Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 96, No. 4 (Oct., 2001), pp. 990-1005 Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3735865 Accessed: 29/11/2010 18:11 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mhra. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Modern Humanities Research Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Modern Language Review. http://www.jstor.org AFROCUBANISTA POETRY AND AFRO-CUBAN PERFORMANCE In the I920S Cuba's intellectuals began to search for a new definition of Cuban cultural identity as a response to increasing US domination of all aspects of Cuban life. Influenced by European and North American 'black' and Primitivist artistic movements, the nation's literati soon turned their attention to Afro-Cuban cultural traditions. To them, these represented a home-grown culture that was unique to the island and had remained largely uncontaminated by US cultural influences. Consequently, they seemed a particularly appropriate source of raw material for the production of nationalist literary forms. These writers formed the afrocubanista poetic movement and, during the decade I928-I938, they wrote poems incorpo- rating Afro-Cuban culture. In a more general sense, the movement can be understood as part of a discourse of mestizaje which, as Vera Kutzinski points out, has been central to the construct of Cuban national identity since the writings of Jose Marti.' The leading figure of nineteenth-century Cuban nationalism heralded the idea of a Cuba free of racial divisions in order to convince Cubans of all colours to fight together for independence from Spain. More specifically, with the notion of 'nuestra America mestiza', he sought to promote an image of racial unity which would counteract the Cuban whites' fear that, in an independent Cuba without protection from Spain, blacks would rise up and take over the island.2 Like their revered national hero, Cuban intellectuals of the I92os and I 93os also came to believe that Cuban blacks' cooperation with Cuban whites was an essential prerequisite for the island's autonomy. After Cuba became an independent republic in I902, fear of black mobilization had continued, as it was widely believed that it would provide an excuse for US occupation.3 In this way, solidarity amongst all sectors of the population again appeared necessary for full Cuban independence. Afrocubanista poets assumed that the way to make blacks feel part of an oppressed Cuban people, thus discouraging their mobilization and gaining their support for the nationalist cause, was to enhance unity between the two racial groups. As evident in the programme of the Sociedad de Estudios Afrocubanos, they assumed that this could be achieved by bringing to the fore 'mulatto' cultural forms, which had resulted from the coexistence of blacks and whites throughout Cuban history.4 Fernando Sugar's Secrets. Race and the Erotics of Cuban Nationalism (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993), p. 56. 2Jose Marti, 'Nuestra America' (1891), 'Mi raza' (1893), 'El "manifiesto de Montecristi": El partido revolucionario a Cuba' (1895), in Jose Marti: Sus mejorespdginas, ed. by Raimundo Lazo (Mexico: Porrua, 1985), PP.87-93,52-53,67-72. 3 Vera M. Kutzinski, pp. I40, I43, and Aline Helg, Our Rightful Share. The Afro-Cuban Struggle for Equality, i886-i912 (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1995), pp. 190, I45, 219 4 The Sociedad de Estudios Afrocubanos, founded in 1936, was presided by Fernando Ortiz and its members included afrocubanista poets Emilio Ballagas, Ram6n Guirao, Nicolas Guillen and Marcelino Arozarena (see 'Miembros de la Sociedad de Estudios Afrocubanos', Estudios Afirocubanos, I (I937), 9- IO). Consequently, the objectives which the association set out to achieve can be seen as a reliable outline of the afrocubanista ideology. The notion that these intellectuals wanted to promote cultural unity by bringing to the fore 'mulatto' cultural forms is evident in the following quotation from 'Los estatutos de la Sociedad de Estudios Afrocubanos': El objeto de la Sociedad de Estudios Afrocubanos sera el de estudiar [. . .] los fen6menos [.. .] producidos en Cuba por la convivencia de razas distintas, particularmente de la llamada negra de origen africano, y la lamada blanca o caucasica, con el fin de lograr [.. .] la mayor compenetraci6n igualitaria de los diversos elementos integrantes de la naci6n cubana MIGUEL ARNEDO 991 Ortiz, the movement's leader in questions of Afro-Cuban culture, was the main advocate of this approach. He believed that 'truly national' cultural forms were those incorporating elements from both African and Spanish origins. According to him, these 'mulatto' forms, as he called them, emerged from a common juice or stock formed by the historical interaction between black and white Cubans. Afrocubanista poetry was one of the products of this process, a 'mulatto' literary genre that symbolized black and white cultural unity because it introduced 'black' cultural forms into 'white' poetry.5 The study of this movement must meet the challenge of reaching a balance between denouncing aspects that are ideologically troublesome and rescuing those that are positive. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of Fernando Ortiz. On one hand his acceptance of the notion of biological determinism, which sustains nineteenth-century racial theories, is noticeable in many of his writings.6 Further- more, although he gradually moved from overt hostility to relative acceptance of Afro-Cuban culture, evolutionist and highly elitist descriptions of it continue in his writings as late as the 1950s (see Moore 1994, and Arnedo 200 ). On the other hand Ortiz's writings contain highly exploitable formulations that have been productively adapted and elaborated upon in important works of criticism in the last forty years.7 Elsewhere I have explored the restrictive aspects of his concept of'mulatto poetry', hacia la feliz realizaci6n de sus comunes destinos hist6ricos. (p. 7) Members of the Sociedad saw it as a response to the urgent need for blacks and whites to feel 'conjuntamente responsables de la fuerza hist6rica que integran' and, thus, 'propender honradamente, en una identificaci6n totalitaria, al examen profundo, inteligente, valeroso e imparcial de los fen6menos producidos en la isla a causa del contacto entre sus pobladores mas etnicamente caracteristicos'. The role of the Sociedad, they felt, was to 'ser un instrumento para ese examen y para esa uni6n' ('La Sociedad de Estudios Afrocubanos Contra los Racismos. Advertencia , comprensi6n y designio', 3-6 (pp. 5-6)). 5 For a more detailed analysis of Ortiz's concept of mulatto poetry, see my 'Arte blanco con motivos negros: Fernando Ortiz's Concept of the Cuban National Culture and Identity', Bulletin of Latin American Research, 20 (2001), 88-101. 6 See, for example, Los negros brujos (I906) (Miami FL: Ediciones Universal, 1973) where he claims that 'el fetichismo, como suele decirse, esta en la masa de la sangre de los negros africanos' (p. 230). Considering Ortiz's status as the 'defender' of blacks (see Robin Dale Moore, 'Representations of Afro-Cuban Expressive Culture in the Writings of Fernando Ortiz', Latin American Music Review, 15 (1994), 32-54 (p. 33)) and his important role in afrocubanismo, it is shocking to see how these theories continued to influence his work years later. The following extracts from a book published in 19 3 strongly reflect the influence of Herbert Spencer's Social Darwinism: El transformismo es hoy ley de la vida en todas sus manifestaciones [...]. Acaso nuestro porvenir nacional no sea en el fondo mas que un complicado problema de seleccion etnica - fisiologica y psiquica. Quizas no se trate sino de conseguir que el espinoso cactus de nuestra psiquis criolla (desgraciadamente cruzada con especies de escaso jugo y de muchas puas) vaya por escogidos cruzamientos con cactos jugosos y sin espinas [...]. La selecci6n de este cactus humano [...] especialmente en Cuba - sigue abandonada a si misma, determinada por las mas elementales leyes fisico sociales, luchando contra la biologicamente general prolificuidad de las especies inferiores. (Entre cubanos. Psicologia tropical (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1986), p. 54). 7 In particular, his term and concept 'transculturation'. See, for example, Gustavo Perez Firmat, The Cuban Condition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I989), My Own Private Cuba: Essays on Cuban Literature and Culture (Boulder, CO: Society of Spanish and Spanish-American Studies, I999); Antonio Benitez Rojo, 'Fernando Ortiz and Cubanness: A Postmodern Perspective', Cuban Studies, 18 (1988), I25-32; Angel Rama, Transculturacion narrativa en America Latina (Mexico: Siglo xxi, 1982); Fernando Coronil, 'Transculturation and the Politics of Theory: Countering the Center, Cuban Counterpoint', in Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint, trans. by Harriet de Onis (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 1995), pp. ix-lvi; Catherine Davies, 'Fernando Ortiz's Transculturation: the Postcolonial Intellectual and the Politics of Cultural Representation', in Postcolonial Perspectives on the Cultures of Latin America and LusophoneAfrica, ed. by Robin Fiddian (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), pp. 141-68. In 'La critica latinoamericana y sus metaforas: algunas anotaciones' (Thesaurus: Boletin del Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 54.3, forthcoming) Patricia D'Allemand provides a useful analysis of some of the uses given to Ortiz's concept in Latin American cultural criticism. She denounces the recent tendency to focus solely on its reductionist aspects and stresses the importance of also exploiting its productive potential. 9Afrocubanista' Poetry which implied a view of Cuban national culture and identity as imbued in a whitening process in which 'pure' African cultural forms were disappearing (Arnedo 200I). This article is an attempt to achieve a more desirable balance by looking at some of the more positive effects that Ortiz's concept had on the afrocubanista poetic production. This article explores the difficulties posed by the non-written nature of Afro-Cuban culture for these intellectuals in their endeavour to produce 'mulatto' poetry. It then illustrates the various ways in which they overcame these problems in the process of formally incorporating Afro-Cuban culture. Drawing from these explanations, the article then evaluates Ortiz's concept and the poetry's potential to symbolize a harmoniously integrated Cuban cultural identity. Fernando Ortiz generally referred to all afrocubanista poems as mulatto. Neverthe- less, he viewed some as being more authentically or typically mulatto than others. Producing these authentic mulatto poems was not just a question of using Afro- Cuban culture as subject matter but, rather, as an instrument through which to alter high literary forms. In relation to language, for example, he argued that it was necessary to do more than simply insert the occasional Afro-Cuban term. The poetry achieved through this kind of approach would not be negroide: 'como no lo es el retrato de una mulata en una postal de litografia alemana. Es poesia, al parecer, mulata por su virtud de espejo donde se refleja una externidad; pero no lo es por su naturaleza intrinseca'.8 One obvious difficulty afrocubanistas faced in formally incorporating Afro-Cuban cultural forms was that this task clearly required a degree of proficiency in Afro- Cuban cultural traditions. Unfortunately, like most of the second generation of republican intellectuals, these poets did not come from the black sectors where these traditions were practised. Instead, they belonged to the middle classes, and were highly educated in the dominant culture.9 Emilio Ballagas, for example, belonged to a white middle-class family in Camaguey. He received a university education and held a teaching position in the Escuela Normal de Santa Clara throughout the duration of the movement.10 The poets Jose Zacarias Tallet and Alejo Carpentier, both white, were educated in France and the United States and they were members of the minoristas, a political group with artistic interests whose members came from relatively wealthy backgrounds." Another obstacle in this endeavour was their belief that Afro-Cuban culture did not comprise a written literature from which to borrow formal characteristics. Ortiz had pointed out in 'Los ultimos versos mulatos' that the only black literature in Cuba was confined to the oral expressions used in Afro-Cuban religious and secular collective practices.'2 Even as late as 1938, he attributed R6mulo Lachatafiere's difficulties in writing iOh, mio remayd! to the oral characteristics of his primary sources. These, he argued, were a continuation or survival from 'preliterate' African 8 'Mas acerca de la poesia mulata. Escorzos para su estudio' (1936), in Iniciacidn a la poesia afro-americana, ed. by Oscar Fernandez de la Vega and Alberto N. Pamies (Miami: Ediciones Universal, I973), I73-202 (p. 179). 9 For an outline of the social background of the members of this generation, see Francisco L6pez Segrera, Cuba: Culturay sociedad (Havana: Letras Cubanas, i989), p. 190. 10 See Robin Dale Moore, Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and Artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920-i935 (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Dissertation Services, 1995), p. 224, and Argyll Pryor Rice, Emilio Ballagas: Poeta o poesia (Mexico: Ediciones de Andrea, I966), p. 17. L Ram6n Guirao, Orbita de la poesia Afrocubana. 1928-37 (Havana: Ucar, Garcia y Cia, 1938), pp. 64, 76, and Moore, Nationalizing Blackness, p. 213. 12 'Los iltimos versos mulatos', in Fernandez de la Vega, pp. 156-71 (pp. i56-58). 992 MIGUEL ARNEDO societies.13 It is clear that this perception of Cuban black culture guided the movement's representations. Indeed, afrocubanista poetry draws inspiration exclu- sively from non-written Afro-Cuban cultural forms. However, Fernando Ortiz was wrong in assuming that the written word did not play a role in Afro-Cuban traditions. A considerable corpus of Lucumi literature was preserved in Cuba in notebooks or libretas that included, amongst other things, hundreds of myths and fables, lists of sayings, ritual procedures, and systems of divination.14 Like Ortiz, afrocubanista poets did not know about these written Afro-Cuban forms and so it could be argued that their representation of Afro-Cuban culture as exclusively oral and performative is reductionist because it leaves out its literary elements. Nevertheless, some considerations grant validity to this representation. For one thing, these written forms cannot strictly be described as 'literary'. Unlike literary forms of European origin, the libretas were written with the strict intention of preserving the material that would inform future oral practices. Thus, many of the stylistic differences between these forms and literary genres of European origin are those that exist between oral and written literary forms.15 This supports afrocubanistas' perception of Afro-Cuban culture as oral. In fact, the role of the libretas as devices to 'refrescar la memoria' points to the predominance in Afro-Cuban culture of oral and performative collective practices over literate ones (Martinez Fure, p. 2 1 I). The centrality of the former is evident in George Brandon's study on Santeria where he explains that 'the image of the African past held and recited in Santeria mythology is conveyed, sustained and reinforced in its ritual performances'.16 Live performances such as these take precedence over written forms such as the libretas in the preservation of Lucumi cultural memory. As Brandon explains, three-of the main strategies that serve to transfer memory and keep it circulating within this group are 'calendrical repetition, in the form of commemorative ceremonies for the saints; verbal repetition, through which the use of Lucumi as a sacred ritual language conditions communication between humans and the orisha; and gestural repetition as it relates to ritual dance and ceremonial spirit possession' (p. I43). It is evident that secular dance and music practices were also integral to the culture afrocubanistas 13 'Dos nuevos libros del folklore afrocubano', Revista Bimestre Cubana, 42 (1938), 307-20 (pp. 314-I5). Ortiz still believed as late as 1950 that some cultures were preliterate rather than non-literate, that is, that they had not yet developed a 'superior' literate culture. This is evident in the following: La musica del negro africano es aun misica ingrafica y su literatura es preletrada, propia de los pueblos parvulos que auin no usan escritura. En estos las artes sonoras casi siempre van juntas. [. ..] La escritura hace a los hombres mas hombres pues a mas del lenguaje hablado (que ya es una caracteristica original de la humanidad), les da la fijaci6n de ese lenguaje y su perdurabilidad y extensiones ilimitadas por el espacio y por el tiempo. (La africania de la musicafolklorica de Cuba, 1950 (Havana: Editorial Universitaria, 1965) p. 16i). Ortiz's perspective here derives specifically from nineteenth-century evolutionist theories in which contempo- rary Europe exemplified the adult state of civilization while non-European cultures were viewed as permanently trapped in a childhood stage (see Eileen Julien, African Novels and the Question of Orality (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992), p. I I). 14 Rogelio Martinez Fur6, Didlogos imaginarios (Havana: Arte y Literatura, 1979), p. 2 I1. 15 Some of the differences between oral and literary forms can be found in Eileen Julien's critical review of studies of the oral nature of African novels (Julien, pp. 26-42). See also Josaphat Bekunuru Kubayanda, 'Polyrhythmics and African Print Poetics: Guillen, Cesaire and Atukwei Okai', in Interdisciplinary Dimensions of African Literature. Selected Papersfrom the 1982 Conference of the African Literature Association (Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1985), pp. I55-I69. This article outlines charecteristics of African and African-derived 'drum rhythm poetry', which Kubayanda defines as 'poetry for reading aloud' or for 'reciting [...] simultaneously accompanied by the beats of the drum' (p. I56). 16 Santeria from Africa to the New World. The Dead Shell Memories (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993), p. 148. 993 4Afrocubanista' Poetry focused upon. These offered a rich source of complex aesthetic practices (such as drumming, singing, and dancing) for blacks without access to dominant cultural forms. The rumba, for example, clearly functioned as a vehicle of black liberation and protest, and played the same role as did the press in dominant society.17 These considerations amply justify referring to Afro-Cuban culture as predominantly non- literate in spite of the existence of the written forms mentioned above. Thus afrocubanistas' insistence on representing blacks in connection with oral and performative practices may be seen to reflect an important characteristic of the culture they sought to represent. The centrality of such collective practices in Afro-Cuban culture constituted a serious problem for afrocubanistas. Unlike written poetry, which is limited to the use of conventional graphic signs, these collective practices conveyed messages through a much larger number of what Victor Turner calls 'sensory codes', including gestures and facial expressions, sounds and even smells. Like all 'cultural perform- ances', Afro-Cuban rituals and secular celebrations were also composed of what Milton Singer, as cited by Turner, referred to as 'cultural media', that is, modes of communication that include verbal language but also non-linguistic media, such as music and dance. They were, as Turner would argue, 'orchestrations of media, not expressions in a single medium'.'8 Thus, afrocubanistas felt that they had to formally incorporate into their poetry cultural forms based on non-written modes of expression and different sensory codes. One of the ways in which they went about this was through the use of linguistic devices known as jitanjaforas. Representative examples of these are Guirao's 'culembembe, bembere, culembembe', in 'Solo hombre yo'; 'Macucho con tu rumba, I [...] | te tiene cachumbambe', in 'Macucho con tu rumba', and 'lJongolojongo I del Rey Congo', in 'Canto negro de Ronda', as well as Tallet's 'Umabimba, mabomba, bomba y bombo', in 'La rumba'; and Guillen's 'iYam- bamb6, yambambe!, in 'Canto negro'.19 The dilettante approach to African culture that informed these devices is evident in Ballagas's explanation regarding his composition of 'African' verse using only names of African countries: eEs un nuevo poema africano? eSon las palabras magicas de un ritual? Gertrude Stein celebr6 en una revista que ella dirigia, juegos de palabras parecidos a estos. Pero aqui, en lo que acabo de escribir, no se trata de un poema. Es una lista de nombres de paises africanos que lei en un mapa de ese continente y los puse a continuaci6n. Algunos poemas negros que hemos conocido no tienen mayor significaci6n que esta curiosa lista. Pero tampoco tiene significado el canto del ruisefior y nos agrada. Ofrece estimulo al oido y a la imaginaci6n. Nos hace saber que el hombre no es todo 16gica y reflexi6n racional; que lo primitivo, que es energia, forma parte tambi6n del organismo mental del hombre civilizado.20 This quotation suggests that jitanjaforas cannot be considered as a utilization of real Afro-Cuban verbal forms. Nevertheless, the employment of made-up nonsense 17 Moore, Nationalizing Blackness, p. 4. Martinez Fur6 as cited in Ivonne Daniel, Rumba, Dance and Social Change in Contemporary Cuba (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, I995), p. I9, and Leonardo Acosta, 'The Rumba, the Guaguanc6 and Tio Tom', in Essays on Cuban Music. North American and Cuban Perspectives, ed. by Peter Manuel (London-Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 199 ), pp. 51-73 (PP-54-55)- 18 TiheAnthropology of Performance (New York: PAJ Publications, 1986), pp. 22-23. 19 Ram6n Guirao, Bongo: poemas negros (Havana: Ucar Garcia, I934), no pagination, and Orbita de la poesia Afrocubana. i928-37, pp. 55-56, 65-68, 94-95. 20 Emilio Ballagas, 'Poesia afrocubana' (I951), in Fernandez de la Vega, pp. 78-87 (p. 87). 994 MIGUEL ARNEDO syllables for purely aesthetic purposes, or with the intention of sounding African, was also a widespread practice in Afro-Cuban culture. According to Samuel Feij6o, for example, the African-sounding lines of the songs of the eighteenth-century cabildos de nacion were merely pretexts for rhythm and song without any semantic meaning.21 The use of nonsense syllables for rhythmic purposes can also be heard in classic rumba compositions such as Carlos Embales' 'Pim pam pum y blen blen blen'.22 Furthermore, meaningless syllables have also been traditionally used in rumba in the lalaleo, the melodic fragment by which the lead singer establishes the key and the harmony at the beginning of a song (Daniel, p. 85). Thus,jitanjaforas can be viewed as an abandonment of a semantic principle of the dominant literature in Cuba in favour of an Afro-Cuban verbal art form in which words may have a phonically suggestive or musical function. Percussive onomatopoeia was another of the verbal forms used by afrocubanistas in this way. Verbal reproductions of percussive sounds have a long history in Afro- Cuban culture. According to Fernando Ortiz, this type of music-making or musica de bemba was normally practised by blacks 'para imitar los ritmicos tamboreos cuando faltan los tambores y sus posibles sustitutivos'.23 A written example of muzsica de bemba can be seen in the following transcription of a song or oral poem from an eighteenth- century cabildo congo: Piqui, piquimbin, piqui, piquimbin; tumba, muchacho, yama bo y tamb6. Tamb6 ta brabbo. Tumba, cajero. Jabla, mula. Piqui, piquimbin, piqui, piquimbin. Pa, pa, pa, praca, pracata, pra, pa. Cucha, cucha mi bo. (Guirao, Orbita, p. 3) Singers from popular son bands during the afrocubanista vogue also interspersed musical onomatopoeia in their improvisations and these undoubtedly influenced afrocubanista poets. For example, Tallet's 'iTarariiii! I [...] | jTararaaaa!', in his 'Quintin Barahona' is reminiscent of the onomatopoeia 'taran tarantarantantan' by the lead singer of Sexteto Habanero in the song 'Eres mi lira armoniosa'.24 Since, likejitanjaforas, these devices contradict the semantic and syntactic logic of Spanish, 21 El son cubano. Poesiageneral (Havana: Letras Cubanas, 1986), pp. 230-31. 22 Cuba Classics: Rumba, I995. CD TUMI 052. 23 Fernando Ortiz, Los instrumentos de la muzsica Afrocubana, 2 vols (I952) (Madrid: Editorial Muisica Mundana Maqueda, i996), I, p. 33. In fact, the practice Ortiz referred to as muisica de bemba continues in Cuba nowadays in the a cappella compositions of Vocal Sampling (Unaforma mds, I994. CD SIRE 9362-4575I-2). For use of percussive onomatopaeia by a contemporary rumba ensemble, listen also to Conjunto de Clave y Guaguanco's 'La prueba del ritmo' (written by Amado Dedeu) in Cuba Classics: Rumba. 24 Las raices del son, 1992 (all recordings made between 1925 and 1931). CD Tumbao 009. 995 996 Afrocubanista' Poetry they also modify a fundamental principle of the dominant literature in Cuba.25 This is particularly evident when contrasted with Alfonso Hernandez Cata's reproduc- tions of musical sounds in the following extract from 'Rumba' (Guirao, Orbita, pp. 127-29), where the sounds of musical instruments are conveyed through the poetic device of personification: Mientras la cuerda se queja, vocifera el cornetin. [...] El galopar de los timbales pisotea todo recato [...] El bong6 se ha vuelto loco. Afrocubanista poets also used lyrics from Afro-Cuban music to alter high literary forms. This is particularly evident in Nicolas Guillen's poetry, which incorporates formal characteristics from son lyrics. As the poet himself pointed out upon the publication of Motivos de son in I930: 'He tratado de incorporar a la literatura cubana - no como simple elemento musical, sino como elemento de verdadera poesia - lo que pudiera llamarse poema-son basado en la tecnica de esa clase de baile tan popular en nuestro pais'.26 The influence of son lyrics is evident in the structure of many ofGuillen's motivos, which resembles that of early son compositions. These, as Olavo Alen Rodriguez explains, started with the repetition of a four-line refrain sung by a chorus and then moved on to a second section where the lead vocals improvised in response to a shorter, repeating chorus.27 A representative example is the following extract from the song 'Yo no tumbo caaa' by the Sexteto Habanero, a group whose influence on Motivos de son was directly acknowledged by Guillen:28 Sofiaba que me querias, mujer Mi sueiio fue una quimera Es rara y una hermosa Que le toc6 mi coraz6n [chorus] Yo no tumbo cafa que la tumbe el viento [lead vocalist] Yo no tumbo cafia que la tumbe el viento [chorus] Dile que la tumben que le den candela [lead vocalist] Yo no tumbo cafia que la tumbe el viento [chorus] Dile que la tumben que le den candela [lead vocalist] Yo no tumbo cania que la tumbe el viento [chorus] 25 Of course, the use of onomatopoeia has a long history in all European languages and in Western literary traditions. See Donald R. Kloe, A Dictionary of Onomatopoeic Sounds, Tones and Noises in English and Spanish (Michigan: Blaine Ethridge, I977), and J. A. Cuddon, The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (London: Penguin, I992), pp. 656-57. In fact, similar onomatopoeia to those employed in afrocubanista poetry can often be found in representations of blacks in Golden Age Spanish literature. For example, in his 1599 Entremes delplatillo, Sim6n Aguado uses the onomatopoeia 'chiqui, chiqui' (see Feij6o pp. 17, 66-67) which are similar to Tallet's reproduction of the sound of shakers in 'La rumba'. However, this does not necessarily reinforce the idea that afrocubanista onomatopoeia are devices of Western origin since Golden-Age playwrights may have also borrowed them from the black culture of their time. 26 Quoted in Nicolas Guillen. Summa poitica, ed. by Inigo Madrigal (Madrid: Catedra, I990), p. 62. 27 De lo afrocubano a la salsa. Subgeneros musicales de Cuba (Havana: Artex, 1994), p. 30. 28 Quoted in Recopilacidn de textos sobre Nicolas Guillen, ed. by Nancy Morej6n (Cuba: Casa de las Americas, 1974), p. 41. MIGUEL ARNEDO Que la tumben las mujeres con sus movimientos [lead vocalist] Yo no tumbo cania que la tumbe el viento [chorus] (Las raices del son) There is a perceptible structural similarity between Guillen's 'Me bendo caro' and 'Yo no tumbo cafia'. The poem also commences with four lines that introduce the theme of the composition, and it also continues by alternating a changing line with a repeating one. In this way, the first stanza recreates the introduction of son compositions sung by a chorus and the alternating lines the call and response singing between the improvised lead vocals and the repeating chorus. This can be appreciated in the following extract: A mi me gutan la negra, pero cuando son bonita; dede que toy de Cronita me bendo caro! [. .] Pero si la negra yora, ique le boy hase! Si se me arrodiya, ique le boy hase! Si me dice santo, jque le boy hase! Si se pone trite, ique le boy hase! (Orbita, pp. 85-86) Guillen was not the only one to make use of formal elements from Afro-Cuban lyrics. In Tallet's 'La rumba', for example, the repetition of the lines 'cambia e paso Cheche, | cambia e paso Cheche, I cambia e paso Cheche' can be seen as an influence of the repetition that characterizes Afro-Cuban song forms. The lack of a fixed syllabic pattern or a fixed number of lines per stanza in this poem can also be seen as an influence of the free versification of rumba lyrics. The free versification of rumba lyrics can be appreciated in Daniel's transcriptions (pp. 85-90). Afrocubanistas sometimes also managed to formally incorporate the non-verbal sensory codes of the represented performances. An example of this is the following description of the black female dancer in 'Bailadora de rumba' by Ram6n Guirao: Bailadora de guaguanc6, piel negra, tersura de bong6. Agita la maraca de su risa con los dedos de leche de sus dientes. (Orbita, p. 53) As can be seen, the texture of the bong6 serves as a metaphor for the texture of the dancer's skin and the sound of the maracas for the sound of her laughter. Since metaphor is one of the essential formal devices of poetry, this is an example of how tactile and sonic codes from an Afro-Cuban performance can formally influence afrocubanista poetry.29 29 Amittai F. Aviram, Telling Rhythm. Body and Meaning in Poetry (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994), P. 43. 997 9Afrocubanista' Poetry Musical rhythm also served as a source of formal innovation. Josaphat Bekunuru Kubayanda has described Guillen's poetry as 'technically inspired by Afro-Cuban musical ingenuity' and has brought attention to its use of 'units of the African musical "mixed metre" [patent in the] unstressed beats, the differences between stanzas, the clusters of identical vowel sounds (assonance), the buzzing, nasalized consonantal vibrations (i.e., mb in bembon), the visually and audibly uneven lines, the repeats'.30 The influence of Afro-Cuban musical metres can also be detected in Tallet's 'La rumba', where the predominantly dactylic metre of the first two stanzas is reminiscent of the 6/8 feel of the music of the rumba guaguanco being performed by the poem's protagonists.31 The dilettante approach that seemed to guide the composition of 'La rumba' might lead some to object that this could not be a deliberate formal accomplishment.32 Nevertheless, to become aware of this aspect of rumba need not have required painstaking research at the time. The journal Archivos del Folklore Afrocubano had regularly included articles on Afro-Cuban cultural traditions, mainly by Fernando Ortiz, from as early as I924.33 In fact, in this same year Ortiz had explained in Glosario de afronegrismos (Havana: El Siglo xx) that 'la sincopa que ofrece la musica de este baile [rumba] [. . .] es muy caracteristica dentro del compas de "dos por cuatro" en que se escribe y en el que se intercalan frecuentemente tresillos de negras que le dan un sabor inconfundible' (p. 41O). Tallet could easily have read about this aspect of rumba in any of these publications and decided to try to incorporate it into the metre of'La rumba'. Marcelino Arozarena's 'Liturgia etiopica' could also be seen to reflect the 6/8 metre of many of the rhythms that, as evident in Amira I992, are traditionally employed in the bembe,34 a celebration dedicated to the orishas in which the poem takes place. For instance, the following stanza is made up entirely of dactyls: Entona su canto Jose Carida; lamiendo la bemba vigila a Merse: y en tanto cansado y sudado cantaba el bembe pensaba orgulloso: - Tu paso sabroso que mata, mulata, lo e'ta protegiendo Babalfi Aye. (Orbita, pp. 151-53) Afrocubanistas also capitalized on the formal similarities between poetry and dance. These are evident in Judith Lynne Hanna's list of data categories for dance 30 As cited in Lorna V. Williams, 'The Emergence of an Afro-Cuban Aesthetic', Afro-Hispanic Review, 14 (I995), 48-57 (P. 5)-. 31 The rhythmic pattern of the guaguanc6 is often written in 2/4 or 4/4 (see Daniel, p. 83, and Larry Crook, 'A Musical Analysis of the Cuban Rumba', Latin American Music Review, 3.I (1982), 92-I03 (pp. 99-I00)). However, this is an example of the difficulties of transcribing much Afro-Cuban music (see 'Los ultimos versos mulatos', p. 170). As Larry Crook explains, in rumba 'the basic accompaniment patterns of the percussion have a dynamic flexibility built into their structure that allows for duple-triple ambivalence' (p. I ). 32 Jos6 Z. Tallet's afrocubanista poetry is not at all representative of his overall literary production (see Helio Orovio, Orbita de Jose Zacarias Tallet (Havana: Unea, 1969), p. 13) and the impetus to write 'La rumba' actually came from a friend who dared him to make the nonsensical phrase 'Mambimba, mabomba, mabombo y bomb6' part of a poem (Moore, Nationionalizing Blackness, p. 225). As N6stor Baguer points out, the poem represented for Tallet no more than poetic gymnastics (Baguer, as cited in Moore, p. 225). 33 For example, Ortiz, 'Personajes del folklore afrocubano', Archivos del Folklore Cubano, I (1924), 62-75, and 'La fiesta afrocubana del "Dia de Reyes"', 'Cataurito de cubanismos', Archivos del Folklore Cubano, I (1924), I46-65, 74-75. 34 See John Amira, and Steven Cornelius, The Music of Santeria (New York: White Cliffs Media Company, I992). 998 MIGUEL ARNEDO movement, where she includes rhythm, accent (which she defines as 'rhythmically significant stress') and metre (the 'basic recurrent pattern of tempo, duration and accent'). Moreover, amongst the six modes of signification that she applies to dance, she includes metonym and metaphor.35 Tallet's use of language throughout 'La rumba' is a good example of how Afrocuban dance influenced afrocubanista poetry from a formal point of view. In writing this poem the poet was faced with the difficulties of describing dance movement through the type of language traditionally employed in written poetry. This is a language that draws attention to its rhetorical features, such as style, images, and figures. By contrast, the main purpose of expository language, which is used in other literary genres, is to draw the reader's attention to the subject matter (Aviram, p. 49). As can be appreciated in the following, this is the type of language used to describe dance movement in academic studies: 'The male dancer holds his back very straight with a forward tilt and with shoulders raised slightly. The head retains a raised position and alternates between side right and side left. The elbows are raised extremely to moderately high in middle range. [...] Arm movement is from side to forward, in an arc' (Daniel, p. 76). Tallet's descriptions do make ample use of poetic rhetorical figures such as similes and metaphors. Nevertheless, as evident in the following extract, the language is also often expository in that its main purpose is to convey to the reader the exact movements of the two dancers: Como baila la rumba la negra Tomasa, c6mo baila la rumba Jose Encarnaci6n. Ella mueve una nalga, ella mueve la otra, el se estira, se encoge, dispara la grupa, el vientre dispara, se agacha, camina, sobre el uno y el otro tal6n. Chaqui, chaqui, chaqui, charaqui. Chaqui, chaqui, chaqui, charaqui. Las ancas potentes de nifa Tomasa en torno de un eje invisible, como un reguilete rotan con furor, desafiando con ritmico, lubrico disloque el salaz ataque de Che Encarnaci6n: mufieco de cuerda que rigido el cuerpo, hacia atras el busto, en arco hacia alante [sic] abdomen y piernas, brazos encogidos, a saltos iguales, de la inquieta grupa va en persecuci6n. (Orbita, p. 65) A poem that exhibits deep formal influences from an Afro-Cuban dance is Emilio Ballagas's 'Rumba'. As evident in the following stanzas, this poem uses the image of the cyclone to convey the black female dancer's movements: El ombligo de la negra es v6rtice de un cicl6n. El ombligo es v6rtice. 35 'To Dance is Human', in The Anthropology of the Body, ed. by John Blacking (London, and New York: Academic Press, 1977), pp. 211-32 (pp. 223-24). 999 IoOO ftAfrocubanista' Poetry El vientre es cicl6n. iLas anchas caderas y su pafnolon! (Orbita, pp. Io8-o9) Since, rather than describing movement directly, the poem conveys the idea of movement through metaphor, it could be argued that the kinaesthetic codes of the rumba performance have been processed through a poetic formal device. Neverthe- less, other factors also justify viewing Ballagas's 'Rumba' as the product of an opposite process. In order to understand this, it is necessary to establish that this poem was in fact inspired by the dance of the orisha Yemaya of the Lucumi tradition. The use of the metaphor 'olaespuma' to refer to the dancer's dress in the second line of the poem already suggests the presence of Yemaya because her colours are the blue of the sea and the white of the waves' foam. Furthermore, other images in the poem present close similarities with the outfit worn by the performer who represents Yemaya in this dance. As Ortiz explains, this dancer 'viste una bata blanca, como las otras orichas hembras, ceniida con una especie de ancho cinto de tela con un peto o ampliaci6n de forma romboidal sobre el ombligo'.36 The use of the word olaespuma to refer to the bata suggests that the poem's dancer may also be wearing a white dress. Furthermore, in view of the rhomboid shape over the performer's belly, the simile in the last stanza of Ballagas's poem cannot be merely a coincidence. The poem concludes with the lines: 'El ombligo de la negra I en la sandunga se abri6 I fijo como un ojo impar I para mirar a Chang6.' Like this 'eye', the use of the cyclone metaphor to describe the dancer's movements could also be an influence of the dance of Yemaya. This is made evident by the following extract from Ortiz's description of the dances of this orisha: Sus danzas comienzan con ondulaciones suaves, como las aguas que se mueven languidas al soplo de la brisa, pero pronto se encaracolan y van aumentando su fervor, como el oleaje se enfurece con el vendaval. Las bailadoras con sus remeneos simbolizan las olas airadas y con sus amplias vueltas, mas y mas rapidas, imitan los torbellinos del mar movido por los huracanes. (Los bailes, p. 345) Since, in the dance of Yemaya, the hurricane presumably symbolizes her uncon- trolled and unbridled character,37 the dancer's movements may be seen as an example of the metaphoric mode of signification in dance that 'expresses one thought, experience or phenomenon by another which resembles the former and is somehow analogous to it, such as dancing a leopard to refer to the power of death' (Hanna, p. 224). Thus, Ballagas's poem uses a formal characteristic of the represented dance as an important rhetorical device. A similar formal borrowing from rumba can be found in Ballagas's 'El baile del gavilan'. This poem deals with a pantomimic rumba called Gavildn in which, as Daniel explains, dancers enact the hunting of blackbirds (p. i74, n. 5). A dancer imitates a blackbird through his or her dancing movements, an association that becomes the basis for the central metaphor of the poem, where the woman is equated to a flying blackbird: 'iAy, morena! Relambia: | No te cansas de volar. I Te cogi la punteria I y te volviste a escapar.38 A similar judgement can be made in 36 Los bailesy el teatro de los negros en elfolklore de Cuba (195 I) (Havana: Letras Cubanas, I98I), p. 345. 37 See JahnheinzJahn, Muntu: Las culturas de la negritud (Madrid: Guadarrama, 1970), p. 77. 38 Emilio Ballagas, Obrapoitica, ed. by Osvaldo Novarro (Havana: Letras Cubanas, 1984), pp. 89-90. MIGUEL ARNEDO relation to Ballagas's 'El baile del papalote' (Orbita, pp. II5-I7). In the rumba on which this poem is based, the male dancer impersonates a man flying a kite and the female dancer pretends to be the kite. At the end of the dance, as he winds up the string, the female dancer approaches her dancing partner and they embrace. The fact that this part of the dance has erotic connotations for the performers themselves (Los bailes, p. 432) strongly suggests that the dance of the kite is a metaphor for the courtship between man and woman. In 'El baile del papalote', the dancers' game of retreat and approach is recounted by the male dancer, who talks to the female dancer as if she were a kite. In this way, the association of the act of flying a kite with human courtship, which constitutes the metaphoric mode of signification of the dance, becomes the poem's central metaphor. Considering the importance of metaphor in poetry, this means that the poem's form has been determined predominantly by the form of the represented dance. Consequently, like 'Rumba' and 'El baile del gavilan', 'El baile del papalote' is an example of how afrocubanista poetry can formally incorporate stylistic features of an Afro-Cuban performance by capitalizing on formal similarities between dance and written poetry. On the basis of Ortiz's definitions, the poems seen above could be considered authentically or typically mulatto because, rather than treating Afro-Cuban culture as mere subject matter, they incorporate it from a formal point of view. Nevertheless, his concept of mulatto poetry is fraught with problematic assumptions. For example, it relies on an essentialist approach to culture. Ortiz assumed that cultural forms were 'white' or 'black' solely on the basis of their Spanish or African origin. This is particularly evident in 'Los filtimos versos mulatos' where he repeatedly refers to Spanish as a 'white' language and to African languages as 'black'. It also becomes clear in this essay that for him a poem was 'white' because its themes and form were characteristic of Spanish literature (pp. I57-58). In a similar fashion, Ortiz's tendency to apply the category 'black' only to oral Afro-Cuban forms clearly responded to his belief that authentic African literature (that is, 'black' literature) was strictly non-written. Thus, it was the degree to which these literary forms had maintained their original African orality that determined their blackness. On the basis of these assumptions, he conceived of afrocubanista poetry as 'mulatto' because it was a combination of'white' literature and 'black' cultural forms.39 The fact that, in Ortiz's mind, such black cultural forms were all based on non-written modes of expression is evident in his outline of the black aesthetic characteristics that afrocubanista poetry focused on. These were black sexuality (which was expressed through dynamic corporeal expression such as hip-swinging),40 the rhythm of African drums and the phonetic peculiarities of black speech ('Mas acerca de la poesia mulata', pp. 6 I-7 ). Ortiz's tendency to ascribe racial identities to cultural forms on the basis of their African or Spanish origin clearly derives from the classic anthropological approach to the issue of defining human groups. Fredrick Barth explains that one of the primary characteristics of an ethnic group in this definition was that its members shared 'fundamental cultural values, realized in overt unity in cultural forms'. He argues further that (under this perspective) the supposedly 'objective' anthropologist 39 For a more detailed analysis of Ortiz's approach, see my article 'Arte blanco con motivos negros'. 40 For a discussion of the representation of hip-swinging black women in the poetry, see my 'The Portrayal of the Afro-Cuban Female Dancer in Cuban Negrista Poetry', Afro-Hispanic Review, i6 (1997), 26-33. IOOI 0Afrocubanista' Poetry 'is led to identify and distinguish ethnic groups by the morphological characteristics of the cultures of which they are the bearers'. However, the anthropologist does so without incorporating into his judgements how such groups perceive their collective identity.41 This approach informs the etic perspective in which the anthropologist ascribes identities to cultural forms based on their historical or geographic origins, without taking into account their practitioners' point of view.42 The inevitable implication is that identities are a kind of essence contained within cultural forms rather than constructs elaborated by individuals. Whereas this essentialist approach undermines the validity of the concept of mulatto poetry, there is no doubt that the cultural forms Ortiz identifies as 'black' and 'white' did serve important functions for each of these racial groups throughout Cuban history. On the one hand, as explained earlier, collective religious rituals enabled marginalized blacks to transfer the cultural memories of their ethnic groups. Since access to the cultural information of a group is essential for maintaining its identity, it is evident that these practices sustained the ethnic identities of many marginalized blacks (Brandon, pp. 132, I43, 148). On the other hand, written literature in Spanish was an important instrument of the white literate elites throughout Cuban history. For example, in early colonial times the island's aristocracy used newspapers and periodical publications such as the Papel Periodico de La Habana as a vehicle through which to maintain and defend their own interests relating to slave imports, sugar production and free trade.43 Similarly, in the early republican period the continuation of an existing racial hierarchy that benefited whites was justified in great part through negative misrepresentations in the press. As Aline Helg explains: The press [...] was the most outspoken and far-reaching voice of racial prejudice. Mainstream Cuban newspapers continued the Spanish colonial effort to present Afro- Cubans as inferior and uncivilized in order to justify their lower position in society. [.. .] Almost all of the daily newspaper journalists were white and wrote as spokesmen of 'civilization' against 'barbarism'. (p. 0o6) Written literary forms of Spanish origin can also be considered 'white' because they have often been viewed by Cuba's white literate elites as a fundamental means of expressing their national identity. This is illustrated by the following comment by writer Carlos Montenegro from the I930s, a time when, paradoxically, according to Pamela Maria Smorkaloff,44 a very high proportion of the country was illiterate: 'Un pueblo sin literatura vernacula es desconocido aun para si mismo. La novela, la leyenda, la biografia, el cuento, son lazos para unirnos, ojos para vernos, sentimientos para conocernos y estimarnos; es decir, para ser: ser para los demas y para nosotros mismos.'45 From this perspective, the differences between a literary genre of Spanish origin and Afro-Cuban collective practices can be seen to reflect 41 Introduction to Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Ethnic Difference (Oslo: Universitetsforla- get, 1969), pp. I- 2. 42 Peter Wade, 'Black Music and Cultural Syncretism in Colombia', in Slavery and Beyond: The African Impact on Latin America and the Caribbean, ed. by Dari6n J. Davis, (Wilmington, DE: SR Books, I995), pp. I21-46 (pp. 122-23). 43 Larry R. Jensen, Children of Colonial Despotism: Press, Politics and Culture in Cuba, 1790o-840 (Florida: University Presses of Florida, 1988), p. 21. 44 Readers and Writers in Cuba: A Social History of Print Culture, i83os-iggos (New York and London: Garland, 1997), p. 28. 45 Montenegro, as cited in Ambrosio Fornet, En blancoy negro (Havana: Instituto del Libro, I967), p. 62. 1002 MIGUEL ARNEDO important cultural differences between Cuban blacks and whites. Therefore, the movement's insistence on finding ways to formally integrate Afro-Cuban non- written forms can be seen as an attempt to produce a literary genre which harmonized the differences between Cuban black and white culture. It could be argued that authentic mulatto poems manage to reconcile these cultural differences at the literary level. By contrast, other afrocubanista poems actually emphasize them. For example, in Alfonso Hernandez Cata's 'Rumba', verbal forms from the event appear as quotations in italics that interrupt the poet's learned discourse without directly affecting its form. This division is exacerbated by metric differences. Whereas the latter is expressed through stanzas of four octosyllabic lines, the former, in line with the free versification of rumba lyrics, do not present a fixed pattern. These contrasts are evident in the following extract: Ae, a!... . Ae la Chambelona! Por muy vestida que vaya la negra estatua se ve. Ojos de concha marina, labios de crudo biste. Yqueya Dominga se caso, 'Cuando me casareyo? Mil sortijas en la cabeza, sesos huecos tras de la frente, y mas alla del disparate algo que brilla de repente. Que m'empreste que tufonografo por un momento ... (Orbita, pp. 127-28) A similar detachment is evident in 'Bailadora de rumba' where Guirao uses inverted commas in quoting the chorus from the represented rumba.4 Like Hernandez Cata, Tallet also uses italics when reproducing a phrase from a popular rumba song in 'La rumba'.47 He also accentuates differences between the poem and the represented practice by dividing it into long stanzas, which describe the performers' dancing movements, and short ones, which attempt to reproduce the sound of instruments. Admittedly, the poem could never effectively reproduce the simultaneity of audio and visual rhythms in rumba. Nevertheless, by delivering these codes in clearly separated stanzas the poet actually emphasizes this difference between the written text and the live performance. In general, even authentic mulatto poems do not completely camouflage Cuba's socio-cultural divisions. Merely by giving prominence to black oral and non-verbal modes of expression, all afrocubanista poems accentuate the non-literate nature of the culture they sought to incorporate. This approach also draws attention to the fact that afrocubanista poems were intended for an individual reader and not as part of a live Afro-Cuban performance. This is because, in such a performance, verbal modes of expression would be accompanied by real non-verbal forms, such as dance and 46 The chorus is 'iArriba, Maria Antonia, I alabao sea Di6!' and it was clearly taken from the Sexteto Habanero composition 'Eres mi lira armoniosa' (Las raices del son). 47 The phrase is found in the line 'se acab6 la rumba con con, co, mabd'. Marcelino Arozarena also uses it in italics in 'Carida' and defines it in his glossary as a phrase from a popular rumba (Cancion negra sin color (Havana: Ediciones Uni6n, I983), pp. 27-28, I69). According to Natalio Galan, this phrase had also been adapted to a danzonete by 1929 (Cubay sus sones (Valencia: Pre-textos/muisica, 1983), p. 200). I00o 0Afrocubanista' Poetry music. Consequently, there would be no need to reproduce them verbally, as in afrocubanista poems. However, it is also important to recognize the merits of authentic mulatto poetry. Poems such as Ballagas's 'Rumba' articulate black culture as an active principle, thus altering the formal texture of a white erudite literary form. This certainly sets this type of afrocubanista poetry apart from other representations of Afro-Cuban culture in Cuban literature. For example, the representations of blacks in nineteenth-century abolitionist works were consciously based on Spanish and European cultural models.48 Other contrasting examples are R6mulo Lachat- afiere's and Fernando Ortiz's attitudes towards Afro-Cuban oral forms in Oh mio remayd and La africania de la muzsica folkldrica de Cuba respectively. Lachatafiere, for instance, makes use of a realist-naturalist mode characteristic of nineteenth-century European narrative in relating the patakies, the religious short stories of the Lucumi. As Martin Lienhard explains, there is nothing left of the enunciation, the rhythm, the humour or the vocabulary normally used in these narrative forms. In a similar way, in Ortiz's famous treatise on Afro-Cuban culture the formal peculiarities of the song forms he deals with do not visibly affect the authorial discourse. The former are presented in the form of transcriptions of lyrics that interrupt the learned exposition thus creating a kind of vertical dialogue between the scholar and his cultural subjects.49 Afrocubanista poems that formally integrate black cultural forms should be valued also because they imply a more positive attitude towards the black sectors who practised Afro-Cuban traditions. When an author tries to incorporate into his or her discourse the formal principles of a particular culture, it is granted a degree of value, which, by extension, implies recognizing its practitioners as equals. It is no coincidence that abolitionist Cuban literature, with its emphasis on European high literary forms, should have been often far from compassionate towards Cuba's slave population.50 Significantly, afrocubanista poems that do not formally incorporate the forms of the represented cultural practice often betray a derogatory attitude towards blacks. For example, in Hernandez Cata's 'Rumba', the personifications of the musical instruments seen earlier have the effect of denying the agency of the musicians who play them. Also, their juxtaposition to the description of the black woman as a statue ('la negra estatua se agita') has the further effect of granting less human status to her than to the musical instruments. Her de- humanization continues in the synecdoche 'risa feroz que no sabe I que el bien puede ser el mal', which presents her as a ferocious animal, incapable of distinguishing between good and evil. This image, combined with references to her perfect body lines ('formas perfectas, I talle de palma real'), creates the impression of a 'voracious and sadistic sexual predator' who uses her charms to seduce and destroy innocent men.51 It is also significant that, although the dancer succeeds in 48 As Cintio Vitier explains, the abolitionist project was one of 'cultura de nivel europeo y s6lida base espafiola' (as quoted in Lisandro Otero, 'Delmonte y la cultura de la sacarocracia', Revista Iberoamericana, 66. 52-53 (I990), 723-3 (p. 729)). See also Robert Paquette, Sugar is Made with Blood: The Conspiracy of La Escalera and the Conflict between Empires over Slavery in Cuba (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1988), p. I02. 49 Martin Lienhard, 'El fantasma de la oralidad y algunos de sus avatares literarios y etnol6gicos', Les Langues JNeo-Latines, 11.297 (1996), I9-33 (pp. 25-28). 50 For example, one of its objectives was to denounce the way whites were being contaminated through their contact with blacks. See Paquette, p. i o , and William Luis, Literary Bondage: Slavery in Cuban Narrative (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), p. 44. 51 See RoseGreen-Williams, 'The Myth of Black Female Sexuality in Spanish Caribbean Poetry', Afro-Hispanic Review, I2 (I993), I6-23 (p. I8). I 004 MIGUEL ARNEDO eliciting the desire of the event's participants ('Cien ojos buscan los caminos I que conducen a sus entrafias'), images such as 'ojos de concha marina, I labios de crudo biste' and 'nariz desparramada' reveal the poet's disgust towards her physiognomy. By contrast, in 'El baile del papalote', Ballagas displays an entirely different attitude towards the black protagonist and the represented cultural practice. Rather than remaining a detached observer, he participates in the dance and, in line with its overt sexuality, he directly communicates to the black woman his desire for her. On the basis of the material put forward in this article, the following conclusions may be drawn. Afrocubanistas turned their attention to Afro-Cuban cultural forms in an attempt to produce 'mulatto' literary forms that would symbolize black and white cultural unity. The reliance on performative modes of expression in Afro- Cuban culture led these poets to experiment with ways of formally incorporating non-written cultural forms. On many occasions they managed to achieve this, thus altering the formal conventions of the dominant literature in Cuba. Although the idea of mulatto poetry is based on a problematic approach to culture, this process of fusion can be understood as the interaction between 'black' and 'white' cultural forms in as far as these played important functions within such racial groups. Following this line of thought, one of the main achievements of authentic mulatto poems is that they alter white literary forms by integrating black culture at the formal level. In turn, this implies a positive attitude towards the black collectivities who practised Afro-Cuban traditions in the I92os and I930s. Nevertheless, in contrast to the nationalist urge to subsume differences between blacks and whites, afrocubanista poetry on the whole cannot avoid accentuating the differences between written poetry and Afro-Cuban collective cultural practices. This failure to produce a fully amalgamated literary form reflects the drastic differences that existed between black and white cultures and a history of conflict between them. Thus, no afrocubanista poem, not even an authentic mulatto one, could ever be the symbol of the total unity afrocubanistas intended.52 QUEEN MARY, LONDON MIGUEL ARNEDO 52 I should like to thank Patricia D'Allemand for her invaluable comments on an early draft of this article. I 05