thing that we Spaniards and Hispanic-Cubans spend our entire time contemplating the so called practical sense of other cultures which make progress and grow, and have not actually realized that this is due to their idealist spirit: it is due to their poetry that the); progress. To us, poetry is merely a punch line-usually not poetic at all-and we do not conceive it as part of ordinary life. . . . The first thing one must teach people here is to have faith and confidence in themselves. This faith alone can defeat ridicule and sabotage. Courage to face all the saboteurs who conform to their routine is the greatest value of all. This is why I enjoy your comment on the bohos. When their saboteurs are silenced. they will receive the blessing of others. You must continue to fight against that brutal sense of false pragmatism, against the spirit of Sanson Carrasco, who is destroying the Spanish speaking world. Once we lose the flower of poetry we drown among one dead leaf after another.33
Following Ortiz’s reply on July 16, 1906, in which he mentions posting a copy of Hampa afro-cubana and requests a portrait, on August 3 Unamuno replied: My dear friend: I am sure that your Hampa ufro-czibana, which I hope will arrive soon, will interest me. as I have heard about it and it strikes me as very curious. I will let
you know my views on it, and indeed hope to make them public.
20
Conszielo ,Varatyo O ~ O Z and ‘ I O L1.I~g~~el Angel Pz~zg-SatnperMulero I am glad that you enjoyed my text on D. Quijote and Sancho’s Life. I followed your suggestion and wrote yesterday to D. Severino Sollow from the Wilson Library, sending him copies of my taro texts, so that he may sell them for a conunission. I will continue to do the same with anything I produce from now on. I am sending you a photograph of myself, as you requested, and would appreciate it if you would tell me what you wish to do with it. Bobadilla (Fray Candil) was here about one month ago, and he assured me that Havana was now the cultural revelation of Spanish speaking America. And if this fact is not so well known, it is only due to the fact that Cubans tend to be more reserved and less exhibitionist. This must be so, as I receive almost twice as rnuch material from Cuba than from Argentina and Chile or from anywhere else in America, and have heard of Cuban writers that I barely know. This effort to remain reserved is not a good thing. . . . Time is essential, and the only way of getting the better of it is by making yourself known as soon as you can.34
Ortiz’s reply was published in El FQaro next to a fragment of Unamuno’s letter and his photograph o n September 23, 1906. Ortiz disagreed with Unamuno’s opinion, based o n the information supplied by Bobadilla, regarding the supposed shyness of Cuban intellectuals, pointing out that these intellectuals’ real fault was that they tried to stand out much too quickly, due to a kind of infantile vanity, self-indulgence, and lack of intellectual ideals. Ortiz went so far as to state: The questions that concern scientists and governments in Europe and North America are ignored by the masses and our clay idols here. The political parties that we have to bear do not actually have substantially different views or programs, and all of us, whether Guelph or Ghibelline, are dragged along by this or that planet, rotating in more or less concentrical orbits around budgets, fearful that a crossing comet may shed light on the povew of our solar system. We classify these people as absrainers. and treat the111 2s traitors because they disturb the slumber of our digestion or they channel the impulses of our hunger.3i Ortiz also regretted the fact that the general public despised the boberias of intellectuals as well as their foreign appeal, as summed u p by the colloquial expression “the country does not need the sympathy of foreigners.” Such regrets were similar to those expressed by Unamuno in Vida de D.
Quijote y Sancho. Four years later, Ortiz contacted Unamuno to request a prologue for his
Entre cubanos in which he intended to compile a series of regenerationist articles expressing “rage and desperation at the invincible sleepiness which overcomes us and prevents us from indulging in cultural life.” Ortiz also sent Unamuno a series of articles published in El Tie~nposo that he could see the true “Americanizing” and “de-Hispanizing” work of certain Cuban intellectuals, themselves determined to achieve regeneration in Cuba from an Ameri-
Spanish Intellectzials and Fernando Ortiz (190G1941)
21
canist position, and contrary to the Hispanizing views Rafael Altamira had tried to propagate in his voyage to Cuba. Ortiz confirmed the arrival of Unarnuno’s prologue in July 1911. In the end, however, the prologue could not be included in the edition of E~ztrecubanos, because in it Unarnuno made reference to all the articles which Ortiz had sent him, including those already published in La Reconquista de Anzgrica. Ortiz requested another prologue that Unamuno mTasnot able to d e l i ~ e r . ~ “ Although it m-as not published except as part of Unamuno’s complete works, his prologue is interesting to the extent that it attempts to show certain key differences bemeen the regenerationist notions on the two sides of the Atlantic. in this case hemeen the notions of Ortiz and those of Unamuno. While Unamuno defends a concept of culture capable of defeating “race,”in the same way as Ortiz does, he appears more reluctant to accept the de-Hispanizing political program Ortiz was developing at the time, which was bent on some form of “Saxonization”of the Cuban society parallel to the “Europeanization” of Spain. Unamuno favored modernization, as long as Hispanic cultural roots were preserved, primarily through a common language. That was something Ortiz did not agree with at the time. Unamuno stated that: I am convinced that language is the blood of the spirit, that thoughts are words. that each language carries. condensed through the pressure of centuries. a conception of life and the universe itself, and that he who talks in Spanish internally. thinks in Spanish, believe it or not. desire it or n0t.j-
Wary of Ortiz’s criticisms of intrusions by some Hispanizing intellectuals regarding the situation in Cuba and its possible solutions. Unamuno clearly maintained that Cuban regeneration should rest in the hands of Cubans. He wrote to Ortiz: Hyperbole, choteo, eroticism. mundane vanity-these are all symptoms of the same illness, that sleepiness or laziness. m~hichmay in itself be yet another symptom. Of m~hat.I wonder? I must leave this question unansa~ered.It is not my duty, but the duty of the children of that country, to seek the answer to this question. This is a challenge, which Fernando Ortiz, among others, must undertake. His patriotism will undoubtedly guide him in the right direction. Or so I trust.
Just as Dorado had done, Ortiz began to distance himself from Italian positivism and its theories of biological determinism. The views of Giner de 10s Rios were essential in the evolution of these two intellectuals: While Dorado explored the correctionalist theories upheld by Giner and Arena1 a-ithin criminal law, Ortiz insisted on including social issues along with anthropological aspects of the “bad life” as determinants in the cultural and ethnical evolution of Cubans, something his Spanish mentors were already exploring
22
Consuelo ~Vara~zjo Or01 ‘10alzd .Zrlzguel Angel Pzl zg-Sainper Mldero
in Spain.38Ortiz believed that analysis of social phenomena was essential for understanding history. It is also worth noting that Ortiz never directed his research toward morphology and craneometry, which clearly differentiated him from the Italian criminalists. The progress of Ortiz’s theoretical perspectives resulted in a radical modification of his convictions, methodology, and topics. As such, positivism gradually gave way to a more balanced scientific approach to society and individuals. By 1920, Ortiz can be liewed as a fully formed intellectual who expressed a Cuban national sentiment based on the study of psychological and social factor^.’^ His criticism of the study of society based on race and not culture occurred simultaneously with his attacks against racial categories, which he deemed artificial and conventional and which he considered a category of ~ u l t u r e . ‘It~was precisely the study of cultures and not races that led Ortiz to define Cubanity as a category of culture, a culture in which the fusion of all ethnic contributions would lead to the integration of all social forces which were a part of this island and its nationality.
POLEMICS AND COLLABORATION WITH SPANISH INTELLECTUALS Ortiz’s interaction with Spanish intellectuals of the “regeneration” group also featured important polemics. One of the best known is the one he carried on with University of Oviedo historian Rafael Altarnira. Altamira visited Cuba in 1910 where he engaged in a rhetoric that. in the opinion of many Cubans struggling to consolidate Cuban nationality and sovereignty, was too He advocated a “common Hischarged with Spanish bias (espari~lismo).~’ panic homeland” based on the comrnon spirit of both peoples and a common language, which should encourage unity and not separation.” Altamira also encouraged the forgetting of .’darkv events in the history of Spain in America and alerted his peers to the dangers of North American expansion and its attacks on the interests of Hispanic Americans and Spaniards, as well as what he called “our racial heritage.’“j In Ortiz’s mind, Altamira’s words regarding race-the “moral unity of race,” ‘.Spanish roots,” and the ‘.mission of Spainn–echoed the voices of traditional and regressive Spain, a continuous allusion to a common homeland, that for the Cuban anthropologist had long ago ceased to exist. For Ortiz. these words lacked intellectual content but were pregnant with political significance. To him they were the expressions of the new Spanish expansionism, of the so-called Pan-Hispanism and they collided head-on with his integratory and nationalist ideals. He condemned the attitude of certain Spanish intellectuals who, taking advantage of Altamira’s presence in Cuba, tried to revive the ghosts of the past by remembering heroic deeds and ignoring the country’s problems.” In Reconquista
de Amkl-ica (The Reconquest of Spain), a collection of articles regarding his differences a ~ i t hAltamira, Ostiz defended arguments against the term race and in favor of culture and science. These arguments would later grow more consistent. Ortiz’s criticism centers on the notion of “historical community” employed by Pan-Hispanists, as well as the views of a number of Spanish intellectuals who continued to exalt Spanish heroic deeds (Restas) without considering Cuban sensibilities. Ortiz proposed a rapprochement between Spain and Cuba on the bases of culture and civilization: .’deprived of an intense and dominant civilization, race is an armor with no warrior inside; language, a nlouth with no tongue; religion, a bell with no toll.”‘i In his criticism of Pan-Hispanism as an expansionist ideology, Ortiz brandishes his dynamic conceptions of culture and vindicates the original American and Cuban cultures. Based on these assessments, leaving aside paternalism and ghosts from the past, Ortiz proposed a model for building relations betn-een countries. Finally, Ostiz wondered with skepticisms if there mas any such thing as a Spanish race. Despite these disputes, Ortiz maintained a close connection with Spain through the intellectuals who abandoned chauvinistic and racial rhetoric, and who n-orked in favor of science and culture. Proof of these contacts is the continuous correspondence bemeen Ortiz and different Spanish authors, criminologists, criminal laayers, historians, anthropologists, and sociologists. In response to Ortiz’s interest, expressed through Jose M. Chacon, Emilio Cotarelo, who in 1925 was the secretar); of the Real Academia de la Lengua Espafiola, proposed the organization of an Academia in Cuba. It would be similar to the one in Spain, where sixteen people -would work alongside Ortiz and Dr. Pichardo. Ortiz welcomed this suggestion as a “ver); positive benefit for Hispanic culture and the protection of the language.” In July of that same year. Fernando Ortiz was appointed an honorary member of the Academia de Jurisprudencia y Legislacion E ~ p a n o l a . ‘ ~ His close connection to Spain was evident on several other occasions. One of them was the visit of Adolfo Bonilla San Martin to the Academia de la Historia de Cuba in 1925. Ortiz intended to establish an open dialogue beyond that of race, a pronlinent subject among intellectuals and politicians in Spain. He suggested the study of a common histov as a means of approaching the traditions of Spain and thereby understanding those of Cuba, but without resosting to the argument of other intellectuals a-ho stated that race was the common element among Hispanic countries. He wanted to establish cultural and scientific relationships based on equality, not on subordination, and on mutual knowledge-not only knowledge of Spain, hut on respect of each other’s history and the singularity of Cuban histov. In 1928, on the occasion of his visit to Spain, Ostiz again criticized the manner in which the Spanish government tried to approach Spanish America by invoking religion and race. Still, he believed that an alliance with Spain was a
24
Consuelo ,Varan;lo Orot,zo and .Mzguel Angel Puzg-Samper Mulero
historical imperative. Searching the common past for the possible causes of the current state of relations between the two nations, Ortiz’s thinking grew closer to that of some Spanish intellectuals. He recognized the vices and qualities of the Cuban people in Spanish history and advocated the strengthening of a Latin culture with its own voice. Thus, he commented, “Cuba, in not few respects, is more Spanish than Spain itself.”+- Despite this, he refused to accept the propaganda that certain politicians and intellectuals created around religion, language, and race. He retorted that despite inquisitorial and racist fanatics, there was neither a Spanish religion nor a Spanish race. Likewise, in a short interview after his trip to Spain that year, Ortiz opposed Americanism and classic Hispanic-Americanism.’” In 1929, Benjamin Jarnks commented on Ortiz’s trip in Reuista AmBrica, stressing Ortiz’s words in favor of culture and not race, ‘purgatives, not balsams. Open air, not chains. Vitality, not stagnation.” Continuing this thought, Jarnes argued that the term race was mostly formed by negative historical elements and not by living substance. Remembering Ortiz’s observation “culture can attract, race can’t,” he argued the shortcomings of considering race as the common link between countries.’”
Ortiz was pivotal in the initiative to establish Spanish-Cuban relations at the intellectual level, from the early twentieth century until the arrival of Spanish exiles in Cuba as a result of the Spanish Civil War (19361939). With regard to his connection to the Spanish cultural world and his correspondence with Unamuno and Dorado, among others, one must differentiate between two distinct stages. In the first stage, up to the 1920s. Ortiz adopted a very critical position toward Spanish culture, favoring Americanization over Hispanization. On the one hand, Ortiz admired Altamira for his efforts at modernizing Spain through Europeanization and scientific renovation. On the other hand, at the time of Altamira’s trip to Cuba in 1910, Ortiz criticized his effort to persuade Spanish American countries to re-Hispanize themselves in order to counteract the aggressive penetration of Anglo-Saxon culture. Ortiz countered that if Spain needed to Europeanize, then Cuba and other Spanish American countries would be required to Americanize so as to achieve modernity.jO Gradually Ortiz moderated his early radical views and became disillusioned with the idea that all modernity would come from the North. The example in other Latin American countries. such as Argentina, Uruguay or Mexico, where exchange institutes with Spain had been established, led Ortiz to an important decision. On November 12, 1926, he proposed the creation of the Institucion Hispano-Cubana de Cultura (IHCC) in Havana during a lec-
Spanish I~ztellectz~als and Fernando Ortiz /1900-1941)
25
ture at the Sociedad Econ6mica de Amigos del Pais, an institution he then presided over and considered the .*Cubandaughter of the Enlightenment.” The official establishment of the IHCC was approved ten days after with the main objective of endeavoring to increase the intellectual relations between Spain and Cuba through the exchange between scientists, artists, and students, the founding of professorships, and publicizing activities geared toward the intensification and diffusion of our own culture.”
The IHCC, which Ortiz founded in Havana on November 22, 1926, emerged in the midst of the Sociedad Economics as a result of Ortiz’s intellectual commitment to other Spanish-speaking nations and specifically Spain. It was an independent association. free of political allegiances, that attracted prestigious Spanish intellectuals who came to Cuba as felloa~sand professors. In 1928, the institution launched its own journal, :Vensajes de la Instittlcidn Hispanocubana de Cz~ltura,and in 1930 it sponsored another publication, the monthly S u ~ c o .Among the first Cuban members of the IHCC, apart from its founder, were Ramiro Guerra, Jorge Manach, Juan Marinello, Carlos Loveira, Herminio Portell Vila, Israel Castellanos, Ramon Grau San Martin, and Jose C. Millas. Among the Spanish members residing in the island were Bernardo Solis, M. Solis Mendieta, and Aquilino Entrialgo, the owners of the well-known store El Encanto; Jose Solis, the deputy director of the Diario de la Marina; Pedro Sanjuan, the founder of Havana’s Symphonic Orchestra; Alfredo Blanco, of the Galician Center; and Joaquin Sisto and Ceferino Moran, the owners of the store Fin de Siglo.j2 Female membership at the IHCC was initially small but would later be important. Anthropologist Lydia Cabrera was among the important female scholars to join. Cabrera was a member of the IHCC’s Feminine Advisory Committee, which had eleven members, among them Hortensia Lamar, Renk Mendez Capote, Lily Hidalgo de Conill, and Pilar Morlon. Concerning economic support, the IHCC received numerous financial contributions from private donors, such as the publishing house Cultural S.A., Casino Espanol, Centro Asturiano. Centro Gallego, and Centro Andaluz. Also, the steamship company Compania Transatlantica Espaiiola granted transportation fares with a 40 percent discount for invited professors traveling to Havana.j3 Avelino GutiQrez of the Institution Cultural Espanola in Buenos Aires provided an additional donation.ji A tacit agreement was also established betn-een Ortiz and Manuel Aznar to announce the activities of the IHCC in the Diario de la Marina of Havana. Institutional support included local agreements with the University of Havana and with the Junta para la Arnpliacion de Estudios e Investigaciones Cientificas (JAE) in Madrid to represent the IHCC in Spain and cooperate in
26
Consuelo l\bra?q’o Orocio and Migziel Angel Pznig-Satlzper :2ilzllel-o
the organization of courses. Other institutions, such as the Spanish Cultural Institute (Institucion Cultural Espanola) in New York and the HispanicMexican University Exchange Institution (Institute Hispano-Mexicano de Intercambio Universitario), also expressed willingness to link activities.ji In an interview in the Dialio de la .Marina on the occasion of the IHCC’s inauguration. Ortiz declared the objectives of the new institution to be free of political bias, sectarianism, unilateral schools, and propaganda and to be strictly at the service of art and science. The institution would not spend time or resources in “songs to race, language, history. or the empire of Cervantes”; it would encourage intellectual work and study. Ortiz also announced that he had already invited Spanish professors Blas Cabrera and Fernando de 10s Rios, at the time in Mexico, to participate in the inauguration of the IHCC. Ortiz also expressed the desire to collaborate with Josk Ortega y Gasset, Navarro Tomas, Gregorio Maraiion. Arnerico Castro, Gustavo Pittaluga, Federico de Onis, and Menkndez Pidal on conferences and courses in Havana and to sponsor Cuban scholars sent to Spain to enhance their studies. The dictatorship of Gerardo Machado (1925-1933) forced Ortiz to leave Cuba and reside in New York and Washington. D.C. (1931-1933). From abroad, he unsuccessf~illyattempted to continue publishing Surco. Upon his return to Cuba, he reorganized the IHCC. which started operating once again in 1936. During this second stage, the institution counted among its members several women who had been very active at the Lyceum, a prominent gathering place for Cuba’s leading female intellectuals. Elena Mederos de Gonzalez even became vice president of the IHCC. The new objectives of the institution were published in 1Jltm(Havana. 19361947). This journal became the institution’s organ and published the proceedings of its conferences, publicized its activities, and diffused knowledge and current scientific advances. On November 1, 1939, “Hora Ultra” aired on the radio as a cultural program in which Cuban and foreign intellectuals participated, including Spanish professors residing in Cuba. In 1926, Chac6n was nominated delegate and correspondent of the IHCC in hladrid with the objective of strengthening relations with spain.j6 0rtiz asked Chac6n to contact Menendez Pidal and Ortega to inform them that his objective was to establish a Hispanic American exchange circuit: Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Lima, Mexico, and Havana, for which he required the JAE’s assistance. Committed to his tasks from the very beginning. Chac6n constantly informed Ortiz on the negotiations and internal dynamic of the JAE, its problems and consenrative detractors. as well as on the decisions adopted in Spain with regard to America.’- One such decision was the creation of the Cultural Relations Board (Junta de Relaciones Culturales) in 1926, within the Spanish Ministry of State, independent from the JAE and designed to diffuse and extend Spanish culture.ix The debate that the creation of this new board produced led Chac6n to recommend to Ortiz that he tactfully keep the insti-
Spanish Intellectuals and Fernando Ortiz (1900-1941)
27
tutes in touch. Ortiz replied that he would only maintain contact and exchanges with the JAE.j9 To get the project moving, Ortiz contacted Santiago Ramon y Cajal, the president of the JAE in March 1927, informing him that he wanted the JAE to represent the IHCC in Spain, and pointing out that his decision had been based on the scientific prestige of the JAE.~O Ortiz also informed Ramon e Cajal about the IHCC’s scientific program, which would feature the participation of renowned Spanish scientists and intellectuals. Professors were requested to give ten lectures on cultural and scientific issues for associates of the IHCC, and an additional five or six lectures at the University of Havana. In exchange, they would receive two thousand pesos and steamship fare. To establish networks and connections and to ensure flexible and economic trips for the Spanish professors, Ortiz was constantly in contact with the Cultural Institute in Mexico, the University of Puerto Rico, and the Instituto de las Espanas, later renamed the Hispanic Institute (Institute Hispiinico), directed by Federico de Onis at Columbia University in New York. In 1927, Ram6n y Cajal wrote to Ortiz, congratulating him on the creation of the IHCC and thanking him for honoring the JAE with the mission of representing it in Spain. Ramon y Cajal also wired Ortiz a message of “total agreement with the orientations and ideals you propose,” adding that the JAE shared the same principles: scientific work with independence from politics. religion, and n a t i ~ n a l i t y . ~ ~ Personal relations and interaction between Ortiz and the JAE’s Jose Castillejo also grew strong with time. In his letters, Ortiz addressed Castillejo as his “ideal friend,” and they wrote to each other several times per month. Some of these letters show the routine workings and problems facing the IHCC and the JAE. In reference to the IHCC’s efforts to increase its membership and obtain funds to purchase its own building, Ortiz asked Castillejo to . ~an~ send Spanish artistic and educational films for bimonthly s h o a ~ i n g sIn other letter. Ortiz informed Castillejo about the achievements of Spanish scholars such as Professor Luis de Zulueta, who established IHCC branches in Santiago, Matanzas, Sagua, and Manzanillo and encouraged the creation of those in Camaguey and Santa Clara. He also informed Castillejo that the Spanish ambassador had notified him that the Spanish minister of state had granted three free tickets per year for Spanish professors to travel and work with the IHCC; the IHCC was required to send proposals for each individual . ~ ~ offer of free tickets guest to the Spanish minister of public e d ~ c a t i o nThis did not materialize, and the IHCC’s financial limitations forced Ortiz to request aid for tickets from the Spanish embassy in Havana. Within the JAE, critics targeted Ortiz’s position that the IHCC alone should select the exchange scholars. Chachn immediately communicated this to Ortiz, who wrote to Castillejo to clarify the objectives of the IHCC. Ortiz also commented that, contrary to other cultural institutions, the IHCC was not
28
Consuelo ,'uraizju Or01 10 and Jl~griclA gel Pli~~y-Sarnper .Wulero
composed exclusively of Spanish individuals whose only objective was to show the American youth the positive values of contemporary Spanish mentality. Ortiz understood the hostility that the IHCC could trigger in Spain, as its objective was “culture and the spiritual improvement of my country.” He reminded Castillejo that the IHCC counted on Cubans and some Spaniards who “back us, and have as their primary objective the spiritual advance of Cuba and for which we want to open up sources of culture from all horizons.” This, he argued, was one of the reasons why the leadership of the IHCC should control the decisions regarding the selection of speakers. Additionally, the IHCC acted not only as an agency for the extension of studies but also as a lecture society, and therefore it had to offer its associates lectures that met their interest. The IHCC commitnient was not only with Spain, although Spain had certain preference, but also with the rest of Latin Arnerica. Lastly the IHCC financed m o annual scholarships in Spain, some of which were brokered by the JAE in Madrid. The exchange program began in Januasy 1927 with lectures by Fernando de 10s Rios and Blas Cabrera. Cabrera spoke on “The Evolution of Stars,” and de 10s Rios spoke on the intellectual Renaissance of Spain.” Cabrera gave ta.0 further lectures in the Aula Magna of the University of Havana: “Organization of the Atom and the Periodical Classification” and “Magnetic Properties and Atomic Structure of the Elements.” Rios proceeded with his other lectures at the university, the Spanish Casino, and the National Theater of Havana, and then moved on to the IHCC branches of Cie~ifuegosand Sagua la Grande. Over time, the program gren. to include many prominent intellectuals. On scientific topics, apart from the participation of Cabrera, the IHCC also invited a Catalan expert on tuberculosis. Luis Sayi., who gave a lecture in June at the Teatro Principal de la Comedia on “New Social Aspects of the Struggle against Tuberculosis.” The impact of Say6’s participation in Havana resulted in the selection of Rita Shelton, the first Cuban scholar to study in Madrid; she then decided to work with Say6 in Barcelona as a member of one of the most important medical circles at the time.” Another Cuban scholar, Arsenio Roa, went to the Universidad Central in Madrid to work with the economist Flores de Lemus. Toward the end of the year, the IHCC achieved one of its main goals: the appearcince of Gregorio Maran6n in Havana. Maran6n gave a successful cycle of lectures in the Teatro Payret on issues relating to sexuality. The lectures gathered over three thousand people, according to Madrid’s El ~ 0 1 . ~ ‘ In 1928, a number of Spanish scientists and intellectuals continued arriving in Havana, some of them traveling from ,?.lexica! where a close link with Spain had been established. For example, the chemist Jose Casares Gil, a founder of the Spanish Society of Physics and Chemistry, arrived from Mexico in April to give three lectures in Havana on the theoretical principles of
Spanzsh Z?ztellectualsand Fernando Ortzz (1900-19411
29
chemistry, the study of the constitution of matter, and the use of chemistry in war.” Other speakers included Francisco Bernis, a professor of political economy and secretary of the General Council of Banking in Spain, and Antonio Fabra Rivas, a member of the International Labor Office of the League of n’ations.” Scientists included Roberto Novoa Santos, a professor of general pathology at the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, who arrived in Cuba 21s a JAE fellow thanks to the initiative of Castillejo.” Novoa’s lectures also took place at the IHCC branches of Santiago and Manzanillo. These lectures were apparently the most controversial, as he not only dealt with issues of pathology, but also discussed “The biological Status of Women.” He became the subject of the protests of a number of Cuban feminists, including pediatrician Hortensia Lamar who claimed that Novoa should be refuted in a c o ~ ~ n t e r l e c t u r e . ~ ~ Another lecture that received much attention was that of Arnerico Castro, who galre a long series of lectures on Spanish literary history. His a-ork nras widely discussed by the local press as being valuable for Cuban university students.-0 The following year Maria de Maeztu, director of the Residencia de Senoritas, visited Havana. Sponsored by the JAE, she primarily visited teaching centers in Cuba and gave a series of lectures for the 1HCC.-‘ Other ~ ? art specialist Jose Piparticipants included musician Joaquin T ~ r i n a ; the joan. a disciple of Giner and organizer of the Institut d’Estudis C a t a l a n ~ : ~ ~ and Camilo Barcia Trelles, a former JAE fellow in international law. founder of the Asociacion Francisco de Vitoria, and professor at the International Law Academy in The Hague.-+ Among the scientists, visitors included Francisco Duran Reynals, a disciple of Ram6n Turro who had been a JAE fellow at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and the Rockefeller Institute in Nen- York, where he conducted important research on immunity, bacteria, and cancer.-j In hlarch 1930, Federico Garcia Lorca visited Havana at Ortiz’s personal invitation. Garcia Lorca gave m o lectures on Gongora at the Teatro Principal de la Comedia, one on the mechanics of poetry, another on Spanish lullabies, and a third on the cante jondo, sometin~esplaying the piano during his lectures.-“ In December 1930, Ortiz was forced into exile, and during his absence, the activities and membership of the IHCC decreased substantially. Several visits by Spanish scholars were canceled, but other lecture series were held, including that of Salvador de Madariaga in May 1931. Additional one-time lectures by Cuban intellectuals took place, including one by Rita Shelton, who spoke on the problems of eugenics. Ortiz returned the following year, but his efforts to reactivate the IHCC did not bear fruit until 1936. That year Ortiz founded a new journal, Utr-a,which became a channel of expression for his intellectual interests as well as for the IHCC.
30
Consuelo ,Vara~goOrovzo and ,2lzguel Angel Pztzg-Samper lWulero
The inaugural act of the IHCC’s new phase took place on May 24, 1936, with a lecture on ‘.The Significance of the Spanish Revolution” by Spanish ambassador Felix Gordon Ordas. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the IHCC continued its cultural tasks but combined them with providing assistance to Spanish exiles arriving in Cuba. One of the first to arrive on the island was the poet Juan Ramon Jirnenez, alongside his wife, Zenobia Campnibi. He arrived in November 1936 from Puerto Rico as a personal guest of Ortiz. Jimenez gave three lectures for the IHCC on “The Pleasurable Work (or Political Poetry),” “The Spirit of Contemporary Spanish Poetry,” and ‘,Evoking Valle Inclan.” Finally, Jimenez organized a Cuban poetry festival in 1937 that resulted in the publication of La poesfa czlbana eu 1936.-During the initial stages of the war in Spain, the IHCC also studied the possibility of inviting Ortega y Gasset and Marafi6n to Cuba, but without success. One invitation that did materialize was that to Ramon Menendez Pidal in January 1937. Over the next months Menendez Pidal gave a series of lectures on the history of Spanish literature. These lectures were much praised by Jose M.Chacon in the journal L~jceum.’~ This publication also published the first articles by Luis Amado Blanco following his exile on the island.” The IHCC also welcomed musicologist Regino Sainz de la Maza and Adolfo Salazar, who had already cooperated with the IHCC in 1930.80Attempts were made to bring the poet Pedro Salinas to Cuba from the United States, where he had lived in exile since 1936,lecturing at Wellesley C ~ l l e g e . ~ ‘ During this period, the institution used its contacts to attempt to help Spanish academics as much as it could. In April, Ortiz contacted “The Society for the Protection of Science and Learning” in England to secure lectures for refugee Spanish professors. Soon afternard he contacted Federico de Onis making a similar request and asking for help from the United States.82 In May 1937, Gustavo Pittaluga, living at the time in Geneva, was invited by the IHCC to give lectures in Cuba.H3As on other occasions, the IHCC acted as host and intermediary between the Spanish scholar and Cuban academic institutions where he also held conferences. In Havana, Pittaluga gave a series of lectures in locales leased by the IHCC. such as the Teatro Campoamor. His lectures were published in Lyceum and L7tra.8’ He designed a series of courses and seminars in clinical hematology, and lectured at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Havana and in the Finlay Institute. In the Faculty of Medicine, he gave lectures and taught one practical course for students in their final year. Pittaluga’s notes n7ere published under the title Conyerencias de hematologfa: recopiladas por el Dr. Victor Santamaria (Havana, 1938) with a preface by Pedro Domingo and an introduction by Santamaria. Among the intellectuals visiting Havana in 1938, Claudio Sanchez Albornoz delivered a series of six lectures for the IHCC between March and April
Spanzsh I?ztellectr~al~ alzd Fernatzdo 0O1z(1900-19411
31
under the general title “From Medieval Spain to Contemporary Spain.” Summaries of his lectures were published in Ultra despite the author’s irritation at not being able to proofread the texts before their p u b l i ~ a t i o n , ~ ~ Alnerico Castro collaborated again with the IHCC in 1938. Castro’s second visit had been inexplicably postponed, leading him to believe that there were pressure groups in Cuba opposed to his “ide~logy.”~”oward the end of that year, Luis Recasens Siches, a professor of law, lectured on .’Society and Law in Human Life,”8-and Jose M. Ots Capdequi lectured on “Legal and Econon~icBases in the Social Organization of the Indies.” The latter had maintained contact with Ostiz since 1929, a-hile cultivating an active exchange in the Rezjista Bimestre Cz~batzafor publications frotll the HispanicCuban Institute of American Histol-~rin Seville (Rafael Gonz%lezAbreu Foundati~n).~” At the beginning of 1939, Luis de Zulueta returned to Cuba from exile in Colombia to deliver a series of lectures which were soon published in Also published were lectures by pla~wrightAlejandro Casona and a tribute to poets Garcia Lorca and Antonio Machado, held at the Teatro Encanto and performed by Ortiz and Spanish poets Manuel Altolaguirre and . ~ ~ that same year ~ l v a r ode Albornoz, a former Luis Arnado B l a n c ~During Spanish minister of development and justice, presented a course on political doctrines.” Ostiz continued to correspond mith other exiles, among them his friend Jost. Pijoin, who informed him of various matters from Ne~vYork and At’ the end of the Spanpromised to travel to Havana as soon as p ~ s s i b l e . ~ ish Ci\,il W7ar in 1940.Ortiz promoted the creation of the “Cuban Alliance for a Free Wrorld” within the IHCC as a lnechanism for .’defending the ideals of freedom, democracy, and social justice as fundamental for civilized and peaceful life among people.” Ortiz’s intellectual background, based on the most progressive Spanish traditions, and his efforts to continue sincere intellectual exchanges with Spanish scholars were fundamental for the fruitful continuation of modern Hispanic-Cuban intellectual ties during his lifetime.
NOTES This work is paIT of the Proyectos de Investigacihn BHA2000-1334 (hICyT) and 06/0091,’2000 (CAM). It is pan of a forthcoming book on the cultural and scientific relations b e m e e n Spain, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, 1920-1945. In Havana. assistance provided at the Sociedad Economica,’Instituto de Literaturd y Lingiiistica and the Biblioteca Nacional Jost. hlarti (Sala Cubana) was essential. We would like to express our thanks to the directors and libran staff of both institutions, and to the researchers who helped in the transcription of documents: Leida Fernsndez. Yolanda Diaz. Enrique L6pez. hlarid Antonia 12larqut.s. and Zoila Lapique. We would also like to thank Herrninia Reinat. the director of the Sala Zenobia y Juan Rarnhn Jimt.nez. Riblioteca
32
Consuelo .Varanjo Ororlo and .Mlguel Angel Pziig-Samper Mulero
de la Universidad de Puerto kco, Rio Piedras: and Carmen H. Pinzhn Moreno, the heir of Juan Ram6n Jimenez, for allon~inguse of the Juan Ram6n Jimenez’s papers in Puerto Rico.
Spanish Intellectuals and Fernando Ortiz (190&1941)
33
34
Consz~elo.\aran]o Oroz lo and ,Wzg~~el Angel Pz~zg-SamperA2ilz~lero
Spa~zlshIntellectuals and Fernando 01ll.z (1900-1941)
35
36
Consuelo .Varanjo O T O L and ‘ I ~ Jfzgzlel Angel Pwg-Samper ,Ifulero
Spanzsh Intellectuals and Fernando Ortiz (1900- 1941)
It All Started in Madrid Octavio di Leo
Fernando Ortiz owes much to Cuban literature. But, as with most obvious things, this debt has been little studied and remains unspoken. For such a prolific writer, with such a wide spectrum of interests developed over a lifetime, Ortiz made his own method of literature.’ I therefore begin with the first name cited in his first book, Hampa afro-cubana: Los negros brups (1906). This text was the first part of a .’Black Trilogy,” which remained unfinished at his death in 1969. It began with a prologue, written by the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso, and the first name Ortiz quoted was the Spanish writer Rafael Salillas (1855-1923). What do are know about Salillas? In the 1880s, Salillas was appointed inspector of the penitentiaries of the Crown and reviewed, among other prisons, Ceuta, in northern Africa. As a result of his travels, he published La uidapenal en Espa~iain 1888, a book that gave him a reputation as a criminal anthropologist. The prison of Ceuta became the model for his ideas for penitentiary reform in Spain: “The prison of Ceuta,” he says, “is the mother of all prison^.”^ Due to the history of constant harassment, the prison was contained within the walls of the barracks, which conferred on Ceuta the status of a .’penitentiary city.” This made the integration of the prisoners into the social netm-ork of the city easier. which was ultimately Salillas’s idea for a reform. In the same book, he describes the opposite of the Ceuta model, the prison of Alcala de Henares, which a-as built behind the university and next to the women’s reformatory, or casa galem. Between the casa galera and the prison there happened to be a small garden that became a meeting point for amorous prisoners from both sides of the garden. Here the lovers intercepted letters from, waited for, or betrayed each other. At times it was an
40
Octucio di Leo
Eden, at times an hortus conclusz~s.A subtle line in the book gives us an idea of its style: “female prisoners wash the clothes of their convict neighbors, and each bundle (hato) becomes a problem (li01.”~ The correspondence Salillas collected in La vidapenal went beyond the limits of a prison report and exceeded the purposes of the anthropology of his time. The gaze of a voyeur who finds pleasure in letters is one of the oldest topics of literature. In fact, while describing the characters he found in the correspondence from Alcala, Salillas related them to those the picaro Guzman de Alfarache found in the Naples prison in the sixteenth century. And it is to the “good memory of Mateo Alemkn,” a master of Spanish picaresque, that Salillas dedicates his Hampa: Antropologiapicaresca (1898). Salillas also analyzed the picaresque psychology of the gypsies, “princes of our ingenuities,” and put together two lineages that would pass from 1898 Spain to independent Cuba in the writings of Fernando Ortiz: the picaresque novel and social evolutionism. Ortiz visited the prison of Alcali de Henares in 1900 while studying law in Madrid. Like any law student in Madrid in those days, the name Ceuta must have sounded familiar to him. The stories Ortiz (overlheard about the prison in Ceuta could hardly be quoted, but oral historiography, as proved by Jan Vansina in Central Africa, can also be told on another scale: the beginning and end of life, within the limits of kinship. Noam Chomsky said once in an interview that kinship systems are the mathematics of the illiterate. During his last trip to Ceuta4 in October 1889, Salillas interviewed several Cuban prisoners who belonged to an all-male secret society that originated anlong the people of the coast of Calabar, in equatorial West Africa. In Cuba, these men were known as fiafiigos, but their African name was Abakua. In the works of Ortiz and later on in those of Lydia Cabrera, the name of Salillas is often associated with the study of those secret societies. Salillas started publishing the results of his research on Ceuta in 1901.i According to Garcia Carranza, Ortiz wrote over one thousand pages on the fiafiigos that remain unp u b l i ~ h e dThat . ~ text could give a clue to the whereabouts of those interviews by Salillas, which became the original myth of Afro-Romance anthropology. The first documents about the establishment of an Abaku%society in Cuba go back to 1835 and to the Havana district of Regla. When Ortiz wrote about the Cuban hampa or undemorld, the fiaeigos were the talk of the town. With the migration of the former slaves from the interior to the cities or, to put it in Alejo Carpentier’s words, from the diabetic giant” to the capital, something unexpected happened on the island. Secret societies, devoid of their religious links and freed from forced labor in the sugar plantations, were seen as having criminal associations on the new urban horizon. According to the golden rule of these societies, if one of its member or ecobios happened to be attacked by another faction of the Abakuas, the brothers under oath should come to his defense. That explains why several
It All Stavted in Madrid
41
men belonging to one or the other faction of the GaGigos were killed in Havana. Texts that followed that of Ortiz were more vehement in their condemnation of the crimes, such as a treatise by the police inspector Rafael Roche, who in 1908 decided that the Abakuas were the bete noire of postslavery Cuba.’ With an arsenal of photographs and coarse vocabulary, Roche proposed a method for recognizing the riariigos by their tattoos and their slang-in other words, by the marks of body and language. Ironically enough, it wasn’t until the arrival of Lydia Cabrera, who as a woman was banned from the secret rites, that the real stories told by and of those Cuban Abakugs became public in 1970.8Some of her informants attributed the wave of fiariigo terror after the abolition of slavery to the entry of white members into the societies, the first of which was the legendary Andres Petit, in 1875. Until 1880, every year on the Epiphany, or Dfa de Reyes, African descendants were allowed to parade to the Palacio de Gobierno. For the occasion, they danced, sang, and dressed in costume.”he rest of the population was used to the spine-chilling masks of the Abakug ritual, the so-called iremes or fiafias, from which the pejorative Gariigo is derived. Stories about these fremes and about the murder of the “niria Zoila” a-ere manipulated to scare an entire generation of Cuban children. In 1904, when Ortiz was living in Europe and writing in the Archivi di Psichiatria, edited by Lombroso, a white girl named Zoila was killed on a sugar plantation by a Congo (not an Abaku5) sorcerer (bmjo) by the name of Bocii. The story of this murder is a constant reference in Ortiz’s Hampa afrocubana, and is used to justlfy a regional branch of the criminal anthropology invented by Lombroso, which Ortiz was eager to call “tropical criminology.” Soon afterward, upon his return to Cuba, he would change his mind. In 1902, as an example of how the Zeitgeist had already taken a different course, one of the anarchists in Joseph Conrad’s Z5e Secret Agent says: Lombroso is an ass [. . .I. Did you ever see such an idiot? For him the criminal is the prisoner. Simple, is it not? What about those who shut him up there forced him in there? Exactly. Forced him in there. And what is crime? Does he know that. this imbecile who has made his way in this world of gorged fools by looking at the ears and teeth of a lot of poor. luckless devils? Teeth and ears mark the criminal? Do they? And what about the law that marks him still better the pretty branding instrument invented by the overfed to protect themselves against the hungry? Red-hot applications of their vile skins-hey? Can’t you smell and hear fro111 here the thick hide of the people burn and sizzle? That’s honcriminals are made for your Lombrosos to write their silly stuff about.
Lombroso, in fact, had coined the termpolizia scientfica, an euphemism for his criminal anthropology, and one of its main goals was the abolition of secret societies.1° Seen in retrospect, it prefigured the Italian fascism of the 1920s. But Ortiz’s own developments, in language and context. were already
42
Octat3iodl Leo
closer to those of Salillas, for whom slang was the most revealing feature of the hampa. Talking of the barnpa in Spain, Ortiz described its slang, the germania, as ,’un reino dentro de otro rei?zo,”llwhich in turn related the Abaku5 societies to Freemasonry and the Mafia. He soon realized, however, that any positivistic study of criminal slang would leave aside a whole field of secret spells and incantatory formulas which every sacred language consists of, and he proposed a theory of linguistic change that included the ritual function of language, thus going far beyond his purposes as a criminologist: The principles that gave birth to the sacred slangs, of which that of the bmjos is an illustration, deny the possibility of their frequent variation. The god is unable to understand a series of articulated sounds with a key it does not know; neither can priests among themselves, or the faithful while hunting or fishing, use those improper sounds; neither would the praising periphrasis make sense, nor would prayer (omcidn) have the virtue of obliging the gods. . . . The survival of ancient languages and words in these tongues also demonstrates without dispute their general stability Thus, the greater the degree of cohesion among the priests and the faithful, the greater the stabi1it)- of the slang. This occurs with criminal slangs: the most lasting are those used by cri~ninalassociations; compare in Spain the use of the ancient gerlr~alziuwith the scarce and more variable speeches of Spanish criminals today, whose associations are disappearing.12
From this rich passage. I would like to expand on the concept of omcion, because in the original Spanish it has a double connotation: that of the prayer to invoke the divine and also the minimum unit of syntax. These two meanings will be particularly useful in the 1920s. when both poets and anthropologists would try to incorporate the different African languages used in the liturgies across the island into a new may of writing. In other words, it will be a bridge between the oral and the written traditions of Cuba. By the time Ortiz had published Hut?pa aji-o-cubana in Madrid and returned to Cuba, he had spent three-quarters of his life in Europe: first in Minorca, where he was taken at the age of one by his mother and where he wrote compositions at school in the dialect of the island, and later in Barcelona, Madrid, Coruna, h?.larseilles,and Genova. As the first oral historian of Cuba, he had no other choice than to in>enthis precursors: “I started doing research,” he says, “but soon I realized t h t , like all Cubans, I was confused.”‘3 Nothing suited him better in this task than revisiting the island after a long stay abroad. It gave him a panoramic view and the opportunity to redefine the map of Africa from the perspective of Cuba. That view took shape in Spain in Madrid, in Alcala de Henares. and in the mythic Ceuta of Salillas. It was his idea of a “penitentiary city” that n-e find again in Hampa afrocubana: ‘.if there were a tnle criminal colony in Cuba, the problem [of the isolation of the bmjol m~ouldalmost he solved. as bm~joscould take up special tasks, isolated from the other categories of criminals.””
It All Started in Madrid
43
After his formative years in criminology, Ortiz realized that in order to write a social history of Cuba, he had to intenriew the “negros de nacidn,” understand the ritual use of their musical instruments, study their languages, and describe the structure of their secret societies. The nineteenth-century abolitionist prose, ranging from the literary circle of Domingo del Monte in the 1830s to Cirilo Villaverde’s Cecilia Vald6s (1882), certainly knew the mysteries of black Cuba. But the descriptions came from the educated sons of the masters, and, with the exception of the autobiography by an ex-slave (Manzano, 1839), they were written in the third person. Among Ortiz’s achievements was the realization that in order to eventually rescue the first person in Afro-Cuban storytelling, he had to make use of interviews. This was something he had learned from Salillas’s adventures in Ceuta and from Raymundo Nina Rodrigues’s excursions to the teweiros, or temples, of Bahia in Brazil. Nina Rodrigues had written a milestone article in 1897, about and during the millenarian protests in Canudos, Bahia, in which self-proclaimed prophet Antonio Conselheiro posed the first test for the young republic after the abolition of slavery, by keeping the national army on guard. Euclides da Cunha’s notes as a war correspondent in Canudos m-ould eventually turn into the canonical 0 s se~t6es(1902), describing the circumstances in the life of Antonio Conselheiro as an “agent of history.” Likewise Nina Rodrigues, trained as a forensic doctor, felt the causes of the revolt arere in Conselheiro’s mind. In his article “A loucura epidemics de Canudos,” he characterized the disease of the millenarist Messiah as endemic and hereditary. Nina Rodrigues became a criminologist par excellence in Brazil and started publishing scientific papers in Europe. He died during a visit to Paris, in 1906, at the age of fortyfour. He was on a mission to buy new technology for the morgue of the Medicine School in Bahia, and it was the first time he had left the country. His career had begun to take off while he was engaged in fieldwork on the terreiros of Salvador. We know, for instance, that his favorite informant was Martiniano Eliseu do Bonfim, an old Yoruba who after being freed returned to Lagos, spent several years learning the customs, and came back to Salvador. He eventually became a bahala6 or priest surrounded by the prestige that his trip across the Atlantic and the knowledge of an African language had given Fernando Ortiz knew the work of Nina Rodrigues and quoted it several times in important passages of his own writings. The Brazilian, from the standpoint of legal medicine, and Ortiz, from that of criminal law, aimed in the same direction: the inclusion of the black people into the legal system following the end of slavery. And both, at the beginning of their careers, a7ereconvinced of the need to fulfill the plan of European anthropology by dividing the oikoumenes into ethnographic provinces. The discovery of the Africans in Ibero-America made the integration of the young republics of Brazil and Cuba into the ethnographic literature at the turn of the century
44
Octa~lzodl Leo
possible. Epistemological validation, however, came together with political recognition: in the positivistic universe, the authority of the scientific community meant as well a place in the concert of nations. Yet Afro-Romance anthropology, as much as Malinowski’s ethnography in the western Pacific, was born in extremis, when the object of the study was about to disappear. Nina Rodrigues and Ortiz \vere aware of the fact that no one before them had accepted the challenge of systemizing the geoethnical origin of the Africans in Brazil or Cuba. Even before Malinowski’s elegy to the Argonauts of the South Seas, they both m.rote a saran song for the people who were about to vanish from the map of the world: the last Africans in Brazil and the last Africans in Cuba. Once they disappeared, poets and storytellers would have only one choice: writing by heart. And for them this posed one of the most intricate dilemmas of literature: not only to write as the last Africans spoke, but to do it when they spoke no more.16In Los 7zegros esclauos (1916), the second part of his Harnpa afro-cubana, Ortiz gives his own version of Afro-Cuban historiography: I have been unable to obtain a full report regarding the diverse origins of the cargoes of ebony. . . . I will merely provide an indication of the names of the African regions which I have seen quoted in the xvork of Cuban authors and ancient documents which I have consulted, with certain clarifications and observations regarding their location in Africa. largely unknown given that no one before me has delved into this theme publicly, and I consider it to be essential for Cuban anthropology.’-
This set the pace of a toponynlical adventure in Africa. Beyond the organization of the material into long catalogs and in alphabetical order, Ortiz seems to imply that the only sources for this imaginary atlas afm’canus were the written ones, both domestic and foreign.’%~ong the vernacular sources of Los negros esclavos, there n a s a map of Africa designed by Esteban Pichardo, a Dominican polymath, in 1866. WTelearn about this unseen map, however, only through a footnote in Ortiz, which gives the scientific source a literary character, as an apocryphal qu0t3tion.l~Pichardo’s map divided the western coast of Africa into the five “nations” of hlandinga, Gangs, Lucumi, Carabali, and Congo. With its obvious limitations, it counts as the first map in the toponymical chain. The French doctor Henri Dumont was another precursor from the nineteenth century in systematizing the geographic origin of the Africans in Cuba. Simultaneously with Los negros esclavos, Ortiz started publishing Dumont’s 1866 report (same year as Pichardo’s map) in Dumont visited hospitals and sickbays at difthe Revista Bimestre C~lbana.?~’ ferent sugar plantations a-here he examined and photographed slaves following Pichardo’s classification of nations. He then arrived at the statistic conclusion that slaves, more than freed laborers and certainly more than white people, could live more than one hundred years. Dumont’s figures au-
It All Started z ~ Jfadr-id z
45
thorized and spread the myth of longevity in nineteenth-century Cuba. In ethnography, longevity plays a key role because it narrows down the infinite versions and diversions of oral history to the limits of individual biography. It is nonetheless true that the interviewer must face other obstacles, such as translation and self-censorship. But by resorting to a witness, he reduces the margin of error every transmission entails. The rnore we move away from that ‘tietnpo-Esparia.”as colonial times were called in Cuba, the rnore crucial the longevity of the informants becomes. And it was longevity that built a bridge bemeen the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, bemeen the colony and the republic. A connection also existed between the clinical case studies by the pathologist Dumont, the type described in the first writings of Ortiz, and the stylized (Azlto)Biograph.yof a Runaulay Slatle (1966) by Miguel Barnet. Barnet tells readers of his Biography that he has omitted the repetitions in the account of the maroon, .’but what if repetition is an essential part of Montejo’s rhetoric, a mnemonic device, a forn~ulalike those present in oral literature, particularly in epic poems?”?’ Unlike Lydia Cabrera, homrever, for whom the juxtaposed voices of her informants kept their oral tone because they had been transcribed from interviews. the first-person account of the ex-slave Esteban Montejo is indistinguishable from Barnet’s ego scriptor. This new assimilation of anthropology and literature, which contributed to the widening circle of readers of ethnography, also offered Barnet the possibility to position himself as the last link in the series that, after the medical attempts of the nineteenth century, was initiated by Fernando Ortiz in 1906. Soon the oral map of Africa R-ouldn’t be drawn from written sources alone but also from stories told by Africans themselves. After discovering their interlocutors, anthropologists felt the need to fill the linguistic gap bemeen themselves and their informants with the writing of dictionaries. In the history of Cuban dictionaries, Pichardo’s Diccionat-io provincial casi-mzonado de tlozes cuhanas (1836) starts with the series of Africanisms incorporated into the national language. It gathers many indigenous words, although the native speakers were long extinct in Cuba, but mixes up the words of African origin, n~hosespeakers were nlell alive. In nineteenth-century Cuba, there was a linguistic continuurn that ranged from peninsular Castilian or Creole. on one end, to a multiplicity of African languages, on the other, with bozal or pidgin in betn-een. This hozal became increasingly similar to standard Spanish, and eventually only managed to survive in those places where the black population remained more or less stable, such as certain areas in Matan~as.~* The dictionary by Pichardo begins with an autobiographical prologue, in which he describes his journey through the Caribbean: *‘Bornat the heart of the island of Santo Domingo, emigrating with my family as a child to the interior of Cuba, I spent my first years in the populous and very Creole city of
Port-au-Prince; I have traveled across the Island [Cuba] by land and sea, as fact that he had been to the three Spanishwell as in Puerto Rico.”‘“he speaking islands confers Pichardo with the authority to compare and later write down the words he hears in his dictionary. Fernando Ortiz wrote his own dictionary in 1923, which he called Cataz~ro de cubanismos. The term catauro refers to a kind of backpack made of the bark of the palma real tree, which is of the utmost importance in Afro-Cuban mythology. The guajiro or peasant puts his belongings for his journeys through the island in the Catazlro. Thus, the Catauro was meant to be a pocket dictionary of Cuban idioms. Ortiz’s definitions remind us of the thesaurus by Covarrubias, a key paradigm for Spanish since the early seventeenth century, where philological erudition goes together with explanation by hearsay. As a result, he incorporates the pidgin into the Cuban Spanish. In this sense, the Catauro de cz~banismosis the first Afro-Cuban dictionary. The lexicographical notes of the Catauro, which Ortiz calls “cubicherias,” would reappear in his second dictionar)., the Glosario de afronegrismos (1924), which contains only African words imported to Cuba during four centuries of slave trade. As is his want, every time he explores a new field, Ortiz warns readers of his Glosario that nobody before him had examined the linguistic influence of Africa in Spanish America. But at the same time, aware of the fact that he is not a linguist. he applies the information he collected on the geographic origin for Los Tzegros esclauos to formulate an AfroCuban protolinguistics: We do not consider that the African linguistic nonlenclature has been sufficiently established in all cases, nor can lye assure that the entries in this glossary are the definitive for the etymology of African words. W are unable to afford the luxury of dealing with, for example. lvords derived from the Bantu, Olofo, Yoruba, and other; and even less so, on the basis of the common expressions of place or origin which we conserve here. when talking of the derivations from the Congo. Mandingo, Calabar, or Lucun~i.~’
Of the many terms Ortiz recovers from oblivion, I explore one that was particularly meaningful to him, cocorica~?zo.which from republican Cuba goes back to the Spanish Golden Age.’i In 1929. Ortiz published an extensive note about the history of this African word in the Spanish language. By giving a brief synthesis of the African diaspora, he showed a thorough knowledge not only of the written sources but also of the oral ones. Unless otherwise proven, the term coco tralreled to Spain from Africa and the West Indies, through the Bantu blacks, known as Congolese and Angolas, who influenced the Spanish language. These influences came from those continents to Spain, during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, via the impact on the language of white children, who the blacks bred in America, and that of adults, with whom they nlingled in dance and love. At
It All Started in M a d ~ i d
47
their return to their original places in Spain, these white Spaniards in turn transmitted their infantile or vulgar terms to their fellow countrymen, following their long stay in the coastlands of the New World. Now they were indianos and blackened in their language due to the dense African slave population, which inhabited the coastal areas where the Indians once l i ~ e d . ~ “ Coco is a term that travels from Bantu languages, which covers the fearsome, from the fierce beasts, the flying birds, the extraordinary and powerful insects, the clinging arm, and the strong claw, to the ghost which imagination creates. Fear of the coco is fear of all that is “supernatural,” a sacred fear. I must end my evaluation by situating this term, which n-e have discovered in multiple similar terms in Cuba, within contemporary anthropology. The cocorfcamo is nothing more than what ethnographers today refer to as mana.2-In this way, philology offers Ortiz the opportunity of remaking the journey of the Africans to Spain, be it from Africa or from Spanish America. He felt entitled to defy both the Diccionario de la Real Acadet?zia and the first chronicler of Indies, Fernandez de Oviedo. The former had given the word coco an Aimara origin, and the latter, in his Historia getzet”a1y natural de las Itzdias, had compared the coconut to the monkey, from a-hich the term macaco derives. If, in twentieth-century anthropological jargon, “the Cuban cocorfcanzo is the mana of the Melanesians,” a r e should keep in mind that the word coco, whatever its route to Spain might have been, carried by a Bantu language. is already found in the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes, as early as 1554. When Lazaro, quintessence of the Spanish pfca?”o,talks about his stepbrother’s fear of the black father, he described the following scene: I remember that when my black stepfather was working, as the child saw that Iny mother and nlyself were white, and not his ktther, he ran fearfully towards
my mother and said. “Mother, coco!” He replied, laughing, “Son of a bitch!” Although young, I realized what my brother had said, and told myself. “How many in the world nln from others because they do not see themselves!”
There is a further entry for cocoricanzo proposed by Lydia Cabrera in her Cz~entostzegros de Cuba, whose animal fables could easily be related to the medieval Spanish tradition, as to the collection of stories by the German ethnologist Leo Frobenius in his Black Decalneron (1910). The nuin character in the story told by Cabrera is a tortoise, Jicotea, who makes a musical instrument to attract the other animals of the forest in order to eat them. This popular trickster of the Yoruba tradition explains what his instrument is made of: .’I call it ‘cocom’camo.’ I’ve made it so to speak with my good and evil heart.”lWe can conclude that, underlying the findings of anthropologists, there was a tradition that came to Cuba from Spain-the picaresque, one of the richest in this language. and that gave them a frame for understanding the ambiguities of the African trickster. Ortiz’s thesis is that the pfcaro is the vehicle of pidgin.
48
Octauio di Leo
In the first issue of Estudios Afrocuhanos, a magazine published in Havana in 1937, Ortiz explains the choice of the symbol for the publication. It was a Greek urn with a double profile, a black woman on one side and a white woman on the other, .’reproducing the historic Janus-like urn from the sixth century B.c., by the potter Charinus, because it is the most ancient object in which the two great races of the Afro-Cuban lineage are equal for the human satisfaction.” The two faces of Janus. the Latin god that keeps watch of the doors, became from then on the feature Ortiz looked for in the African iconography in order to prove the syncretism in Cuba. Among the Janus-type representations of the African black, those of a religious character in the regions near Nigeria and Calabar are of particular interest. In these regions, and within their secret societies, some of which still remain in Cuba, there are very typical masks with two faces. Those sacred masks of Calabar have not reached Cuba. as far as we know. But we do have some pictures of the sacred Yoruba imagery that have Janus-like motifs.29 But to choose a pre-Christian symbol to represent the Afro-Cuban repeats an operation dear to Frobenius, who in 1911 had identified the history of the black continent with the Platonic fable of the Atlantis. During the nineteenth century and the beginning of the tn-entieth, in Cuba and the other Spanish colonies, the wind blew from the classics. That neoclassical period could be called ‘yanus in Cuba.” Soon it was the turn of the avant-garde in Europe who, exhausted from looking back, decided to head to more exotic lands and discovered African art. Ironically enough, that fashion also arrived in Cuba. where the cities of Havana and Santiago had been worshipping the syncretic Madonnas of Regla and Caridad del Cobre. Therefore, the revival of Janus was not enough to represent the crossbreeding in Cuba and was replaced by an African god. This way the trickster of the Yoruba pantheon, the ambivalent Elegha, took over from the two faces of Ortiz’s urn. This period of the discoveries of the African without the mediation of a Mediterranean mystique could be called “Elegba in Cuba.” Janus and Elegbi share the role of guardians. To the Latin god, a bycephalic one, a temple is dedicated in Rome. The orisha Elegba keeps watch over the doors and rules the gossiping: he is consulted on when to act and how; and every oracidn in the Afro-Cuban liturgy begins and ends with him. Both deities arrived in Cuba by sea: Janus. in the books from Europe, Elegba, in the stories and songs from Africa. If Afro-Cuban studies were born with Fernando Ortiz, it is also true that thanks to the generation that followed. Afro-Romance anthropology became Afro-Cuban literature as well. The most notorious of his followers are Lydia Cabrera (1900-1988) and R6mulo Lachatanere (1909-1952). The biographical map of both writers coincides in a date, 1939, when Cabrera returned to Cuba after a long stay in France, where she published her first book, Contes nggres de Cuba (1936). It was also in 1737. as a result of his forced exile, that
It All Stal~edin Madrid
49
Lachatanere arrived in New York. In terms of their texts, Ortiz wrote the prologues for both of their operaprivna. By sponsoring the entry of Lachatanerk and Cabrera into the scientific-poetic community of Afro-Cuban studies, like Malinowski with his African disciples in England, Ortiz extended his sphere of influence. His two prologues (to ;Oh, mio Yemaya! Cuentosy cantos negros [19381, by Lachatanere, and to the Spanish version of Cabrera’s book, Cuentos negros de Cuba [19401) should be read in tandem. They are a symptom of Ortiz’s own developments, from the criminological view of Cuba in distant 1906 to the apology of the counterpoint in the late 1930s. By reading the tm;o prologues, we see how he collects the fruits of his pioneering work in the upcoming generation and also how Cabrera and Lachatanere show in their stories the literary sources of their mentor’s anthropology. As a volunteer for the Allies during World War 11, Lachatanere went to Africa to evacuate fallen soldiers. At the end of the war, anthropologists such as Boas, Herskovits, Benedict, and Bascom, all at Columbia University, encouraged him to continue his work. It was in Neu- York that he cherished the project of expanding his field of study to the rest of the Caribbean as an ethnographic photographer. In 1952, however, on his way back from a research trip in Puerto Rico, his plane crashed into the sea, cutting short his promising career. Ortiz insisted on spelling his family name in the French fashion (Lachatagnarais), as a statement of the unity of the Caribbean world. He recognized Haiti’s influence on Cuba since at least the revolution of 1794. One of the descendants of those Haitians from Oriente was Romulo Lachatagnarais. Today perhaps he would have enjoyed the glory of a pioneering documentary maker. like Jean Rouch in the French Sudan or Pierre Verger, who after starting as a photographer for the Musee de 1’Hornrne in Paris became the indispensable historian of the Middle Passage between Bahia and the gulf of Benin. Lachataner6’s first book, iOh, rnio Yenzaq,a!,tells the saga of the Yoruba deities as known in the Cuban oral tradition. Unlike Cabrera, who until her death declared having never learned an African language, during his years in America, Lachatanere studied Yoruba history and language. And because of his familiarity with the English rather than with the French, he read the Histov of the Yorubas by the ex-slave Samuel Johnson, who had become an Anglican reverend in Nigeria. It is in his prologue to Lachataner6’s first book that Ortiz plays with the classical idea of fable-a story with a moral. Oral fables, he says, lack the exegesis that folloa,s a holy book. Tradition has it that the paradigm of ancient fable writers began with a mulatto slave from the sixth century B.c.,whose name was Aesop. Ortiz makes Lachatanere the mulatto fable writer of modern Cuba. In the same prologue, he writes: This book [iOh. mfo Yemaya!]would be highly unintelligible and little appreciated. even for literary pleasure, if the reader did not have some prior and even remote knowledge regarding its origin, themes. genre. or intentions. As the
50
O c t a ~ ~d1 t o Leo Egyptian Book of the Dead. or the adventures of the Greco-Roman Gods, or certain Hebrew texts in the Old Tesrament. can not be read without bordering tediousness and a sense of banality, unless the mind is prepared to approach a literary text with a religious meaning.’”
Afro-Cuban fables, after all. also require a religious approach. Here Ortiz shows that he became especially interested during that period in the religious systems of the island. At the same time, something had preoccupied him since the writing of his first dictionary: the translation of “some languages remote in space and time, agglutinative, overflowed by metaphors and very musical” to the language of Cuba. In this sense, his 1938 prologue for Lachatanere already contains the prologue he would write two years later for Lydia Cabrera. Ortiz confesses in his prologue to iOh, mio Yemaya! that he already knew the French version of Czte)?tosI ? E ~ ) “ O Sde Cuba. The history behind Cabrera’s text shows itself best in Ortiz’s preoccupations with translating, since her stories describe a singular sequence that moves “from the African languages in Guinea, predominantly Yoruba and Ewe, to the AfroCuban dialect of Spanish, from this to standard Spanish, and finally to F ~ e n c h . “In ~ ‘ short, telling a story in Cuba supposed the translation of a translation, as if the versions and diversions inherent to oral transmission would never cease to occur, not even on the written page. At the time of his death, Ortiz was working on the third part of his Black in Havana in 1986 on Trilogy, Los lzegros cz~wos,published posthumo~~sly the basis of articles with the same title published in Archivos del Folklore Cubano (19261928). As a work of literar); archaeology, it represents his greatest effort in tracing the lost tongue of the c~ltros,a type of Havana braggart from Seville that disappeared at the end of the nineteenth century. In order to reconstruct their background on both sides of the Atlantic, Ortiz reviews the Africanisms in the Spanish dances and plays from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And with his usual sharpness, he associates the Spanish Golden Age with t~ventieth-centqCuba. The connector, as one arould expect, was African music. Within the verses of those songs, the most characteristic tunes can be distinguished. Centuries later, in the t~ventiethcentun, these tunes would have to be resurrected by Afro-Cuban poetn, at a time when black poets and musicians had managed to create a favorable atmosphere, socially similar to that of the Spanish age: verse structure, percussion refrains sometimes onomatopoeic in sound, acute rhymes, and, in general, predominant musicality integrated with literary expression^.^^ But as Carpentier comments, to say “African music is like saying ‘medieval knights’”” implies something. but it doesn’t explain much. Carpentier, a musicologist himself, had started his career as a writer by collecting data on Abakua initiation rights in the outskirts of Havana, which later inspired his first librettos for the stage. Where Ortiz best develops his idea of .*consustan-
It All Stal~edzn Mudrid
51
ciacidtz,” or integration of music and literature, is in his La africanfa de la musica folkldrica en Cuba (19501, which complements and gives breadth to Carpentier’s history of Cuban music. This text immediately became a reference book on Afro-Cuban ethnomusicology. It was by means of the music that the poetic movement of the 1920s and 1930s came to conquer an audience. If we think of Nicolks Guillen’s 1934 poem “Sensemay2” n-ith the subtitle “Canto para matar una culebra.” or “Song for killing a snake,” we learn from Ortiz that it actually belonged to a popular genre in colonial Cuba. On Dia de Reyes, the cotnparsa or traveling ballet used to choose a subject, the most common of which was either the snake or the scorpion, and an expert dancer would carry a huge figure representing the dangerous beast along the procession. The songs that accompanied that dance were to encourage the killing of the beast, and so the expressions “matar el alacratz” or *‘matarla ct~lebra”passed to Afro-Cuban poetry. In 1937, Ortiz explains the connections (the counterpoint) of the same ritual on both sides of the Atlantic. In Cuba, there are no serpents: vipers, or other harmful ophidian to kill. The scarce rnajas,jubos, and little snakes that inhabit these Greater Antilles are harmless: they even visit the bedclothes of the peasant hut and never disturb the dm-ellers. It is in Africa that these animals cause fears and provoke people to brew potions. “Killing the snake” has been the theme of a dance and a song that was very popular in festivities of Havana’s blacks in the last century, in their famous celebration of Dia de Reyes, and in their carnivalesque entertain~nents.~~ In that very tradition of performing a ritual, during those years of AfroCuban euphoria, there had been attempts at performative poetry in Havana. The undisputed muse of Afro-Cuban poets was Eusebia Cosme. In 1936, after attending one of her performances, the journalist Rafael Marquina called her ,’a black priestess of a white Eucharist . . . when Eusebia Cosme recites she is in a ‘state of grace.’ And everything in her is pure and almost religious. Hearing her it seems we are witnessing in mesmerizement a quintessential liturgy of recreation.”” Ortiz, however, warns us from the exaltation of such a poetic act outside of its religious context. But in the new poetics, we insist, there is no longer the emotional splendor and aesthetic of the collective liturgical act. as for example. a solemn Tatzttlm ergo of u Cotpl~sChristi in a medieval church. or the processions worshipping Cybele in Tartesios, expressing a maximum euphoric and communal exaltation of life. . . . Black gods would not understand a white language. Neither does Afro-Cuban lyric have a fernale poet, and one can not expect that when it does, the sacred inspiration would turn into Elegua love verses. The same culture that will enable black poetT to germinate will be far from similar to the emotions contained in African pieces. Due to this, Afro-Cuban lyrics do not have poetic dialogues with the all-poarerfc~lbeings of the superhuman mystery. These mulatto poets “do not summon the saint.”z”
52
Octar3lodr Leo
The dilemma of putting a religious experience into words, which had been the main question for the mystical poetsy in sixteenth-century Spain, reappears in mentiethcentusy Cuba. And while retelling the main act of Eusebia Cosme’s performance, her interpretation of the poem “Sensemayii,” Ortiz condenses in five words the near version of Cuban poetry: ‘*language, melody, rhythm, pantomime, and drama.” Finally, it was the same kind of expressive complex that the main interpreter of Ortiz’s discoveries. Lydia Cabrera, describes in her groundbreaking book, El monte (1954), while recalling the visit of Federico Garcia Lorca to Cuba in
And it was, in fact, on the European stages that the cycle of discoveries of the Africans in Cuba was symbolically con~pleted.For Lorca, whose point of view did not significantly differ from the Cuban poet Emilio Ballagas, a procession in Havana had the charm of the exotic. It m-as the face of Africa that he could not find in Andalusia. For Carpentier. whose first writings were the result of his experience of the religious ceremonies of the Abakuii, Diaghilev was the choreographic point of reference for the Parisian avant-garde and the ideal reader of his librettos. And for Ortiz as much as for Cabrera, the oracidn as liturgy and literature gave them the chance to penetrate the Abakui enigma. It is a paradox that African Cuba was first discovered in Europe. Around 1900, while Fernando Ortiz was studying law in hladrid, excited by the wonders of criminology and the undera.orld of the Spanish prisons, he saw the iremes for the first time in his life.’# He was i~nmediatelyasked by his Spanish friends and colleagues to tell them the stor). behind those masks. But he could say very little about a ritual and people he did not know. So the polymath set to work, and the literary method of Ortiz became a virtual anthropology. It was virtual because he drew a map of Africa without having ever been to Africa and because his approach to things Cuban took shape elsewhere. At the Museo de Ultramar, he started looking with new eyes at his island, which was no longer his mother’s paradise lost but the island of the iremes. And it all started in Madrid.
NOTES
It All Stai~ed177 A21adnd
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54
Octaz’io di Leo
Ethnography at the University of Havana Maria del Rosario Diaz
The n-orks of Fernando Ortiz give us insight into five hundred years of Cuba’s historic, ethnic, and cultural evolution, and his theories on transculturation contribute to notions of nationality and identity. His quest for untangling the intricate process of cultural integration, during the different historical stages of the formation of Cuban ethnicity, led him to a scientific ‘,descriptionwof what it means to be Cuban, and to anthropologically universalize many of his beliefs, such as those against xenophobia, intolerance, and racial and religious discrimination. If we classify the disciplines that Ortiz must have delved into in his research, we can see that the social sciences are fundamental. How-e17er,Ortiz explored all disciplines that contributed to answering his questions. One example is biology, a science that he thoroughly researched due to his engagement with Lornbrosian positivist theories. Later, biology also aided in resolving essential racial issues, as it did for Franz Boas. It was essential for Ortiz to crudely portray the racial issue, given the historical context in which Nazi nationalism, Italian fascism, and Japanese militarism were promoting notions of “superior and inferior races.” Even before World War 11, this terrible ideological mechanism had been set in motion as the horrified world watched the birth of the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis. Pseudoscientific research and a n~isconceptionof Nietzsche’s philosophy pretended to show that racism, anti-Semitism, the vicious exaltation of nationalism, and Darwinian misinterpretations regarding the superiority of the strong over the weak were used to justify racist policies. According to Hitler in Mein Kav~zpJ the planet’s destiny was to be “perfected” through the implementation of these beliefs. In the case of Latin America, there was a need to “sweep up” its inferior population descendant from Moors, Jews. Indians, and
56
.blanu del Rosario Diaz
Africans, and to populate such rich lands with strong Arians who would render them truly prosperous. As we enter the twenty-first century, racism and xenophobia have reappeared with all their horrors. We have a duty to continue disseminating the works of this Cuban sage. We should not forget how much the scientific community, and the millions who inhabit this world, owe him. This project is an initial approach to the broader theme of analyzing Ortiz’s work during the years 1940-1950 through documents of his personal archives preserved in the Instituto de Literatura y Linguistics “Dr. Jose A. Portuondo Valdor,” Sociedad Econ6mica de La Habana. It sheds some light on unknown areas of his work. From his own perspective, Ortiz understood the magnitude of the problem. He applied all of his knowledge and experience, now freed of its initial positivism, to scientifically prove the foolishness and dangers of these views. Amid the war, during the First Inter-American Congress of Demography held in Mexico (1943), his motion on the suspension of the traditional celebration of the Raza was approved. When the Spanish Civil War began, he offered aid and protection to all exiled Spanish intellectuals, with whom he fully sympathized. He did this while he was the head of the Institucibn Hispano-Cubana de Cultura (IHCC) and while working with other antifascist organizations. He was also involved in other dissemination campaigns during this period, organizing lectures, arriting articles: and lecturing.
HISTORY In the summer of 1941, Fernando Ortiz returned to the University of Havana to resume teaching. Over four years, he pursued a series of complementary courses on the theme of “Races and historical cultures that have formed the Cuban people. Cultural factors of Indians, Africans. Europeans, and others: The phenomena of their transculturation.”’ Integral studies of Cuban culture led Ortiz to develop a theoretical nlodel involving other disciplines, including anthropology, which he had mastered over a significant portion of his life and of which he was a pioneer in Cuba. At the time, the universiy was set to offer postgraduate-level summer courses to enable students to obtain master’s and Ph.D. degrees. Ortiz’s book, Contrapunteo cl~bnuoclel a z ~ i c a r yel tabaco (1940), had become the center of attention of the academic world as it introduced the term transculturation, a neologism in the Spanish language that denominated the integrative and creative process which gave birth to cultures. Ortiz made his argument on the basis of the contrast bemeen n o economic and historical processes in Cuba: tobacco production and the sugar industry. Rodolfo Mkndez Penate, the rector of the university, had asked Ortiz to organize a summer course on ethnographic issues in Cuba, which would com-
Ethnography at the liniversity of Havana
57
plement the knowledge students had acquired in the different disciplines of the social sciences. The course enabled Canadian and North American students with a B.S. or B.A. degree or their equivalent, and who spoke Spanish, to acquire an artium magister degree. Those students applying from other Latin American universities had to certify that they had completed two years toward their degrees. It is interesting to review some of the documents from these courses. After more than sixty years, they are essential testimonies regarding the nature of these courses, their students, their theses, and even of the development of Ortiz’s own work, as these courses played a significant role in the history of Cuban and other cultures. In 1941, a total of twenty-six students signed up. One of them, Enrique Noble, would soon become one of Ortiz’s assistants. Noble would be part of a group of disciples, including Jose Antonio Portuondo, Esperanza Figueroa, Julio Le Riverend, Miguel Jorrin, and Roberto Esquenazi, a-ho would later pursue academic careers and study in prestigious universities abroad. Ortiz designed a program based on eighteen topics, which included geographic, historical, archeological, and demographic aspects of Cuba and the rest of the Antilles, and, of course, the different components of the Cuban ethnic mosaic. The course evolved with immense success over the follom~ingyears. Apart from the Summer School (Escuela de Verano), the university created the Instituto Universitario de Investigaciones Cientificas y de Ampliacion de Estudios Instituto in 1943. Through an official resolution passed on February 26, 1945, the University Council appointed six professors, among them Maria Zambrano, Gustavo Pittaluga, and Ortiz, as members of staff in the Instituto Universitario. Zambrano and Pittaluga n-ere renowned Spanish intellectuals who were visiting Havana and had joined the group of lecturers that Ortiz had invited to speak in the IHCC. As part of his research work, Ortiz had to produce written results and publish them under the Instituto’s name. In a letter that he sent to the director of the Instituto: dated January 22, 1945, Ortiz comments: I would like to inform you that, as a result of my research work during these courses, which have been under the sponsorship of the Instituto. I have written the following two books: El huracan entre 10s indios Cubanos: Su n~itologiay
szi sirnholo icdnico . . . [and]El engalio de las razas. These texts involve the methodical and summarized portrayals of the latest scientific discoveries on races, using the races inhabiting America as pri~raryexamples. . . . As this work has developed within the courses designed by the Instituto, it seems logical that it should be the Instituto that publishes it. as the undersigned professor was responsible for conducting them.
Both texts had been preceded by articles, which alluded to these topics, on which he had been working relentlessly during that same period. In 1941,
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Llrl~irio del Rosarzo Diaz
he published the articles “Marti y las razas” and “Por la integration cubana de 10s blancos y negros” in Rerlista Bimesfre Cubana, as well as a text developing theories on the origin and classification of the Arawak-Cuban indigenous populations, Las cuatt-o cultul-as indgenas de Cuba. In 1945, “Marti y las razas de libreria” was published in Cz~adernosAmericanos (Mexico), and Ortiz offered an argument against racist theories defended by the dark forces of Nazism, fascism, and Japanese militarism in a memorable lecture at the Hebrew Association in Havana. He also strongly attacked the sinister origins of racism in his “Raza: voz de mala cuna y mala vida.” In 1946, El engatio de /as razas appeared on the scene though it was not actually published by the Instituto. It proved to be scientifically based and offered a crushing argument against existing and previous racist theories. His text on the hurricane was published the following year, with the help of his friend Jesus Silva Herzog, but the author’s original title was modified to El huracan, su mitologfa y sus sf?nbolos (Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1947). The students who attended his lectures and workshops began to specialize in various areas of ethnic culture and anthropology. In 1942, one of the registered students was Ellen Irene Diggs. who would later become a professor of anthropology in the United States and who presented her graduation thesis in Havana in 1944, wit11 the title .’Fernando Ortiz: La vida y la obra” (“The Life and Works of Fernando Ortiz”). It was a project with which the Cuban professor had helped her, providing unpublished information about both his personal and professional life.’ In 1943, Argeliers Le6n joined the group of students in Ortiz’s course. From then on they worked together, more as colleagues than as teacher-student. Together with his companion Maria Teresa Linares, Argeliers began work in ethnomusicology. Argeliers took many of the photographs on different anthropological and musicological topics that are found in Ortiz’s personal archives. It is possible that Argeliers also worked with Ortiz in gathering musicological data for the texts La africania de la musica folklbrica de Cuba (19501, Los bailes y el teatro de 10s negros en el folklore de Cuba (19511, and the five volumes of Los instt-unzentos de la musica afrocubana (19521, as well as articles that Ortiz published on this topic during the 1950s. To his teacher’s pride, Argeliers became the highest authority in ethnomusicology in Cuba and one of the most renowned within the American continent. Another of Ortiz’s most faithful disciples and followers, ethnologist Isaac Barreal, was a student in 1947. The influence that Ortiz had on the young Barreal, initially a lawyer, prompted him not only to become an expert in ethnology, but also to strive to organize Ortiz’s work through the careful editing of some of his texts, and to provide advice for compiling Ortiz’s personal archives. Like Ortiz, Barreal would educate many of the specialists who work in those disciplines in Cuba today.
Ethnography at the L’lziuersity ofHavana
59
Many foreign students sought recommendations from professors close to Ortiz, so as to be taught by him personally. For example, Manuel Pedro Gonzklez wrote to Ortiz, from the University of California, on June 21, 1947: The essential objective of this letter is to introduce you to its bearer. Mr. Edward D. Yeatman, a graduate of our university who is currently preparing for his P11.D. Mr. Yeatman is an intelligent and dedicated student who wishes to write his thesis on Afro-Cuban poetry. This is why he will be traveling to Havana to attend various courses in your Summer School program, especially the one which you are offering and the one offered by Medardo Vitier on nineteenthcentury Cuban literature. He is also keen to collect as much information for his thesis as possible. He already knows who you are and what you represent for Cuban culture, particularly for Afro-Cuban culture. Only you, with your wisdom and advice. are able to guide him towards the correct information and sources. I mould be grateful for any cooperation you may provide on this matter.
Apart from regular lectures, the Summer School provided opportunities for visiting places of interest, taking field trips, and attending complementary lectures on different topics, essay and film sessions, Cuban art exhibitions, theater productions, and so on. The organizers carefully designed each extracurricular activity so that it would complement lectures in fields such as Cuban history, geography, economics, and other matters. Ortiz’s involvement in these ventures is illustrated by the following announcement: Students are encouraged to take up the invitation of the Fine Arts Circle and visit the Cuban Painting and Sculpture exhibition. especially organized by the Summer School. The exhibition will close Thursday, August 14. Students are expected to attend the inauguration of the Cuban Modern Art exhibition at the Lyceum, Tuesday 12 at 6 p.m., as well as all the events following it, as specified in the program. On Wednesday 13, at 9 p.m. Dr. Fernando Ortiz will give a lecture in the Medicine Amphitheater, in the “Angel Arturo Aballi” building . . . on illustrations of drum music and ritual Afro-Cuban dancing. All those who wish to attend are welcome.
PROGRAM STRUCTURE As previously mentioned, Ortiz capitalized on the opportunity that his courses provided for disseminating basic concepts about Cuba, its history, culture, population, and other topics he researched throughout his life. Ortiz was also able to convey to his students the direct findings behind his research, sometimes even before he published them. He compiled an incredible amount of information for over half a century, meticulously organizing it in hundreds of files that are now part of his personal
archives. The archive contains all kinds of valuable data, as well as original drafts of unfinished parts of unpublished texts. It contains his famous bibliographic cards, or yapeletas,” as he used to call them in the fashion of Ran1611 Menkndez Pidal’s methodology; cuttings, address books, letters, photographs, paintings. prints, engravings, official documents, musical pieces, galley proofs, manuscripts of other authors-in short, anything that could shed light on a specific topic. The information stored in the files on “Antilles,” “Indians,” “Blacks,” and “ethnography courses,” which never became books as such, were valuable sources that enabled Ortiz to design his courses. In my view, these courses included all those contributions to science and culture, n~hichhe had worked on during his inquisitive stages. The data and information in them ranged from the beginning of the century, when Ortiz was concerned with black Cubans and their incorporation in the .’mala vida.”to the seeds of what became his theory of transculturation, his most important contribution to science. When viewing the themes and bibliography for the course, “Ethnographic Factors in Cuba” (see below), one can see the presence of texts for key topics, with the added bonus that Ortiz had been involved with other authors, whether in the writing process, by writing prologues, or in some other fundamental way. Ethnographic Factors i n Cuba’
Cuban ethnography-general introduction: Races. Ethnic groups. Cultures. Transculturation. The Antilles. Ethnic mosaic. Geography. Races. History. Cultures. Languages. Religions. Policies. Cuba. Its ethnical factors. Cuba. The Indians. \rarious Indian immigrations. Their various cultures. Latest discoveries and theories. Cuba. The Indians. Social survival. Economic survival. Extractive economics. Agrarian. Culinasy survival. Cuba. The Indians. Industrial survival. Crafts. Weaving. Textiles. Utensils. Cuba. The Indians. Religious sumival. Tobacco. Its Indo-Cuban significance and transculturation of blacks and whites. Cuba. The Indians. Field Trip to the Anthropologp Museum. Cuba. White ethnic components. Cultures. Social impact on the Indians. Destruction of the Indians. Hispanic domination. Other white ethnical components. Cuba. Blacks. Language sunrival. L’ocabulasy. Grammar. Writing. Literary survival. Folklore. Poetr). Cuba. Blacks. Artistic survival. Music. Instruments. Cuba. Blacks. Artistic sun-ival. Song and dance. Cuba. Blacks. Artistic sun-ival. Arts. Games.
Ethnography at the lTnizlersit4,of Havana
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Cuba. Blacks. Social survival. Family. The carabelas and cumbilas. The comadrajos. The curros. Cuba. Black townships. El Dia de Reyes. The comparsas. Cuba. Blacks. Religious survival. Cults. Saints. “Sincretismo.” ~aniguismo. Cuba. Blacks. Field trips to museums.
Course Bibliography Fernando Ortiz. Los factores humanos de la Cubanidad. 1940. Fernando Ortiz. Las Antillas: Tratado de geografia$kica y humana de las Antillas. Volume XVI of the Geografia CT?~iversal directed by Vidal de la Blanche. 1933.
Indians J. A. Cosculluela. Cuatro afios en la Ciknaga de Zapata. 1916. M . R. Harsington. Cuba antes de Coldn. Spanish trans. 2 vols. Habana, 1936. R. Herrera Fritot. Culturas aborzgenes de las Antillas. Habana. 1936. Fernando Ortiz. Historia de la arqueologia indocubana. Habana. 1936. Roberto Agramonte. “Los indios de Cuba. Aspecto sociologico.” In Curso de introdticcidn a la historia de Cuba. Habana. 1937. Cornelius Osgood. The Siboney Cultztre in Cayo Redondo. Cuba. 1942. Irving Rouse. Archeology of the Maniabolz Hills, Cuba. New Haven. 1942. Fernando Ortiz. Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y elazucar. Habana. 1941. Fernando Ortiz. Las cuatro culttlras indias de Cuba. Habana. 1943. Blacks Fernando Ortiz. Los negros esclauos. Habana. 1906 [sic]. Fernando Ortiz. Los negros brttjos. Madrid. 1906. Fernando Ortiz. Glosario de afronegrismos. Habana. 1916. Fernando Ortiz. “El cocoricamo.” Conferencia. Fernando Ortiz. “La mi~sicasagrada de 10s negros Yoruba en Cuba.” Conferencia. Fernando Ortiz. “Los cabildos afrocubanos.” 1926. Fernando Ortiz. “Las comparsas.” 1938. Fernando Ortiz. “Marti y las razas.” Conferencia. Habana. 1940. Fernando Ortiz. “Por la integracion cubana de blancos y negros.” Conferencia. Articles ~ o u r n a l satzd l Statistics Population censuses (especially census of 1917). Archivos del Folklore Cubano. 5 vols. Estudios Afro-Ctibanos. 4 vols. Revista Bimestre Cubans. 51 vols.
Maria del Rosario D i m
NOTES
INTERPRETING CUBAN HISTORY
A historical perspective is central to Ortiz’s most important works and public actions. His pivotal concepts for studying Cuban social reality are suffused with historical content. In this section, Rafael Rojas argues that Ortiz was inspired by a transcultural and historically based nationalism, different from more rigid forms of Cuban nationalism and Jose Marti’s racial perspectives. Marifeli Perez-Stable analyzes the historical relevance of Ortiz’s political career during the early Cuban republic, his intellectual leadership in civic movements, and his ultimate disillusion with Cuban politics. Carmen Almod6var underscores that Ortiz’s preferred method in dealing with Cuban social and political problems was the promotion of pedagogy and education rather than internal war. Jose Matos Arevalos uncovers a rare and unpublished project by Ortiz on the realm of economic history, and he traces Ortiz’s historiographical roots alllong Cuban liberal-reformist historians of the nineteenth century. Finally, Jean Stubhs reclaims the importance of tobacco history, in contrast to the dominant history of sugar, through the analysis of postcripts to the classic Ortizian counterpoint.
Transculturation and Nationalism Rafael Rojas
A first reaction when considering Ortiz’s work is to stand in awe at its immense diversity. Ortiz alone represents the incarnation, in the Cuban culture’s narrative tradition, of the textual metamorphosis described by Michel Foucault in which a document turns into a monument.’ Law and criminology, ethnology and sociology, languages and archeology, literature and politics, and anthropology and history create a rare multiplicity of forms of knowledge from where that Cuban tradition stems.’ Maria Zambrano uses the metaphor of a tree to illustrate the wholeness of Jose Lezama Lima’s work. Likewise, Manuel Ulacia refers to the nature of Octavio Paz’s poetry, in his ability to traverse different areas of history and culture. But in both cases the symbolic axis of the author-as-tree metaphor resides in the tree’s trunk. In Ortiz, however, the interpretative value lies in the branches or, more precisely, in the roots themselves. Let us imagine for a moment what Cuba’s intellectual history would be without Enrique Jose Varona and Jorge Manach, without Elias Entralgo and Roberto Agramonte, without Alejo Carpentier and Jose Lezama Lima, without Lydia Cabrera and Manuel Moreno Fraginals. Even in that desert, Ortiz’s n~orkalone would be sufficient to link Cuban culture to modernity. Ortiz’s legacy envelops the mystery of a fully modern intellectual adventure in the Caribbean and even in Spanish America. This notion of modernity is put to the test in what Habermas would call the dialectics between the selfassurance of having a place in the world and the ability to move to other epistemological 1atitudes.j Ortiz’s nomadism is reflected in his cultural anthropology texts relating to Cuban folklore, in works such as La africania de la musica folkldrica de Cuba, or Los bailes y el teatro de 10s negros en elfolklore de Cuba; in a unique book dealing with the history of mentalities, his
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Rafael Rojas
Historia de una pelea cubana contra 10s demonios, m-hich preceded for a full decade the historiographic path opened by Jacques Le Goff and Georges Duby, Carlo Ginzburg and Robert Darnton; in essays such as La crisis polftica cubana: Sus causas y remedios, or En la tribuna: Discursos cubanos; and in mixed texts, halfway bemeen anthropology, history, and economics, such as his renowned Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azucar and El huracan, su mitologfa y sus sfmbolos.+ However, Ortiz’s modernity lies not so much in the expansive nature of his s projects, in the trail of readings he leaves texts, but more in the s h a d o ~ -he behind or in that vast expanse of interpretations that open up around him: an unusual example, in Cuban culture, of the mixture of two ample recordswhat is read and what is written.’ Let us consider, for example, the case of Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azucar. In its first edition, (Jesus Montero, 1940), Ortiz’s text was preceded by a prologue written by Cuban historian Herminio Portell Vila and an introduction by the British-Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinoa7ski,who was, until his death in 1942, a professor at Yale University. Both considerations of the same text emerged from different reference points and were directed at a different public, without provoking any tension. Portell Vila attempted to comment on the nationalist implications of the Contrapunteo, within the context of an important restructuring in tariff and trade in Cuban sugar exports to the United States. Malinowski commented on the theoretical contribution of the term tm?zsculturation to Western anthropology and Ortiz’s affinity with functionalist scholars and the functionalist methodology, which Malinowski and Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown had founded in England, and which was adopted by sociologists Robert Merton and Talcott Parsons in the United States.” Portell Vila perceived in Contrapunteo an authentic doctrine, undoubtedly true, in the fact that sugarcane, its industrial process. and the system that is organized around it, form an external issue in Cuba, something alien to the country, and which serves foreign interests before national interest and entails human exploitation, undue privilege, and protectionism.’
This nationalistic perception was partly triggered by the text’s binary nature, and also by the Cuban economic reality, then affected by the revolutionary process of the 1930s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, and the outbreak of World War 11. The suspension of the sugar quota system, decreed by the Costigan-Jones Act of 1934, and the increase in the U.S. sugar tariff, triggered a reduction of income, unemployment. a fall in salaries, and an increase in prices in Cuba. All this caused an interesting division between the elite political classes who believed that “without sugar there was no coun-
Transculturntion and lVationalis?n
67
try,” and the elite intellectual classes who, since the mid-1920s, demanded the abolition of the latifundio and a redefinition of the notion of economic sovereignty with regard to the United state^.^ Other republican scholars, such as Ramiro Guerra, Emeterio Santovenia, Francisco Ichaso, and even En~ilioRoig de Leuchsenring, would have agreed with Portell Vili’s criticism of the “synonymity between sugar and nation,” leading to “the identity be” ~ this circle of tween national interests and the sugar industry’s i n t e r e ~ t .In liberal republican intellectuals, Ortiz’s Contrapunteo was perceived as an argument against agricultural monoproduction and in favor of agricultural diversification and industrialization. Malinowski’s views were not addressed to the public in Cuba, but rather to the Anglo-American academic sphere and, to a lesser extent, to a reduced portion of the political classes in the United States linked to foreign affalrs. First, Malinowski, who was invited to Cuba by Ortiz, acknowledged that the notion of transculturation was invented by Ortiz and that it made more sense than other terms, such as “cultural change,” “acculturation,” “diffusion,” and “migration or osmosis of cultures,” given its detachment from European ethnocentrism. lo In sections of Contrapunteo, Ortiz could not conceal his pride at the fact that the term he invented was being disseminated throughout Western anthropological academic centers. “The proposed neologism transculturation, wrote Ortiz, “was presented before the undeniable authority of Bronislaa7 Malinowski, the great contemporary master of ethnography and sociology, and he approved of it. With such a sponsor, we will not hesitate in adopting the mentioned neologism.”” Ortiz felt that Malinowski had authorized him, and Malinowski highly valued this authorization because it incorporated Ortiz in the canon of the functionalist methodology. This is why the Yale professor overemphasized that Ortiz was “a true functionalist, aware of the fact that the aesthetics and psychology of the sensorial impressions must be taken into account alongside habitat and technology,” or that he was “a good functionalist because he refers to history when it is essential.”12 However, there is a crossroad where the nationalist ideological perception adopted by Portell Vila, and the epistemological functionalist perspective adopted by Malinowski, so far running in parallel, subtly clash. Portell Vila understood that his criticism regarding sugar, as a factor of domination and alienation, entailed actions toward economic independence from the United States and the extirpation of a “parasite which extracts the vital juices from the nation,” as he would put it in prose.13Malinowski, on the other hand, assumed that the term transculturation, in establishing a two-directional dialogue between two or more cultures, entails not independence but interdependence with regard to the United States.” The author of Magic,Science, and Religion,familiar with the changes of Roosevelt’s diplomatic policy toward Latin America during his years at Yale, used his introduction to the
68
Rufuel Rojas
Contrapunteo to engage transculturation in foreign policy and to suggest that interdependence between bordering nations should develop new symbolic openings. “Cuba, alongside Mexico,” concluded Malinowski, “is the nearest of Latin American neighbors where the ‘good neighbor policy’ should be implemented in the intelligent, cautious, and generous manner that U.S. statesmen and even magnates are occasionally capable of.”li A radical political interpretation of both perspectives could show that, while Portell Vila maintained a nationalist, pro-independence view, Malinowski, inclined to stand by British anthropological notions, had a more imperialistic view. However, in the two reeditions of Contrapunteo, corrected and lengthened by Ortiz himself and printed in Cuba after Fidel Castro’s nationalist revolution–one by the Lniversidad Central de Las Villas (1963) and another one by the Consejo Nacional de Cultura (1963)-Portell Vila’s prologue was removed, while Malinoalski’s introduction remained.16 he answer to this apparent conundrum is simple: The nationalist historian Portell Vila had emigrated to the United States, rejecting Marxism-Leninism as the official ideology of the state. Ten years after those reeditions, historian Julio Le Riverend adopted many views of Portell Vila’s nationalist perspective, without quoting him, naturally, but inscribing them within a Marxist-Leninist interpretation of Ortiz’s anti-imperialism. in his prologue to Ortiz’s collection of essays entitled 0rbita de Fernando Ortiz,published by the official authors and writers’ union. UNEAC.’However, this incidental paradox obliges one to reconsider Ortiz’s notion of nationalism and, in general. all nationalisms in Cuban culture. By this I mean an interpretative modification, as Montserrat Guibernau recommends, from the singular to the plural. from that abusive topic “Cuban nationalism” to a typology of nationalisms in Cuba.IxTo say that Fernando Ortiz was a nationalistic intellectual is to state the obvious: The real challenge in a sophisticated analysis is to attempt to illustrate what kind of nationalism he defended. Without even meaning to, Malinon-ski pointed out that if the Contrapunteo was not read “transculturally,” a discourse antinomy could result between the nationalistic narration and the transcultural one. Effectively, the excessively binary rhetoric Ortiz adopted to narrate the secular struggle between “Don Tabaco” and “Dona Azucar” appears to. at certain stages, suggest-as it did to Portell Vila-that tobacco was a metaphor for nationalism, and sugar was an allegory for the antinational. In one of the most difficult sections of the book directly related to this dilemma one can read, an in trade: for our tobacco, the whole world is a market, yet our sugar has only one market. Centripetal and centrifugal. Cubanity and foreignness. Sovereignty and colonialism. High crown and humble sack.”I9However, in other sections of the text, including the title, Ortiz maintains that Cubanity is not in one or other archetype, in one or other allegory, but in the collision, in their rubbing against
each other-basically, in the transculturation of sugar and tobacco. This is why, for example, he mentions that sugar and its derivatives produce a “miscegenation of flavors,” that .’sugar was mulatto since its origin, because in its production the energies of white men and black men blended’. and that “the black man’s arm and sugarcane are two binomials in the same economic equation of our country.”20Fernando Ortiz, a dialogic thinker, was reluctant to accept manicheisms and stereotypes. In the construction of Cuban national identity he never excluded-together with Manuel Moreno Fraginals-the economic, political, and social processes in sugar production, despite its infernal discourse of “manicheism, land ownership, colonialism, labor trafficking, super capitalism, absentism. foreigness, corporativism, and imperialisn~.’‘“This is why he ended his essay predicting the marriage between Don Tabaco y Dona Azucar and its trinitarian offspring: rum.22 An adequate solution to the tension between nationalism and transculturation would be a dialectic of transcultural nationalism. It is clear that when Ortiz writes that memorable phrase, “the true history of Cuba is the history of its intricate transculturations,” he reveals a porous, tempered, and permeable narrative of national identity in the island.23A cautious reader will observe that when he uses the plural transcu1tu~-ations,Ortiz is alluding to, first, a mutation within a sedentary population, produced between the Cihoney Paleolithic and the Taino Neolithic, and, then, an infinite cycle of irnmigrations that begins with the arrival of the first Spaniards and Africans in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries and continues with the incorporation of the French, British, German, Italian, Chinese, Jewish, Polish, North American, Russian, and other immigrant populations in Cuba during the last centuries.?’ This idea is better explained in his lecture Los factores humanos de la cubanidad where Ortiz uses the metaphor of the ajiaco to illustrate that endless process of blending and filtration of different cultures within one single nation. One must again insist, given the erroneous interpretations that this text has had, that Ortiz does not find the base of Cubanity in the broth, but in its cooking, not in “the sauce of the new and synthetic succulence formed by the fusion of human lineages,” but rather in the “very complex process of its formation, both integrative and disintegrati~e.”~~ This notion of a permanent cultural construction, in which the clash and hybridization between agents never dissolves fragmentary identities into a homogenous whole, is the epistemological bridge between Fernando Ortiz and the postmodern anthropology of Clifford Geertz, James Clifford, and Dennis Tedl~ck.~”he first postmodern interpretations of the Contrapunteo, as is well known, have been by Antonio Benitez Rojo, who above all emphasizes the elenlent of fiction in the text. More recently, the postmodern approaches of George Yudice, R6man de la Campa, Fernando Coronil, and Peter Burke, who, more inclined toward postfunctionalist anthropology, have 1 3 7 0
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Rflfael Kojus
retooled the notion of multiculturalism in the United States through Ortiz’s transcultural nationalism.’The rejection of the process of synthesis, as a discursive fiction that turns national identity into a teleological narrative. is so evident in Ortiz that it is impossible to find in his essays a recycling of the myth of the “fundamental mulatto character of the Cuban.” 28 Ajiaco underlines the blending of cultures (“blending of cookel-y, blending of races, blending of cultures”), but it z).~~ is not a synonym of being or becoming mulatto ( m ~ ~ l a t e Interpreting mulatez as an allegory of nationality is equivalent to destroying a complete and diffuse whole, because, as Ortiz points out, the nation “is never made” and its mass is never “integrated.” Thus, his lucid conclusion, which has so often been misread: The infinite migratory tissue of Cuban society always “differs,” and will always differ, “from the consolidation of a definitive and ~~ this transcultural nationalism is basic national h ~ m o g e n e i t y . “Therefore. different from an ethnic nationalism. as is projected in La raza cosmica by the Mexican Jose Vasconcelos. whose argument, according to Ortiz. was “pure paradox.” 31
NOTES
Tmnscultz~ratioaand LYutzo~zalzsm
The Early Republic Politics, Civic Culture, and Sovereignty Ma rzfeli Pe’rez-Stable
Fernando Ortiz’s work is indispensable for understanding Cuban culture. My concerns, however, lie elsewhere, though culture also enters the profile I raise in this essay. I am concerned with politics as Ortiz was early in his career. He was a member of the Liberal Party in the Cuban House of Representatives between 1916 and 1923. He participated in various reformist movements during Cuba temporarily-in 1930, rethe l920s, and finally departed politic-and pulsed by the cooperativistno of 1928, Machado’s personality cult, and the regime’s heightened repression. In 1916, he entered the political fray with hope but without blinders. Writing around 1910, Ortiz noted: “Incoherence and disintegration in the ruling classes, ignorance among the ruled: this is our stigma.”’ He well understood-how could he not as the early republic unfolded-the terrible toll caudillismo took on Cuba’s political society and defended as salutary the formation of multiple, idea-based parties. Ortiz simply wrote: We should get used to measure the merit and force of parties, not based on the men that integrate them but on the ideas that motivate them and the creeds they disseminate. A handful of altruist believers is worth more than a legion of skeptics who are only moved by expectations of bounty. We would not be scared if in Cuba the different parties, socialist, clerical, Semitic, military, federalist, labor, even racist and monarchical parties, even parties intending to resurrect Spanish loyalism and the incorporation to Spain, as long as these were based on ideals. The real danger does not lie in multiple parties who aspire for the truth. nor in those who even err; it lies in political personalism, which we inherited from Spain, because personalism in politics almost always leads to deceit.?
Ortiz also had a keen awareness-again, how could he not, given the circumstances of the republic’s foundations–of the peculiar ascendancy the
United States had over Cuba. Writing about the L.S. intervention in Nicaragua in 1911, Don Fernando noted: The anemic creatures of a dying imperialism. we have rernained stultified in a tropical lethargy, and will wake up from it mayhe too late when a second imperialisrn absorbs us into its mister. Cuba and Nicaragua. 1-ictimsof the same ailment. will steadily bleed. Only an intense and \yell-diffused civilization could rescue us: being cultured we would be strong. Let us be so.”
Open-eyed, Ortiz still believed political action by men like him could mitigate the ills gnawing at the republican entrails. He r a s elected to the House of Representatives in 1916, the year Alfredo Zayas should have become the duly elected president of Cuba. The Liberal Party won the November tally, but the Conservatives refused to turn over the executive’s reins as Mario Garcia Menocal declared himself the winner a month after ballots were cast. Liberals, however, gained entrance to Congress and the provincial and municipal governments. The election, in fact, had been fairll- honest; fraud marred the presidential assumption of office. Unsurprisingly, the stolen election touched off a political crisis reminiscent of 1905-1906 when Tomiis Estrada Palma’s Moderates had prevented Liberal Jose hliguel G6mez from entering the Presidential Palace, preferring instead to turn Cuba over to the United States. The year 1917-the first of Don Fernando’s political career-marked a critical turning point in the political development of the young republic. As argued later in this chapter, the m-inds of renovation that would sweep Cuban society in the 1920s were first felt as hlenocal illicitly remained in command with the blessing of the \Voodrow Wilson administration. Honest Liberals and Consematives cringed at hlenocal’s brazenness and the recurrent Liberal knack to resort to armed insurrection. A bipartisan group of renowned personalities-Manuel Sanguily, Manuel ,215rquez Sterling, Enrique Jose Varona, Carlos Manuel de la C n ~ z .Cosnle cle la Torriente, Juan Jose de la Maza y Artola, Enrique Loynaz clel Castillcttried unsuccessfully to found a new political party. Though I have not found Ortiz’s name associated with this effort, I am certain he was, or would have been, a part of the nascent movement for renewal.’ One of the consequences of the reelection crisis n-as the arrival in Havana of General Enoch Crowder in 1919: the general remained until 1922 and supervised the most flagrant U.S. intronlission in Cuba’s domestic affairs. Don Fernando’s unflinching nationalism did not prevent him from working with Crowder on a new electoral code. the principal thn~stof m-hich was the reorganization of political parties to weaken the caz4dillos’ stranglehold. While still a representative, Ortiz prescribed a list of political reforms to strengthen Cuba’s institutional lattice; the Crowcler electoral code built upon these pres c r i p t i o n ~Don . ~ Fernando never considered the imperious side of U.S. diplomacy as the only face of the United States. He recommended:
The Ear@ Repzlblzc Polztzcs, Czctc Culture, and Soverezgnty
75
Strengthening the national sentiment, without saintly quixotic illusions or anachronistic xenophobia. The best guarantee for Cuban independence is a cultured, just and honest government, based on popular aspirations and acting in cordial reciprocity with the United States.”
Ortiz did not run for reelection in 1922 and thus left the House of Representatives. He did not give up the hustings, though. In 1923, the Junta Cubana de Renovacihn Nacional issued a manifesto for Cubans (“Manifiesto a 10s cubanos”). the first of a salvo of protests that civil society launched against the political system during the first half of the decade. Don Fernando was the Junta’s president and the author of the searing document. Interestingly, the manifesto reflected on the state of the nation from within: the nationalism it clamored was what civic conscience Cubans-as citizens and as leaders-should bring to the public arena for the greater good of la pat7r;a. The Junta unequivocally affirmed that national renovation began at home. We Cubans want a republican life, new public ideas, new governmental practices, new legislative directions, new schools, new wealth, new codes, all in all a new civic spirit to revive, as a purifying fire. the energies of the Cuban people: to consolidate the republic and finish the task of the liberating revolution. providing Cuba nrith a truly free and democratic government, defended by a -igorous national civilization and a resilient political probity.-
Government and opposition left indelible marks on the 1920s. Social and political movements of various stripes raised the banner of reform and eventually the cry of revolution. The catalyst for what would become the revolution of 1933 was Gerardo Machado’s effort to retain power against the constitution’s grain and public opinion. Caudillismo reached new heights around Machado’s persona as he a-as lavished with honors unrelated to his merits and disconnected from the brewing opposition-Doctor Honoris Causa, Egregio (Egregious), Salvador de la Patria (Savior of the Motherland), Hombre Cumbre (Pinnacle Man). Primer Obrero de Cuba (First Worker of Cuba).* By 1928, the two-party system imploded as Liberals and Conservatives joined hands in cooperatit’isnzo to support the president’s bogus reelection: the pact split the parties and paved the way for the emergence of a new political class in the 1930s. By 1930. Ortiz was exasperated and left Cuba altogether. His parting essay clamored for Machado and Congress to resign, the establishment of a provisional government, and a truly Cuban solution to the national crisis. The latter aras a reference to the cooperatiuistas’ claim to their agreement as a Cuban solution (solucidn cuhana). Ortiz retorted that a real solution could not be another situation of Cuban dubiousness (cuhaneo).’Don Fernando, of course, remained a public intellectual of exceptional stature until his death and did not eschew political matters; he would, however, never again directly partake in the political arena.
76
.Mat7feli P@~-ez-St~z ble
In 1923, Ortiz addressed a prestigious gathering at the Academia de Historia and urged his audience to look beyond politics in the study of Cuban history; said Don Fernando: “To reconstnlct the history of Cuba based on the precise knowledge of its ethnic, demographic, and cultural foundations, beyond its squalid political stnicture.” Cuban culture, he argued, had been analyzed “under the light of the age-old bonfire” of the struggles that gave Cuba its freedom. Other lights needed to he brought upon the past to fully and justly encompass it.’’ He was probably right-at least for then. But, presently, I am going to do precisely what Ortiz decried in 192+will put Don Fernando’s political career in the context of republican politics between 1902 and 1928. Cuban historiography has been too centered on the economy, on social movements, and on the weight of the United States. We need a political understanding of the island’s past for the simple reason that it is through political action that people make and remake their own history. This study consists of three sections. The first outlines the contours of what I am calling the civic movement of the early republic nurtured by ta.0 strands of nineteenth-century cubanidad, the ideal of a civil republic that inspired important sectors of the separatist movement, and the preeminence of a civic culture that the frustrated atltonowzistas promoted. The second dwells on three critical moments in the so-called first republic, the 1905-1906 crisis provoked by the fraudulent Estrada Palrna reelection, the 1917 crisis around Menocal’s usurpation, and Machado’s aborted cooper-ativismo. The third section concludes by raising issues, themes. and comparative perspectives on Cuban politics in the early decades after independence.
A C M C MOVEMENT FORA CMLIAN REPUBLIC Historians have rightfully underscored hon- Cuba’s less than full independence in 1902 disappointed nineteenth-centur)r separatist ideals. The Platt Amendment unambiguously conditioned the island’s sovereignty. Yet, the republic of caudillos that vitiated the civil and civic aspirations of important sectors of the separatist community was just as contravening of Cuba Libre. If the Platt Amendment mediated national sovereignty, the post-1902 political class clearly transgressed the republican ambitions of independe?ztismo. Rescuing this civic tradition, which encompasses the persistent and admirable labor of the at~tonomistas,is essential for understanding the trajectory of the early republic. On May 20, 1902, the Cuban republic was born under a constitution that contained the singular amendment whereby the United States retained the right of intervention. It was not self-evident exactly hon7 that right would be applied and under what conditions. Good government, many honorable Cubans considered, would render the odious amendment moot and perhaps
i%e Ear[y Republic: Politics, Cicic Cz~ltz~re, and Socereignt)’
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lead to its repeal. Good government, moreover, was intrinsic to Cuba’s anticolonial struggles. In late April and early May 1902, as Estrada Palma trekked through Cuba in an exceptional caravan of popular rejoice, the Platt Amendment took second place to the extraordinary event that was about to happen: the inauguration of the republic on May 20. As he went from Oriente to Havana, the first president harped on the themes of “union and harmony” to safeguard national sovereignty and preempt the caudillismo rampant in Latin America: Cuba’s would be a reptiblica civilista.” The early republic’s civic movement-and Fernando Ortiz heartily partook in it-upheld good government as the best crucible for progress and the most effective antidote against U.S. intenrention. Central to this movement was the proposition that relations with the United States could be constructed; Cubans could temper the always-difficult interactions between a great power and a small nation by dutiful self-government. Manuel Marquez Sterling put it pithily: “The civic spirit is, after all, the ultimate expression of a consolidated independence.”’* His 1917 article. “Against Foreign Interference, Domestic Virtue” (“A la ingerencia extrana, la virtud dom6stica”) encapsulated the movement’s spirit.l3 Good government, thus, was as valid a litmus test for the successful passage from colony to republic as full national sovereignty. Self-government would perforce depart from the standards established by the captain generalsdespotic, personalist, arbitrary, corrupt, exclusionary, and repressive-if it were to fulfill the promise of Cuba Libre. Part and parcel of colonialism has always been the denigration of the capacities of the colonized for self-rule. Spain demeaned the Cuban racial ajiacos an insurmountable obstacle for civilization, and not a few independentistas shared these doubts. The calls to abolish slavery and extend full citizenship, indeed, put a brake on independetztis?no through the better part of the nineteenth century. One of the stellar achievements of the post-1878 anticolonial movement was precisely the forging of an inclusive and self-confident cubanidad, which identified racism with colonial backwardness.” That which was crafted among tobacco workers. the intelligentsia, the petty bourgeoisie, and soine wealthy criollos on the island and in the diaspora in the 1880s and early 1890s, and, after 1895, on the battlefields v a s a sense that Cubans could, indeed, do it. The political success of the Partido Revolucionario Cubano (PRC, Cuban Revolutionary Party) and the military feats of the Ejercito Libertador gave substance to Cuba Libre. The battle, however, was also about ideas and self-image. There is no more exemplary text in that respect than Cuba y sus jzteces by Railnundo Cabrera. First published in 1888 in response to an anti-Cuban tract a-ritten by the Spaniard Francisco Moreno, Cuba -y su gente, Cabrera’s book became the first Cuban best-seller, quickly going through seven editions. Cuba y susJueces is a blow-by-blow account of Cuban achievements against the tide of Spanish backwardness and conveys an unflinching faith in the bounties a free Cuba would enjoy. Said Cabrera: “All that is bad in this much-slandered Cuban
society is what it retains as a Spanish colony. and the little good that it has lLlany mambises carsprouts spontaneously from its American environn~ent.”’~ ried Cuba y sus.jz~ecesin their saddlebags. The Platt Anlendnlent aside, the novice republic started out reasonably well. Estrada Palma ruled during generally auspicious times: Economic reconstruction proceeded apace; the national treasury soon registered a surplus: the first Cuban administration built upon-and even surpassed-the record of John Brooke and Leonard Wood, the two U.S. governors of Cuba between 1898 and 1902; about a quarter of the state budget was spent on public education; the health profile of Cubans continued to improve; and Don Tomas’s road construction progranl tripled the kilometers paved during the U.S. o c c ~ ~ a t i o nU.S. . ‘ ~intromission in Cuban affairs was modest; Cuba, in fact, maneuvered the possibility of a trade agreement with Great Britain to obtain the reciprocity treaty with the United States that beet producers were opposing. In brief. Estrada Palma ruled the new republic acceptably for three years. In the fourth year, a storm gathered: the president’s closest associates schemed, connived, and strong-armed Don Tomis’s reelection. The crisis, which I discuss in the next section, overshadowed the administration’s accomplishments, and together arith subsequent U.S. intervention, did more harm to Cuba’s fledgling sense of nationhood than the Platt Amendment. Cuban annexationists and resident Spaniards deemed the occupation irrefutable proof that Cubans were incapable of self-government. U.S. and world opinion confirmed preconcei-ed notions of Cubans as ill-behaved children, but most importantly, the 1905-1906 crisis and the 19061909 occupation reinforced a colonial mentality in many Cubans. The foundation that Don Tomas laid in the first three years of his administration fissured when he refused to compromise with the Liberals. A terrible casualty was the nascent sense of pride and confidence in Cuba Libre, and a cloud of pessimism befell the republic. The civic movement was elitist. Man)- of its advocates decried universal suffrage just as firmly as they or their precursors had denounced slavery as “two mistaken and completely opposed institutions.”’- Populism-part and parcel of universal suffrage-was inimical to good government: demagoguery was the politicos’ easiest currency. Grandstanding supplanted leadership. Politicians proved themselves highly incompetent “for the patriotic objectives of the country’s consolidation, but highly able to take advantage of the simplicity of their less educated countrymen.”’* Culture. education, and a consciousnessraising crusade were imperative to raise the quality of citizenship. So was white immigration-the civic movement fully partook of the racist assumptions conlrnonplace in the early twentieth century. A public, secular education was the medium to forge the new citizen that Cuba Libre needed. Cuba Contemporanea, Revista Bitnestre, and other publications deplored the neglect education had suffered after the Estrada Pal~llaadministration. Trelles, in fact,
7’be Earl-!).Repzihl~c Polltzcs, CIL’ZC Cultz~re,and Soverrzg~~ty
79
identified the republic’s retrogression first and foremost in educational terms: bemeen 1903 and 1922, the number of teachers increased from 3,j00 to 6.000. n-hile the number of soldiers from 3,000 to 13,000; budget expenditures on education declined from 25 percent to 15 percent: those on the military increased from 10 percent to 24 percent.I9The problem was leadership. a political class that would replicate in the republic the task so ably undertaken by the separatist and auto~zomistaelders in the nineteenth century.20A civic vanguard would lead a neophyte citizenry to exercise their rights pnldently, encouraging the “singular abilities of our people towards the organized exercise of their rights and freedoins.”*’ Carlos de Velasco noted: “How many things would be done better than they are done now if the people understood well their concerns and gave each man what he desen-ed!”” The ciz~ilistasargued that an honest enough political class (“somewhat more prudence in the handling of the national treasury”) would make a difference in U.S.-Cuba relations and in ordinary Cubans’ faith in the republic.13 In 1892, article 4 of the Cuban Revolutionary Party’s program affirmed: The I’artido Revolucionario Cubano does not intend to perpetuate. with nenr forms or alterations more apparent than essential, the authoritarian spirit and the bureaucratic co~npositionof the colony. It rather seeks to establish on the basis of the frank and cordial exercise of man’s legitimate capacities, a new country of genuine de~nocracy,capable of conquering. through the order of real a-ork and a b:~lanceof the social forces, the dangers of sudden freedorrl in a society originated frorn slave~y.?~
The civic movement fully embraced the PRC’s modern, civilian 6lan. But the ciz>ilistasharked further back to the Ca~nagiieyanlender Ignacio Agramonte’s opposition to military supremacy during the Ten Years’ War (1868-1878): The doctrine of the Camagiieyans, dangerous and harmful as it may have later been, even supposing that it had causecl the failure of the Revolution of 1868. was the right one, as it taught Cubans to feel a holy terror for e.er)-thing that resembled tyranny, despotism, and a true mi1ital-y dictatorsl~ip.?~
Republican failings. then, harked of the colony, and the times called for strengthening the new habits to extirpate the old ones acquired over centuries when all Cubans were slaves. In spite of these failings. Cuba was patently better off libre than under Spain. Culture and education in a civic republic would allow gron-ing numbers of Cubans to feel “independence as an inviolable faculty of the spirit.”2”or the civilistas, the crisis of 1905-1906 was excruciating: Estrada Palma had been a good president, but his intransigence and then his willingness to surrender the republic were unacceptable. Still. Don Tomis ren~aineda guiding light of sorts, a mark that cz~banoslibm could, indeed, as Cabrera had so impassionedly argued in his best-seller, do it.
Ma rrfeli Pgrez-Stu ble
CRITICAL MOMENTS: THE FIRST REPUBLIC’SABORTED PACTS The early republic never quite established an institutional and ideological common ground to center the political system. Elite conflicts were marred by the opposition’s “fears of exclusion” and the government’s “temptation to hegemony”; mechanisms of consensus were weak or short-lived.” A lack of trust within the elites was not unusual in Latin America in moments of transition or expansion of political participation. What is distinctive about Cuba is the inability of the political system to gain a foothold along a stable institutional path 2i la Mexico, Costa Rica, or Venezuela, or to consolidate a military core of either the “Sultanistic” variety, akin to Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, or of the populist bent of Brazil and Argentina. Cuba’s “contradictory developmental path” took other turns, and we need to fully grasp their political c h a ~ a c t e r . ~ In this study, I mention three moments of potential elite pacts (an essential component of political stability) that failed to deliver. The “might have beens” of history are always enticing, but we cannot overextend their powers. Nonetheless, these three moments shed light onto Cuba’s political dais from the ground up, rather than by appealing to the deus ex machina of U.S. imperialism or the determinism of sugar monoculture. These three moments were Estrada Palma’s reelection in 1905, the Liberal revolt in 1906, and the second U.S. occupation (19061909). Estrada Palma’s aversion to caudillismo rendered tense executive-legislative relations during his administration. Veterans controlled the House of Representatives, and most were Liberals. Although nonpartisan, the president held the Liberals in low esteem. In the eyes of Don Tomas and his conservative allies, liberal demagoguery and universal male suffrage threatened the governability of the republic and pointed Cuba down the same road as the doomed Latin American republics. His supporters’ ambitions and his own fears of the unruly mob (la turba multa) led Estrada Palma to condone all-out purges of Liberals from municipal governments and to mount the grossly fraudulent elections of 1905. Like the first in 1901, Cuba’s second presidential contest was uncompetitive. When confronted with the fait accompli of an electoral sham, the Liberals withdrew and eventually took up arms against the government. In 1906, Estrada Palma preferred a U.S. intervention to a compromise that would have inevitably favored the Liberal cause. A civilian republic was at the core of Marti’s program for Cuba Libre. However, sovereignty and governability were often at odds. In 1902, the civic march exemplified civismo as the best platform to defend national sovereignty. At the same time, the liberators occupied a special place in Cuba Libre; their expectations and grievances steered important aspects of early republican politics. Yet, the liberators embodied caudillismo and militarism,
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reminiscent of the Latin American syndrome and, more important,’* the immediate past of Spanish colonialism. When the War of 1895 ended, Cuba Libre civilians did not command the same respect as the mambises, and ciuilism0 stood on shakier ground than caudillismo. Good government proved to be an elusive circle. Under the Platt Amendment, the temptation to resort to the United States as mediator of elite conflicts undermined sovereignty and diminished the incentives for elites to find a compromise among themselves. In turn, U.S. intervention diminished Cubans’ sense of efficacy as a nation and as citizens. Disbanded though it was, the Ejkrcito Libertador retained considerable mobilizational capabilities. During the civic march, these were put in evidence as officers and soldiers greeted Estrada Palma, displaying armaments supposedly turned over to the U.S. Army when $3 million were disbursed for that purpose. In a matter of weeks in 1906, the Liberals gathered thousands of armed men against the Estrada Palma administration and threatened a takeover of Havana. The government’s initial hesitation to use force undoubtedly facilitated the opposition’s mobilization. Yet, once Estrada Palma drafted a militia force, many soldiers quickly abandoned its ranks and joined the rebels. The Liberals represented independentismo and commanded widespread popular support, thanks to their war record and as the victims in the recent electoral hoodwink. Public opinion was decidedly Liberal in the early republic. The rapid military mobilization reflected as well the character of the War of Independence, where some thirty-four thousand soldiers (a majority nonwhite) conducted a guerrilla war, which gathered sufficient support among rural Cubans for Spain to dislocate tens of thousands in the ferocious reconcentracidn (forced transfer of rural populations to urban settings) as a way of severing the mambises’ lifeline. War had been a politically inclusionary and mobilizational experience amid a society that had undergone considerable socioeconomic transformation after 1878. Moreover, many ordinary Cubans were available for a call to arms; in a society lacking pervasive traditional ties and marked by the recent experience of guerrilla war, armed struggle constituted a reasonable strategy for political opponents to gain control of the national government. State coffers, after all, not only provided an exclusively Cuban source of capital accumulation but also, and more importantly, the only means for distributing favors and building the foundation of a political class. The absence of traditional social ties significantly marked the character of early republican politics. When the Liberals rebelled in 1906, both sides expected the guerrita to be over soon via U.S. intervention. All were surprised at the reluctant imperialism of Teddy Roosevelt, about which the historical record is unequivocally clear: The United States did not want to intervene and in fact supported a compromise among Cubans. How could the intervention have been averted? During his term, Estrada Palma could have been an able politician, using
state resources to consolidate the political class and the republic, but the “antipolitics” sentiments that would mount in Cuban society in the decades leading to 1959 had an early manifestation in Don Tomas. His fiscal conservatism and civilian sensibilities kept him from building up the army, so he was ill prepared to put down the rebellion. When he did not use full force to put down the Liberals, the revolt spread. Estrada Pallna could have compromised with the Liberals. A compromise had, in fact. been negotiated between Menocal and Zayas whereby all officials elected in 1905 except for the president and vice president would resign, new elections would be scheduled, and the Liberals would lay down their arms. This is the most crucial moment in Cuba’s early political development. Such a compromise would have been a pact bem-een Cuban elites and set a precedent for turning over the government to the opposition, m o essential ingredients of political stability and eventual democracy. On both sides of the conflict, voices n-ere heard regarding the importance of settling the conflict to avoid U.S. inten-ention. Initially willing to settle, Estrada Palnla quickly and intransigently retracted. Roosevelt emissaries William H. Taft and Robert Bacon shared the consen-atives’ misgivings about the Liberals but were appalled by the incumbent’s flagrant fraud. When Taft and Bacon recommended a compromise on the terms worked out by Menocal and Zayas, Estrackt Palma resigned and left the United States no choice but to intervene. Perhaps Don Tomas considered that a second intervention would finally secure annexation and, subsequently. good government. Even under the Platt Amendment, though, successful negotiations among Cubans in 1906 might well have tracked the republic along a different path of political development. Don Tomas used to bellloan the fact that Cuba was a republic without citizens. Calixto Mas6, a distinguished Cuban historian, turned Estrada Palma’s woes upside down: What Cuba lacked in 1905-1906 was leadership.’” In contrast to the first, the second U.S. occupation was a civilian affair. Charles Magoon, much maligned by Cuban historiography, carried out a politically sensible program: Expanding state rolls to accon~modatethe Liberals was imperative if the United States a-as ever to leave Cuba. He certainly did not teach Cubans hon- to be corrupt, there was plenv of schooling in this regard in the colony during the first fen- years of independence in spite of Estrada Palma’s austerity. Moreover, comiption was part and parcel of turn-ofthe-century politics everymhere. The seconci occupation revived annexationism in certain quarters. including the Spanish col~ununity(colonia espariola), but the United States left in 1909 with a clear antiannexation message. From thence forward, the political paradigm would be the republic, perhaps the only salutary outcome of the definitely avoidable occupation of 1906-1909.30 The second moment was Menocal’s counterfeit reelection in 1917. In 1913, the Conservative administration had been lnet with great expectations; the
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Liberals’ four years in power had lent credence to Consen~ativefears. Jose Miguel Gomez widely extended the maze of arrangements whereby incumbents did well for themselves. The Liberals unabashedly, if erratically and self-sen~ingly:intoned a populist, nationalist rhetoric that did little to advance the cause of ordinary Cubans or of the nation. The ongoing feud between G6mez and Zayas-not a platform of principles-was the central mark of the Liberal Party. The Conservative Menocal was, in fact, elected because of this feud. G6mez mobilized the army in favor of Menocal on election day, preferring his fellow manzhiveteran in the presidency over his Liberal nemesis who lacked military credentials. Menocal, however. did not live up to expectations: though initially curbing corruption, his administration continued the governance pattern established by the Liberals. By most accounts, politicos multiplied their schemes and deals; state budgets ballooned without commensurate public benefits.jl Elections a-ere scheduled for 1916. and the perennial issue of reelection reared into public debate in 1915. After some apparent hesitation, Menocal decided to seek a second term, and the stage was set for a repeat of 1905-1906. As in 1912, the Liberal candidate %-as Zayas. If in 1905-1906 Conservatives under the aegis of Estrada Palma could adduce with some credibility that their continuation in office was the only guarantee of good government, a similar rationale had little basis in 1916 except that the Cornell-educated Menocal inspired confidence in Washington and in most quarters of Cuba’s active classes (clases ~~izlas). The reelection maneuver starkly underscored the salient weaknesses of Cuban politics: The political class had no internal arrangement for the alternation of power. State control not only provided the means for personal enrichment hut also the sinecures to consolidate the political machinery. A combination of fraud and repression resulted in Menocal’s reelection. The Liberals immediately appealed the outcome to the Central Electoral Board, which evaluated the evidence and ruled mostly in favor of the challengers. Conservatives appealed to the Supreme Court, which again dictated that the Liberals had made a strong case and called for new elections in Las Villas and Oriente. Free and fair contests would almost certainly have tilted the presidential outcome in favor of Zayas, and the Consenatives well understood their disadvantage. Imaginary electors (electores imaginaries) were a routine remedy to make up for the gap in popular support. In 1919, when electoral rolls were r e ~ ~ i s e d . the follon,ing were among the names appearing on rosters: Cristobal Colon. Arsenio blartinez Campos, Antonio Cjnovas del Castillo. Emilio Castelar. Valeriano Weyler, and Sim6n Bolivar.” Honest Conservatives like Enrique Jose Varona and Cosme de la Torriente raised stinging criticisms of Menocal’s brazenness, previewing the fury of honest Liberals in 1928 who broke with hlachado over cooperativismo. The 1916 electoral affront, in fact. fleetingly anticipated a reverse cooperatizlismo: a group of honest politicos from both
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parties announced their intention to create a new party committed to the “cleaning up of politics.” The effort came to naught.33 Between November and February, there were various attempts to settle the conflict. Recalcitrant, Menocal implied nonetheless he might yield if the Liberals had someone other than Zayas to assume the presidency. Zayas, of course, had received the citizenw’s sanction at the polls in November 1916. In the end, the United States supported Menocal, but Washington was much more evenhanded until February than is usually portrayed. What made the Wilson administration support Menocal was the February insurrection. Then the talk became one of defending “constitutional government” against violent rebels and protecting U.S. property. A contingent of five hundred marines landed in Oriente near US.-owned sugar mills and. in passing, helped disarm some Liberal rebels. Whatever the merits of opposing armed rebellion, the fact is Washington supported a Cuban administration that had transgressed electoral procedures. U.S. support of Menocal also undermined the verdict handed down by Cuban institutions to settle the conflict in the Liberals’ favor. The year 1917 did not become 1906 for several reasons. Menocal stated clearly that he would not tolerate an insurrection and then delivered. In
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Leading lights of the civic movement, like Mirquez Sterling and Fernando Ortiz, came to the rescue of the patria during the Zayas-Crowder administration. The first, deploring the Crowder mission and Zayas’s corruption, nonetheless, cooperated with Zayas in the administration’s efforts to extricate Cuba from the Crowder grip. The second, deploring Zayas and deeming the ‘*moralization”program proposed by Crowder laudable, collaborated with the U.S. emissary. What Crowder set out to do, after all, was nothing new to the civic movement: his program had been advocated by Cubans in its entirety well before the U.S.S. Minnesota entered Havana harbor. Reform from above, however, was short-lived. By the time Gerardo Machado was elected in 1924, Washington was moving away from the “big stick” and “dollar diplomacy.” Though not yet ready to enunciate a Good Neighbor Policy, Republican administrations during the 1920s increasingly grasped the diminishing returns of constant interventions. Machado’s election was well received in Washington, among Cuba’s clases vivas, and in public opinion. Conservative loser, Menocal, congratulated Machado after the election-a first in the republic. Initially, Machado awakened new hopes, though social movements of various sorts had already despaired of reforming the republic within the established bounds. Whether or not Machado had two faces-a good one the first few years, and a dictatorial one after 1928-the fact that cooperativismo remained in office at the expense of partisan loyalties and popular support fatally wounded the political class. Cooperativismo, nonetheless, could have been a consensus solution, a viable pact. In Mexico, the revolutionaries were just beginning to lay the foundation of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), which turned out to be a spectacular political success. This third critical moment in the republic demands reinterpretation in view of early republican politics and comparative perspectives. The would-be PRI mobilized society, cooperativismo, entailed a countermobilization of citizens and elites.
ISSUES, THEMES, AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES Being part of a larger work-in-progress, this chapter does not have a conclusion. It is a small piece of a larger puzzle that does not yet have a clear profile. It is easier to start with what I do not want to do, which I hope is implicit in these pages. A undying framework around U.S. domination, sugar monoculture, and national sovereignty has largely constricted Cuban historiography. I do not seek an alternate undying logic to Cuba’s contradictory developmental path, and I believe politics provides an open-ended, contingency-sensitive reading. A politics-centered analysis is crucial in order to give internal factors their righthl place. Cuba’s longer colonial term under Spain and subsequent peculiar relationship with the United States have favored the analytical preeminence of external
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factors. Status issues-sovereignty, autononly, and annexation4ominate much of the historiography on the nineteenth century. Historians of the republic up to 1959, writing before or after the revolution, accord with an overarching centrality to the degrees of sovereignty Cuba experienced. The presence of the United States via military occupation, civil interventions, or capital investments, has commanded the able attention of historians and social scientists. Cuba’s socioeconomic profile has similarly been accurately drawn, even if conclusions about the character of the island’s developmental path and the origins of the revolution vary widely. Emphasizing U.S. preponderance and/or socioeconomic factors has usually meant that the role of Cubans themselves in shaping their own history has not been sufficiently considered. I am by no means suggesting that politics alone suffices. Without it or without giving it due attention. however, we may well have a grand view of the forest, without any inkling of the ways and moments the various trees came together. Politics-pace Don Fernando’s entreaty in 1923-may well offer a much-needed corrective in the field of Cuban history. Regarding early republican politics, I offer the follon-ing observations, which I hope to ultimately weave into an interpretive framework. Nineteenth-century status issues-independence, autonomism, annexation-marked the character and culture of Cuban politics and set the context for republican politics. Cuba developed “modern politics” under colonialism: nascent political parties, civilian-military conflicts, reform versus armed rebellion, and extension of citizenship rights. From the outset. Cubans quickly learned that domestic purposes required international actions: They lobbied in Madrid (for autonomy) and in Washington and New York (for annexation and independence). Cuba’s independence struggles Lvere. in essence. a precursor of twentiethcentury national liberation movements. The War of 1895 especially mobilized a cross-class, multiracial, island/diaspora coalition, which raised an army thirty-four thousand strong and conducted an extraordinary public relations campaign in the United States and elsewhere. The war was an inclusionary, participatory experience that set similar expectations for the republic. Wars, however, are devastating: more than thirty thousand Cubans died in the Ten Years’ War, and some three hundred thousand people fell victims of battle, disease, and dislocation in the War of 1895. In proportion to population, the latter figure w-as higher than U.S. losses during the Civil War. Modern politics, modern warfare, a slave-based capitalist transformation, an international moment of rapid trade and investment expansion, and the U.S. coming of imperial age all combined to set a context for the founding of the republic markedly different from those established in the rest of Latin America seventy-five years earlier. Latin American nineteenth-century conservatives in Cuba have no real counterpart. The island had no oligarchy to speak of, no sedentary peasantry, and cities-not only Havana and not only in Cubaplayed too central a part in national formation. Cuban liberals, at the same time,
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were not exactly like their Latin American correlates, as continental liberalism did not start out from a platform of universal male suffrage. The pivotal threads were the formation/transformatiodbreakdown of Cuba’s political class; the institutional and cultural character of political society; and patterns of inclusion, a populist, patrimonial political system amid a highly mobilized society. Pre- and post-1959 historiographies have more in common than meets the eye: Teleology weighs both d o m . Before 1959, historians formed what I am calling a “waiting for the nation” school, a Caribbean version of a Jeffersonian economy, civic democracy, and populist political culture. After 1959, the continuities between nineteenth-century struggles for independence and social justice and the revolution of 1959 are tightly drawn. Teleologies are fantasies. No society bears a hidden destiny of any kind: teleologies, moreover, explain nothing. Cuban historiography is trapped in a spider web. Two possible ways out are empirical research and alternative paradigms, the latter intended, not to generate a new teleology, but to allow an open-ended, contingency-sensitive look at the pieces. Understanding Cuba in bits and pieces (en y a pedazos) is a much more stimulating intellectual challenge than the Cuba on history’s tracks that has received so much attention.
NOTES
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The Political Ideas of Fernando Ortiz (1906-1933) Carmen Almoddvar
Fernando Ortiz belonged to the generation born between 1880 and 1895, the so-called first republican generation. This generation represented the near revolutionary conscience. Although Ortiz, who had been called the *‘thirddiscoverer of Cuba,” did not get involved in the “necessary war,” he did identlfy with Jose Marti’s ideals and patriotism. A man of Ortiz’s intellectual stature could not be unconcerned with his surroundings, and he did not ignore the social and economic crises that affected his country, or its internal political fluctuations, or the links that tied the republic to the will of Washington. Ortiz was part of the sizable group of renowned Cuban intellectuals of his generation who were influenced by positivist notions at the dawn of the twentieth century, and who earnestly believed that it ~ 7 a spossible to elirninate the vices and evils inherited from colonialism through liberal reformism. They also felt capable of tackling the problems arising from the creation of the republic. In this brief synthesis, I do not intend to review the entirety of Ortiz’s work through the period 19061933 to trace the footsteps of his political ideals. I will only refer to the titles that concretely underline his views on this topic. In this sense, Entre cubanos: Psicologfa tropical (1913) is a mandatory text for analysis. This is one of the first and most consulted of his works. Although irrelevant fro111 a social-scientific perspective, given the context in which it was written, I believe that it is a good starting point for understanding the political ideals of the learned Ortiz. This text mTaspublished in 1913. the same year the essay Contra elyavkee, written by Julio Cesar Granadilla, appeared in the island’s bookshops. This latter work made an isolated claim for the economic independence of the country as an essential measure for overcoming the deterioration of the emerging republic.
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The essays compiled in Entt-e czlhanos were written mainly between 1906 and 1908 and previously published in newspapers and magazines of the time. This text provided readers with a description of the nature, personality, and attitude of those born on the island. Cubans were witnessing their history as it unrolled in those critical years of republican trial and error. Within the pages of this text on the “tropical psychology” of Cubans, Ortiz emphasized the need for education and culture as essential weapons in Cuba’s evolution. He called for solidarity, criticizing the media for being immersed in “personal selfishness,” and exhorting Cubans to continue “being themselves” in the process of renewing themselves. He decisively criticized Cuban jesting or choteo, classifying it as the *.greatCreole tragedy” and a double-sided weapon. He called for Cubans to wake up, work, and abandon the apathy he believed affected the citizenship. Ortiz’s criticism in Entre cubanos was wholly constructive; his objectives were not in any way related to historian Francisco Figuera’s “dissection” of the Cuban personality in his polemical book Cuba j!su evolucidn colonial. Ortiz did not ignore the historical past. or consideration of the future possibilities, folloaling the U.S. intervention in Cuba. In Entre cubanos he dealt with these issues. This text may be considered to be Ortiz’s plunge into the political scene at the time when he also acknowledged that social mobility was subjected to “unavoidable and inevitable historical laws.” In 1914, during the 121st anniversary of the Sociedad Economica de Arnigos del Pais, Ortiz looked back to the golden age of that institution. Taking it as an example of cultural performance. he claimed that “the work of a dedicated, well-meaning group of men can turn an exhausted factory into a country and a nationality.” Ortiz wanted to encourage his contemporaries to renew the achievements of the past and to convince them to strive for the same. Among other issues, he emphasized that faith in culture had weakened, that there was a lack of a robust social brain, and that the Cuban political parties lacked intellectual creatil-ity in their programs. Ortiz stated that faith alone did not suffice if the countp were to be saved but that passionate work and dedication were required, as Cuba’s salvation depended on Cubans themselves. In 1915, Ortiz began to actively participate in politics. Two years later, he was elected to the House of Representatives. The author of Los factores humanos de la cubanidad (1940) had a long n-ay to go to link what he had written before 1917 with his publications in HemMo de Cuba in 1919 and his national reform program, La cl-isispolitica cubataa, sus causas y remedios (1919). This road involved Cuba’s role in World War I, among other issues. Ortiz delivered a speech on the subject in the House of Representatives on April 17, 1917, and another one on obligatory military service on June 18,
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ter time he criticized Cuban diplomacy and protested against the statements made by Albert Bushmell Hart, a professor of international law at Harvard University. Hart had stated that the United States had rights over the island, as it was within the borders of its “empire.” Ortiz later looked back to those days of “counterpoints” in the Cuban Congress to confirm that the U.S. government and US,public opinion did not share the .’Prussiannviews of the Harvard professor. In La crisispolftica cubana, Ortiz initially analyzed the causes that had led the countsy to the critical stage in which it found itself. He classified these causes according to their origin: political, historical, and sociological. He then suggested possible cures for overcoming those vices affecting political life in the republic. The usurpation of the presidency by Mario Garcia Menocal and his successful fight against the 1917 liberal insurrection, thanks to U.S. support, were issues that Ortiz believed could not be ignored when evaluating the causes of the political downfall of Cuba in the late 1920s. As far as international causes were concerned, he did not ignore the continual U.S. intervention in Cuban internal administrative issues through its so called “notes,” with the blatant intention of controlling Cuban national wealth. Ortiz criticized ,.secret” diplomacy, U.S. hegemony, and the political chaos, arguing that the Cuban republic had practically fallen in the hands of a U.S. ‘*proconsul.”Ortiz suggested. as an international cure, that a relationship of mutual respect should be established between the governments of Cuba and the United States. He noted that the attitude displayed by Washington, in relation to the liberal uprising and the outbreak of civil war in February 1917, had left its mark. La crisispolitica cubana also reveals the author’s great concerns over labor legislation operating on the island at the time. Ortiz pronounced himself in favor of the eight-hour work day and the improvement of women’s a-orking conditions and pregnancy protection. Some of these views, published in Heraldo de Cuba, had been published previously in the pamphlet Las actuales respotzsabilidadespolfticas J / la nota atnericana (1918). In this short text, he considered Menocal’s statements on electoral guarantees. approved by the U.S. minister in Cuba, “dangerous for Cuba’s future.” At the end of World War I, Ortiz delivered an unforgettable speech in the House of Representatives: Cuba en la Paz de L7eersalles (1920). His eloquent words revealed an acute Creole wit. Certain paragraphs contained severe criticisms of Cuban representation at the Versailles conferences: .’Cuba was never heard because it never spoke, it obtained nothing because it asked for nothing, and it did not triumph because there was nothing to defeat.” He criticized the Versailles Treaty because the “equality of nations” had been violated, different categories were established among nations, and those that were excommunicated were not admitted to the League of Nations. He cited clear examples: Russia, Mexico, and Santo Domingo. He referred to article
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10 of the League of Nations’ constitution, the backbone of this international organization, which stated .,all states are obliged to guarantee territorial and political independence against foreign aggression.” He then warned the members of Cuba’s Congress that this article would only “have the value which the United States can bestow to it.” He also commented on the regimen of labor, the last topic discussed in Paris. He mentioned Cuba’s backwardness regarding labor legislation, in which “the laborer continues to be merchandise, even if the treaty proclaims that he can no longer be treated as such.” Finally, Ortiz encouraged Cubans to forget past hatreds and senseless ambitions in order to gain respect for their national sovereignty. Ortiz did not ignore national, global, and regional changes, specifically in the postwar period, the United States’ intervention in the Caribbean, the Russian Revolution, the emergence of the first trade unions, and the Cuban economic crisis. In this decisive stage, Ortiz developed more profound critiques, integrating the liberal “left” component of his party with the determination to implement his ideas on “national renovation.” A number of his prominent speeches and lectures between 1912 and 1923 were compiled in ta.0 volumes, published in 1923 under the title En la tribuna: discursos cuba?zos.The prologue of this compilation was written by the poet Ruben Martinez Villena, who had led the “Protest of 13” (“protesta de 10s 13”) at the Cuban Science Academy in 1923. The young revolutionary clearly summarized Ortiz’s role in the times of crisis and renovation Cuba was undergoing. Martinez Villena emphasized that Ortiz had worked for his patria in times of peace; he was an example of culture and honesty to youth willing to save their motherland. Ortiz proceeded to head the civil association Junta de Renouacidn Ciuica in 1923. In general, its manifesto denounced the corruption that existed in all levels of the republican government. In 1923, the relentless Ortiz became president of the Sociedad Economica de Amigos del Pais, a post he retained until 1932. It was there that he organized a program of lectures with the intention of opening an academic debate on the polemical topic of Cuban decadence. His book on Cuban decadence, La decadencia cubana (1924), was based on an unforgettable lecture he had given on the subject. Ortiz warned the audience that he had radicalized his views. He had dug into the factors that had contributed to the weakening and “evident intellectual, moral, and economic decadence of Cuban society.” He did not limit himself to touching just the surface; Ortiz searched for the roots of the difficulties faced by the nation. He noted that j3 percent of Cubans were illiterate; 68 percent of children did not go to school; there was not a single rural school in Cuba, an agricultural nation; over 20 percent of the candidates running for political parties in the previous elections had criminal records; and “according to public judicial sentences the police corps
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were full of criminals.” He thus concluded, “Cuba is falling into the abyss of barbarity.” When discussing economic problems, Ortiz emphasized the influence of foreign investment in the island, pointing out that two thirds of the sugar industry was in U.S. hands. Sugar lands “were not to be burnt down by their owners, as in the Ten Years’ War, because active capital in Cuba was not a social force integrally connected to others.” He continued, “almost 17 percent of the national territory belonged to North Americans. . . . The mines, railways, telephones, and especially banks are all foreign.” The battle Ortiz fought to stop Cuba from drowning in a deep “decadence” was not one that he a-aged alone. The Minorist group, and especially the Revista de Avance, were also struggling against this decadence. The Minorists denounced false values, called for the total renovation of the arts at all levels, spoke out about political problems, and made their gatherings, or teflulias, the ideal scenarios for debating political and cultural issues. During this period Ortiz n-orked with left-wing scholars, and, as did other cultural figures in Cuba, he adopted ,’more defined” views of the future, as historian Julio Le Riverend notes in the prologue to the 1978 edition of Contrapunteo cubano. Starting in 1925, the nation faced a turbulent decade. Gerardo Machado became the president of the republic in May 1925 and immediately forgot about the reform program he had promised the nation. The “regenaration” program became an open attack on all those who failed to obey the ruler’s wishes and decisions. The opposition reacted immediately. From the beginning of 1926, the spokesmen for the Machado regime maneuvered politics to ensure that Machado stayed in power. Machado himself insisted time and time again that he had no intention of ninning for reelection; yet he astutely cleared a path to staying in power, arguing that he “would only remain in porn-er if the people wanted him to do so.” Amid this atmosphere of political tension Ortiz traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the Third Pan American Conference. Toward the end of 1926, Ortiz promoted the foundation of the Institucion Hispano-Cubana de Cultura, which became an important part of Cuban cultural life. Even when concentrating on the struggle against racism and xenophobia. Ortiz did not forget Machado’s abuses. Condemned to an “imposed” regime, Ortiz resorted to a self-imposed exile in 1930. He made an anthological speech in the Town Hall of New York on November 8, 1931: published under the titles Amet-ican Responsabilities fot- Cubas Trozlbles (1931) and Las responsabilidades de 10s Estados LTnidos el1 10s males de Cuba (1932). Here Ortiz stated that all public liberties in Cuba had been suppressed and, except for a small group of people, Cubans were crying out, “Down with Machado!” The key part of his speech, however, was his denouncing of the U.S. government as responsible for the island’s problems: *‘Thereis no excuse for this because it can be confirmed not only by facts but also by the very text of a public law governing Cuba and its links to the United
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States, by a treaty.” He continued by noting, “The Platt Amendment has since 1917 ensured that successive usurping governments stay in power against the public will of Cubans.” The radical nature of his arguments was evident both in terms of internal matters and the country’s foreign policy. Perhaps his political activities, developed mainly while he was a theorist among the left wing of the party denominated .’the old shoe” (lacha?zcleta),had influenced his intellectual views. While in the United States, he wrote several articles describing the grave situation in Cuba. His speech in Washington on December 10, 1932, Lo qtre Cuba desea de 10s Estados Unidos (1932) (What Cuba Wants from the United States) deserves special attention. In this speech, he delved into the roots of the Cuban problem, starting with the political and economic dependence of the island on the United States. He denied that Cubans wanted a proconsular or military intervention; he advocated for the elimination of U.S. influence in Cuba, stating that it was harmful because Cuba “is definitely being influenced by the controlling mechanisms of the enormous political and economic forces of the North American people, directly or through diplomacy.” He then summarized his position by saying that the Platt Amendment should be abrogated inmediately. In issues relating to the economy. Ortiz requested that the reciprocity treaty should be revised, to establish a truly reciprocal tariff policy. In 1933, at the end of the Machado dictatorship, Ortiz returned to Cuba to resume his unfinished work. At the First National History Congress, he was acclaimed for “his valuable historical works and his moral and civic nature; one should add, also for his faultless humanism.” During World War I1 and until his death in 1969, Ortiz proved that Ruben Martinez Villena was not mistaken when he wrote: Tomorrow, when the good conquer (“the good always win in the end”): when the misty horizon clears and the dust of false idols disappears. when men using intellectual or patriotic masks, who are nothing but iodine and sawdust, are forgotten. the memory of Fernando Ortiz will re~nain, bearing his talent and commitment. And his image will remain standing among the rubble, and will be selected by the young as one of the pillars on which the New Republic will stand.
Economic Historian and Editor of Cuban Classics Jose’ Matos Are’valos
In the Cuban intellectual tradition, history has been the object of important research and appraisal. The works of Jose Martin Felix de Arrate, Antonio Jose Valdes, and Ignacio Urrutia are well known; they have been dubbed the “three first historians of Cuba.” Other examples are the monumental Historia de la esclavitud by Jos6 Antonio Saco, Apz~ntesparala historia de las letras by Antonio Bachiller y Morales, and the invaluable Historia de la isla de Cuba b y Pedro Jose Guiteras. These historians, in their effort to establish the origins and development of the Cuban nation. were influenced by the ideals and methods of their respective times. With the emergence of the Cuban republic. scholars reflected on the social events that molded the country during the nineteenth century, including historical n~onographson the m-ar of independence or the history of the provinces and townships, and biographical essays on the great Cuban leaders and thinkers. Even though the diversity of historical topics was considerable, the traditional, descriptive historical perspective always reigned. There was an exaltation of individual heroism without the intention of establishing the logic of historical events. In the 1920s. hoa-ever, the study of Cuban histov unde~wenta renovative process that began with the works of Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, Ratniro Guerra, and Fernando Ortiz. Roig, fro111 an anti-imperialist perspective, studied the relationship between Cuba and the United States. Guerra, in his famous manual Historia de Cuba (1921) and in his essay Azdcar y poblacidn en Ins A~ztillas,approached national histor).-until then thought of as a series of facts in chronological order-from the basis of political and economic analysis. Finally Ortiz, critical of the notions of
traditional history and an advocate of new methodological perspectives, evaluated and interrelated economic and political phenomena. This level of self-consciousness anlong Cuban scholars coincided with a similar transformation of historical studies under n-ay in Europe. In Cuba, this new way of thinking about history was characterized by an interest in historical reference, the reconstruction of national history, and the exaltation of the values of the country’s revolutionasy and nationalist tradition.
AN UNPUBLISHED PROJECT OF CUBAN ECONOMIC HISTORY It is within this context that Fernando Ortiz initiated the writing of an interesting and revealing project on Cuba’s econon~ichistory. The unpublished manuscript exists today in the archives of the library of the Sociedad Econ6mica and Instituto de Literatura y Linguistics in Havana. It constitutes proof of the evolution in Ortiz’s thinking ton-ard a conception of history that overcame the limitations posed by his earlier positivist perspective. Ortiz titled the project “The First Historical Revolution in Cuba (Introduction to Cuban economic Development)” (“La primera revoluci6n hist6rica de Cuba [Introduction a un estudio de la evoluci6n econ6mica de Cuba]).” In its unfinished condition, it offers insight into Ortiz’s approach to organizing his material. He would first classify the quotations, economic data, newspaper cuttings, photographs, and other research notes. Only later did he begin drafting preliminary ideas, and afterward he would add new information and make new considerations. This is how Ortiz carried out his book-writing career in this period, working on two or more books at a time. Ortiz’s unfinished manuscript does not form a volume. It consists of mainly notes, which show a logical plan for a text on Cuba’s economic development. Despite this, it contains opinions that show the prevalence of new historical conceptions. The title itself introduces a perspective that deviates from traditional Cuban studies. Also, among the papers that form this unpublished project are a number of notes taken from Karl Kautsky’s Los fundamentos del cristianismo (New York, 1925). confirming Ortiz’s theoretical inclination toward Marxist philosophy to explain the role of economic production, public property, and the social classes of the slave system in Roman society during the empire. Ortiz understood the need to evaluate the social and economic phenomena, withdut neglecting the subjective dimension of historical processes or the internal nature of social contradictions. Based on this new perspective, and aiming to understand the conformation of Cuban culture, Ortiz abandoned traditional historical conceptions and criticized the existing historiography in these terms:
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The history of Cuba, like that of many other countries, has also been thought as being forged through the centuries by its main characters, and supernatural mystery as in biblical stories, the work of heroes as in chivalric literature. or personal sacrifices as in romantic and sentimental novels.’
In addition: The histon of Cuba has been reduced to that of its political domination. to its superior structure: this would be equivalent to reducing the geography of Cuba to its valleys and mountains. Today the historiographical science places deeper and more positive demands; it requires the consideration of the true or decisive causes in historical phenomena and the links between them. It therefore demands a detailed analysis of the economic bases of Cuban society in order to explain its civil formation.*
In reference to external phenomena in relation to internal contradictions in Cuban society, Ortiz later wrote: It is preferable to examine the foreign contradictions of the Spanish rule in Cuba not through the simple chain of external events. but from the inside, from Cuba’s entrails, and look outwards, in the same way as a person looks out from a ship to study the course of its voyage: the sudden changes in direction, the maneuvers of its crew, the landmarks it passes. the speed of the current under it, the winds that push it along, the shallows that threaten it, and the anchorages that offer fair weather and human cornfort.’
The reconstruction of national history, based on economic and social assumptions, was a methodological necessity for understanding the role of economic structures of different cultures in the formation process of the Creole economy during the initial years of Spanish colonization. To gain this knon-ledge, Ortiz studied the economy of the “Indian society”: family, agriculture, transport, historical level of culture, the use of metals, domestic animals, housing, trade, labor, and social classes. In the same way, he studied “Castillan society” in order to establish the origins of the formation and development of the capitalist economy in Cuba. The different models of society that he depicted demonstrated the contradictory origins of this mixed economy, “as it was not possible to reproduce Castillan society neither nras national or municipal mercantilism possible . . . nor was feudalism possible.”’ The formation of the economy in the island was rife with numerous cultural and economic conflicts, and capitalism arose from the violent clash of civilizations. Ortiz called this process Cuba’s first historical revolution: In the Hispano-Cuban clash of the sixteenth century, economic progress from the Taino-Siboney economy to the Castillan economy was so sudden, and the adaptation process so hastened, that it was only possible through great conflicts: the mass being subjugated was not able to adapt and perished.’
This idea, on which Ortiz comments but does not elaborate, is dealt with in “Presentaci6n y glosa de Fray Bartolome.” a prologue to the book Bartolorn6 de las Casas: pensador politico, historiador, antropdlogo by Lewis Hanke (Havana, 1949). Ortiz’s introduction shon-s both a historical value and the continuity of his thoughts on this matter: The distance between the two horizons was enormous, in the magnitude of millenniums, in the evolution of culture. The clash was unbearable for the Americans. It was not only due to the strife of wooden weapons against iron arms, arrows against guns, indigenous hoes [coal against iron tools, and canoes against caravels, nor due to the overpowering wheel. sails. and horses and other Old World beasts of burden: nor was it due to the crossing of infectious diseases reciprocally ignored and causing great mortality among both contending groups. The overwheln~ingand decisive factor was the impossibility of urgently adapting the simple social and econo~nicorder of the Indians, deprived of greed, coins, capital, and salaries, to that of the Europeans moved by the eagerness of the already triumphant mercantile capitalisn~.In that sudden contact of conflicting cultures. both conquerors and conquered failed. unable to combine their social mechanisms. and the awesome ‘destruction of the Indies’ o c c ~ r r e d . ~
Returning to Ortiz’s unpublished manuscripts, one can see that he was laying the general guidelines for understanding the first historical revolution in Cuba. He accon~plishedthis by examining the process of appropriation and division of the land, a problem Ortiz tracked from the conquest up to the second decade of the twentieth centun;. Ortiz developed these ideas at the time of Machado’s government; through them he revealed the political and economic context underlying his xork. In using his historical knowledge as a political tool, he stated: In the current system of salan workers. a capitalist minority dominates the proletariat through the appropriation of lands. In the initial regime of the conquest the conquerors established their domination by becoming capitalists through the forced possession of the only workers in the island, the Indians. Nowadays land is taken and laborers are said to he legally free: yesterday, the Indians were owned and the land remained legally free. Social repercussion was rooted in the privileged ownership of the instruments of production and, therefore, of arealtl~.~
Ortiz touched other issues in this project, including the economic and political role of the first towns (villas) established in Cuba, the social and economic importance of the administration of the properties of the deceased (bienes de difi~ntos)in the Indies, and the economic significance of contraband in Cuba’s history. One section, titled ‘,The First Historical Revolution in Cuba.” illustrates the depth with which Ortiz studied Cuban historical themes as the basis for his famous Czlhan Counterpoint and other texts in which his
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conception of history is predominant. The history of Cuba, he asserts, is a process where ethnic groups, classes, economies, ideas, religions, and superstitions are articulated, and the Cuban identity emerges as a new qualitative factor.
THE CUBAN BOOKS SERIES A study of the Cuban Books Series (Coleccion de Libros Cubanos), which was created and directed by Ortiz, enables us to take another look at his interest in reconstructing and maintaining the history and cultural traditions of Cuban people. Analysis of its various publications permits a new assessment of its significance. The general bibliography elaborated by the Biblioteca Nacional Jose hlarti for the period betn-een 1917 and 1 9 3 C t h e so-called empty years8-provides the context for Cuban Books Series. During that time numerous texts on Jose Marti appeared, works on the experiences of the War for Independence circulated, and a revaluation of Cuban historical studies occurred (after its initial stages in the 1920s, this latter tendency achieved maturity after 1930). Likewise, works on education and pedagogy proliferated, as well as works highlighting the most relevant Cuban intellectuals and independence leaders. At the time, Jose Marti was Cuba’s most studied intellectual figure, but a bibliography on Marti mainly demonstrates biographical data and specific analysis of his work. Priority was given to his poetry, aesthetics, literary values, teaching ideas, and eloquence. As Julio Antonio Mella noted, there n7as a clear absence of studies dealing nrith the tn~lyrevolutionary essence of Marti’s thought. Scholars such as Antonio Saco, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, Domingo del Monte, Antonio Maceo, and Felix Varela and others led the interest in Marti. Most of these were historical and biographical accounts. Efforts at recoxTeringessential Cuban thought were isolated and mainly descriptive, although one must acknowledge the rigor of Carlos Trelles’s Bihlioteca histdrica de autores cuhanos and the well-informed works of Domingo Figarola Caneda and Jose Fernandez de Castro. Before the publication of the Cuban Books Series, the only project that contemplated the recovery of Cuba’s historical memory was Ortiz’s own 1913 project, the Cuban Books and Unpublished or Rare Documents Series (Colecci6n Cubana de Libros y Documentos Ineditos o Raros). In this project Ortiz addressed the need to republish out-of-print Cuban texts, such as Lo que fuimos o lo que somos by Jose Maria de La Torre. This series was also designed to encourage the publication of manuscript works, which according to Ortiz were being “forgotten or devoured by moths.” This is how Jose Maria Callejas’s unpublished Historia de Santiago de Cuba was rescued from oblivion. The same happened to the interesting book of testimonies by Lola Maria Ximeno. Finally,
Ortiz sought to publish books on Cuba written by foreigners and which rarely reached the island, such as Historia de la esclazdtud en Cuba by Hubert S. Aimes. The 1713 series remained active until the 1730s. However, for unknown reasons, very few volumes were actually published. In 1927, Ostiz launched the Cuban Books Series in collaboration with renowned bibliographers,%nd the works published partly coincided in subject matter with the previous Colecci6n Cubana de Libros y Documentos Ineditos o Raros. However, in the new series. only important Cuban texts such as La historia de Cuba by Pedro J. Guiteras are included, not unpublished manuscripts. The new series is similar to the previous one because it also published works on Cuba written by foreigners, such as Samuel Hazard’s Cuba a pluma y a lapiz (Cuba with Pen and Pencil, 1871), and Alexander von Humboldt’s 6zsayo politico de la Isla de Cuba (Political Essay on the Island of Cuba, Spanish edition, 1827, French and English editions, 1826). Ortiz contributed to the publication of more than forty-two volumes in the Cuban Book Series, among them Jose’ Marti Poesias, with a biography and introduction by Juan Marinello; Jose’ Marti, Ideario; JosB Marti. Epistolario; Iniciadores y primeros martires de la recoluci6rz Cubana by Vidal Morales; the works of Josi. de la Luz y Caballero: poetic a-orks of Josi. Maria Heredia, PlBcido, and JuliBn del Casal; and Jose Antonio Saco’s Contra la anexidn, and Historia de la esclaz~itud.The publication of these texts alone illustrates the close links Ortiz was seeking to establish bemeen the twentieth century and past traditions of Cuban scholarship as a means for giving ideological continuity to revolutionary and progressive thought. This is why he began the Cuban Books Series with the reedition of La historia de Cuba by Guiteras, a deeply patriotic and nationalistic historian. Ortiz introduced new methodological issues in the different prologues he wrote to the series’ publications. He first proposes to establish a method for evaluating historical sources, a critical analysis of the documents, in reference to the chronicles of conquerors and Cuban voyagers. He took the role of an active historian, not only in the reedition of the historical texts but also in questioning them as documents and seeing them as resulting from circumstantial and human contradictions. In 1927, Ortiz wrote, “Particularly the pre-history of Cuba and its preColumbian civilizations require a remodeling because the chronicles of the conquest and its almost medieval visions are still being accepted in their literal sense.”10He pointed out that: Cuban economic life until Charles I11 and its restn~cturing,almost entirely exTralegal in terms of widespread contraband, is open to the analysis of its significance; the convulsions of the island’s nationalism, since their birth with the Economic Societies [Sociedades Econ6micas de Arnigos del Paisl until the bloody convulsions of Guiteras’s time, must soon be enlightened. linking them further to the modern patterns of human thought and the accident5 of the world’s economy.”
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This proposal in the introduction to Guitera’s Historia de Cuba, the first volume in the Cuban Books Series, was based on a social and economic perspective of Cuban history. Ortiz argued that the colonial economy could only be understood by considering society’s internal dynamics, and by observing the links bemeen the universal and particular factors, and bemeen the economy and the world’s current econonlic ideas. Another aspect of Ortiz’s historiographical perspective appeared in his prologue to Saco’s Contra la anexidn. He proposed to analyze the works of Cuban intellectuals as expressions of their responses to the ideological challenges of their times; analysis, he suggested, should not obscure these intellectuals’ ideas or request something from them that their historical backgrounds did not provide for. Following this nlethodology, Ortiz updated the debate over nineteenth-century reformist ideology and highlighted the national values of anti-Annexationism. At the same time Ortiz considered different factors that influenced the formation and development of Saco’s political personality. He argued that a well-argued and detailed study should show the importance of understanding the individual in his historical rhythm. Detaching a writer’s texts from the context in which they were produced would often render them conf~~sing. disjointed, or disoriented. If we frame them within the historical conditions that inspired them, however, we begin to understand Saco’s ideas. Yet, comprehending all the tones and clarity of Saco’s views still requires some sense of the burning intimacy that filled his letters.12 Ortiz cautiously studied many of Saco’s views regarding Cuban independence, the abolition of slavery, and the debated issue of his ‘,racism.” Ortiz show-ed the contradictory views present in Saco’s work and Ortiz was able to differentiate hemeen what was circumstantial and what was permanent in Saco’s political thought. Ortiz highlighted his liberal ideals and his attachment to political “possibilism” in arl unprecedented way, as well as his clear definition of Cuban nationality. According to this definition, Cuban nationality is not limited to a segment of white colonial society; instead it has historical sense and transcends due to its universality. According to Saco. “The notion of immortality is sublime, it prolongs the existence of individuals beyond burial, and nationality is the immortality of a people and the purest origin of patri~tism.”’~ Ortiz focuses on the central aspects of Saco’s thought, and on the concept of nationality-not limiting it to its ethnic aspect but understanding it in its axiological, ethical, and cultural dimensions. One can affirm that Ortiz’s historical conceptions are based on Saco, m-ho was an advocate of Cuban reformism, and developed his historical ideas in texts such as Coleccidn de papeles c i e n t f i c o o histbricos, politicos j1de otras ramas sohre la isla de Cuba (some of which went unpublished), and his monumental Historia de la esclavitud (History of Sla~ler~9. In these works Saco centers his ideas
around the issue of slavery, R-hich was so closely linked to the reality of nineteenth-century Cuba. In Historia de la esclaz:itt~d,Saco universalized Cuban issues, culture, and history, thus constructing a history of slavery in other places that m-as deeply critical of the Spanish colonial system. In his historical studies Saco developed the idea, cherished by Ortiz, that facts acquire tnle value when studied in relation to general issues. This idea enabled Saco to analyze the events of Cuban national history with a greater level of objectivity. Thus, in developing an argument for the abolition of slavery, Saco inserts the Cuban experience into his historical analysis of slavery in Asia ancl Europe: that is why the analysis of free work and its advantages were central to his notions. He needed to establish the historical value of salaried work for social transformation. Saco, and later Ortiz, conceived of histon- as a political resort, as an ideological weapon that guided being Cuban. For them history was not only scientific knowledge, or the memory of the Cuban people, but also a mechanism with a ‘.social purpose” for the transformation of Cuban society. Saco’s example provided an important background for Ortiz’s historical studies, especially his encyclopedic spirit and his abiliv to integrate various historical studies into a focused object of research. Saco’s work on slavery and its history confirmed Ortiz’s ideas regarding Indian labor in the Ken- World, and Saco’s insights into vagrancy in Cuba and his ethnographic al-ticles were quoted by Ortiz to correct the historical errors of foreign authors who wrote about Cuba. Both authors understood and studied the works of Fray Bartolome de las Casas. Saco wrote an article in hladrid entitled “La Historia de las Indias por Fray Bartolome de las Casas y la Real Academia de la Historia de Madrid (18651, long before this unpublished work of Las Casas was published in
Saco and Ortiz did not express their essential views in a specific doctrine; they emanated rather from their scientific and political activity. This is why we are unable to find a theory of histoly in Ortiz without first approaching
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the problems that occupied his attention. Each of Ortiz’s concepts offered a pletllora of references to the history of Cuban thought and the social, cultural, and practical activities of Cuban society.
1 . Fernando Ortiz. “La priinera revolucihn histhrica d e Cuba (Introduccihn a un estudio de la evolucion econbmica cubanal,” unpublished manuscript, Archivo Fernando Ortiz. SEAP-ILL, Havana.
Tobacco in the Contrapunteo Ortiz and the Havana Cigar Jean Stubbs
The last decade of the twentieth century was one in which the island of Cuba was catapulted once more onto the international cultural arena. In the late 1990s, the son stole back the show from salsa through the octogenarian Buena Vista Social Club.’ The revival of the son was predated by other Cuban revivals, two of which are of concern here: Fernando Ortiz and the Havana cigar. The Ortiz revival, and its contrapuntal critique of postcoloniality, modernity, and postmodernity, was largely literary and anthropological. Tobacco, like sugar, was relegated to a secondary plane. Yet Ortiz, in developing the Contrapunteo,’ dwelt on tobacco, even more than sugar, and especially on the cigar, to construct his counterpoint and concept of transculturation, which have been at the heart of the Ortiz revival. I look first at the Ortiz revival and the Contrapunteo. I then chart the history behind the Havana cigar revival, recentering Cuba’s tobacco product par excellence in the Contrapunteo. My story is of a new Cuban counterpoint, within tobacco itself-more precisely, between what I have come to call the “offshore” and the island Havana cigar, involving island and 6migre Cubans, for non-U.S. and U.S. markets. It is contrapuntal with the work of Ortiz and my own earlier work.3 In centrifugal fashion, there is the main story and two complementary essays. The first spans a century (1895-199 5) of Florida Habar20 history and is framed by two tobacco embargoes. The second functions as a representational play, which raises key questions for our understanding of Cuba’s “national” history. I conclude by posing a hypothetical question: What would Ortiz, in true contrapuntal fashion, have made of these latterday developments?
ORTIZ AND THE CONTRAPUNTEO The Ortiz revival began among the Cuban-American academic community in the United States with the work of Gustavo Perez-Firmat and Antonio Benitez-Rojo.’Both drew on postmodernism. and. while in historical and anthropological context, their analyses were linguistic and literary. Pkrez-Firmat argued that Cuban national identity is translational not foundational, highlighting how the Ortiz metaphor of the ajiaco, a stew of Amerindian origin, the culinary emblem of Cuba, not so much fusidn (a melting pot fusion) but coccidtz (an incessant simmering concoction). It is not difficult to see how powerful a current of thinking this might be for Cuban emigres, like Perez-Firmat. It legitinlized their cubatzia, in the Ortiz sense of the term (the spiritual or desired condition, the “conscious, ethical identification” with n-hat is Cuban), as opposed to their cubanidad (the civil status, or “generic condition,” of being Cuban). Benitez-Rojo interpreted transculturation through chaos theory, whereby in nature order and disorder are not the antithesis o f each other but rather mutually generative phenomena to argue that. within the sociocultural fluidity and the apparent disorder of the Caribbean. seen largely through the prism of Cuba, there emerges an “island” of order. This repeats itself, in the paradoxical sense it appears in the discourse of chaos, whereby every repetition entails the unpredictable flux of transformative change, transition, and return. He characterized the Caribbean above a11 as a region of performance, whose coherence is that of mestizaje, understood as both cultural and racial mixing, not as a synthesis but as a “concentration of differences,” “generalized promiscuity,” and the “impossibility of a stable identity.” ,~ In his preface to the new English-language edition of C o ~ n t e f p o i n tFernando Coronil heralded Ortiz as a thinker ahead of his times; in tune with the fluidity of the contemporary world, fashioning binar)- opposites as metaphors, or tropes, for events, ideas, and interpretations that were in constant flux. Coronil applied the postmodernist maxim that each reading of the book opens up a different book. Ortiz, he argued, R-ould have welcomed a perspective that “recognizes its provisionality and inconclusiveness, the contrapuntal play “ ~ paid tribute to Ortiz “by of text against text and of reader against a ~ t h o r .~e engaging in this transcultural exchange, as Ortiz’s book does, in counterpoint with the historical conditions of its own making.”- For him, Contrnpunteo was written in times of international and domestic upheaval, which frame its concerns and help explain its allegorical character. Yet. Cozinteqoint .’proposed neither unambiguous solutions nor a blueprint for the future.”’ This nras precisely its attraction over half a century later, in a much-changed world “in which globalizing forms of capital accumulation and conmunication are met both with transnationalizing and reconfigured nationalist responses, have unsettled certainties associated with the belief in modernity.””
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One interesting dimension of the revival has been the extent to which Ortiz is interpreted as giving primacy to harmony over conflict. especially that of the races. a highly charged notion in Cuba’s crisis 1990s, as discussed in Perez Sarduy and Stubbs.1°As we enter the new millennium. this message is a sohering one. wherein what emerges uppermost is a less harmonious and more conflictual and contended terrain of racial paradigms facing Cuba (and the world). Nonetheless, while interpretations of Ortiz’s work vary a-idely, on and off the island, his utopian vision remains a beacon to many, as does his notion of the Contrapunleo. Perez-Firmat values Co?zlmp~i?zteo for its conceptual, “textual” counterpoint. Ortiz, he declares, was not a good “scientist,” in that many of his conclusions were based on incomplete data or erroneous assumptions. In the iillpact of tobacco and sugar on the histon of Cuba: Ortiz found a subject on which he could exercise his relational talent to best advantage. The contrasts between tohacco and sugar are both determining and representative. They are determining inasmuch as the peculiarities of the tn-o industries have done much to shape the course of Cuban history: and they are representative because rlle counterpoint of the two products symbolizes man)of the defining features of the Cuban character.”
The literary precedent. the dispute between Carnival and Lent, sets up an allegorical drama in which Don Tahaco and Dovla Azucar enact a long sequence of literal and figurative contrasts. Not least among them is sugar as a centripetal, centralizing force reproducing the relationship between the exploitative metropolis and the exploited colonies, and tobacco as a centrifugal, decentralizing force signifying sutonoiny. freedom. and i n d e p e n d e n c e . Tobacco is quality and distinctiveness. *‘thebest,” as opposed to “the most” for sugar. Benitez-Rojo begins his discussion of Ortiz and the Contmpunteo with a latter-day quote from French historian Fernand Braudel: “Interdisciplinarit): is the legal marriage of two neighboring sciences. But as for me, I am for generRenitez-Rojo sees this in tune with the new history and alized pron~iscuity.”’~ multidisciplinary pluralism of today. His preferred reading of Contrapllnteo is “not only as a socio-economic study of tobacco and sugar, but rather as a text that tries to speak to us about Cuban, and by extension Caribbean, experience.”‘5 In drawing attention to the structure of Co~ztrapzr~zteo, he signals its tm-o parts. The first sets up the binary opposition: the second treats it as a discursive strategy, since tobacco and sugar do not in fact inhahit such extremes. Contrapz~nteoevades the canon of “for or against,” “tlue or false” that characterize the analpica1 models modernity uses most: ‘.When Ortiz says that ‘to study Cuban history is fundamentally to study the history of sugar and tobacco as the x-isceral systems of its economy.”+he is suggesting to us ‘another’ mode of ink-estigation n-hose prototype would be that of the Contt,ap~rnteo.”‘j
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Tobacco, Coronil reiterates, functions as the counterpoint to the socioeconomic power of the sugar mill accumulated under capitalist production. When Ortiz speaks of tobacco, he discards all allusions to capitalist power and evokes an indigenous, primitive mode of production that has mystery and rite of passage, religion and magic, harn~onyand sacred dance: ‘.The proud cigar band as against the lowly sack.”‘“he countercontrast to capital’s growing domination of Cuban society is a utopian solution to the fairy tale, because “there never was any enmity bemeen sugar and tobacco,” a fruitful marriage, con~promiseand fusion, rather than conflict or transformation, “the intermeshed transmigrations of people”: The more Ortiz tells about tobacco and sugar, the more the reader learns about Cubans, their culture, musicality, humor. uprootedness. baroque manner of refashioning their identities by integrating the fractured meanings of multiple cultures. The two commodities become highly complex metaphorical constructs that represent at once material things and human actors, or, Ortiz ,,usesthe fetish power of commodities as a poetic means to understand the society that produces them” presenting “a counterfetishistic interpretation that challenges essentialist understandings of Cuban l~iston;.”~’
A NEW CIGAR COUNTERPOINT It has been over thirty years since I embarked on the research for my own tobacco monograph. As a British historian. I R-as influenced by the British Marxist school of history and by empiricisnl-the need for empirical evidence. My London-based reading of the English-language Cuban Counterpoint was for background documentation. As rlly research progressed, the text, wonderful though it is. jarred with what I R-as discovering. Primarily concerned with twentieth-century tobacco history. I began to delve into the nineteenth century in an attempt to understa~ldphenomena that presented themselves as significantly other than the ‘.accepted tn~ths.”Only now, as I return to Ortiz, having espoused a more relativist, dare I say almost postmodern, approach to Caribbean and Cuban history. do I realize the extent to which those “truths” derived from Ortiz, when Ortiz himself never posited them as such. When I wrote the book, it seemed fitting to take my opening quote from Ortiz: l8 Out of the agricultural and industrial development of these amazing plants were to come those economic interests that foreign traders would twist and weave for centuries to form the web of our country’s histor)., the motives of its leaders. and, at one and the same time, the shackles and the support of its people. Tobacco and sugar are the two most imporant figures in the history of Cuba.”
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I titled chapter one “Don Tabaco: 1817-88,” as it covered the period on which the classic Ortiz counterpoint most held sway. In reflection, the rest of the book was structured in such a way as to challenge the Ortiz position, though overtly only once, in chapter 6, “The Peripheral Mode of Production.” The target of my attack xi-as Ortiz’s insistence on the delicate process of tobacco agriculture and industry, which made it less lucrative to foreign capital and therefore more Cuban: tobacco signified freedom and national sovereignty in opposition to the slavery and colonizing influence of sugar. At the time of writing my book, dependency theory had given way to coreiperiphery thinking, and Tobacco on the Periphegl seemed an obvious title for R-hat I was o b s e r ~ i n g .I?charted ~ what now appears to me an almost linear approach of the inevitability of foreign domination over an industry in decline. That line was broken with the 1959 revolution, but it has also been fragmented, both before and since, in multiple directions, perhaps none so drarnatic as in the 1990s. When the book manuscript was read for publication, I was struck by one reader’s comment: that what we needed was the full stosy of the .’Havana Cigar Universe.” The reader was Cuba’s historian Louis Perez, and his comment was grounded on the Havana cigar history of Key West and Tampa. Haunted by his comment, I embarked on a larger on- and off-island cigar history, which became compelling with the 1990s cigar revival: behind the 1990s cigar cool lay a sa,aslibuckling, godfather-type history of fires, hurricanes, and revolutions, but also a subtext of a more harn~oniouskind. This led me to rethink received wisdom on Cuba’s “national” history, as well as my own earlier work and that of Ortiz. If we take the classic Ortiz counterpoint of tobacco symbolizing all that sugar n-as not in particular nationalism, freedom, and independence the picture I paint is somewhat different. It is one in which the Havana cigar has long been at the heart of political and econon~icrivalries, linked with foreign and local capital and labor, and a-ith out-migration at key turning points in Cuban history. The synopsis of my story nins as follows. Late nineteenthcentury independence and the 1959 revolution created Cuban communities and economies abroad, centered around products like tobacco. These in turn came to constitute serious colnpetition for, while also being interlocked with, island production. Today, as in the past, parallel production and marketing systems of identical or similar brands, and the cultural and labor practices associated with them, raise issues of identity and reconciliation in the context of both political nationalism and economic pragmatism. Cuban tobacco was developed with Spanish. German, British, and French capital, for European, North American, and world markets. It fortned part of a nineteenth-century world cigar tobacco economy whose tobacco blends were produced as far afield as Cameroon, Turkey. Java, and Sumatra and whose key retail outlets were London, Amsterdam, Bremen, and New York.
The backdrop to Cuba’s First and Second Wars of Independence from Spain (186S1878 and 1895-1898) \-as an out-migration to the United States, the Caribbean, and Central America. Cuban tobacco interests came together in the settler countries, providing a familiar means of livelihood for the displaced migrant community and an econon~icand political mainstay for the independence stniggle at home. Over time. rival economic and political interests built up, with trading and other advantages over a home country in turmoil. U.S. capital investment came fast in Cuban tobacco, swallowing up tracts of Cuban tobacco land and major manufacturing companies. There were “independents” w-ho held out, but the industry as a whole never regained its former glory. Thirty-years later, the 1930s depression and labor unrest culminated a process whereby C.S.-owned manufacturing withdrew from Cuba to the United States. The mass migratory phenomenon reemerged with the 1959 revolution. Newer Cuban tobacco “host comn~unities”grew up in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Honduras. Costa Rica, and Ecuador, joining older established ones in Jamaica, Mexico, and the United States-Florida, New Jersey, ~’ manufacturers, dealers, growers and workers and C o n n e c t i c ~ t .Smaller proved to be as astute as larger monopoly capital in finding fertile ground for overseas business. They profited from the post-1959 internal econon~icupheaval in Cuba that was the product of insurrection, agrarian reform, and nationalization, plus the tight trade embargo that n a s the political response of the United States (and for a while the whole area) to the Cuban revolution. Western European markets became a battleground for disputed Havana cigar brands. At the same time, the Eastern European bloc and key Third World countries emerged as Havana cigar partners. Thirty years on, a new chapter opened ~ v h e nthe demise of the Eastern European socialist bloc in 1989 signaled the end of Cuba’s special trade and aid. At the same time, the United States took steps to tighten and extraterritorialize the embargo in the form of the 1991 Torricelli and 1996 Helms-Burton Acts. As external geopolitical realities compounded internal weaknesses, the Cuban revolutionary government devised a stn~cturaladjustment strategy, courting non-U.S. trade and investment. The Havana cigar became a key player in the Cuban strategy for the 1990s. as Cuban production plummeted, and battles fought in international courts over market brand names were but the more visible tip of a cigar n-ar. A U.S. cigar revival was gaining momentum, involving the ~o U.S. cigar giants-Connecticut-based General Cigar and Fort Lauderdale-based Consolidatecl Cigar-along R-ith emigre Cuban tobacco interests, in the Dominican Republic, followed by Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Connecticut, in all-out competition with Cuba. As of the late 1980s, the state-owned Cuban tobacco sector blazed the internal adjustment trail with the disaggregation of tobacco land from cooperatives back into private smallholdings. In 1994, part-dollar payments were
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introduced as an incentives package for the tobacco sector, and a new holding company, Habanos S.A., was set u p to handle overseas marketing ventures. Both measures followed fast in the wake of ta70landmark “credit for tobacco swap” deals struck bemeen the Cuban state tobacco enterprise. Cubatabaco. and its French and Spanish parastatal tobacco counterparts. Societe Rationale des Tabacs (SEITA) and Tabacalera Espanola, S.A. A European cigar marketing deal was struck in Britain with Hunters & Frankau. By 1997, Cuba n-as investing heavily in tobacco to help meet a world market demand in excess of supply. Heightened US.-Europe rivalry in the contetnporaT world of American cigar politics was mirrored by that within the Havana cigar universe, though with global capital mergers, national policies notwithstanding. A new twist came in 1999 \,hen Tabacalera Espanola and Seita formed Altadis (Alianza de Tabacos y Distribuci6n), which bought j0 percent of shares in Habanos S.A. Tabacalera Espanola had earlier that year 11ought Consolidated Cigar Co. and was thereby heavily im~oh-edin both the Havana and clone Havana cigar business.
A TALE OF TWO EMBARGOES (1895- 1995) The Havana cigar counterpoint of island and offshore production is graphically illustrated by Florida cigar history, framed by m o U.S. embargoes on Cuban tobacco imports: the lesser-known ernbargo of the early 1890s and the current forty-year embargo dating k ~ c kto the early 1960s. The first helped establish Florida as a major Ha-ana cigar tobacco-gron.ing, nunufacturing, and retail state. The second culminated in Florida’s deagriculturalization and deindustrialization in the cigar sector. The century as a whole. from the 1890s to the 1990s, n-as one of successive boom-bust processes. These were initially in Florida itself, in Gadsden County (1890s-l970i), the Tampa Ray area (1890s-1990~1, and Miami (1960s-1990s). Then, as growing and manufacturing that had colne from Cuba once again nloved offshore, they were transplanted to the Caribbean and Central America (Nicaragua. Honduras. Mexico, Dominican Republic, Jatnaica. Costa Rica. and Ecuador) as part of m-ider processes of regionalization and globalization, controlled mainly from the United States and for the lucrative U.S. market.” If cigar tobacco growing was short-lived around the Tampa area, it was to remain in northern Florida up until the 1970s. Cuban tobacco was first introduced there in 1828, but it was later in the nineteenth century that a hy1,rid HavanaSurnatra seed, shade-grown, Georgia-Florida wrapper m-as developed, paving the n a y for 1880s-1890s expansion. Alongside the better-knon-n manufacn~ring histories of Key West. Tampa, and lZIarti City, today Ocala,” is the untold growing history of Gadsden County-, with its tobacco towns of Havana, Sumatra, Amsterdam. and Quincy, linked to machine manufacturing in Jacksonville
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and T a m ~ a , the ~ ‘ latter becoming the 1950s cigar smoke capital of the world.2i The corollary to this agricultural development was a state infrastructure of tobacco agricultural research and extension.26 In 1960, the United States broke diplomatic ties with Cuba and, in 1962, declared an embargo on tobacco imports from the island. Before then, steps were being taken to prepare for such a contingency. In January 1961, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Tobacco Research and Marketing Advisory Committee recommended that a study be conducted to determine the effect on the cigar industry and tobacco farmers if supplies of Cuban tobacco were no longer available and also the effect of a change in duty rates. High priority was given to the project, and a study group sought the views of growers, manufacturers and dealers in compiling a seventy-one-page Special Study on Cigar Tobacco in November of that year. According to the report, all except about 0.5 percent of cigars sold in the United States were produced in factories in the United States and Puerto Rico. Cuba was the source of nearly one-fourth of cigar tobacco (31 million pounds out of a total of 135 million pounds). Of the 7 billion cigars sold in a typical recent year, 4.7 billion-some two-thirds-contained Cuban tobacco. Around 670 million were made entirely of Cuban or predominantly Cuban tobacco: the “clear Havanas” (100 percent) and the “Havana filler” cigars (100 or near 100 percent Cuban filler but not the binder and wrapper). These predominantly “Cuban tobacco cigars” used about 45 percent of all Cuban imported tobacco. The other 55 percent was used in “blended filler” cigars in varying proportions, which varied from 20 to 50 percent Cuban tobacco. If imports were to cease, “clear Havana” manufacturers saw their problems as .’extremely difficult and probably ins~rmountab1e.”~A February 1962 University of Florida Circular from Cooperative Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics to All County Agents and Assisscale tests have been tants (February 9, 1962) referred to the fact that a’Sn~all made in the Quincy area to produce a wrapper similar to that produced in Cuba, through modification of curing techniques.” This was also reflected in a May 1962 article in the Tampa Tribune titled “Specialists Eye Growing Cuban Tobacco in Florida.” It reported that Florida agricultural experiment stations at Quincy and Gainesville were experimenting with Cuban seed that had been obtained.28 In the 1950s, Tampa was again a source of overseas support for Cuban revolutionary organizations (the 26th of July movement was a case in point), and the Havana cigar industry was still the largest single employer in the city, with thousands working in cigar manufacturing and related fields (box making, label printing, etc.). This changed dramatically as the industry relocated. In May 1962, the Tampa Tribune ran articles titled “Cigar Firms Hope for Survival, but Workers Despair-Manufacturers Feel They Have Chance to Hold onto Market; Employees See No Place to Turn” and “Future Bleak for Jobless
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Unwanted Ex-Cigar worker^.”’^ More than six thousand cigar makers lost their jobs, and, by 1971, the cigar industry was disappearing as a factor in the economic life of Tampa Bay. A few small chinchales had opened in the intervening years, but most of these were for the tourists and not considered an integral part of the industry. Villazon was more typical, having opened two factories in Honduras for the manufacture of handmade Havanas: Hoyo de Monte Rey and Punch. The Armenia Avenue factory stayed in West Tampa, but to produce only machine-made cigars. By the 1980s, it was increasingly the newly developed homogenized leaf that was being used, driving yet another nail in the coffin of the quality handmade cigar and craft cigar maker.jO The outcome was that, as recorded in the 1992 U.S. census, there were only 27 U.S. cigar companies, making primarily machine-made cigars with a total employment of 2,600. By the late 1990s, companies fell into two broad categories. The first comprised the two major U.S. players. One was Consolidated Cigar, which in the 1970s acquired rights to the Cuban brands Montecristo and H. Upmann. The other was General Cigar, which purchased Villaz6n in 1996, and in 1998 was with Cubatabaco in the courtroom over Cohiba cigars and in precedent-setting talks in Mexico City. The second category comprised smaller Tampa- and Miami-based Cuban American and American companies, such as the Fuente-Oliva-Newman consortium in Tampa and Padron in Miami.31All were interlocked with production in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Mexico, Ecuador, and Costa Rica. Unsurprisingly, the more recent company is easier to piece together than labor history. There is no wealth of labor studies available for the earlier per i ~ dOnly . ~ ~now is a Cuban American labor history emerging for the post1959 period,” and thus far it does include tobacco. Yet, consider the following from the May 1, 1977 Miami Herald: Experienced “tabaqueros” roll lots of cigars daily for small shops. . . . Long Hours and Small Pay: Tobacco Business Keeps Rolling-Teodoro Santana learned as boy of 1j in Jovellanos, then Havana. and for the past seven years at Padron, West Flagler. . . . Most of the tabaqueros working in dozens of small cigar shops sprinkled throughout Little Havana, and in four or five shops that produce several million cigars a year, like Santana, are products of a time and place foreign to younger Cubans with American ideas of pay and work conditions. “It’s slave-like work, and the young people don’t want to do it.” semi-retired Santana said. ‘just as the rollers are of an era past, so are their employers, many of whom began amassing their knowledge by following their fathers through the fields in Cuba. . . . The rollers are all dying off,”said Perez-Carillo Sr. Many companies. he said, “already import rnany of the cigars they sell from Latin American countries, where poor people are still -willing to labor all day long for a pittance.”
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Florida’s minimum wage policy was often invoked by companies to explain why they “had” to go offshore. But this was lucrative business, transformed through technology, experimentation. litigation, and labor practices, to the extent that much of today’s cigar rolling hears little resemblance to that of a century ago. \fiat is striking about the offshore cigar sector is a pragmatism as regards the end of the en~bargo.The 1990s cigar hype was such that neither island nor offshore production could meet demand, though demand peaked in the late 1990s, and the bubble may soon burst. In the event of any normalization of U.S.Xuba relations, the Florida-Havana cigar best-case scenario is to be able to import the island’s leaf while limiting the inlport of island-manufactured cigars, but in all probability this would he resisted by Cuba and non-U.S. Havana cigar importers, especially those in Europe. Arguably, some US./ non-U.S. importers are now so interlocked that they are already able to sidestep the embargo.
The cigar advertisements featured in the 1992-founded New York glossy Cigar Aficionado were key to the 1990s U.S. cigar boom. They ranged from a suggestive Carmen rolling cigars on her thighs to ‘*Agnes,have you seen my Don Diegos? A word of warning, don’t let your Don Diegos out of your sight,” with Agnes in pre-Lewinsky-type Don Diegos, handmade in the Dominican Republic for Consolidated Cigar. were now owned by Tabacalera Espanola. Some were more explicit: “The only thing sexier than sex is a cigar. . . . On one end, the fire. On the other. a Lady. In between, the ultimate pleasure. Let your senses take over. enjoy La Diva Cigars.” La Diva was being made in the Dominican Republic \-it11 a Connecticut wrapper. Or, “You never forget the first time.” accompanied Don Sixto cigars, made in the Cuban tradition of generations of the Plascencia fa111ily.~~ In the late 1990s. Tabacalera de Garcia. a subsidiaq of the Fort Lauderdale Consolidated Cigar, ran a two-page ad for Alontecristo La Corona: “Born in Cuba. Perfected in the Donlinican Republic.”-%Theirs was but one in an aggressive marketing campaign meant to bolster the real quality Habanos as those made outside Cuba. By the 1970s. counterfeit cigars had become big business, as brand battles in trade disputes centered around the leaf and the Havana seed that has been taken, licitly and illicit1~-. for growing trial~.~’There were also ta.0 epicenters of Havana seed leaf production: the Partido/Vuelta Abajo region of western Pinar del Rio and the central Vuelta Arriba in Cuba, and the central Cibao in the Dominican Republic. There were also growing areas in Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras. Ecuador. and Brazil, replacing the earlier Florida-Georgia area in the United States. though Connecticut remained.
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115
The Dominican Republic was not historically considered a producer of quality cigar leaf. In 1962, however, an emigre Cuban tobacco agronomist. Napoleon Padilla, who was part of the \Vashington reconstruction plan after the fall of Tmjillo. helped found the Instituto del Tabaco in Santiago cle 10s Caballeros in the C i b a ~ . ~ T h i ryears t y later. when Cuba was facing the depths of its post-1989 crisis and dislocation. Cuban American family businesses such as the Fuentes saw long years of hard investment and effort in the Cibao bear quality Havana seed leaf and cigars, and that is a-hat their advertisi~lgdrew de la Fuente: Birthplace of a Dream”; “Never Before K’as There on: a’Cl~ateau Such a Cigar . . . The Most Sought After Cigar on Earth” (October 1999). With close ties to Tampa (Newman) and Ecuador (Oli~a).~”heirfamily business was producing cigars in the early 1990s that arguably surpassed the qualih; of many from Havana, and it continues to come close to this day. The Cigar advertising and cigar labels constitute a telling iconograpl~y.~” 1990s U.S. cigar irnagery was a far cry from that of the nineteenth centuq. One only has to see the finely embossed romantic imagery of labels of old: Royal Palm-lined plantations where the leaf was grown and, for the London market, the House of Lords or Buckingham Palace, equaled almost hy the size and elegance of palatial buildings in Havana, such as that of Aldama. where the cigars were made. There a-as classical romance, as in Romeo j, Jz~lieta,and humor as in Punch, m-ho was surrounded by depictions of n-hite. male cigar workers, all rather dapper young Hispanics, at a time when the workforce included children, convicts, soldiers, enslaved Africans, and indentured Chinese immigrants. More politically, in 1897, a year before the end of Cuba’s Second War of Independence, one label celebrated three of Cul~a’sgreat generals in the war: Calixto Garcia, Miixi~noG6mez. and Antonio Maceo. Idyllic ill~ageswere painted of Cuba’s relationship with the neighboring United States, far removed from the reality of today, a centun later, after forty years of hostilities, broken diplomatic relations, and embargo. Perhaps nlore in tune with history. an omen of a-hat was to come, the American eagle could also be seen ‘embracing’ the Cuban flag. Key \Vest, the southernmost of the Florida Keys, located only ninety miles from Cuba, was the first port of call for emigre manufacturers and ~vorkersto develop a Cuban cigar industry, and was also home to Cuban 6migre nationalist and labor unrest.’l In the 1890s, Spanish manufacturers undercut national and class strife by moving to Tampa. whose town patricians were working aggressively to attract the industry. West Tampa and Ybor City became resplendent.’l as symbolized by Ybor City’s Cuban Club from its early ta-entiethcentury heyday.’3 Cuban traditions continued, such as that of the reader in the factories, paid by the workers to read to them while they labored; news in the morning, novels in the afternoon.” By 1930, however, the industry was headed for decline due to the Depression, mechanization, and relocation. The advent of the cigar machine cemented a process of feminization and
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deskilling of mechanized cigar rolling. which had started with the introduction of the bonches, or bunching molds, in hand rolling.” The big losers in the Tampa story were the Afro-Cubans, who gradually fell foul of U.S. South-style segregation, driving a wedge into the community that had fought together on a nationalist and worker ticket.+”n the 1960s, local historians rescued Ybor City from developers and opened a museum, complete with cigar makers’ cottages, but the commercialized attraction n-as aln~ostentirely Hispanic in its re-creation of the past.” Only a lowly building on the outskirts of the renovated center boasted a plaque to the Marti-hlaceo Society, founded in 1904 by Afro-Cubans holding on to the dream of a united C ~ b a . “ ~ Josi. Marti visited the Ybor factory in 1892 to fund-raise for his newly created Cuban Revolutionary Party.’Wescendants of Cubans proudly recall how their worker forebears donated their da)-‘s wages to the cause for independence. Marti also went to Jamaica to raise support among the Cuban kmigre community of tobacco manufacturers, workers, and growers, visiting the Temple Hall Cuban tobacco-growing colony not far from Kingston, the capital.jOJamaica was the refuge for a number of Cuba’s more famous independence leaders, including Maceo. The 1990s cigar revival included the brand Tenlple Hall Estates, whose label bears the founding date of 1876, during Cuba’s first War of Independence, from 1868 to 1878, when the first Cubans founded the Jamaican cigar economy. There was also hlacanudo, among the best Jamaican cigars, made under the supenision of Benjamin Men6ndez.j’ a master cigar maker who also once made Partagas. In the late nineteenth century, there was Partagas in Havana and Partagas in Key West. In Havana at the time of the revolution, Partagas was made by Cifiientes, who then left Cuba in 1960. A photo of Cifuentes Jr.. much used in 1990s ads, claimed “Fidel Castro thought I had left with only the shilt on his back. But my secrets were locked in my heart.” Cifuentes took his tobacco knowledge to the General Cigar Company in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, along nit11 some clever marketing of PartagBs, “the cigar that knew Cuba n-hen: $lade in the Dominican Republic under the supervision of Ramon Cifuentes, the same master cigar-maker who made those legendary cigars over 30 years ago in Cuba” (Summer 1994). Behind Macanudo and Partagis was Ed Cullman and his Cullbro Tobacco,j2the parent company of General Cigar and a leading producer of the Connecticut wrapper. Cifuentes and hlenendez joined the company in the early 1960s, and in the 1970s. the company launched Pastagas, claiming the brand name was theirs. Fidel Castro gave up smoking in the early 1980s, in a drive to encourage the smoking Cuban population to smoke less on health grounds, but in the early days of the revolution he could always be seen smoking a cigar. So could Che Guevara who, while Argentine, developed a taste for Cuban cigars. Castro was the target of several CIA assassination attempts, one of
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117
which was to have him smoke an exploding cigar, and another to make him look foolish by injecting substances into the cigar that would cause his beard to fall out, or LSD, which would make him speak gibberish. So serious were these attempts that an elegant Miramar mansion became a top-security cigar factory, whose workforce was composed of the women of his male security guards. That was the origin of the now famous Cohiba cigar, later marketed commercially, a story much retold in the cigar press. The present manager of the Cohiba factory, Emilia Tamayo, is one of four women cigar factory managers today. Cohiba is now big outside Cuba, too: made in the Dominican Republic and marketed in the United States by Cullbro, nrho registered Cohiba in the United States before the Cubans had gone commercial with the brand. No post-19% emigre Cuban s t o v would be complete without Miami. However, Miami was not a major cigar player. Initially, small concerns catered to little more than the local Cuban kmigre community. One exception was Padron, who, out of his small Miami business, went on to grow tobacco in Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan economy is a post-1963 phenomenon, thanks to a generous offer made to emigre Cubans by Anastasia Somoza on land around northern Esteli. After the 1979 Sandinista revolution, the area became a battlefield for the contras, and much of the tobacco moved north, to southern Honduras, around Danli. Padron and son, however, are among the few still there. A recent ad campaign of theirs ran, ‘,Seeds of Survival. Despite wars in Nicaragua and bombings in Miami.”i”adr6n took a beating for going public against the embargo and for normalization of US.-Cuba relations. The more the cigar revival gained in momentum, and the more island Cuba featured in this, the more the old-time Miami Cuban American Lobby was prone to become incensed with Cigar Aficionado The issue carrying editor Marvin Shanken’s cover feature interview with “el jefe” Fidel Castroii-an issue that also covered counterfeit cigars-so enraged parts of the Cuban community that it was de facto barred from sale in Miami. Five years later, an issue was given over largely to Cuba, including interviews with key Cuban figures and a feature on Cuba’s cigar summit, as well as general reportage. Its cover highlighted precisely what the lobby did not want: an end to the embargo and the opening up of travel to Cuba.ji To this, the response of the Miami-based Cuban American Kational Foundation came in the form of a page ad reading, “Lift the smoke screen, not the embargo.”i61t came in an issue that also carried a debate about Cuba generated around the time of John F. Kennedy’s presidency. By the late 1990s, Cigar AJi:cio?zadocirculation had risen to half a million. with sell-out issues whose glossy covers and inside pages featured cigarsmoking stars (Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tom Selleck, Alfred Hitchcock. Groucho Marx, Charlie Chaplin, Jack Kicholson, Bill Cosby, Whoopie Goldberg,
Demi Moore, Madonna, Janet Jones. Susan Lucci, to name but a few); sportsmen, including a very elegantly attired El Duque, one of Cuba’s leading baseball players who had recently crossed over to the United Statesi7; and politicians such as Britain’s Winston Churchill, who has Habanos named after
him.j8The theme of cigar-smoking famous people had, of course, been cleverly taken up earlier by the London-based Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera
Infantei9 and in other works: one amusing caption ran, “The psychoanalyst
Jacques Lacan, famous for the meandering of his thought, smoked only
twisted cigars of the culebras type.’‘60
Cigar World is London’s less big-time glossy answer to Cigar Aficionado,
and it is edited by London-based Hunter and Frankau’s Simon Chase. The
caption to a photo of Chase at the Avelina plantation in Cuba ran as follows:
“Any resemblance between this photo and pictures of the Fuente family in
their plantations is entirely intentional.”” The U.S. market is for the Fuentes’
H. Upmann, with some clever advertising: “When a cigar can make you forget about Havana . . . that’s One-Upn~annship”;
and “Ever wonder what
those cigar makers did after leaving Cuba? One ~ ~ m a n n s h i pHunters
?” &
Frankau, who once owned H. Upmann in Havana, and in 1994 celebrated
with the Cubans its 150th anniversary.” continued to handle its London
market. Chase is Britain’s man in Havana and has been one of the masterminds behind the now yearly Hubano Festival, which in 1999 raised
$750,000 in a cigar auction for the Cuban health system. One of the items
auctioned was a Vegas Robaina humidor. Alejandro Robaina is one of the
Pinar del Rio smallholders to have benefited fro111the 1990s tobacco recuperation program, with an incentive package including part-dollar payments. In 1999, he was declared Habano man of the year for the quality of
his leaf, which included the successful new strain Habana 2000,” and Vegas
Robaina was a new brand of Habanos named after the tobacco from his
family farm.66
A NEW COUNTERPOINT? What would Don Fernando have made of all this? The reader will by now have recognized how the new Cuban counterpoint within my on- and offisland cigar story resonates with Ortiz revisited, mrhether Perez-Firmat’s translational incessant coccicjn. Benitez-Rojo’s transformative chaos and representational promiscuity. Coronil’s provisionality and counterfetishism of text, or Martinez Fuse’s imaginary dialogue with Don Fernando himself. And so I set myself up as Dona Juana in counterpoint with Don Fernando. I haven’t gone into the business, I don’t smoke, but my thirty-year addiction to researching Havana cigar history and the 1990s Havana cigar revival put me on the fashion catwalk, and state of the art technology enabled me to cre-
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119
ate my own virtual cigar world with a cigar band in my very own image. In my story, there are no metanarratives, no cut-and-dried extremes, no unambiguous solutions or blueprints for the future; rather, within globalizing capital, there is a transnationalizing and reconfigured response of the “proud cigar band.” a fluidity, a provisionality, an inconclusive cubania that carries within it the possibility of a certain harmony rising against injustice. Robaina travels the n-orlcl with his tobacco, just as Buena Vista’s Compay Segundo, an inveterate smoker of Habanos, plays London, New York, and Havana’s Habano Festival 2000 Gala Dinner. The economics of transnational mergers and the slick advertising images, plus the culture associated with enjoying cigars (as a-it11 music, dance, and sport), might just harmonize ersm-hile hostile politics. I take pleasure in thinking Don Fernando would have been drawn to such a latter-day allegory of that Cuban commodity par excellence, the Havana cigar.
NOTES This essay forms pan of wider research for a non no graph on the island and offshore Havana cigar. 186g1998. I am gratefill for support and financial assistance from my own UniLrersityof Korth London and from a British Academy small research grant in summer 1997, and for being awarded tn;o Rockefeller Scholarships, one at the Caribbean 2000 program at the University of Puerto Rico and one at the Cuban Research Institute. Florida International Yniversity. in the spring and summer of 1998. as well as a Visiting Fellowship at the Caribbean Center. Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology. Leiden, in aurullln 1998. My thanks go t o many colleagues for their support and encouragement and for generously contributing to my work in so many m-ays.
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Tobacco in the Contrapunteo: Ortiz and the Hauafana Cigar
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34. Cigar Aficionado, Autumn 1993.
Tobacco in the Contrapunteo: Ortiz and the Hatlanu Cigar
123
Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radiculis~nin earl^ Tu~ntieth-CentuyAmerica
(London: Verso. 1998): Nancy Raquel hlirabal. “Telling Silences and Making Community: Afro-Cubans in Ybor City and Tampa. 1899-1915” in Lisa Brock and Digna Castafieda Fuertes, eds., Betzueen Race and Empire: Afro-Amevicans and Cubans bej?ore
the Cuban Reoltioiz
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 1998).
SOCIAL SCIENCES AND LAW
The three essays in this section probe Ortiz’s conceptualization of the process of transculturation, as well as his interdisciplinary approach to informing it. Enrique S. Pumar focuses on Ortiz’s legacy to the social sciences. To Pumar, the underlying structure of Cuban Counterpoint anticipates “many of the conclusions and research programs” of contemporary economic sociology and the sociology of development, and hence needs to be acclaimed as a masterpiece in economic sociology. Pumar finds that Ortiz’s analysis has policy implications for liberal measures to promote independent agriculture, which, though rooted in the realities of the 1930s, still resonate today. Fernando Coronil’s essay concentrates on Cuban Counterpoint and the concept of transculturation. He examines Malinomski’s treatment of Ortiz’s concepts to probe anthropological theory itself as a transcultural phenomenon, molded by domination and power relations. Coronil highlights Ortiz’s originality as a Latin American thinker who managed to present a positive view of the region from within. His theory represents a critical and even tense dialogue with metropolitan or European/Western anthropology. The methodology of law was another important pillar of Ortiz’s intellectual approach. As asserted by Alejandra Bronfman, Ortiz’s earlier studies of law were methodically reformist. Although initially inspired by positivism, Ortiz’s legal thought was also infused by his interest in the practices of AfroCubans and the origins and etiology of crime.
Economic Sociology and Ortiz’s Counterpoint Enrique S. Pumar
Sugar is common, unpretentious, undifferentiated. . . . Tobacco may be good or bad, but it always strives for individuality -Fernando
Ortiz’
Fernando Ortiz is generally considered one of the most eclectic social scientists in Cuba’s history. His notion of transculturation revolutionized the fields of cultural identity and ethnic relations. With regard to race. Ortiz was one of the first sociologists to illustrate how cultural formation combined with social capital to heighten the chances for cultural subsistence among the AfroCuban diaspora. In addition, eminent scholars such as Malinowski, Rama, and Portell Vil5, to name a few, have praised his scholarship. More recently, the work of Oi-tiz is attracting a well-deserved renaissance among ethnographers across academic disciplines, dedicated to the study of identity and nationhood. In Havana, the Fernando Ortiz Foundation houses a group of scholars dedicated to preserving and promoting his legacy and many intellectual contribution^.^ To be sure, despite the solid reputation of his work among academic elite circles dedicated to the study of culture, it is fair to assert that Ortiz has not received the attention he deserves in other fields. For instance, among contemporary economic sociologists there are rarely any references to his urork. Several factors account for this omission. For most of his life. Ortiz resided in Cuba and often found an intellectual outlet in Spain, which means that his work was not diffused as widely in other parts of Europe and North America as it was throughout the Iberian peninsula and Latin America. Most of his intellectual contacts who facilitated the promotion of his work were based in
the Hispanic world where he is widely renowned.-‘ Ortiz also remained in his native island until the end of his life in 1969. The first decade of the revolution was one of international isolation, marginalization, and segregation for many Cuban intellectuals, whose academic work was brushed aside by the primacy of ongoing political and ideological controversies between Cuba and its neighbors. Perhaps the most important factor for his unplumbed popularity among some sociologists is that social scientists find it very hard to categorize his work into any single traditional academic discipline. Many still wonder if he should be regarded as an anthropologist or a sociologist, historian or ethnographer, or if he should be even categorized as a social scientist. His appreciation for interdependent academic traditions led him to adopt a multidisciplinary methodology and to investigate diverse issue areas. His work combines historical research and ethnography, with an interpretation of intersubjective meanings rarely displayed by any of his contemporaries. Let’s not forget, finally, that the bulk of his scholarship was published at a time when academic disciplines were more entrenched than they are today. The social sciences were dominated by structural-functionalism, and proponents of this position were not very receptive to other nonconforming academic perspectives.’ His lucid epistemology and the versatility of his formulations are comparable to many classic sociologists or, more recently, with Albert 0. Hirschman and Joseph A. Schumpeter. In this chapter, I call attention to the dimensions of economic sociology in Ortiz scholarship. This is one of the aspects most neglected by students of Ortiz. In particular, I focus my attention on his contribution to the notion of embeddedness. Thanks to the seminal works of Mark Granovetter, and more recently Alejandro Portes, the notion of embeddedness has regained currency in economic sociology t0day.j Through embeddedness, scholars understand that economic behavior and arrangements cannot be separated from the effects of social r e l a t i ~ n s . ~ My goals in this essay are twofold. First, I will shon. that Fernando Ortiz anticipated many of the arguments associated with contemporary developments within the literature on economic sociology. His pioneering contribution to embedded social action deserves much closer attention than it has received in sociology thus far. Second, I intend to demonstrate that, contrary to that of contemporary sociologists, his notion of the economics of social relations surpasses the middle-range scope of many recent approaches, and provides valuable insight into the eternal question of levels of development among nations. I propose to fulfill these tasks by organizing my argument along the following lines. First, as an introductory background, I briefly review the current state of economic sociology to identify its major themes. Second, I measure the merits of Ortiz’s scholarship, as illustrated by his masterpiece Contrapz~nteoCubano (which I call Cozlnterpoint hereafter), against the
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context of the major themes in economic sociology.’Third, I examine Ortiz’s insights into the problem of national development. The chapter concludes with a recap of the relevance and weight of Ortiz’s Countelpoint among the social sciences in Cuba and abroad.
ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY:A REVIEW The economics of social relations remains a topic of interest among sociologists. Both Masx and Weber made significant contributions to this brand of sociology. Since at least the nineteenth century, every key figure in the discipline of sociology has written at one point or another from an economic . ~ statement also holds ground in the case of sociology p e r ~ p e c t i v eThis Durkheim’s analysis of social integration and anomie. When sociologists wanted to react against the resurgence of neoclassical economics in the 1970s and 1980s, they revisited the work of Karl Polanyi, the Hungarian social scientist who established the substantivist school of economic anthrop ~ l o g y . ~ T appeal he of Polanyi’s approach for contemporary economic sociologists lies in his conception of the self-regulating market as a social construction, meshed in social relation^.^” His critique of neoclassical economic arguments came in very handy to sociologists disgusted with the undersocialized conception of action promoted by microeconomics. In addition, Polanyi’s institutional process operates at the same level of analysis as that of the interactionist focus on some neoclassical positions, such as public goods and game theory.ll This means that Polanyi’s critique carries more weight since it was conceived from a parallel analytical scope. Polanyi conceives the market as an instituted social process embedded and enmeshed in economic and noneconomic institutions.” Every market, in his view, consists of reciprocal social relations, political redistribution, and price mechanisms dictated by social forces. Therefore, he viewed an atomistic conception of the self-regulating market, where choices are derived from material calculation and interests, as fallacious. Like Ortiz a few years before him, he analyzes nonindustrial markets from a historical perspective. However, the similarities bemeen the tn-o scholars cease at this point. Polanyi conceives the development of markets in two well-defined stages. In traditional economies, the effects of market failures were social, since economic forces did not institutionalize market transactions; noneconomic structures predominated in the functioning of markets. On the other hand, more contemporary market arrangements are organized on econon~icprinciples. Here, Polanyi distinguishes between nineteenth-century classical liberalism and what he refers to as postwar embedded liberalism.13In the latter, the market was permitted to run its course, but the state became the rescuer of last resort to assure the political regime’s own survival.
While Polanyi centers his analysis on the question of trade and money exchanges,’%rtiz directs his emphasis squarely on the social relations of production. This emphasis provides him several advantages, among them the ability to explore the root causes of inequality without indulging in human subjectivity. His comparative study of crop production makes his brand of sociology more relevant today, given the macro scope of more recent economic sociological theories. In addition, as I will elaborate later on, Ortiz’s allegorical comparison of tobacco and sugar production sketches a theory of development and underdevelopment in need of further testing today. To be sure, one of Ortiz’s major assertions is to investigate the social effects of production without indulging in vulgar determinism. He often inverts the relation between structure and superstructure and gives scientific prominence to the articulation of knowledge. As Ortiz asserts at one point in the book, “sugar came through the application of scientific alchemy; tobacco’s origins are to be found in f ~ l k l o r e . “ ‘ ~ Ortiz disagrees with Polanyi on at least two other conceptual premises. At times, Polanyi gives the impression that exchange is a method of social integration and depicts the notion of reciprocal interests in the market as a selfregulating arrangement.16Ortiz, on the other hand, conceives markets as segmented and unequal. Markets are a function of production forces. In developing societies, it is often the case that multiple market arrangements are simultaneously coexisting within one territor).. Given the transnational trading regimes usually associated with conditions of underdevelopment, developing markets are more hierarchically organized than what Polanyi conceived. Ortiz summarizes the juxtaposition of market arrangements as follows: “the production of sugar was ala-ays a capitalistic venture because of its great territorial and industrial scope. . . . Tobacco, child of the savage Indian and the virgin earth, is a free being.”’- In short, one of the reasons for the need to explore the work of Ortiz more thoroughly today is that he offers a richer historical alternative to the present ethnocentrism in contemporary economic sociology. He offers us the possibility of extending the economic sociological perspective to interpret issues associated with developing societies. Besides being intimately related with the work of Polanyi, the field of economic sociology today revolves around three major research projects. While it is commonly acknowledged that Harrison White was responsible for reviving a general interest in the sociology of markets, Granovetter defined the basic premise of the contemporary econon~icsociology paradigm as “the problem of embeddedness” in his trend-setting 1985 article.18The article proposes a sophisticated explanation of how social networks penetrate economic transactions, in addition to proposing an elegant critique of the new institutional economics and prisoner dilemma modeling. Granovetter argues that social embeddedness is the process whereby social relations constrain
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economic action and institutions.19In short, the embeddedness view contradicts atomistic arguments of economic preferences and interests. One of the most penetrating insights Granovetter proposes in this article is his divergence with Polanyi’s claim that embeddedness is lower in contemporary market societies.20 Richard Swedberg identifies two additional intellectual innovations that preoccupy economic sociologists today. These are (1) the structure of different economic organizations and (2) the role of culture in economic life.*‘After reviewing the state of organization literature, Nitin Yohria and Ranjay Gulati conclude, Icacentral element underlying much of institutional theory is the notion that organizations typically adopt institutionalized practices within their ap” ~ ~ regard to culhlre, Paul DiMaggio concludes in propriate e n ~ i r o n m e n t .With his assessment of the field that “culture plays many roles in economic life: constituting actors and economic institutions, defining the ends and means of action, and regulating the relationship between means and ends.”‘3 The purpose of briefly reviewing contemporary economic sociology, and of identifying its major trends, is to set the stage for an interpretation of Countelpoint according to the three major themes present in the literature today. Not only did Ortiz discuss these three issues at length sixty-plus years ago, his remarks continue to reveal discerning conclusions about the impact of markets and productions on the course of socioeconomic development.
ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY AND COUNTERPOINT: EMBEDDEDNESS, CULTURE,AND ORGANIZATIONS According to David Frisby, to understand different traditions in sociology one needs to situate the formulation of ideas within the practical context of their emergence.*’ In the case of Counterpoint, its publications coincided with one of the most turbulent and ideologically fragmented periods in the history of Cuba. Ortiz experienced firsthand the effects of political sectarism when his formula for a government of national reconciliation under Grau failed to gain enough elite support by October 1933, mostly because of the mutual suspicion and legacy of resentments among political factions.2i The medley of political disorder, philosophical rift, and the economic deprivation that dominated the postdepression years on the island, provided the historical background that gave way to the argument in Counterpoint. Ortiz was one of several scholars who turned to Cuban history to search for an answer to the despair they witnessed during the interwar years. In the first pages of the book. Ortiz reveals his intention to understand the peculiar historical trajectory of the island nation through the development of crop production. He does not hesitate to assert the centrality of tobacco and sugar in Cuban society. As he states. “the posing and examination of this deep-seated contrast
which exists between sugar and tobacco, from their very nature to their social derivations, may throw some new light upon the study of Cuban economy and its historical peculiarities.”26The transcendence of the truncated 1933 uprising also fosters in Ortiz, as in many of his contemporaries, a disdain for the foreign presence on the island. The uneasy coexistence between contradictory sugar and tobacco productions illustrates the struggle between the foreign and the native in Cuban society. In many respects, it is fair to conclude that the central theme in Counterpoint is the tension derived from embedded social relations in sugar and tobacco. From the outset of Counterpoint, Ortiz forewarns the reader about the fact that these two crops do not stand alone throughout the history of Cuba. Their production is embedded in social relations. As he states: In the economy of Cuba there are also striking contrasts in the cultivation, the processing, and the human connotations of the ta.0 products. Tobacco requires delicate care, sugar can look after itself; the one requires continual attention, the other involves seasonal work; intensive versus extensive cultivation: steady work on the part of a few, intermittent jobs for many; the immigration of whites on the one hand, the slave trade on the other; liberty and slavery; skilled and unskilled labor; hands versus arms; men versus machines; delicacy versus brute force. The cultivation of tobacco gave rise to the smallholdings; that of sugar brought about the great land grants. In their industrial aspects tobacco belongs to the city, sugar to the country. Commercially the whole world is the market for our tobacco, while our sugar has only a single market. . . . The native versus the foreigner. National sovereignty as against colonial status.27
The market for sugar cannot be studied without investigating the profound social issues associated with the cultivation of this crop. Sugar production embodies mechanization, mass production, and the legacy of a plantation economy. The hierarchical organization of production in the central often translated into a command economic outlook and an undemocratic political culture. The constant demand for cheap labor brought slavery, migration, and multiculturalism to the island. More important, sugar symbolizes a way of life. As Ortiz asserts, sugar represents a larger interest with closed commercial ties to the United States than the primary market for Cuban sugar. Employment for sugar cutters is seasonal, pays little, and requires physical stamina but no formal education. Thus, sugar is a symbol of underdevelopment. Tobacco, on the other hand, connotes expertise and skillfulness among small or individual growers. The long-standing Cuban tradition of reading to those employed in manufacturing tobacco empowered workers with a long tradition of revolutionary activism. One after another, independence movements recruited tobacco workers to fill their ranks. In addition, the cultivation of this crop requires a yearlong cycle of steady employment. In Cuba, this crop was not produced in large plantations as in Virginia. This means that
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growers n-ere more in control of their own production cycle, and the industry a-as subjected to little, if any, foreign control. Many of the growers were also relatively more affluent and self-sufficient than the average sugar worker. In addition to Ortiz’s thinking about the centrality of production in social de~relopment.the continuous appeal of this book resides in his innovative discussion of cultural development and organizational isomorphisn~.The first of these topics is one of the most popular legacies of Ortiz’s work. For a term he introduces him, cultural formation results from transcz~lt~lration, in Countelpoint to depict the complicated process of transmission and diffusion of culture by different social groups corning to the new world.2X To this day, t~~anscultumtion captures the process of resettling in a new society more accurately than other terms in the spectrum of immigration discourse. It depicts how social values are the conglomerations of various cultural traditions coming together under one territorial space. In addition, this notion recognizes the transnational nature of population movements, a factor only recently considered in harness by sociologists.*” Transculturation is the force behind Cubans’ unique national identity. However, it is important to bear in mind that in Counterpoint. Ortiz emphasizes another aspect of this process as well. Transnational population movements bring with them near modes of production that alter the social complexity of the host country. In other words, social embeddedness of production is one of the features that most resonates in the process of transculturation. Once again, we witness how Ortiz accentuates the question of enmeshed economic and social relations and the centrality of production in the social character of nations. For instance, with regard to the transculturation of tobacco, he has this to say: The history of tobacco affords an example of the most extraordinary processes of transculturation, by reason of the rapidity and extent to which the use of this plant spread . . . and the very profound change operated in its social significance as it passed frorn the cultures of the New World to the Old.30
If there is one factor where Ortiz could be condemned with regard to the transculturation, it is that he did not sufficiently problematize this notion in Countelpoint. While Ortiz speaks very clearly of the economic impact of the central characters in the history of Cuba! he neglects to examine the limitations of transculturation as a socializing process. Can we assume that transculturation diminishes or exacerbates social tensions in Cuba? If this process is ongoing, can one account for its variation, or is it a constant? Scholars need to address these and other similar questions for this concept to more profoundly resonate in social science discourse. With respect to organizations, Ortiz is less forthcoming in Cou~zterpoint.He treats the notion of isomorphism as a by-product of the reprod~ictionof relations of production. Throughout his exhaustive contrast bemeen tobacco and
sugar, he assumes that different social actors engaged in production behave alike, pending their position in the hierarchical production chain associated with each crop. There is no careful differentiation of the characters among uegueros or hacendados. While this level of generaliy may hold at a macro level, beyond the surface, there are marked differences among actors even if they are engaged in the same branch of production. Other authors described different mechanisms of culti~itionand lahor arrangements throughout the evolution of the sugar industry.” One of the most measurable intellectual legacies of Ortiz’s Cot~nterpointis the assertion of the primacy of the market in the organization of production without indulging in political rhetoric. This is one of the fen. classic social science texts in Cuba where the topic of politics occupied a secondary role. After Countetpoitzt, the market became a topic of persistent analysis in many of the classic social science tex-s published in Cuba. Meanwhile, the study of tobacco and sugar opens several other lines of research for those scholars interested in organizational analysis. 1’11 mention two to illustrate this point. One possible research course is the relation between transculturation and organizational development. The reader of Counterpoint will be curious about the relationship heta-een transculturation and the promotion of entrepreneurship. Here OiTiz offers an alternative to Schumpeter’s view. Rather than emphasizing the functions of individual entrepreneurs in society, as Schun~peterdoes. Ortiz sees the process of transculturation as one of the engines behind the ciiffi~sionof social initiatives and innovations. This insight has been corroborated by the recent findings in the literature on enclave econon~ies.which illustrates that the social capital that immigrants bring along often translates into econonlic resources and opportunities. Ortiz further suggests another line of organizational research. Contrary to the findings of Osterman3>and Doeringer anci Piore,” Ortiz demonstrates that the primary reason for labor segmentation among developing societies is not necessarily the peculiarities of the labor market, but rather the social organization of production. Sugar requires a -en different labor market than the specialized and more skill-intensive conditions of tobacco. As he asserts on page 65 of Cou?ztetpoint: Sugar was an anonymous industn, the mass Izibor o f slaves or gangs of hired workmen, under the supell-ision of capital’s 01-erseers. Tobacco has created a middle class, a free bourgeoisie: sugar has created m o extremes. slal,es and masters. the proletarian and the rich.”
The analysis of Ortiz’s discussion on embeddedness, cultural organization, and organizational developments demonstrates the enduring relevance of Coz~nterpointfor contemporaq economic sociology. Not only did Ortiz foresee many of the recent lines of research in the field, but sonle of his ideas could develop new research progranls as well. ,4lthough I will not address the
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innovative application of the historical comparative method in Ortiz’s work, it is worth mentioning that another of his assertions in Counterpoint marks one of the first instances in which the comparative methodology is systematically utilized throughout the social sciences in Cuba. In addition, judging from some of the economic sociology works published in recent years, the conlparative analysis could still be considered a methodological novelty. Having established the relevance of Ortiz’s thinking for sociologists today, I would like to turn to a more interpretative posture to analyze honr Ortiz frames the discussion of development and underdevelopment. and what possible solutions can be derived from his work.
TOBACCO (DEVELOPMENT) AND SUGAR (UNDERDEVELOPMENT) As I alluded to earlier, Ortiz depicts the contradictory social embeddedness of tobacco and sugar as the proper avenue from which to explain the despair of developing societies such as Cuba. These two crops connote ta-o distinct modes of production and concomitant social relations. They also symbolize the stniggle hemeen the forces of progress and the legacy of tradition. It is clear that for Ortiz, some of the attributes characterized by his depiction of tobacco, in pasticular the native, skilled, and laborious relations of production, are a remedy for underdevelopment; whereas sugar, the traditional creature, correlates with the unfortunate reality among developing nations struggling to outweigh the effects of foreign interest, dependency, unskilled labor-intensive markets, and capital domination. Ortiz underlines the distinction bemeen these two alternative paths of developrnent %-henhe states: In the production of tobacco intelligence is the prime factor; m7ehave already obsened that tobacco is liberal. not to say revolutionary. In the production of sugar it is 3 question of power; sugar is conservative. if not rea~tionary.’~
Another aspect of the formula recommended by Ortiz for embarking on a sustained course of development consists of gearing state policies to support native technologies requiring specialized labor rich in human capital, as is the case with tobacco production. In addition, a dedicated cadre of producers who enjoy a certain degree of freedom to innovate must be adjoined to this equation. Rather than focusing on bilateral trading relations, Ortiz also favors diversified trading partners to o~~erride the disproportionate influences from one of the trading counterparts. Finally. Ortiz calls for an economy dominated by multiple small and medium-size holdings of roughly similar proportion. Throughout the argument in Cotlnterpoint, Ortiz emphasizes two related features, which underwrite the predominance of sugar despite its adverse effects on national econon~ies.The first of these features is the imposition of
sugar production by foreign interests.%Sugar, as Ortiz emphasizes time and time again, denotes foreign origin, character, and economy. The introduction of the sugar crop was promoted by the colonial administration and was later sustained by a close network of transnational interests among foreign financiers, underwriters, and absentee landlords vertically entangled with the local nobility. In the words of Ortiz. “the foreign control of the central is not only external but internal as well. To use the language in vogue today, it has a vertiOnce again. this statement outlines the intricate relation becal ~tructure.”~’ tween social forces and the configuration of production. One cannot distill market structures without accounting for the social interests that sustain them. The transnational aspects of Ortiz’s embeddedness argument foresaw some tenets of the dependency paradigm by twenty plus years. The other element of foreignness beneath the imposition of dependency controls is the adverse side effects associated with the status of being an offshore producer in the world economy. Ortiz makes the interesting observation that, as the sugar industry grew in magnitude in response to international demands, foreign entanglement became more solidified. In many respects, this assertion is reminiscent of one of the basic premises of dependent development; that is, relative prosperity does not translate in economic sovereignty. As Ortiz describes it, one of the effects of the great depression was to replace mercantilism with “supercapitalism.” 3X Accordingly, foreign controls exercised over the Cuban economy became more closely knotted with financial capital. Once again, Ortiz does not refrain his analysis to the economic aspects of this cluestion alone. Rather, he goes on to describe the effects of this shift on the social composition of sugar producers. In his view, the insertion of financial capital into the (sugar) economy resulted in the gradual disappearance of tenant farmers, and the eventual proletarianization of the sugar worker. In sum, Ortiz’s notion of ernbeddedness surpasses the predominant middle-range scope of some of the current advocates of this term in contemporary sociology. The range of this economic sociology is transnational. His goal is to be able to provide a heuristic interpretation of the causes of underdevelopment among nations. In doing so, he again anticipates many of the arguments proposed much later by economic sociologists. His notion of how transnational networks bemeen foreign and donlestic interests function precedes many of the arguments of the dependency movement of the 1960s. The economic sociology exposition in Colrnterpoint leaves the reader with a fatalistic conclusion about the prospects for development in Cuba and other neighboring societies. Ortiz provides us with a reasonable explanation for the fate of developing nations. Market structures initially inserted by colonial administrations, and later sustained by domestic and international interlocks, outweighed infant industries. The implication of this argument is that developing nations must provide support for middle-class local producers
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with progressive orientation. The overwhelming foreign presence throughout Latin America during the 1930s cultivated a sense of nationalism in Ortiz, which led to his critical reexamination of the configuration of production structures. His inference, like many other arguments in Coz~nterpoint,still shapes subsequent generations of Cuban intellectuals.
CONCLUSION This chapter departs from the assumption that Don Fernando Ortiz’s writings have been tragically overlooked by many contemporary sociologists. This is particularly the case in economic sociology. This basic premise motivated me to demonstrate two points. First. Ortiz anticipated many of the conclusions and research programs in contemporary economic sociology. I demonstrated this postulate by identifying three major themes in current literature and then discussing Ortiz’s contributions to each. Through my discussion of his depiction of the notion of embeddedness, I have made references to how Ortiz proposed similar lines of research than more contemporary proponents of the sociology of development. Second, I set out to demonstrate that Ortiz’s social structural position continues to be useful among scholars. This is the case for two reasons. From the start, Ortiz develops a perspective that is more macro in character than the interactionist scope of many economic sociologists today. Ortiz also offers an alternative point of departure to analyze social relations. Rather than focusing on exchange like Polanyi, he underlines the importance of relations of production without vulgar conjectures.
8. For an informative oveniew of the different traditions in economic sociology and their intellectual history, see Richard Swedberg. “hlajor Traditions of Economic Sociology,” Annzial Revieti. qfSociolog)~17 (1991): 251-76.
Fernando Ortiz and his parents, Rosendo Ortiz and losefa Fernandez. Havana, 1895.
O Maria Fernanda Ortiz Herrera.
Ortiz, Ph. D. in Law, University of Madrid, 7 901. O Maria Fernanda Ortiz Herrera.
D. Juan Benejam, Fernando Ortiz’s professor in Menorca. O Maria Fernanda Ortiz Herrera.
Photograph of Miguel de Unamuno dedicated to Ortiz, 1906. O Maria Fernanda Ortiz Herrera.
Fernando Ortiz with JosP Maria Chacdn y Calvo, 1925. O Maria Fernanda Ortiz Herrera.
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Fernando Ortiz with his wife Maria Herrera and his daughter Maria Fernanda. Christmas,
Ortiz and his wife, Maria Herrera, with Lydia Cabrera and Maria Teresa Rojas. Vienna,
Fernando Ortiz with Luis Mufioz Marin, governor of the Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, 7954. O Maria Fernanda Ortiz Herrera.
Ortiz with his wife, Maria Herrera; Alejandro Lipschutz and wife; Julio Le Riverend and wife; Juan Marinello and wife; Jose’ Antonio Portuondo and wife; Mariano Rodrkuez Solveira; and Maria Fernanda Ortiz. Havana, 1962. O Maria Fernanda Ortiz Herrera.
Fernando Ortiz, as always, immersed in books, papers, and manuscripts. O Maria Fernanda Ortiz Herrera.
Fernando Ortiz with his daughter Maria Fernanda, during the last years of his life. O Maria Fernanda Ortiz Herrera.
Transcultural Anthropology in the Amkricas (with an Accent) The Uses of Fernando Ortiz Fernando Coronil
In Contrapunteo Cubano, Ortiz examined Cuban history and culture through a playful counterpoint between tobacco and sugar, the two most irnportant agricultural products in Cuban history since the Spanish conquest. In critical dialogue with metropolitan anthropology, he coined the term transcultzrration in order to examine the dynamics of colonial and neocolonial encounters, and to describe their destructive and creative role in the formation of Cuban culture. This essay is an effort to use Cuban Counterpoint to think about the present. I will focus on the concept of transculturation, how it was coined by Ortiz, how it traveled, particularly how it was received by Malinowski, and why I hope to return to Cuba again. I have begun to develop a project on Cuba, tentatively entitled “Nation and Imagination: Images of Revolution and History,” which concerns the politics of visual semantics, or the role that visual images have played in the definition and representation of personal and collective identities, in relation to the Cuban revolution static images. I have collected images such as photos, paintings, bills, stamps, posters, cartoons, and so on. I am particularly interested in the tension between official images of Cuban history and identity, produced for the state, and images produced by individual artists for the publicparticularly during this transitional period, when there is an increasing commodification of art, as well as growing contestation concerning the meaning of the “revolution.” Through this project, just as through my continuing work on Venezuela, I seek to examine transformations of national and collective identifications in an increasingly globalized context. In this essay, I explore aspects of this globalizing world, in part because the study of the images themselves is still nascent, hut mostly because I feel that understanding globality is essential for understanding current national and collective imaginings.
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Fernando Coronll
This will take me aa7ayfrom the evocative images themselves, as I have begun to delve into the opaque world of derivatives. In effect, this concern with the links bemeen specific texts and practices and larger historical forces is one of the reasons I a111 going back to Ortiz. He interests me not only because of his many insights on Cuba but because his work offers a perspective on the interaction bemeen national and global transformations that helps develop the critique of Eurocentrism in three ways. First, his analysis of Cuban culture presents an appreciative view of the Americas from the Americas that questions the usual stories of modernity as the heroic epic of a self-contained and self-produced Europe. Second, his work engages with and transforms metropolitan theory and allows us to see that theory itself need not be treated just as a European or Western achievement, but as a transcultural product. Third, his approach helps bridge the persistent gap between political economy and culture, a gap that has been further widened, I believe, by the divide bemeen modernist and postmodernist approaches, and provides a model for analyzing the dynamic interaction between cultural texts and historical contexts. As I hope will become evident, through Ostiz I am seeking inspiration to explore an emerging landscape. With this chapter. I wish to trace a few tentative lines in this direction. If I were to represent this chapter visually-you already know why I am thinking visually-I would choose to represent it as a Magritte painting. a painting that would have an image of an academic paper-I leave to ,?.lagritre’simagination to decide how to do that-and below it a text would say, “Ceci n’est pas un presentation.” It would not be the “real pipe” or even its image, but a pipe-in-the-making, perhaps a pipe-seed, if such a thing exists. To provide a clearer idea of hoa- I plan to explore this landscape, let me give you a sense of what I find exciting. As I begin to do fieldwork in Cuba and continue my ongoing research in Venezuela. I continually encounter a growing gap betn-een our analytical categories and the world we study. One of the sources for this gap or methodological inadequacy, I believe, is our disciplinary neglect of what is generally called “the economy.” One of the unintended effects of the recent posts and turns (linguistic, historic, etc.) has been that our growing attention to phenomena that readily lend themselves to modes of analysis that draw on the irnage of the world as a text has led to the reinscription of the separation betn-een ‘.culture” and “political economy.” As social geographer Doreen Massey has noted. “in the move towards a greater engagement with the social and the cultural which itself was part of wider and positive rejection of a previous economism, m-e have moved away from looking seriously at the economy at all.” As a result, we tend to treat economic activities not as one set of discursive practices among many, but as facts. When we look at the economy, we often treat it as factual background in the naturalized manner that economists talk about it.
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This concern was brought home to me in January 2001 in Cuba. when I attended a conference called “Globalization and the Problems of Development.” The meeting, organized by Cuban economists, was called by Fidel Castro as an effort to understand the changes that are taking place in the world today. It lasted five days, from 10 A.M. till midnight, and attracted the constant attendance of Fidel Castro and over five hundred delegates from all over the n-orld, plus several hundred Cubans. I found it remarkable that all these people, including Fidel Castro. despite their different perspectives, national origins, and languages, could listen and talk to each other during five extremely long days; and most people, including Castro, attended regularly froin morning to midnight. I feel that part of what made this meeting in Cuba possible was not just shared thematic concerns but a shared conceptual language, the language of economics. While I learned a lot in the meetings, I found this language at once empowering and limiting, a low common denominator that reproduced rather than examined the doininant assumptions. The papers and discussions reminded me of Goethe’s complaint about gray descriptions of a vibrant green world. Despite the flatness of its language, however. the meeting made me feel envious, for at least all of these people managed to engage in lively discussions, foregrounded big problems rather than narrow issues, and discussed them a-ith extraordinary intensity. with a sense of urgency. In this respect, the meeting intensified my concern that our accounts may indeed be less gray, even brilliantll- green, but that this achievement frequently occurs through a focus on individual trees, at the expense of our ability to see the forest of which they are part, the global landscape which surrounds us all. In his on-n time. Ortiz produced Cuban Cozinterpoint as a reaction against the dark politics of his day, as well as in response to “gray” economic accounts of Cuban history. Seeking inspiration in Ortiz, this chapter stands. shakily, as it were, on three uneven legs. The first will offer a brief description of Ortiz’s use of transculturation in Cuban Countetpoint. The second will discuss how transculturation was received by Malinonrski. The third, the longest and also the most speculative, is an attempt to chart globality. Unlike , summarize extensive research, the latter consists of the previous ~ owhich some speculations about a subject I find puzzling and elusive. The three sections, united by Ortiz’s spirit, explore a hunch. If, building on Ortiz. what I have called a transcultural anthropology is going to be as useful a tool in my work in Cuba today, I must open it up to exchanges with theoretical reflections produced elsewhere, including the visual images I seek to study.
FIRST LEG: CUBAN COUNTERPOINT C t ~ b aCountetpoint ?~ n7aspublished in 1940 when sixty-year-old Fernando Ortiz was at the height of his creative activity and Cuba was at the end of
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a tumultuous decade marked by numerous ruptures: domestic upheavals routinely arbitrated by the United States; sharp swings in its U.S.-dependent economy; the collapse of a short-lived revolutionary civilian regime in 1933, which Ortiz had supported; the consolidation of the army’s power under Fulgencio Batista, who ruled Cuba until the revolution of 1959 (except for eight years); the defeat of the Spanish Republic, which Ortiz had supported; and the rise of fascism throughout Europe. Written in this dark political context, Cziba~rCountetpoint was the product of a career that sought to interpret Cuban society, analyze the sources of its .’backwardness,” and extol the distinctive aspects of its culture. I cannot herein trace the evolution of his thought. Suffice it to say that his first book, Los negros bmjos ( n e Black Sorcerers), published in 1906 when Ortiz was twenty-six years old, focused on the conditions that promoted criminality and “backward” beliefs among practitioners of ht-zljeria (sorcery) in Cuba. The book was framed by evolutionary positivist theories and by the biological reductionism of the Italian crin~inologistCesare Lombroso, who prefaced it. In contrast, Cuban Cozll~terpointembraces a conception of race as a social construction, and presents a historical interpretation of Cuban culture that seeks to appreciate its different cultural traditions. Cuban Counterpoilit is divided into two complementary, counterpoint sections written in contrasting styles. The first is a relatively brief allegorical tale of Cuban history narrated as a counterpoint betn-een tobacco and sugar. This is a rather conventional essay that provides masses of information about the history of tobacco and sugar in Cuba. The allegorical essay is the core of the book, n-hich is based on a playful counterpoint between sugar and tobacco, modeled on medieval Spanish poet Juan Ruiz’s allegorical poem about the contest between lent and carnival, and inspired by Cuban popular traditions. It includes the antiphonal prayers of the liturgies of both whites and blacks. the erotic controversy in dance measures of the rumba, the versified counterpoint of peasants and urban Afro-Cubans.’This part is deceptively simple. It is as if, through his playful evocation of the pleasures associated with sugar and tobacco’s consumption, Ortiz wishes to seduce us into enjoying the text with sensuous abandon. Yet it is also as if, through his telling of a history of colonial and neocolonial domination, he wishes us to read Cuban history the way he reads tobacco and sugar: as a complex hierog1~-phthat invites constant decoding. Ortiz opens this section by introducing tobacco and sugar as “the two most important personages in the history of C ~ b a . He “ ~ emphasizes their contrasting properties. Let me give you a taste of Ortiz’s writing: Sugar cane lives for years. the tobacco plant only a few months. The former seeks the light, the latter shade: day and night. sun and moon. Food and poison,
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waking and drowsing, energy and dream, delight of the flesh and delight of the spirit. sensuality and thought, the satisfaction of an appetite and the contemplation of a moment’s illusion, calories of nourishment and puffs of f~ntasy.
Ortiz, however, soon complicates this description. As metaphorical constructs that condense a multiplicity of meanings, he makes tobacco and sugar stand for themselves, as agricultural products, as well as for the changing conditions under which they are produced. Tobacco comes to represent a native plant from which is made a product of great individuality and uniqueness, but also relations of production marked by domestic control over the labor process, individual craftsmanship, and the flexible rhythms of seasonal time. Sugar, on the other hand, represents not only a generic product derived from an imported plant but also industrial capitalist relations of production that reduce people to commodities, homogenize social relations and products, and subject labor to the impersonal discipline of machine production and to the fixed routines of mechanical time. Symbols both of commodities and of productive relations, tobacco and sugar become defined reflexively by the conditions of production that they represent. This reciprocal interplay between products and their generative historical contexts constitutes a second counterpoint. As both products come under the impact of the capitalist forces, they become less differentiated and their attributes converge. They represent not only distinctive qualities or identities but also their mutability under changing conditions. Thus, the initial contrasts between tobacco and sugar-which emphasize such critical oppositions as between indigenous/foreign, black and white, tradition/modernity, national independence/foreign dependence, Europe and America+ome to have unexpected alignments that destabilize notions of fixed identity. While at the beginning of the book these characterizations are described almost in Lombrosian fashion as deriving from the “biological distinction’’ between tobacco and sugar,”ater they unfold not as fixed qualities but as historical, hybrid products themselves. Tobacco is variously linked to the native (as an indigenous plant), to the European (as cultivated by white small holders), to the uniquely Cuban (as Cuban made Cigars), and to the imperial (as the US.-controlled cigarette industry). Similarly, sugar’s attributes also change: It is seen both as an enslaving force identified with foreign domination as well as with the vital energy associated with AfroCuban labor. As paradigmatic metaphors, they acquire new meanings by being placed within a syntagmatic structure through which they express a changing historical flow. At the end, what becomes important is the way history is made, not the biological con~positionof its main .’actors.” Except for certain aspects of their gendering, there is little that remains essential about them, for their biological attributes are mediated by social activity and modified by evolving patterns of
production and consumption. As we come to the contemporary period, tlie playful contrasts between tobacco and sugar are reduced by the homogenizing force of capital’s growing domination over Cuban society and culture. The second part of the book, the historical essay. begins with an unusual introduction of close to seven pages divided into m o chapters, one of which has one paragraph where he introduces the term ‘.transculturation.” Contrasting it with the unidirectional and static denotations of the term acculturation. Ortiz suggests that transculturation provides a more dynamic framework to understand cultural transformations, or, as he calls it, “the extremely complex transmutations of culture in all domains either in the economic or in the institutional, legal, ethical. religious, artistic, linguistic, psychological, sexual, or other aspects of its life.” Ortiz explains that transculturation suggests two phases, the loss or uprooting of a culture (“deculturation”) and the creation of a nen- culture i~neoculturation”),thus making visible the destruction of cultures as n-ell as the creativity of cultural encounters. While in the allegorical section of the book he introduced tobacco and sugar as the main personages of Cuban history. in this theoretical introduction to the historical chapters, he asserts that ‘,The real history of Cuba” is the history of the “intermeshed transculturations” of the array of ‘.human groups” that have populated the island over its history, from Indians to contemporary immigrants.
This shift from comn~oditiesto people as well as the brevity and placement of this theoretical introduction here. after he has demonstrated how he suggests that for Ortiz the significance of uses the term transcz~ltz~ration, transculturation is to be discerned through its use rather than formal definition. In the earlier section Ortiz had shown the workings of transculturation through a highly metaphorical treatment of the dynamic interactions of tobacco and sugar throughout Cuban history. I argue that by treating tobacco and sugar as fetish-things and using their fetish-pon-er to enchant reality (2 la Benjamin) rather than to d e q - s t i k it. as in most Marxist treatments of fetishism, his fetishized rendering of Cuban culture actually resulted in a counterfetishistic interpretation that challenged essentialist understandings of Cuban history. By treating tobacco and sugar not as mere things but as social actors, Ortiz in effect manages to bring them back to tlie social world that creates them, resocializes them as it were, and in so doing illuminates the society that has given rise to them. The relationships concealed through the real appearance of coniniodities as independent forces become visible once commodities are treated as what they are-social things impersonating autonolnous actors. Without referring to parties, groups, or personalities. Ortiz depicts the dynamics of colonial and neocolonial Cuba. the malleable loyalties and identities of its major actors, the provisional character of its arrangements and institutions, and the absence of control over its productive relations. He had
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seen how no political principle was secure; nationalists asked the U.S. ambassador to intervene, procivilians allied themselves with the military, advocates of honesty became masters of corruption. In Ortiz’s narrative, no names need to be mentioned, for tobacco and sugar act as a mirror in which one could see reflected familiar social identities.
SECOND LEG: TRANSCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY-MALINOWSKI AND ORTIZ Now I a-ant to discuss Malinowski’s reaction to Ortiz’s book in his introduction in order to examine a second counterpoint, not between tobacco and sugar but between Ortiz and Malinoswki, and suggest that this counterpoint reveals a process of transculturation at the level of theory formation itself. Just as it is reasonable to assume that Ortiz hoped to receive international validation by having Malinowski introduce his book, we may surmise that Malinowski sought to consolidate his own reputation by supporting, while aligning with his own position, the work of a noted anthropologist from the periphery. Malinowski’s introduction reflects the tension between his two aims. At one level, hlalinowski highlights the importance and originality of the book, offers an appreciative exegesis of the book’s argument as he understood it: and recognizes the validity of the term transculturntion. He declares in the introduction that he arill use it ever after. At another level, however, the introduction assimilates Ortiz’s project into Malinowski’s own. blunting its critical edge and diminishing its originality. This assimilation takes place through three related moves, which I can only describe here briefly. First, Malinowski aligns Ortiz’s transculturation with his own ideas concerning cultural contact, even citing his own work to indicate that it anticipated Ortiz’s argument. Second, he defines Ortiz as a functionalist, despite the fact that there was every indication that this was not the case. Third, he reads Cuban Countelpoint, literally as a book on tobacco and sugar, as material objects, without attending to their complex cultural structure as commodities and to the critical use Ortiz made of this complexity. It must be remembered that Malinowski saw himself as no ordinary anthropologist, but as one who coillbined literary sensitivity with theoretical ambition-he aspired to be the “Conrad of anthropology” (not Kottack, but Joseph). In Malinoarski’s introduction, there is little receptivity to a reading of Cuban Counterpoitzt as a critical intervention in Cuban historiography and, least of all, as a text that could develop metropolitan anthropology. He reads transcu1tu~-ationnarrowly as a technical term that expresses certain dynamism in cultural exchanges, not as a critical category intended to reorient both the ethnography of the Americas and anthropological theory
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I think Malinowski’s contradictosy attitude toward Ortiz’s work is confirmed by the fact that despite his promise to use transculturation ever after, in the multiple articles and books that he published after 1940, he only used this term twice. Elsewhere I have discussed in detail hon- Ortiz’s ideas have traveled, showing how the reception of transculturation has been marked by remarkable silences and omissions. Here I wish to build on Edward Said’s plea that we read the formation of identities and cultures contrapuntally in order to suggest the possible presence of Ortiz’s ideas in Malinowski’s growing acceptance of a more dynamic conception of cultural change. Critical of the tendency to view identities and cultures as self-fashioned and essential, Said concludes Culture and Imperialism by offering, n-ith a sense of urgency, a contrapuntal perspectivism: Survival in fact is about the connections between things. in Eliot’s phrase, reality cannot be deprived of the ,’other echoes [that] inhabit the garden.” According to Said: It is more rewarding and more difficult to think concretely and sympathetically, contrapuntally. aboilt others than only about “iis.”’
If transculturation is indeed a mo—a)- process. could we find Ortiz’s echo in Malinowski’s evolving ideas about cultural change? I think that in the care that Malinowski took to contain Czshan Counterpoi~ztwithin functionalist anthropology, perhaps nre can o b s e n e certain ambivalence, a veiled desire to domesticate its power. I read this ambivalence as a tension between denial and disavowal, between totally repressing and fleetingly recognizing Ortiz’s originality as an ethnographer, an originality that challenged metropolitan assumptions about ‘*home”and “abroad.” “science” and .’fiction,” “civilized” and “savage cultures.” Ortiz looked at Cuba, his “home,” not from a detached Archimedean point, as Malinowski demanded in the Argonauts, but from within; his integral vision of the whole was dea-eloped by being in it and of it. As an intellectual from the periphery, developing a critical perspective from within did not preclude, hut rather was conditioned by, a view from without. Yet his critical distance entailed a critique of distance and of the view from afar. Detachment was thus not the opposite of commitment but its necessary condition. Implicitly challenging the notion of the detached observer, his work encourages anthropologists and intellectuals, at the center or at the periphery, to recognize our position: the historicity of what Walter With particular urgency Mignolo has theorized as “the locus of en~nciation.”~ in postcolonial societies, this task invola-es taking a critical stance with respect to the available standpoints. Ortiz’s work reflects a creative struggle of a postcolonial intellectual to construct rather than merely to occupy a critical locus of enunciation from the margins. It is difficult for me to imagine that Malinowski did not even glimpse the significance as well as the challenge represented by Ortiz’s achievement. If I am
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right in perceiving a tension in Malinon-ski’s introduction between repressing and fleetingly recognizing Ortiz’s contribution. perhaps we may see this tension on the m-o occasions when Malinon~skiused the term tra?zsculturation. The first appears in Malinowski’s attempt to lay the foundations of functionalist anthropology in his A Scientific 7heoql of Culture and Other Ess a y ~In. ~the second chapter, “A Minimum Definition of Science for the HLIrr~anist.”he briefly mentions the word tra~zscz~lturation in a passage that does not attach any significance to the term and does not recognize Ortiz (ironically, the 0.xford English Dictio?zaqlcredits Malinowski as introducing this neologisill in this book and does not distinguish it from accz~lturation, which was Ortiz’s reason for coining it). In striking contrast to Malinowski’s minimal use of transculturatio~zin this canon-setting book, in the last article he wrote before his death in 1942, “The Pan-African Problem of Culture Contact,”- he mentions the tern1 several times, fully crediting Ortiz and referring to him as “the great Cuban scholar,” one of the most passionate friends of the Africans in the New World, and a very effective spokesman of their cultural value and sponsor of their advancement. In this article, klalinon~skitakes an unusually strong critical stance R-ith respect to “the onslaught of white civilization on native cultures.” In response to the ravages of colonialism. hlalinon~skimakes an extraordinary proposal: the establishment in Africa of “an equitable system of segregation, of independent autonomous d e ~ e l o p m e n t . “ ~ How to explain Malinowski’s exceptional use of Ortiz’s transculturation, his elnotional denunciation of colonial destniction, his strong critique of white civilization, his proposal for empowering Africans at this time? We may find a clue to this puzzle in the way hk~linowskijustified his proposal for a system of ‘.autonomous” African development: Speaking as a European. and a Pole at that. I should like to place here as a parallel and paradigm the aspirations of European nationality, though not of nationalism. In Europe. w e are members of oppressed or subject nationalities, and Poland was in that category for one hundred and fifty years. since its first partido not desire anytion. and has again been put there through Hitler’s in~~itation thing like fusion with our conquerors and Inasters. Our strongest claim is for segregation in terms of full cultural autonomy that does not even need to imply political independence. We claitn only to have the same scale of possibilities. the same right of decision as regards our destiny. our civilization, our careers. and our mode of enjoying life.”
In this unusual statement, Malinowski places himself in the text, but this time not as an in~partialobsemer standing on an Archimedean point outside history, as in his early texts, or as a concerned anthropologist, as in some of his later writings, but as a positioned historical actor, a kindred victim of history’s atrocities. A decentered and fragmented Europe seems to have enabled Malinowski to locate himself in it, to be of it, to speak porn it. It is as
if at the zenith of his life, the advance of f~scismin Europe, the occupation of Poland, the destnlction of his own “home.”had n u d e him receptive to the claims and experience of other oppresseci groups. At that moment, he a-as able to acknowledge Ortiz. to fulfill. at the end. the promise he once made him. Malinowski’s acknon-ledgment suggests hon- Ortiz’s ideas helped him view cultural transformations from a nonirrlperial perspective. As we seek useful theories to understand today’s world. Malinowski’s reception of Ostiz’s ideas raises critical questions concerning the relationship between theory production. understood as self-critical forms of thought produced anywhere, and canon formation. It suggests that a-hile theory formation is often a transcultural process, the canonization of theosy is fundamentally a power-laden metropolitan operation that. through silencing and selective appropriation. conceals the complicit- bemeen knowledge and power. Yet even canons. as this example s11on.s. often bear the traces of their historical formation and are inhabited bb- subaltern echoes. Today, just as much as in the forties. 15 hen no place can be safe fro111histow’s horrors or innocent of its effects, it is necessa1-J-to place knowledge at the service of decolonization. The recognitio~~ o f the existence of a dynanlic exchange bemeen dominant and subaltern kno~vledge may enable us to move beyond c:inonical social sciences to\-ard ‘.transcultural social sciencesv-that is, social sciences open to their o\vn clecolonization through worldwide transactions bemeen centers and borders, the dominant and the subaltern. Cuban Countetpoint n.as publisheci in 1940. at a time n-hen “nations” and “development” were fundamental categories: within this cultural landscape, Ostiz explored how tobacco and sugar had been and could continue to be, the basis of Cuban nationality. This book has circu1:ited. until recent years, in a world divided into modern and back\-arc1 nations and socialist and capitalist camps; for so-called backward or postcolonial nations, capitalism and socialisnl offered not only different visions of socieh but different paths to modernity. Noa- we face a world –here cultural differences and political inequalities cannot be mapped in terms of old polarities. The second world has drastically contracted and transformed. a-hile the first world is decentering and diversifying. Third world ‘,de~.elopment”programs of neoliberal design are accelerating the fractures within and among the nations of the “periphery.” A number of intimately related processes, in which globalizing forms of capital accumulation and comnlunication are both met with transnationalizing and reconfigured nationalist responses. have unsettled certainties associated with the belief in modernity. In this new context, does the concept of transculturation hold some use? Ostiz used it in narratives that show the 171utal force of colonizing poa-ers as well as the play of human creativity in the making of histor);. VC’l~ileOrtiz de-
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veloped the concept of transculturation to grasp this counterpoint bemeen violence and creativity in the formation of Cuban nationality, the concept need not be confined to the consolidation of a national formation. As a concept, transculturation has no intrinsic positivity, no inherent geographic boundaries, and it offers no guarantees. As an open category developed to examine the complex dynamic of historical transformations, I believe transculturation can be used to examine national transformations in today’s globalized landscape.
THIRD LEG: GLOBALITY This shaky leg is illy attempt to trace some outlines of this global landscape. There has been nluch discussion about globalization, about its origins, its various phases, and its current characteristics. It seems tl~atwhat distinguishes globalization now is not the extent of transnational flows of trade and capital. for these have occurred in similar degrees in other periods (particularly at the beginning of this centuv), but certain transformations in the concentration and character of these flows, enabled by new technologies of communication. I am going to sun~rilarizem o accounts of the current phase of globalization, written from rather different perspectives, each of which describes this phenomenon by highlighting seven of its features. The first is a recent (1997) report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Del-elopment.’” The report, concerned that rising inequalities pose a serious threat of a political backlash against globalization. is presented as a “wake up call to policymakers.” The report describes seven .’troublesome features” of the contemporary global economy. I’ll summarize them briefly: First, the global economy is grom-ing slowly. Second, the gap between the developed and developing countries. as m-ell as the income gap between rich and poor within countries, are widening steadily. I give you a critical statistic: in 1965, the average GNP per capita for the top 20 percent of the world’s population was thirty times that of the poorest 20 percent; by 1990, it had doubled, to sixty times. Third, the rich have gained e v e ~ ~ h e r e . and not just in comparison to the poorest sections of society, but also by hollowing out the middle class. Fourth, finance has gained an upper hand over industry, and rentiers over investors. Fifth, the share of income accruing to capital has gained over that assigned to labor. Sixth, increasing job and income insecurity is spreading worldwide. Finally, the growing gap between skilled and unskilled labor is becoming a global problem. The second report. titled “The Fourth World War has begun,” was written by subcomandante Marcos from the mountains of Chiapas and published in Le 12.10?7deD@lo?natiqtle.’ I According to hlarcos, neoliberal globalization must be ~~nderstood ‘*asa new of conquest of territories.” His ypology
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of four twentieth-century world wars decenters metropolitan conceptions of contemporary history. Marcos renames the Cold War the “Third World War,” because for the third world it was really a hot war, made up of 149 localized wars that claimed 23 million lives. The Fourth World War is the current neoliberal globalization that, according to Marcos, is claiming the lives of vast numbers of people subjected to increasing poverty and marginalization. While World War I11 was waged bemeen capitalism and socialism with varying degrees of intensity in localized territories in the third world, World War IV is taking place between metropolitan financial centers and the world’s majorities in global scenarios with constant intensity. According to Marcos, the Fourth World War has torn the world into multiple pieces. He selects seven of these broken pieces in order to put together what he calls the rompecabezas or “puzzle” of neoliberal globalization. I will briefly list them (some of the titles are self-explanatory), omitting most of the abundant data he offers to support his claims:
Concentration of u’ealth and distribution of poverty, which synthesizes well-known data rel~ealingthe extent to which global wealth is being polarized worldwide. Theglobalization of eqloitation, which discusses how this polarization goes hand in hand with the increasing power of capital over labor worldwide. Migration as a n errant nightmare, which reveals not only the expansion of migratory flows forced by declining conditions of production in the third world-it also reveals the local wars which have multiplied the number of refugees (from two million in 1975 to over twenty-seven million in 1995).12 Globalization offinances and generalization of crime, which shows the growing complicity between megabanks, financial corruption, and hot money coming from the illegal traffic in drugs and arms. i%e legitimate violence of a n illegitimate poulei; which argues that the “strip-tease” of the state in many third world nations has reduced the state into an agent of social repression rather than of social welfare, turning it into a protection agency at the service of megaenterprises. Megapolitics and dwarfs, which argues that strategies directed at eliminating trade frontiers and uniting nations lead to the multiplication of social frontiers and the pulverization of nations, turning politics into a conflict between giants and dwarfs, bemeen the megapolitics of financial empires and the national policies of weak states-unlike the United Nations’ report, Marcos ends on a positive note. in arguing point 7. Pockets of resistance, that in response to the pockets of concentrated economic wealth and political power, there are emerging multiple and multiplying pockets of resistance, whose richness and power resides in their diversity and dispersion.
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Despite their different perspectives, both accounts present similar data suggesting that one of the distinguishing features of contemporary globalization is the polarization of wealth worldwide not only among nations but within them. While the gap between the first and third n,orlds is widening, wealth is concentrating in fewer global hands, including those of third world elites. In this reconfigured global landscape, the “rich” can no longer be identified with metropolitan nations. Moreover, given this worldwide concentration of private power and the deregulation of the world economy, the territories that made up the third world are increasingly being treated as sources of cheap labor and natural resources. In some respects, we can see this process of reprimarization-that is, of increased exploitation of primary products-as a regression to older forms of colonial control. Yet, this process is taking place within a technological and geopolitical framework that transforms the character of the exploitation of nature and labor. As I argue in 7he 121agical State, this process of reprimarization goes hand in hand with the increasing abstraction and depersonalization of power through the figure of the market. A telling sign of this change is the tendency not only to treat all forms of social wealth as capital in practice but to conceptualize them as such in theory. In effect, while in the past “produced assets” were considered the “traditional measure of wealth,” now the World Bank suggests that we also include *‘natural capital and human resources.” In ta.0 recent books. Monitoring Environmental Progress1”1995) and Expanding the Measure of Wealth: Indicators of Enzdf-onmentally Sustainable Development1’ (1997). the World Bank proposes a reconceptualization of the measure of the wealth of nations and of development objectives as a paradigm shift. The reports note that: Expanding the measure of wealth suggests a new paradig~nof economic development: development objectives are to be met by portfolio management, where the constituents of the portfolio are natural resources. produced assets, and hunlan resources.
Now development objectives are to be defined as the management of this portfolio by experts. It could be argued that this new “paradigm” builds on an older conception according to which land, labor, and capital were treated as factors of production. What is new is the attempt to homogenize them, to treat natural resources, produced assets, and human resources directly as capital. By subsuming them under the abstract category capital, these resources are then treated as equivalent constituents of a “portfolio” to be managed by “experts.” Ironically, as nature is being privatized and held in fewer hands, it is being redefined as the “natural capital” of increasingly denationalized nations. This redefinition of wealth, its growing abstraction as homogenized capital, has yet another feature connected to a transformation in the character of the global market. In a wonderful book that examines the joint evolution of
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the market and the theater in England froin the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, Jean Cristphe Agnen- has argued that the ~’inarket”evolved during this period from a place to a process, from the fixed locations in the interstices of feudal society, to fluid transactions an>~-here.In this shift from place to process, the market, however. remained placed, as it were, a-ithin existing geographic space. Analysts of globalization have noted how its contemporary forins result not in the extension of the market in geographical space but to its concentration in social space. According to Hoogvelt, as international capital becomes inore mobile and detached from its previous social locations, the ‘.structure of coreperiphesy becomes a social ditision rather than a geognlphic one.” She describes this change as a shift from a geographically expanding capitalism to an economically imploding one. characterized by “financial deepening.” The Aku: York Tif?zesliseries on “Globa1iz:rtion” of Fehniary 1999 corroborated this ohsenation, noting the growing detachment of financial transactions from the trade of real goods. In a typical day. according to the AVeus Yo& Times, “the total amount of money changing hands in the world’s foreign exchange markets alone is S1.5 trillion, an eightfold increase since 1986, an almost incornprehensihle sum, equivalent to total norld trade for four months.” It quotes a Hong Kong banker: ‘.it is no longer the real economy driving the financial markets, but the financial markets driving the real economy.” According to the .\eri. Yot-k Times. the amount of investment capital has “exploded.” In 1995. institutional investors controlled $20 trillion, ten times more than in 1980. As a result, the global economy is no longer dominated by trade in cars, steel, and n-heat hut by trade in stocks, bonds. and currencies. This wealth is increasingly stateless. as national capital markets are merging into a global capital market. bIoreox-er.these investments are increasingly channeled through derivatives. n-hich 11at.e grown exponentially: In 1997, they were traded at a =due of S360 trillion. a figure equivalent to a dozen times the size of the entire global economy. As 1 see things, financial deepening implies a significant transformation of the market-not just its concentration in social space. but its extension in time. Now- capital travels not only within the geographic constraints of existing boundaries but in cyberspace-that is. in time. This temporal expansion of the market, or if you prefer. its extension into cyberspace, perhaps a further development of what Han-ey and others descril~eas the transformation of space into time, gives new significance to the redefinition of nature as capital. Thus, it is not just that fen-er private hands. largely unconstrained by public controls, hold more wealth, but that in these hands ,’wealth” is being transformed through a process of growing homogenization and abstraction. I have come to think of this process as a transmaterialization of wealth. In a recent issue of Time1(‘magazine on the future of money, the authors highlight the significance of nen. forms of wealth and new Trays of thinking about
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them. Wealth. according to this article, is increasingly treated by investors and bankers not just in terms of tangible commodities but in terms of risks assumed on them, such as derivatives. The hlagna Carta of this nen- form of thinking, the Tinze article suggests, is a speech delivered in 1993 by Charles Sanford, then CEO of Bankers Trust. After nluch searching, tn-o weeks ago I found this speech. an impressive document in style and content. In this speech, titled “Financial Markets in 2020,” Sanford humbly recognizes that reality is moving faster than our categories, that a conibination of art and science will be required to develop theories that correspond to the changes that are taking place in the world. He feels that these theories n-ill develop in the future. He suggests it \?..illhappen in 2 0 2 G a number he chose because it indicates perfect vision, conlpareci to the blurred vision of the present-hut anticipates the nature of this shift in perspectives: \X’e are beginning fro111 a XemTonian view, which operates at the level of tangi-
ble objects (summarized by dimension and mass) to a perspective more in line with the nonlinerlr and chaotic world of quantum physics and ~nolecularbiology.
Building on this analogy n-it11 quantum physics and nlodern biology, he calls this theoretical reconcept~lalization”particle finance.” This reconceptualization will permit us to bring together all wealth, all investments, into n-ealth accounts. and then to break down these Ciccounts into particles, particles of risk derived from the original investment, that can be sold as bundles in a global, computerized n e n o r k . To help us visualize the nature of the change, Sanford says, “We have always had transportationpeople nalked, eventu:~llythey rode donkeys-hut the automobile n a s a break from e v e ~ v h i n gthat came before it. Kisk nunagenlent will do that to finance. It’s a total break.” Echoing Sanford. Tit?zcll~agazinestates that deri1,atives “have changed the rule of the game fore\,er.” In order to imagine the nen- game, Time asks us to think of the world as a landscape of opportunin.. ex-eq~hingfrom distressed Japanese red esute to Russian oil futures, nlarketed and packed hy giant banks like Bankknierica or hy Fund comp:lnies like Fidelity In.estrnents and the Vdnguard Group.
(The example of Russian oil futures is :i general trope: it can also represent as well Venezuelan oil futures. Cuban sugar or tourisn~futures. etc.) Echoing Sanford almost to the end, Time says that “E-[lectronicl cash, n-ealth accounts. and consumer derivatives tvill ha-e made these firms as essential as cash itself once n-as.” If business immortality can be purchased, Time concludes. now taking the perspective of the common reader. ‘.these are the people ~ ~ 1 will 1 0 figure out how to finance it. And they will be doing so with )-our money.”
I am in no position to judge these interpretations, which I suspect are hyperbolic and self-senring. But it seems to me that the changes taking place today, of which these narrations are a part, suggest that the critique of Eurocentrism must be modified. Two related processes have shifted the commanding heights of colonial or neocolonial power from “the West” to the “globe.” On the one hand, neoliberal globalization has homogenized and abstracted diverse forms of .’wealth,” including nature, which has become the third world’s major source of foreign exchange and its most secure comparative advantage. On the other hand, the deterritorialization of “Europe,” or the West, has entailed its reterritorialization as a figure or as a metaphor (as Noam Chomsky would call it) that now refers to more geographically diffuse, more socially concentrated, but less visible global financial and political transnational networks that include such non-Western entities as Japan, the elites of third world countries. These tn-o interrelated processes are linked to a host of cultural transformations that both express and help shape different modes of articulating the relation among markets and nations, citizens and states, and individual and collective life projects. In light of these changes, I would like to suggest that current for~lnsof globalization make it necessary for us to move beyond the critique of Eurocentrism toward that of, for lack of a better n.ord, what I would call the critique of globalcentrism. This shift also entails expanding the critique of old colonialisms, which has been so productive in our field, toward the critique of imperialism, or if you prefer, nen. colonialism. which is impressively absent. Just as the old colonialisms anti Eurocentrism entailed the marginalization of the cultures and societies of non-European peoples, globalcentrisni and the new colonialisms entail the exclusion of large sectors of the world population, but now defined less in terms of their territorial location than of their links to the international market. And just as the critique of Eurocentrism has sought to provincialize Europe and t o question its pretended universality, the critique of globalcentrism must n o r regionalize and heterogenize the globe in order to show its highly differentiated distribution of power, and to demystib the univemlizing and homogenizing discourses of globalization that mask its polarizing effects. Let me now briefly return to Cuba. On the basis of what I learned in Cuba, it was the need to understand these changes that most likely prompted Fidel Castro to call an international meeting on globalization in Cuba. Beyond the political show, there was a certain pathos in the meeting. As one of Castro’s top economic advisers told me in relation to Cuba’s ability to sunrive the economic crisis that began in 1989. “it is a miracle-we don’t understand it ourselves.” One could see, as Castro asked questions about derivatives, hedge funds, exchange rates, and the actual location of dollar deposits in Argentina or Brazil, that he was tsying to sustain this miracle, trying to understand the world that Cuba is being obliged to enter after the fall of the Soviet bloc. At
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times the meeting seemed like Fidel’s private workshop, as if he arere using it to think of ways of n~anagingthe Cuban economy in an increasingly unregulated global market. as a n-ay of holding Cuban society together against the pull of the global market. As I seek to define my project about the politics of visual semantics in revolutionary Cuba, it is clear to me that in this new global landscape. Cuban history cannot be seen as Ortiz saw it in 1940. Neither can it be seen as Ortiz imagined it in the sixties, during the euphoric or romantic phase of the revolution. I found one of the fen- statements he made about the revolution in the archives of the national library in Havana. In response to a question about the opportunities that researchers have in revolutionary Cuba, Ortiz ansa-ered that the .,Cuban revolution offered anthropologists and historians a new and wide that is, the human open field of work to study this crisis qf tra~z.sctlltz~rntion. change from an old pluriclassist stnlcture to one moving ton-ard a non-class society.”’- I cannot at this point discern the significance of the Cuban economy’s growing dependence on dollars coming from tourism and remittances, and even less of the possible transformation of sugar and tobacco into bundles of risks in the international market. But it is clear that Cuba’s integration into the world market anci the dollarization of its economy-now over 50 percent of Cubans have access to ever more essential dollars-has drastically intensified social differences and sharply commodified private activities. including the arts. What Ortiz called “the crisis of transculturation” entailed in the creation of a classless society. threatens to become the crisis of creating a hierarchical society within the context of socialist institutions and ideals, unless the Cuban state and its people manage to counter these tendencies. In Cuba and elsewhere. neoliberal globalization’s reconfiguration of pop~ilations,states, production, and culture has modified the contexts of political action and intellectual and artistic production. I suspect that in these conditions, as the periphery implodes in the center, and the center in the periphery, cultural transformations and reflections about them will take place. not only through counterpoints like the ones I examined here, but through a multiplicity of exchanges among collecti~7itiesand scholars who are imagining anea- their location in this shifting social landscape. If these exchanges are to be informed, as Said suggests, by a contrapuntal perspectivism, they should involve, as in Ortiz’s work, an openness to the way individuals and communities form their visions of life and aspirations within, as well as beyond, national irnaginings. At the end of the nineteenth centuly, when Cuba was seeking to free itself from Spanish colonialism and fro111 U.S domination. Cuba’s poet leader of independence Jose Marti coined the term *.NuestraAmerica” to express pan-Latin American aspirations of political and cultural autonomy in opposition to the United States. Now Nuestra America is being redefined from the outside and inside.
Poetry in the Presidio Toward a Study of Proyecto de CCddigo Criminal Cubano
Dc lajllsticia uctllul el1 S O I I de g ~ / e ~ . l - ~ l From current justice in state of L:IW raises against crime Lcr Lq): contlzl el cklito se lei’arztu h i d Cuha sings in its new code Y e n S I L cddigo izzler’o Cz16acaiztn 1iz bin1 lzo clc equidacl sohl.c la tiel-1-a ,4 hymn of ?quit]. o.er the land La sa?acidrz &I Def-echo y~rc61 e?zcie?l-u The sanction itself of Right implants Reduce el ?)?a/con in tii-tzld qzle itr~pl~i??tci Reduces evil and \rirt~~e Ortiz lays a nohle. pure. saintly seiztando Ol-tiz b r~oble,pzrm -1,saiztcl “rational doctrine” fc~rhe who errs “doctri~zurnciovzu1”paru el q24cJ.vet~a Saving Man. and pursi~ingoffense Salta cil Hottzhre jSperslgzte su clelito If judging rldversely over the fatal SiJz~zgudolojiitnl hullu lo udl,er:so Del rnal innuto, pol-,fhtal. mnldito Of innate. deadly evil condemned Pel-o sien~pl-e, jhllu~zcloerzt1.e lo h~il~zarzo. Hon,e.er. aln ays a human finding ,\?z~tmliza el? szl~fijfi,l-t?la lo prrccl-so Neutrrllizes nllat is penerse in form As lvhar mistaken, the C:uban Code Czlul lo eqliicloco, el G d i g o Cziba~zo’
The opening poem renders tribute to Fernando Ostiz’s Projlecto d e Cbdigo Criminal C ~ r h a ~ zIntending o.~ to replace the penal code adopted under the colonial regime in 1870, Ortiz wrote and presented the Pf-q13rctoto Cuban legislative bodies in early 1926. This chapter is a preliminan- analysis of this relatively unexamined aspect of Ostiz’s n.ork. If the contours of Ortiz’s n-ork as an anthropologist and ethnographer are emerging more clearly as a result of gro\ving interest.’the shape and substance of Ortiz 2s lan-yer and criminologist have remained in the shado\vs. Rjr non. .\?g~c-,s htrljos’ is a familiar if continually challenging text, as are his writings on music or Co~ztl-npti~lteo cubarzo. Yet the relationship betn-een these texts senlains a matter of speculation. \What happened to Ortiz’s initial impulses to link obsenrttions concerning the practices of Cub:lns of African descent with his understandings
of the origins ancl etiology of crime? As is clear in ,Vegt-os blyjos. Ortiz’s training as a lamyer and criminologist imbued his \vork. One might assume that
these early paradigms evolved or shifted. It n-oulcl he harder to claim, I will
try to argue, that Ortiz rejected them outright. The Cddigo suggests that Ortiz continued to apply his legal training to the problems of social order and
the regeneration of delinquency well after his career bulged with the proliferation of other interests.
Ortiz wrote the P1-q)ecto in the early years of General Gerardo Machado’s
regime. Although the regime ended in a violent yranny that led to nilachado’s
overthrow in the revolution of 1933, historians have argued that initially
nilachado appealed to many Cubans with his nationalist, reforn~istplatform.
Given growing discontent, especially after the economic crisis of 1920 perceived to emanate from the particular and peculiar relationship among foreign
(mostly US.) capital, Cuban sugar production, and the ambiguous boundary
bemeen Cuban and U.S. sovereignty. blacl~ado’sLiberal Party platform in
1924 drew wide appeal from disenchanted sectors. Khen he ran for president
in 1924, claiming to be committed to a “revision of the Permanent Treaty, eliminating the appendix to the Constitution, and ninning Cuba an independent
place in the n,orld.” his spoken concerns resonated n-it11 those groups already
organized around a commitment to “national regenerati~n.”~
hlachado’s plans included domestic refcmns, as \.’ell as those in the
sphere of international relations. He initiated a series of projects, expanding
the role of the state in public life even as it aimed to remedy economic distress as it offered jobs to many Cubans. It was during his regime that the
replica of the U.5. Capitol was built in downtown Havana, as well as the
seven-hundred-mile central highway that runs across the entire island, part
of a new public works program. The Presiclio LIodelo, built on the Isle of
Pines on the site of the same colonial prison that housed Jose Marti for a
time, evinced Machado’s interest in extending his reformist agenda to the
control of crime and criminality.”
An overlooked moment of coinciding purpose between Machado and Ortiz, the Pryecto
de Cddigo Criminal CZlhaizo brought together both
Machado’s interest in reform and Ortiz’s criminological leanings. When Ortiz presented his Pt-oj~ectoto the Cornisicin Codificadora, he prefaced his remarks with an acknowledgment of the mutual endeavor, noting that the new
code would be a product of “el esfi~erzode todos, secundando el impulso
reformador del Gral hlachado. muy interesado en la renovacion 1egislativa.”The most important innovation in the Prc~t’cto
~ l eCddigo Criminal
Cubnno, from the point of view of the history of criminology, was Ortiz’s introduction of a new social type: the delinquent. He defined a delinquent, in
the first instance, as someone a-ho had committed 21 crime. But a delinquent
was also someone who might potentially break the law. Those who, according to Ortiz,
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159
show by their external conduct to be notoriously against good customs or the laws of public security, a state of extraordinarily mental. moral. or legal inadaptation that incline them to delinquency and social fear.’
were deemed persotzaspeligrosas, even if the); had not committed a crime. They were to be treated in the same way as delinquents: Both rights conceded and obligations imposed. n,l~ichn-ere inviolable for delinquents, were also inviolable for dangerous persons. But the differences beta-een them mattered: Ortiz disaggregated delinquents into different types. Depending on the nature of their responsibility for the crime committed, they m-ould be classified into the following subcategories: “habituales, alienados. psicopgticos, toxichmanos, vagos, politicos, menores, y c~rporativos.”~A notable array of different .,orders of things” comprises the list. The inclusion of biological, psychological, social, and political factors reflected perhaps early tm-entieth-century criminology’s confidence in its ability to encompass and address the problem of crime in its nlilltifaceted entirety. This focus on the criminal rather than the crime reflected a shift from classical to positivist crinlinological theories. Instigated principally by the Italian school of criminology, it rejected the notion of the free will of the criminal and replaced it with a viea- of the criminal as both constrained and impelled by environtnental, biological, and psychological factors. One of the principal proponents of this theory was Enrico Ferri, whose lecture on ‘.The Positivist School of Criminology” in 1885 provides a landmark for historians of criminology. lo In the succinct analysis of one historian, the person who c o ~ n ~ n iat scrime, says Ferri, is a criminal. . . . It is n o use looking for the motive of his act: the reason for his crime is precisely, his criminality. In a sense these fexv peremptory words n~arkthe registering of a new object of penal science and practice: homo criminalis. a nem figure engendered outside the sphere of classical penal thought, but which in the course of the nineteenth centul7 gradually advances to its forefront.ll
The line of influence between Ortiz and Ferri n ~ a ybe dram-n through their connections to Cesare Lombroso, whose influence on Ortiz’s early work has been well documented. Ferri made a name for himself during his student years as a vociferous critic of the notion of free will in crime. When he went to Turin in the 1880s to study with Lombroso, who was professor of legal medicine at the university there, he hoped to add empirical weight to some of his beliefs through the studies of prisons and inmates that Lombroso m-as sponsoring at the time. He and Lombroso became friends and colleagues. working together on key positivist concepts such as the born criminal, the use of anthropological data, and the inlportance of a preventive approach. Ferri proposed a reform of penal law in 1921. n-hich was in many w y s a model for Ortiz’s Pr0~~1t.cto. l2
Following Ferri. the PI-cyecto envisioned punishment as designed to match the delinquent, his crime, and his potential to reforn~.The Proyecto listed ten Vpes of confinement and their respective institutions. ranging from the presidio,with a regimen of \vork and nightly isolation; through the awesto, in which inn~atescould choose betn-een n-ork and isolation during the day; the reformatosy, which was to make provisions for education as well as labor; and finally the insane asylum. directed at therapy and education for its inmates.’” Article 150 stated the basic principle: “las sanciones criminales se adecuaran a1 delincuente individualizgndolas en vista de su peligrosidad como el tribunal, a su prudente arbitrio y tie acuerdo con 10s lirnites y reglas de este Codigo, estime rnls eficaz parala readaptacion e inocuizacion de aqui.1.”” The proposal included provisions for the method by which data on inmates was to be gathered. The role of anthropologically derived knowledge was key.” In an oral presentation of his Proj’ecto to the Comisihn Certificadora, Ortiz emphasized the n e ~ i l yconcei\red delinquent as the most important aspect of his proposal. In an effort to underscore the scientific aspect of his t-ien-s, he clren~an analogy to changing medical practices: “en criminologia esta sucediendo lo que ha sucedido en medicina. Aunque no puede decirse que el delincuente es un enferrno en el sentido estricto de este vocablo, no es desacestada la comparacihn entre uno y otro . . . ya la ciencia medics no cura enfermedades sino enfermos, y asi ha)- clue hacer en criniinologia.” Ortiz traced this de.elopment to the challenge to absolutism brought about by the French Revolution. and the ensuing humanization of penal practices, undergirded by a newly legitimized belief in the Rights of hlan. Thus, a theory emerged that acknon-ledged different types of delinquents, and corresponding penalties, gradiated in severity.’” Yet at the same time this approach presented a potential contradiction, one that plagued positivist conceptions of penal reform. How would a positivist criminology reconcile faith in the potential of delinquents to reform and shed their dangerous tendencies n-it11 the drive to classify csinlinal y p e s ancl categorize some as irredeemable? Ol-tiz held specific ideas about the naj-s this code, if adopted, ought to be promulgated. Again, anthropological inquill- formed a critical component of his plan. He recommended the creation of unii7ersiV courses. the training of a body of penitentiag. personnel, and of medic:ll anthropologists.’- In a formal proposal, he later called for the institutionalization of instruction in the University of Havana, envisioning the creation of three new professorships in the Law School: ,’para la ensenanza de 121. Crirninologia y Penologia,” “para la ensenanza de la Antropologia Criminal 1- Policiologia.” and ,’para la ensenanza de Enjuicianiiento Criminal )- Ley Penitenciaria.” He also called for the creation of a doctorate in criminology.’Wnce inculcated with knowledge of the most recent technologies and theories, these new experts would nln the new institutions Ostiz proposed. All of this new criminological energy would be channeled by a Junta Nacional de Prevenci6n y Represihn de la Delincuencia, which he envisioned as
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analogous to the Junta Eacional cle Sanidad y Beneficencia, ris an “Estado Mayor de la ciefensa y guerra contra la cri~ninalidad.”~~This Junta would direct and oversee any operations ina-olved in the repression of crime, including general administration, gathering of statistics, daily operations in corrections centers, and the control over recently rele~isedinmates. The Junta would join together government officials and experts in pursuit of greater control over the penological landscape. Ortiz envisioned a committee con~prisedof a nlenlber of the judiciary. preferably at the of Presidente de la Audiencia, a number of academics, including those named to the chairs of Ilerecho Penal. Criminologia y Penologia. Antropo1ogi:i Crinlinal y I-‘oliciologia, :ind Enjuiciarniento Criminal y Legis1:icihn I3enitenciaria. In addition, the Junta would include those involved in more practical matters: the inspector of all corrections establishments, the director of the Gabinete Nacional de Identificacihn, and the chiefs of personnel of corrections. Finalljr, he proposed that the three remaining menlbers should be. for :in unstated reason, w o n ~ e n . ~ “ The proposal generated a wide range of responses. with .arious degrees of enthusiasm. His colleague and Ciend Israel Castellanos, the director of the Gabinete Nacional de Identificacihn at the time. entered the forc~mn-it11 :I proposal of his own for expanding the role of state institutions and the experts who would nln them. Castellanos n-rote from the perspectix.e of a participant n-ithin this evolving apparatus. sketching out 3 plan that would fit the needs of the Cuban penal system and a national ambition to acquire the trappings of modernit>-. Castellanos praised Ortiz’s plan as a step in the direction of a positivist overhaul of Cuba’s penal s).stem. He pointed out, hon-ex-er, that some practices within the penitential7 system had already begun to change in that direction. regardless of the state of the theoretical enterprise. He and others had begun to conduct anthropological studies of inmates. Ortiz’s plan n-ould suppost and legitimize his own pl:m for 21 Laboratorio de Antropologia Penitenciaria. Through it he n-ould ohtain, in as much detail as its techniques allowed, the diagfzcistico mom1 and p~-otz6.sticocoi-reciolml of each inmate. Once the ciiagnosis n-as ohtainecl, it would formulate a plan 13). nhich the illInate n~oulclbe redeemed socially, to whate\,er extent possible.?’ Castellanos accepted the premises of Ortiz’s Propcto and encouraged their extension beyond the confines of formal ban,, onto the hoclies and psychologies l would of inmates. Ortiz hinlself n-as somen.hat doubtful that the g e n e ~ i public :iccept this modernizing impulse, just as they had resisted the modernization of ~nedicalpractices to a certain extent. He noted in a letter to a Supreme Court judge that it had taken the traunla of Tar and the overpowering authorit). of the I!.S. presence to promulgate adequate :~nciscientific measures against yellow fever. Liken-ise. he believed that to scientifically i~nplantthe defense system of criminality in Cuba, the pressure of a high authority would also he necessar?. I cloul~this liould happen and therefore we will continue i~nmersedin the useless chores of the current criminal justict. while criminality increases in a terriking n.ay.”
Perhaps this doubt about the appeal of his ideas rendered him amenable to a proposal, found anlong his papers, for a sun-e)- that xvould gauge the amount of interest among the educated public “en relacion con la r e f o r m de la legislaci6n criminal.” A questionnaire would be sent out to teachers, doctors, judges, lamyers, institutes of berzeJcencia and correcMn, employees of corrections centers, the militav. and politicians. The responses would help him not only to determine what they thought. but also the degree to which they could be brought into the project as participants. Ortiz agreed to design the questionnaire. Whether he did so and what kinds of results he obtained have yet to be u n ~ o v e r e d . ~ “ Ortiz did send out his Proyecto to dozens of colleagues and acquaintances, both in Cuba and abroad. In Cuba, the president of the Asociaci6n Pedagogica Universitaria received a copy, as did Jost. Tapis, Pedro Pablo Rabell, Juan Clemente Vivanco, and Juan Gutierrez Quircis, all judges sitting on Cuba’s Supreme Court. Of non-Cubans, one prominent recipient was E. H. Crowder, then the ambassador to Cuba from the United States, who sent a note acknowledging the receipt of the volume and his support of its intention. “It -will be a great pleasure to cooperate ~vithyou in securing the enactment of this new criminal code,” wrote Croxvder in June 1926, not long after Ortiz’s completion of the project.” The response from the criminologist n-110 had inspired the project, Enrico Ferri, was prompt and positive.2i Another article from a journal of criminology published in Milan. La Scz~olaPositiz3a.assel-ted its praise for Ortiz’s general theoretical thrust and the rigor of his work. faulting it only for an excessive attention to detail. In its view. Ortiz’s project was far more successful than similar projects in its shift from a penal to criminal approach, aiming to defend society against criminal activity. rather than siliiply organizing punishment using abstract principles.’” Ortiz ensured that the knowledge of Ferri’s affirmation was widely disseminated. He sent copies of Ferri’s laudator). comments to several newspaper editors, including Gustavo Gonzalez Beau~.ille,Xlberto Lamar Schweyer, Juan O’Naghten, Enrique Serpa, and Jorge hlanach, asking that they take note in their respective new-spapers.’- As a result, the Prqyecto was widely publicized, and generated a variety of responses. A letter from Ramiro Cabrera expressed one kind of response: unadulterated enthusiasm. In florid prose, quoting Sophocles, Quevedo, and Cicero, Cabrera thanked Ortiz for his contribution. ~vhichas he saw it, was a “c6digo revelador de 10s males atavicos que rodeari nuestro ambiente social.” Ortiz was a worthy colleague of the positivists in Europe: according to Cabrera, he n-as “as brilliant in the fight for the improvement of nations and men” as were the “enlightened Lombroso, Ferri, Garofalo, and Ottolenghi.” Not only was Ortiz in tune with European criminological strains, he was also in line with the aims of the president of Cuba. “General Gerardo Machado y
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Morales,” wrote Cabrera, “like you suffers the most intense, incurable, and beneficial fever in favor of the advancement, morality, and progress of the Republic.” Ortiz’s proposal had a bright future: “Your Penal Code will he from now on in Cuba THE CODE OF 121ACHADO!!’‘L8 Likewise, admiring law students wrote in. With studious precision they located Ortiz within the canon of penal law they had spent the year learning. Referring to recent political change as a “process of renovation,” they suggested that Ortiz’s ‘.modern and scientific” contribution would bring that process to fruition. With lofty language they described the extent to tvhich Ortiz would help them achieve their obligations to “defend, prosecute, and judge those cases of conflict bemeen individuals and society, according to the high criteria of Humanity and Justice in hrotherhood.” Due to Ortiz’s intervention they, as new laayers, would be spared wrestling with the obsolete and rigid norms of classical penal law. They thanked him for this and for his ‘.intense. well-directed, intellectual, and nationalist l a b ~ r . “These ~” kinds of responses perhaps indicate a sense of optimism and faith in the possibility of progress, a sense that at this moment Machado and Ortiz shared a perspective on the path toward regeneration of Cuban politics and society. Not all the letters were as uncritically adulatory. A colleague. who signed with the initials “LJA,” mentioning that he had published extensively on the subject of criminal law. and n-rote in with his resewations. He quibbled over the length of the project, the casuistic penchant for drawing needless distinctions, and Ortiz’s analysis of the significance of the kinds of crimes committed by the insane. One of his principal objections challenged Ortiz’s notion of guilt. Yet acceptance of the progressive aims and acknowledgment of the project’s importance informed even this critical response. Despite the complaints, the writer of the letter insisted that none of this was meant to criticize the code. Kather he meant only to point out differences, in the hopes of discussing them and clarifying them sometime in the future. Deferential, especially for someone who claiilled to have written thirty-five books and hundreds of articles on criminal law, he closed with an effusive expression of friendship and a d m i r a t i ~ n . ~ “ It is perhaps not surprising that Ortiz would have gained the consent of a liberal elite, pleased a-ith a proposal that posited a move tom-ard modernity even as it envisioned the elimination of a source of disorder. Likewise, the scientific and academic establishment might have welcomed their projected status elevation. They might all have been attracted to his intention to “centralize all the defensive organization of the state against criminals, as it has been done in all civilized countries. under the jurisdiction of the ministry of J ~ s t i c e . “Lest ~ ‘ this become an exercise in fitting the Cuban case into a Foucauldian template, however, it is important to note that Ortiz also drew consent from the targets of his project: Some inmates found much to praise in his Proyecto.
The response received from detained Cubans speaks volumes with regard to the perception and dissemination of this project as a humane, reformist attempt to help rather than punish delinquents. Perhaps most remarkable is the poem, dedicated to “el eminente penalista Dr. Fernando Ortiz.” with which I opened this chapter. Its author was Luis Branovel, writing from the presidio on December 29, 1926. He preceded his sonnet with a letter, asking if Ortiz had already received it as he had sent it for the first time a few weeks earlier. To ensure its arrival, he was enclosing it a second time. He meant it, he wrote, as a token of his “spontaneous penitentiary congratulation^.”^^ Another letter from prison thanked Orliz for his efforts more extensively. Alejo Hernandez de la Noval. convicted for bigamy, listed the numerous ways in which Ortiz’s plans would sewe the population within the prison walls. He had managed to obtain a copy of the code, he wrote, after coming across reviews in Cuban and foreign presses. It was an honor for him as a Cuban citizen to see Ortiz’s name mentioned in foreign newspapers. Elevating himself above most of the inmates in his company. he alluded ‘.to any number of moral conditions and dark souls who were on a constant lookout for victims for their unsavory ideas.” It was clear that these unsavory types carried an inherited stain in their blood, and he was grateful that Ortiz had begun to bring this to the attention of the general public. Furthermore, the personnel were not adequately trained to deal with inmates. When and if the code was approved by Cuba’s legislative bodies. it would fill a void, one created by the lack of attention to scientific principles in the present code. It was very satisf$ng, he wrote, to know, even from within the depths of his cell, that Cuba was not just constituted by men ,’who are busy searching for benefits, asking favors, and who know by heart the retirement law.” There was at least one citizen, Ortiz, who held hun~anity’sbest interests in mind. Hernandez signed off most affectionately and then closed with a postscript: Would it be too much trouble for Ortiz to explain the way his own crime of bigamy was to be understood n-ithin the new criminal code?33 I hope this preliminary interrogation of the material, rather than drawing conclusions, has opened new- avenues of inquiry. Here I will focus on two questions. First, how can students of Ortiz’s legacy integrate his work as a legal reformer into a broader interpretstion of his intellectual trajectory? Second, how n~oulda more profound stud). of Cuban criminology engage an emerging historiography of criminology in Latin America? One way to address the first question might be to look at what Ortiz himself said about this moment in his intellectual career. On the question of the influences on his work, he was ambivalent. In a 1928 letter to a Spanish criminologist Mariano Ruiz-Funes, he claimed to be an “old Lombrosian.” Yet he sent copies of ~\egros hrujos to friends that year, suggesting that he was not prepared to completely disavow his Lombrosian roots.% By 1944, he was even further removed from his previous endeavors. Writing to Rafael Por-
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tuondo in the Audiencia de Oriente in Santiago de Cuba, he thanked I-‘ortuondo for mentioning the C6digo Criminal in a recent text, and assured him that his interpretation had been correct. 1-et it was as if he had to be reminded of something long gone: “I am presently so distant from those studies that when they talk to me about penal problems it seems they remind me of another life.”” These remarks suggest that he did not n.ant to link penitentiary and cultural anthropology too closely. Some commentators, on the other hand, see this as one of Ortiz’s most important contributions. Berta Becerra y Honet n-rote of his contribution to the “science of Law,” that it was one of his “most deeply rooted callings . . . on which he has been one of the greatest masters of our people.”-‘6Israel Castellanos, a close interlocutor, imagined a direct link betm-een the earlier and later Ortiz, arguing that the criminal code gren- out of his interest in la vzala uida, in both instances fueled by refornlist impulse. His interpretation is of a life work that followed a certain logic and consi~tency.~On the other hand, the seeming multiplicity of Ortiz’s projects might suggest a less cohesive view, one that is satisfied, like Benitez-Rojo, to note the polyphonic quality, not only within texts but betn-een texts, or, rather, betn-een all of his intellectual endeavors.” In this regard locating the Codigo Crin~inalwithin the corpus of Ortiz’s work might entail assuming, like Ortiz himself hinted at, that he engaged several simultaneous hut not necessarily consistent projects. An intermediate view might rely on Fernando Coronil’s elegant suggestion that ‘,his scholarly work was marked at once by a continuity of concerns and a shift in perspecti~es.”~”The fate of the Proyecto in the Cuban legislature and Ortiz’s ongoing involvement with cri~ninologyremains relatively unexamined. Further study might add to the richness of Coronil’s proposed continuities and shifts. A recent volume on criminology and prison reform in Latin America sets a research agenda for further understanding the relationships “bemeen prison and society and bemeen technologies of punishment and culture in Latin America.””’ The authors raise a fen- issues that are relevant to the issues raised by Ortiz’s endeavors to reform the criminal code. The nature of positivism, they argue, n-as somewhat at odds with the refornlist impulse, n-hich initially drove prison reform. For if prison reform focused on the regeneration and transformation of criminals into productive, or at least less dangerous, members of society, positivism held to a certain degree that some types were not reformable. This tension is present. and indeed, informs Ortiz’s work, as well as Castellanos. How did these tensions resolve themselves, if in fact they did? Was Ortiz’s vision a .’humanitarian critique of existing prisons” or n-hat Aguirre and Salvatore call part of emerging “imaginaries of total institutional control”?” Salvatore and Aguirre’s attention to periodization suggests that the example of Cuba is an important case study. Throughout most of Latin America,
liberal reformist projects preceded the height of the legitimacy of positivism. Yet in Cuba, these currents, as R-e hare seen, converged in the early 1920s. How does this convergence impinge on general narratives of the history of liberalism and state formation in Latin America? Similarly, the authors posit a significant resonance between politics and prisons, using the constniction of the Presidio 2Wodeloas their example. They suggest a paradox in the way the Presidio. built by blachado as a symbol of modernity, came to be an emblem of the vranny and cruelty of his regime. There is much about this process that we do not know, including the role of Ortiz, whose position toward Machacio c11;inged radically during the regime. Ortiz’s own words provide probably the best guide toward further understanding his colnplex work and legacy. Cuban R-rites Lino N o d s Calvo recalled Ortiz’s remarks regarding an African icon in his hand: This doll has, first of all. individualiv: it also has a place in time, space, and environment. We cannot understand this doll without understanding all these dimensions. It is not sufficient to study one of its measurements; one needs to study all of thern. U1tim;~tely.it is v e n interesting to observe how these measurements and dimension interact and n.hat the result is.”
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Pro-yectos de /eyes. 2 5 . “El fondo del Proyecto de C6digo Cri~ninalde Cuba constituye una magnifica )excelente afirmaci6n del principio de clefensa social, superando las normas tradicionales. ya desacreditadas por sils resultados de plena insuficiencia e n el resreno pr5ctico . . . es decir, que el proyecto cubano. ~nejorque el C6digo nlso. regula legalmente una clasificacihn anrropol6gica cle 10s criminales que es identica a la establecida en nuestro proyecto de 1921”: BKJhl. C.hl. Ortiz, Carpeta 195. Juicios criticos de su obra.
28. Letter from Ramiro Cabrera. Octol~er16. 1926. BS!.\I.
C.hl. Oniz. Carpeta 356,
Pro.yectos de l e ~ ~ e s .
Prq)’ectos de leyes.
lel’es.
de lcyes.
RACIAL DIVERSITY, RELIGION, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
Fernando Ortiz’s contribution to the study of racial relations and their impact on the Cuban sense of identity is a polemic issue of contemporary relevance. Tomas Fernjndez Kohaina considers the history of the much-debated term Afio-CuDntz, with valuable insights relevant to innovative bibliographic classifications. Patricia Catoira critiques the Ortizian theory of transculturation as applied to his evolving intellectual proposals for Cuban national unity. These debates are not nen. in Latin American literature. Recent theoretical reinterpretations can profit significantly from the 11lajor insights on race and national identity gained by Ortiz. Ortiz’s increasingly diverse interdisciplinary interests led him also to seminal studies on Afro-Cuban religions, with an original anthropological trend, as highlighted by Jorge Ramirez Calzadilla in his study of the influence of Spanish anticlericalis~lland Afro-Cuban religions on Cuban religiosity.
The Term Afro-Cuban: A Forgotten Contribution Tomas Fernandez Robaina
The term Afro-Cuban was first used in 1847, according to the information supplied by Fernando Ostiz in 1942, in reference to his Hampa Afrocubana: Los negros brujos (1906): In this book I introduced the term, Afro-Cuban, which eliminated prejudice and accurately conveyed the original duality of the social phenomena we wanted to study. Antonio de Veitia had already used that term in Cuba for the first time in
Unfortunately, Ostiz does not explain how Veitia used this term. He does not explain the concept behind the term, either, although he uses the term several times. In the book’s summation, where Ortiz describes the content of one of its chapters, he uses the subtitle “Triple Aspect of Afro-Cuban Witchcraft.”l On the following page, at the beginning of the second paragraph, Ostiz writes, “The Afro-Cuban, even if he calls himself a Catholic, . . . remains a fetishist.”” This statement probably made sense at that moment and reflected Ostiz’s own experiences. However, there were then and are now Afro-Cuban Catholics who refuse and even condemn religions of African origins. To state or insinuate that they were fetishist because they were black was to pretend and consider that Afro-Cuban religions, especially santeria, were practiced exclusively by blacks. We cannot ignore that many blacks and mulattoes fully assimilated into Euro-centric cultural, religious, and social standards in order to advance toward equal conditions with the white population.
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Ortiz also argues that ,’the Afro-Cuban fetishist in general, since the time in which slavery impeded his de-Africanization, was also a priest, a wizard, and a superstitious man.”’ He initially refers in general to male or female using the term Afro-Cuban. In two of the three references provided earlier, he uses the term as an adjective and once as a noun. In the first reference he terms the group of religious beliefs of Africans and their descendants as AfroCuban “witchcraft,” indicating, however, that “Afro-Cuban witchcraft, as it exists today, does not normally inspire homicide.’’; This observation is relevant since the general notion at the time n-as that many of the crimes committed by blacks were motivated by religious beliefs. Two decades later, in an important text, he explains: it is important to remind here that, although the ethnic influences of the black population who reached Cuba were many. they have all blended their fundamental contributions to the extent that today one can speak of a specific psychology and set of Afro-Cuban customs without referring to their particular ethnic origin^.^
It is clear that he conceived the Afro-Cuban character as the result of mutual influences between the different cultures of the slaves forcefully transferred from various parts of Africa, as well as similar influences between the slaves’ cultures and the dominant colonial culture. Honrever, Ortiz believed in a process of integration or dissolution of the slaves’ original cultures, and their assimilation or absorption of the Euro-centric culture of slavery. He thus emphasizes: A psychological community was formed once the African divisions ended. and
once all blacks from various origins mingled-initially in the narrow limits of the slave quarters (bavaccin) and the sugar mill buildings (batey),the old sugar mill (cachimbo) and the coffee plantation, later in the small towns, provinces or the island itself. It was then relatively easy. though necessary, for the blacks to gradually abandon their different languages and seek a common one. which could hardly be any of their own.-
And, of course, as a product of that assin~ilationand integration of the slaves into the dominant colonial culture, the conquering language “could not be any other than Spanish.”“n Los negros brzijos he has already stated: The spirit that preserves Latin and Hebrew among n-hite religious persons helps to explain the presen~ationof African languages among fetishists, despite having been almost completely forgotten by the large majority of Afro-Cuban blacks.’
Currently, the conservation of some of those African languages in Cuba is one of the traits that most attracts language students. Not only is the old
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Yoruba preserved, but also the language of the Abakuas is still used for “social communication” and ritualistic purposes among the members of the Abakua secret society, or 2aGigos as they are popularly known. I regard the idea behind the term Afro-Cuban as used by Ortiz in his famous lecture at the Club Atenas as highly relevant. The use of the term “eliminated prejudice and accurately conveyed the original duality of the social phenomena we wanted to study.”1°The term continued to be employed intellectually to refer to blacks and their cultures and beliefs. I say “intellectually” because at the time, as today, the majority of blacks of the various social classes did not and do not consider themselves Afro-Cubans. This classification or sociological, anthropological category reincorporated by Ortiz has not been widely adhered to among the majority of the Cuban population, especially among blacks and mulattoes. This makes sense if we realize that within all Cubans, and deeply within blacks and mulattoes, is embedded Marti’s view that to be Cuban is to be more than white, more than black, more than mulatto; or Maceo’s dictum not to ask for anything as a black but for everything as a Cuban.ll In texts addressing the issues of black Cubans, the term Afro-Cuban was used with the Ortizian original meaning of i d e n t i ~ i n gblacks and their culture. It was used mainly among white and black intellectual circles involved in the social movement of black Cubans. In their struggle, these intellectuals endeavored to demonstrate that blacks had achieved the same intellectual level as whites who dominated the public, professional, artistic, and all other types of positions in Cuban society. Examples of this approach are the two important works of Gustavo E. Urrutia (1881-1958), the black intellectual who probably had t h e 11lost profound insights on the racial problem within the context of Cuban nationality and identity.’? In his Cuatro charlas radiofdnicas (1935) that included four articles originating from radio broadcasts, he used the term AJ1-o-Cuban several times, to refer to the cultures and ancestors of African origin.l”n reply to the criticisms made to his radio program Sensemaya, the first to transmit the ritual music of santeria, he firmly argued for the revendication of Afro-Cuban culture. Unlike others, Urrutia’s efforts went beyond the social and econon~icstruggle and courageously addressed mainly educated blacks with the intention of promoting the racial and cultural self-esteem of the African legacy. Thus, he stated: As the black population of the country is usually accused of having a savage and barbaric ancestry: as it is the Afro-Cuban who is scorned and shamed due to a supposed inheritance of inferiority, and denigrating racial flaws; so it is the AfroCuban who must urgently address and explain the religious. ~noral,and artistic values of his black forefathers, having absolutely nothing to envy. in moral and spiritual matters, of his white forefathers.”
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It is clear that h e refers to the black Cuban, as well as to the culture inherited from Africans as Afro-Cuban. Urrutia never regarded this as a danger to Cuban national identity a n d nationality. With full conviction h e wrote: In my view, the problem must be dealt with as follows: within cubanidad and creole ethnology, and as long as white racism remains. the Afro-Cuban should be interested in upholding his free choice in the mental direction of his own race. He must begin by knowing what he wants and what is convenient to the overall progress of Cuba; he must point out, define. and transmit this to the white person so that there may be a cultured and fraternal debate.15 In 1937, a year in which the Afro-Cuban question was widely discussed in the midst of a debate o n whether to revive the traditional parades of Havana’s neighborhoods, Urrutia delivered a lecture that I consider to b e of mandatory reference to all whites and blacks. I a m referring to “Points of View o n the New Black.” Here h e again used the term Afro-Cuban, but o n this occasion h e addressed economic and social issues: The New Black is the Afro-Cuban-male or female. young or old-who is convinced that our current demo-liberalism is unsuitable by itself in correcting the social and economic subordination and underestimation of people of color, inherited through our history of colonial slavery; being this regime incompetent in overcoming the dramatic disadvantage in the living conditions of the Cuban proletariat and middle classes, to which the race of color mainly belongs.16 Urrutia did not reject Cuban nationality a n d identity. O n the contrary, h e referred to the organization of a convention of the existing black societies at the time, in order to discuss Cuban problems and the racial issue. He firmly underscored: The New Black contemplates the global solution of the Cuban problem with the statesman’s view and the spirit of justice for all, blacks and whites. Once the Convention has defined a collective program, an expression of the Afro-Cuban perspective on national problems, I believe that its leadership will contrast this view with that of the “New Whites,” today’s authentic revolutionaries, with the objective of uniting these views and embarking together the New White and the New Black, as the black and white separatists did in the past, a new liberating crusade: economic and social justice for all the inhabitants of our country.” Fernando Ortiz witnessed the social struggle of the black man, the struggle of Urrutia and others, a n d participated in those debates through his writing a n d studies, and as member of societies such as the Society of AfroCuban Studies.18 That is probably why Ortiz clearly explained the reason why h e used the term Ajko-Cuban and why h e considered such use very convenient.
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But not all intellectuals at the time, as indeed some today, viewed the term Afro-Cuban favorably. One of the most stern opponents of the term was Alberto Arredondo, the author of El negro en Cuba (1939).’“n one of the chapters of the book, he passionately expresses his view-s, clearly arguing against the Afro-Cuban trend. Arguments similar to those elaborated by Arredondo are still being used: When speaking of nationality it is clearly established that when referring to a Cuban it is to include both blacks and whites. To pretend to refer to AfroCubans is to cause reference to Hispanic-Cubans. This would revive old and counterproductive conflicts at a time when Cuba needs the most the union of all its children.?O
Arredondo perceived the Afro-Cuban issue as something that had been overcome; for him, all those who hailed from the island were Cubans at the time. Therefore, the term Afro-Cuban clashed with what he considered to be nationality and Cubanity. In this regard, he repeated notions expressed in colonial times, when the independence movement was being forged. In specific historical moments that involved political or social issues, a national cohesion has been demanded above other social demands, which could have threatened that union. Arredondo did not perceive the term Afro-Cuban. as Ortiz brilliantly conceived it, as conveying the original duality of the social phenomena he wanted to study. Obviously, the Afro-Cuban phenomenon could not be considered finished. R6mulo Lachatanere was another Cuban researcher to use the term AfroCuban as an adjective or a noun. He published his important essay on “The Lucumis Religious System and other African Influences in Cuba” in the Retjista de Estudios Aj%ocubanos, edited by or ti^.^’ In Lachatanere’s “Manual de Santeria,”the meaning given to the term Afro-Cuban is clear: IWIe do not know of any publication that studies the Afro-Cuban beliefs in accordance to Afro-Cuban interpretations, logical deductions, and philosophical speculations applied in the performing of their
Lachataiiere was also very critical of false interpretations of Afro-Cuban singing and dancing, at a time when almost every creation was classified as Afro-Cuban. He averred, “Today terms like conga, rumba, and Afro-Cuban are as popular in the United States as North American vernacular music itself.”23The commercialization of African culture, especially the Afro-Cuban culture, had a good market at the time in the United States coinciding with the ongoing “discovery” of African cultures. The existence of this market for products of African origin might explain the adoption of the term AfroCuban, in the same way as the term Afro-Brazilian was adopted. In 1906, Ortiz himself had used the term Afro-Bahian in reference to San Salvador de
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Bahia.24The prefix Afro- is very common in literature on the black person and his or her culture, not only in Brazil but also in Uruguay, Argentina, Ecuador, and other countries. Despite Arredondo’s debatable but understandable objections in the context of his time, the term continued to be used with more or less assiduity. One of the positive aspects of the Cuban revolution in its initial stages was that it provided a space for the study of all Cuban historical and cultural roots. And, of course, work started prominently toward the recovery of artistic, dancing, cultural, and musical values of the different African cultures. These cultures had mutually influenced each other and mixed with the dominant cultures, thus developing other cultures. some with the visible imprint of their original roots, others with less visible vestiges. The Conjunto Folk16rico Nacional was created with the mission of preserving the dancing and musical values of the popular sectors in the countq, among which those of African origin were fundamental. The Academy of Sciences of Cuba, through its Institute of Folklore and Ethnology, endeavored the rescue of aboriginal, ar traditions. African, and other p o p ~ ~ l religious In 1968, there was a conference of a group of specialists in Afro-American cultures meeting in Havana and Santa Clara. On that occasion the Biblioteca Nacional Jose Marti compiled the first bibliography on the “Afro” theme, published as a short book of the revolutionary period.2i For that task, I consulted musicologist and ethnologist Argeliers Le6n. At the time I was beginning to gain interest in research, despite the fact that I was very surprised that the methodology that I was advised to follow explicitly discouraged the use of terms such as Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Mexican, Afro-Cuban, and others. Paradoxically, the title of that project was “Bibliography of Afro-American Studies.” However, the compilation nrork soon provided sufficient elements for me to disagree with that methodology. The lack of an updated mechanism to compile information on African heritage in Latin America at the Biblioteca Nacional contributed to my disagreement on methodological issues. I was being advised not to use epigraphs or descriptors %-iththe prefix Afro-, as was the practice used in books on classification, and especially in the printed catalog of the U.S. Library of Congress, the bible of all librarians. I could understand that the prefix was not used, according to the explanation given to me. But nowhere in the Biblioteca Nacional was there a “see also” that could guide me to the various headings where I could find equivalent information. I concluded that it was essential to use the term AfroCuban as an adjective, because of the need that all librarians have of providing information. There was the need to simply refer to the cultural and historical phenomena that Africans and their forefathers had left and still maintained in the American soil. Regardless of whether anyone sympathized or not with the term Ape-Cuban, practical life and its laws imposed its use. How could one ignore this reality?
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In 1992, I had the opportunity to work at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. As a result of my work there making use of the “Afro” material in the different branches of that library, and given the fact that these materials were not accessible through the conventional headings used in that library, I elaborated a new list on the basis of the Latin American “Afro” resources cataloged in the Biblioteca Nacional. I also provided that list to the Biblioteca Nacional so that their catalogers could provide a better service to library visitors. However, as far as I know, nothing of that sort has been implemented. One is still unable to find the novel Cz~andola sangre se parece a1f ~ e g by o ~Manuel ~ Cofifio through the heading “Afro-Cuban novels” or “Santeria in novels” or any other indicator that may suggest its content. This is the case for both the New York Public Library in New York and the Biblioteca Nacional Josi. Marti in Havana. More recently, I had another experience with someone who was against the use of the term Afro-Cuban. His objections were firm. He expressed his views after I had invited him to participate in a debate on a course I had given on Gustavo E. Urrutia and the Afro-Cuban movement of the 1930s. His arguments were similar to those upheld by Arredondo: Ape-Cuban distinctions prevented Cuban unity. Instead, the term Cuban cultz~realready implied all of our roots. For that person, the Cuban culture is one and finite. As far as I am concerned, though I also believe the Cuban culture to be one, I consider that we must interpret it in consideration of the roots still alive in many of its expressions. In order to appreciate these roots we must use the term Afro-Cuban, or Sino-C~lban,or Hispanic-Cuban, or any other that is appropriate. I see no danger in referring to objective phenomena by their names. This is why I believe that the term Afro-Cuban, as Fernando Ortiz conceived it, is still current. If today one refers to Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Ecuadorian, and Afro-Perz~z~ian cultures, then why is it that in Cuba, which is one of the countries in Latin America with the most prominent black population and heritage, one is unable to use the term? In the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, one can consult dozens of books using the prefix Afro- to describe a noun or an adjective relating to a specific country, continent or city, such as Afro-Brazilian music, Afro-Mexicans, AfroBahian, among others. This can be extracted simply from the titles of some of the chapters that appear in Afro-Brazilian Culture and Politics (1998)-for example, “A Mixed-Race Nation: Afro-Brazilians and Cultural Policy;’’ 2’ also those terms in Faces de tradi~aoafro-brasileira (1999): “Afro-Recife religions; Afro-Brazilian syncretism,” among others relating to specific c o u n t ~ i e s . ~ ~ I consider that the term Afro-Cuban, used as an adjective or a noun, although an intellectual construction incorporated in the research lexicon of Ortiz, and subsequently adopted in other professional fields, tends to consolidate rather than separate. Ape-Cuban is a term that illustrates the result
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of a n ongoing process of influences among African cultures in Cuba and the dominant Euro-centric cultures. I consider that w e are still a young country, in all senses, with a young republican history. We must approach that history using the entire legacy that researchers have provided o n Cuban history and culture, especially the significant contribution of Fernando Ortiz toward the use of the term Afro-Cuban.
NOTES
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Transculturation 2 la Ajiaco A Recipe for Modernity Patricia Catoira
Throughout his essays, Ortiz referred to a well-known Cuban dish, ajiaco, a Creole stew that incorporates American. European, and African ingredients. For him, the mixture of the ajiaco provided an excellent metaphor for the cultural processes that have shaped Cuban society since colonization. Ortiz proposed that cubanidad-the identity of the Cuban people-should be thought of in terms of the ajiaco, since the encounter of different cultures in Cuba contributed to the development of a hybrid culture. The term he used to describe this cultural process n-as transcz~ltzclzltion. In this way, Ortiz was part of a long line of Latin American intellectuals who have taken it upon themselves to study and formulate the identity of their countries and their continent. In this essay, I intend to show how Ortiz’s concept of cultural change related to his preoccupation with cubanidad. Ortiz considered cubanidad a necessary foundation for the creation of an independent nation in every sense of the word: politically, socially, econonlically, and culturally. Although Ortiz attempted to create a meaningful place in the national story for Cubans from marginal races and cultures: I have found that, in the end. he gravitated toward a homogenizing cultural project. While tilost of Spain’s colonies in Latin America became independent in the first decades of the nineteenth century, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines were the last ones to gain their independence in 1898. In Cuba, Spain’s defeat did not bring about the end of foreign involvement in Cuban society. Scholars have described the military, political, economic, and cultural presence of the United States on the island in the early ~ e n t i e t hcentury as “neocolonialism”: the period when American porn-er supplanted the Spanish and frustrated the nationalist desire for a completely independent country. The
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Peace Treaty of Paris (1898) between Spain and the United States installed an American provisional military government in Cuba to ensure social order on the island. This occupation lasted until 1902, when the first Cuban republic was formed. Even then, independence from the northern neighbor was not total. In exchange for political independence, American interests forced the Cuban Congress to include the Platt Amendment in its 1901 Cuban constitution.l Ortiz found three main internal faults (fallas internas) that he thought were responsible for the state of national disintegration in Cuba and that were, therefore, impeding the realization of a national and universal culture. These faults included political corruption, imperialism, and racism. In 1919, in “La crisis politica cubana,” Ortiz denounced the lack of unity among Cubans as the main problem affecting the country. He stressed the amorality of politicians and the lack of culture of the popular classes as causes of this disintegration. After the formation of the first republic in 1902, a series of corrupt governments contributed to the frequent instability of the new nation. Historian Louis Perez registers this in the follom-ing m-ay: During the administrations of Jose Miguel Gomez [1908-19121 and Mario G. Menocal, a total of some 372 indictments were brought against public officials. dealing with a wide range of offenses, including embezzlement, fraud, homicide, infraction of postal regulations, violation of lottery law, misappropriation of funds, and violation of electoral laws. By 1923, the number of indictments had increased to 483.l
For Ortiz, this corruption also symbolized the deficient culture of the ruling class. In his view, their personal interests conflicted with the progress and the interests of the nation and the world.’ Ortiz saw American involvement in Cuban affairs as another internal fault. Backed by the Platt Amendment, the United States intervened politically and militarily several times in the island during the first decades of the republic under the pretext of quelling social unrest.’The regional power’s economic penetration became even more prominent after the period called “the dance of the millions” in the 1920s. The euphoria resulting from the rise in sugar prices encouraged many plantation owners to ask for loans to expand production. Overproduction of sugar caused a drop in prices and the subsequent ruin of Cuban landowners. As a result, American companies approto Ortiz in priated bankrupt haciendas, plantations, and fa~tories.~According “La crisis politica cubana,” this foreign presence mirrored the spiritual debility of the national character whose heart was being bought by fast enrichment. Foreign capital could not feel “the patriotic vibration” and, therefore, endangered national progress.6 Even so, Ortiz had ambiguous feelings toward the United States. While he criticized the increasing American takeover of the island, in 1923, as presi-
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dent of the Revolutionary Junta, Ortiz made a call for the “moral intervention” of the United States in the island in order to stabilize the social chaos under the Machado government.- Similarly, in his essay “Imperialismo y buena vecindad,” Ortiz shoa-ed a contradictory position by denouncing the intentions of the United States but declaring, at the same time, the need to keep close relations between both countries through a reformulation of the term “panamericanism.” In this essay, he emphasized that the “Anlerican unity” . . . will be nothing but a positive economic reordering. built with “science and conscience.” . . . It is necessary to start another interAmerican New Deal. a Renew Deal to bring all American states abundant crops. mines, machines, laboratories, schools, universities. and civic value^.^
Therefore, Ortiz suggested that the presence of the United States could play a major role in the modernization of Cuba and Latin America. According to Ortiz, the third internal fault that was ripping Cuban society apart was racism. The Ten Years’ War (1868-1878) had united blacks and whites against the Spanish colonial regime. Slavery was finally abolished in 1886, but this structural change marked the change from a slave system to a racist one. At the same time, the popularity of deterministic ideas about the inferiority of the black race once again relegated the Afro-Cuban to a lower place in society. Furthermore, the American military and administrative presence reinforced the racism of Cuban Creoles. Cuban historian Julio Le Riverend explains the situation in the following way: It was stressed that blacks and colored Cubans should not be allowed to appear prominently in the institutional life of the countsy, for reasons of “patriotisn~”so as to calm the racist worries of the new ruler. named with euphemism or surrender ‘.our f ~ i e n d s . “ ~
Racial tension intensified in the first years of the republic. The appropriation of land by American companies created general malaise throughout the island, especially in Oriente province, where the population of blacks and whites was almost evenly balanced. In 1912, the Independent Party of Color’s political revolt against the Mafia Law ignited the spark that lit up the lower classes’ accumulated frustrations. l o There were uprisings across the island, but they were more intense in Oriente. Due to the great number of participants of color, the revolt was called a “race war.” For Perez, this appellation covers up the true motivations behind the uprising: the pervasive political, econotnic, and administrative marginality of the peasantry. In fact. “the view that the protest was a race war,” Perez argues, “served to divide the peasantry along racial lines. . . . The construct served to unify the white majority in Oriente, and this unity tended to cut across class lines. . . . It senred as the basis for repression.”ll
This state of national disintegration was in Ortiz’s eyes comparable to a state of .’barbarismuand “semiculture,” an argument that he developed in his essay “la decadencia cubana.” The only Ivay to overcome such a state, Ortiz proposed. lay in a self-evaluation of the faults in Cuban society and in the definition and diffusion of a true Cuban national culture. For him, economic and political independence was to be obtained through a national unity based on culture: “Only in true culture can be found the necessary strength to live a life without senritude.”” In Ostiz’s body of essays, one notices a transformation between his initial ethnological positivist phase and his posterior cultural phase. Following the positivist influence, he considered blacks responsible for the poor state of Cuban society. He believed that blacks introduced such elements as gariiguismo,’3 superstition, and dialects that disintegrated Cuban culture. Ostiz also argued that blacks had developed their race thanks to their miscegenation with other races. However, in the second edition of Los negros brujos (1717), Ostiz reformulated his argument. The black subject. which he saw as a disruptive marginal force in 1706,was now reinterpreted in a more complex historical and social context. The essentialist association of the Afro-Cuban with the underworld disappeared from this edition. Ortiz now claimed that the term .’bad life” (mala uida) was used by the dominant group to marginalize and contain a way of life that was different from, or that could challenge, theirs. Ortiz adapted his methodology for studying Cuban society to an approach more in tune with his developing idea of national progress. He abandoned the ethnological perspective to focus on a totalizing social study that would allow Cuba to reach the level of o r the categosy of “universal civilization,” which according to him only strong nations possessed: Undoubtedly, one of the first tasks of the advsncing nlotlern generation must be the precise, emotionless, objective, unpreiudiced. detailed, and informed analysis of the multiple factors that each race has contributed to our customs and national character, and the evolution of each of those specific factors in relation to the others.”
In order to establish a unifying discourse around an all-encompassing idea of Cuban culture. Ortiz attacked the racialist thought from the nineteenth century and its intellectual offspring, such as Nazism. “Racism,” Ortiz stated, ‘*isan anachronistic concept of barbarism, incon~patiblewith the contemporary demands of culture and enemy of the Cuban nation.”1i Ortiz emphasized the difference between the concepts of race and culture by using a the0137 of counterpoint: Certainly, cult~~re does not signify what race signifies. The former is a hu~nan classification based on typical means of life. a social behavior: the latter is an attempt at a morphological and physical classification. . . . Culture is an essentially
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human and sociological concept: race is of an exclusive zoological nature. And today we attempt to use the word culture precisely because of its social and effective significance, free of any mythological and deceptive burden imposed on the term race.’”
Therefore, for Ortiz, the ruling elite manipulated the pseudoscience of racialism to its own ends. The effect was to exacerbate divisions in Cuban society, which Ortiz saw as an impediment to a national progress toward modernity. In Ortiz’s opinion, culture was the key to understanding socio-historical developments and he would follow several steps in analyzing them. Diana Iznaga delineates Ortiz’s steps in the following way: isolate the cultural elements that form Cuban culture; study the evolution of each element separately in Cuba; analyze the relation of each element with the rest: study the evolution of those relations until the present day; and compare the original manifestations to the Cuban amalgams in order to draw conc1usions.l- With this methodological process, Ortiz was able to formulate a Cuban cultural discourse around the concept of transculturation. In his masterpiece, Cuban Coulzte~point,Ortiz introduced transculturation in order to counteract the racialist discourse and other theories of cultural contact that were in vogue at the beginning of the twentieth century. The term tmnscultz~ration alludes to an effort to decolonize the language of social science. With it, Celina Manzoni argues, Ortiz implanted a space of resistance in language.18 The term sought to replace others-especially acculturation-that were based on ideologies of cultural superiority propagated by “high-cultured,” imperialist powers.19 Acculturation, as Bronislaw Malinowski points out in the introduction to the first edition of Cuban Counterpoint, supposes a cultural contact in which the “uncultivated” group, the Other, loses elements of its culture in order to assimilate itself to the dominant group. For the Polish anthropologist, the term acculturation &-as e t h n ~ c e n t r i cAcculturation .~~ reflects, then, an unequal relation bemeen two cultures already predetermined as inferior and superior. In contrast, transculturation was, according to Ortiz, a more suitable term for the process of contact: It is used to express the multiple phenomena, which are generated in Cuba due to the complex transmutation of cultures existing here. Ignoring them prevents us from understanding the evolution of the Cuban people, in the econon~icas well as the institutional, legal. ethical, religious, artistic, linguistic, psychological, sexual. and the rest of its aspect^.^’
This is the reason why Ortiz believed that Cuban culture was “creative, dynamic, and social.” Manzoni also considers Cuban Counterpoint to be a hybrid text in itself. The amalgam of genres, the incursion of appendices, the
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illustrations, and the tables of statistics along with the use of different types of language and narrative styles create, in the whole, “a scientific analysis contaminated by mixture, heterogeneity, crossings, ruptures, changes of direction and rhythm, which make the Caribbean culture so different and unique. “2z Ortiz found four main instances of transculturation in Cuba based on interethnic contacts. The first instance took place with the substitution of the Paleolithic Indian (siboney and guanajabio by the Neolithic Indian (taino), and the subsequent disappearance of the latter when he was not able to “accommodate himself to the new Castillan culture.”13 The second transculturation process occurred with the arrival of Spanish colonizers and immigrants who came from different cultures and regions of the Iberian peninsula and its islands. These Spaniards, according to Ortiz, had to adjust to the cultural backgrounds of their compatriots but also to the culture forming overseas. The third instance happened in a similar manner with the arrival of African slaves who belonged to different tribes and ethnic groups. Lastly, the sporadic irnrnigration of other groups such as the Chinese and the Portuguese contributed to another transculturation. The feelings of being uprooted (desawaigo) and transitory, which each community experienced, were, in Ortiz’s judgment, transcendental factors for cubanidad and, consequently, for national unity. These periods of contact constituted a series of adjustments and maladjustments in the cultural exchanges among different groups that produced a new syncretic culture. For Ortiz, this new culture was cubanidad. In the analysis of these processes of adjustment during transculturation, Ortiz seemed to forget that the feeling of transitoriness and uprooting that he considered characteristic of the process of transculturation was not felt in the same way by all groups. While for the Spaniards the arrival to Cuba could cause psychological uprooting from the madrepatria, for many this was a chance to thrive and prosper. The position of social and economic power that many Spaniards held established unequal cultural exchanges. The transculturation of the Spaniards with other ethnic groups was part of a strategy of power and domination. This phenomenon can be observed clearly in the explanation of the transculturation of tobacco that Ortiz mapped out in Czlbarz Counterpoint. While he considered the development of tobacco in Cuba as an example of (spontaneous) transculturation, from his own explanation one can deduce that it was, instead, a process of transculturation that culminated in the appropriation of a cultural practice propelled by economic and power motivations. Here lies one of the contradictions in Ortiz’s analysis. Tobacco, Ortiz argued, was at first taboo, a thing of savages and devils. Indians used it in religious and medicinal practices. Africans adopted the unknown plant for the same uses and began to cultivate it in small plots of land in the plantation. In the sixteenth century, with the disappearance of the Indian population, the sale
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of tobacco became a black business. However, due to the incipient demand of tobacco by certain groups of the white community (sailors, merchants, etc.), the Spanish soon realized the lucrative possibilities of this plant. As a result, in 1557, the municipal council in Havana passed a law prohibiting blacks from selling tobacco and it became a white business. Fronl that point on, tobacco use was accepted and began to spread among white Creoles. In contrast. Africans lived under an oppressive slave regime and this meant that assimilation of the culture of power (the Spanish) was an act of cultural appropriation as a means to thrive socially. For instance, learning the Spanish language facilitated n7ork in the slavemaster’s house. Therefore, in a way, Ortiz seemed to forget that the “painful transculturations” mirrored the cultural hierarchy existing in Cuba. Cultural exchanges were unequal because they developed within a power framework. Angel Rama admits his certain uneasiness with Ortiz’s formulation of the transculturation process. This design does not comply with the requirements of selectivity and invention that must apply in all cases of ‘.cultural plasticity.” because that state certifies the energy and creativity of a cultural community. If this is a lively one, it mill meet the requirement of selectivity, within itself and through external contributions, and it will necessarily invent through an ‘.ars conzhi~zatorio”fitting with the autonomy of the cultural system itself.”
Therefore, Rama recognizes that cultural exchange is not spontaneous but selective from each point of contact. The Uruguayan critic contextualizes the process of transculturation within the practices of modernity since he considers that such selection responds to a desire to create or invent a cultural identity that is viable-in other words, a cultural model that allows access or functionality to the new power dynamics. In a similar way. Masy Louise Pratt proposes in her book Imperial Eyes that in many instances the processes and the dynamics of transculturation take place in “contact zones,” which she defines as social spaces where different cultures interact from asymmetric positions of domination and ~ubordination.’~ Ortiz paid special attention to the study of transculturation betn-een whites and blacks. He believed that it was in this phenomenon urhere Cuba could find the unifying base from which to build a modern nation. The most important essay in this regard is “Por la integracion cubana de blancos y negros” from 1943. It is in this text where Ortiz is most problematic. In the first place, his analysis of culture in terms of white and black reinforced the presence of a racial discourse and ignored the cultural diversity within those racial categories. Therefore, Ortiz created a contradiction in his central argument-identity through cultural unity-because he overlooked the cultural project and the agency of, for instance, the Galician community as well as those of racial minorities such as the Chinese. It is true, as mentioned earlier, that Ortiz recognized the presence of this
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diversity in the phases of transculturation in Cuba. but he discussed these groups as part of the past rather than as living, dynamic cultures. In other words. Ortiz a-as inscribing the presence of, let’s say, the Haitian in the moment of his arrival on the island as a historical fact instead of as a contributing participant of the modern Cuban society. It is as if Ortiz were proposing that the contribution of each ethnocultural group consolidated with time, through transculturation. into two big cultural blocks defined by the m o majority races: black and white. Ortiz was therefore hiding racial parameters behind his idea of cultural unity. These parameters, as a result, were contradicting the base of his argument. In the second place. in “Por la integracihn cubana de blancos y negros,” one can notice once again how the concept of transculturation reflects an unequal relation in the acljust~nentsresulting from cultural contact. Ortiz proposed that the transculturation between the culture of whites and blacks had taken place in five distinct phases: hostility, accommodation, adaptation, self-affirmation, and integration. The explanation of each phase centers around how, little by little, blacks became assimilated in the culture of poa-er-the white culture. This display of the process denotes by itself the inequality of the components. In the hostility phase. blacks rebelled, fled to palenques or comn~unitiesof nlnanray slaves, or committed suicide as response to their slaveq-. The accommodation phase developed during the first generation of Creoles; blacks began adapting to the new land and became attached to it. It is also in this phase when tnestizaje occurred at a larger scale than before. Also. Ortiz made the black an exotic subject by linking him to dancing and singing: .,the black person can now dance and the white person has fun with hirn.” ,’Ya el negro puede bailar y el blanco con 61 se divierte.” and by speaking of the “sensual” love embodied in black women that allow-ed for their t~iestizajewith white^.^” Ortiz judged adaptation to he the rnost difficult phase. This occurred during the second generation of Creoles. Blacks denied their color and wanted to imitate whites for their own benefit. In the next phase, blacks had the opposite feeling and were proud of their race and heritage. This period of selfaffirmation happened at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Ortiz argued that, at this point. there was mutual respect between blacks and n.hites, hut racial prejudices persisted. Ostiz longed for the last phase, integration, to be realized in Cuba: It is the last one in which cultures have fused together and conflict has ceased: they have given way to :I tet-ti~lnzpii id, a third entity ancl culture, to a new community culturally integrated in which merely racial factors have lost their divisive malice.?-
The essay “Por la integracihn cle blancos )- negros” is the transcription of a conference delivered in 1942 in which Ostiz stated:
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In that [integrating phase] there is exists only a reduced minority In that phase is where we are those who meet here today. . . . That is why the present event by a group of Cubans of diverse races. ~ v h ogather for a rite of social cornmunion, consecrates the need for reciprocal understanding on the objective basis of truth, in order to approach the definitive integration of the nation. For its profound and consequential sense this meeting represents a new moment in the histoy of the homeland and as such \ve need to interpret it.’”
Here the project of national unity that Ortiz proposed finally reveals itself as an intellectual project. For him, the intellectual minority was charged with the rest of spreading and promoting the national culture-cubanillad-to the nation. Cultural diffusion, then. does not seem to be as dynamic and spontaneous as Ortiz theorizecl. Moreover, Ortiz established cultural categories depending on the degree of .’development” of the nation.?”Consequently, he considered the culture of the Cuba of his time inferior to the culture of the United States because Cuba had not reached the level of civilization and material progress of its northern neighbor. Many contemporary critics question the models of transculturation, nzestizaje. or multiculturalism that are lately so popular. Antonio Cornejo Polar criticizes these discourses as falsifications of the Latin American racial and cultural realin.: The idea of transculturation becomes rnore and more the most sophisticated After all, the syml~olof the cover for the category of miscegenation [rnestir~~jel. ‘,ajiaco.” defined by b m a , can well be the highest emblem of the blse harmony in which the process of rnultiple mixtures ends up.’”
In his analysis of the cultural creolization in the Caribbean, the Jamaican critic Edward Kamau Brathwaite states that these terms of intermixing and heterogeneous projects can be applied to the formation of a national culture, but they must not be taken as a base for a national identity or as a privileged model of the future. For him, the idea of social unity is incompatible with the idea of cultural diversity; he considers Caribbean reality to be .’cr~cked,fragmented. ambivalent, not certain of i t ~ e l f . “ ~ ‘ At the end, there are contradictions in Ortiz’s proposal of cubanidad as remedy for the probleins of the Cuba in the first decades of the tm.entieth centuq-. On the one side, Ortiz proposed cubatzidad-the feeling of being Cuban-as a renledy for the political corn~ption,the “civic anemia,” and the passiviy of the Cuban people regarding foreign presence and national decadence. On the other side, he suggested immigration fro111 Europe and “advanced countries to enhance the importance of the manual force and . . . the iripo~~atiotz of ideas” (my italics). and proposed that Cuba open up to the “cultural breeze” coming from its neighbor in the north.32 In sum, although Ortiz believed culture to be dynamic and constantly changing, his intellectual project imposed a model of cultural integration that
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had not happened yet in the society of his time and that, according to him, was only present in the Cuban intellectual minority. Ortiz was anticipating a cultural identity-cubanidad-that, at that time. Cuban people did not yet feel. In this sense, the presupposed dynamism and spontaneity of the process of transculturation proved to be limited. Ortiz sought national unity to promote economic, political, and cultural progress in Cuba and, in this way, be independent and able to compete with other nations like the United States. However, the concept of transculturation that Ortiz invented served; in fact, homogenizing purposes at a cultural level. It is true that he took into account the contribution of Indians, Africans. and others to cubanidad, but that contribution was only discussed as part of the past. Ortiz reduced the cultural plurality to two groups defined by race, blacks and whites, and with this he left behind the projects of cultural or racial minorities. Furthermore, according to his model. the integration between both groups responded more to a cultural “whitening” of blacks than to transculturation. Therefore, the project of national unity that Ortiz proposed was a homogenizing project dressed in cultural rhetoric, which claimed to include all the diverse elements of the Cuban ajiaco.
NOTES
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Religion in the Work of Fernando Ortiz Jorge Ramirez Calzadilla
One of the greatest contributions of Fernando Ortiz’s work, some of it yet unpublished, is no doubt his innovatiare study of African influence in Cuban culture and religion. However, Ortiz’s contribution in this field was not lirnited to the study of African religions and their Cuban derivatives. He elaborated important descriptions, reflections. and evaluations of other religious forms or currents that resulted in Cuba’s conlplex and heterogeneous religious framework. The specialist who studies religion in Cuba must necessarily consider Ortiz’s references to Catholicism and the n~odalities it adopted through time. In Ortiz’s opinion, these Catholic adaptations were very close to the religions of African origin or to rnodern spiritualism. which Ortiz had studied thoroughly. Ortiz regarded Cuban culture and religion as the result of a synthesis of diverse contributions. This give-and-take process formed a cultural q/iaco. an accurate term in describing the Cuban cultural and religious phenomena. In this way a more realistic understanding of religious issues can be reached for different periods, particularly in the present. However, Ortiz’s work in this regard must not be viewed as a finished product. Doing so leads to regrettable mistakes. The analysis of his work should follon- a diachronic course as his knowledge on the subject evolved. Ortiz moved from being influenced by criminological schools toward a more integrating and flexible perspective to establish the foundations of Cuban ethnology. anthropology. and sociology of religion. His early works were full of prejudice and erroneous appreciations that he later revised and corrected as he matured intellectually. In this essay, I will first summarize the main characteristics of the religious background operating before Ortiz’s research began. I will then analyze his
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considerations of different religious forms and their origins and evolution in Cuban society using a series of categories present in his work. I contend that this analytical approach contributes to a better understanding of the current situation of religion in Cuban society. These arguments are designed to present suggestions for debates and reflection on the matter.
RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND T O ORTIZ’S STUDIES The complexity, heterogeneity, and contradictory issues of Cuban religion are mainly due to their diversity of origin and cultural multiplicity. The first and oldest social and cultural model established in Cuba is the indigenous. The indigenous groups on the island never achiek~edthe levels of development of the Inca and Meso-American cultures; their aboriginal religion did not intervene as significantly in the reproduction of a society in which power and essential resources for life (land, crops, water) were sacred. Even Spanish domination in Cuba failed to have the repercussions it had in other parts of Spanish America. While the colonial system allowed the preservation of the indigenous cultural heritage and its ritual in the mainland, in Cuba, enslavement led to the disappearance of entire ethnic communities. However, certain indigenous vestiges could not be erased, and somehow their contributions filtered into Cuban religion, as recent studies suggest.l The Spanish version of Western culture. a long-established dominant culture that imposed Catholicisn~as the official and exclusive religion, remained in Cuba longer than in other Spanish colonies in the Americas. After Cuban independence, Spanish influence was prolonged by Spaniards m7ho remained active in trade and agriculture, by additional immigrations, and by Catholicism being imposed as the official and exclusive religion. It is important to understand three factors that conditioned Catholicism in Cuba. First, the church was subject to a strong dependence on the Spanish Crown, and its local ecclesiastical organization and style were subordinated to those of Spain. Second, the behavior of the clergy in the colony was not particularly ethical or dedicated, a claim for which there is plenty of evidence. Finally, the type of Catholicism that n-as imported to Cuba rejected the renovating tendencies of the Reformation, and n-as strongly influenced by Jewish, Moorish, and Medieval superstitions. It was not the Catholicism of the great mystics, not even that of the official ecclesiastical hierarchy; it was, in fact, closer to so-called Spanish popular Catholicism. In summary, orthodox Catholicism did not develop strong roots in Cuban society. Consequently, an anticlerical position permeated the most advanced ideas of the nineteenth century, finding its way into the Cuban sense of nationality even up to our own days. These leading, foundational ideas were antidogmatic and freethinking, but without being atheistic or antireligious.
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This line of thought was espoused by Sanguily, Mestre, Varona, and others, and it was synthesized in Marti. Its legal expression is contained in the Cuban constitutions dating back to the early independence struggle. The African sociocultural model contributed different forms of religion. and gradually modified to form the current Cuban manifestations, among them Regla Ocha or saint cult of yoruba origin; the Regla Conga or ‘palo monte,” a bantu origin; the Abakua male secret societies, similar to the Nigerian societies; and other less widespread forms such as the Regla Arara and Regla Iyesk2 The inefficient work of the clergy and the inconvenient consequences of Christianizing African slaves and their descendants led to the ineffective evangelical education of slaves. The Christianization of the slave would give him or her an equal status inimical to the foundation of slavery: the unequal condition of men believed to be primitive, pagan, idolatrous, and fetishist. It was also inconvenient to reduce labor hours among slaves for Christian religious teaching or for holidays. In addition, the preservation of ethnical, religious, and linguistic differences prevented unification and revolts among slaves. Consequently, a certain tolerance of formal religious norms allowed a syncretic relationship between the Catholic devotion of saints and the African mythology as a device of resistance against identity change. Although widespread among the population, the religious beliefs of African origin could not become the main Cuban religion due to the absence of proper organizational structures. Also, the African religions were part of the dominated culture subject to long-term underestimation and discrimination. The Western bias to recognize the significant differences of the African model contributed to a prejudiced view of it as a conglomerate of amoral religions. Recent investigations of these religions show the existence of a system of values, very different from those of the Christian codes.3 The North American version of the Western model arrived in Cuba during the second half of the nineteenth century, and with greater force in the mentieth century, once the neocolonial project erected the republic formed after the U.S. intervention of 1898,’This new arrival brought spiritualism, -which, although theorized in France, was adopted among the Cuban population in nontheoretical versions of a fundamentally utilitarian nature, that were also syncretic with Catholicism and the religions of African origini Likewise, Protestantism was introduced to Cuba in the various ways it was fractioned in the United States, as the fifty-four evangelical denominations currently existing in Cuba demonstrates. Protestantism was initially introduced by Cubans engaged in pro-independence activities toward the end of the nineteenth century. For this reason they were called .’missionary patriots,’’ who were soon replaced by North Americans and their missionary organizations. They gave Protestantism a North American characteristic in its social and liturgical activities.”
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Its late arrival, foreign seal, and alien ritual meant that Protestantism did not constitute the main Cuban religion. Only later, into the latter part of the twentieth century, were charismatic forms of religion introduced, with participatory and active rituals, experimentation, “possession,” and cures. Only then was Protestant religiosity able to gain popular acceptance as it was more in line with the way in which Cubans expressed their religious feelings. Cuban culture has also received other influences with religious implications that, although less widespread, have made the religious scene in Cuba even more complex. Haitian workers immigrating to satisfy labor demand were the bearers of the so-called voodoo religion, which reflects the syncretisism of African religions and Catholicism m-ithin the Haitian slave society. Chinese peasants, hired under conditions of semislavery, had their own set of religious values and rituals, which are unfortunately not very well researched in Cuba. Jewish immigrants brought their religion through various organizations and synagogues. Other philosophical religious forms, such as Baha’ism and theosophy, are also currently practiced and studied. A first conclusion that can be drawn from the religious complex in Cuba is that no organized religious expression has managed to constitute the characteristic religion of society in general. This is true even though Catholicism, spiritualism, and santeria have managed to have more influence than others. However, the Cuban people are not primarily Catholic, even if many who do not have a constant religious practice and beliefs consider themselves to be Catholics. Nor are they primarily Protestant, because membership to this religion was never very high. Nor are they santero, palero, or fiafiigo, nor spiritualist, despite the level of diffusion that these forms of religion have achieved, frequently in mixed forms.
ORTIZ’S RESEARCH AND EVALUATION OF RELIGION IN CUBA Ortiz began studying Cuban society through a framework of evident rationalist and positivist influences. He found religion to be an especially interesting field. From an early stage, he acknowledged the religious multiplicity and the lack of prevalence of any one religion, a phenomenon he summarized in the following manner: In Cuba, three religious currents struggle to sunlive and prevail: African fetishism, especially the Lucumi, Christianism in its various more or less pure versions, especially Catholicism, and contemporary religious philosophism, especially spiritualism.’
On these three religious forms, concentrating perhaps on some above others, Ortiz follomred a changing course of analysis and came to accumulate an unceasing amount of information. Guided by criminal anthropology, Ortiz
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analyzed the religious issue from a criminological standpoint, searching for the relationships beta-een religion, crime, and vicious or bad life. This is the case of his first texts, Los negros brujos (1906) and Los negros esclavos (19161, part of the series El hampa afro-cubana (a project he abandoned later as he matured his perspective), and La filosofi’a perzal de 10s espiritistas (1919, which again made associations between crime and religion. These texts reveal prejudice, erroneous appreciations, and imprecisions regarding fetishism, witchcraft, amoral religions, religious indifference, Afro-Cuban religions, and negative racial bias. Ortiz would gradually introduce near theoretical and methodological perspectives in his studies, gathered from the anthropological and sociological research available at the time. Ortiz found that direct contact with the religious context, and the use of sources reached through his own experience and religious practice were both particularly useful research methods, as they allowed him to gain contact with the people. He was thus able to understand his deficiencies and improve upon his analysis. By the 1940s, he had matured his approach and abandoned his initial criminological perspective. In 1936, he had already discussed the changes he was adopting in a public lecture entitled ‘.How I Thought 30 Years Ago.” In 1942, he admitted, “I began to investigate, but gradually I began to understand that, like all Cubans, I was c o n f u ~ e d . “ ~
RELIGIOUS INDIFFERENCE: MORE APPARENT THAN GENUINE Ortiz acknowledged the limited importance religion had in Cuba in comparison to the rest of Latin America. This somewhat precipitated observation led him to assume a weak religiosity in Cuba, a product of “religious indifference.”%ther analysts, observers, and religious authorities in different stages of Cuban history shared this view. Throughout the colonial period there arere opinions concerning a a-eak religious life or religiosity expressed in not properly Catholic ways. In the sixteenth century, Bishop Almendariz verified. when he performed ecclesiastical visits, [that] the blacks and Indians were so mixed and involved with the Spaniards and with the land, that there is no reason for them to have a different doctrine. . . . stating that the population lived without knowing what it was to go to mass or any other Christian rite.
Bishop Pedro Morel1 de Santa Cruz wrote that report in the first quarter of the eighteenth century References of this kind were also repeatedly present in the report, regarded his pastoral visit to the island. Bishop
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Morell persistently brought up the numerous foundations, appointments, and religious celebrations that had been abandoned or forgotten. His account of the Virgin of Regla is particularly interesting since he described the superstition surrounding this cult and the miracles attributed to it, all of which the bishop gave little credit to. In various opportunities, Bishop Morell regretted the absence or inefficiency of the clergy, and the scant education people received on ‘.the eternal truths.” A good seventeenth-century example was the invention of the presence of demons, concocted by the priest of Remedios to force the transfer of the town’s location to lands that belonged to him. This ingenuity inspired Fernando Ortiz to write the ingenious Historia de una pelea cubana contra 10s demonios, where he also noted that this “superstitious fantasy far surpassed any analogy among the African blacks.”1° Other visitors, writers, and chroniclers during the nineteenth century also expressed their impressions on religiosity in Cuba. In 1853, Nicolas Tarrea Armero stated: A procession in Popayin, Seville, or Rome is sumptuous, magnificent: in Havana. it is the most ridiculous that can take place. . . . People in Havana should be Catholics but many of them are indifferent towards religion.”
The prestigious Swedish novelist Fredrika Bremer remarked: “Among foreigners of different nationalities w h o have settled in Cuba, there is only one and the same opinion on the absolute absence of religious life in the island.”12Toward the middle of the same century, another observer noted that the country is not very religious or rather not vesy pious. It is odd that families only attended mass on the first day of January and regard it as being enough for the rest of the year. . . . It is colored people who practice religion with more faith and even fanaticism.I3
Ortiz also noted the opinions of foreign visitors in his research. One of them, according to his reference, stated, ,.Not even the religion of the state . . . has influence on the masses,” and another assured. ‘There is no other country on earth that can adapt so well religion to its lifestyle; they turn it into a complacent friend that succumbs to all of their fantasies.”” In a letter to the Spanish queen, dated September 14, 1866, the Bishop of Havana, Jacinto Maria Martinez Saenz, reported: The picture is awful, but accurate; here, where there are over two hundred thousand inhabitants, only about fifteen thousand attend the Sunday mass, and hardly anyone takes communion during Lent. and there isn’t a single employee of Your Majesty taking communion on Easter Thursday.
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Complaining about the predominant desacralization, a Catholic publication in 1948 noted, “Catholic and spiritual feasts are degenerating into paganism and materialism; and Midnight Mass and Holy Communion are second to a splendid banquet and a scandalous dance.” When analyzing the structure of believers in Cuba, a group of Cuban Christians referred to “[tlhe masses of followers and believers a-ho do not participate actively and constantly in Christian communities.” Later, the archbishop of Havana commented on “[tlhe small Christian communities, because our Church of followers was always small in numbers.”li In 1952, the Franciscan priest P. Biain noted what I believe to be an accurate summary of religiosity among Cuban believers: [Elxperience tells us that if we conducted a poll to discover which religion the Cubans favor, a vast majority would say that they are Catholics. . . . But if we then analyzed the content of this declaration, \ye would reach very pessimistic results. The majority of those who pride themselves of being Catholic do not know what that Ineans or what it is. . . . On more than one occasion, supposedly learned men have said to me: “I am a Catholic. I too believe in God.” That is what many people’s religion has been limited to: a well-rooted deism expressed in rituals and formulas created by Christianism.
In a poll conducted by the Agrupacion Catolica Universitaria (ACU) in 1953, the concluding assessments on religiosity stated that the issues driving the majority of people towards the Church. or away from it. are never theoretical or abstract, but concrete and specific. . . . That tendency towards the concrete characterizes the popular minds . . . in many cases the devotion to the Holy Virgin is reduced to a series of meaningless practices and sometimes even superstitions.’”
In research compiled by the American University, published in 1987, it is noted that “Cuba was predominantly a non-religious country.” According to historian Margaret E. Crahan, “pre-revolutionary religious practice in Cuba was only relatively significant.”17 In 1985, Rafael Cepeda, a Presbyterian priest and ecumenical leader, evaluated the scarce statistical results in the spread of Protestantism in Cuba reported by missioners. He agreed with the view that “there was religious indifference among the Cuban people,” who mainly “preferred other magical and animistic religions” since the Christian faith was “a very heavy burden.”I8 Soon afterward, a Cuban priest stated, ‘.The Cuban people are a radically mixed [mestizo] group in racial, cultural, and religious terms.” He observed ,’a very lax and ethically uncommitted religiosity” and a *.popularreligiosity, both Catholic and syncretic, in which Catholicism, African animism, and, more recently, spiritualism, are all intermixed.” He also noted that, especially
among young people there was a neopagan current that “had hues of religious syncretism.”19 In these opinions and in sociological data, the lax nature of religious conscience and practice in Cuban society is clearly characteristic; in other words, this feature is not exactly proper of a specific religious expression. Certain opinions indicate religious indifference as a feature or cause in the observed religious laxity. In my view, those who consider indifference as a central characteristic base their conclusion on the erroneous assumption that religiosity should be stn~cturedand systematic such as in the Catholic model. A lax religiosity of any kind is not the same as religious indifference, though it may perhaps be an indicator of a low-level religious intensity. That indifference may not be caused, as it can also be a consequence. More recent studies reveal that toward the end of the 1980s, 85 percent of the Cuban population had religious notions rooted in their mind, even though those beliefs did not correspond to a specific, orthodox religious current! and were spontaneous nature.1° In the context of an increase in religious beliefs in the 1990s, certain modifications must account for an increase in the intensity and significance of religion in society. However, there are reasons that suggest that in previous periods, a similar behavior ignor the Cuban people have not been distant from or indifferent toward religion. According to Ostiz’s transculturation hypothesis for the Cuban religious scenario, there is a process of religious interrelation, specifically between Catholicism and religions of African origin, and spiritualism. What Ortiz did not realize, or was unable to do given the research resources available to him, was the generation of a new religious product constructed along the years. In this new process, all the major religious forms intervene, along with other, minor forms to a lesser degree. There is also another important component: the popular imagination; the creative capacity of the people to develop particular interpretations of the supernatural and ways of assimilating these beliefs in their lives. This is the religiosity that R-e can classlfy as popular, most significantly due to its extent and vitality in the Cuban context throughout time, and different in form and content from the organized religious systems.
ORTIZ’S VIEWS O N CATHOLICISM AND SPIRITUALISM Ortiz’s views on Catholicism are dispersed throughout his arork. Although he acknowledged Catholic influence on Cuban socieq-, history, culture, and nationality, Ortiz distanced himself from, and criticized, the church and Catholicism in pejorative terms: The permanent inefficiency of traditional Catholic trnchings, especially in the slave quarters, the stubbornness of Borbon colonialism and its adverse repercussions on popular ideology, the prolonged abandonment of the missionary work.*’
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Elsewhere he avers that “the Catholic cult practiced in Cuba was not, in fact, essentially different from the fetishist cult.”22Insisting on the closeness between Cuban Catholicism and religions of African origin, he also commented on the need for certain Catholics to search for “the supernatural issues in fetishist^.”^’ Lydia Cabrera, one of Ortiz’s most important followers, wrote in El Monte of “a Catholicism that adapts perfectly to their beliefs and has not really altered the religious beliefs of the majority.” Ortiz’s criticism against the clergy was strong because of their behavior during the colonial period; he accused the clergy of being stubborn, ignorant, mean-spirited, and ~elfish.~’ In condemning the bad life of whites, which in his view contributed to that of the blacks through compulsion, he stated, “Even the clergy of the time, composed almost exclusively by immigrants, suffered from an identical immorality that some virtuous and illustrious ecclesiastical authorities could not repress.”*’ He added, “The clergy, therefore, was suffering the evil and deleterious effects of slavery, which demoralizes and corrupts the people who accept it and establish it.”26 The first Diocesan Synod celebrated in Cuba toward the end of the eighteenth century should have adopted measures adequate to the type of clergy that arrived to the island, a group of uncultured men with doubtful morality. In 1887, Raimundo Cabrera stated that “There is plenty of evidence on the general ignorance of the ~lergy.”~’ In 1754, as recorded by the ACU poll, 39 percent of those polled made 2,760 objections against the clergy and the Catholic Church. The favorable predisposition of the vast mass of Creoles towards a doctrine presenting itself as modern philosophy, in line with science, adopted by prominent whites, originating in the most civilized nations, advocating the elimination of Hispanic or African expressions, customs, rituals, hierarchies, and submissiveness typical of the colony and slavery. Spiritualism. in its original Kardecist form, was introduced as a new and freeing element of Cuba Libre.2x
In regard to spiritualism, Ortiz had a different approach from the one he used to discuss Catholicism. Although he declared several times that he was not a spiritualist, Ortiz gave spiritualism preferential treatment with ill-disguised sympathy. He published several articles and books on the subject and discussed it in several of his works. Between February 1747 and June 1750, he published ten articles specifically on spiritualism in the magazine Bohemia. In his lecture “The Phases of Religious Evolution in 1917,”when he a-as practically beginning his research on the topic, he referred to spiritualism as “pretending to be the faith of the future, based on science,” an idea that he would repeat in other texts and lectures. In a later, mature work that encapsulated his view on spiritualism, he evaluated the factors that contributed to its rapid spread. Ortiz observes a new form of spiritualism in its Cuban expression, the cordon spiritualism (espiritismo de corddn) or, as he names it, espiritismo
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cordonero de orilk. This spiritualist version emerges from the eastern region of Cuba, apparently from the area of Bayamo. In it there is a mixture of the more ritualistic and practical, rather than theoretic, Kardecian doctrine with Catholicism and, to a lesser degree, with religions of African origin. Its name is owed to the way in which they organize their cult standing around, forming a human cordon or belt. The orilg, olilk, or oringuB element in its name is because in their chants they repeat this word, which has no defined manner of pronounciation and unknown meaning. In the recent work of Ileana Hodge. Minerva Rodriguez, and Yalexy Castaiieda, spiritualism in the Cuban context has been defined along two great currents. The first is the traditional current, known as orthodox spiritualism or table spiritualism, which is more in line with the doctrine of its sytematizer, Allan Kardec. Although intending to be scientific, spiritualism emerged as a religious expression of North American society and its strong sense of empiricism and pragmatism. The second current is the Cuban adaptation or contextualization, influenced by other forms of religious expression and centered on the everyday life. This current is the most widespread in the country.
ORTIZ AND RELIGIONS OF AFRICAN ORIGIN Fernando Ortiz’s extensive and pioneering research on African presence in Cuban culture has contributed to the better-known religions of African origins. Given the relationship bem-een these religions and artistic forms of expression-especially music, dance, and musical instruments-that Ortiz studied with interest, his work on religion was greatly facilitated. Also, in Ortiz’s published and unpublished works, there is a direct treatment of African religions. As we know. the initially biased approach by the young Ortiz established links between African religions, bad life, theft, fetishism, witchcraft, and even human sacrifice, especially in children, which he discussed in his article “Los comedores de nifios” (1913). He also makes associations with violence and fierceness and its aesthetic qualities, as evidenced in “Los africanos dientimellados” (1929). But if during Ortiz’s time there were still Africans with sharpened teeth, today there are none in Cuba. In the same manner, even if at the beginning of the twentieth century it was still possible to talk about “religions of blacks,” it is currently no longer part of reality, as indeed it is even less possible to talk about ethnic-religious relationships. Two factors account for this change. In the first place, the Cuban people have gone through a process of intense racial mixture in about 80 to 90 percent of its total population, according to Cuban ethnologists. Second, people
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of different racial types have been incorporated, as practitioners or authorities, to the popularized religious forms such as religions of African origin and spiritualism, widely present among the poorer social sectors.29 Even among certain Christian churches that used to recruit mainly white believers, the proportion of mixed-race or black recruits has increased significantly. This phenomenon is more noticeable in the recent growing trends of the Pentecostal churches. Previous Protestant communities with mainly members of Jamaican or other Caribbean origin, never significantly large, have ceased to make sense. Since its origin, the more widespread popular religiosity emerged without distinction of race or color. In any case, it must be understood that racial classifications are very difficult in Cuba, especially due to the intense racial mixture. Today the Cuban nation is monoethnical though multiracial or mestiza, and this feature is reflected in the religious realm. I would like to delve into two realms briefly: amorality and the term syncretic cults, precisely because they reveal a conception, conscious or not, perhaps uncritically inherited from Western ethnocentrism and European anthropology. Young Ortiz regarded religions of African origin as “amoral” or deprived of regulatory values and norms. This view results from applying Western values to a culture that had an entirely different vision of the world, different from the one organized on ethical codes. This culture of African origins had its own system of values based on the balance of all forces of good and evil; it held nature at the center of its cosmology approaching life on earth with no eschatological concerns. Referring to these religions as cults is also a Westernizing reductionism that applies the term religion only for its own cultural traditions. The cult is a part of a religious system; as in the case of other religions, African religions and their Cuban derivatives have, apart from their rituals, a system of ideas and rules, as well as an organization that does not necessarily follow the ecclesial model. Moreover, classifying them as synergetic is also a condescending notion by alluding to a lack of originality or authenticity; no religion that has gone beyond regional borders is free from the incorporation of elements of other cultures it comes in contact with. On the other hand, the term Afro-Cuban applied to religious systems such as Regla Ocha or santeria, Regla Conga or palo monte, Abakua societies or ?ia?iiguismo, the Regla Arara, or any other, is imprecise and does not correspond to reality. Despite their strong African roots, these religions have evolved through time under Cuban conditions and have acquired components that differentiate them from their African origins. Consequently, these religions can be more appropriately regarded as undoubtedly Cuban. Perhaps the term Afro- followed by another denoting place may be used in other contexts but not in the Cuban case. However, due to the controversy that this issue generates, it is worth discussing it in greater depth.
A FINAL CONSIDERATION To be fair, it is necessary to acknowledge not only the changes in perspective introduced by Fernando Ortiz in dealing with these religious issues over time; one should also understand that even in his early works the critical approach he adopted was mainly toward the system and conditions generating crime, violence, and bad life, rather than toward African culture, religions, and heritage. As early as 1913, after stating that “the religion of witchdoctors is entirely amoral” (note that he does not say immoral), he underscored that his criticism was against witchcraft, not against the Abakua cultural contribution, music, dance, mutualism, and rituals, which “even though fetishist they are harmless Ortiz’s task was difficult, as he himself acknowledged. According to Ortiz, studying “the intricate contacts” between “uprooted” black cultures and white cultures ‘*alsobereaved of their original trunks” in “any aspect of Cuban social life,” is “as difficult a task as extracting all the mixtures of racial blending [mulatezl from pigmental mi~tures.”3~ In summary, I believe that a better evaluation of Ortiz’s views, regarding the situation of slavery and the alien and alienating context in which Africans were placed in Cuba, can be achieved by reading his own words: In religion, the black man, not trusting the foreign and colonial clergy that exploited him and subjected him to slavery, began comparing his myths with those of whites, thus creating within the large mass of our nation a syncretism of such lucid and eloquent equivalents, worth sometimes like a critical philosophy is. . . . It also moves towards agnosticism or Presbyterian. Methodist, or Baptist Protestantism; and bewildered by the unsolved mystery of spiritual possession, begins to believe in the experimental and ethical beliefs of metempsychosis, and the mediumistic and reincarnationist spiritualism.”
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LITERATURE AND MUSIC
The dominant trends in contemporary Latin American and Caribbean literature and arts can be sihiated within the Ortizian notion of transculturation as a process. Twentieth-century literary statements in Latin America and the Caribbean have recognized the complex terms of cultural exchange. This is especially true from the midcentury to the present, when writers and artists from the region asserted, actively and without apology, that the literature of the Old World had been shaped by that of the New, just as New World letters and arts had received the influence of the Old. The mature work of Ortiz addressed the need for an inclusionary literary practice, in both creation and theory, and the continued innovation and exploration of new territory. That is the spirit in which the chapters in this section were conceived and developed. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria examines Ortiz’s relationship to literature, as well as the links between the practices of anthropology and literary creation, and the ways in which discourse and method are appropriated from one practice to the other. Ricardo Vifialet takes Fernando Ortiz’s response to Spanish novelist Benito Perez Galdos’s novel El caballero encantado (1909) as a central theme in his own, El caballero encantadoy la moza esquiua: Versi6n librey americatza de una novela espariola de Benito Pgrez Galdds (1910), an “interpretative rewriting” undertaken to explore essential questions that emerged from Spain and Latin America in the aftermath of 1898. Antonio Fernandez Ferrer’s contribution explores the symbolic infrastructure used by Ortiz in his w-ritten work, and he ponders the connection between concepts and images at the center of literary creation. Maria Teresa Linares Savio relates the important ethnomusicological contributions of Ortiz with those of his most distinguished disciple, Lydia Cabrera. Finally, Benjamin Lapidus explores Ortiz’s approach to the study of original Cuban musical genres.
The Counterpoint and Literature Roberto Gonzalez Echevama
During his productive and lengthy career, Fernando Ortiz engaged in a deep and complex relationship with 1iterature.l I would even claim that literature was for him both a temptation and something to be rejected, a means of arriving as well as escaping all questions that troubled him, and all solutions that captivated him. Ortiz was aware of the literature of his time: vanguard literature and modernism (not to be confused, of course, with modernism0 in Latin American literature). To those who consider Ortiz a social scientist, it will be surprising to find in his books, even the most technical on dancing or Afro-Cuban music, precise and opportune allusions to authors such as James Joyce. His literary culture was vast and active, and always present in all his meditations, observations, hypotheses, and theories. This is where Ortiz distanced himself from the ordinary social scientists, but not from the masters of those disciplines who often found suggestions, answers, and even models of approach and analysis in literature and art in general. Like them, Ortiz soon found that anthropology was the flexible and porous frontier between the social sciences and literature. Instead of making his relationship with literature easier, this realization made it more complicated and dramatic. The first works of Ortiz appear at a crucial moment of Cuban history. It was the time when the political and legal bases of the republic, formed in 1902, were being formulated. A decisive moment when the political and cultural projects that had led to independence nomr collided with the nation’s realities, and were subjected to tough tests, programs, and national myths. One of those realities was the presence of a large, poor, and marginalized black population of relative but obvious cultural autonomy. This fact could endanger the precarious social and political integrity of Cuba.
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Young Ortiz (he was twenty-one in 1902) was a pragmatic man, educated in law and the emerging social sciences, especially criminology or criminal sociology. Therefore, his initial studies on the black population in Cuba, original and even daring by their mere existence, made him a renowned figure. He had an ideological bias and tone different from those he would later develop. What was novel and daring in texts such as Los negros brujos (1906) was, in the first place, that someone like Ortiz should approach the topic in a conscientious and serious manner. But we cannot deceive ourselves or allow even well-intentioned revisionism~to blind us. Ortiz initially became interested in the African cultures in Cuba because of what they could reveal about crime on the island, especially in the large cities. In his earlier texts, Ortiz is a criminologist, as indicated by the complete title of his book: Hampa afrocubana: Los negros brujos (apuntes para u n estudio de etnologia criminal). With a preface by Cesare Lombroso, of whom Ortiz considers himself a disciple and admirer, the book is a meticulous study of witchcraft among Cuban blacks, written with the clear intention of understanding this phenomenon in order to eliminate it with greater efficiency. Ortiz got interested in the criminal aspect of witchcraft-ritual murders, necrophilia, extravagant sexual practices-and its moral impact on Cuban society, given that many whites were converting to or at least practicing it. The physiological-genetic conception of psychology and race professed by Ortiz, derived from his master Lombroso and from a large part of nineteenth-century science, perceived blacks as people with a primitive mentality and strong inclination to lust and violence. It was a race that had to be “civilized”to ensure the country’s progress and well being. While Ortiz initially perceived many elements of Afro-Cuban culture as damaging to society, the young vanguard literati soon exalted those same elements. The warlock (brujo),for example, a type studied attentively by Ortiz and an important element of the Afro-Cuban movement, was defined as: usually a criminal, always a defrauder, often a thief, a rapist and murderer in some cases, desecrator of graves when given the chance. Lustful to the most savage extremes of sexual corruption, collector of concubines and a polygamist, lascivious in cult rituals and outside them, and an encourager of prostitution. Truly a social parasite, exploiting ignorant minds and especially those of his concubines.
This initial Ortiz was a biological determinist and a social Darwinist. This is evidently why Alejo Carpentier comments on the difference of ages, in reference to Ortiz, in the midst of recollecting of the origins of the Afro-Cuban movement in La mzisica en Cuba (1746): Fernando Ortiz, despite the difference in age, socialized closely with the young. His books were read. Folkloric values were exalted. Suddenly, the black man was the center of attention. For the same reason that it annoyed the intellectu-
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als of the old school, the secret eariigo oath was ceremoniously taken. the dance of the diablito was praised.
There was a difference of twenty-three years between Ortiz and Carpentier: The former was almost fifty years old when the Afro-Cuban movement began. Ortiz was an old school intellectual, a young member of the so-called First Republican Generation, concerned with the social and economic progress of the nation in the context of the newly established state. The fact that Ortiz went through a conversion, which I suggest was triggered by the young Afro-Cubanist literati and the vanguard in general, has blurred his initial years and the nature of his influence on the movement and on literature. During his first period, Ortiz shared much of Domingo Sarmiento’s ideological position. Just as the famed Argentinian regarded Indians as an obstacle to his program of civilization, Ortiz believed blacks to be a retrograde group. In a short book published in 1913 entitled Entre cubatzos . . . (Psicologia tropical), Ortiz wrote the following on the demographic composition of Cuba: Transformism [i.e.,ev-olutionl is today the law of life in all of its manifestations. . . . Perhaps our national future lies really in nothing but a complex problem of ethnic selection in physiological and psychical terms. [Humanity]continues to be abandoned to itself, subject to the most basic physical and social laws, struggling against the biologically general promiscuity of inferior species barely counter-balanced by the action of the germ from cold countries [i.e..of white persons], in the strong gales of immigration and political cyclones. Ortiz’s early work was important to the Afro-Cuban movement because h e discovered and analyzed the salient aspects of African culture in Cuba. This work is the first systematic account of the myths, rituals, and beliefs of that culture. However, and paradoxically, Ortiz was also important to Afro-Cuban movement because his initial work represented, given their tone and philosophical inclination, all the factors that vanguard studies rejected: positivism, rationalism, and progress according to the political and social ideals of the republic. During the 1920s, Ortiz’s studies began to approach topics less solemn, without the ominous punitive aura of criminology and the pious preservation of social order. At the time, he began studying music, dance, games, feasts, and, above all, Cuban language. He studied the latter from different angles, from tongue twisters to, of course, the detailed filological analysis of the African origin of many terms. These linguistic studies resulted in the publication of CTncatatiro de cubaniswzos in 1923, a text that, starting from its title, displayed a newly found humorous and irreverent tone. Let us remenlber that the Cata~irois almost the direct contemporary of James Joyce’s Ujrnes, published in 1922 and abundant in Irish slang and word tricks. A
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study that could check and compare Ortiz’s new work in detail with that of the initial literary vanguard, and above all, the Afro-Cuban movement would, reveal that the author of the grave Los tzegros brujos had been influenced by this new spirit. Vanguardism was radically opposed to the study of crime, conformism, and the preservation of social integrity and political stability. Through this new perspective, Ortiz arrived at the Contrapunteo (1940), a text in which he produced more literature than ~ c i e n c e . ~ Although Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco j1el azticar is a work of serious intellectual ambitions, and not less serious political ambitions, it is a far cry from the sapient and magisterial tone found in his first texts. It is not in vain that the author invokes the most satirical of Spanish writers, the jocular and ribald Arcipreste de Hita, as an inspiration for the Contrapunteo. The first and perhaps more important thing that Ortiz’s text shares with the vanguardist literature is humor. In great measure, this humor arises from the automatism of the contrasts established bemeen the two main products of Cuba. It is as if sugar and tobacco rejoiced in an amusing and entertaining conflict that turns into a game of contrasts (the contrastar opdsitos of the old courtier poetry), in which if one zigs, the other would predictably zag; if one ticks, the other tocks, and so on. Ortiz knows this, and his winks at the reader (of which there are many) make hi111or her an accomplice of the notion that things can not be so symmetrical and mechanical, and that the “counterpoint” is a baroque and gracious conceptual game from where poetic truths emerge. It is a witticism, a jeu d’esprit, typical in vanguardist art and literature; the Contrapunteo is a long, detailed Joycean game of words and concepts, as found in Joyce’s contenlporaly text, Finnegans Wake. I believe it is reasonable to further suggest that its irreverent tone, mockery, frequent jokes, and predictability of the contrasts, place the text within that which it w-ishes to define. This feature therefore abolishes science’s methodological distance between the observer and the object observed, between analytical discourse and the matter studied. The Contrapunteo defines Cubanity from what is Cuban, through a Cuban discourse and methodology. What is Cuban in this text is expressed through the choteo, which Jorge Manach had analyzed only a decade before in his famous essay. The Contrapunteo is therefore a choteo, a relaxation, to which we would have to respond, if we were to meet its author in another n-orld, in these terms: “Yes, Fernando, all of that is very nice, witty, and brilliant, but let’s talk seriously now.” We would never have that serious talk, of course, after losing ourselves in the labyrinthic witticisms, jokes, quotes, eternally condemned to a Cuban counterpoint, a controversy, like those demons who play tennis striking books set afire in the Quijote. The work of Cuban vanguardist authors, especially that of poets and novelists such as Nicolks Guillen and Alejo Carpentier, was no less important to Ortiz than his was to them. It was the argumentative, mocking spirit of the
Afro-Cuban and vanguard movement that led Ortiz to change his perspective and the Contrapunteo. Without this change. Ortiz would have been confined to writing solemn prose. a mixture of patriotism and academics, like most contemporary Latin American essay writers. Ortiz abandoned the magisterial tone used by Rodo. Martinez Estrada, Vasconcelos, and even Mafiach, who writes about the choteo without practicing it. Ortiz’s book is irreverent even in the way it describes, from the very beginning, the pleasant nature of tobacco and sugar. Flavors, pleasure, vice; both Cuban products are like drugs. which promote physical nrell-being, ignoring morals and crime. These inherent forms of decadence are part of vanguardism and modernisnzo. One associates this with the symbolic and physical pleasures of Joyce’s Cqysses, in the food, drink, and verbal gloating: Ireland is defined by its food, drink, irreverent banter. and sexual coarseness. It is also associated with oral pleasures, of the mouth, like the literary discourse of Ortiz. The Contraputzteo is a Creole speech (labia),a mouth pleasure, like sugar and tobacco themselves. Erudition and knowledge in the Contrapunteo are consigned to a final collection of documents, lengthier than Ortiz’s essay itself. That archive of documents is a sort of supplement, prior or posterior, to the essay. It is an invitation for the reader to make his or her onrn interpretation of the documents, not to verify Ortiz’s text and its erudite footnotes. Those archival documents beg the reader to participate in the counterpoint. much as the supplementary chapters in Julio Cortazar’s Rayuela encourage alternative, parallel, or marginal interpretations of that novel. The mere existence of that archive proclaims that the argument is unfinished, and it admits it is unfinished and merely in the process of being built: a work-in-progress, another Joycian metaphor. The wealth or treasure of documents at the end of the Contraputzteo is like the archive-novel that I have described elsewhere: it is at-the, origin, deposit of the law, a building or monument designed to harbor it. However, in this case, the law has been displaced from the center of authority and the production of knowledge, except in a remote original sense, a faraway melody, the alternate song of the essay’s gay knowledge. In appealing to literature, in practicing it, Ortiz makes a contradictory or, better still, dialectic gesture. On the one hand, he discards the rigorous verification of science, but on the other hand, he aspires to a deeper. lasting, and shareable poetic knowledge. In the Contrapunteo, the archive is a ciphered collective memory, which demands interpretation, in both a hermeneutical and musical sense. In the Contrapunteo, the dialogical core is thematic, not formal; it is evoked, not represented, interpreted or executed, except in the implicit textual dialogue between the essay and the archive. We can imagine the dialogue between tobacco and sugar as that of Don Carnal and Dona Cuaresma, but it does not actually appear like this in Ortiz’s text. Instead, there is a mirror between the evoked counterpoint and that of texts, which repeats the one discovered by the essay in Cuban culture.
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Roberto Gonzalez Echet’an7a
There are many other elements that characterize the text as literary: alliterations and numerous rhetorical and poetic resources, as in the personification of cane and sugar. However, its most literary aspect is the way the text shapes itself and realizes that process. In doing so, the Contrapunteo reaches a level of originality that has not been highlighted enough. As an essay, the Contrapunteo is one of the most innovative, experimental texts of Latin American vanguard literature. Recent essayists such as Octavio Paz have not matched it in audacity. I am unable to find a parallel except for the experiments of Julio Cortazar in his books Ultimo round and La vuelta al dia en ochenta mundos. In this sense, the only thing that Ortiz’s text lacked was a more complex and daring typographical design. In order to perceive Ortiz’s originality, one must view his text in relation to the Latin American essay writing centered on issues of cultural identity. In terms of literary style, the essay does not have a particular generic mold; therefore, it must declare its own setting, assume it, and act it as part of the process of making a statement. The decision over which type of discourse an essay should parasitically adhere to, is essential for its being properly understood. Ariel, to use a very well-known example, represents a school’s end-of-year magisterial lecture. That selection is not nalve. There are subgenres that adapt well to essays or essays that adapt well to subgenres: the public lecture, the journalistic article, the letter, and so on. These subgenres have already been naturalized by the essay and thus do not constitute a manifest gesture of literary style. But, of course they are, given that not every letter is an essay. When pretending to be a letter. an essay adopts a wide range of rhetorical hues that are deliberate. All this perhaps derives from the original essay-writing literary genre, the classic dialogue of the Renaissance. Why does the Contrapunteo mold itself around musical traces and echoes? Why did Ortiz not write an erudite, academic, scientific article, like so many he had published before? What is the sense of the Contrapunteo’s form that suggests a fake genre? To Ortiz, literature was a discourse to channel his research through the Cuba he lived in, avoiding the rhetorical and ideological traps of anthropology. Literature enabled him to elaborate on Cuban issues from his own perspective, without objectifying them, without turning them into an abstraction or construction that follows a method alien to them. In fact, literature was not a panacea for Ortiz. He distanced himself from the promoters of a national or Latin American identity based on inert cultural retentions, frozen in an ideal past, and accessible only through abstract thinking. Instead, he searched that identity in a dynamic and material process of evolution and mestiraje where nothing is static but always in motion, mixture, and transmutation. In the Contrapunteo, what is Cuban is the result of Cuban factors, not an idealization of Spanish, African and, least of all, indigenous ones. What is outstanding in Ortiz’s use of literature is the fact that, of all the Latin
American authors who ventured to write on the theme of identity, he was the only one with a genuine anthropological formation. Vasconcelos, Martinez Estrada, Ramos, Reyes, and several others based their views on philosophy or literature. In contrast, Ortiz emerged from anthropology, the only discipline with the ability and authority to embark on such an inquiry. I believe that in turning to literature Ortiz acknowledged that he could not escape his own culture. He recognized that he was incapable of being an anthropologist studying himself, an integral part of the myths he analyzed. Compelled by literature, he realized what anthropology would only gradually later acknowledge: that as a discourse it was part of the modern and contemporary mythology from which it emerged, and that the expression, or the interpretation of that mythology was literature. Thus, in Contrapunteo, scientific and poetic knowledge intermix, but the wrapping (to use the terminology of tobacco) is that of poetry. In this sense, Ortiz distanced himself from literature’s approach to the study of identity and instead adopted literature as a discourse. In other words, he would not have entertained the approximate, impressionistic analysis of the authors who dealt with the issue; he would rather write literature than write from literature. This, however, does not mean that his research was less rigorous. In comparison to other essayists, Ortiz was able to understand the material nature and contingency of the objects expressed in culture, from within literature. He rejoiced in the concreteness of such culture, and its products, not its idealizations. His Contrapunteo aspires to be one of those concrete, tangible. subject-to-consumption objects of the Cuban self, not their reflection or representation. Appealing to the terminology of Lezama, one can say that Ortiz creates the image from the image. The Contrapunteo is presentation, performance, acting, seance, function, and show. Perhaps the most inherently literary factor in the essay is that it sets the textual dialogue that constitutes it and makes it theatrical in motion. The dialogical is thematic but also formal or textual. It is e\,oked but also interpreted or executed, especially in the explicit dialogue between the essay and the archive. Being and culture only exist as dialogue, in correspondence and counterpoint. This counterpoint also involves negation, contrast, counterchant-not just echo, repetition, chorus. There is a game of reflections between the “discovered” counterpoint, at the center of Cuban culture, and the counterpoint of the texts that repeats and rehearses the former cultural counterpoint. The Contrapunteo becomes Cuban when it becomes counterpointing. It is a text-archive and a foundational text, not only for its theme but also its form. This is why it has had so many reflections, echoes, and counterpoints in literature. Like Paradiso, it is a summa that has the ability to conceive the Cuban nature of its character as the synthesis of two families, one of tobacco groa7ers and the other of sugar planters.
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Roberto Go~zzalezE c h e ~ ~ t - r f a
NOTES This article was published in Spanish in La Gaceta de C~lrba2 (May-April 1996). The text is based on the inaugural lecture of the Primera Conferencia Internacional sobre Fernando Ortiz, delivered on December 7, 1995, at the Sociedad Econornica de Amigos del Pais, Havana. I thank the president of the FundaciBn Fernando Ortiz. Miguel Barnet, for the invitation and hospitality.
Of How Fernando Ortiz Found an Elusive Maiden for an Enchanted Gentleman Ricardo ViGalet
In 1909, the Spanish writer Benito Perez Galdhs (1843-1920) published a strange novel entitled El caballero eftcantado, cuento real . . . inverosimil (1907).’ Despite being well received by specialized critics and readers of high cultural circles, this novel remains one of his least read texts. The wide specter of critiques have made it a controversial work. An interesting example of these discordant reactions produced by the novel is an article by Peter Bly published on the seventieth anniversary of the novel’s p u b l i c a t i ~ n . ~ Bly considers the diversity of perspectives used to interpret and evaluate the novel since its publication. Bly cites more than ten authors and incorporates quotes from them in his own discourse to support his own thesis. Bly establishes links bemeen the views of Gald6s and those of Joaquin Costa, the spirit of the so-called Generation of 1878 of Spanish intellectuals, and their programmatic ideals for a new and different national life for Spain. However, Bly’s references and evidence contrast markedly with his conclusion. According to Bly, El caballero encantado is limited in its social approach because its characters, especially the main ones, are to be faulted for their decisively individualistic tendency. They have exaggerated emotions of their own personalities, lead a lifestyle largely revolving around sexual appetite, and pay more attention to the practical factors of their existence than to the spiritual ones. All this weakens the social intention of the regeneration spirit. These factors lead him to value the text more for its moral propositions than its social ones. In my view. Bly’s interpretation is perhaps the result of a previous, erroneous assumption. He reads El caballero eftcantado too literally, as if analyzing any other of Galdos’s conventionally realistic creations. Bly is therefore unable to read the novel in tune with its fantastic tone and symbolic
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Ricardo Mtinlet
nature. He regrets that the novel’s fiction is not credible. He is unable to understand the fantasy behind the text, which Gald6s makes explicit in the title. The social dimension of El caballero encantado is very clear if the reader goes along with its factual implausibility. Bly appears to acknowledge the weakness of his analysis when he states, “My interpretation of Galdos’ examination of these social problems could be criticized for its failure to take into account the fantastic frame in which the examination is held.”3 Perhaps realizing that he had gone too far, he tries to be conciliatory in concluding his essay: “El caballero encantado may be the work of a tired sixty-six-yearold professional novelist, but its theme remains eternally relevant to youth’s idealistic social reformers. Its subtlety of composition is worthy of a younger writer.”” He is acknowledging the social significance of El caballero encatztado, the shrewdness of its creation, the artistic value of the text, and even the youthful vigor emerging from it. However, despite the differences in the criticisms of his novel, there is a certain consensus regarding the intentions that drove Gald6s to pose a reflection about Spain, its history, its present, and its perspectives. The text reedits with irony the style of the old chivalric stories, where enchantments, spells, and similar happenings are commonplace. In the novel there is also room for various fifteenth- and sixteenth-century narrative modes, such as the pastoral, sentimental, and picaresque novels. Given its fortuitous nature and its condition of fable, the quixotic aura of Cervantes is immediately perceived behind the apparent naivete of linked adventures that hide more significant thoughts. Thus, PQez Galdos inscribes his creation with symbolic clues and develops a parabolic literary discourse around the specific conditions of his time and the situation of Spain. Hon7ever.in El caballero encantado, one does not find Cervantes’s mockery, humor, parody, and ability of subtle irony. Galdos’s novel is more irascible, severe. and explicit. These intentions of Gald6s are reflected throughout the novel, from its subtitle to the conception of characterxi El caballero encantado is a concrete and anxious meditation of a sensitive spirit, not a novel of intellectual old age. In this sense, the text is consistent with the life pattern of its author. This is why Sainz de Robles considers: It is an exquisite narrative. . . . [Galdos’s]symbolism is always the same: history, Spain. . . . Gald6s was always a passionate Spaniard. I can safely assert that he was the most Spanish of all the great nineteenth-century authors. He was immensely proud to be Spanish and was always optimistic about future generations of Spaniards. With time, Gald6s’s unconditional patriotism was exalted to limits that cause vivid emotion. It is in the final series of Episodios ‘Vacionales and in El caballero encantado . . . where he most strongly displayed his faith. Blind, clumsy, a bit disillusioned of everything, he takes refuge in his everything: Spain. And he focused it better than ever. And he penetrates it and understands it better than ever.6
Of Houl Fernando Ovtzr Fol~izdan Elusr~~e 2kfazden,fora n Enchanted Geiztlema?z 21 9
“Exquisite” is the word used by Sainz de Robles to characterize the novel, several decades before the Cuban Fernando Ortiz described it as .,divine.” Inspired by it, Ortiz published a free American version he entitled El caballero encantado y la nzoza esquiva. Ortiz’s sympathy toward Galdos’s novel is due to both literary and nonliterary reasons. There is plenty of evidence showing that Ortiz admired Perez Galdos as a writer. Ortiz acknowledged the mastery of the Canarian author in creating a novel of fantasy; a supernatural or oneiric journey in which time proceeds capriciously and carries the characters through various levels of time and space, enveloped in magic and mystery. Ortiz enjoyed the text’s essential symbolic proposition that encourages a diversity of readings to arrive at one’s own interpretation. From that interpretation, he elaborated his own free version, giving his readers advice on what he believed aras the key to Galdos’s text and the translation he was embarking in: Wake up the understanding reader who arishes to proceed and is not experienced in symbolisms. The master Perez Galdos demands from us a cautious and keen imagination to become aware of what lies behind the folds of his language and the veil of his personifications and events. sometimes blursy due to the attractive mystery which surrounds them like mist. El caballero encantado should be read nvice, first glancing over and then pausing between the lines.-
The nonliterary aspects of the no~relthat attracted Ortiz related to its theme and significance. El caballel-o encantado poses the issue of Spanish regeneration from a social, historical, and ethical perspective. These issues delved squarely into questions that concerned Ortiz for their importance to Cuban life in those early years of the twentieth century. His interpretation, therefore, follon~edthat sense, and with it, he wrote his own version from the other side of the Atlantic and with an American focus. The Spanish disaster and the Cuban independence movement lie at the center of the problem. In Cuba, the events of 1898 had violent repercussions. For Cubans, the notion of disaster was also a painful reality. The ideals and struggles for freedom ended in massive frustration. The end of Spanish dominance coincided with U.S. intesvention, and only in 1902 was the republic established, mutilated of all its dreams by the Platt Amendment, as is well known. That was the situation in those early years. History accounts for the civil disputes, military revolts, the second U.S. military intenrention, and social, administrative, and political corruption. These were tough times when skepticism and disappointment became strong. The preservation of national identity and the nation itself was the nucleus of the worries and actions of notable Cubans. It was the realization that was necessary to solve that critical situation, a search for a cultural identity that could not be postponed. The questions of who, what, and how the Cubans were had to be answered. This was a way of facing the challenge.
Fernando Ortiz’s first intellectual efforts were i~lln~ersed in that process of self-examination and self-knowledge of being Cuban. He also embarked on a cnisade to defend the dignity of citizenry in that artificial and exhausted republic, torn apart in terms of sovereignty and urgently needing ethical, social, and political progress. Ortiz took up the gauntlet. He realized that this was the path for achieving objectives: regeneration from within defeat, poverty, and identity. He established the affinity of the situation in both Spain and Cuba. It was a regenerationism from the opposite shore, a transcultured regenerationism. Ortiz had creatively assimilated that spirit of renem-al during his residence in Spain. It became the genesis of his work on Cuba and its problems and culture. The relationship between regenerationism and national and cultural identity was the backbone of his work from beginning to end. However, among certain Spanish regenerationists were certain dark zones, which Ortiz strongly criticized. One of these areas was pan-Hispanism, a true neocolonial attempt to subject Spanish America to the former metropolis’s tutelage. Entirely defeated in military terms, it occurred to some that Spain should return to dominate its former territories through influence and economic privileges. Ho~vever,Spain was deteriorated and lagging behind, longing to Europeanize itself to escape its troubles, including high levels of illiteracy, lack of education, and serious political and social conflicts. Spain was a poor model for the Spanish American republics. From these verifications, Ortiz rejected the frenzy of pan-Hispanism. Several spokesmen for pan-Hispanism elaborated an opportunistic discourse. They argued that if Spain did not exercise its tutoring mission in Spanish America, it would fall under the hegemony of the United States. Thus, the old empire was destined to rescue its daughters fro111 the claws of the young and puissant Yankee imperialism. This pan-Hispanist maneuver only offered a choice between tm-o imperialisms. Like other lucid Cubans, Ortiz understood the situation. He discussed these matters in L a reconquista deArn6rica: ReJexiones sobre elpatzhispa?zis~no(1910) and E17tr.ecllbanos . . . (Psicologia tropical) (1913). These books compiled a selection of articles, the majority published in periodicals between 1905 and 1913, and often forged in the heat of debate. Attacking the roots of the problem of bipolar formulations, he insisted on solutions: Anemic creatures of a dying imperialism, n-e have been stultified by tropical sleepiness, awakening lste and only when another growing imperialism has ravaged us . . . only an intense and widespreatl civilization can save us. Being cultured nre would be strong. Let us be so.” Salvation through culture and education n-as a proposition of Krausistpositivist origins and the ideological banner of regenerationism and the group of the Generation of 1898. However, in the Cuban version that Ortiz
O f Hozo Ferna~zdoOflzz Foz~tzdan Elz~srue-\faden for at? Enchanted Gentleman 221
proposes, the claim is for the existence of a nation shielded by a national identity defined as cultural identity. Ortiz, fully aware of the Cuban national identity, m-ould not form ideas subservient to the former metropolis but rather about the important task Spain had ahead: This is what Spain ought to do: bring us culture, a lot of culture, because when Spain prevails through the culture and the scientific genius of its people, then and only then all of America will be truly Spanish. even that part that speaks English. since during times like these it is civilization that brings nations together.” Ortiz’s strategic thought sought the integration of the Spanish American republics, away from pan-Hispanism’s attempts, trying to prevent absorption into the United States. He was very explicit: “If we convince ourselves of this and manage to make a reality . . . the association for struggle, we will one day be able to present an Iberian-American mental barrier, resistant and well defined.”1° This context motivated Ortiz to write El caballero enca?ztadoy la moza esquica. The title, but especially the subtitle, z’ersidn libre y americatza. would lead one to think of Ortiz as a narrator. There are also the antecedents of a short story, published in Minorca when he was a high school student, as well as the pamphlet Principi i prostes (1895). a narrative on local customs in Minorcan.” If such a perspective n.as assumed, El cabal let”^ ellcantado j1 la moza esquiua would require literary criticism, and the text as a novel a-ould lack the quality to distinguish itself in the genre. Ho~vever,the essential point is that Ortiz did not intend to write a novel. The work is rather an interpretation, a reconsideration, a rewriting that had the objective of de~-eloping a regenerationist political discourse opposed to pan-Hispanism, This is why it can be considered part of La reconquista de Am6tAica.He has manipulated literature; he toyed with it and the result was a kind of satire and parody, which shon~edOrtiz’s aesthetic consciousness (something very common in his work). This is far different from trying to write novels. Furthermore, Ortiz was very clear in stating his intentions. In the prologue he wrote, “Search for the book and read the most peculiar and instructive account of Spanish history, . . . Here it is, plainly, without the makeup and colors given by its first narrator.”” He will shorten it, he tells us; he must summarize and s i m p l i ~because his work is a different one and seeks to provide access to the original text, where supplementary, and even totally different arguments are to be found. He then declares, “This is the purpose. The author of these lines submits the master novel to his own fantasy . . . and interprets it from American lriewpoints, underscoring the principal episodes and passages that n~ouldmost interest the sons of America.”‘“n the most literal and delightful sense. we are standing before a tendentious text.
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Ricardo L’ivialet
There are three parts in El caballero e?zcantadoy la moza esquica: a short prologue with clues for interpretation, the Ortizian version of Gald6s’s novel with titles and chapters different from those of the original text, and an epilogue that goes beyond the arguments of the Spanish writer. We have already analyzed the first part. The second part reduces the extension of the narrative to approximately tm-o-thirds of the original and the number of chapters decreases from twenty-seven to fourteen. In a footnote in chapter 1, Ortiz explains, “Neither the chapters nor the titles of this translation correspond to those of the Spanish original.”” Thus, Ortiz insists on his free inspiration in presenting the bare bones, often condensing in few words that which is lengthy in Galdos’s text; always defining his role as translator and interpreter. The tone of this precis is humorous and even ironic, and Ortiz reveals his ability to depict characters and situations, sonletinles even through the use of simple adjectives: Don Jose Augusto del Becerro was a sticb, quarrelsome. and wise high-brow, engaged deeply in documents and folios, impassioned hy heraldic jigsaws, maniatic for historical eruditions, searches in archives and libraries, papyri, parchments, and incunables, until he fell in the m-acky custom of calling the Middle Ages, the Stone Age, and the Phoenician and Roman ages his dear sisters and many other periods the daughters of the prolific Spanish history.li
This fragment condenses several chapters of Gald6s’s novel and adopts a different narrative viewpoint since it does not judge the attitudes of the character. There are other instances in which Ortiz inserts Gald6s himself as a character in his version, with the same spirit of the previous example: *‘On the date in which the narrative begins. when Perez Gald6s began to deal with Don Pueblo, I mean, with Don Carlos de Tarsis, the latter felt desperate, sad, pessimistic.”16Ortiz also resorts to textually cite relatively short passages from the original text to support his perspective and qualifications, a true work of intertextuality in 1910. The skeptical Tarsis laments: Classical theater, with Lope and Tirso, also burdens me, and every time I go to such performances I have the bad idea of sleeping on my seat. A theatre performance should be named as all performances: L!fe is a dream. I again state with full conviction that we do not have agriculture. in the same way that we do not have politics or finance. All of this here is purely nominal, figurative, a work of imitating monkeys, of actors who do not knoxv their parts. There is nothing here. All that you see is fake jewelr); from foreign sales.’-
In another part, again quoting Galdos, the character argues: Work! What for? The sparks, the fatuous fire in literature, graphic arts, and other orders of intellectual life do not invite us to work. Eveq~hingincites us to rest, to remain passive. to allow the days to pass by without making the slightest at-
Of How Fernando Ortiz Found a n Eluszve .bfalden for a??Enchanted Ge?ztlernai? 223 tempt to fight against the Hispanic inertia. If I were faced with the dilernma of choosing between working or dying, I would choose death. The Spaniard who has a rent these days must save it and increase it if possible. Live well while life lasts, and while the last drop of oil remains in the lamp of well-being. I am not trying to say that I am better than evesyone else. I am the worst, laziest, last priest or altar boy of inertia. My only merit is in the brutal sincerity of my pe~sirnism.’~
After Tarsis has fallen in love with a beautiful South American, she rejects him, and new adventures follow until the enchantment of the main character occurs. The cynical, lazy, pessimistic, and wealthy man turns into a poor youth by an act of magic. He experiences countless vicissitudes that will make him realize how empty, decadent, and exploitative his previous life was. This leads him to reconsider his life and adopt a more active, regenerating attitude, with a commitment to aid the poor whom he had previously despised and exploited. In this process, the character named Madre plays an essential role. She is a magician with limited powers, a kind of reincarnation of the bruised Hispanic culture. The enchanted man will remain in her hands until he completes his positive transformation. During a long dialogue bemeen Tarsis (now transformed into poor Gil) and Madre, he lists a number of defects that decadent Spaniards have. Even though he is conscious of the abuse the rich give the poor, Gil does not intend to subvert the system. He calls on the powerful to remain good though rich, so that poor men can be less poor and also good; he calls on them to give without taking from anyone, even if that wealth had been the result of the most abusive practices. Here Ortiz again looks at Galdos in revealing such idealized notions: “We are equal, the poor man and the rich man, the plebian and the noble, we are all in fortunate brotherhood; we live for it.”’” Even if this sublime trail of thought is not a part of Ortiz’s opinions, he respects the good intentions behind it, does not quarrel with it, and, when the story continues, in his own words he comments: “A graceful lesson . . . that a - e could all take advantage of. The wordy Spaniard can use it in his new. tough working life, and the talkative American to build his dream^.”?^ The American projection intended in Ortiz’s version is thus inserted. However, on occasions Ortiz must disagree, especially when touching American issues. The woman Tarsis loved is also transformed by a spell from Cintia to Pascuala, from a beautiful South American capable of rejecting Tarsis for his defects to a teacher in a niral area of Spain. Ortiz would admit this if it was symbolically meant to show just how much Spaniards had to learn from their former colonial subjects. However, Ortiz does not allow the opportunity to pass by, humorously and ironically noting: Although we were aware of Tarsis’s mistakes and stupidit~esthat prompted Madre to cast him under a spell to correct thern, we mere unaa.are that Cintia
had her defects too . . . nor did we know that she had strayed from the good path and that love for hladre would straighten her ways. . . . Therefore this chapter should in fact be labeled: Where a Pascuala suddenly appears and where enchantment either is or is not unjust, or is only that of the gentleman.” This is a lashing attack on any pan-Hispanist intention. The spell would only end when Madre considers that her mission of regeneration has been achieved. Within Galdhs’s spirit this would occur in a context of harmony: Cintia and Tarsis will love each other, will be happy, and will have a son. The reading beta-een the lines that Ortiz suggested in the prologue becomes handy at this stage. Would P b e z Galdhs avoid exercizing the Hispanic mission of tutelage? Here Ortiz required a strictly American epilogue, where he can abandon the original text to dive into his own discourse without losing the novelesque aura. He opted to do this in an epistolar style with an almost allegoric form of symbolism. It begins with an intimate letter that Am6rica Andina writes to her younger sister Juanita Antilla, written in Buenos Aires on the significant date of May 2 5 , 1910. The sender regrets the scarce communication between the two: “We are so far away and the post is so slow, family is so dispersed! But, although we do not share the same surname. we are daughters of the same mother and sisters all the same, and it is fair that we should love each other and tell each other our troubles.”22From the ver). beginning, Ortiz thus establishes the concept of Ihero-Americanism, and its need, and calls for union. The elder sister continues: “You must have heard from our old friend Benito Perez Galdos, who despite never meeting us personally knows our joys and sorrows well, . . . about the new craze that has possessed Carlitos de Tarsis.” She continues to say that the good-looking youth had visited those lands and ‘,was prowling our door, speaking our language, and whispering words sweeter than honey.”” America Andina’s letter is a warning call in regard to the neoi~~lperialist intentions of pan-Hispanism, addressed to Juanita Antilla who had only been able to free herself from the maternal authoritarianism much later. America tells about Tarsis’s jealousy of other suitors, especially Samuel Johnson, and concludes, “Please advise me. Tell me if I should succumb to this unhappy lover, if I should say goodbye to friends and admirers, and if I should resign to my luscious freedom of rich female and give in to a union with him, a marriage whim of our downtrodden cousin.”” Transparent in his objectives and concerns, Ortiz then inserts the confidential reply to the elder sister. Written in Baracoa on July 4, the letter begins by greeting the never forgotten America and, after congratulating her for receiving the news, says: ‘Weare in festivities here in celebration of the birthday of a rowdy neighbor who you know.” Juana, absorbed in a spirit of identity, writes to her sister:
Of Hou Femarzdo Ortzz Found an Elz~stte,bfazdenfor a n Enchanted Gentlenzan 2 2 5 I am in this town where my cradle used to rock because. after hearing profusely of my race and heritage, I burn with desire to learn of the feats of nq- elders. I have come here in search of documents and chronicles of the Indies that can serve as fuel for the flames of my zeal for study. I hardly find an>~hingbut searching alone is a relief and soon I will rejoice.”
She confesses that she knows of Tarsis’s delirium. He also courts her and the rest of their sisters: “Look at this sultan! Sister, it is obvious that the blood of a moor boils in his veins!” The Don Juan cousin does not accept any rivals, and she is not surprised of ‘,the grudge that Carlitos holds against Sam, as we call our neighbor here.”26she admits to having a certain sympathy toward Sam, although he is also a relentless suitor, because he has different qualities compared to Carlitos. At this point, Ortiz makes a comparison between the two, which could not be understood out of context. Defeated, dated, uncultured, illiterate, and pretentious Spain was incapable of reconquering America. Only through its omrn development could Spain reestablish a relationship of equality, respect, and mutual benefit with Spanish America. Ortiz understood that prosperity for the Cuban nation was feasible if adequate relations with the United States were established. He wanted Cuba to capitalize on all the opportunities that the ties with that country could proPerhaps during those initial years of vide. Perhaps he was too bene~~olent. the illusory republic, he did not understand the essence of the puissant empire and may have even granted the neighbor some traces of goodness. It is true that even then there were protests against Yankee greed. It is also tnle that later in his life Ortiz did not deceive himself on this, as his actions and his work later showed. The idea that he m-as a man awestnick or conci1iatol-y with any imperialist desire, not even in 1910 on that Fourth of July when Juana wrote to Amkrica Andina. She knows three different concepts: sister, neighbor, and suitor. In El caballero encantado y la moza esqz~ica,in the rest of what is included in La rt.conquista de Amkrica, and in many other works of that period, Ortiz processed the attitudes that filtered form Washington and understood their meaning and essence. Juana Antilla advises America Andina: Flirt with Carlos as much as you like. and even entertain yourself with his romanticism. It is not bad to look back once we can look firmly forward; hut ensure that you do not allow him to be irreverent or audacious.
Ortiz is clearly stating his views on pan-Hispanism. He is also able to define his position regarding the other threat: I will do the same, although I am closer than you to my friend Sam owing needs of gratitude and neighborhood proximity. If due to this you should hear Carlos say that I have given up my honor, tell hi111 that he is lying, that pure I continue
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my honest life, firmly looking toward the future. I am anxious given my inexperience, but nonetheless resolved to die rather than to take a step backwards.?’
Patriotic, worthy, and incorruptible in Cuba facing Spain and the United States, this free version of the novel is much more: It is a declaration of identity and a lesson of it. Ultimately, it is the expression of the right to be, against any attempt at absorption. It is a model of an interpretative rewriting inspired by the mysterious vessels connecting life and art, and a blueprint of historical destiny.
NOTES A shorter version of this essay under the title “El caballero encantado en la 6ptica
cubana de Fernando Ortiz: un enfoque sociopolitico regeneracionista e intertextual en 1910,” was delivered at the “6to. Congreso Internacional Galdosiano: Galdos y el 98” in Las Palmas. Gran Canaria, Spain, June 16-20, 1997.
Of Ho~uFel-navzdo Ovtlz Found a n Eluszw Mazden for a n Enchanted Gentleman 227
Comparative Analysis of Theoretical Symbols Antonio Fernandez Fever
I was born in Paris in 1910. My father was a gentle, easygoing person, a salad of racial genes: a Swiss citizen of French and Austrian ancestry, the current of the Danube circulated in his veins.’
With this tasty metaphor, “a salad of racial genes,” the main character describes his father in Vladimir Nabokov’s popular novel, Lolita. But, who isn’t a salad? Let us also remember that, many centuries ago, the ensaladilla was a form of Golden Age Spanish literature: Sor Juana Inks de la Cruz (who was of the opinion that ‘.if Aristotle had cooked, he would have written much more”) left us several masterpieces of this genre of mixed languages. However, gastronomic metaphors are not exclusive of everyday language and literature: they are fundamental and inescapable parts of literary and anthropological theories, and, for that matter, of any other theoretical language. For his profound erudition, Fernando Ortiz could have been nicknamed “Doctor Ocean,” as was Lima’s encyclopedic Don Pedro Alejandrino de Peralta Barnuevo Rocha y Benavides. It is a vain enterprise even to start alluding to Ostiz’s oceanic production. I will only study two important metaphors, which Ortiz used in his research as a symbolic frame for his theories: the ajiaco and the symbol of Janus. In refusing to simplify traditional discourses and academic disciplines, Fernando Ortiz prided himself of being an “explorer” of the forest, jungle, or Cuban manigua. In this sense, he adopted imaginative emblems, symbols, and metaphors. These symbols provide important clues for understanding the theoretical reach of his enldite research, as well as debating essential aspects of their currency.
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Let us remember that, from a criminological standpoint, Ortiz started from the concept of the black bmljo or “witch doctor,” the inhabitant of Hampa afro-cubana (1906), in a similar way as the Brazilian Raymundo Nina Rodrigues had treated the black person and his “fetish” (in this case from the perspective of the “alienist”). The illustrations of the first edition of Ortiz’s text, Los negros bmjos, a text we ought to read today as a foundational writing milestone, are revealing of the initial stages of this approach toward a metaphorical crossroads. This effort was at the center of Ortiz’s thoughts and was useful to ordering the oceanic, erudite vastness of his research through successive and different conformations. Other metaphorical concepts were, in succession, the xylophone key (1935) (an allegorical symbol or articulation of crucial resonance that includes the conscious use of the word key in its meaning of a device to open the intricate Cuban cultural labyrinth); the ajiaco as a metaphor for transculturation; the symbol of the two-headed Janus; the explorer of the intricate jungle; the notion of “counterpoint” always symbolizing the latent dialectic in the dichotomy of Ortiz’s theoretical thought; the lexical creations such as cubania or africania (1950); and others. The theoretical path dotted with conceptual metaphors has always been a bit sinuous and intricate. In its more evident extremes, Jose Juan Arrom has aggressively criticized three metaphors used for symbolizing relations between Spain and Spanish America from the standpoint of the paternalistic mentality of chauvinist colonizing attitudes: ‘,the Motherland” (la Madre Patria), “the branches of the Spanish trunk,” and Julisn Marias, coarse “Spain as the Plaza Mayor of Spanish America.” “hletaphors” warned Arrom “are both valuable and dangerous given their suggestive power and force to penetrate the imaginati~n.”~ We are well aware that the most fanlous dishes, essential elements in the gastronomic imagery, have often been used as metaphors of identity for nations. We could almost state that they are a conceptual “archetype” if we were to trust the Jungian archetypal theories. Despite these doubts, let us quote a classic example of this custom of using gastronomic metaphors for the purposes of national mythical interests in Latin American literature. The example is from the Argentinian Esteban Echeverria in his famous “Apology of the matambre”: Let the taciturn Englishmen shout, roast-beef, plum pudding; the Italians cry, macaroni, and let them remain as thin as an I or the spire of a gothic tower. Let the Frenchmen say omelette souj’lee, omelette au szrcre, omelette au diable; let the Spaniards pronounce with sarcasm, chorizos, olla podrida, more putrid and rancid than their secular enlightenment. All of you scream freely, as we press our sides and let the big word matambre escape, sealing off your mouths completely. Antonio Perez used to say: “Only great stomachs can digest poison,” and I say: “Only great stomachs can digest matambre.” This is not to say that all Argentinian portezos have great stomachs: but merely that only the matambre feeds and nurtures robust stomachs, which according to Perez mean magnanimous heartsi
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The gastronomic emblems that often coalesce in true “national dishes” are invested with the values of the most ennobled tradition expressed concretely in individual life. We can recognize this in the following passage of the Spanish novelist Carmen Laforet when she describes the smell of the cocido madn’lerio as an ancient sediment: He arrived home like a dream, through the narrow streets of Madrid’s old city center. He arrived to his large and cool home, m-ith a smell of food that was embedded in the staircase of footstep holes in the middle. . . . An indescribable, most ancient smell of pot stew. The smell of cocido madrilelio that had been settling for over N o centuries.’
As an analogy, Ortiz’s work refers to the value of the ajiaco as an experience of history. Ortiz is especially interested in using this metaphor for illustrating what could be described as an archeological permission. The symbol of the ajiaco clearly enables him to compare the Cuban enigma and its aboriginal ancestral precedent. The tag of indigenous, pre-Columbian, prehistoric, and atemporal, lying at the bottom of the ajiaco pot is similar to that which we find in the description of the cocido nzadn’lerio by someone also interested in conveying the historical resonance of ennobled archaeology: There is no doubt that the cocido itself, through its simplicity of throwing into a single pot anything which comes to hand and cooking it with water for hours, until it’s ready. while the reindeer or bison is hunted, for example. thanks to the time it takes for the chickpeas to soften. It is perhaps the only dish remaining from the stone age, as almost inevitable the gabrieles remain hard as stone if the privileged water of Madrid does not soften them up, that water as fine as wind. and capable of working through silicon as its colleague the air is capable of killing a man. so impassive is Madrid water to the soap’s f0am.j
Already in his first book on Minorcan traditions, Fernando Ortiz used gastronomic n~etaphors.Let us remember the title itself: Principi yprostes: Colleccid d’aguiats menorquins que s ‘espera cauran b6 a’s ventrell. But, without a doubt, the ajiaco pot as the emblem of the inextricable labyrinth of Cuban transculturations would be the most famous metaphor of all of Ortiz’s erudite contributions. Furthermore, as often happens with the use of theoretical emblems, a troubling ambiguity unravels its contradictory problematic essence. In the gastronomic metaphor of the ajiaco pot, those elements of negative resonance often found in the inventory of symbols are also present. A sinister symbology of the cauldron: If the skull is the container of superior forces. the cauldron is the container of inferior ones. This is a-hy cauldrons and potions are present in tales of snagic and stories of folklore linked to the forces of evil (remember the wizard. Merlin, Morgana, the druids . . . or the identification of hell with an enormous cauldron). Antagonically. the chalice sublimates and makes sacred the notion of a container.”
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Different languages also alert us to the contradictions inevitably associated with conceptual metaphors. In English, “gone to pot” indicates either a spoiled or rotten thing, which needs to be improved by returning it to the pot or rejected as in a bargain.’ Remembering an Argentinian saying, “in every big pot,” there is a traumatic confusion also derived from the metaphorical image of a stew that confuses and mixes everything. Ortiz himself notes another meaning of the term ajiaco related to these problematic repercussions: “In Cuba, there is also another sense [for ajiacol: tumult, scandal, a mess or knot.”” Ortiz uses the cooking pot of the ajiaco to replace the traditional melting pot. However, it is inevitable to establish the relationship between the “melting” and the always incomplete process of fusion. It is not strange, therefore, that the metaphor of the ajiaco pot produced a number of contrary opinions. For example, Gaston Baquero points to this troubling ambiguity by associating Ortiz’s pot with the jar of the mythical Danaids, a metaphor conveying both a negative result (with the sinister invocation of infernal torment) and the impossibility of theoretically fulfilling the Cuban problem. Certainly in the myth of the Danaids many issues coincide: food, founding genealogy, and ancestral crime^.^ Likewise, Ivan de la Nuez, in alluding to the Barthesian relationship between flavor and knowledge, also deals with the ambiguity of Ortiz’s gastronomic metaphor: In 1940 Fernando Ortiz conceived in Cuba the term transculturation+ventually more effective than multiculturalism-as a way of understanding the exchanges between cultures. Malinowski adopted it as a great contribution to anthropology, which he always considered to be the science of sense of humor. To illustrate his term, Ortiz used the gastronomical metaphor of ujiuco (a Cuban stew that mixes meats, vegetables, and other very diverse ingredients). The success of the ajiaco consists of a final product of the mixing that ought to taste better than each of the original ingredients by themselves. I have always been suspicious of Ortiz, especially when I imagine him with a ladle stirring the pot. This however does not invalidate that over half a century later. his term and his stew can still aid us to obtain a good tasting knowledge and critical perspecti~e.’~
Apart from his famous ajiaco pot, in his relentless exploring of the Cuban labyrinth, Ortiz also uses the janiform vases from pieces of ancient classic Greco-Roman pottery. The opposed, double face of the metaphor depicting Janus is therefore another basic allegon in Ortiz’s theories. It was adopted as an emblem for the Sociedad de Estudios Afrocubanos (founded and headed by Ortiz in 1937). Ortiz explains the sense behind the emblem in one of his articles: “Our symbol is ultimately the reproduction of the two-headed janiform glass of the sixth century B.C. attributed to the potter Charinus.” In classic Greece, the figure of the black man was artistically depicted with relative frequency in pottery, statues, cameos, and coins according to Beard-
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sley’s research. But it is in a single Janus-type vase that w e find the best expression of the social cooperation between the black and white races in pleasant harmony based o n equality. As Beardsley indicates, there is no prejudice in those Athenian works of art; o n the contrary, the contrast is merely employed for artistic purposes. This motif of the union of a black face and a white face, in the shape of Janus, appears in classic ceramic pieces around the seventh century B.C. in Naveratis, and from there it is adopted by Attic ceramists in the sixth century. This would appear to suggest that the Janus motif in vessels was not originally Hellenic but in fact African. It is also probable that the bifacial morphology of the vessel was based o n sacred and ritual reasons of a propitiatory nature.ll But, as it often occurs in Ortiz’s considerations during deep theoretical thinking, the African origin will be decisive. He was careful to underscore that the double face of Janus is an essentially African motif, immediately related to the representation of the orisha Eleggua. Ortiz concluded: Given all of this background, it is easy to understand how the emblem adopted by our Sociedad de Estudios Afrocubanos obeys allegorically, aesthetically, and historically to the two ethnic ancestries whose union in Cuba constitutes the path for the new intellectual as~ociation.’~ The double face of the God Janus is a classical symbol for historians and politicians. It has been used, among others, by Arthur Koestler as a symbol of his anthropological endeavors.13 One of the most recent researchers on this topic, Jose Forntt, uses it to examine the contradictions of the nationalist movements in Europe today. Based o n the Janus symbol, Forni. carries o n a comparative analysis between the various European nationalisms, especially focusing o n the contradictions in their discourses of identity.” In the study of the characteristics, functions, and risks of conceptual metaphors in cultural theory, there are several approaches. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson analyze “ontological metaphors” and “container metaphors.”” For the case of Ortiz, as for many other scholars, it would be necessary to relate this use of the conceptual metaphor with the construction of the anthropologist’s style, following the insights of Clifford Geertz in dealing with the style and the images of three renowned anthropologist^.’^ And, if w e were to deepen the analysis, w e would need to travel through con~plexareas such as those dealt with by Derrida.” Lacan criticized the excessive “idolatry” in cultural investigation as “the propensity of using excessive imagery”: The need to use images is valid in scientific writing as in other fields, but perhaps not as much as one thinks. And nowhere is it more dangerous than in the domain we are now at: subjectivity. When we talk about subjectivity, the difficulty lies precisely in not identifying the ~ubject.’~
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But perhaps the most interesting aspect of Ortiz is not so much the unraveling of a series of fairly identifiable contradictions, but rather the tenacious output of his capacity for scrutiny: from criminologist-filologist to collectionist; from the fetishist witch doctor to the troubling double face of Janus. They are original metaphors that become the drive behind his erudite oceanic contributions. Yvette Sanchez’s recent work studies the relationship between collectionism and literature; in this sense, Ortiz’s vastly erudite contribution is a fundamental component of contemporary research.19 His conceptual metaphors are decisive components in the consolidation of his theory on the Cuban cultural jungle, its guiding talismans as well as the emblems that guide his voyage. It is significant to note that if we attempt even the most superficial comparative analysis, we will find the contrast between the two symbols analyzed here: the ajiaco cauldron against the Janus figure. In the first conceptual metaphor, we have the notion of sublimation by mixture and concocted transubstantiation; in the Janus figure, two entities remain confronted. Additionally, the Janus metaphor has a classicistic valorative component absent in the ajiaco. Everything seems to indicate that there is an oscillation between Utopia and nightmare: the cauldron of the exquisite mixture turned into the barrel of the Danaids and the irreducible Cuban dichotomy. To escape this cul-de-sac, Ortiz appeals to the infinity of his work, the complexity of his objectives, and, at this point, the use of other metaphors such as e explorer” of the jungle or infinite island. The perhaps impossible mixture of the two emblems, the ajiaco cauldron and the figure of Janus, could be the idea of the explorer of the “infinite island,” another useful metaphor for describing an endless enigma. Thus, the island could be a metonym for intellectual efforts and contributions that are as vast as Ortiz’s work. In a way, all theoretical efforts involve an expedition through the intricate jungles of an island, the problematic contours of a theoretical insularity or hermeneutics. As Lezama Lima stated, “The distinct island in the Cosmos or, what mounts to the same, the indistinct island in the Cosmos.” Here we encounter the infinite island, a clever title that Cintio Vitier and Fina Garcia Marmz gave to a rescued fragment of a text that reads, “Columbus asked the local Indians whether he was on mainland or on an island, and they replied that it was an infinite land of which no one had seen the end although it was an island.”20Nothing stops us from imagining that this paradoxical infinite island (seemingly a Cuban version of the Cheshire cat) may help us understand the work of Fernando Ortiz and any ethnological, aesthetic, or literary theory: any theoretical intention is an expedition through an infinity, inevitably thinking in its contradictory finiteness. After all, the tribes in the eastern woodlands use the term island to refer to the universe. The infinite island is useful not only as a metaphor for illustrating the Cuban enigma, the prodigious crossroads of cultures, but also theoretical research itself. Furthermore, if we start from that image of the “ex-
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plorer” of the cultural jungle, w e could remember Ortega’s notion of the “vertical explorer” in reference to another great founder of the literature of transcultured labyrinths (and inevitably linked to problematic comparisons of original concepts a n d current theoretical p e r s p e ~ t i v e s ) .In ~ ~this sense, Ortiz’s emblems are the cipher of the contributions of a ceaseless “vertical exploration.”
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visage souriant de la figure antique de Janus. L’autre inquietant et troublant, est celui qui reste dans l’ombre, celui de la perpetuation des clivages sociaux et de l’exclusion envers de nouvelles minorities”: Jose Forni.. Les nationalismes identitaires en Europe: les deuxfaces de Jarzz~s(Paris: ~ditionsL’Harmattan. 1994).
Stirring the Ajiaco Changiii, Son, and the Haitian Connection Benjamin L. Lapidus
In his best-known works on Cuban music, Fernando Ortiz looked beyond Cuba’s shores to the Caribbean, the Americas, and Africa to find similarities and analogues that could explain the origins of a given Cuban musical or nonmusical cultural practice. One of the ways that Ortiz deepened his understandings nras by exchanging ideas with other researchers throughout the world. Robin Moore’s excellent analysis and problematization of Ortiz’s writings on Afro-Cuban music demonstrates how Ortiz’s later texts shorn- a familiarity with works on folklore and anthropology written by contemporaries such as Herskovits and Courlander who worked in various regions of the Caribbean.’ Within Cuba, Ortiz collaborated with Guantanamo-based musicologists Rafael Inciarte Brioso (1909-1991) and Luis hlorlote Ruiz (1903-1994) concerning music and musical instruments in Oriente. The result of these collaborations was an emphasis on the Haitian origins of many of the region’s instruments. Ortiz recognized the historical contact beta-een Cuba and Haiti and how the process of transculturation contributed to the particularities of Oriente’s music and the resulting Afro-Haitian folklore found in the region. This chapter focuses on several points. First, I argue that the Haitian presence in Oriente has contributed significantly to the development of the Cuban son, the ultimate Cuban musical product. The Afro-Haitian component of son has been all but ignored in the telling of the genre’s history. Second, I present changiii, a genre performed mostly by Cubans of AfroHaitian descent, as the best musical evidence to support this argument. In his well-known concept of the njiaco. Ortiz likens Cuban culture to a stew possessing both tasty and putrid elements. As Moore explains. “to Ortiz the tastier elements are those n-hich have been added more recently, and . . . the
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older or more ‘primitive’ elements associated with Spanish- or Africanderived ‘atavisms’ are those which need to be di~carded.”~ Ortiz’s position vis-2.-vis these elements would change in the 1950s, but the notion as originally conceptualized is relevant to this discussion. First, it would appear that, because Afro-Haitian elements are both relatively recent arrivals and established traditions in Cuban culture, there are multiple possibilities for interpreting their qualitative value and impact within this framework. Haitians and other non-Cuban Caribbean migrants to Cuba were often vilified and used as scapegoats for the economic and social problems that plagued numerous Cuban administrations; from this standpoint Afro-Haitian culture was seen negatively. At the same time, Haitian culture was celebrated for its contribution of the contradanza to Cuban music, as well as various musical practices in Oriente. Afro-Haitian folklore is currently celebrated and supported by the state like other genres of Cuban folklore. By studying changiiiand other musical practices in Oriente, it is possible for us to examine and raise questions about the transculturative process that created son. Through focusing on changiiiand using Ortiz’s ideas, I will argue that we must look beyond Cuba’s shores, viewing both changiiiand son in a broader pan-Caribbean context. In fact, it will be useful and necessary to create new genre/ensemble categories that include the transculturative process reflected in Caribbean music. I propose that studying the string band as a Creole genre can further our understanding of the historical and cultural connections in the Caribbean region.
THE FIRST WAVE OF HAITIAN MIGRATION T O CUBA AND ITS RELATED MUSIC Haitian migration to Cuba took place in two major waves. At the beginning of the Haitian revolution in 1791, white planters began to flee the island of Hispaniola. Some settled in New Orleans, while most others remained in the Caribbean. Juan Perez de la Riva estimates that between 1795 and 1805, more than thirty thousand people from Hispaniola settled in Oriente. Approximately twenty thousand were not n-hite.’ The white planters brought their domestic slaves and agricultural laborers with them. Within a short time, the planters used their technical ingenuity and expertise to create a thriving coffee industry, and to improve the quality of the crop in their new country. This large influx of French Creole and Afro-Haitian immigrants created a vibrant community in Oriente. Shortly after the arrival of white planters, free blacks and mulattoes began arriving in large numbers and continued to do so throughout the nineteenth century. French planters and mayorals (over-
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seers) had reputations as being especially harsh.’Nevertheless, the slaves of Haitian descent found ways to express themselves and maintain their culture in this new environment. Cultural practices such as the Creole language and voodoo were maintained, even though they changed. Tumba francesa and tajona are two of the main genres that originate from this period. The music and dance of the tunzba francesa have strong French and AfroHaitian elements. First, the society has a specific hierarchy, which mimics French aristocracy. The majlor or mayora deplaza directs and chooses all of the orders of the dances and the changing of the dance steps. They also decide which dancers will perform and maintain a sense of royalty through curtsies and similar actions. The composk is the lead vocalist, and he leads songs in Creole. As his name suggests, he composes and improvises songs. The chonis is usually made up of women, although I have seen men participate. The chorus uses metal rattles called chachas. Ortiz confirmed the Haitian origin of the chacha and wrote that “Sin duda, ese tip0 cubano de maruga cflindrica o chacha procede de Haiti y otras islas de influencia francesa” (without a doubt, this Cuban type of rattle comes from Haiti and other French islands).”jJudith Bettleheim has also noted that the names of the instruments in the tumba francesa battery (which include the premikr, bula, skgon, and cata) and their specific rhythms take their names from Haitian instruments and genres6 The two main styles for the ensemble are masdn and yuba; each has its own dance. The m a s h is danced by couples and is thought to be based on the contredanse of the French p1antocracy.- During the masdn, another small double-headed drum, the tanzbora, is added. The dance that accompanies this style is a side-to-side movement with each shift in body weight occurring at the beginning of the cata pattern. Ortiz wrote about the Haitian origins of congas in Santiago de Cuba as well, further evidence of this link between the two islands. Just as one can see Haiti from the coast of GuantBnamo, one hears Haiti in the music of GuantBnamo. Miguel Barnet affirms this when he says, “Oriente is like another country, so close to Haiti.”8
THE SECOND WAVE OF HAITIAN MIGRATION TO CUBA AND ITS RELATED MUSIC The second major wave of Haitian migration to Cuba took place during the twentieth century. Mats Lundahl attributes this wave to economic factors such as the need for laborers in Cuba after the war of 1895-1898, the growth of the Haitian population, and the lack of land available to Haitian peasants as a result of the U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915-1934).9 Perez de La Riva estimates that more than half a million Haitians came to Cuba between 1902
and 1930.’O Haitian braceros (day laborers), along with Jamaican laborers, m7erebrought in under unfavorable conditions to cut sugarcane. Compared to the Jamaican laborers, the Haitians were mistreated and forcibly repatriated during times of economic depression. They often kept to themselves and settled in remote mountain areas near Santiago de Cuba.ll In Guantanamo, Haitians settled near the sugar centmles (plantations) and in the city. This heritage is tangible in culinary, religious, linguistic, and musical traditions such as meringue, tambuy&.gaga, and voodoo, among others.12Contact with Haiti was also maintained during the 1970s and 1980s, as boatloads of Haitians visited Guantanamo for medical care. Space does not allow for an explanation of each musical style associated with more recent Haitian migration, but one rhythmic pattern, the tresillo, is central to many of them, particularly gaga and meringue.
CHANGUI’S HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS Don Fernando Ortiz cited G. A. Cavazzi’s seventeenth-century reports of a similarly named genre in Africa. Cavazzi obsemed Congolese musicians performing a dance and music called quisangiii. Ortiz wrote that the verb sanga means “to dance or jump with joy,” and the prefix qtli marks a quality in Angolan and Congolese languages.’’ From this linguistic perspective, Ortiz defined the Cuban word changili as a joyous dance. Additionally, Ortiz gave several definitions of the word changiii on page 192 of his Nuevo catauro de cubanismos, emphasizing the multiple meanings of the word: a dance and gathering of lower classes, to jump with joy, to trick or deceive someone, among others.” The word is ~isedto indicate a party and is often interchanged with words such as cumbancha, cucalumb6, pawanda, bachata, rumba, and rompfa, among others. Changiii is a musical genre that is specifically linked to certain modes of behavior, which have changed over time. For about a century before the 1959 revolution, a changilfn7as a rural party at which participants consumed large quantities of rum, ate roasted pigs, danced, and engaged in musical duels (controversias) that included treseros (tres players) and trovadores (improvising singers).li Often the treseros would accompany themselves as they sang. According to Inciarte, one occasion for changiiigatherings was the period between Christmas Eve and Three Kings Day (January 6), when musicians and revelers would begin traveling from house to house. From around the 1930s, these events would be advertised on the radio because the participants lived so far from one another. Participants would each bring a chicken, a pig, or some nim, and often arrived with their clothes dirty from the trip. Many changiiiseros distinguished themselves as great vocal impro-
Stirring the Ajiaco: Changiii, Son,and the Haitian Connection
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visers and tres players; songs by and about these musicians form a large part of the changiii repertoire that is performed today. All of these musicians from the legendary past were black, and, with few exceptions, each had a French surname. There were numerous infornlal cha~zgiiigroups in the city of Guantanamo throughout the first half of the twentieth century. In 1945, Rafael Inciarte Brioso urged some of these musicians to form a formal group, and thus the Grupo Changui de Guantinamo was born.16 During the first thirty years after the revolution, Grupo Changui de Guant5namo became an official professional musical group performing changiii locally, nationally, and internationally. The music underwent a folklorization process in which many of its elements were stabilized. Many musicians from the surrounding rural areas such as Yateras, Las Cidras, Salvador, and Manuel Tames moved to the city of Guantinamo, and some learned to read and write music. By this time, most treseros already had electric pickups on their instruments and the music was performed on stages with microphones. Since the start of the post-soviet “special period” in 1990, more local groups have received professional status from the state musical bureaucracy as have stage folkloric presentations of changiii and its variants, such as kiriba and nengdn. The shift to a tourist-based economy after the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the loss of its subsidies brings tourists to experience authentic changiii parties in the mountains. Furthermore, the quest for the roots of Cuban music and the Buena Vista phenomenon have brought foreign record companies and film crews to Guantinamo as well. Due to the severe rationing of gas and food, the kind of parties that would have been normal during the early years of changiiiare restricted to special occasions such as birthdays or weddings. Smaller, private gatherings are more conducive for long vocal improvisations and controversias, but some singers sing longer improvisations, such as dkcirnas, regardless of the performance context. Most of the people who knew the great musicians of the legendary past, and/or the musicians who participated in that past, are deceased. The most active and prominent changiii musicians in Guantanamo have been of Haitian descent. The same family names have appeared in local song and history for several generations. Many of the best-known musicians and composers have surnames such as Cadete, Speck, Lescaille, Planche, Creagh, Cobas, Logat, Latambli., Mas6, Arnaud, Mustelier, Durand, Durruthy, Vichi, and Moreaux.” Some of these musicians were among the first generation born in Cuba to Haitian parents while others confirmed that their grandparents were Haitian. There have also been a few musicians whose English surnames, such as Wilson and Brown, reflect an Anglophone-Caribbean heritage. All of the important musicians playing this genre of music are of African descent. In fact, there have been few nonblack changiiiseros. Many changiiiseros played and continue to play Afro-Haitian genres such as tumba francesa, tarnbuye?, and montornpolo. Others still speak Creole,
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Benjamin L. Lapidus
and many actively participate in voodoo. Many of the musicians who came from the mountains to the city were active in Afro-Haitian musical and cultural activities in the villages surrounding the city of Guantknamo.
CHANGU~ANDTUMBA FRANCESA Ortiz’s methodology generally pursues connections between Cuban and non-Cuban music based on the physical characteristics of musical instruments, similarities in performance practice, and linguistic relationships. Let us apply Ortiz’s comparative approach to the study of changiii. Close examination of changiii bong6 patterns reveals a striking similarity to tumba francesapremiir improvisational patterns. The low pitch of changiii bongos is similar to the low pitch of the tumba francesa spremikr. One local musicologist, Ram6n G6mez Blanco, finds that the changiii marimbula, guayo, and maracas patterns are related to the cata pattern in tumba francesa by way of a common Bantu heritage rather than an explicit Afro-Haitian connection.l8 The Haitian connection is more apparent if one focuses on dance. Changiiidancers step with the manhbula, and tumha francesa dancers often step with the cata. Furthermore, the masdn tamhora pattern in tumba francesa is the same as the changiii bong6 part during the climax and decrescendo. Both could be derived from the cinqz~illopattern or the Haitian gaga pattern. Interestingly, tumba francesa music is organized around time lines played by the cata. In contrast, changiii has no parts that act as timelines. Tumba francesa was originally danced in cafetales (coffee plantations). Similarly, the dance step for a style older than changiii, called nengdn, requires moving one’s foot in a circle. Some regional dance specialists have explained this motion as mimetic, as if one were spreading coffee to dry. Changiii and nengdn come from the same rural coffee regions (Las Cidras, Yateras, etc.) where there were many people of Haitian descent and tumba francesa groups. There might be a relation between the m o based on this evidence, but as of this writing it remains hypothetical.
Thus far I have emphasized the differences between changiii and son; now it is time to invoke Ortiz and consider their connectedness. From a musical perspective, the claim that changiii is the direct predecessor to son has some merit. Comparing the rhythmic patterns and roles of the instruments reveals a few interesting points that support this argument. Our best sources of
Stim’ng the Ajiaco: Changiii, Son, and the Haitian Connection
243
knowledge of early son are recordings by groups such as Sexteto Bolofia, as well as Sexteto and Septeto Habanero.’%arly recordings demonstrate that the first son groups were organologically similar to the changiii ensemble. When listening to early recordings of El Sexteto Habanero and other groups (ca. 1925-1931), one can hear the bong6 player make much use of the bramido (gliss). This is a howling or moaning sound characteristic of the climax section during a traditional changiii performance. It is also interesting to hear that, like a changiii bongocero, El Sexteto Habanero’s bongocero plays few time-keeping patterns and mostly improvises. This seems to have been the dominant style for playing the bong6 in a son context at that time. The rhythm of the changiii marimbula begins to appear in the tumbadora (conga) patterns in recordings of son from the 1940s and 1950s, and is now- an established trait of son.Z0Second, the rhythm of the bong6 de monte during the climax de despedida (climax before ending the song), a variant of the tresillo, is found in the bass patterns of son recordings from the same period, becoming the standard bajo anticipado figure that characterizes son bass lines. In addition, the cowbell pattern commonly heard in son recordings of the 1940s and 195Os, and in today’s son, is identical to the changiiiguayo pattern. Finally, these same patterns have endured in contemporary performance practice of son, salsa, and other genres, both in Cuba and beyond its shores. If one follom~sthe argument of most theories and chronologies of Cuban musical development, specifically that the son as performed in eastern Cuba was brought westward by soldiers and migrants, then it is conceivable that changiii developed into son as it traveled west. Sometime during this transformation and geographic shift at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth (1898-1920), the difficult patterns of the tres and bongd, normally found in changiii, became less syncopated. In recordings, one can hear the use of the bramido as late as the 1920s, but it disappears in later recordings of son. Similarly, vestiges of the free, improvised style of the changiii bongd are audible in early son recordings of the 1920s, only to disappear in the 1930s with a shift to martillo, the steady, time-marking son bongd pattern. Most scholars agree that the clave figure in son derives from rumba clave as heard in Havana and Matanzas; the only difference between son and rumba clave is one eighth note. Perhaps as musical characteristics from other genres and regions were added to son during the course of its development, these elements were altered and made less syncopated. Thus, the clave figure found in rumba is smoothed out and transformed by one eighth-note so that it is less syncopated when used in son. One possible consequence of this transformative process is that the high degree of syncopation in changiii was significantly diminished when it encountered the rigid timeline of the son clave, resulting
in the rhythmic uniformity and smoothness of the son’s choreography and music. The high degree of syncopation in charzgiii makes it more difficult to dance to in comparison to son. Fewer dancers dance contratiempo to son, and most Cuban genres do not emphasize dancing contratiempo as changiii does. Is this a positive indicator of changiii’s older age? These are all hypotheses, but changiii, more so than son, is a genre that exploits highly syncopated musical ideas and movements.
CONCLUSION One goal of this study was to present the varying narratives regarding the development of the son. These national and local perspectives present a linear, evolutionary development of the foremost Cuban musical genre. Honrever, the evidence presented in this chapter suggests a more complex history; changiii and son are both related and distinct. Changiii and the dominant style of Cuban son (which developed in 1920s Havana and continues to thrive to this day1 share some basic traits: use of string instruments such as the tres, emphasis on percussion instruments, simple chordal harmony, call and response vocal patterns, syncopated Afro-Caribbean rhythms, and an accompanying dance performed by male-female couples touching one another throughout the dance choreography (unlike in rumba). There, the similarity ends; both have similar ingredients, but the resulting swing or groove created by the changiii ensemble’s interlocking parts does not resemble the son groove. Each genre has its own system of coordinated movements. In current practice, musical competition and vocal dueling remain key components of changiii while they have subsided in sofz. These characteristics are also found in rumba and mtisica campesirza, thus calling into question the nature of current Cuban genre classification. Another goal of this study was to show how the Haitian presence in Oriente contributed, via changiii, to the development of son. The implications of the musical and historical evidence presented thus far warrant further investigation and study in Oriente. First, changiii has strong links to tumba francesa and other Afro-Haitian genres. Second, the absence of clave and the high degree of syncopation indicate that it probably came before son. An examination of dance styles supports the view that son’s choreography is smoother and more ‘.creolizedn than the choreography for changiii, which emphasizes “offbeat aesthetics” and is closely related to the choreography for tumba francesa. Finally, this essay raises questions about the current system of Cuban genre classification by utilizing Ortiz’s concept of the transculturation process, coupled with a new interpretation of his writings. Ortiz’s studies of Cuban music can be interpreted in such a way as to encourage a broad pan-
Stzrrlrzg the Ajiaco Cliangui, Son, and the Hattlan Connectzolz
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Caribbean perspective that organizes Caribbean and African-diasporic musical traditions into larger groups across national borders. By studying chafzgiii, nre can begin to establish one such pan-Caribbean genreiensemble category: the string band. Looking beyond Cuba toward the rest of the Caribbean, it is appropriate to see chafzgiiias part of a loosely related group of Creole genres such as Jamaican mento and Haitian mel-i?zgzle,among others. Texture, instrumentation (emphasis on strings and percussion), basic hartnonic conventions, emphasis on syncopated Afro-Caribbean rhythms, tempo! call and response vocal patterns, and couple dance choreography are a few of the ways in which these seemingly disparate genres could arguably be viewed as part of a broader category.
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Benjamin L. Lapidtts
Fernando Ortiz, Founder Marza Teresa Linares Savio
More than sixty years of exploring the entrails of Cuban culture enabled Ortiz to supply us with elements from all the disciplines that assisted his work. But in his relentless task he must have thought he was unable to complete the work of his life, and modestly stated: I have lived, read, written, always in a hurry and without rest because the Cuban foliage was too thick and almost unexplored, and with my limited strength I was only able to open a small trail and try to establish some directions. And that has been my life. Nothing more.
This he said in 1955, when he completed his great Los instrumentos de la musica afrocubana. At the time, he already had many disciples who would follow in his footsteps along the paths. A few years later, in 1959, Una pelea cubana contra 10s demonios appeared, his last publication during his lifetime. In each of his works, he dealt with a number of problems and hypotheses to which he would return in subsequent studies. In each one of them, he analyzed new angles so that his followers could continue the investigation. In 1923, he published an article in Revista Social where he proclaimed the urgent need to recover the heritage of our ancestral cultures, especially those preserved by oral tradition. Later, in 1938, he insisted on these arguments in Archiuos del Folklore Cubano. He had realized the urgency of rescuing all the oral history of the approximately one thousand remaining Africans brought to Cuba by the slave trade and their direct descendants. He had compiled a series of histories and texts of prayers and called for anyone who had the chance to transcribe for posterity those sources of African oral tradition. His friend Lydia Cabrera followed up on this idea; she collected and published Cuentos negros de Cuba, published in Havana in 1940. This text has been a
most studied work. Ortiz wrote the prologue to it where he informed the reader, “This is the first book written by a nmnan from Havana, to whom we introduced the appreciation of Afro-Cuban folklore years ago.” Lydia had penetrated the deep layers of black legends and found the bases of these in the stories that she had heard as a child. She published these stories in a literary language that was not distant from its na’ive, original version. She continued with Pot.qzl6, another compilation of black stories and legends, published in 1948. This work sen-ed as an editorial support to the texts that followed: Anagd. Vocabz~larioIz~czlnziel.llon~baque se habla en Cuba (1957) with a prologue by Roger Bastide, and the following year La sociedad secreta abakua, nan-ada por ciejos adeptos (1958). In this text, as the author points out, the forms of expression of her informants are preserved. She then quoted other texts that arere probably a product of the same research, which must have supplied her with unique material: I’ocabzrlario abakua, the secret language of iiaiiigos: Ritz~alabakzta .)! anafo?-zla~za. which were not published in Cuba. In 1954, she published her paramount work. El monte, and nrould then add essential ethnographic studies such as La laguna sagrada de San Joaqz~in.This work was preceded by the collection “La musica de 10s cultos africanos en Cuba” consisting of fourteen records of musical recordings of original groups from the extensive area of hlantanza’s bernbe dnims. This work, carried out betn-een 1956 and 19j7, with the aid of Maria Teresa de Rojas and Josefina Tarafa, counted a-ith the participation of professional Italian technicians who brought the latest recording equipnlent to Cuba and edited the work in Rome. This collection of records n.as presented together with a booklet of photographs by Josefina Tarafa and Pierre Verger, a French ethnologist and photographer who was a friend of the author. The booklet also includes a description of the religious activities during which the recordings took place! in a both interesting and beautiful narrative that allon-s the student to understand a real fact of historical and ethnographical accuracy. The booklet’s information call be conlplemented with the reading of La lagzuza sagrada de Sa17 J o a q ~ l f la~ ,beautiful narration of a series of ceremonies perhaps using notes taken at the time the recordings were made. We intend to work with old informants of the mentioned zones in order to identify certain aspects of the recordings that have not been duly explained but are essential for musicological analysis. The merit of this impressive collection is that it was the first work to register the music of a specific zone and all the ritual chants of one particular ceremony in an organized fashion. The making of this pioneer work a-as again a response to a call from the master: There is still the need to explore the current situation of Afro-Cuban music. It is to be expected that musicologists will undertake this task scientifically; their work, if done properly and if reaching beyond simple passing excursions. will no doubt reveal many interesting findings.’
Fernando Ortiz, Founder
249
Ortiz recommends “a serious and systematic process that goes beyond the recording of records for commercial purposes,” and he added that the learned specialist “must study religious music and Afro-Cuban music in general, their characteristics, intricate rhythms, rustic scales, musical forms; harmonies, and typical instruments, as are11 as Creole instruments invented or transformed” in Cuba. Ortiz was concerned with the difficulties that Cuban historians faced in their research due to the scarcity or lack of written sources on black music, which. much like the guajira or peasant music, was never considered an integral part of the Cuban culture. He considered at the time (1950) that the descendants of original Africans still preserved the character of the music of different ethnic groups, yet there were no memories of their original chants and beats. Ortiz had encouraged this research, opening up another path for musicologists to follow. Tape recorders were still not used in his time, and Ortiz had to rely on piano transcriptions by Gaspar Agiiero, even with the inaccuracies inherent in that method. He also recommended interdisciplinary research that could produce a more encompassing understanding of the economic, social, geographic, and historical context: .’The ethnographic field in Cuba still has to be explored, geographically. historically and culturally. The ethnic map of Cuba has yet to be done, the ethnic layers resulting from successive immigrations over several centuries is still to be described.” He believed that only through a general perspective could scientific research on Afro-Cuban music be properly oriented. He realized the existence of cultural zones or areas, which had been influenced by the ethnic groups settled there. When he recommended the study of ‘.the intricate contacts, links, and mixtures of the different black cultures that preserved their ancestral complexity,” he was recommending that transculturation be considered a concept applied by all of his followers. Argeliers Leon, in the prologue to the second edition of Los bailes y el teatro de 10s negros en el folklore de Cuba, centers on the comments made by the Mexican author Alfonso Reyes in the first edition. Leon acknoalledges the role of Fernando Ortiz as a founder of the Revista Bimestre Ct~bana, Revista de Estudios Afrocubanos, Cz~adernosde Estudios Afroamericanos, and Archiuos del Folklore Cubano. He emphasizes Ortiz’s tenacious editorial work to ensure that every magazine dealing with Cuban and Latin American culture in general paid tribute to his eternal memory. That is the first premise of Revista Catauro published by the Fundaci6n Fernando Ortiz. Its very name is inspired by the term catauro, which denotes an aboriginal conCatauro de cubanistainer, used by Ortiz in Archivos clel Folklore Cz~ba~zo, mos, and Glosario de afronegrismos, to deposit short pieces of news, games, riddles, and word games. Likewise, the Revista Catauro’s sections follow Ortiz’s basic theoretical lines, compilation efforts, and publication of anthropological studies and rare archival sources.
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.2fan’a Teresa Lzrzares Sacio
In his own prologue to the first edition of Los bailes y el teatro de 10s negros, Alfonso Reyes pointed out its comparative method also used in La africania de la mzisica folkldrica de Cuba and Los instmmentos de la mzisica afrocubana. Ortiz also treated the processes of social contact, their impact on the historical effects of the slave trade, and different African ethnic groups and their transculturation. Don Fernando Ortiz contributed to the spreading of Afro-Cuban music by inviting original groups from the Havana provinces to his lectures. The first such lecture was held in 1936 in the Canlpoamor theater with the participation of members of drummer Pablo Roche’s school. Afterward, at the summer courses of the University of Havana, Ortiz lectured on the ethnographic factors in Cuba with Merceditas Valdes and other musicians as guests. Many young intellectuals who followed his teachings registered for the course, among them Argeliers Le6n, Isaac Barreal, and Salvador Bueno. Then the University Extension Department of the Instituto de Investigaciones Cientificas was created; Argeliers was awarded a scholarship there to continue his second phase of research under Ortiz, and also joined research groups trained by Ortiz in the fieldwork of Havana’s environs. Armed with a small Kodak camera and a tape recorder, Argeliers obtained the basic information for Ortiz’s course projects. In the meantime. Argeliers had also registered in a course on folklore music, taught by hlaria Mufioz de Quevedo, collaborating with her in the morphological analysis of Cuban music pieces, case studies, and fieldwork. When Maria fell ill, she asked him to lecture the summer courses, which he did from 1946 to 1957. During this time, Argeliers continued to befriend Don Fernando and work with him at his home processing the product of his research, photographs, essays, and primary sources aided by Ortiz’s observations and comments. On one occasion, pleased with the progress his student was making, Ortiz told him, “Young man, I see you have found your own keys.” On more than one occasion he recommended the young man as his distinguished disciple. Argeliers continued Ortiz’s research directions: He used Ortiz’s research methodology and indexing of materials; adopted the term transculturation and applied it to all the changes in the evolution of Cuban music and the ethnographic process of the Cuban nation: and transmitted this knowledge to his musicology and ethnography students. In collaboration with his wife and student, Maria Teresa Linares, he conducted fieldwork in several provinces, recording music in perforn~ancesand festivals, peasant song sessions, rumba parties, and popular dances. They also worked in the morphological analysis of the music they recorded and that of old records they collected. He subsequently published a book on Cuban musical genres that included the text of his lectures in the university’s summer courses on peasant music, rumbas, yuka and Matanza’s ryes5 drum beating, and dance music of palomonte and kimbisa.
Fernando Ofliz, Foz~ndev
251
After several years of combining teaching work and investigation, and after an initial project in the Department of Folklore of the Teatro Nacional de Cuba, Argeliers, with the aid of other professors, organized a seminar on folklore for young advanced students. Miguel Barnet and Rogelio Martinez Fur6 participated in that seminar, and contributed to research on original music groups presenting Afro-Cuban chants and dances of different ethnic groups. This research material became part of the database of the Instituto de Etnologia y Folklore of the Cuban Academia de Ciencias. Fernando Ortiz was the honorary president of that institute, and many works produced there were sent to him at his home. Barnet met a-ith Ortiz on several occasions for interviews that were magisterial lectures. Thus. the master was informed on the progress of the guiding seeds he had planted in his courses, lectures, and texts. As a result of that more recent research work, other investigators emerged, more fieldwork was carried out, along with sunreys on popular feasts and the publication of magazines like Actas del Folklore of the Teatro Nacional de Cuba and Etnologia y Folklore of the Academia de Ciencias. The Academia also published the original case study that resulted in the novel-document El cirnawd?~by Miguel Barnet, which has been translated into more than sixty languages. Likewise, the records Wejos cantos afrocubanos and Cancionero hispanocubano, based on field recordings of groups of old Spanish and African traditions, were edited by Maria Teresa Linares, who also wrote a prologue for them, left in the academy’s archives abundant documents, recordings, and unpublished works. In the Recording Studios EGREM in 1978, Maria Teresa began working on the collection .*Antologiade la musica afrocubana.” The collection’s first volume was “Viejos cantos afrocubanos,” and then continued with “Toques de tambores bata en un Oro de Igbodu,” recorded during a ceremony held by one of the most orthodox groups in Matanzas, in the casa of Julio Suarez. The ceremony begins with a salute to sixteen gods, with no chants or prayers. A series of chants to Chang6 follows. Another of the records a-as also the recording of a complete ritual toque with the chants and beats to all the deities of the Iyesa pantheon, unique to Matanzas; an original Bembi. feast as well as a saint’s day, also unique to the province of Matanzas; beats from peasant fiestas; Yuka drums from Pinar del Rio; and a fiesta of Tumba Francesa recorded in Guantanamo by an interdisciplinary team of researchers trained by Argeliers Leon. In the latter production, he counted a-ith the collaboration of Olavo Alkn, a researcher who wrote his doctoral thesis at Humboldt University on that same group of Tumba Francesa in Guantanamo, and with that of Danilo Orozco, from the same university. This “Antologia” continued the one Lydia Cabrera had begun in Matanzas. Each record is a monographic study of the musicological and ethnological event of a specific area. Some female musicology students from the Instituto Superior de Arte contributed notes, analysis, and description of the drums,
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.\laria Teresa L1uares Sauzo
the ceremonies, and other elements. The Instituto Superior de Arte was established in 1976 with Argeliers as a founding member. Many who had been his musicology students at the Instituto de Etnologia. and others who had attended his lectures on black cultures at the University of Havana, joined research centers, participated in cultural exchanges programs, graduated, wrote doctoral theses. and began nea- projects. Olavo A1i.n became the director of the Centro de Investigacion y Desarrollo de la MOsica. From there and with the aid of students and graduates of the Instituto Superior de Arte, he organized the interdisciplinary team that produced the Atlas de instrzcmetztos de la musica czibana. a monument:il n-ork in taro volumes and a set of maps. This work n-as inspired by the idea that Ortiz had insisted on: to draft maps showing characteristics of black cultures. Only an interdisciplinary team could have achieved that task requested by Don Fernando. The Atlas de 10s instnrnzentos de la ?nzisicacuhana, completed in 1776 after many years of research throughout the whole island, contains all the components of musicological analysis required by such a work. This work involved the previous analysis of the five volumes of Ortiz’s Los instrumentos de la musica afrocziba?za (1952-1955). Also. for the adequate research of the Atlas, courses and lectures on organology and transcription were given. the methods and classifications of Sachs and Hornbostel were studied, and the adaptations made by Ortiz himself n-ere considered. Its first stage was a laboratory study of sources, follon-ed by fieldwork in all locations in Cuba where there were traces of traditional and folkloric music. From the fieldn-ork for the Atlas there resulted statistics, changes in organological classifications, master’s essays, and doctoral dissertations in musicology. Many of the researchers of the interdisciplinary team participated in the musicology con~petitionof the Casa de las Americas and were awarded prizes. Apart from the Atlas, much photographic material and musical recordings still remain in the archives. Records, monographic studies, and essays on these topics have been published. In my view, Fernando Ortiz would be proud of encouraging what can be considered the most important musicological work of the last decades of the twentieth century in Cuba, perhaps even in Latin America. Only recently another important work. the Atlas etnografico, was completed by another interdisciplinary team headed by Jesus Guanche, a student of Argeliers Lecin in the University of Ha.ana and a doctor of ethnology in Moscow. The Atlas etnografico was a joint effort by the Centro de Investigacion y Desarrollo de la Cultura Cubana ‘J~iuaMarinello” and the Department of Anthropology of the Academia de la Ciencias. Partial results have been published. such as Artesania p o p z ~ l acubana ~ and El tambor aratPaby Dennis Moreno, Epztre b?”ujas,pica~osy consejas, u n estudio de la tradicidn oral en C L ~and U Ctlentos tradicio?znlesby Maria del Carmen Victori, and others to be published. such as the study on tzanas and romances
by Martha Esquenazi. There n-ill be a multimedia edition of the Atlas etnografico, covering all the studies, with musical examples: it will be a work of essential reference. The Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinernntogrlifica (ICAIC), has released a series of documentaries on the ethnographical components of the Cuban people, its nimba fiestas. toques, religious ceremonies, c a r n i ~ i lparades and music, and musical genres such as the da172617 and the cancionistica. These documentaries are of course guided by artistic criteria but count on the aid of consultants supplying the scientific and musical knon-Iedge required. The films are also a form of dissemination and preservation of Cuban traditional culture, following in the ethnographical footsteps of Fernando Ortiz. The genius of Fernando Ortiz is well known throughout the cultural world as the founder of the Cuban social sciences, for n-hich he n-orked for a large part of his life n-ithout discrirnination. \We are in debt to hiill for what he taught us. lyre believe that all the events that e-oke his name, his research. and his work cannot cover all the essays and researchers he inspired. His work continues to inspire those interested in studying Cuban culture and 31ready has several generations of follon-ers.
NOTES
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La Reco~zqf~
ista de An~grica:r-eJexiorze~ssohr-e el panhispanistno. Paris:
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:
“Sales y Ferre.” El F2;sal-o 27, no. ~ t +-,
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La idc>tztijicacid~zdactilosc6pica. Iryforrrie de policiologia y derecho
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Seanlos hq),covzo,fiiero~za p r . Discurso leido el dia 9 de enero de 1914
en la Sociedad Econ6mica cle -4migos clel Pais. Havana: Imprenta La
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La f ilosofi’ri penal de 10s espi)z’tistas; estzlrlio de filosofia jz~ridica.Havana: Irnprenta La Universal.
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[I9061 Hattlpa czPo-cuhafza: Los 1zeg1.0~~ T Z ~ O/Apzinte~pa)~u
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~ I T Zestudio de ettzologia ciitninall. Con una carta prologo d e Lombroso. 2d ed.
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“Las fases de la e1701ucionreligiosa.” Lecture at the Teatro Payet on April
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[I9141 “Searnos 110)- colno fueron ayer.” In Et? la trihuvza: discul-sos
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m. Etz la trib~r~za:disczrrsos cuhatzos. Prol, and ed. Ruben Martinez Villena. 2 vols. H a n n a : Imprenta El Siglo XX. li? cata1rt.o de c~ibanisnlos:up1ltrtes le.~icogrdficos.Coleccion Cubana de Libros y Documentos Ineditos o Karos no. 4. Havana: n.p. La clecaclc~17ciacz~batza:cot?fetrncia de propyqa~zda renouadora pronzluciada e02 la Sociedad Ecotlotnica de ilt?zigos del Pais la noche del 23 de,fi.hr-cr-odc~1924.Havana: Imprenta La Universal. Glosar-iutlr u ~ o t ~ c g r i s m oHavana: s. Irnprenta El Siglo XX. Recopiluci6~ipa I Z ~1u histotz’a dc. la Socieciad Econdmica Hahanem. Havana: Irnprenta El Universe.
[I9201 La fiesta afrocirbana del “Dia de Reyes. ‘Ha-ana: Imprenta El
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Pro-yecto de ccddigo cri~ninalcubano. (Libro pri~neroo parte general).
e p
Ponencia oficial con un proelnio del autos, un juicio cie E n r i q ~ ~Ferri
un apkndice con 10s primeros comentarios. Havana: Libreria Cervantes.
“El proyecto de chdigo criminal cubano.” Revista Bimestre Czlhalaa 21.
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e
conmemorando el 1.360, anit’e~sarl’ode In Jil?zdc~cidr7
de
d
i
c
h
o
pattl’dtico instituto. Havana: Imprenta El Unixrerso.
“El cocoricamo )r otros conceptos teoplasmicos del folklore
afrocuhano.” Archit’os del Folklore Czrbar~o4. no. 4: 289-312.
Arnericatz Responsabilities [sic]for Cuba s Trobles.
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Lo qlle C~lbadesea de 10s Estados lizidos. Discurso pronunciado por el
Dr. Fernando Oniz en Washington el dia 10 de diciernhre de 1932. Havana: n.p.
La “clnt,e”xilofd?zica rle la m12sicn cz~bana.Ensziyo etnogr%fico.Havana: blolina y Cia.
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Afroczsbanos 1. no. 1: 11-14.
.’La religihn en la poesia mulard.” Estzidios Afroctlbanos 1. no. 1: 15-62.
“Pr6logo.” In jOh. mio Yerna.ya! Cuentos cantos ~zegrosby Rhmulo
Lachatanere. vii-xxvii. blanzanillo. Cuba: Editorial El Arte.
“La cubanidad y 10s negros.” Estzidios Afi.ocz~ha~zos
3: 3-15.
Contrapzlnteo cubano del tabaco .y el anicar. Adce?-tt.ncia de s14s contrastes agmrios, ecoradvzicos, hi.st6tl’co.s y sociales. szi etrzogrufia y szl
tva)zscultllracidn. Prol. by Herminio Portell Vilii. Introd. by BronislanMalinowski. Havana: Jesus Montero.
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.Irlut-ti.): Ias razas. Havana: blolina y Cia.
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indias de Czlba. Havana: Arellano p Cia.
La hqa cubana del il~iminismo.Recopilacion para la Historia d e la Sociedad Econo~nicaHabanera, no. 5. Havana: Sociedad Econ6mica d e Arnigos del Pais. “Por la integracion cubana d e blancos )- negros.” Lecture at Club Atenas on December 12. 1942. CJltra13. no. 77: 69-76. 11943/19421 “Por la integracion cubana d e blancos y negros.” Reuista Bimestre Cubana 51, no. 2: 25672. “Mart! y ‘las razas d e libreria.”’ Cuudertzo.~Anzericanos 4, no. 3: 185-98. El enga~iode las razas. Havana: Editorial Paginas. 119451 “hlarti y las razas.” In Jose .Warti. obras completas. Edicion conmemorativa del cincuentenario de su muerte, ed. Manuel Isidro Menendez, 1: xxiv. Havana: Editorial Lex. 119401 Cuban Cozoztepoint: Tobacco and Sugar. Trans. Harriet de Onis. Prol. by Herminio Portell Via. Introd. by Bronislaw Malinoski. New York: Knopf. El huracan, sz* mitologiay sus simbolos. Mexico City: Fondo d e Cultura Economica. La africaniu de la musica folkldrica cle Cuba. Havana: Ministerio de Educaci6n. Direccion d e Cultura~Ediciones Cirdenas y Cia. “Una moderna secta espiritista de Cuba.” Bohemia 42, no. 3: 8-9, 137-39. “Las espirituales ‘Cordoneros del Orile.”’ Bohemia 42, no. 5 : 20-22. 118-19. 122-23. Los bailes y el teattAode 10s negros en el folklore de Cuba. Havana: Ministerio d e Education, Direccion d e Cultura/ Ediciones Cardenas y Cia. Los instn~mentoscle la mzisica af,-ocuha~za.5 \,ols. Havana: Ministerio de Educacibn. Direccidn de Ci~ltura/EdicionesCdrdenas Cia. [I9421 Martiy las razas. Havana: Comision Nacional Organizadora d e 10s Actos y Ediciones del Centenario )- del hlonumento d e Marti. “El Panhispanismo.” Keuista Bimestre C’zibati’n70, no. 1: 5 5 j 9 . “Presentacion y glosa d e Fray Bartolomt..” Revista Bimestre Cubarza 70, no. 1: 184-210. Historia de una pelea cubana contra 10s demonios. Havana: Universidad Central de LasVillas, Departamento de Relaciones Culturales. [1943/19421 “Por la integracion cubana de blancos y negros.” In Los mejores ensayistas czlbanos, ed. Salvador Bueno. Lima: Imprenta Tomes Aguirre. 119401 Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azucar. 2d rev. ed. Santa Clara: Universidad Central d e las Yillas-Direccion d e Publicaciones. Orbita de Fernando Ortiz. Ed. Julio Le Kil-erend. Havana: UNEAC. “Imperialismo y buena vecindad.” In Orbita de Fernando Ortiz. ed. Julio Le Riverend. 311-19. Havana: UNEAC. 119401 Contrapu~zteocubano del tahaco J, el aziicar. Barcelona: Editorial Ariel. LITzieuocatauro de cubanismos. Ed. Angel Lluis Fernandez Guerra and Gladys Alonso. Posthumous ed. Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales. [I9461 El engafio de leas razas. Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales. 119591 Histo~z’ade unapelea cubana contra 10s demonios. Prol. by Mari a n ~Rodriguez Solveira. 2d ed. Havana: Editorial d e Ciencias Sociales.
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PERIODICALS
Cigar Aftcionado C g a r World Cuba Co~ztempora~zea (Hal ~ n d ) Dzario de la Manna (Hdx a11a) El ,Vfundo (bladr~d) El Sol (bladrld) La Vor (Mddrld) Lyceum (Havana) A21e?zsa~es de la I~zctztisczonHzspano Czih~itzade Cz(1t1rtn( H d ~ a n a ) 'euYork nines Ke~zstaAmetyca (&ladrid) Szirco (Hal dna) Tampa, Florida c Greatat Cztl Tanzpa c Hzllboroz~ghCozlnt) The Tobacco Leaf TIm e Cltra (Hal and)
MANUSCRIPT SOURCES Archi\ro. Casa Museo Unamuno. Salamanca. Archivo Fernando Ortiz. Sociedad Econhmica-Institute de Literatura y Lingiiistica Jose A. Portuondo Valdor (SEAI1-ILL). Havana. Archivo de la Secretaria de la Junta para la h p l i a c i 6 n de Estudios e Investigaciones Cientificas (ASJAE). Residencia de Estudiantes IRE). hladrid. Coleccion Manuscrita Ortiz (C.31. Ortiz). Bihlioteca Sacional Jose Marti (BNJM). Havana. Sala Zenobia y Juan Rarnon Jimi.nez. Biblioteca de la Universidad de Puerto Rico. Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. Secci6n Educacion. Archivo General de la hdrninistnlcion, iUcali de Henares. University of Florida, Gainsl-ille. Manuscript collection. University of South Florida. Tampa. hlanuscript collection. University of Miami. Miami. hlanuscript collection.
VIDEOS AND FILMS
What’s Cuba Playing At.’ [iQue se toca Cuba?] Arens’BBC LMA L024H, 1985. 60 minutes. Videocassette. Gutierrez Alea, T o m s . 1978. La liltiina cena. (The Last Supper. U.S. release).
DISCOGRAPHY
jAhora S i f Here Comes Changiii Liner notes by Danilo Orozco. Coraz6n Records CORA121. Compact Disc. 1994. Antologia de la ~?zzisica afrocubana, vol. 7: Tunzba Francesa. Liner notes by Olvo Alen Rodriguez. Havana: EGREWAreito LD-3606. Phonorecord. 1981. Changiii Liner notes by Dita Sullivan. New York: Traditional Crossroads CD 4290. Compact disc. 1999. Cot6 .y Su Eco del Caribe: A mi .yen?a.yu.Havana: EGREM CD 0254. Compact disc. 1997. Rodriguez. Arsenio. Dundunhanza 1946-1951. Liner notes by Max Salazar. Barcelona: Tumbao Cuban Classics TCD043. Compact disc. 1994. Sexteto .y Septeto Habanera. Grabaciones Completas 1925-1931, 4 CDs. Accompanying liner notes and photos. Las raices del son by Senen Su%rez.Barcelona: Tumbao Cuban Classics TCD300. Compact disc. 1998.
Index
Abaku5 (fianigos), 52; African. 40: Cuban. 4 M 2 . 191n13; language of. 173; religion of. 195. 204: ritual of, 41 Actus clel Folklor-e. 25 1 Africa: Abakua in. 40: Pichardo map of, 44: prisons in, 3 9 4 0 . 42 La africania de la nzusica folkldrica de Cziba (Ortiz), xiv. 51. 65; data collection for. j 8 : inspiration behind. 6; methodology of, 250 Afro- (distinction): identity issues and. 173-75; international use of. 176: interpretations of. 1 7 6 7 8 ; opponents to. 175: origin of Cuban. 171: relerance of. 177-78 Afro-Brazilian Cz~ltz~re aud Politics ( b a y ) . 177 Afro-Cubans: AbakuB societies of. 4 M 2 , 173; dictionaries and. 4 5 4 6 : Elegba represenrations by. 48: ethnology of. 4 3 4 7 ; Janus representations by. 48; language integration by, 5O-51; literature studies on, 4%52; lllusic of. 6. 5O-51; national identity and. 173-76: perception of, 171-72. 184. 210: poetry of, 51-52: self-identification of. 173- 74: tobacco industn and. 116
Agnew, Jean Cristphe, 152 Agrarnonte, Ignacio. 79 Agramonte, Roberto, 65 Agiiero, Gaspar. 249 Aguirre. Carlos. 165 Aimes, Hubert S.. 100 ajiaco: Afro-Haitian relation to, 237-38: Janus comparison to, 234: metaphoric use of. 181. 229-32 Albornoz, Alvaro de, 31 Alcali de Henares prison. 3 9 4 0 Aleman. Mateo. 40 A l h , Olavo. 251-52 Alfarache. Guzman de, 40 Altamira. Rafael, 14, 21, 22; modernization by, 24 Altolaguirre, Manuel. 31 Amado Blanco, Luis. 30. 31 Anzer-ican Respotzsabilities,for Cuba s Troubles (Ortiz). 93 A)zagd. Vocabulurio lucerni el yoru ba qzle se habla el7 Cuba (Cabrera), 248 Arzales del Labolzltorio de Cr-iminologia, 10
“Antologla de la musica afrocubana.” 251
La ~~~~~~opologia crimi?zal en Italia (Dorado hlontero). 13
Apuntes para la historia de las let?-as (Bachiller y Morales), 95 Archivio di Psichiatria, .Wedici,?u Legale ed Antropologia Ct-iminale, 16-17 Archicos del folklore Cuhaizo. xi-. 50. 247; founding of. 249 Arenal, Concepcion, 10, 13 Arguedas, Jose Maria, m i , m7ii Ariel (Rodo), xvii. 214 Arrate, Jose Martin Felix de. 95 Arredondo, Alberto, 175-76, 177 Arrom, Jose Juan. 230 Atlas de instrume~ztosde Iu musica cubana, 252 Atlas etnografico, 252-53 Azcarate, Gumersindo de, 11 Aznar, Manuel. 25 Azul Rojo, 11, 16 Bachiller y Morales. Antonio. 95 Bacon. Robert. 82 Los hailes y el teatro de 10s rregros en el folklore de Czlba (Ortiz). xiv. 65: data collection for, 58; inspiration behind, 6; methodology of, 249-50 Ballagas, Emilio, 52 Baquero, Gaston, 4,232 Barcia Trelles, Camilo. 29 Barnet, Miguel, xii. 45. 239. 251 Barreal, Isaac, 58, 250 Bavtolomt?de las Casas;pensador politico, historiador, a~ztrupdlogo (Hanke), 98 Base para u n estudio sobre la llamaria reparacidn civil: Concepto divisidn del da fio personal del delito. Id. Id. De su resarci?niento: .Vecesiclad social de qzle kste sea gfectir’o (Ortiz), 16 Bastide. Roger, 248 Becerra y Bonet, Berta. 165 Benejam, Juan, 4 Benitez Rojo. Antonio, 69. 165 Bernaldo d e Quires, Constancio, 11. 16; review by, 12 Bernis. Francisco, 29
Bettleheirn. Judith. 239 Biain. P.. 199 Biblioteca histdrica de atitores cl~banos (Trelles). 99 Biblioteca Nacional Jose Marti, 13, 99, 17677 Biography ? f a Rulzarca~ySlave (Barnet). 4 5 Black Drca??zeron(Frobenius), 47 blacks: lifestyle research on, 16-17; suicides by. 16-17, See also AfroCubans Blanco. Alfredo, 25 Blasio. Abele de. 17 Bly. Peter. 21–18 Boas. Franz. 55 Bohemia. 201 Boletin de la Azstitucidn Libre de Enseriairza, 10, 12, 14 Bonilla San hlartin. Adolfo. 23 Branovel. Luis. 164 Brathn~aite.Edn-ard Kamau. 189 Braudel, Fernand, 107 Bremer. Fredrika, 198 Brooke. John. ‘8 Huena Vista Social Club, 105, 241 Bueno. Salvador. 250 Burke. Peter. 69
real rnr e)*o\imzl(Perez Galdos)
207 ‘~daptationsof, 219, 222-26,
regeneration in, 219. rearlen s of,
217-19
El caballero elzcantado y la moza
esyuia:
I3rsidn libre y americana
espaiiola de Benito
de u?ra izoela
P6rc.z GuWds (Ortiz), 207, 219;
epilogue of, 22426: nlotivation
behind, 221; symbolism in, 223-26:
text adaptations in, 222-26
Cabrera. Blas. 26. 28
Cahrera. Lydia. 17,65, 201. 207: Abakua
studies by. 40-41: Afro-Cuban
literature by. 48-j0. 52: IHCC
membership by. 25. Informant
lntenrien 5 bv. 45, literary work by
24-43: ~ i l i ~ scompilation
ic
by, 248.
251; Ortiz influence on. 2 q 7 4 8
Cahrera. hlaria Ester, xiii
Cabrera, Raimundo. xiii. 77. 201
Cabrera. Ramiro. 162
Ca’r~reraInfante. Guillerrno. 118
Cajal. Santiago Ra~nhny, 27
Calderhn. Alfredo. 10
Callejas. Jose hlaria. 99
Campa. Roman de la. 69
Campruhi. Zenobia. 30
C ~ ~ Z C ~h i O
. s pI t ~~o cI z bOa251
n~,
Candil. Fray (Bohadilla). 20
Carmen Yictori. Maria del. 252
Camel ale. Ernanuele. 17
carnivalesque trend. literature. x ~ - i
Carpentier. hlejo. x ~ ix. i i , 50. 65:
Ahakui and. 52: Afro-Cuban
~novementand. 210-11; Cul~an
nligration and. YO: -anguard
movement and. 212
Casal. Juliin del. 100
Casares Gil. Josi.. 28
Casona. Alejandro. 31
Castafiecla. Yalexy. 202
Castellanos. Israel. 25. 161. 165
Castillejo. Jose. 27-28
Castro. Americo. 26. 29. 31
Castro. Fidel. 68: cigar use by. 1 1 6 1 7 ;
globalization conference by, 141,
154-55
L i z cataur’o de c~tba~zist?~os
(Ortiz ), xiv.
241; formalization of. 241: origin of. 240: performance of. 24041: son’s ; of. connection to. 2 ~ t 2 4 . ivariants 241 Charinus. 48. 232 Cliase. Simon. 118 Chomsky. Noam, 40, 154 Churchill, Winston. 118 Cigar Aficio??aclo.114. 117. 118 Cig~lrlVii~-lcl,118 cigars. See tobacco industly El cimar?-017(Barnet). 251 civic movement. Cul~an:early years of. 78; education during, 78-79: elitism of. 78: origin of. 7 6 7 7 Clernence. Stella. 7 Clemente .-ivanco. Juan. 162 Clifford. James. 69 cocoricamo. ~ t ( 2 4 ~ Cofino. Manuel. 177 Cold War. 150 colonialism: neo. 181-83; racism’s tie to. 77: slavery’s link to, 101-2 Conrad. Joseph. 41 Conselheiro. Antonio, 43 Contes n6gr.e~de Cuba (Cabrera). 48 Contra la a?ze.~id1z(Saco), 100-101 C O I Z ~ I - ~ c~tbatzo ~ L ~ I Z&I ~ ~ tahaco L J O.y pl azzicai- (Ortiz), 5: conceptual counterpoint of. 107: core of. 213: c u l t ~ ~ shilping re in. ?n-, xvii: de-elopmental theories in. 135-37: e~nheddeclsocial relations in. 132-33: foreign elements and. 1 3 6 3 7 ; functionalist perspective of. 6 7 4 8 : historical counterpoint of. 107-8; historical themes in. 98-99: hytxid aspects of. 185-86: identity theme in. 214-15: literal? aspects of. 212-13. 21-‘tl5: meraphoric constnlcts in. 107-8. 1 4 2 4 5 : nationalistic perception of, 6 6 4 8 % 1 4 W 9 : organizational isomorphism in. 133-34; postlnodern interpretation of. 69-7’0: production’s primacy in. 134; prologue of. 93: publishing of. 1 4 1 4 2 : stnlcture of.
213; sugar’s interpretation in. 107-8. 14245; tobacco’s interpretation in. 107-8, 14245; transculturation in,
cultural presemation in. 176; dictionaries of. 4546; economic history of, 9699, 10G101; economic issues in, 4-5: educational system in, 5: Elegb5 in, 48; ethnographic studies in, 4547. 5Gbl: faults of, 18244; first republic of, 80-85; Haitian migration to, 238-40; historical studies of, 95-99. 10G101; intellectual exchanges with, 5; Janus period in, 48: languages of, 45; Latin American comparisons to, 8 6 8 7 ; music-language integration in, 5&5l; neocolonialism in, 181-83: panHispanism in, 22-24. 22&21. 224-26; poetry movement in, 51-52; racial classifications in, 203; racism arithin. 183-85: revolutions in, 75, 97-98; slavery in, 101-2; transculturation in. 186: U.S. intervention and, 76-77, 80-82. 84. 91. 182, 190114, 219; U.S. relations with, 84-85. See also AfroCubans: civic movement. Cuban: politics. Cuban; religion(s), Cuban: sugar ~ndustry.tobacco industry Cllha apluma y a laptz (Hazard). 100 Cuba Contemporanea, 78 Cuba Plo]ect/B~ldnerCenter, City L’n~versityof ?Jew York, xi Czlba J Arnt’nca, 14, 16 Cuba su e~’olucz6~z colontal (Figuera), 90 Cuba -1, szl gente (Moreno). 77 Cuba y sus Iueces (Cdbrera), 77 Cuban American Xational Foundation, 117 Cuban Books Series (Coleccion de Libros Cubanos): inclusions in, 99-102: prologues in. 10C103 Ctibatz Cozitzterpoi~zt.See Contrapzrtzteo clibano del tabaco y el azzicar (Ortiz) Cuban Revo1utionar)- Party See Partido Revolucionario Cubano .ubanidad, 181; contradictions on, 189-90: definition of, 189: factors for, 186
Cuentos negros cle Cuba (Cabrera). 47.
Dumont. Henri, 4 4 4 5 El Duque, 118 Dur5n Reynals, Francisco, 29 Durkheim, Emile, 10. 129 economic sociology: developmental theories and, 13637; embeddedness in, 128, 13&33, 135-36: foreign elements and, 136-37; major themes of. 129-31: market development stages and. 129-30: organizational isomorphism and. 133-34: Ortiz’s work in, 127-28: production’s relation to, 130: research projects in, 13&31; transculturation in. 133. See also globalization economics. Cuban: colonization-era, 97-98; factors of. 98: Ortiz study of. 96-79. See also globalization EjCrcito Libertador, 77 Elegba period, 48 Eliseu do Bonfim, Martiniano. 43 El engano de las razas (Ortiz). xiv, 5. 57-58 Elzsa.yopolitico de la Isla de Cfiba (Humboldt), 100 Entralgo. Elias. 65 Entiee ccuhanos: Psicologia tropical (Ortiz), xiii: demographics in, 211: pan-Hispanism and, 220: political message of, 89-90: prologue of. 20-21 Entrialgo. Aquiline, 25 La Espana .Woderna, 13 Esquenazi, Martha. 253 Esquenazi. Roberto, 57 Estrada Palma, Tomis. 74, 77; election fraud by. 76, 80; first republic rule of. 78-79. 80-82: Liberal revolt against. 80-82 Estudios Af~ocz~ba~zo.~, 48 Estudios de Sociologi~i(Sales y Ferri.). 14 ethnography: afro-Cuban. 43-47: history of Cuban. 56-57; Ortiz’s study of. 45-47, 55-61: program structure for. 59-61
ethnomuslcologx . 58 Etnologia y Folklore 251 Eurocenrnsm, 140. 154 & P U P Z ~ Z P the Z ~ 21.1easzrreof Wealth Indzcatovs of Elz~zro,zn2entull1 Szict~iz?zable Del elopment (World Bank), 151 Fabra Rivas. Antonio, 29 Faces de t r u d i p o afi-o-bmsileila (Caroso/’Bacelar), 177 Losj2ctore.s humanos de Icr ct~butziclad (Ortiz). 90 Falco, Francisco Federico. 11 Fernindez d e Castro. Jose. 99 Fernindez Retamar. Roberto. mi Fernando Ortiz Foundation. See Fundaci6n Fernando Ortiz Fernando Ortiz Symposium o n Cuba11 Culture and Histon, xi Ferrero, Guillermo. 17 Ferrero Lombroso, Gina, 17 Ferri, Enrico, xiii. 10. 11: influence of. 9. 16: Ortiz communications ~vith. 15-18; Proyecto response I?,, 162 El F&aro. 15. 16. 20 Figarola Caneda. Domingo. 99 Figuera. Francisco. 90 Figueroa, Esperanza. 57 La filosofia penal cle 1o.s espiritistas: Estudio de filosc~!fu jzil~llicn(Ortiz). 17, 197 Finnegans Wake (Joyce), 212 Finzi, Marcelo. 17 First Inter-American Congress of Demography, 56 first republic. Cuban: aborted pacts of. 80-85; election crisis in. 74. -8. 82-84: revolt during. 8G8L. 84: U.S. intervention during. 8G82. 84. See also politics. Cuban Florida: revolution support in. 112. 116: tobacco industn in. I l l - l t FornP, Josk. 233 Foucault. hlichel, 65 Franchi, Bruno, 17 Franco. Jean. ,n7ii
Frisb).. Da.id. 131 Frobenius. Leo. 47 Fundacicin Fernando Ortiz, xii, 127, 249 Losfir12n’ntnento.sdel cvistia~zismo (Kautsky). 96 Garcia Carr:unza. k a c e l i . 40 Garcia Lorca. Federico, 29, 31. 52 Garcia Yl5rquez. Gabriel, m i Garcia I I a r r ~ ~Fina. z . 234 Garcia Ilenocal, hlario. See &lenocal. Ylario Garcia Gar6falo. Rak~ele.10, 15-16 Gasset. Ortega y. 30 Geertz. Clifford. 69.233 Giner d e los Kios. Francisco. 9. 13. 21 Ginzhurg. Carlo. 66 Gioia. .\Ielchiore. 16 globa1iz:ition: accounts of. 149-51: economic troubles attributed to. 149: Eurocentrism and. 154: financi:ll deepening in. 152: manifestations of, 150: market trnnsforrnations and. 151-52: particle finance and. 153; reprin~arizationin. 151; wealth measurcments and. 151 Glosario ~ l rfrorzegris?nos e (Ortiz), 46, 249 G6mez Blanco. Ramon, 242 Gonzlilez. Ilanuel Pedro. 59 Gonzalez Beauville. Gustavo. 162 Gonz5lez del -alle, Francisco. 171 Gran:ldilla. Julio Ci.sar, 89 Gmnovetrer. Mark. 128. 13&31 Grasserie. Rail1 de la. 15 Grau Srln Llartin. Ramon, 25 Gr-upo Changiii de Guantinamo. 241 Guanche, leius. 252 Guerra. Ramiro. 25, 67. 95 Guel.ara. Chr. 116 Guil~ernrru.Ilontserrar. 68 Guillkn. NicoliLs, 51, 212 Guiteras. Pedro Jose. 95. 10&101 Gulati. Ranjay. 131 Gutit.rrez. A.elino. 25 Gutierrez Quiros, Juan. 162
La Hahana a~ztigz~a .y moderna. 17 Habano Festix-al. 118 Haiti: Cuban ~nusic’srelation to, 237-38. 241-42. 244; migration from, 238-40 Hampa: Antropologia pica resca (Salillas), 40 Hanzpa afro-cubana: Los negros hvzljos (Ortiz). xiii, 10. 19; Afro-Cuban designation in. 171: focus of. 142. 210; influences on, 9 , 16, 164; metaphoric concepts in. 230: nina Zoila in, 41; Ortiz’s approach to. 210: penitentiary city in, 42: prologue to. 39: reformulations in, 184: religious prejudice in, 197; reviews of. 12. 13 Humpa afro-cubana: Los tzegros e s c b ~ ~ (Ortiz), os
Histolr’a de la isla de Cuba (Guiterrls), 95, 100-101
Histol-ia de Santiago de Cuba (Callejas). 99
Histol-ia de L L I I pelea ~ cuba~zacontra 10s de?nolzios(Ortiz), xiv, 66, 198, 247
Ibero-Americanism. 224 Ichaso, Francisco. 67 La identficacidn dactiloscdpica (Ortiz).
IHCC. See Institucihn Hispano-Cubana de Cultura I~nperialEyes (Pratt), 187 Inciaste Brioso, Rafael, 237, 2 4 M 1 Independent Pasty of Color (Cuba). 183 indigenismo trend, literature, m i Zniciadores y primeros martires de la recolucidn Cubana (Morales), 100 Institucion Hispano-Cubana de Cultura (IHCC), xiv, 5, 56; creation of. 24-25. 93: JAE relationship asith, 26-28; lectures at, 28-31: members of. 25; objective of, 25: scholar exchange by. 27-28; supporters of, 25-26 Los ilzstl-uw~entosde la n~usica afiocuhana (Ostiz). xiv. 4. 247, 252; data collection for. 58; inspiration behind, 6 ; methodology of. 250 InterAmericas Society of Arts and Letters of the Americas project, xii Iznaga, Diana, 185 JAE. See Junta para la Arnpliacihn de Estudios e Investigaciones Cientificas Jamaica: cigar industry in. 116: laborers from. 240; music influences of. 245 Janus symbol, 48, 229-30. 232-34 Jarnes. Benjamin, 24 Jimenez. Juan Ramon, 30 Jimenez de Asua. Luis. 18-19 Johnson, Mark, 233 Johnson, Samuel. 49 Jorrin. Miguel, 57 Jorro. Daniel, 12 .Jose Mat?i. Epistolario, 100 Josg Marti. Ideario, 100 ,/ost’,lfarti Poesias. 100 Joyce, James, 209, 211. 212 Junta Cubana de Renovacihn Civica, 92 Junta Cubana de Renovation Nacional.
Histoty of the Yon~bas(Johnson), 49 Hitler. Adolf. 55 Hodge. Ileana. 202 Humboldt. Alexander von. 100 75 El h~lmcurz,S I A nzitologia -y S Z L Ss i ~ ~ ~ b o l oJunta s Sacional d e Prevencibn y (Ortiz). 57-58. 66 Represi6n de la Delincuencia, 160
Junta Nacional de Sanidad y Beneficencia, 161 Junta para la Arnpliacion de Estudios e Investigaciones Cientificas UAE). 25; IHCC relationship with. 2 6 2 8 ; scholar exchanges and, 27-28 Kardec, Allan, 202 Kautsky, Karl, 96 Kennedy, John F., 117 Koestler, Arthur, 233 Krausism. 9, 11 Krauspositivism, 9-10: Dorado Montero and, 12-14: Sales y Ferre and. 14-15 Lacan, Jacques, 233 Lachataiiere. Romulo, 175: Afro-Cuban literature by, 4%50 Laforet, Carmen, 231 Lakoff. George, 233 Lamar, Hortensia, 25, 29 Lamar Schweyer, Alberto, 162 Las Casas, Fray Bartolome de. 102 Le Goff, Jacques, 66 Le Riverend. Julio, 57, 68. 93. 183 League of Nations, 91-92 La Lectul-a. 12 Lemus, Flores de, 28 Leon, Argeliers, 58, 176. 249: music fieldwork by, 250-52; Ortiz’s influence on. 25G51 Lezama Lima, Jose. 65, 234 Liberal Party (Cuba), xiv. 6. 73, 158; first republic rule and, 82-85; insurrection by, 74, 80-82. 84 La Libertad, 19 Linares, Maria Teresa, 58, 250. 251 literature: afro-Cuban studies of. +%52: anthropology’s role in, 215; carnivalesque trend in. xvi: indigenismo trend in. XT~: modernism0 style of, 213; transculturation and, mi-xvii: trends in, xvi, 207, 212-13 literature, Ortiz: early. 210-11; identity themes in, 214-1 5; transformations
in. 21 1-12: vanguard movement and. 212-13 Llanas. J. hl., 11 Lolita (Nabokov), 229 Lombroso, Cesare, xiii, 11; influence of. 9-10. I(%-17, 159. 210; prologue by. 16, 39. 142; secret societies and. 41
Loveira. Carlos, 25 Loynaz del Castillo, Enrique. 74 Lundahl. Mats, 239 Luz y Caballero, Jose de la. 100 Lycezlm. 30 h’laceo. Antonio, 99, 116 Machado. Antonio, 31 hlachado. Gerardo. xiv, 73; election of. 85, 93: Ortiz exile and. 26; Proyecto response by. 162-63: revolution instigation by. 75-76, 158 hladariaga. Salvador de. 29 Maezt~i,hIaria de, 29 .1.fagic. Science. and Religion (hlalinon-ski). 67 The .lfagical State (Coronil), 151 hlagoon. Charles. 82 hlalinon-ski. Bronislaw, 44. 127: Coizt)zrp~lnteointerpretation by, ltj+-): disciples of. 49: Ortiz prologue by. 66-68; transcultiiration embrace by, 139, 185 Alansch. Jorge. 25. 65, 162, 212; literary style of. 213 .\fanl~nlde Tgcnica Anatdnzica (Olhriz). 12. .Ilan~~e/po~rrl’iclent~fcationdes ~l@/ililzql~ents de Madrid (016riz), 12 Alanzoni. Celina. 185 hlaranhn. Gregorio, 26, 28, 30 Alarcos, subco~nandante,149-50 Alariitegui. Jose Carlos. xvii hIarinello. Juan. 25. 100 hlirquez Sterling, Manuel. 74. 77. 85 hlarquina, Kafael, 51 blarro. Antonio, 10 blarti. Jose. 89, 102, 158; autonomy and, 155: Cuban Book Series and, 99;
Cuban Revolutionary P a w and, 116: religion and. 195 Marti-hlaceo Society, 116 Martinez Estrada. Ezequiel. xvii. 213. 215 Martinez Fure. Rogelio, 251 Martinez Sienz. Jacinto Maria. 198 Martinez 'illera. Ruben. 92, 94 hlas6, Calixto, 82 Massey. Doreen. 140 blaza )- Artola, Juan Jose de la. 74 blederos de Gonzilez, Elena, 26 .Mein Kainpf (Hitler), 55 hlella. Julio Antonio. 99 Mendez Capote, Rene. 25 Menendez, Benjamin, 116 Menendez Pidal, Ramon, 26. 30, 60 Menocal, hlario Garcia. 74; corruption and, 182; usurpation of. 76, 82-84. 91 .Mensajes de la Institucidn Hispanocubana de Cultura, 25 Merton. Robert, 66 metaphor(s): ajiaco as, 181, 229-32; colonization, 230; container, 233: Co~ztrapz~nteo use of, 107-8, 1 4 2 4 5 ; counterpoint notion as, 230; gastronomic, 230-32; Janus figure as. 229-30. 232-34: lexical creations as. 230: Los negros bm~josuse of. 230: ontological, 233; Ortiz’s use of, 68-69, 107-8. 1 4 2 4 5 , 229-34; xylophone key. 230 iMiami HeraM 113 Mignolo. Walter. 146 Miguel Gomez. Jose. 74, 83, 182 hlillas. Jose C.. 25 hlinorist group. 93 ,2liscelanea II (Rubin), xviii modernism0 style, literature. 213 Le ,Won& Diplomatique, 149 Monitoring Enuirollnzental Progress (World Bank), 151 Monte. Domingo del, 43 El inoizte (Cabrera). 52, 201. 248 Moncejo. Esteban. 45 hloore. Robin. 237
Moraga, Cherrie, 156 hlorales, Vidal, 100 MorBn. Ceferino, 25 Morel1 de Santa C n ~ zPedro. , 197-98 bloreno, Dennis, 252 Moreno, Francisco, 77 Moreno Fraginals. hlanuel, 65, 69 hlorlon, Pilar, 25 Morlote Ruiz, Luis. 237 Monia Law, 183 El .Mu?ado Ilustrado, 16 Munoz de Quevedo. Maria. 250 music, Cuban: collections of recorded, 248, 251; dance and, 242. 244: documentaries on, 253; immigration instrument origins effect on, 23-0: and, 237, 239; research on. 237. 242. 244-45, 249-53: spread of. 250: transculturation in. 237, 24-45. 249,
Novas Calvo. Lino. 166 Novoa Santos. Roberto. 29 A\iiet’a Cietzcia J~iridica,13 Las nzlecas teor-ias de la critt~itzulidad (Bernaldo de Quir6s). 16 ,\i~evo catauro ~ i c~~banisnzos e (Ortiz). 240 Nuez. Irin de la, 232 ,’\Zloci studi sulla ripamzione MIo~31ita alle t’ittinie del reato (Garhfalo). 16
?Oh, nzfo Ilet17a.ya.l (Lachatanere 1, 47-50 016riz. Federico, 12 O’Naghten. Juan. 162 Onis. Federico de, 26-27. 30 0rbitn de Fernalldo Ot-tiz (Ortiz). 68 Orozco. Danilo. 251 Ortega y Gasset, Jose. 26 Ortiz. Fernando: academy memberships by, 23. 3jn46: Bernaldo de Quiros’s influence on, 11-12: biogrrlpliy of. xii-xiv; birth of, xiii. 3: hook series and. 99-103: Criminal Code Project es and. 18-19: criminology s t ~ ~ d i by. 12-14. 15-19. 4 1 4 2 ; Cuba fli~11ts and. 182-84: death of, xiv: decadence perspectives by. 92-93: dictionaries by,46: doctoral thesis by. 15-16; Dorado Montero’s influence on. 12-14: economic sociology and. 127-37: economics ancl, 93, 96-99, 127-28: education of. xiii. 1, 9: ethnographic work by. 43-17. 56-61: etlinornusicology and. 58: exile of. 26, 29. 93: historiographical perspectives of. 101-3: IHCC creation by. 24-31: island metonym and. 2 3 4 5 : labor views by. 91-92; language studies by. 11-43: Lombroso’s influence on. 9-11, 16-17. 159: marriages of. siii, xiv: maturation of. 193. 19’. 210-12: metaphor use by. 6 G 9 . 107-8. 142-45. 229-34: modernity of. 65-66; multiplicity by. 1j7-58, 165: music research by. 50-51. 237. 242. 24&5. 239-53: nationalism and.
6G-0. l q M 9 ; neocolonialism views by. 182-83: Olhriz’s relationship n-ith. 12: organizational isoniorphism and. 133-34: panHispanism and. 22-23, 220-21, 22+26: poetn definitions by, 51-52; politics and. 6-7. 73-75. 90-94: positivism’s influence on. 15-18, 159: prison studies by, 40; racial viexvs of, xiii-xiv, 5-6, 22-24, 55-56, 183-85: regenerationism and, 19-22, 220; religious views of, 193. 196-204: revival of, 106-7: Sales y Ferre’a influence on, 14-1 j; studies on. xi-xii: transfornlations by. 184.
in. 160: punish~nentconcepts in. 160: Perez GaldAs. Benito. 207. 217; character adaptations and. 222-24: responses to, 1 6 1 4 3 . 16-1 influence of. 218-19: pan-Hispanism and. 224126 Perez Sarciuy. Pedro. 107 h b e l l . Pedro Pahlo, 162 Petit. .4ndres. + I racism: colonialism ties to. 7 :Ortiz’s Pichardo. Esteban, 44. 45-46 views on. xiii-xi\,. 5 4 . 22-2+. 55-56: Picolo cle TI-ieste.17 Kbrld \Var 11. 55-50. 58 Pijoan. Jose. 29. 31 Kaclcliffe-Brown. Alfred Reginald. 60 Piore. hlichael, 134 Kama. Angel. xvii, 12’. 18’ Pittaluga, Gustavo. 26. 30. 57 Plicido. 100 Kaj’z~cla(Cortazar). 213 Ln 1-nz6tcistir ica (\asconcelos 1. ‘ 0 Platt Amendment. 7G77. 82: adoption of. 182; content of. 190nl: Recasens Siches. Luis. 31 repercussions of. 78. 94 La Recoi~qzri.sta dc A~?lt’r.ica:Rt?/l.x-iotles soOre elpaizhisp~irisr?~o (Ortiz). 21. La poesia czrbaizn rt1 19.36.30 22-23. 220-21 p o e t n , 51-52 Polanyi. Karl. 129-31 regenerntionism: Cul~an.19-22. 158: Spanish. 19-22. 219-20 politics. Cuban: aborted pacts of. 8 M 5 : religions. African-based: Cul~a’s.195: civic movement in. 76-70: coop~rati~isrno in. 75. 85; corn~ption decline of. 202-3: e\,olution of. 203: perception of. 202-3: racial factors in. 82: development of. 8 f A 7 : election crisis in. ‘4. 78. 82-84: first . in. 202-3: syncretic cults ~ l n d 203 republic in. 80-85: Ortiz and. 6-7’. religion(s). Cuban: African-based. 195. 73-75: parries in. 74: revolts in. 202-3; Catholicism as. 1%: 80-82. s t : Y.S, inten-ention and. indifference to. 197-200: indigenous. 7 6 - 7 . 80-82. 8-1 194: laxity of. 200: rnultiplicitj. of.
Roche. Kafael. 41 Rodo. Jose Enrique. xu-ii. 213 Rodriguez. Minen7a. 202 Roig d e Leuchsenring. Emilio. 67. 95 Rojas. Maria Teresa de. 248 romanticismo trend, literature. mi Koosevelt. Franklin Delano. 66 Roosevelt. Teddy. 81-82 Rosa, GuimarBes. xvii Rouch. Jean, 49 Rubin. Jane Gregosy. miii Ruiz. Juan. 142 Ruiz-Funes. Mariano. 164 Rulfo. Juan, mii Russo, Antonio, 17 Saco. Jose Antonio, 95. 99. 100-102 Saicl. Edward, 146 Sainz de la hlaza, Regino. 30 Sainz d e Robles. Federico Carlos. 218 Salazar. Adolfo. 30 Saldaha. Quintiliano. 18 Sales y Ferre, hlanuel. xiii: Krauspositivism and, 14-15 Salillas, Rabel. 1C-11, 18: hampa slang and, 42: prison research by. 39-40. 43 Salinas. Pedro. 30 Salvatore. Ricardo. 165 Sama. Joaquin, 10 Sgnchez. Yvette, 234 Slinchez Albornoz, Claudio. 30 Sanford. Charles, 153 Sanguily. Manuel. 74. 195 Saniuan. Pedro, 25 Santamaria. Victor. 30 Santamaria d e Paredes. Vicente. 16 santeria: exclusi\,ity of, 171: music of, 173 Santovenia. Emeterio. 6Sanz del Rio, Julijn. 9 Sarmiento. Domingo, 211 Saye. Luis. 28 Schumpeter, Joseph A.. 128. 134 A Scientific Tbeoty of Cz~ltzrt-e and Other Essa-11s(hlalinou ski). 147 7% Secret Ageizt (Conrad), 41
Septeto Habanero. 2q3 Serpa. Enrique. 162 Sexteto Rolona, 243 Szxteto Hahanero. 243 Si~anken.Manin. 117 Shelton. Rita. 28. 29 S I ~a\ Herzog, Jesi~s,58 Simarro. Luis. 1G11 Sisto. Joaquin. 25 slavery. 45: colonialism’s link to. 101-2: cult~ireassimilation and. 172: e.angelization and. 195; religious effects of. 204: voodoo and. 196 Si~ciedadEconhmica d e Alnigos del I’r~is,xii-xiii. 4-5. 92; achievements of. 90; rmblem of. 232-33: perception of. 25 L(7 s o ~ i ~ ~sect-eta d u ~ l abakzru, nawada pot. rigjos ndeptos (Cabsera). 248 Society of .”Lfro-Cuban Studies. 174 Sociologiu cl-inzinnle (Ferri). 16 sociology: Bernaldo de Quir6s and. 11-12: origins of. 14: prison’s relation to. 165-66; Spanish, 14-15. 5c.e also econornic sociology El Sol. 28 Solis. Hernardo. 25 Solis. Jest.. 25 Solis .\Ienclieta. hl.. 25 Somoza. Anastasio. 117 son (music): changiii connection to. 24344: contemporary. 244; development of. 237, 244 Spain: ci.il n,ar of. 24, 30. j6: colonies of. 181: criminology in. 9-10, 14. 15, 18: expansionism by. 22. 2 6 2 7 ; panHispanism and. 22&21; prisons in, 3 9 4 0 . 42; regeneration and, 219-20 Sp;inish Civil War. 24. 30. 56 Spencer. Herl>er~,13. 16 spiritualism. 201-2 Stul>hs,Jean. 107 Sulirez. Julio. 251 s ~ ~ g industry. ar 4 5 , 56; Contrapzlnteos interpretation of. 107-8. 1 4 2 4j; development parallels to. 135-36: market arrangements and, 130:
nationalism’s synonymity with. 6 6 6 7 : ownersl~ipof, 93: social embeddedness in, 132-33. 135-36: socioeconomic role of, 107-8: transculturation of. 68-69 SIAI-co, xiv. 25. 26 Swedberg. Richarcl. 131 syncretism trend, literature. m i Taft. William H.. 82 La talla hzrinana ell Esparia (Olhriz). 12 Tamayo. Emilia. 117 Tampa, Florida. 111-13. 115-16 Tanzpa Tribzuze, 112 Tapis. Josk. 162 Tarafa, Josefina. 248 Tarred Asmero. Kicol%s,198 Tedlock. Dennis. 69 Ten Years’ Kar. 79. 86, 93, 183 Lu teotzil hdsica bio-sociol6gica (Salillas). 10 El Tiernpo. 20 Time. 152-53 tobacco industr). 4 5 , j6: cigar revival and. 114. 116. 117-18; contemporary. 118: Corztl-apzrtlteos: interpretation o f . 107-8. 142-45: development parallels to. 135-30: market arrangements and. 130: marketing by. 114-15. 116. 117-18: 1990’s strategy for. 110-1 1: production areas for. 114: sales statistics for. 112: social embeddedness in. 132-33. 135-36: socioeconomic role of, 107-8; symbolizarion of. 109: transcultural ties to. 68-69. 18687: U.S. embargoes on. 111-14: U.S. investment in. 110. 111: working conditions in. 113 Tomss. Navarro. 26 Torre. Jose &Pariade La. 99 Torricelli Act. 110 Torriente. Cosme de la. 74. 83 7i-~~nsczllturncidtz n a n n t i ~ , aen AirzP1-ica Latilza (Rama), xvii
transculturation, xii. 181; acculturation v., 185: contradictions in. 187-90: Cotztmp~snteo,56. 67-69. 14445. 185: Cuban, 186; industn ties to, 6 U 9 . 18G87; interpretations of.
Versailles Treat).. 91 La cida penal er? Eipalia (Salillas). 39 l’iejos cantos afi’ocliha~zos.251 \7illaverde. Cirilo. 43 iTitier,Cintio. 234 17itier.51e&rdo, 59 voodoo. 196, 239
La rzrelta a1 ciia en ocI7elzta t?z~lndos
Kilson. \Yoodrow. 74 \ b o d . Leonard. 78 \Y70rld Bank, 151 \Yorld \Tar I. 90 \Yorld War 11. 66: racist aspects of. 55-56. 58 Ximeno. Lola Sfaria. 99
(Cortjzar). 214 X’ar of 1895. 86 R’ar of Independence (Cuban). 81. 99. 110 a ealth: measurements of. 151; tmnsforrnation of. 152-53 X’hite. Harrison. 1.30
-eatman. Ed\ drd D . 59 J7i~dice. George. 69 %ambrano. Alaria. 57. 6 5 %a)-as. Alfredo. 74: corniption by. 85: election of. 82-84 Zulueta. Luis de. 27. 31
Contributors
Carmen Almodovar Munoz. Ph.D., Unix7ersityof Havana. Almoclovar teaches in the Faculty of History and Centro d e Altos Estudios at the University of Havana and directs the Ibero-American Lecture Series at the Centro Cultural de Espana in Havana. She has authored and coauthored several books and edited four critical anthologies on diverse issues of Cuban histor).. Her speci:il~ is Cuban historiography. The UNEAC recently granted her the Distinci6n Nicoljs Guillkn. Alejandra Bronfman. Ph.D., history, Princeton University. An assistant professor of history at Yale University, Bronfman’s current project examines the relationship between social science, race, and black political identities in early tn-entieth-cent~11-yCuba. Her publications include “La harbarie y sus descontentos: raza y civilizacion, 1912-1919,” Tetnas 2 G 2 5 (2001). and “En Plena Libertad J; Democracia: Los negros b n ~ j o sand the Social Question.” Hispanic Anzerican Historical Reviezc (2002). Patricia D. Catoira. P11.D. candidate. University of Ken- Mexico. Currently n-riting her dissertation, “Xsiting Cuba: Transformations of Cecilia ‘L’aldks in Martin Monia Delgado’s Sofia and in Reinaldo Arenas’s La Loma del Angel.” Catoira’s research focuses on slaveq-, race, and national identity in Cuban literature. Fernando Coronil. Ph.D.. University of Chicago, 1987. Coronil is an associate professor and the director of the Doctoral Program in Anthropology and History at the University of Michigan. He specializes in historical anthropology, moclernity, postcolonialism, and state formation. His publications include
The Magical State: ~Vature,,Vloney, und AVoderni[~! zn Venezuela (1987) and the introduction to the second English edition of Fernando Ortiz’s Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar (1995 ). Maria del Rosario Diaz Rodriguez. Education graduate, Instituto Superior Pedagogic0 Enrique Jose Varona; Ph.D. candidate in archival and information sciences. An archivist and cataloger of documents of Fernando Ortiz and Jose Maria Chachn y Calvo in Havana and Madrid, Rodriguez is writing her dissertation on the personal archive of Fernando Ortiz. She has published several articles and chapters, as well as edited books of documents by Juana Borrero and Fernando Ortiz. Antonio Fernandez Ferrer. Ph.D. in philology; professor, Universidad de AIL cala de Henares. FernBndez has edited Juan de Mairena by Antonio Machado (1986), Ejercicios de estilo b ~ R. . Queneau (1987); Borges A/Z (1987); La mano de la hormiga: Los cueiztos tnds breces del mundo (1990), La sed de loperdido: Antologfa by Eliseo Diego (1992); and La isla infinita de Fernando Ortiz (1998). He has also published translations, essays, and research work on literary theon. Hispanic literatures and authors (Gasthn Baquero, Borges, CortBzar, Virgilio Pifiera. Gonzalo Rojas, Salarrue)! literary criticism, arts, and literature. Tomas Fernandez Robaina. A graduate in librav science from the University of Havana and enior researcher at the Biblioteca Nacional Jose Marti, Havana. Fernandez teaches in the Faculty of Communication Studies, University of Havana. He has authored several books and articles: El negro en Cuba: Apuntespara la historia de la lucha colltra la discriminacidn racial (1990, 1994); La prosa de Al-zcolasG~~illSn en defensa del negro cubano (1982); La cririca en torno a Cecilia I’aMes en el siglo XIX (1985); and Reflexiones sobre nuestras rafces 1,realzdudes ufrocz~banas(forthcoming). Fernindez has contributed to the elaboration and edition of several bibliographies, catalogs, and anthologies. Mauricio A. Font. Director of the Bi1dnt.r Center for Western Hemisphere Studies and professor of sociology. Graduate Center and Queens College, City University of New York. Font is the author of Coffee, Contention, and Change in the Making of :Wodern Brazil (1990) and Transforming Brazil (2003). He is the editor of Fernando Henr-ique Cardoso’s collection of essays Charting a Neu; Course (2001) and coeditor of Toxurd a iVew Cuba? Legacies of a Revolution (1997) and Integracidn econdrnica y democratizacidn: AmBrica Latina y Cuba (1998). His current research involves issues of reform and social development. including human rights, democratization, regional integration, and international cooperation in the Americas.
Contribzltors
291
Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria. Sterling Professor of Hispanic and Comparative Literatures at Yale University. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is the author of many books on Spanish and Latin American literatures. His Myth and AT-chicle:A fieo ry of Latin American ~Vawaticewon awards from the Modes Language Association and the Latin American Society of America, and he is coeditor of f i e Cambridge History of Lati~zAmerican Literature, in three volumes. He has recently published The Pride of Havana: A Histoy of Cuban Baseball. The Fondo de Cultura Economica in Mexico is publishing Critica practica/Practica critica, a collection of his essays. He is currently at work on a book on Cervantes. Benjamin L. Lapidus. Ph.D, in ethnomusicology, Graduate Center, City University of New York. Lapidus has presented his research on changui at national and international conferences. With his musical group, Sonido Islefio, Lapidus performed on national television, and released three albums of original compositions, iQui6n Tiene Ritmo? (1998),El Asunto (1999), and Tres Is the Place (20011, were recorded and released on EMI-Capitol and Envidia. For his musical talents, Lapidus received a 2001 “Meet the Composer” award. He frequently gives lectures and conducts m~orkshopson the history and development of Latin American and Caribbean music. Octavio di Leo. Received his Ph.D. in Spanish and Portuguese from Yale University, where he studied with Roberto Gonzslez Echevarria. Di Leo published his doctoral dissertation, El descubrimiento de ~fi-ica en Cuba Brasil[1889-19691 (Madrid, 2001), a comparative analysis of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian literature from the abolition of slavery to the independence wars in Africa, was published in Spain. He is now living and writing in Barcelona, a meaningful city in the life and work of Fernando Ortiz. Maria Teresa Linares Savio studied music at the Conservatorio Municipal de Musica and University of Havana. She has a B.A. in literature and Spanish, and a Ph.D. in art, and she is now an adjunct professor at the Instituto Superior de Arte, Havana. Linares is the founder of the Instituto de Etnologia y Folklore de la Academia de Ciencias; director of the Museo Nacional de Musica; the president of the Musicology section of the Asociacion de Musicos, UNEAC; and senior researcher at the Fundacion Fernando Ortiz. She has published La nzusica y elpueblo. La mzisica entre Cuba .y EspaTia. Elp~uzto cubano, and Trayecto histdrico de la mzisica cubana (forthcoming). Jose Antonio Matos Arevalos. Ph.D., philosophical sciences, assistant research fellow, Instituto de Filosofia and Fundacion Fernando Ortiz, Havana. Matos has published numerous articles in Cuban and international journals. He is the author of La historia en Fernando Ortiz (2000) and editor of Fernando
Ortiz’s previously unpublished works La santeria y la brujema de 10s blancos (2001) and Brujas e inqz~isidores(2001). Matos is currently working on the edition of Ortiz’s unpublished work ,’La virgen de la Caridad del Cobre.” Consuelo Naranjo Orovio. Ph.D., history of America, senior researcher at the Institute of History, Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC, Madrid). General editor of Recista de Indias and historian of the Spanish Caribbean, Naranjo has published several books and articles on Spanish immigration to Cuba, Spanish presence in Cuba, race, identity, and exile, including Del campo a la bodega: Reczlerdos de gallegos e n Cuba, siglo XTY (1988); Cuba, otro escenario de lz~cha:La guerra civil y el exilio republicano esparZol(1988); Medicitla y racismo en Cuba (1996); and is coauthor of Racismo e Inmigracidn en Cuba el2 el szglo XIX (1996) and Relaciones culturales y cientficas entre Espa~iay Cuba: Fernando Ortiz y la Hispanocubana (forthcoming). Maria Fernanda Ortiz Herrera. Ortiz studied biological sciences at the University of Havana and McGill University and obtained her M.S. degree from Ottawa University. In 1969, she married the Spanish diplomat Julio Lopez Jacoiste. Her work has included diplomatic duties and biological research and publications in the fields of genetics and biochemistry. Since 1994, she has dedicated herself to the reedition and diffusion of the works of her father, Fernando Ortiz. In Madrid, she reedited the trilogy La africanfa de la mdsica afrocubana: Los bailes y el tcJatrode 10s negros en el folklore de Cuba, Los instn~mentos de la rnusica afrocubana and Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azucar. Marifeli Perez-Stable. Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Florida International University in hliami. Perez-Stable’s book n e Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, and Legacy was published by Oxford University Press in 1993. A second edition was issued in 1999, which Editorial Colibri published in Spanish. She is currently working on a political history of Cuba and coordinating a task force on Cuban national reconciliation. Miguel Angel Puig-Samper Mulero. Ph.D. in biological sciences, senior researcher of the Institute of History, CSIC. Madrid. A historian of science, Puig-Samper is author of several books and articles on scientific expeditions and cultural and scientific relations between Spain and Latin America, including Las expediciones cientficas en el siglo X17II (1991), La obra cientijica de P. LoJing en Venezuela (1993). La Ilustracidn en AmBrica Colonial (1995); Las Flores del Parais: La exploracidn botanica de Cuba en 10s siglos XWII y XIX (1999); Histom’a del Jardin Botanico de La Habana (2000); is
Contributors
293
coauthor of Relaciones cz~lturalesy cientz;ficas entre Esparla y Cuba: Fernando Ortiz y la Hispanocubana (forthcoming); and is coeditor of Ensayo politico sobre la Isla de Cuba de Alejandro de Humboldt (1998). Enrique S. Pumar. Ph.D. in sociology; assistant professor of sociology and Latin American studies, William Paterson University; director of the MOST Program. He has published numerous academic articles and book chapters dealing with political sociology and development. Pumar is currently revising a manuscript for publication exploring the formation and institutionalization of development ideas. He is also preparing a textbook on globalization. Alfonso W Quiroz. Professor of history, Baruch College and Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the author of several books and articles on the history of cornlption and the financial history of colonial and modern Peru. The curator of centennial exhibitions on the Spanish-American War at the New York Public Library and Kew-York Historical Society, he has published articles and chapters on the histor). of socioeconomic repression, education, corruption, and intellectuals in Cuba. He is coeditor of a forthcoming volume on the Cuban republic and Jose Marti and is currently writing a book on Cuban reformists, institutions, and civil society bemeen 1800 and 1959. Jorge Ramirez Calzadilla. Ph.D. in philosophical sciences; professor, Faculty of Philosophy and History, University of Havana. Ramirez is the chairperson of the Department of Socio-Religious Studies at the Centro de Investigaciones Psicologicas y Sociologicas (CIPS). He has lectured widely in different international institutions. He is the author and coauthor of se-era1books: Religidrz y relaciorzes socials (2000), La religidn en la czlltura (19901, La teologia de la liberacidn desde una perspectivu ccubana (1994), Formas religiosas populares en AmBm’ca Latina (19941, Panoratna de la religidn en Cuba (1996); he is coeditor of Les 7-eligionsu Cuba (2001) and Religidn, cz~ltura y espiritualidad a laspucrtas del2000 (2000). Rafael Rojas. Cuban historian and essayist, currently living in Mexico. A graduate in philosophy, University of Havana, and Ph.D. in history, El Colegio de Mexico, he is a professor and researcher at the Centro the Investigacibn y Docencia Econ6mica (CIDE, Mexico, D.F.) He is the author of several books: El arte de la espe7.a: iVotas a1 tnargen de la politica cubana (1998), Isla sin J n : Contribucidn a la critica del nacionalisnzo cubano (19991, C7nbanquete candnico (2000), and JosB Marti. La invencidn de Cuba (2000); he is coauthor of El ocaso de la ATuevaEsparla and Historia Gerzef-alde Mkxico. He was granted the Iclatias Romero de Historia Diplom%ticaprize for his book Cuba Mexicana: Historia de tlna anexidn imposible (2001) and a Rockefeller fellowship.
294
Contributors
Pamela Maria Smorkaloff. Ph.D. from New York University. She teaches in the Spanish Department at Montclair State University and is the author of Lit-
eratura y edicidn de libros: La culturn literaria y elproceso social etz Cuba (1900-19871 (19871, Readers and Writers in Cuba: A Social History of Print Culture, 1 8 3 0 ~ 1 9 9 0 s(1997). Cuban 1Vriters on and off the Island (1999); she is editor of If1Could Write T%isin Fire: An Anthology of Literature from the Caribbean (1994): she is coeditor of The Cuba Reader (forthcoming); and the author of numerous articles. She is currently working on “Ajiaco and Sancocho: Culture and Cuisine in the Spanish Antilles (Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic).” Jean Stubbs. Ph.D. in history, professor of Caribbean Studies at the University of North London, and president Elcct of the Caribbean Studies Association. Stubbs translated Fernando Ortiz’s “The Afro-Cuban Festival ‘The Day of the Kings’” into English. He has published extensively on Cuban tobacco, gender, and race and is the author of Cuba: The Test of Time (1989) and Tobacco on the Periphery: 4 Case Study in Cuban Labour History, 1860-1958 (1985): he is coauthor of Cuba (Oxford 1996): and is coeditor of Afro-Cuban Voices (2000) and AFROCIJBA (1993). He is currently working on a regional history of the Havana cigar. Ricardo Viiialet. Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Havana, and senior researcher and Chair of the Department of Literature at the Instituto de Literatura y Lingiiistica, Havana, Vinalet has been awarded the distinction Orden por la Educaci6n Cubana. He is the author and editor of works on literary research, criticism, and university education: Temas de literatura espanola, 2 vols. (1984, 19861, Teatro mmantico espanol (1990), and Fernando Ortiz ante las secuelas del 98: u n regeneracionismo transculturado (forthcoming). He also authored the narrative mrorks El dia de la ira (1989), Para sorpresa del caminalzte esc6ptico (19931, and CTnperiodo especial con irreverencias mas o menos cordiales (2000).