[LITERARY DISCOURSE] Yoruba Vestiges in Nancy Morejón's Poetry

By Patricia E. González
Callaloo 28.4 (2005) 952-966

The Cuban Nancy Morejón cannot escape the African Nancy Morejón. Given the rich and complex history of blacks in Cuba, Morejón inherits a wealth of stories, words, images, rhythms, and sounds—all tracing waves back to Africa. My intention in this essay is to bring forward manifestations of Yoruba vestiges in Morejón’s poetry after presenting a brief scenario of the Afro-Cuban presence in Cuba, specifically focused on the participation of Cuban blacks in struggles for independence during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Although it is true that Morejón fights all labels placed on her other than “Cuban poet,” she does write black and feminist poems. Her enigmatic and liberating approach to these sensitive issues makes her poetry a wonderful blend of many other categories as well. She writes above all from her poetic soul, not from a political or racial stance. Her poetry springs up from within and includes both her position in history as witness and active participant in the Cuban Revolution, as well as her racial identity as a black Cuban. These two themes are essential to her poetry. This paper will focus only on the religious aspect of her African self and how the poetry is charged with multiple layers of meanings. For example, a line such as “put this African feather in your hair” overlooks the real meaning of an African feather placed on someone’s head.1

To better understand Cuban blacks and why Morejón uses hidden traces in reference to her black imaginary identity, a brief history of the African/black presence in Cuba is in order.

In 1791, during the first victory in the Haitian Revolution, whites, who had come to Cuba during the Spanish quest for gold, outnumbered blacks in the mainland territories and in the small enclaves where white cattle ranchers had settled over huge expanses of land. The ratio of whites to blacks changed when white landowners and their slaves fled Hispaniola for Cuba and helped transform Cuba into the biggest producer of sugar for Europe. Since sugar production necessitated masses of laborers, the trafficking of Africans intensified until slavery was abolished in 1886. By 1810 the nonwhite population of Cuba exceeded the white population. In fact, the slave population increased seven times between 1792 and 1841, while the number of free colored inhabitants tripled (Fernández Robaina 57).

Many have proclaimed the absence of racial identity in Cuba in official documents, speeches and history books. The nineteenth-century struggles for independence, in which blacks and whites fought side by side, may confirm such affirmations. “The experience of war had united forever black and white and had converted both into [End Page 952] nothing more or less than Cuban” (Ada Ferrer 61). An analysis of military events, however, shows that social reality must have been quite different.

The revolts of 1843–1844 (La Escalera), 1868 (Grito de Yara), 1880 (Guerra Chiquita), and 1895 (Grito de Baire) did not succeed, in part because of “black fear.” Criollos (whites born on the island) feared the possibility of another black island similar to Haiti, with a governing black elite. The participation and empowerment of blacks and mulattoes during these revolts resulted in white alliances with the Spanish ruling class, aborting any possibility of independence from Spain and resulting in imprisonment and execution of prominent leaders, most of them black and mulattoes (Ferrer 63–64).

The United States’s interest and influence on the island from the middle of the nineteenth century did not promote the black population’s accomplishments. U.S. intervention in 1868 brought the Spanish-Cuban-American War to a quick end. The presence of North Americans in Cuba imported the ideas of the segregated U.S. South to Cuba. For example, American-operated clubs and beaches became segregated, negating the Spanish supreme tribunal decree of 1889 (Canizares 131) that had sought to abolish racial segregation in public places. Four years later, in 1902, Cuba became independent, but the U.S. intervened again from 1906 to 1909.

Blacks in Cuba soon realized that white elites had no intention of improving the life of colored citizens. As a result, the black leader Evaristo Estenoz founded the Independent Party of Color (the PIC, Partido Independiente de Color) and ran in the 1908 elections. Soon after, “an amendment to the constitution made it illegal to organize political parties along racial lines” (Fernández Robaina 61), challenging blacks’ efforts to protect their rights in a separate party. When the PIC organized a peaceful demonstration to legalize the party again, the white ruling class interpreted the gesture as a “race war.” The result was the brutal elimination of the party in 1912. Two months after the demonstration, between 4,000 and 6,000 blacks and mulattoes, including the PIC founding members, were murdered (Fernández Robaina 61).

Blacks in Cuba benefited during the Machado regime (1925–1933), and a few achieved positions of power. It was during this time that Afro-Cubanism developed as an important movement promoting the arts, literature, and history among the Cuban intelligentsia. The incorporation of Afro-Cuban culture into the medulla of Cuban social and cultural identity finally began to affirm the essential position of African roots in Cuban society. Fernando Ortiz, Nicolás Guillén, Rómulo Lachatañeré, and Lydia Cabrera, among others, were important members of and contributors to the movement, and their works are still central to understanding Cuba today: “Fernando Ortiz’s importance cannot be overstated: first, he claimed that Cuba would not exist without its Afro-Cuban population and culture, and second, he established the study of Afro-Cuba as a discipline worthy of scholarly research” (Fernández Robaina 63). However, although Afro-Cubanism was good for the professors and the academic world, it did not have an impact at the time on the lives of most blacks and mulattoes on the island, who continued to suffer discrimination.

Nancy Morejón was born in 1944 when Afro-Cubanism was already a reality in Cuba; however, everyday life for Afro-Cubans continued to be a struggle. Morejón’s family was no exception. The young girl grew up in Havana in a caring community. Juanamaría Cordones-Cook writes in her introduction to Morejón’s recent anthology: [End Page 953] “Morejón enjoyed listening to the old black men, the ñañigo herbalists of San Nicolás square, the housewives, the neighbors, a world that, with the fascinating rhythm of the street shows, would become an integral part of the internal rhythm of her poetry. There she absorbed and assimilated Afro-Cuban culture until she identified herself with the very essence of her beloved Havana” (Cordones-Cook 33).

Nicolás Guillén, a key member in the Afro-Cubanism movement, who was responsible for introducing African rhythms and folklore in Cuban poetry, was Morejón’s mentor. He clearly left his mark and influenced her poetic inspiration. Reading Guillén’s poetry along with other Caribbean black and white writers, and then becoming his protégée, gave Morejón an acute awareness of her African self. At times Morejón, like Guillén, has manifested the urge to establish, construct, and confirm a Cuban identity, an identity that incorporates blackness as an essential element. In 1972, Guillén wrote about her work: “I think her poetry is black like her skin. . . . For the same reason it is also Cuban, with roots so deep they emerge on the other side of the planet, . . . I love her smile, her dark skin, and her African hair” (quoted in Davis 171).

Afro-Cubanism did contribute to some changes in society and did open more opportunities for blacks. In 1952 Batista, a mulatto himself, became the dictator of Cuba. In spite of his status as commander in chief, he was denied entrance into select, whites-only social clubs in Havana. In fact, some have argued that many white members of the Cuban elite allied themselves with the bona fide white Fidel Castro in 1958 in order to overthrow a mulatto who had gained power. But Castro had another agenda, and whites soon fled the country to settle in Miami. By the last day of 1958, as Fidel Castro marched into Havana, the young adolescent Morejón was an idealistic budding poet, eager to embrace the forthcoming revolution.

Many were the benefits for blacks during the Castro regime. By nationalizing private business and properties in the 1960s, Castro placed both blacks and whites on the same level: they all belonged to the state, and the state was responsible for them. Blacks gained many services not readily available to them before, including education, medical attention, nutritious food, and jobs. Castro declared Cuba a mulatto island, and black pride surged, but at the same time, the government eradicated all separatist organizations, including black societies and clubs, and repressed all religious manifestations, including African-derived religions.

Today, it is true that “if the ‘one-drop-makes-a-whole’ rule were applied in Cuba, the country would be as black as Nigeria” (Canizares 131), even though the myth of Cuban color blindness still exists. Today, ritual drums and white-dressed iyawos are heard and seen in the streets of Havana. The African religions are alive and vibrant. But it is also true that recent dollarization has increased social inequalities for Afro-Cubans in sore need of hard currency (dollars and euros). Many have been driven to commercialize their culture, either by selling necklaces or elekes and “voodoo-gadgets” to tourists or, better yet, by giving readings to foreigners, leer los caracoles, to soothe their lonely souls. In fact, a visit to a local santero for a reading is included in the itineraries of many foreigners.

Nancy Morejón is the most prominent poet in Cuba today, but she does not hold court for tourists. Her “blackness” does not seem to be as recognized as her Cubanness [End Page 954]on the island, but abroad her accomplishments as a “black poet” are highly commended. Two of her poems, “Black Woman,” and “I Love My Master,” appeared in several anthologies and were welcomed and praised, launching Morejón internationally early in her career as a poet. Both poems bring us the experience of slavery in the Caribbean and establish a common denominator among blacks in America, North and South, during the slave trade. Catherine Davis (174–75) has already commented on those poems in which Africa is connected more to the physical blackness and the experience of slavery and injustice. This essay will focus on a different reading of Africa in Morejón’s poems. Imbedded in her verses are metaphors and images that refer to an ancient African philosophy about life. There, one can find personal relationships to deities and the afterlife, as well as to communal life. Her poetry does highlight a myriad of themes connected to her life as a Cuban revolutionary poet, but there is also no doubt that the black Morejón manifests as much pride as the revolutionary one. In her poems she brings a deeper “Africa” closer to us, the readers. She goes beyond the references of conflict/problem Africa and manifests the vestiges of an internal, digested, assimilated, and visceral Africa in the diaspora. Her poems refer to Yoruba deities, known as orishas, and honor the “living dead,” the ancestors. She dominates these poetic spaces with words of wisdom from both the African ancestors and the orishas, who exercise their eternal influence.

Many of Morejón’s poems honor friends, family, and national heroes who have passed away. They are all “the living dead,” the eggun. In Nigeria and in Cuban-African derived religions, existence is not physical life on earth. The eggun-gun are spirits of ancestors, and some are the spiritual guides assigned to a person at birth (Gonzalez-Wippler 76). After death, spirits remain around their relatives here on earth, for protection and guidance. Invoked in every religious ritual, they often participate in family decisions, giving their approval or disapproval in family affairs. Among believers “the living dead” are the main focus of worship. They need attention, songs, invocations, offerings, drums, and so on, from us, “the living on earth,” in order to find peace and enlightenment (knowledge). In return, they may grant us protection, spiritual wisdom, and peace while we are here on earth. Morejón’s poem “In Front of a Mirror” refers to the importance of “our dead ones” and how present they are in our daily lives:

If the parks blossom
overflowing with fresh tulips
then the boulevard brings in the scents
of your loved ones,
and, above all, of your dead ones.

(Morejón in Looking Within 109)

Flowers, scents, incense, and any other pleasant olfactory signs invite the living dead. Afro-Cubans’ spirituality holds that life transcends the earthly plane so that the living can maintain an active communication with the dead (Brugal and Rizk 23). Two poems dedicated to Morejón’s grandmothers demonstrate the importance of the living dead (los muertos) in Morejón’s work. “Angela Domínguez, Presente,” a poem dedicated to Morejón’s maternal grandmother, shows the importance of Grandma Angela and of her presence throughout Morejón’s life: [End Page 955]

you are the queen of laughter
Angela
here in my room
all these years you’ve been in a portrait and a dry musty
flower for the dead
you are the sweetest I have dreamt.

(Morejón, 219)

The picture and the flower invoke her grandmother’s presence while Morejón sleeps. Grandma Angela is “here in my room,” and there she certainly has remained for many years accompanied by the already musty and dry flower. On the other hand, Angela’s spirit has remained fresh and alive as the source of laughter to accompany and guide her dearest granddaughter. The Afro-Cuban deep sense of the spiritual world involves the belief that ancestors and orishas communicate with living beings through dreams; this poem refers to Grandma Angela appearing to Morejón in her dreams and making her life sweeter.

Several other of Morejón’s poems to Camilo Cienfuegos, Ana Mendieta, Antonia Eiriz, Nieves Fresneda, and José Lezama Lima demonstrate how important it is for her to honor heroes and friends who have gone beyond. They also emphasize the importance of these figures who are well known in Cuban artistic, intellectual, and political life today. She honors all of them since they are believed to still influence us, the ones living on earth. This emphasis on the living dead in Morejón ties back to Africa.

A second reference in Morejón’s poems to African Yoruba culture is the world of the orishas. Many orishas were humans at some point, and they achieved a divine state because they had aché. Therefore, orishas inhabit the realm of the “living dead,” but they are at a higher level and are worshiped separately. In general, in Africa each orisha was originally associated with a town or region. For example, in Oyó, a former King of Oyó named Shangó was worshiped. Egba was the site where Yemayá was honored, and Ijosa and Ijebu were the sites for Oshún (Bolívar 5). The orishas had local worships in Nigeria that reflected a close autonomous economy based in tribal states. When slaves crossed the ocean, so did their local, personal orishas. Slaves, originally from many different tribes, were brought to Cuba and organized in cabildos according to their country of origin. Cabildos allowed slaves and free blacks (libertos) to continue their religious practices. At the end of the nineteenth century, several santeros unified the different Yoruba worships under one. It became La Regla de Ocha, also known as Santeria because the names given to orishas were taken from the Catholic saints. A new religion was born and a pantheon of deities was formed (Bolívar 10). The orishas as we know them today in Santeria live in a world between heaven, where Oloddumare and Olofi reside, and earth, where human beings reside. One communicates with Oloddumare through Olofi, the personification of the divinity and creator of the world, orishas, animals, and human beings. The orishas bring the messages from earth to Olofi, who has the power to resolve all conflicts. Both Oloddumare and Olofi are higher divinities too far away to hear humans. Humans communicate and interact with and worship orishas. There are seven major orishas in Cuban Santeria, and many more minor ones. Among the major orishas are Elegguá, Yemayá, Oshún, Changó, [End Page 956] and Obatalá. Santeros believe that all humans are born under the protection of one orisha who claims his or her head at birth, and that recognizing and honoring the personal santo, or orisha, will bring guidance and fulfillment.

A frequent presence in Morejón’s poems is Yemayá. This female orisha is the symbol of maternity and womanhood. She is often associated with the moon; her name is derived from the Yoruba title Yeyeomo eja, which means, “the mother whose children are the fish” (Gonzalez-Wippler 57). Yemayá as the universal mother appears in some pataki, or tales, as the Mother-orisha, giving birth to all other orishas. She rules over the ocean and, like the sea, shows great tranquility but also mighty force. In several poems Morejón evokes the orisha Yemayá, either directly or through many references to the sea and its attributes.

In the poem “Rebirth,” for example, Morejón’s verses manifest the poet’s personal identification with the orisha Yemayá:

Daughter of ocean waters
asleep in her womb
. . . I am reborn

(Morejón in Where the Island Sleeps Like a Wing 31)

Offspring of the sea, the poet meets her mother Yemayá and the encounter produces a rebirth, a new spiritual self.2 Morejón’s identification with Yemayá is so strong that even her close friends associate her with the orisha of the sea. Miguel Barnet, the Cuban ethnographer, wrote a poem for her called “Madrigal for Nancy Morejón,” in which the connection is obvious:

Mother of water, lead her in her ship of foam
to an invisible well in the sea.

(Barnet xi)

If Yemayá can be perceived as Morejón’s universal mother, Morejón’s poems to her own mother fuse both the universal icon Mother-Yemayá and her own birth mother. In “Mother,” Morejón eludes to Yemayá in the first few lines, using images of the sea to invoke her own mother. She then continues the poem with verses from her own personal memories of her birth-mama.

My mother had no garden
but rather steep islands
floating in delicate corals
under the sun.
What a time that was when she ran, barefoot,
on the limestone of the orphanages
and she did not know how to laugh
and she could not even gaze at the horizon.

(Morejón 211)

Here, images of both Yemayá and Morejón’s birth mother intertwined as readers imagine Yemayá’s coral garden bathing Morejón’s mother at the limestone-floored orphanage. [End Page 957]

The poem “Coffee” has another cross-reference to both mothers. The coffee that mama serves at home is at the same time being transported by Mother Yemayá across the ocean as ships’ cargo. “Mama brings coffee from remote seas” (Morejón 249).

Since Yemayá represents “the universal mother,” she has many sons and daughters. Morejón also writes poems to them, as another form of honoring the orisha. The poem “Home” shows Yemayá’s sons as humble dockworkers who worship her. They have eradicated any trace of Catholicism to embrace the old religion with altars in their homes, where sea anemones, red snappers, and small fish—attributes of Yemayá—can be placed. Those “salty mouth” men are seamen “made of sacks and ropes and winches, of decks, cranes, and ferries.”

Felipe or Fleitas or Candelario or Juan
—his is a very homey home
from which missals and sermons and promises of heaven
have been sent into exile,
to be replaced by
anemones,
porgies,
and bait.
They, sealess creatures of the sea, children of Yemayá.
made of sacks and ropes and winches,
of decks, cranes, and ferries.

(Morejón 221)

In the poem “In Praise of Nieves Fresneda,” Morejón again honors the living dead. Nieves Fresneda, a legendary dancer of the National Folkloric Ballet of Cuba and daughter of Yemayá, danced to her orisha worldwide. Her style has become the classic dance for Yemayá in Havana. In the poem, Morejón portrays Nieves as a “flying fish,” with many elements of the sea and specific objects that belong to Yemayá, such as snakes and cowries. Morejón tells us of Nieves’s sea-like feet, made of salt, spinning upon the sea as she moves in waves and circles in her dancing skirt.

Her maritime feet,
after all,
trunks of salt,
everlasting feet of Nieves,
uplifted like moons for Yemayá.

(Morejón 171)

Blue of sea and white of salt are the colors representing Yemayá. The moon and its silvery light are also elements of Yemayá. Images of Nieves’s dancing feet unite all these elements as they honor the orisha.

There are many poems by Morejón identifying the sea with Mother Yemayá, but the poem “Humus immemorial” presents a different aspect of Yemayá. Here Morejón connects the trip across the ocean from Africa to a black imaginary experience. Morejón sees the sea as gray and menacing, spitting “muzzled blacks” ashore. [End Page 958]

You, mother who finds your womb
in here among shackles and chains,
this is your beach . . .
Grayish sea of warehouses
heaving out heaps
of muzzled blacks,
hurling them
through the sea mist
onto any old port.

(Morejón 163)

Another poem of Morejón identifies home with a boat. In “Worlds,” the poet proclaims the sea as physical space for home. The poem also connects her with ancestors traveling in ships on one-way trips. Rather than proclaiming home on one shore, Nancy remains “the boat” traveling back and forth from one code to another, from one system of values to another, from the past to the present.

My house is a big boat
that has no desire to undertake its journey.
Its masts, its ropes,
became roots
and jellyfish planted in the middle of the sea

(Morejón 291)

Morejón identifies with black diaspora history and assumes a central position between these two worlds. Here she is Yemayá’s daughter brought from the Old World, and the Cuban Revolution’s daughter, born on an island across the shores from her ancestral home.

My house is a big boat
surrounded by new waters
where I plant my hands
and the pupils I have brought.
Dancing, rowing, crying and walking
among the fish on deck.
Old world that I love,
new world that I love,
worlds, both worlds, my worlds:
O the sacred turtles:
ay, the seaweed

(Morejón 291)

The poet acknowledges having one leg in America, one in Africa. Therefore, having a boathouse seems the most congruent with her hybrid identity, living in the sea, being rocked and sung lullabies by her mother, the guardian angel, Yemayá. Morejón assumes the African slave trade experience as her own reality today because the color of her skin brands that inherited history upon her. She has chosen to incorporate all of it as part of the personal self as well as to introduce to us her ancestors and their ancient knowledge as her own heritage. [End Page 959]

Morejón mentions a second orisha, Oshún, also known as La Caridad del Cobre, patron saint of Cuba, in her poetry. A pataki tells us that Oshún was devastated as she watched her people disappear onto ships bound for unknown lands: she wanted to go with them. She asked her sister Yemayá what it was like over there, pleading for her to take her in her ocean skirt across the waters. Yemayá agreed to take her and also to wash her color a bit so that all in the new land, whites and blacks, would worship her. Oshún crossed the waters and became brown: the mulatta.

The Cuban mulatta appears in many writings besides Morejón’s and has become the symbol of hybridity par excellence. She is usually a sex symbol, revered by white men and despised by their faithful wives. The coquettish orisha Oshún (Yeyé Moro) is not necessarily the orisha Oshún in all her manifestations but only one aspect of her. It is interesting that Morejón avoids Oshún’s mulatto stereotype and the colonial male gaze that makes the mulatta an object of desire. She mostly eludes to Oshún by her many attributes, not by the representation of the happy dancing sexual mulatta. Oshún is the orisha of river waters; she is the patroness of childbearing and protects women in labor. She can be irresistible when sweetened by honey, “oñí,” another of her attributes. She loves flowers and birds, enjoys life, and laughs with pleasure. Her color is yellow, she is called by a golden bell, and coral and amber belong to her.

Morejón has an interesting poem called “Amber,” a poem that does not mention Oshún by name but carries her signature:

In between honey and bell
the carefree laughter of amber
like a bird gone past
in her own maternity

(Morejón 263)

The birds represent the power of the mother in Yoruba tradition. Honey, amber, and laughter, each one of these symbolizes and belongs to Oshún. The poem praises Oshún without mentioning her name. This is one of Morejón’s signatures: the enigma. Nothing is direct. She seduces with words, half meanings, and veiled signs. She leaves behind hidden trails for her readers to follow, and maybe they will understand some hidden meanings and some ancestral traits, and maybe they won’t. Her poetry has layers upon layers of hidden meanings and many bridges that connect different worlds.

Oshún manifests in two other poems as gold bangles or bracelets that are a sure representation of the river orisha. The first is a line dedicated to her grandmother Angela, “you seem entangled in golden bracelets” (Morejón 219). The second, “And golden bracelets spring from her sugary hair”, refers to her mother3 (Morejón 249). The mention of the bracelets automatically implies someone in the religion wearing ritual bracelets for her orisha. These references here locate mother and grandmother as daughters of Oshún, and they emphasize matrilineal lineage, manifesting as well the importance of ancestors. All the above identifies Nancy Morejón directly as heir of the Yoruba tradition.

When Morejón writes a poem dedicated to an orisha, “The Eyes of Elegguá” (Morejón 165), for example, the Yoruba reference is straightforward. Elegguá is the [End Page 960] orisha of the crossroads, and the first and last in every ritual. What becomes an enigma is how Morejón brings together many elements of the Regla de Ocha or Santeria in the poem. There are many layers and meanings of, and references to, the Yoruba religion not easily recognized at first glance. The poem makes hidden allusions to different orishas and their ritual world. It is a poem that proclaims the necessity of the religion for spiritual growth and how the religion is a keystone in Cuban culture. Elegguá is the first warrior given to aleyos (novices) as they begin their spiritual path, and he is usually located behind the front door of the house for protection. Dedicating a poem to Elegguá is for Morejón a way to open the door to the mysteries of the religion in her poetry. The first part of the poem reads:

tonight
by the doors of the big old reddish house
once more have seen the warrior’s eyes
elegguá
tongue
bloodred like the hearts of iron tools
feet tanned uneven
skin fiery chest rearing smiling

(Morejón 165)

In this section, the speaker has encountered Elegguá, the ancient tongue (la lengua), and blood (ashé). Elegguá is the beginning of the road into Santeria and also the first orisha invoked in every ritual. He will bring the sacred ancient language of songs to us, and he will receive the first sacrificial blood, essential elements representing “the force,” the cosmic energy that moves the universe, ashé. This orisha of “uneven golden feet, skin of fiery mad smiling chest"4 is located at the crossroads. He looks into the future and the past simultaneously. At the same time an old man and a young mischievous boy, he commands the paths. Elegguá is typically represented by a stone or coconut with cowry shells for eyes. Sometimes an elegguá has two faces (four eyes) and sometimes many more eyes. Elegguá needs to see in all four directions. After the introduction of the orisha, the poem continues alluding to Elegguá’s breaking into the dancing ritual.

he has just burst out shouting
elegguá jumps
imagines the hymns
rubs space with a copper knife
who will let him
if not the stone
or the white coconut
who will recover the seashells of his eyes

During a celebration to honor the orishas with drums called bembé, orishas descend and possess their sons and daughters. In the poem an elegguá has arrived, “bursting out shouting and jumping” as he mounts or possesses his horse (son or daughter) singing sacred songs of invocation. The liminal space of possession shares the same [End Page 961] space as death; therefore, “rubs space with a copper dagger"5 refers to Oyá whose reign is the cemetery and beyond. The copper dagger is one of Oyá’s attributes, given to her by her husband, Oggún, so that she can accompany him in battle.

“Who will let him?"6 Who will please the orisha? His priests and santeros practicing the old ways, says Morejón. They will throw and gather the shells and protect the sacred otanes (stones) representing the orishas. They will cast Elegguá’s twenty-one cowry shells to direct his followers. Obí, coconut, is sacred, and santeros will respect it as sacred and consult it as the simplest form of divination. To cast the coconut (darle el coco al santo) is to cast four pieces of coconut on the floor to determine the wishes of the orishas. Four white pieces of coconut, or alafia, indicate a positive outcome. The cowry shells are the eyes and mouth of Elegguá. If treated with respect and pleased with rum, tobacco, toys, and candy, Elegguá will open doors, show the way, and help one overcome obstacles. On the other hand, if forgotten or disrespected, he can become a nuisance and a trickster, as these lines in the poem portray:

the great elegguá has tied my hands
and loosens them and runs away

The third stanza of the poem announces consequences for losing the path. Forgetting Elegguá implies missing the road to ancestral African knowledge.

Olofi would not be known if the path is forgotten7
rituals would not be remembered
nor the animals in his honor
nor the magic spear
nor the whistling in the night

(Morejón 165)

The poem implies that once the road is lost, Olofi will not be known: forgotten will be rituals and sacrificial animals in his honor, as well as the magic spear that represents Oggún, the powerful warrior and iron maker. The whistles in the night or the ancestor’s calls would be ignored. Olofi is one of the supreme deities in Regla de Ocha, therefore a central reverential figure. Not knowing Olofi would mean erasure of essential Yoruba ancestral beliefs and culture.

The final lines of the poem confirm Morejón’s hidden recommendations to follow Yoruba’s wisdom:

and the secret lies under the yagruma
head sun and whistling souls
the only force on that dark path

(Morejón 165)

The secret to the ancestral road is under the yagruma tree, an abundant tree in low arid terrains in Cuba, an almost magic plant with many medicinal properties, from astringent to coagulant, and said to be good for colds, asthma, herpes, diarrhea, and so on. One must look in nature for the secret. The next line, “head sun whistling sounds,” is interpreted in the following way: The head represents our guardian angel or personal orisha. The sun is Olorum, the concrete visual manifestation of Olofi and [End Page 962] Oloddumare. Olorum represents life’s vital force, and thanks to its energy and warmth, the crops can grow, wind and water move, and there is day and night (Bolívar 86). The whistles are the manifestations of the ancestors in the forest at night. For most African religions, the ancestors have a central domain. In Santeria, “primero el muerto y después el santo,” which means the ancestors are honored first before the orishas.8 All three elements, the guardian angel or orisha, Olorum (supreme deity), and the personal ancestors (los muertos or mis muertos) stand as the “sole power of the dark road,"9 the African road.

Morejón also mentions Elegguá in the poem “Richard Brought His Flute.” A few lines of the poem refer to a common practice in worshipping Elegguá.

(It’s Monday and one of us has lit our candle
great weekly candle for elegguá
there is nothing to be said
just take a bottle of rum beside the door)

(Morejón 227)

Monday is Elegguá’s day, so he is honored at the start of that day and every week by lighting a candle and offering him rum or aguardiente, cigars, and incense. One does not need to say a word. He will protect you for the week.

The appearance of the orishas is only one of the several manifestations of Yoruba in Morejón’s poetry. African ancestral representation is found in different ways in other poems. For example, in “By the Gulf” (Morejón 287), Morejón reaffirms and embraces the collective past her ancestors have bestowed. The poem goes beyond the strong links to “the living dead,” beyond passive acknowledgment of previous reality. It begins with an epigraph from Nicolás Guillén, which reads: “dramatic galley slaves, dramatic galley slaves"—an enigmatic quote followed by an enigmatic poem. These three words, spoken twice, refer to the slave trade and create an ongoing tempo of repetition, even before the poem starts, suggesting continuous wave after wave on the sea.

The poem refers to the Gulf of Guinea, along which is the so-called Slave Coast, known by its role in human trafficking. But the poem perhaps also refers to a mythical gulf in the Americas, thereby referencing both the arrival and departure points for that timeless boat moving between both cultures. The poem invites one to think new thoughts based on the American realities of the New World. There are clues, intentions and a purpose for blacks in the Americas today. A major component of any new construction of self must be spirituality, and in this poem that construction has a Yoruba base. The mother Yemayá protects the runaway while bringing him to a new coast, a new beginning by the sea. Accompanying her is the orisha Changó and his attribute, the drum. Morejón’s reference to the goat alludes to the skin used for the construct of the drums. Changó is the owner of the drum and therefore also commands dance. Both dance and drums are essentials in order to celebrate rituals and communicate with the orishas.

Runaway slave, at night we are in the blue
waters and you are finding new islands
new beings [End Page 963]
swimming by the sea.
Breeze in the copper afternoon
sun rising
on the back of a thousand years
throbbing of the alligator
bridge to the warehouses
lightning bolt of Changó, and the goat.

Morejón’s expectations are high for blacks in America as they walk accompanied by sweet Ochún and Elegguá. Oshún is represented by honey, and Elegguá by the stick in the shape of a hook called “el garabato.” They must raise their weapons, protected by Ogún, and stay alert, watching the path ahead. The connection to ancestral Africa and Morejón’s spiritual world is obvious, and cannot be overlooked as the last line confirms: “for we are the gulf forever.”

It’s our blood that demands
we make haste
in this world:
Raise high your lances,
your retinas,
honey and garabato
for we are the gulf forever.

(Morejón 287–89)

Morejón urges her blood brothers and sisters to move forward, keeping in mind protection (Ogún’s lance), vision (Obatalá’s eyes), know-how (Ochún’s honey), and all their options (Elegguá’s roads).

One of the final poems of the collection, “Running Beneath the Trees” (Morejón 347), once more affirms African ancestral ways. It is significant that the poem is dedicated to Eugenio Hernández Espinosa, an important contemporary Cuban playwright who has played a crucial role in establishing an Afro-Cuban identity. His plays and productions have continued to introduce ritual elements, dance, music, and stories from the Afro-Cuban heritage since the mid-fifties.

The poem seems to imply a happy fusion with the ancestors (the eggun), made possible through possession. An encounter with the night, with a sudden wind, with the eggun will result in freedom and creativity. Going back to African roots will open new avenues for the personal manifestation of the self here and the self there, on the other side of the mirror. Morejón identifies with Hernández Espinosa in the quest for unity of here (Cuba) and there (Africa).

when you are walking and night seems to appear
put your hot hands
on the brow of the one you’re with
and climb the sidewalk
give your blood
come on now speed up the pace
tell [End Page 964]
then keep on raising your eyes to night
shout
plunge your breast into the clouds
then come back to earth
run beneath the trees

(Morejón 347)

Know and assume your past, grow in knowledge, live in harmony with nature, and above all, fight for you with all your might. Once again, “run beneath the trees” and be free.
Conclusions

Nancy Morejón is a Cuban poet, but like Guillén has told us, “her poetry is as black as her skin.” She is not African, but her poetry exudes the mother continent. References to a life she barely knew filter through the poems, proudly reclaiming her lineage all the way back to the Slave Coast and the galley slaves. The Africa dreamed about in Cuba is a mythical one. Her visions have been passed down through whispers, songs, worship, and dance from one generation to another, but they are real. Morejón brings to us verses from many voices and realities. She sings to the “living dead” like her ancestors did; she sings to the orishas, like they did; but above all, she sings to all Cubans and their friends. True, Nancy Morejón has the skin color and blood of African ancestors, but it is also true that she is above all Cuban. Reconstructing her personal history lost in ocean waters may be impossible, as Guillén’s verses remind us:

Have I not, then,
a grandfather Mandingo Dahoman, Congolese? . . .
Oh, who knows!
What a riddle in the waters!

(Guillén 75)

The riddle persists. The only possible response to an overwhelming reality is to assume such history, to embrace the ancestors, and to carry on. Like a hunchback, shoulders full of jewels, walking on. That rich heritage also brings sorrow, and Morejón sings and embraces that sadness too.

From the sixteenth century dates my sorrow
and I hardly knew it
because that nightingale
always sings in my sorrow.

(Morejón 161)

After acceptance comes coexistence. In Morejón’s new vision of blacks after slavery, colonization, survival, and subordination, there is triumph. Her poetry invites all, especially Afro-Cubans, to embrace their heritage, their spirituality, their past, and the wisdom of the ancestors to create new black imaginaries full of hope, life, and [End Page 965] dimension. Her poetry sings proudly for new constructions of identity fusing past, present, and future in a world where humans transcend skin color and share humanity.
Patricia González, director of a number of theatrical productions, has published articles in such periodicals as La M‡ Teaodora, Revista Tablas, Gestos, Huellas, Chichamaya, El caf literario, Conjunto, and Latin American Theater Review. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Endnotes

1. An African feather on someone’s head means a person is participating in a Yoruba religious ritual. During an initiation into La Regla de Ocha, the newborn santero is presented to other members of the religious community the second day of initiation. It is the public part of the ritual. The iyawó, or initiate, will be dressed representing his or her orisha. The iyawó will have a crown with red African parrot feathers. The number of feathers depends on the orisha, for example, seven for Yemayá, and eight for Obatalá. The ritual is reminiscent of African chiefs wearing feathers as a sign of their status.

2. The process of initiation into the religion is perceived as a rebirth. Santeros treat the iyawó as a newborn child.

3. Usually women initiated in the religion wear bangles. For example, five golden ones are worn for Oshún, seven silver ones for Yemayá, two silver ones for Obatalá, and nine copper ones for Oyá.

4. This is my own translation of the following lines: “los pies dorados desiguales, la tez de fuego el pecho encabritado y sonriente.”

5. I have translated the Spanish puñal de cobre as “copper dagger”; it has also been translated as “copper knife.”

6. The Spanish expression quién le consentirá has been translated in here as “who will let him.” In my interpretation the verse is a rhetorical question meaning “who will pamper, please, and attend the orisha; who will take care of him and give him offerings.”

7. In Spanish the line reads: “ya no sabrá de Olofi si ha perdido el camino.” In my interpretation, “Olofi would not be known if the path is forgotten.” I have modified the English translation, which reads: “he wouldn’t know if Olofi has lost the trail.”

8. Santeros believe that “the living dead” come first and must be honored before any religious ritual can commence. The ancestors have to be consulted, and they have to approve the events that will follow.

9. In Spanish the verse says: “como único poder del oscuro camino.” In my translation, it reads: “the sole power of the dark road.”
Works Cited

Barnet, Miguel. “The Poetry of Nancy Morejón.” Introduction to Where the Island Sleeps Like a Wing, by Nancy Morejón. Edited and translated by Kathleen Weaver. San Francisco: Black Scholar, 1985. pp. ix–xi.

Bolívar Aróstegui, Natalia. Los Orishas en Cuba. La Habana: Ediciones Fundación Pablo Milanés, 1994.

Brugal, Yana Elsa, and Beatriz Rizk, eds. Rito y Representación. Los sistemas mágico-religisos en la cultura cubana contemporánea. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2003.

Canizares, Raul. Cuban Santeria. Walking with the Night. Rochester, VT: Destiny, 1993.

Cordones-Cook, Juanamaría. Introduction. Mirar adentro/ Looking Within, by Nancy Morejón. Edited by Juanamaría Cordones-Cook. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003.

Davis, Catherine. A Place in the Sun. Women Writers in Twentieth Century Cuba. London: Zed, 1997.

Fernández Robaina, Tomás. Cuba. African Caribbeans. A Reference Guide. Edited by Alan West-Durán. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003. Pp. 55–71.

Ferrer, Ada. “Rethinking Race and Nation in Cuba” in Cuba, the Elusive Nation. Edited by Madeline Cámara Betancour and Damian J. Fernández, 2000. Pp. 60–76.

González-Wippler, Migenes. Santeria: The Religion. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1998.

Guillén, Nicolás. “My Last Name” in Man-Making Words. Translated by Roberto Marquez and David McMurray. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1972. p. 75.

Morejón, Nancy. Where the Island Sleeps Like A Wing. Edited and Translated by Kathleen Weaver. San Francisco: Black Scholar, 1985.

———.Mirar adentro/Looking Within. Edited by Juanamaría Cordones-Cook, Detroit: Wayne State, 2003.