IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 9 ENGLISH | Page 106

but with the predominance of blacks
and mulattos from the most popular and
humble strata.
The Congo rules
The denominations of Bantu or Congo
origin: Palo Monte, Palo Mayombe,
Palo Congo, Brillumba and Kimbisa,
are associated with the best witchcraft,
known as burukutela, bilongo, salación,
and so on. Usually their chants and
liturgical invocations are given in a
linguistic mixture of Spanish and
Kikongo. There is no accurate estimate
of their followers in Cuba, but their
liturgical forces are growing in the
outskirts of Havana (Arroyo Naranjo,
Párraga, Mantilla and Santa Amalia), as
well as in Matanzas, especially where
African slaves were concentrated to
work in the sugar cane and coffee
plantations. There are also followers of
these beliefs in some areas of the
eastern region.
Devotees are mostly black and, to a
lesser extent, mulattos, although whiteskinned people, even from the high
society and with good social position,
resort to paleros for solving issues of
affaires, hooking somebody into
something, removing curses or hexes by
another sorcerer, annihilating or
destroying enemies or individuals who
are trying to evade justice.
Thus, the paleros are labeled with more
degrading reputation compared with the
practitioners of other religions of
African origin. The stereotype directly
imposed by European invention is
discriminatory. It reduces the religious
diversity of the ethnic-religious groups
of African origin (Yoruba and Bantu) to
the savage black in open confrontation
with ideological and religious models of
the white high society.
Ethnologist Lydia Cabrera clarified in
El Monte (1954