"JEWISH" and "CHRISTIAN" PALO in CUBA
by Tatandi Eoghan Craig Ballard, Ph.D., University of
Pennsylvania
In Cuba, using very much a
late renaissance European metaphor, Palo has been classified as existing in two
major forms, Palo Endoqui and Palo Nzambi, the former called Judio --
"Jewish" -- and the latter Cristiano -- "Christian." These
two forms are in fact based upon African originals and a distinction that goes
back to feuding sources of authority in Kongo religion during the earlier days
of the Kingdom of Kongo.
Religion in the Kongo was
always a political thing and associated both with the spirits but also with the
kingship. Religion's primary role was the maintenance of the kingdom and the
king was himself sacred. So these shifts represented shifts in political
control.
The generally accepted
understanding is that there were several forms of cult in the Kongo that
passed, as these things usually did, for political reasons, in and out of favor
with the aristocracy.
One cult associated
Lukankasi as the supreme deity and the other Nzambi. Lukankasi was of the sky
and Nzambi of the earth. A third deity, Kalunga, associated with the sea and
the underworld, also was considered a supreme deity. Although in the Kongo
Nzambi, Lukankasi, and Kalunga were the supreme deities of contesting political
factions, they were not all that different from one another -- or perhaps more
accurately, there is little evidence remaining to distinguish them. To this day
in the Congo and among neighboring peoples, Kalunga and Nzambi are both names
for the supreme deity and are used differentially depending on the language
spoken.
In time, however -- and in
the Americas -- these three contending supreme deities of the Kongo became
associated with quite different entities of the Christian and Yoruban
pantheons.
When European missionaries
arrived in the Kongo, their entire religious exchange with the Kongolese was
accurately described (and I believe both Thornton and MacGaffey have used this
metaphor or variations on it) as "a dialogue of the deaf." This is
because the symbol systems and structures of the two peoples had certain very
visible similarities, especially in the linguistic metaphors they used. As a
result, Christians adopted
the terms used by the Kongolese for religious issues and deity. The Europeans
and the Kongolese were then able to speak about religion and spiritual reality
using a common "dialect" or vocabulary. The problem was that the
Kongolese meant one thing and the Christians another. Both however, thought
they understood each other.
Nzambi was associated by
the early missionaries with the Christian God. They accepted Nzambi as God
because they were trying to graft Christianity into the existing hierarchy.
This identification occurred when the Kongolese king Aphonso Ist became a
Christian, and was undertaken to shore up political power in the face of
opposing contenders for the throne (who were ever present) apart from any other
spiritual concerns. In the Diaspora, Nzambi remained the dios otioso, mentioned
but never really invoked in Cuban Palo.
Lukankasi, because he was
the deity who was displaced in the Kongo by the Cult of Nzambi, became
associated with the Christian Devil. Because he was the deposed deity in the
Kongo at the time that the European missionaries arrived, he had already been "demonized,"
although not to the degree that the
Europeans tended to demonize former deities. Kalunga, because of his
association with the ocean, became
associated in the Diaspora
with the Yoruban Orishas Yemalla and Olokun and subsequently changed gender to
female. The association of Kalunga with Yemalla and Olokun only occurred after
the Kongolese encountered the Yoruban pantheon. This happened in the New World.
Remember that
"Kongo" in the New World religious scene is a "shorthand"
for a large group of closely related peoples who came here, not simply those
who spoke Kikongo, although for example in Cuba and North America those
dominated. Still, languages are very, very close in that area of Africa and
each culture and tribe had minor variations in belief and usage. This makes a
very flexible understanding necessary
when dealing with the
development of Kongo-derived religions in the Diaspora.
It is also necessary to
point out that there are fundamental differences between Kongo Palo and Yoruba
Ocha beyond the well-known adage that "Palo deals more with the dead than
Ocha," while "Ocha deals more with the Gods." Although Palo does
deal more with the dead than Ocha does, its true distinguishing feature is that
Palo is a religion based upon the beliefs and religion of the Kongo -- it is of
Central African Bantu tradition. Ocha, on the other hand, is a completely
different tradition. It is Yoruba, which is West African and of the language
(and cultural group) generally referred to as Sudanese.
In Cuba, as elsewhere in
the New World, the slaves of Kongo origin eventually made an uneasy peace with
the more recent Yoruba arrivals from Nigeria in the 19th century.
The two mixed, and still
do, somewhat uncomfortably, largely because a fair number of people
intermarried and people came to have access to both religions as part of their
ethnic heritage. There are those who move between the two easily and many more
on both sides of this line who are ill at ease with the other tradition. What
is more important than the subtleties of the interaction is the recognition
that they are not in reality two parts of the same tradition but two distinct
religions from vastly different and widely separated cultures, the Yoruba and
the Kongo.
The contemporary belief
expressed by some Cubans and Cuban-Americans that Ocha was considered
"greater" than Palo was a view largely advanced by the Yoruba and one
rarely shared by people of Kongo descent. Another Cuban idea, "Your head
belongs to Ocha [worship of the Gods], your back to
Egun [ancestor
veneration]" is explained because the spirits in Palo are not placed on
your head but rather on your back.
In the Diaspora, two major
varieties of Palo emerged over the last hundred and fifty years. They are
called in the more Kongolese terminology Palo Nzambi and Palo Endoqui (Ndoki).
These have been glossed in Spanish, using European equivalents, as Palo
Cristiano and Palo Judio -- "Christian Palo" and "Jewish
Palo."
Without exception, all
Cuban Paleros will agree on this point: Those houses that follow Endoqui
traditions (those which are not syncretised with Christianity) are called Palo
Judio. All others (namely, Palo Nzambi) are Palo Cristiano.
The association of one type
of Palo as "Jewish" in contrast to "Christian" is
unfortunately a negative one generally, and it does not refer to Judaism per
se. More accurately, it really refers to the absence of Christian symbolism in
the religious practice. Palo Nzambi makes visible use of the Crucifix and holy
water in its religious articles while Palo Endoqui avoids Christian symbolism.
It is worth noting that few
Paleros who are Endoqui refer to it using the European terms, but rather prefer
the African ones. Also, there are Paleros Endoquis who work with both sets of
symbolism and methods. And, I hasten to reiterate, while Palo Endoqui, aka Palo
Judio, is not Christian in its orientation, you will find nothing relating to
Judaism in it either.
Of course, as Palo really
is a number of fairly closely related religions and not one single tradition,
there are no absolute universals here, either.
There is at this time
nothing of value in print on this subject in English. My advice is to read two
books by Lydia Cabrera. One is entitled "Palo Monte Mayombe: Las Reglas de
Congo" and the other is "El
Monte." Both of these books are available through a large number of
botanicas across the country or through amazon.com.
Tata Nganga Nsasi Masongo Quimbisa
Eoghan Ballard, Ph.D.
eballard@sas.upenn.edu
University of Pennsylvania
=========================================================
Note: This article was
compiled by cat yronwode from three
separate posts made to the
usenet newsgroup
alt.religion.orisha in
November, 2000, and is archived with
permission. © 2000 Eoghan Ballard.
