Abakuá is a secret society of Cuban origin where only males are accepted, the only one of its kind existing in the American continent. Its members are known as abakuás or ñáñigos (‘dragged’). [1]
Summary
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- 1 Emergence
- 2 Features
- 3 Requirements
- 4 Plants of Guanabacoa
- 5 Rule Plans
- 6 Plants of San Miguel del Padrón
- 7 Plants of Marianao
- 8 Plants of Párraga
- 9 Signs, signatures and rubrics
- 10 See also
- 11 References
- 12 Sources
Emergence
The Abakuá secret society developed in Cuba around 1820 among the newly arrived black slaves from Calabar or Carabalí (present-day Nigeria ), and quickly found adherents among the blacks – slaves or not -, mulattoes and even some whites of humble extraction from La Havana and Matanzas . The economic conditions, the growing needs for labor on the one hand, and the protectionism that surrounded the wealthy classes in the best neighborhoods of the capital, on the other hand facilitated the birth of a socio-political organization like that of the Abakuá.
In the English colonies in the Caribbean Sea, they were called “leopard men.” In the Efi or Ekoi language , the word ‘ekwe’ (used in ceremonies) means ‘leopard’.
In 1836, the Abakuá “powers” began to expand throughout Cuba from the town of Regla .
The first of those secret societies designed by the Carabali or Calabar slaves (present-day Nigeria) was called Efí Butón. Its members, who swore to the secret code of behavior and self-defense, belonged to the Apapá Efí tribe and came from the domestic endowment of a wealthy Havana woman. They were only black and did not admit mulattoes, much less white.
A report from the Spanish colonial government stated that this “first game achieved great renown, because all its members were slaves of counts and marquises.” Its members were known as “abakuás” or “ñáñigos.”
Towards the end of the 1840s, «the ñañiguismo spread inside and outside the walls of Havana, which was divided by the destroyed walls, the number of Creoles being greater than that of Africans, and its main nuclei were the neighborhood of Jesús María and the demarcation known as the Barracks ”, writes Rafael Roche, a police inspector for the Havana government in the book The Police and its Mysteries in Cuba , published in 1925.
The first Abakuá society of whites was established around 1863 at the hands of the mestizo Andrés Facundo de los Dolores Petit, also famous for his contributions to the Rule of Palo with the elaboration of the conceptual and ritual body of the kimbisa variant.
Petit admitted to his sect, from the Efó branch , “numerous Spaniards and white descendants, predominantly from the working class, but some aristocrats, high military officials, politicians and young gentlemen also joined”, as well as Asian immigrants, such as Chinese and Filipinos.
On November 27, 1871, the Spanish colonialist government unjustly shot the eight medical students (white), accused of desecrating the grave of the Spanish journalist Gonzalo Castañón Escaro, who from his newspaper insulted the Cuban independentists. Several armed Abakuá blacks came out in defense of the students and were shot to death. [2]
Ireme Eribangando
This interesting and mysterious brotherhood, unique in Cuba in its sacred memories, by the way, very tangled, you can select characters that by way of seeing are the most important to transmit knowledge such as: the leopard man, designated and identified with him the different squares and hierarchies of society, to Sikán, a woman who discovers the secret and is sacrificed for the sake of it passing to men and not disappearing. Sikan dies in vain, the secret fades more and more; This consisted of a voice, “Uyo uyo anphone”, a sacred voice produced by a fish that she discovered when she returned from the river. The fish was the reincarnation of the old king named Obón Tanzé, king of Efigueremo, who at the same moment was the reincarnation of the supreme god Abasí. Many were the efforts and attempts to transmit the sacred voice, that each time it faded more. The last transmission was on the hide of a goat. Yes there! There yes! There was … that peculiar sound, frighteningly adorable …, the voice that vibrates in the sacred ekué drum ».
characteristics
The ñañiguismo cannot be separated from African beliefs, about the influence exercised by ancestors (spirits), so that in all their religious ceremonies they are summoned to guarantee the development of the ritual act, according to rigorous liturgical norms. The symbolic representation is the Ireme or little devil. The cult activities are all carried out in temples, of which there are 40 between the provinces of Havana City and Matanzas , distributed in the municipalities of Guanabacoa , Marianao , Regla , San Miguel del Padrón , Cárdenas and the city of Matanzas .
In all the rites, lines or spellings called ekeniyó are used, which constitute an ideographic system of signals to immobilize and fix the representations of global events. Such symbols are traced in yellow and white plaster and comprise three categories, the gandos, the signatures or Anaphoruanas, and the seals.
The gandos represent complex ceremonial situations, they are traced on the ground and different objects of worship are placed on them and the religious leaders (squares) are placed. The signatures or anaforuanas represent each of the hierarchies that make up the structure of the Abakuá, and they fulfill a consecrating function when they are drawn on certain elements of the ritual.
The stamps are the representation or identification of each Abakuá game or power, of which there are 123 in all of Cuba. At present, the Abakuá have coordinating bodies in the municipalities of Cárdenas , Matanzas , Guanabacoa , Regla , Marianao and San Miguel del Padrón , and two at the provincial level in Havana and Matanzas , all in charge of controlling obedience to the regulations and principles of society.
Within the ñañiguismo several hierarchies are recognized. The “indisime” is the aspirant to enter a power, while the “obonekué” is a man already initiated. The “plaza” is a lifelong hierarchy that occupies a relevant position within the game and is in charge of preserving and enforcing ritual and social norms and principles. Some titles of plazas are iyamba, mokongo, ekueñón, nkrikamo, nasako, and others.
Requirements
Only heterosexual males are allowed in the Abakuá secret society . When inquiring among its members what their concept of man is, they expressed: “Man is not only the one who is not homosexual , but the one who reflects the purest dignity of the human being as industrious, fraternal, joyful, rebellious against injustice, compliant with moral code established by the formative ancestors of the abakuá. He is the one who is a good father, a good son, a good brother and a good friend.
