IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 9 ENGLISH | Page 105

Art and Identity

The Imaginary
Jungle. The sacred
secrets of El Monte
in the mythology of
the plastic art by
Jorge Alfonso
Delgado
José Clemente Gascón Martínez
Teacher, Artist and Art Critic
Havana, Cuba
Oh, ancestors, do everything in your power
for preventing that the princes and nobles who rule today
will be never sent away from here as slaves;
have all the wealth of their boats back to Dahomey
Dahomeyan ritual chant

B

lack Africa is certified by
science as the cradle of
humanity. It´s also a fertile
source of artistic creativity in other
continents, because of forced or
voluntary migration. Cuba has the most
varied traditions of the entire African
diaspora in America, with four
religious-cultural complexes: Santería
(Yoruba), Palo (Congo), Rule Arará
(Ewe-Fon) and the Secret Society

Abakuá
(Calabar).
The
African
heritages that did not dissolved in the
new mixed culture are the core themes
we call Afro-Cubans. Herein the
integrated African component does not
act as living fossil, but as evolutionary
element in the new environment across
the Atlantic. Hence the hybrid,
ingenious and influential manifestations
in contemporary culture that became
transracial since the twentieth century,

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