Abakuá, also sometimes known as Ñañiguismo, is a Cuban initiatory religious fraternity founded in 1836. The society is open only to men and those initiated take oaths to not reveal the secret teachings and practices of the order. Members are typically known as Abanékues and are divided amongst lodges or chapters called juegos. Abakuá derives largely from the Ékpè society of West Africa but shows adaptations like the inclusion of Roman Catholic symbolism.
The society teaches the existence of a supreme divinity named Abasí who supplied humanity with a form of supernatural power. This power holds a central place in Abakuá's origin myth. Rituals are called plantes and typically take place in a secluded room, the fambá. Many of the details of these ceremonies are kept secret although they usually involve drumming. Some of the Abakuá society's ceremonies take place in public. Most notable are the public parades on the Day of the Three Kings, when members dress as íremes, or spirits of the dead.
Abakuá derives much from the Ékpè society, which was established by Ejagham people living around West Africa's Cross River basin during the 18th century. Ékpè was involved in international trade, including in slaves, as a result of which various Efik people, including Ékpè members, were enslaved and transported to Cuba. It was there, in 1836, that Abakuá was formed in Regla. The society soon spread to other areas and split into two branches, the Efó and the Efí. Although membership was initially restricted to Afro-Cubans, by the 1860s it also had members from other ethnic backgrounds. Becoming increasingly influential in the stevedore, transportation, and manufacturing industries of Cuba's ports, Abakuá also developed a reputation for criminal activity. After the Cuban Revolution, Abakuá continued to face persecution but benefitted from the liberalising reforms of the 1990s, when it became increasingly important in Cuba's tourist industry.
Definition
Abakuá represents a confraternity. It is a religious group, often seen as a religion by its practitioners, and it seeks to provide spiritual protection for its members. It also operates as a mutual aid society, offering economic assistance to its members. Only men are permitted entry—although gay men are typically excluded—with these members regarding each other as brothers. These members are referred to as Abanékues, or as ecobios. A once common term for members was Ñáñigos, a term potentially deriving from the nyanya raffia chest piece worn on many Ekpe and Abakuá ritual costumes. Abakuá has been described as "an Afro-Cuban version of Freemasonry".
The term Abakuá likely comes from Àbàkpà (Qua-Éjághám), one of the peoples from Calabar. Abakuá is one of three major Afro-Cuban religions present on the island, the other two being Santería, which derives largely from the Yoruba religion of West Africa, and Palo, which has its origins among the Kongo religion of Central Africa. Another Afro-Cuban religion is Arará, which derives from practices among the Ewe and Fon. In Cuba, practitioners of these traditions often see these different religions as offering complementary skills and mechanisms to solve problems. Thus, some Abakuá members also practice Palo, or Santería, or alternatively are babalawos, initiates in the divinatory system of Ifá.
Organisation and membership
Operating along a highly organised structure, the Abakuá society displays a complex hierarchy. Different members play different functions in the society. Members pay fees to join the society and subsequent dues, money which finances the operation of the society. Members are bound to oaths of secrecy not to reveal details of the group's beliefs and practices.
Chapters are referred to as juegos, potencias, tierras, and partidos. The creation of a new chapter requires the permission of the society's elders as well as a collective consensus in favor of its establishment. The formation of a new lodge requires consecrated drums. Each juego has between 13 and 25 dignitaries, or plazas, who govern it. Each dignitary has a different title that indicate which ritual tasks are their responsibility. If there is a disagreement within a juego, members can branch off to form their own group. In 2014, the scholar Ivor Miller noted that there were then approximately 150 lodges active in Cuba.
Initiation may only take place in Cuba itself. The oaths of loyalty to the Abakuá society's sacred objects, members, and secret knowledge taken by initiates are a lifelong pact that creates a sacred kinship among the members. The duties of an Abakuá member to his ritual brothers at times surpass even the responsibilities of friendship. The phrase "Friendship is one thing, and the Abakuá another" is often heard.Miller, “A Secret Society Goes Public", African Studies Review 43.1 (2000): 164. A member's loyalty is primarily owed to their lodge and its lineage. Members identify each other through coded handshakes, phrases, or, in certain circumstances, specific whistles.
Beliefs and practices
Abakuá draws heavily on the West African Ekpe society but also reflects innovations and developments that have taken place in Cuba. The supreme deity in Abakuá is called Abasí. Members look back to Calabar as a holy place.
Origin story
There are various versions of the group's origin story, some of which contradict the others. It revolves principally around how the god Abasi delivered a source of power, which was in the form of the fish Tanze, to two rival groups, the Efor and the Efik. In one version, an Efor woman, Sikán, found the fish in the river and revealed it to the Efik; another variant has her betray the Efor after she married an Efik man. Some versions of the story maintain that men killed Sikán and seized the power; they then banned women from involvement in their society so that they would never again obtain the power. In the story, the Efik then pressured the Efor to share the power with them, with seven members of each group meeting to sign an agreement; one individual refused, and this resulted in the thirteen major plazas within the society.
This origin myth explains the exclusion of women from the society. The myth is also re-enacted through a number of the society's rituals.
Practices The society's rituals are called plantes. These include initiations, funerals, the naming of dignitaries, and the annual homage to Ekué. The details of these rites are kept secret from non-members.
Rituals often take place in a special room, the "room of mysteries", known as the fambá, irongo, or fambayín. This room is prepared for rituals by the drawing of images, called anaforuanas or firmas, on the space and objects within it.
Brown noted that altar objects are "permanent living repositories of ancestral presences". These altar objects may be renevado (renovated) during which they are redecorated, and this may also entail then being "recharged" with spiritually powerful substances. Aesthetic innovations developed in one lodge may get adopted by others.
These are full of theatricality and drama, and consist of drumming, dancing, and chanting in the secret Abakuá language. Knowledge of the chants is restricted to Abakuá members. Cuban scholars have long thought that the ceremonies express Abakuá cultural history.Miller, Ivor. “Cuban Abakuá Chants: Examining New Linguistic and Historical Evidence for the African Diaspora.” African Studies Review 48.1 (2005): 27.
When a lodge member dies, all of the lodge's other activities stop until the correct rites have been conducted.
Music
Music is central to Abakuá rituals. Drumming plays an important role in Abakuá rituals, as it does in other Afro-Cuban traditions. Abakuá chapters will often have two separate sets of drums, one used in public events and the other in private ceremonies. These drums will be consecrated prior to ritual use and then fed with the blood of sacrificed animals.
Public drumming ceremonies rely on the use of four drums, each typically cut from a single log and left undecorated except for an anaforuana marked onto the skin. The largest of these drums is called the bonkó enchemiyá; it is approximately 1 metre tall and placed at a slight tilt when being played. The other three drums, which are typically around 9 to 10 inches in height, are called enkomó. The three are tuned to produce different types of sound; that which reaches the highest pitch is the binkomé, the middle is the kuchí yeremá, and the lowest is the obiapá or salidor. The three enkomó are each placed under one arm and hit with the other, using fingers rather than the whole hand. As well as these four drums, the public rituals are typically accompanied with two rattles, the erikundí, and a bell made from two triangular pieces of iron, the ekón.
Private rituals involve four drums, the enkríkamo, ekueñón, empegó, and eribó or seseribó. These four drums are decorated with at least one feathered staff, attached at the end with the skin. They may also have a "skirt" of shredded fibers. The eribó, which has four of the feathered staffs rather than just one, is constructed differently, having the skin attached to a hoop of flexible material. Sacrificial offerings are placed over this drum, which represents the dignitary Isué. The enkríkamo is used to convene the spirits of the dead, while the ekueñón is employed by the dignitary tasked with dispending justice and performing sacrifices, which the drum is expected to witness. The empegó is played by the dignitary of the same name and is used to open and close ceremonies.
Also important in rites is a drum called the ekve, which is kept concealed behind a curtain in the fambá. The ekve is a single-headed wooden friction drum with three openings at the base, giving the impression of three legs. It is played by rubbing a stick over the skin, with the resulting sound symbolising the voice of Tanze the fish.
Although hermetic and little known even within Cuba, an analysis of Cuban popular music recorded from the 1920s until the present reveals Abakuá influence in nearly every genre of Cuban popular music. Cuban musicians who are members of the Abakuá have continually documented key aspects of their society's history in commercial recordings, usually in their secret Abakuá language. The Abakuá have commercially recorded actual chants of the society, believing that outsiders cannot interpret them. Because Abakuá represented a rebellious, even anti-colonial, aspect of Cuban culture, these secret recordings have been very popular.Miller, Ivor. "A Secret Society Goes Public", African Studies Review 43.1 (2000): 161.
Day of the Three Kings
Members take part in the public carnival held on January 6, the Day of the Three Kings. For this they wear elaborate outfits consisting of checkerboard cloth, a design perhaps influenced by a leopard skin pattern. They also wear a conical headpiece that is topped by tassels, which is based on those of the Ejagham. Dressing as íremes signifies the return of the dead to Earth.
Permission to conduct an Abakuá procession must come from the lodge leaders and also requires access to their ritual objects.
Language The ritual language used in Abakuá is commonly called Brícamo. The Abakua language was proposed by Nunez Cedeno (1985) to be a Spanish-based pidgin, with the main African lexical influence originating from the Ibibio language.Rafael A. Núñez Cedeño. “The Abakuá Secret Society in Cuba: Language and Culture.” Hispania 71, no. 1 (1988): 148–54. https://doi.org/10.2307/343234.
History Ékpè and the Atlantic slave trade