Eco-feminism and Yoruba Religion in Cuba: a Proposal for Inter-religious Dialog

By: Luis Carlos Marrero Chasbar 1

Being black is experiencing the own identity being denied
but it is also, and above all things, the experience of committing to rescue the history
and re-inventing oneself in its potentiality
Maria Salete

In the beginning, down here on earth there was only fire and burning rocks. Then Olofi 2, the
Almighty, wished that the world existed and turned the vapor of the flames into clouds. From
those clouds fell the water that extinguished the fire. In the huge holes between the rocks took
form Olokn, the ocean which is terrible and makes all fear. But the sea is also good because
water is the source of life and the water formed veins on the earth so that life could spread
around. That is Yemay3, the Mother of the Waters. This is why it is said that before anything
existed Yemay was lying down and suddenly said: Ibi bayn odu mi: my womb hurts and she
gave birth to rivers, orishas and all that breaths and lives on Earth. 4

During the last few decades, we have witnessed the rebirth of different Theological
manifestations from black women in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. These Theologies
were met with the memoirs and the history of the black people, but also with the ancestral
religious experience.

Our approach is meant to acquire knowledge about something that also belonged to us. We
claimed that it was knowledge from outside. However we felt embraced and loved by the
Goddesses of our female ancestors. We did not give up our Christianity. Therefore we affirm that
it is our challenge to reflect and produce theology from that twofold feeling of belonging. It is an
intra-religious dialog that occurs in the deepest corners of our self and that is expressed in
different religious practices.5

Re-discovering history is an important step for rescuing memory. That memory was rooted deep
in the heart, hidden in the grandmothers and grandfathers secrets, kept in the very foundations
of religion, passed on orally in the wisdom of elder women and men. It is a liberating memory as it
treasures the principles of black identity and dignity and it modifies them in the dialog with the
challenges present in the world in each period of time and in each concrete reality.

And so it is from this memory that we start this journey. Together with our grandmothers and
elderly women, we will knit the African eco-feminist nets. We will do poetry; we will produce
theology with the colorful threads of that net. Along with our female ancestors, we will sing: God
is on the leaves, on the earth, in the water with his Ach.

.1- Theological Evaluation of African Eco-feminism

Gaining deep knowledge about African eco-feminisms becomes impossible unless we approach
religious and cultural background of African religions.

1
B.A. in Theology and Pastor of the Fraternity of Baptist Churches of Cuba
2
Supreme Being of Yoruba religions
3
In Cuba it is represented by the Virgin of Regla.
4
BOLVAR, Natalia. Los orishas en Cuba. pp. 156
5
LIMA, Silvia Regina de. Alm das fronteras. In Teologa Afro-americana II. pp. 36
African religions or traditional religions are those religions practiced in Africa and other places
around the globe. All analysis of traditional these is faced with some problems.

Firstly, the languages of many African ethnic groups lack a term to define religion in the European
sense, as an activity or entity separate from daily life. While Western people consider it as an
organizational structure or an independent system of beliefs, religion in Africa is a way of living.

The use of the denomination African traditional religions is risky as it implies uniformity among
African cultures when, contrary to that, diversity characterizes the continent in this respect. Forty
modern nations exist to the South of Sahara, each of them with a particular history and numerous
ethnic groups that at the same time possess their own languages, customs and beliefs. African
religions are thus as diverse as those groups. (To the North of Sahara, Islam has been the
predominant religion for a long time).

There are yet some traits that allow us to distinguish between religions from Western Africa and
those from Eastern Africa. Such characteristics result from the long record of commercial and
cultural contacts between those regions.

Although there is not a single system of beliefs and practices that characterizes African religions
as a homogeneous whole, some similarities in terms of conceptions of the world and ritual
processes conquer geographic and ethnic barriers.

.1.1. Conceptions of the World and Divinity in African Religions

African religions in general believe in the existence of only one God, the Creator, the maker of a
dynamic universe who, after setting the world in motion, withdrew and keeps away from the
issues of daily human existence. That is why believers do not normally offer sacrifices or organize
any cult around this Most High God. Instead, they turn to secondary deities that serve as
messengers or intermediaries for the Supreme. These secondary gods appear sometimes as
sons of the Supreme; however, in religious teachings, they are considered also as refractions of a
divine being.

As European travelers, missionaries and explorers did not find any tangible manifestations of
worship of a supreme god; they discarded African religions and labeled them as superstitions,
animism (attribution of a soul to non-living things like trees or rocks) or cult to the ancestors.
However, these systems of beliefs do acknowledge the existence of a supreme creator.

In Eastern Africa, particularly around lakes Malawi, Victoria and Tanganyika, Mulungu, the
supreme god, is always present but he is invocated through prayer only as a last resort. The
inhabitants of the Nile valley also recognize a supreme being whom they call upon in their request
prayers, only after having used all prayers to secondary deities. In the tradition of Yoruba people
of Nigeria, Olorun, the almighty creator, rules a group of secondary gods called orishas, with
whom the believers lead a close personal relation.

According to Yoruba tradition there are 401 orishas that line the way to paradise. Diviners
(voyeurs with special powers) identify the specific orisha whom the believers need to appeal to for
orientation, protection and blessings. Yet, it is considered that the final fate of each individual has
been decided by Olorun before birth.
African religions do not demand that believers abide by one single doctrine. Its primary core is
practical: their religious rites work as strategies of reinforcement of life, fertility and power. The
main principle shared by these religions is that human beings must be careful in maintaining a
harmonious relationship with the divine powers to be able to prosper. These systems of beliefs
have the objective of controlling and channeling those powers for the communitys well-being.
Rituals are their means to attain this. Rites help to ensure that the community is developing a
responsible relationship with the ancestors who are the keepers of the moral order, with Natures
spiritual forces and with the gods.

Other rituals mark transitions between life stages, such as puberty or death, which are
accompanied by changes of social status like from child to adult or from community member to
ancestor. Transition rituals are appropriate moments for initiation, a socialization and education
process that allows the newly initiated person to assume the new role in society. The transit from
birth to growth, to illness, to death and decay also proves that human existence is part of the
fundamental dynamics of the universe: transformation.

1.2. Eco-feminism, theology and black culture

All the above will greatly contribute to our work. As Rosemary Reuther has rightfully indicated,
eco-feminism is the merging of two concerns: ecology and feminism. 6 It has to do with the
historical and cultural feminine associations. It has to do with women and nature. It has to do with
the relations between men and women and their rapport with nature.

How should the cultural and eco-feminist issue in black communities be understood then?

This question will serve as a background for our analysis.

Firstly we understand culture as: a network of relations between meanings and senses, in which
the African, African-American and Caribbean peoples re-create and re-vindicate the right to be
and to exist within different contexts of oppression, racism, marginalization, sexism and poverty.

The question of the ancestry is fundamental to attain comprehension of black communities. It is

the backbone of a group, it is what holds its identity together an identity that presently mourns
disassembling and re-vindicates the universal principles, also known as basic principles: earth,
water, justice, life, fertility, love, peace, richness.

Ancestry is a form perpetuation of the sacred in a persons life. The sacred stems form the life of
communities, people, things, nature. And that presence of the sacred in the latter allows them to
realize that all that exists is alive. That is the force that some people call Ach.

Theology with Ach pertains to black communities and particularly to women. It is a theology
relevant to humankind. The vision of Christ and his Spirit, which springs from the Ach spirituality,
certainly contributes to black communities, and at the same time it sheds light on the way of the
Christian communities around the world. We constitute a multifaceted, cross-cultural, inter-
religious Christianity. Gods love embraces us all (men and women), considering our differences
and commonalities.

6
RUETHER, ROSEMARY R. Ecofeminismo: Mulheres do primeiro e terceiro mundo. In: Revista
Mandrgora. pp. 12
Another theological approach of African eco-feminism can be observed at an anthropological
level. It is what some of its female advocates have called: the wisdom of inclusion. 7

African men and women do not elaborate anthropology in a Western fashion or following the
patterns conceived for this science nowadays. On the contrary, they develop an inclusive school
of thought, where human beings are regarded as nature and community at the same time. Such
community is expressed through the cult to ancestors whose memory is kept in every newborn
(boy and girl) that is received as a Baba Tude (returning father or mother). Hence the difference
with Western eco-feminism, as the latter regards human beings in relation to nature and not as
part of it. Any theological production intending to cover the needs and expectations of African,
African-American and Caribbean men and women must take these facts into consideration. 8

In general, African wisdom, understood as memory, teaches how black communities produce
their own knowledge, talk about themselves, represent and express themselves through concrete
forms of life, built according to each group. This points to the principle of solidarity, whereby the
universe appears not only as an interconnected whole but also each element can be observed
playing a specific role in that whole.

It is noteworthy that for African men and women the experience of the sacred not only is a
premise of social life, but also and prior to this it overtakes all dimensions of communities
lives. Beyond foundation principles, ancestors manifest themselves in people and in nature as a
whole.9

This element was kept when the time came to preserve and re-create these forms of life in
Cuba10, and more than that, a dialog occurred with several symbolic universes like Catholicism,
that was so real and concrete.

Being part of the house means to share shelter, care and protection with all. The house becomes
the great common house: Earth. During the process of initiation, the initiated (man and woman)
learns to be a house, a home of the sacred. The human being thus becomes another referent.
She/ He represent the Sacred, or better said, all of the Sacred, based on the notion that we are
part of ancestral matters. Hence the phrase: The human being is a body. It is a condition to
experience God. Within this approach the feminine figure will stand out. 11

This has not prevented black communities from speaking about God in their own ways. They talk
about a God that is present, alive and active, who is manifested in nature, in every natural sprout
and at the same time in every person born as an ancestor who returns.

All these thoughts lead us to a significant contribution by these eco-feminisms: capacity to relate
and tenderness. Both the challenge and the right of men and women to tenderness are put
forth.12

Tenderness is expressed as a form of fraternity and sonority among human beings, and also as a
manifestation of Gods affection and friendship to humankind. In the face of social strata
7
Maricel Mena, Silvia Regina, etc.
8
DA SILVA, Maria. A mulher negra http://www.espaoacademico.com.br/. .pp. 3
9
OLIVEIRA DARCY, Rosiska. Elogio da diferena. pp. 45
10
Also in Brazil and the rest of the Caribbean.
11
AGUILA, Elena. Ecofeminismo Ps-modernidade. In: Revista Mandrgora. pp. 21
12
See: LIMA, Silvia Regina. Nuevos caminos de liberacin en Amrica Latina, In: Cambio de valores y
cristianismo. pp. 121 y L. C. RESTREPO. El derecho a la ternura
undergoing a process of such an accelerated destruction, it is an urgent task for theology to unite
with those men and women seeking to rebuild the relations and rescue the values of respect,
love and life in common.13

Eco-feminism does not inaugurate an unprecedented school of thought in our continents. Rather,
it encounters other theologies 14 that have creation as their theological core. Inter-religious dialog
must focus on the protection of our planet. This is no time to limit God to concepts that have
nothing to with God. As Silvia Regina de Lima has indicated:

In such turbulent times, when it is not about change but loss of paradigm, when the temptation of
imposing a truth grows and fundamentalist groups multiply, it is a challenge for theologies to
listen, to make room for silence, to know how to bow before mystery the mystery that is life, the
mystery that is God. It is time to stand up, to wait actively, for those who believe, those who
know who they wait in. Outside the tombs, at crossroads and gardens; it is no time to leave,
but time to wait.15

2- Main Contributions to Inter-religious Dialog in Cuba

Observing the context of Inter-religious Dialog in Cuba, clear-cut limitations can be identified. One
of these has been formulated as follows: In Cuba there has not been a serious systematization
of Inter-religious Dialog on the part of churches. 16 This assertion, with which we agree, is
significant on the face of some attempts at dialogs that have taken place on the island.

Another fallback is the general lack of knowledge that our churches have about other religions or
the persistent Christ-centric vision of them, particularly when those systems of beliefs are looked
upon and analyzed from our Christian realities. It is certainly difficult to shake off all our Christian,
Western academic, andocentric and white education when the time comes to systematize the
studies about what is different. Results of the exam of the processes where the main object of
study is present and through which differentiation occurs, always or almost alwayscome out of
our own analytical instruments, leaving no room or very little spacefor important visions and
contributions by other men and women. The Christian discourse prevails.

An attempt is being made here to lay out a theory and practice of a new Inter-religious Dialog in
Cuba, based on African eco-feminist contributions and its implications for the future relations of
friendship and fraternity with those men and women whose fests and dances demonized
Western rationality when it was impossible to find answers to the magic of their divinities. 17 From
that sacred space, several proposals are presented to establish an inter-religious dialog with
Cuban religions of African origin.

2.1. From the Perspective of God

In African traditional beliefs the basis of the idea of God is the existence of only one Supreme
Being, creator of the human beings and of all they contain.

13
LIMA, Silvia Regina. Nuevos caminos de liberacin en Amrica Latina, In: Cambio de valores y
cristianismo. pp. 121
14
Native, countryside, afro-feminist theologies, etc
15
LIMA, Silvia. Alm das fronteras. In: Teologa Afro-americana II pp.24
16
Words pronounced by Adolfo Ham, PH.D, in a meeting of the group Fe y Cultura (Faith and Culture),
February 6th 2006, Center of Studies of the Council of Churches of Cuba.
17
MARRERO, Luis Carlos. A tres le quito uno. Gnesis 9,18-27, una re-lectura histrica desde la
experiencia negra. In: DEBARIM, pp. 32
In Cuba, this conception of God is represented by Olofi in Santerathe personification of the
Divinity, the cause and reason for the existence of every thing. Olofi made the world, the saints,
the animals and the human beings. It was him who distributed the powers among the orishas so
that all things would be created. This is why it is said that they possess the secrets of creation.

However, as a result of a racist policy towards African cultures, some have pretended to attribute
an absolutely out-of-date metaphysical meaning to the Yoruba conception of the Divinity. Natalia
Bolvar has commented:

An analogy has been intended between the trilogy Olofi, Oloddumare, Olorun and the Christian
Holy Trinity. To our mind, the Yoruba meant to express the conceptual need for an absolute
principle that would be above the other orishas and that would comprise all the archetypical
characteristics of the functions and activities in action in the world. That Supreme Being,
nonetheless, expressed itself in three different identities according to the diverse relations in
which it entered: the Creator, who deals directly with the orishas and the human beings, was
Olofi; the respect of natures laws, the very universal law, Oloddumare, and the vital force, the
universal energy, connected with the Sun, Olorun. 18

From this relation with God, eco-feminism renders Him recognizable in many faces, as people
participate in the plural eco-human project of liberation. Regarding the Christian tradition, an
interpretation should be made of the multifaceted relation with God, expressed in the Trinity and
its universal economy of salvation. Taking this mystery into account, our theologies and
communities should listen and learn how Cuban religions of African origin develop different
approaches to God.

The dialog with these religions will assist us in preventing our discourse on God from being
abstract and farfetched with regards to everyday life realities.

2.2. From a Hermeneutic Perspective

African religiosity in its different manifestations is a sound reminder for the biblical studies in the
context of other religions. This owes to the fact that in most Old Testament texts a dichotomy can
be observed between the official religion and the popular one the latter being practically wiped
away by the priests mindset.

Our hermeneutic challenge here is to recuperate the wealth of Israelite religious and popular
plurality, to study the diversity of gods and goddesses found in biblical texts as well as in
historiography and archaeology. This is important not to authenticate or justify the existence of
African religions but to foster a dialog whereby it will be possible to live in our common home,
respectful of religious diversity.

The biblical approach from genealogies is an important hermeneutic element. Every people,
every culture, remembers its ancestral traditions. The question about our ancestors is a constant
in all religions, including those of African origin. Therefore, a key to reconstruct our African
inheritance can be found in biblical genealogical traditions.

18
BOLVAR, Natalia. Los orishas en Cuba pp. 85
Another significant contribution from African eco-feminist hermeneutics is the valorization of the
black womans body, re-vindicating it as a sacred space where the divine is revealed. To this
respect Silvia Medina has declared:

Consideration of the whole bodies of black women in their vital cycles poses a challenge before
us in the endeavor of recuperating our ancestral inheritance. We proclaim a hermeneutics that is
intertwined in flavors, prayers, gazes, in the silence, in the touch, in womens resistance. We
regard the human body in its three phases: youth, maturity and old age. 19

2.3. From the Bodys Perspective

In African cultures, the body has a relevant meaning. It becomes a sacred, prophetic space when
fulfilling the function of receptacle of the orishas, who dance and manifest themselves through it.
Unfortunately, these experiences have been demonized by Christian specialists. However, what
would our African brothers and sisters think of the body in charismatic experiences, when it
becomes the space for the manifestation of the Spirit? It would be necessary to come up with a
convincing answer. They would simply not ask such a question because they have experienced
this long before Christianity did.

In Afro-feminist theology and especially in some African eco-feminisms, the body appears in other
forms, besides the hermeneutical and epistemological categories:

It is present in the individuals claim against that violence that denies and kills him/ her a body
as a claim also from those men and women who did not get a chance to stand up, whose voices
were silenced by the forces of power. These claims for justice and dignity remain incarnated in
our own claims. The body is regarded as a claim but also as a place of joy and gaiety. 20

Additionally, it is with our bodies that we dance. Dance tunes the person in with the Universe
original rhythm exactly as interpreted by ancestral memory. In African religions, dance is found in
celebrations like funerals, fests, enthronization of chiefs, initiation rituals, marriages, births, and
harvest fests, among others.

2.4. The African Womans Perspective

An important figure within Santera is the Iyalocha. She becomes a mediator between the orishas
and the participants in a ceremony, followed by the ancestors and the senior santeros. That
charismatic recognition is the choice of the orishas. The Iyalocha, also known as Mother of Santo,
is a charismatic leader in the framework of a symbolic universe, conceived as the matrix of all
meanings that are socially materialized and subjectively real.

As the orishas priestess, she has a divine gift consisting of a group of special leadership
qualities, derived from the very divinity to satisfy the needs of the house-temple. A relationship, a
mutual link between mother and sons is thereof established. This guidance by the Iyaloricha is
justified by consensus of the communitys believers. 21

The de-construction and re-thinking of the feminine identity, of anthropology, of cosmology and of
the theology that supports the patriarchal discourse are derived from these experiences.
19
LIMA, Silvia. Alm das fronteras. In: Teologa Afro-americana II pp.24
20
LIMA, Silvia. Alm das fronteras. In: Teologa Afro-americana II pp.28
21
QUERINO, Sonia. Nossos pasos vm de longe. In: Teologa Afro-americana II pp.20
These women question the predominant theology so that it overcomes both the traditional
interpretation of black womens identity, which presents the woman as that being who was always
identified with the ideology of sacrifice, renunciation, resignation, service and the dualisms in
favor of a more integrated and integrating life in common in the world.

2.5. From Everyday Life Perspective

In order for theology to assume daily life as a hermeneutic space, it is important that it is not a
place for the reaffirmation of truth but rather one where the meaning of life is sought after.
Otherwise, theology would become a sort of fundamentalism trying to make sense of itself.

Re-affirmation of the individual must be done in the dialog between different meanings paying
respect to his/ her right to be different. Theology is a space to retrieve sense as much as it is a
space for the manifestation of subjectivity, understood not in opposition to knowledge but rather
as part of it.

Daily life appears as a possibility of building new relationships that strengthen human dignity and
life of women and men. This concrete life, with accomplishments and contradictions, is a space
for the manifestation of God. It is a place where we gather to talk about God, His acts upon life,
but also about His silences and abandonment. Theology in everyday life is transformed into a
way of being, a way of staying in this world. It is a hermeneutic place as well. 22

2.6. From Natures Perspective

African tradition is one of the most attached to nature; it fights for nature because it regards it as
sacred. Therefore, nature is to be served. African men and women do everything possible to
protect nature and even to help it survive. Their life goes down to creating alliances with all that
comes from nature.

The land is one of the main references when it comes to thinking about the African groups
symbolic universe. All living things are part of the earth and the latter is expressed in various
moments: on the floors we walk on, in the skin that covers the animals; in all, it is in everything
that protects, traces contours, models. Everything represents the world (aiy) or simply the land
where the ancestors live (il).

Certainly the earth is the starting point, the beginning, while the water (omi) represents the origin.
This is why earth and water are combined in all African rites. Earth and water are elements that
generate life. However, this condition is also shared by plants, where healing powers against so
many diseases are preserved. For African religions, nature becomes their protective shelter. They
look at the world not from outside but from within the universe.

Conclusion

22
DA SILVA, Maria Nilza. A mulher negra http://www.espaoacademico.com.br. pp. 12
We consider as valid the attempts at reflecting upon the above-explained issue in Cuba. The
following are some possible answers to work on, in terms of Inter-religious Dialog with Cuban
religions of African origin on the island:

Abound on and systematize the Black Feminist Theology in Cuba : It is necessary to take our
basic experience as a starting point and build thereon a whole methodology from our land.

Grasp all of the blackness: At times we get the impression that we are referring just to black
Christian men and women and we are not aware of the fact that the black world is much wider.
This poses the challenge of establishing dialogs with non-Christian realities and local experiences
of pain and exclusion.

Acquire deeper knowledge about the values of our culture and history and about the participation
of black men and women in the building of the Cuban identity : We must go over the history of the
life of black men and women and their participation in the Cuban struggle for independence.

Be open to a dialog with and knowledge of Cuban religions of African origin : We must recuperate
the spirituality and the sense of identity that has made those religions survives to date. In
addition, we must discover the spiritual and symbolic richness contained in each one of them, as
well as their respect of nature. The latter would contribute to the development of eco-theology
and eco-feminism.

Abound more on hermeneutics and biblical exegesis : It is necessary to revisit texts that have
been misinterpreted and bring them back into the original sense with which they were written. It is
the job of black hermeneutics to deconstruct those interpretations that are used to justify racism
and slavery and re-locate them constructively in the space and time where they truly belong.

Gain full awareness of and act upon racism among the black : It is not infrequent to walk on the
streets and notice, among the black people, expressions that reveal an underestimation towards
one another. It is important to go deep into the process of black men and womens self-
awareness and self-valorization by means of:

Workshops and studies on the topic: These can start at the level of local churches led by qualified
personnel and then spread to the whole of society. Although some mass media have discussed
this issue, a joint effort between Church and Society is required in order to collaborate to such
end and so make visible the signs of God in our time.

Modupu23

Amen and Ach

23
Thank you