THE DECLINE OF SPEECH SURROGACY IN CUBAN

BÀTÁ DRUMMING

NICHOLAS MARSH

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master

of Music, University of Auckland, 2013.  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

Abstract

   
 
 
 
 Bàtá  drums  are  “talking  drums”  that  originate  from  West  Africa  and  were  
reconstructed  in  Cuba  by  African  slaves.  Used  in  ritual  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  bàtá  
drums  are  believed  to  identify  the  attributes  of  supernatural  beings  (òrìṣà.)  through  the  
performance  of  melo-­rythmic  patterns  that  replicate  the  pitch  structure  of  spoken  
language.  There  is  considerable  debate  amongst  Cuban  bàtá  drummers  regarding  the  
extent  to  which  original  African  linguistic  content  remains  in  drummed  ‘salutes’  to  the  
òrìṣà performed in ritual. This study suggests possible hypotheses for the decline of ‘drum
speech’ in Cuban bàtá drumming.  I  argue  that  amongst  other  factors,  the  ascendancy  of  
one  faction  in  a  contest  for  ritual  authority  in  Cuba  introduced  changes  in  ritual  
practice,  shifting  the  focus  from  the  batá’s  role  as  ‘talking  drum’  to  a  more  ‘musical’  role  
within  ritual.  This  shift  demonstrates  how  musical  meaning,  ritual  enactment,  and  oral  
tradition  are  fluid  and  evolving  in  diasporic  communities.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
 
 
 

I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Gregory Booth for his patience, support, and

guidance, without whom, this thesis would not have been possible. Sincerest thanks to all

in the Anthropology department at the University of Auckland, including Dr. Kirsten

Zemke, Dr Adrian Renzo and Dr. Sun-Hee Koo for their advice and support. I would like

to thank Mark Baynes for being a sounding board for my ideas, and finally I would like to

thank Stephanie Holmes for being so supportive in so many ways.

Dedicated to my son, Oscar Joseph Louis Marsh, for the light that you
bring into my world.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Table of Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... i  
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................ii  
Introduction................................................................................................................................ iv  
A  note  on  orthography  and  spellings. ..........................................................................................ix  
Who  are  the  Yorùbá? .......................................................................................................................... x  
Overview  of  chapters: .................................................................................................................................. xiii  
CHAPTER  ONE:  ORIGINS........................................................................................................... 1  
Religion  in  Yorùbáland ......................................................................................................................2  
Ori:  the  Yorùbá  religious  concept  of  the  head. ...................................................................................... 7  
Egúngún:  the  Ancestors................................................................................................................................... 8  
The  òrìṣà Àyán  and  the  sacred  bàtá drums ....................................................................................9  
Ṣàngó:  the  drums  of  the  divine  King....................................................................................................... 12  
Yorùbá  oral  tradition  and  the  bàtá  drums. ............................................................................... 14  
Conclusion:.......................................................................................................................................... 21  
Speech  surrogacy. ................................................................................................................... 24  
The  bàtá  in  relation  to  other  Yorùbá  ‘talking  drums’ ...................................................................... 25  
Bàtá  drums  and  the  ‘speech’  act................................................................................................................ 29  
A  Semiosis  of  the  bàtá  drums? ....................................................................................................... 33  
The  iconicity  of  drum  language................................................................................................................. 39  
Code  talking  in  Yorùbá  drum  language. .................................................................................... 41  
Ẹnà  bàtá:  drum  code  of  the  Àyán  alubàtá.............................................................................................. 44  
Codes  of  secrecy............................................................................................................................................... 46  
Conclusion:.......................................................................................................................................... 48  
CHAPTER  THREE:  ÒRÌṢÀ  WORSHIP  AND  THE  BÀTÁ  DRUMS  IN  CUBA ................. 49  
Cabildos ................................................................................................................................................ 50  
Cabildos  as  nodes  of  resistance................................................................................................................. 51  
Carnival ................................................................................................................................................ 53  
Syncretism.......................................................................................................................................................... 57  
The  bàtá  drums’  reconstruction  in  Cuba ............................................................................................... 60  
Ṣàngó  in  Cuba ................................................................................................................................................... 63  
Fundamentos .................................................................................................................................................... 65  
Àyán  initiations  and  consecrations  in  Cuba ........................................................................................ 68  
Drum  consecrations ....................................................................................................................................... 71  
Conclusion:.......................................................................................................................................... 72  
CHAPTER  FOUR:  THE  DECLINE  OF  BÀTÁ  SPEECH  SURROGACY  IN  CUBA ............. 74  
Ritual  fields:  the  reconstitution  of  the  Lucumí  religion....................................................... 75  
Divergent  interpretations............................................................................................................................ 79  
The  reconstitution  of  bàtá  ‘tradition’  in  Cuba.......................................................................... 81  
Gendered  restrictions.................................................................................................................................... 82  
CONCLUSION:  HOW  THE  DRUMS  STILL  ‘SPEAK’............................................................ 86  
Other  influences............................................................................................................................................... 92  
APPENDICES.............................................................................................................................. 95  
Appendix  1:  Bascom’s  account  of  the  Ifẹ̀  Creation  myth  (1969) ....................................... 95  
Appendix  2:  Ifá  divination ............................................................................................................. 96  
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 99  

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Introduction
 
 
 
The representation of human speech through non-verbal surrogates, defined as

‘communication systems which replace the use of speech’ (Crystal, 2009:447) has been the

subject of studies by numerous ethnomusicologists, linguists, and anthropologists since the

the mid- twentieth century (e.g, Cowan, 1948, Ames et al, 1971, Hurley, 1968, Ong, 1977,

Wilken, 1979, Neeley, 1996, Arewa and Adekola, 1980). Geographically diverse cultures

have developed a wide variety of techniques that utilise chordophones, membranophones,

aerophones, idiophones, syllabic substitution, and whistling to replace spoken words or

syllables with equivalent sounds and to convey linguistic content. Most commonly, speech

surrogates replace spoken language in cultures where the dominant language

systematically uses ‘tone’, (or more accurately, ‘pitch,’) to express either lexical or

grammatical distinctions. In tonal languages, the pitch of a given word or syllable is the

crucial factor that determines semantic content, in linguistics, this is known as the ‘lexical

tone’ (Crystal, 2009:486).

Surrogate speech played on musical instruments is widespread in many Sub-Saharan

African cultures such as the Ga, Dagomba and Akan of Ghana, the Ewé of Ghana, Benin

(Formerly Dahomey), and Togo, the Fon of Benin, and the Yorùbá of South-Western

Nigeria and Benin. Although many Asiatic languages are tonal, the use of speech

surrogates is less common in these linguistic groups, a notable exception being the Hmong,

who originate from the mountainous highlands that straddle the modern borders between

China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand (Kaminski, 2008). The most famous speech surrogacy

technique utilises so-called ‘talking drums,’ a phenomenon long associated with the Sub-

Saharan African cultures mentioned above and the subject of studies by Carrington, 1949,

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Beier, 1954, Armstrong, 1954, Locke and Agbeli, 1980 and 1981, Chernoff, 1979, Euba,

1990, Villepastour, 2010 and others. The principle that underpins how instruments

function as speech or vocal surrogates is that they reproduce the ‘tone melody’ of an

utterance along with its attendant number of syllables and stresses. What the instruments

transmit, then, is not usually in the form of a code or cipher, although this is possible, it is

an abstraction of spoken language. (Armstrong, 1954)

The aim of this thesis is to explore possible reasons why the bàtá drums, a ‘talking’

drum ensemble that originated in West Africa, no longer ‘speak’ in Cuba, the only place in

the African diaspora where they were reconstructed in forms comparable/identical to those

found in Africa. As this study is the precursor to future fieldwork, it is based entirely on

my interpretation of secondary sources; as such, although this thesis is within the discipline

of ethnomusicology, I draw on material gleaned from the disciplines of anthropology,

history, linguistics, and the philosophy of language. As I am not a trained linguist,

anthropologist, historian, or philosopher, I have incorporated this material to support my

arguments as I have seen fit and make no claims of authority in those respective

disciplines.

Bàtá drumming originates among the people of Yorùbáland; I use the term

‘Yorùbáland’ to blur the socio-political boundaries between present-day Nigeria and the

Republic of Benin, as on both sides of the border, live people who share similarities in

religion, language, and oral tradition. Similarly, I use the term ‘Yorùbá’ to describe diverse

groups of people that form the wider Yorùbá ethno-linguistic group, as well as other

ethnicities labelled with the ethnonym ‘Yorùbá’ by slave owners and Christian

missionaries. Musicologist Akin Euba (2003:54) cites Yorùbá historians who argue that

the bàtá drums were introduced to Yorùbáland from the north at least five hundred years

ago. The bàtá drums were reconstructed in colonial Cuba after large numbers of Yorùbá,

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known in Cuba as Lucumí, arrived as slaves in the early 19th century. The term ‘Lucumí’

also refers to the language used by Yorùbá slaves and their descendents in 19th Century

Cuba, and is the ritual jargon of Santería, an Afro-Cuban religion.

The Cuban bàtá ensemble consists of three double headed, hourglass shaped

drums. The largest, leading drum is called the ìyàálu, the middle drum, called the ítótèlé

and the small accompanying drum, is called the okonkólo. They are played horizontally

with a hand on each skin with the drummer in a seated position. Bàtá drums are associated

with a Yorùbá religious tradition known as òrìṣà (pronounced Or-ee-sha) worship, this

tradition was carried in the minds of enslaved Yorùbá from Africa to the New World

during the Atlantic slave trade. Òrìṣà worship is a hierarchical religious belief system that

reaches from Olódùmarè (God Almighty, also known as Olófin), through lesser gods and

spirits [òrìṣà.] as well as egún [human ancestors] down to the realm of humans (Amira and

Cornelius, 1989:18). Individuals with varying degrees of sacred authority populate the

human realm. This human authority ranges from babalochas and iyalochas [priests], to

iyawo' [novices], to aleyo [transients or religious outsiders]. Since the creator God

Olódùmarè is beyond human comprehension and impossible to worship directly,

practitioners communicate with òrìṣà who act as intermediaries between Olódùmarè and

human beings. Each òrìṣà embodies and governs various aspects of Olódùmarè, such as

natural features or elemental forces acting within nature. In Cuba, separate òrìṣà cults that

originated in Yorùbáland merged to form la Regla de Ocha, also known as Santería.

Like most sub-Saharan African cultures, the Yorùbá have a strong oral tradition

and an extensive corpus of oral history, myths, proverbs, poetry, and song. In Yorùbáland,

aside from performance by specialized verbal artists, a particular form of panegyric poetry

known as oríkì [praise poetry] is performed on drums and other instruments that function

as speech surrogates. Along with other functions, oríkì venerates the òrìṣà, as well as

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ancestors, royalty, lineage, individuals and inanimate objects. Oríkì, performed on bàtá

drums then, is a means of conveying conceptions of the past. Peel argues that in non-

literate societies, conceptions of the past may be ‘largely or entirely the product of

particular present interests’ (Peel, 1984:112). I show that the ‘particular interests’ that the

reinvention of the bàtá drums in Cuba served were one faction placed amongst contested

claims for ritual authority between different branches of the Lucumí religion in Cuba. As

Peel argues: ‘All traditional societies of any political complexity, however, seem to require

consciously to reconstitute their past as part of their self-production’ (Peel, 1984:112-3).

With this in mind, I place the Cuban bàtá drums within a larger reconstitution of African

òrìṣà practice that re-shaped the role of the drums. Following Manuel and Fiol’s argument

that ‘the decline in text orientation led to a greater emphasis on and cultivation of purely

musical aspects’ in Cuban performances’ (2007:48). Placed within a context of contested

ritual authority in Cuba, I argue that one result of the process of reconstituting conceptions

of a ‘past’ was the intentional and conceptual shift away from bàtá drums as transmitters

of oral tradition to an abstract, purely musical role within òrìṣà worship in Cuba.

According to Cuban ethnographer Fernando Ortiz, the Cuban bàtá tradition emerged from

the reconstitution of African practices, initiated by one or two individuals in the context of

slavery (Ortiz, 1955). The Cuban bàtá tradition, then, is an invented one, following

Hobsbawm’s definition of invented tradition as: ‘a set of practices, normally governed by

overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate

certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies

continuity with the past. In fact, where possible, they normally attempt to establish

continuity with a suitable historic past’ (Hobsbawm, 1983:1). This conception of tradition

is fluid and malleable, Hobsbawm shows that traditions are invented, reinvented,

interpreted, and reinterpreted. This fluidity is no exception in the drumming traditions of

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both Cuba, and the African traditions that they were initially reconstituted from during the

time of slavery.

The speech function of the bàtá drums is now largely lost in Cuba (Schweitzer,

2003, Vincent 2006, Marcuzzi, 2005); however, it remains a part of the Yorùbá bàtá

tradition. Òrìṣà worship, in decline in Yorùbáland due to the encroachment of Islam and

Christianity, flourishes in the ‘New World’. With this in mind, explorations of the ways

that bàtá drums operate as a speech surrogates necessitate a bi-lateral approach. Following

the work of Amanda Vincent (2010), I analyse the ways that bàtá drummers render speech

‘at source’ in Yorùbáland. This Yorùbá ‘source’ in a sense, no longer exists, as the Yorùbá

bàtá tradition is dynamic, and has significantly change since the early 19th century

transatlantic bifurcation, however Vincent’s valuable research has yielded important

findings, and for this reason deserves analysis.

Like all linguistic systems, speech surrogates relate to the concept of the linguistic

sign. Framed by the writings of Peirce, Saussure, Jakobson, J.L Austin, Stalnaker, and Eco,

I explore the semiotic and linguistic potential of the bàtá drums, contrasting these

theoretical models with Yorùbá conceptions of ritual insidership, code talking and ‘deep

knowledge’. Showing how the bàtá drums’ linguistic capabilities relate to semiotics and

Austin’s Speech act theory, I explore how the concepts of iconicity, indexicality, and

performativity relate to the ritual function of the drums. Due to the performative aspects of

conveying speech and ritual knowledge via the medium of drums, it can be argued that the

performance is the last link in a semiotic chain, where the most recent performance is the

latest iteration of a semiotic sign. In light of the interpretative impasse that contemporary

Santería practitioners are confronted with in regards to the linguistic aspects of ritual bàtá

drumming, I am interested in how this process is enacted since most Cuban worshippers’

ability to interpret the linguistic content of bàtá drum has degraded over time. As opposed

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to the direct transmission of intelligible texts via the drums, I propose that the interplay

between bàtá drumming, ritual authority, and the performative acts of practitioners in

ceremonies now operate as connotative representations of òrìṣà characteristics.

A note on orthography and spellings.

The Yorùbá language has seven non-nasalized vowels, five nasalized vowels, and eighteen

consonants. Accent markings represent high and low relative pitch bands in Yorùbá

speech, for mid tone pitch bands, no diacritical markings are used.

For example:
SYMBOL VALUE EXAMPLE

Á High level pitch Fẹ́ [to want]

O Mid-level pitch Lọ [go]

À Low-level pitch Rà [buy]

Sub-dots indicate differences in pronunciation, for example:

INDICATOR ENGLISH CORRELATION

ẹ As in English ‘stay’

e As in English ‘Let’

o As in English ‘snow’

s As in English ‘so’

ṣ As in English ‘show’

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The consonant ‘n’ represents four different articulations in spoken Yorùbá.

1. At word endings or immediately before a consonant, ‘n’ nasalises the preceding

vowel

2. As a discrete word, the single consonant ‘n’ is a ‘syllabic nasal’. For example: n ò

wa [I will come].

3. The pronunciation is similar to the English ‘n’ if it immediately precedes a vowel.

4. If it occurs immediately before a vowel at the end of a word, it sometimes nasalizes

as in inú [inside, belly].

Both p and gb are pronounced as co-articulated stops, the two sounds are identical except

that gb is voiced and p is voiceless. Written P is pronounced as a voiceless labio-velar stop

[kp]. For the sake of consistency, I have chosen to use Yorùbá spellings throughout as

Spanish correlates of Yorùbá words vary widely. All non-English words are italicized

except for proper nouns. Similarly, I have chosen to use Yorùbá plurals, for example, òrìṣà

as opposed to òrìṣà.s.

Who are the Yorùbá?

The Yorùbá, as an ethno-linguistic group, comprise of around 15 to 20 independent

societal groups. By the 18th century, the largest and most militarily powerful were the Ǫ́yǒ.

These groups had complex relationships in terms of allegiance and power, linked to

historical events and specific localities. Historically, individual groups sometimes united in

war, but alliances between Yorùbá and non-Yorùbá for attacks on other Yorùbá groups

were also common. Variations in dialect make it difficult for some groups to communicate,

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however, there are enough cultural and linguistic similarities to justify defining them as a

cohesive (but diverse) ethnic group, although certainly not a nation-state in the European

sense until the British colonisation and the invention of the Nigerian state in the late 19th

Century. The term ‘Yorùbá’ (meaning ‘cunning’) was given to the Ǫ́yǒ Yorùbá by either

the Fulani or Hausa people. Muslim Hausa clerics later extended the usage of the term

‘Yorùbá’ to refer to the subjects of other kingdoms of the Oyo Empire. The Hausa term

Yarabawa, refers to people, not a place, meaning the people of Yorùbá. Paul Lovejoy

posits that the usage of this term by the Hausa implies a broader meaning in terms of

identity, as it appears to predate the rise of the Ǫ́yǒ Empire (Lovejoy, 2005:41). By the

early decades of 19th century, the Ǫ́yǒ were among the first to adopt the ethonym

‘Yorùbá’ to identify them ethnically. The association with the high status Islamic regal

culture of the Hausa was likely to be a major contributing factor in the adoption of the

term. (Waterman, 1990) Law’s research suggests that a cohesive Yorùbá identity

consciousness initially began to emerge in Sierra Leone, where illegally traded slaves

liberated by British anti-slaving squadrons were ‘repatriated.’ (Law, 1997) This Yorùbá

group in Sierra Leone were known as ‘Aku’, derived from a common Yorùbá greeting ‘e

ku. The linguistic studies of missionary scholar Samuel Crowther widened the usage of the

alternative moniker ‘the Yorùbá’ and this term was widely used by the 1840s following

Crowther’s publication of A Vocabulary of the Yorùbá Language in 1843 (Law, 1997:206)

By the mid 19th century, Christian converts of diverse Yorùbá origins adopted the

ethnonym to describe themselves as a homogenous ethno-linguistic group.

Most Yorùbá agree to the influence of the city-state of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ as the birthplace of

the sixteen original monarchies of the Yorùbá people (Murphy, 2010:400). Ilé-Ifẹ̀ was

dominant in Yorùbá culture between the 9th and 15th centuries CE, although archeological

evidence suggest that the site at Ilé-Ifẹ̀ was occupied as early as 350BCE (Drewal,

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1989:46) The urban sophistication at Ilé-Ifẹ was unequalled in West Africa.

Archaeological evidence revealed networks of shrines, monumental sculptures, planned

complexes of buildings, streets, courtyards, and stone pavements dated as early as the 11th

century CE (Drewal, 1989:47) This concept of an ancestral city is central to Yorùbá

worldview, and as such Ilé-Ifẹ̀ is the spiritual capital of the Yorùbá.

Following the so-called ‘golden age of Ilé-Ifẹ̀, the kingdom of Ǫ́yǒ became an

imperial and administrative powerbase, with vassal states paying tribute to secure the

protection and favour of the Aláàfin (king.) The Kingdom of Ǫ́yǒ began to assert itself

militarily towards the end of the 16th century CE, spreading south and west. However, the

transition from military opportunist to fully fledged Empire was not complete until the end

of the 18th century (Law, 1991:206). The evidence is scant to determine with any authority

the contributory factors in the rise of Ǫ́yǒ, however the consensus among modern scholars

suggests that the adoption of cavalry by Ǫ́yǒ’s army was a crucial factor in Ǫ́yǒ’s

ascendancy.(Law, 1991:240)

By the late 18th century, Ǫ́yǒ was in decline. The final death throes of the empire

began in 1817 when Afonja, ruler of the town of Ilorin, in opposition to the Aláàfin,

formed an alliance with a Fulani Muslim cleric called Salih. According to Law, this was

inspired by a Muslim revolt led by the Fulani in 1804, which had forcibly carved out the

Sokoto Caliphate in Hausaland to the north of Ǫ́yǒ. (Law, 1982) The 1817 Jihad attracted

both local Muslim Hausa and Ǫ́yǒ converts to Islam alike. Muslim Hausa slaves in Ǫ́yǒ

also allied themselves with the uprising against the Aláàfin. Before the nineteenth century

collapse, the Ǫ́yǒ Empire exported large numbers of slaves, who passed through slave

ports en route to the Americas (Law, 1991, Thomas 1999, Curtin 1969, Falola and Childs,

2004). Exports of Yorùbá slaves began to increàṣẹaround 1750, and continued for the next

century, estimates say that the total number of slaves exported from the Bight of Benin in

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this period is more than one million people (Fraginals, 1977, Curtin, 1969).

The majority of Yorùbá sold into slavery were the results of slaving raids and

warfare enacted by emergent polities in the wake of the collapse of Ǫ́yǒ. Ruling states

were given slaves in tribute, and slavery was a punishment for debtors, adulterers, and

petty criminals. According to Yorùbá scholar Samuel Johnson, there were ‘well attested

cases where a member of a family would be condemned to slavery by a unanimous vote

where he has brought disgrace on his family’ (Johnson, 1921). However, Yorùbá speaking

slaves were sent to the Americas long before the 19th century. However, the cumulative

effects of the power vacuum created by the collapse of Ǫ́yǒ and subsequent wars between

former vassal states provided the catalyst for the sharp increàṣẹin the numbers of Yorùbá

sent to the new world. Particularly to Bahia, Trinidad and Cuba.

Overview of chapters:

Chapter one examines the complex interrelationships between the bàtá drums, orality, and

Yorùbá òrìṣà worship. Firstly, I provide an overview of key factors in Yorùbá òrìṣà

worship and show where the bàtá drums are placed in relation to the òrìṣà Àyán (òrìṣà of

all drums and drummers), the cult of Ṣàngó, which the bàtá drums are strongly associated

with, and the egúngún cult of the ancestors. This analysis gives an outline of the

mythological origins of the bàtá drums, and shows their relationship with the performance

of oral literary forms in ritual and social contexts. As the interpretation of ‘drum language’

requires specialist knowledge, I explore the relationship between bàtá texts and the

concept of Yorùbá deep knowledge (inlé). As the bàtá drums are associated with the Ṣàngó

cult of the Ǫ́yǒ Empire, I explore how ‘deep knowledge’ expressed through panegyric

poetry on bàtá drums reinforced the ritual and political hegemony of Ǫ́yǒ empire before its

decline ca. 1830 CE. The disintegration of the Ǫ́yǒ Empire was a significant factor in the

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enslavement and displacement of Ǫ́yǒ Yorùbá at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Finally, I explain the various ritual functions of the bàtá drums in Yorùbá society.

Chapter two examines the techniques Yorùbá bàtá drummers use to encode spoken

texts. This involves an analysis of the techniques bàtá drummers employ to reproduce the

tonal values of spoken Yorùbá on the drum. Relating the concept of speech surrogacy to

the linguistic sign, through an analysis of semiotic theory, I discuss that the bàtá drums’

potential as a semiotic system and explore the concept of iconicity in Yorùbá speech

surrogacy. To conclude this chapter, I give an analysis of the Yorùbá concept of ‘code

talking’, a technique that bàtá drummers employ as a means of preserving ritual secrets.

Chapter three explores the transformation of Yorùbá orisha worship into its Afro-

Cuban form, known as Santería or la Regla de Ocha. Exploring the interactions between

Yorùbá òrìṣà worship and Afro-Cuban mutual aid societies known as cabildos, I argue that

the cabildos were spaces that Yorùbá òrìṣà worship was reconstructed, and reinterpreted

within the context of a slave society. I explore the Afro-Cuban festival, Dia de Reyes [day

of kings] as an assertion of alternative authority structures within the Cuban slave system,

focusing on the role of the bàtá drums’ and the cult of Ṣàngó in this context.

Focusing on the interactions between European Catholicsm and Yorùbá òrìṣà worship, I

explore the methodological difficulties in Herskovits’ syncretic paradigm, suggesting

alternatives framed by the work of Andrew Apter. To conclude this chapter I explore the

reconstruction of the bàtá drums in Cuba and their associated historiography.

Chapter 4 explores possible reasons why the linguistic attributes of bàtá drums

have been lost in Cuban òrìṣà worship. I explore the role of contesting ritual fields had in

the restructuring of Cuban òrìṣà worship in the late nineteenth and early twentieth

centuries. The restructuring of the religion and the consolidation of heterogenous òrìṣà

cults into a structured pantheon, is one avenue of inquiry into the bàtá drums linguistic

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decline in Cuba, specifically the influence of the babaláwo priesthood of the Ifá divination

cult (see appendix 2), which asserted itself as the progenitors of ritual authority. However,

The ascendency of the Ifá priesthood in Cuba displaced the influence of the Oyo-centric

ritual practice but did not obliterate it completely as I will show. I argue that this, coupled

with the process of linguistic change that the Lucumí language underwent as Spanish, as

the primary vernacular gradually subsumed it, offers plausible hypotheses for the

interpretive gulf between the linguistic elements of drummed òrìṣà salutes and

contemporary practitioners inability to understand them.

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CHAPTER ONE: ORIGINS

Like many African societies, the Ǫ́yǒ Yorùbá have a strong oral tradition. One

verbal art-form within this tradition is known as oríkì, [roughly translated as ‘praise

poetry’]. As well as performance by specialized verbal artists, specialized drummers also

perform oŕikì on bàtá drums to venerate the òrìṣà and royal lineage. As the bàtá drums are

associated with Ṣàngó (a deified ruler of the Ǫ́yǒ empire) in both Cuba and Yorùbáland, I

explore the relationship between divinity and kingship in Yorùbá religious thinking and

show how the performance of panegyric poetry texts on bàtá drums is intertwined with

these two concepts. As well as the Ṣàngó cult, the bàtá drums in Yorùbaland are also

associated with the egúngún ancestor cult, the òrìṣà Àyán (creator of all drums), and a

wider social and ritual complex. I give an exploratory analysis of these relationships.

Finally, as the interpretation of drum texts requires specialist knowledge, I explore the

relationship between bàtá texts and the concept of Yorùbá deep knowledge (inlé). This

‘deep knowledge’ is expressed through the performance panegyric verbal art forms and

drum texts, is highly stylized, observes strict protocol, and is restricted to outsiders by

senior religious specialists. As the bàtá drums are associated with the Ṣàngó cult of the

Ǫ́yǒ Empire, I explore how ‘deep knowledge’ performed through Yorùbá oral literary

forms on bàtá drums reinforced the ritual and political hegemony of Ǫ́yǒ empire before its

decline. The disintegration of the Ǫ́yǒ Empire was a significant factor in the enslavement

and displacement of Ǫ́yǒ Yorùbá at the beginning of the nineteenth century. I conclude by

providing a summary of the role of the bàtá drums within the Yorùbá òrìṣà complex.

1    
  

Religion in Yorùbáland

Yorùbá concepts of divinity, kingship, and the ancestors, like Yorùbá society itself,

are diverse and heterogenous. This makes the analysis of Yorùbá religion

methodologically problematic in two ways. Firstly, the bewildering array of regional

variations of worship can only approach reconciliation by localised studies, such as

Bascom's study of Ifẹ̀̀ (1944), Secondly, some etic accounts seem to suggest that Yorùbá

religious belief is far more coherent and organised than it actually is. Individual accounts

by articulate religious specialists are important to an extent, but as there is no formal

dogma, they remain interpretative and often vary widely. In any case, the lack of cohesion

suggests it would be methodologically invalid to even try, as this would give an account

that belies the true nature of Yorùbá religious thought.

Yorùbá religious belief emerged from generations of imagination, observation, and

reflection on the visible world. These observations and reflections of the visible world

reflect aspects of the particular logico-semantic makeup of the Yorùbá. In Yorùbá culture,

the veneration of a particular deity is usually inherited patrilineally, although this is not

universal (Bascom, 1969:77). In Yorùbáland, deities are identified with a particular clan,

the members of which automatically become worshippers by virtue of clan membership.

Married female clan members return to their place of origin to participate in annual

festivals of their own deity, but also help husbands with festival preparations for their own

tutelary deities (Ibid.). The structure of Yorùbá religion is loosely arranged hierarchically

in five levels reaching downward from Olódùmarè, the Supreme Being, to the level of

inanimate objects, such as rocks, trees etc. For the Yorùbá, Olódùmarè is the origin of all

life force, [àṣẹ]. Àṣẹ is given by Olódùmarè to everything: plants, rocks, rivers, gods,

ancestors, spirits, voiced words such as songs, prayers, praises, curses, even everyday

2    
  

conversation (Drewal, Pemberton & Abiodun, 1989:16). Àṣẹ is the power to makes things

change or happen. According to Drewal, Pemberton & Abiodun, ‘àṣẹ also has important

social ramifications, reflected in its translation as ‘power, authority, command’ (Ibid). In

Yorùbá culture, each individual has a unique blend of knowledge and action, but because

one cannot know the potential of others for certain, composure [ifarabale], caution [eso],

respect [owo], coolness [itutu], and patience [suuru], must be exercised. These character-

traits are highly valued in Yorùbá society, and shape both social interactions and

organisations (Ibid). One Yorùbá myth, recounted by Robert Farris Thompson describes

Olódùmarè, the quintessence of àṣẹ, manifested in different forms that describe character

traits held in esteem by the Yorùbá:

‘When Olódùmarè came down to Earth to give the world àṣẹ he appeared n the

guise of certain animals. àṣẹ descended in the form of the royal python [ere],

the earthworm, [ekolo], the gaboon viper [oka olushere], the white snail,

[lakoshe], and the woodpecker (akoko). Within these animals, Olódùmarè

bestowed the power to make things happen, a morally neutral power, that takes

away as well as gives, that kills and gives life, in accordance with the nature of

its bearer. The messengers of àṣẹ in the form of these animals convey the

essence of this power. Some are slow and methodical such as the earthworm,

teaching patience in their careful movements, some are dangerous with

venomous fangs.’ (Thompson, 1983)

As Olódùmarè is the origin of àṣẹ, it is impossible to worship him directly. There

are no depictions of him or temples dedicated to him, however, he is traditionally referred

to as a male. He is known also as Olúrùn, [owner of the skies]. The pantheon of divinities

3    
  

that act as the intermediaries and ministers of Olódùmarè are designated by the generic

name òrìṣà. Idowu (1966:60) describes the etymology of the word òrìṣà as translatable to

‘head source’. Idowu (1966) points out that according to creation myths, some òrìṣà,

(Obátàlá, Órunmílá and Odùdúwá) are directly related to Olódùmarè, as they existed

before the creation of the Earth. According to Yorùbá belief, òrìṣà were the first

inhabitants of the Earth at Ilé-Ifẹ̀ they brought the entire Yorùbá people, their arts, and

civilisation into being. Other òrìṣà, such as Ṣàngó [pronounced Shan-go], are humans

deified through metamorphosis brought about by supernatural or unusual deaths.

Anthropologist Uli Beier writes:

‘In mythological language, we hear of men entering the ground, ascending to

the sky, men becoming rivers or rocks, even of a king committing suicide by

hanging himself. These stories all describe human beings who have widened

the limits of human consciousness to such an extent that they can pass into the

divine state’ (Beier, 1975:39).

However, òrìṣà are clearly distinguished from the ancestors. Strictly speaking, the

òrìṣà are of divine origin. According to Murphy (1981:43), the distinction between òrìṣà

and ancestors is explained by the notion of the òrìṣà having ‘transcended kinship lines’ in

order to fulfil the role of intermediary between Olódùmarè and all Yorùbá groups. This

role of intermediary between Olódùmarè and human beings is fundamental to the

understanding of how òrìṣà operate. However, as spiritual entities, òrìṣà are difficult to

define. Andrew Apter (1991:150) argues that the pact of secrecy [ìmulè] that initiates must

swear goes some way to explain the apparent conceptual disparities found in many etic

accounts. As the unitiated outsider is prevented from learning a great deal about the òrìṣà,

4    
  

conclusive definitions and explanations given to cultural outsiders are thus difficult to

establish and verify. Furthermore, the conceptual variations that surround the òrìṣà reflect

the regionally diverse and heterogeneous beliefs of the Yorùbá themselves. In 1944,

Bascom reportedly spent nine months in consultation with religious practitioners and

specialists to try and establish some some sort of cultural definition:

‘An òrìṣà is a person who lived on the earth when it was created, and from

whom present day folk are descended. When these òrìṣà disappeared or ‘turned

to stone’, their children began to sacrifice to them and to continue whatever

ceremonies they themselves had performed when they were on Earth. This

worship was passed on from one generation to the next, and today an

individual considers the òrìṣà whom he worships to be an ancestor from whom

he descended’ (Bascom, 1944:21).

As Apter points out, Bascom’s definition clarifies the ancestral aspect of the òrìṣà,

however, Apter argues that ancestor worship for the Yorùbá differs from the ‘classic

ancestor cults’ found in other African societies. As òrìṣà are part deified ancestor and part

nature spirit, Apter argues that as the memory of an association between an outstanding

individual and an òrìṣà passes into tradition, the distinction between the two gradually

becomes blurred. In this way, an òrìṣà associated with natural forces are sometimes

conceptually merged with the characteristics of a deified human individual, as

demonstrated by Ṣàngó (Apter, 1992).

Karin Barber (1990:317) argues that this inconsistent and conceptually fragmented

merging of òrìṣà is the central feature of Yorùbá religious practice and thought: the

reciprocal relationship between the òrìṣà and the devotee. Barber draws a parallel between

5    
  

the relationship between òrìṣà and devotee with the relationship between a ‘big man’ and

his supporter. The ‘big man’ is one of the central features of Yorùbá society, according to

Barber, men (and less frequently, women) carved out prominent positions for themselves

in society by recruiting supporters. By garnering support from the wider community, the

‘big man’ advances his standing and reputation within the wider social group. This

relationship is symbiotic. By associating with a ‘big man’, a supporter enhances his or her

own social standing and reputation, allowing them to recruit supporters of their own. The

supporter’ s own followers then enjoy the protection of the ‘big man’ by association.

However, if this protection is unreliable for whatever reason, the supporter may switch

allegiance to a rival, taking his or her followers with them, thus diminishing the big man’s

power and influence. Similarly, òrìṣà devotees follow ritual instructions given through

divination, and ‘feed’ the òrìṣà with sacrificial offerings, veneration, and feasts. These

offerings increàṣẹthe capacity of the òrìṣà to bestow blessings and offer protection,

however, as with the big man and his followers, if instructions are diligently followed and

blessings and protection are not forthcoming, the devotee may switch allegiance to another

òrìṣà, thus diminishing the òrìṣà ’s power. For the Yorùbá, an òrìṣà is only as powerful as

its devotees make it (Barber, 1981).

The concept of an òrìṣà, then, is polysemic. Part nature spirit, part deified ancestor,

divine intermediary, and similar in conception to the ‘big man’ according to Barber. This

polysemicity expresses both the complexity of Yorùbá religious thought and its

heterogeneity. Apter likens the òrìṣà to a ‘cluster concept’ (1991:152), a disjunctive set of

descriptors associated with a name (Boersema, 2008:3). This concept effectively reflects

the complex and regionally varied models of Yorùbá òrìṣà worship, but also manages to

conceptually unify this diversity into a manageable term. The òrìṣà as cluster concept is a

set of descriptions that may vary from person to person and region to region as I have

6    
  

shown. Similarly, as new beliefs or descriptions are accepted about the òrìṣà, new

elements may be added or deleted to the set of descriptors that surround them.

Ori: the Yorùbá religious concept of the head.

The relationship between the òrìṣà and the ancestors is most likely connected to the

concept of ori, [the head] (Murphy, 1981:43). The concept of the head is highly significant

in Yorùbá worldview. An individual’s inner essence is located inside the head. According

to Drewal, Pemberton & Abiodun, this reflects the Yorùbá conception of the self as

possessing interior and exterior qualities. During ceremonies, òrìṣà are embodied through

spirit possession in the ‘heads’ of practitioners in return for their services as intermediaries.

Similarly, the ancestors can inhabit the bodies of their ‘children’ through the ori. In

initiation, the òrìṣà is ‘seated’ in the head of the devotee, with the devotee acting as a

medium for the òrìṣà. The òrìṣà is said to‘mount’ his or her ‘horse’ when spirit

possession takes place. In these contexts, the practitioner physically enacts the attributes

and personality of the òrìṣà. Murphy argues that ‘It may be that the spirit which

incarnates itself in the ‘head’ by lineage descent, is an ancestor, and that which incarnates

itself through initiation and possession ceremony is an òrìṣà.’ (Ibid).

For the Yorùbá, the head is the preeminent symbol of àṣẹ [power]. The respect and

reverence for the head extends to political and spiritual leaders, who are believed to

embody power similar to that of the head (ibid). The beaded conical crown worn by the

Oba [king] is the physical emobodiment of the wearer’s àṣẹ, and is similar to the ile-ori

[house of ori]. This is a decorated container, in which resides the ibori, the symbol for the

ori-inu [inner head]. The veil of the crown disguises the wearer’s humanity and reveals the

divinity of kingship. Similarly, in Yorùbá sculpture, figurative representations of the

human body often depict the head as enlarged, proportionally dominating the other parts of

7    
  

the body. Representations of the head are further enhanced by detailed depictions of

elaborate crowns and headgear, the face and eyes (oju), are particularly emphasized

(Abiodun, 1994:76). As àṣẹ is believed to emanate from the eyes, children and young

people are not allowed to stare directly into the eyes of elders or their parents. Yorùbá art

historian Rowland Abiodun argues that the significance of oju [eyes] in art and ritual is

most cogently articulated in the axiom ‘Oju ni oro o wa’ [‘Oro, the essence of

communication, takes place in the eyes/face’.] he adds: ‘With a properly executed oju

either in a figural sculpture or in a well-designed oju-ibo for the altar of an òrìṣà,

concentration heightens, communication takes place, and supplication becomes more

efficacious’ (Abiodun, 1994:76).

Egúngún: the Ancestors

Although some òrìṣà are deified humans, they do not fall into the same spiritual

category as the ancestors (egúngún). The veneration of ancestors is an important feature of

Yorùbá religion and is based on the belief that the spirit of a person never dies and

continues to influence human affairs, albeit from another plane of existence. Ancestors are

honoured at public shrines or within smaller shrines within the home (Brandon, 1993:15)

and are called upon in times of crisis. Successes in life are often attributed to ancestral

support. At festivals held in their honour, the egúngún, re-embodied in the form of

masquerade dancers of the egúngún cult, return from the realm of the spirits to renew

kinship ties with loved ones and enjoy a physical embodiment once again. In group

performance, accompanied by bàtá or dúndùn drums, the egúngún cult acts as a kind of

moral force within the community, mediating disputes and performing ritual cleansing in

cases of sorcery.

During festival performances, the egúngún cult performs iwi, a form of verbal art.

8    
  

Specialised vocal requirements in performance allow only select individuals, usually

males, to chant iwi. In performance, iwi is rendered in two distinct voices, the first is high

pitched, the second is a croaky voice. This croaky voice is recognised by cult members as

the real voice of the egúngún; anyone speaking in this voice speaks as an egúngún rather

than a human being. An iwi chant is performed in three sections. The beginning of the

chant introduces the chanter and includes introductory chants saluting the òrìṣà and the

ancestors. The middle section consists of praise poetry to individuals, salutes to lineages

and social commentary on Yorùbá life, the end consists of closing salutes to òrìṣà and

ancestors. The performer must balance these three structural elements correctly for it to be

deemed a successful performance by the community (Olajubu, 1974).

The òrìṣà Àyán and the sacred bàtá drums

In Yorùbáland, nearly every òrìṣà has his or her dedicated drum ensemble

(Adegbite, 1988:17). Adegbite recounts oral history that says an òrìṣà’s favourite drum

ensemble is ‘the group the particular deity enjoyed, danced, or listened to during his

earthly life’ (ibid). In Yorùbá òrìṣà worship, the significance of the drum’s liturgical

function is indisputable. Apart from the performance of oríkì [praise poetry] and

accompanying songs and chants in ritual contexts, the Yorùbá widely believe that the

drums are the medium through which devotees communicate with the òrìṣà, as such,

drums are highly prominent in the context of festivals that venerate particular òrìṣà. For

example, the Ìgbìn drum ensemble is played during the religious worship of Obàtála, the

Yorùbá òrìṣà of creation. Ifá (the òrìṣà of divination, also known as Ọ́runmìlá) is

venerated at festivals in his honour by the Ìpèsè drum set, the Ògbóni cult employs the

Àgbá-Ílédí drum ensemble in their worship of Ọ̀sányìn, òrìṣà of herbal medicine. In the

9    
  

palaces of Yorùbá rulers, the veneration of Yorùbá royal lineage is articulated in

performances of the Gbẹ́du, a royal drum ensemble (ibid).

In Yorùbáland, the bàtá ensemble consists of four instruments, however this

configuration can vary. The consensus amongst Darius Thieme’s informants in Yorùbáland

gives the names of the drums as ìyàálu bàtá, omele abo ìyàálu, omele ako, and omele abo

or kudi. The ìyàálu is the leading drum in the ensemble; the term ‘bàtá family’ is

appropriate here in that the name of the leading drum is actually a contraction of the

Yorùbá words ìyà [mother] and ilu [drums]. Thus, the ìyàálu is the ‘mother of the drums’

(Thieme, 1969:24). The smaller supporting drums are generally referred to as émélé,

omelé, or ọmọlé. According to Laoye, the Timi of Ede [Aláàfin of Ǫ́yǒ], in an interview

with Thieme in 1965, the terms éméle and ọmọlé are interchangeable, however, the

consensus amongst Thieme’s informants was that ọmọlé was the preferred spelling

(Thieme, 1969:24). Bàtá scholar Michael Marcuzzi suggests that the differing tonal

inflections may suggest differing etymologies for these descriptors, however his

informants in Ǫ́yǒ agreed with Thieme’s (Marcuzzi, 2005). In his 1969 study, one of

Thieme’s informants stated that the term ọmọlé is a contraction of ọmọ ilé, literally

translated as ‘children of the house,’ which reinforces an association with kinship. The

supporting drums of the bàtá ensemble are often gendered female, as both Thieme and

Marcuzzi attest. All of Marcuzzi’s informants in Cuba commonly refer to the omele abo,

as the ítótèlé, [Yorùbá: capable follower] (Marcuzzi, 2005:227). Marcuzzi argues that:

‘The sobriquet ítótèlé most likely attests to this supporting drum’s role in the

attending of rendering of the surrogate speech patterns initiated by the mother

drum (ìyàálu), which supports the statistically prominent notion that ‘speaking’

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is a culturally constituted female attribute- often articulated as a social

deficiency- projected on to the drums’ (Marcuzzi, 2005:227)

Traditionally, drumming in Yorùbáland is organised along familial lines, with the

family members of bàtá and dúndùn drummers carrying the prefix Àyán to denote their

tutelary òrìṣà. This is in accordance with the Yorùbá naming traditions, where the òrìṣà of

a family is reflected in the name (Adegbite, 1988). Yorùbá oral tradition attributes the

origin of all drums and drumming to the òrìṣà Àyán. According to Amanda Vincent

(2006), the òrìṣà Àyán is ‘birthed’ or ritually constructed with organic material and

incantations from priests. The òrìṣà Àyán has no fixed gender, and is understood as male,

female, or both. Despite this, Àyán is usually referred to with a male pronoun (ibid).

Vincent tells us that the òrìṣà Àyán is regarded as an òrìṣà that attracts wealth, heals, and

bestows children on his/her devotees. The physical representation of Àyán is in the form of

a small packet of sacred medicine, charged with àṣẹ and placed inside a sealed receptacle,

usually a bi-membranophonic drum such as the dúndún or the bàtá. These bundles of

herbal medicine, placed inside and on the drums, serve to attract money, spiritually protect,

and empower Àyán devotees. For the Yorùbá, the bàtá drums and the òrìṣà Àyán are

conceptually collapsed into each other. They are one and the same. Vincent tells us that

‘any in-depth discussion of one requires reference to each other’ (2006:74). The terms

‘bàtá’ and ‘Àyán’ are often used interchangeably. Vincent describes bàtá drums as ‘a

servant of Àyán’ (ibid). As one of Àyán’s receptacles, the bàtá forms a protective

enclosure that allows physical mobility for the òrìṣà, and bestows wealth upon the

drummers who serve to help Àyán speak. The àṣẹ, stored in the receptacle of the drum, is

transformed into sound by the act of playing, but is also realised in the physical materials

of wood, leather, and skins, which allow this transformation to take place. Similarly, rituals

11  
 
  

surround the felling of the tree and the construction of the drum (ibid). According to

Vincent, some Yorùbá believe that Àyán is present in the wood itself and thus embodied in

the materials used in construction as well as the object contained within the body of the

drum. The relationship between òrìṣà, drummer, and drum is therefore symbiotic. Àyán

serves the drum by charging the rhythms it plays with àṣẹ, thus allowing a vehicle of

communication with his devotees. Bàtá drummers are protected from witchcraft and

malevolent spiritual forces by the medicine placed within the drums, which is also believed

to attract wealth and status to the drummers chosen to play. As Vincent writes: ‘It is this

symbiotic relationship of the bàtá and Àyán which establishes their closeness, which in

turn renders the bàtá spiritually sensitive and powerful.’ (2006:74) The drums as the

physical containment of the òrìṣà is conceptually similar to the ‘seating’ of the òrìṣà in the

heads of devotees in possession ceremonies. In these circumstances, the identity of the

devotee and the òrìṣà are blurred, with the devotee physically enacting the attrubutes of the

òrìṣà, in the same way, the boundaries between physical object and the òrìṣà are thus

blurred in consecrated Yorùbá bàtá drums.

Ṣàngó: the drums of the divine King

According to Yorùbá belief, the bàtá drums belong to Ṣàngó. Ṣàngó is the Yorùbá

òrìṣà of thunder, the deified fourth Aláàfin [king] of Ǫ́yǒ. His power and wrath are feared

and respected throughout Yorùbáland. According to Idowu (1962:89), Ṣàngó is the

manifestation of Oludumarè’s wrath. Idowu reconstructs the deification of the fourth

Aláàfin [king] of Ǫ́yǒ from various oral histories; however, the consensus among most

Yorùbá is that the fourth Aláàfin of Ǫ́yǒ was an oligarch who was ‘passionately devoted to

carnage’ (Idowu, 1962:90). According to Idowu’s account (Ibid), the Aláàfin’s authority

was ultimately challenged by two of his courtiers, whom the Aláàfin played off against

12  
 
  

each other, resulting in the death of one of them. However, the challenge was continued

and ultimately the Aláàfin lost face and was forced to commit suicide by hanging.

Supporters loyal to the challenger subsequently taunted the Aláàfin’s followers about his

defeat and suicide (Ibid). According to Idowu’s account, the Aláàfin’s followers sought to

save face and ‘procured some preparation by which lightning could be attracted’ (Ibid).

The resulting lightning storms were seen as an expression Ṣàngó’s wrath. This allowed the

Aláàfin’s followers to propagate the myth that ‘the king did not hang’, but in fact had

ascended to heaven (ibid).

Samuel Johnson, in his History of the Yorùbás (1921), recounts an earlier Yorùbá

thunder deity called Jakuta. According to Idowu, the deified Aláàfin depicted as Ṣàngó is

at odds with the ethical norms of the Yorùbá, as the moral attributes of Ṣàngó the òrìṣà are

easily reconciled with the oligarchic Aláàfin. It is likely that the Aláàfin’s supporters, in the

wake of his death, thus integrated the moral authority of Jakuta with the vengeful persona

of the deified king. As an earlier avatar of Jakuta, the òrìṣà Oramfẹ originated in Ilé-Ifẹ̀.

This connection to Ilé-Ifẹ̀ is the most plausible explanation why the older divinity Jakuta

was merged with the myth of the Aláàfin’s demise as it legitimised the origins of the Ǫ́yǒ

line and by extension, the hegemony of the Empire.

For the Yorùbá, music is a primary vehicle for the veneration of kings and òrìṣà.

Musicologist Akin Euba recounts the Yorùbá oral history that describes how Ṣàngó came

to prefer the bàtá drums after sponsoring a competition to decide the most appropriate

ensemble for him to dance to, as his courtiers felt it inappropriate for a king to dance to

other ensembles indiscriminately. All of the other ensembles were heard, save the humble

bàtá drummers, dressed in rags. On hearing them, Ṣàngó immediately declared their music

to be worthy of a king (Euba, 2003:39-40). Euba argues that this account tells us two

things: firstly that royal palaces were a focal point for musical activity, and secondly, that

13  
 
  

the bàtá drums are associated with kingship. The Ṣàngó cult illustrates how Yorùbá

notions of kingship and divinity are conceptually merged and seems to confirm Barber’s

‘òrìṣà as big man’ hypothesis. As Joseph Murphy writes: ‘Ṣàngó represents the

divinization of Yorùbá royal and imperial power to protect and destroy, at once fearful and

fascinating’ (Murphy, 2012:71).

The heterogeneity of Yorùbá beliefs is futher illustrated by the diverse associations

of the bàtá drums with Ṣàngó. Some of anthropologist Darius Thieme’s informants in

Nigeria accredited the invention of the bàtá to Ṣàngó, some with Ṣàngó ordering their

adoption, some attributing their introduction to his mother, (Thieme, 1969:183-4). Other

oral accounts, collected by Agedbite (1988) state that bàtá drums were originally adopted

and used by devotees of the òrìṣà Esú (Eleggua). According to this account, it was only

later that they became associated with both Ṣàngó and egúngún [ancestor] rituals.

According to Agebdite, the adoption of bàtá drums by these later devotees is likely to have

stemmed from the association with Esú. Agbedite argues that as Esú is one of the oldest

òrìṣà, the usage of bàtá in his veneration must have predated the deification of the Aláàfin

of Ǫ́yǒ and the establishment of the Ṣàngó cult (ibid). As Amanda Vincent argues, the

relationships between Ṣàngó and the bàtá drums are diverse in their representation, this

diversity is represented throughout the Yorùbá oral tradition including the divination texts

of the Ifá and dinloggun corpus, oríkì and Ṣàngó-pípí [oríkì addressed to Ṣàngó] (Vincent

2005:76). I now turn to the explore the relationship between verbal art and bàtá drums in

Yorùbáland.

Yorùbá oral tradition and the bàtá drums.

The body of African literature, written in either European languages or Arabic, is

relatively well known in countries that stress the importance of the written word. Less

14  
 
  

known are is the vast corpus of orally transmitted history, proverbs, stories, and poetry.

These forms do not fit easily into categories found in literate cultures, and is often

unfamiliar to people brought up in cultures that stress the importance of the written word.

Ruth Finnegan argues that ‘orality is by definition dependent on a performer who

formulates it words on a specific occaision- there is no other way in which it can be

realized as a literary product’ (Finnegan, 1970). For ‘written’ literature, Finnegan argues

that a literary work can be said to exist tangibly, even if there is only one copy available.

The distinction between existence and transmission is an extremely important to make

because without any performed realisation by a singer, speaker or drummer, an orally

transmitted form cannot easily be said to have any continued or independent existence

whatsoever (Finnegan, 1970).

Expression through drums makes up a sizeable contingent of the oral tradition of a

number of African societies. Although drums are sometimes used for signalling short

utilitarian messages over distance, the drums are also used as speech surrogates in the

performance of literary forms such as panegyric poetry, proverbs, historical poems, and

funeral dirges. The expression of Yorùbá words via drums is dependent on the fact that

spoken Yorùbá is a tonal language, where different pitch values carry differing semantic

weights in a given word. I explore the technical mechanics of rendering speech on the

drum in Chapter 2, the following section explores the relationship between bàtá drums and

the performance of Yorùbá oral tradition.

Various forms of verbal art are performed in Yorùbáland. Old men recount itan,

[stories about family and town history], the babaláwos [literally translated as ‘father of

secrets] of the Ifá divination cult (see appendix 1&2), recount a vast corpus of divination

texts, performing them in consultations with clients. Songs accompany processions and

social events such as marriages, births, and deaths. However, the most prevalent form of

15  
 
  

verbal art in Yorùbá society is oríkì (Barber, 1991:11). Yorùbá oríkì is sometimes

translated into English as ‘praise poetry’, however this term is misleading, as oríkì can be

derogatory and profane as well as flattering. Oríkì are ‘names, epithets or appellations’ that

describe the attributes of their subjects (Barber, 1991) Barber writes:

‘People grow up hearing oríkì everyday. Mothers recite them to their babies to

soothe them. Grandmothers greet the household with long recitations every

morning. Friends call each other’s oríkì in the streets in jocular salutation,

devotees invoke their òrìṣà at the shrine every week with impassioned oríkì

chants. Some festivals include great set–pieces of oríkì chanting which

townspeople will flock to hear whether they are involved in the cult of the

òrìṣà concerned or not (Barber 1991:11)

Oríkì is best described as a loose collection of individual phrases, which can vary from a

personal name or a few sentences. As well as humans, òrìṣà, egúngún [ancestors],

inanimate objects, town lineages, and even food can be the subject of oríkì. Individuals

acquire personal oríkì throughout the course of their lives in recognition of their actions

and personalities. The performance of oríkì describes the physical appearance, likes and

dislikes, and character traits of its subject. Performances relating to human subjects are

highly specific in that they relate to events in the subject’s life. However, oríkì texts rarely

give complete definitive accounts of historical events, rather, each performance often

gathers its text from ‘stock phrases’ previously used in performance (Villepastour

2010:40). ‘Talking’ drummers or townspeople create oríkì as new issues arise within the

community; these performances are subsequently absorbed into the oral tradition.

Barber likens the performance of oríkì chants to a string of beads, ‘a chain of

16  
 
  

interchangeable parts which can be extended or broken off at will without significantly

altering its form’ (Barber, 1991:23). Barber writes: ‘Eventually the performer will stop -

because she is tired, because the occasion does not require further performance, because

she has exhausted her repertoire several times over or because another performer wants to

take over’ (ibid). The removal or re-arrangement of textual units from an oríkì text has no

detrimental affect in terms of semantic integrity. This challenges Western notions of

textuality; Barber defines oríkì as intertextual, lacking sole authorship and closure.

As well as performance by specialist verbal artists, royal drummers perform oríkì on drums

to enhance the prestige and reputation of the king. In performance, the repertoire of oríkì

that royal drummers draw upon is extensive and usually pertains to the genealogy of the

king. Euba argues that as a cumulative form, the corpus of oríkì drum texts is added to by

creating texts specific to the reigning monarch. Furthermore, the monarch inherits the oríkì

of their ancestors, as well as the oríkì that relates to the ancestor’s town or clan (Euba,

2003:45)

Oríkì is central to the appeasement and veneration of the òrìṣà. Oríkì-òrìṣà proclaims

the character, status, attributes, and appearance of the òrìṣà in concise statements charged

with meaning and ritual significance. Similar to oríkì for humans, in performance there is

no apparent regard for chronology or logical sequence, however, the association of ideas or

imagery within the performance sometimes enables one to recognise textual units within

the whole (Villepastour, 2010). Apter argues that this notion of intertextuality frames ritual

panegyrics as a ‘signifying practice, relating ‘meaning’ to ‘doing’ in the intentional and

rhetoric uses of these terms’ (Apter, 1992:118). Furthermore, the textual fluidity of Yorùbá

ritual pangyrics are framed by societal restrictions that guard against interpretation;

‘Meanings voiced in ritual texts cannot be discussed in ‘ordinary lanaguage’- definitely not

in public and only uneasily in private’ (Apter, 1992:119). Textual units that are charged

17  
 
  

with áṣẹ [power] are suffused with allusion and rich in metaphor, Apter tells us that ‘as in

most poetry, these are sensed and intimated rather than formally explicated’ (ibid)

Oríkì-òrìṣà is performed domestically in house-shrines, in regular meetings, and at

annual festivals, where the performance assumes a theatricality that involves the ritual

enactment of set pieces. Barber (1990:316) tells us that in all of these settings, oríkì

provides a channel of communication between the human and the divine, where mutual

benefits are reciprocated on both sides. Offerings of the òrìṣà’s favourite food,

accompanied by sacrificial rites and prayer open these channels of communication. The

bilateral relationship between devotee and òrìṣà is fully realised in the performance of

oríkì, as it is assumed that the òrìṣà is physically present and receptive to the oríkì (ibid).

The physical presence of the òrìṣà serves as the ‘meaning’ of the performance. In òrìṣà

worship, a ceremony is only deemed successful if the òrìṣà manifests him/herself through

the possession of one or more of the devotees. As Barber writes:

‘Oríkì constitute a channel of communication between devotee and òrìṣà

through which reciprocal benefits flow. The communication is opened by the

making of an offering, and this is usually supplemented by the utterance of

prayers intended to direct a flow of blessings towards the devotee. But it is in

oríkì that the relationship is most fully realized as a living engagement between

a speaker and a hearer. Like all oríkì, the oríkì of òrìṣà are in the vocative

càṣẹand presuppose a listening subject. The òrìṣà cannot but be there when the

speaker exhorts and appeals to it, extols it and insists on its attention in oríkì.

The devotee speaks her mind to the òrìṣà, in the process constituting its

personality and powers in their fullest form’ (Ibid).

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In drummed performances of oríkì, drummers draw upon a vast internalised

repertoire to make split-second decisions to determine which phrase follows another. In

performance, some phrases frequently appear, others appear at significant moments in the

linear structure of the performance, and others are omitted entirely. Bàtá drummers

perform oríkì either with rhythmic accompaniment or in direct speech form (see chapter 2).

With rhythmic accompaniment, the ìyàálu [leading drum] player organises portions of the

text into rhythmic cells, which are performed within the context of the ensemble, in these

circumstances the omele abo, player may also participate by articulating the mid and high

speech tones (Villepastour, 2010:40). In direct speech mode the playing is declamatory and

every performance is different as it is when spoken or chanted oríkì is performed. Àyán

drummers pay homage to their predecessors by performing their oríkì in direct speech

mode whenever they pick up the drum. This practice applies in both ritual and secular

contexts. In ritual contexts, drummers carry out this practice before they begin an òrìṣà

ceremony. Another repository of texts utilised by bàtá players is òwe [proverbs]. Similar to

oríkì, òwe may be stated as rhythmic cells over òrìṣà rhythms [ilù-òrìṣà.], however they

are never performed by the ìyàálu in direct speech form. The performance of òwe can vary,

however they are recognisable in that they operate within what Villepastour calls ‘generic

rhythmic frameworks’ (Villepastour, 2010:41) and thus can be recognised by their

rhythmic similarity to Yorùbá speech patterns.

Òrìṣà rhythms [ilú-òrìṣà.] are a substantial and varied corpus of rhythms that are

played in ritual contexts. These rhythms are beieved to communicate directly with the

òrìṣà. Ilú-òrìṣà also accompany ritual dance that facilitates spirit possession. When the

òrìṣà possesses the body of a devotee, it is believed that the òrìṣà is dancing not the

devotee. Òrìṣà rhythms are preceded by oríkì played solo by the ìyàálu in direct speech

mode. In performance, ilú-òrìṣà are cued by a declamatory marker phrase, which signals

19  
 
  

the rest of the ensemble to begin. In performance, the textual content of ilú-òrìṣà, may

diverge into oríkì or òwe, which are played over the core rhythm.

The voice of àṣẹ:‘deep knowledge’ and the bàtá drums

One of the ways that the Ǫ́yǒ Empire asserted its hegemony in Yorùbáland was by

exploiting oral tradition and drum texts for propaganda purposes in order to justify the

lineage (and theferore the legitimacy) of the Aláàfin. Any localised deviation from official

Ǫ́yǒ-centric myths was considered politically subversive. The sheer variance of Yorùbá

oral tradition could not present ‘original’ texts that could be compared with ‘corrupted’

accounts, therefore, the ruling elite asserted lineage claims by military and cultural

dominance. Yorùbá origin and creation myths fall into two categories namely creation

myths and migration myths. Ifẹ̀̀ Creation myths describe the establishment of royal lineage,

and the importance of Ile-Ifẹ̀̀ as an early political and spiritual centre. Migration myths,

recounted in Samuel Johnson’s Ǫ́yǒ-centric History of the Yorùbás (1921), describe the

Yorùbá originating from the east. According to Andrew Apter, the adoption of migration

myths over Ifẹ̀̀-centric mythology amounts to a ‘denial of Ifẹ̀ kingship’ by the Ǫ́yǒ Empire.

(Apter, 1992:16)

Similar tensions exist between Ǫ́yǒ-centric origin myths amongst other polities

throughout Yorùbáland, however Apter, argues that localised, Ifẹ̀̀-centric myths were

preserved in ritual enactments as a form of subversion and resistance. (Apter, 1992:19).

Yorùbá ritual is highly formalized, particularly in the transmission of text through drum

language, according to Apter, the implications are that ‘the traditions encoded and

conveyed outlast the political interests that they may initially serve’ (Ibid). This

performance of Ifẹ̀̀-centric ritual, in opposition to the hegemony of the Ǫ́yǒ Empire, gave

20  
 
  

rise to what Apter calls an‘Ifẹ̀̀-centric ritual field’ that celebrated the kingship and mythical

ties to Ilé-Ifẹ̀̀ (Apter, 1992:25). According to Apter, vassal states encoded Ifẹ̀̀-centric myths

into drum language and oríkì to protect their localised traditions from Ǫ́yǒ revisionism.

Apter’s hypothesis is supported by the fact that Ṣàngó had no organised cult in Ilé-Ifẹ̀̀

(Ibid).

Deep ritual knowledge was considered dangerous to the public by religious

specialists, and therefore restricted. Apter argues that ‘the hermeneutics of ritual is thus

discursively structured to publicly and openly uphold and revitalize what it privately and

secretly denies and subverts’ (Apter, 1992:31). The motivation for keeping this tradition

alive is suggested by the fact that Ifẹ̀̀ was the centre of the Ifá divination cult, and as such,

was viewed as a kind of ‘elder statesman’ that exercised regional influence and acted as

mediator in disputes. Ilé-Ifẹ̀̀’s role in the Ǫ́yǒ hegemony as a spiritual centre developed in

the context of regional polities either expanding or maintaining their respective power

bases; vassal states claims for legitimacy of rulership more often than not, rested on being

able to prove descent from Ilé-Ifẹ̀̀ (Apter, 1991:32)

Conclusion:

In Yorùbáland, the interwined discourses of oral tradition, ritual, and hegemony are

demonstrated in the performance of oriki on bata drums. Bata drums are associated with

the cult of Ṣàngó, òrìṣà of thunder, the deified fourth Aláàfin [king] of Ǫ́yǒ.

The òrìṣà Àyán, origin of all drums and drummers is believed to live within the vessel of

the drum, as such, batá drums are believed to be the physical representation of the òrìṣà.

The fluidity of Yorùbá verbal art forms is replicated in ritual drumming performances,

where bata drummers draw on a memorised corpus of ilu- òrìṣà [òrìṣà rhythms] and oríkì

rendered into drum language. as well as proclaiming the lineage and authority of the

21  
 
  

Aláàfin, oríkì is belived to directly communicate with òrìṣà, encouraging them to

physically possess devotees in return for blessing and protection from malevolent spiritual

forces. The relationship between òrìṣà, drummer, and bata drums is believed to be

reciprocal. Àyán, òrìṣà of drums and drumming, is believed to serve the drum by charging

the rhythms drummers play with àṣẹ [spiritual power], thus allowing a vehicle of

communication with his devotees. Similarly, it is believed that àṣẹ is transformed into

sound in ritual performance and present in the physical material of the drums. The physical

material of the drums thus facilitates this transformation. This notion of reciprocality is

central to Yorùbá religious thinking.

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CHAPTER 2: SPEECH SURROGACY AND SEMIOTICS

The bifurcation of bàtá traditions that resulted from the transatlantic separation of

slavery raises a range of diverse questions about how the bàtá drums function

communicatively in both Yorùbáland and Cuba. The interpretative gulf that contemporary

bàtáléros [bàtá drummers] in Cuba face when it comes to understanding linguistic

elements embedded in bàtá toques [rhythms] is explored in chapter four, this chapter

explores how the bàtá drummers encode speech, ‘at source’ in the context of Yorùbá oral

tradition, specifically in performances of oŕikì, oŕikì òrìṣà, and owé (see chapter 1). As

both Cuban and Yorùbá bàtá traditions have undergone significant changes in the 220

years since the intensification of slave imports to Cuba began, the ‘source’ I describe is, of

course, an imaginary one, in that it no longer exists; however an analysis of bàtá

drummers’ capacity for rendering speech in the context of Yorùbá oral tradition provides

an essential frame of reference.

The relationship between spoken language and drums is a research area that has

provoked inquiry since at least the 1930s. Studies by Locke and Agbeli (1981), Panteleoni

and Serwadda (1972) Chernoff (1979) Nketia (1971) and more recently Villepastour

(2010) have focused on the physical techniques that drummers employ to render spoken

language. The concept of ‘text’ is a slippery one, therefore, it is necessary to provide a

working definition of ‘text’ that is congruent with Yorùbá verbal artforms. The polysemic,

multi-layered meanings idiomatic to Yorùbá panegyric poetry calls for a pragmatic, as

opposed to semantic or syntactic approach: Stalnaker (1999:4) defines pragmatics as ‘the

study of the relation between linguistic expressions and their contexts of use’. Following

this definition, the pragmatic dimensions of a spoken ‘text’ are reflected in enunciation, the

individual act of speech production, and utterance, the product of a speech act. Using this

23  
 
  

model, a ‘text’ contains traces of a speech act in indexical words that point to the

participants, time and space of the enunciation (Noth, 1990:331). Linguist Roman

Jakobson describes the interface between language and different sign systems as vital to

the study of linguistics as this kind of analysis ‘shows what properties are shared by verbal

signs with some, or all other semiotic systems and what the specific features of language

are’ (Jakobson, 1973:28). Later in this chapter, I relate bàtá speech surrogacy to semiotic

theory and explore the semiotic potential of bàtá drumming.

Speech surrogacy.

According to Stern (1957), speech surrogates operate in three ways. Messages can

be transmitted phonemically, through lexical and morphemic points of reference and as

message ideographs. A phoneme is the minimal unit in the sound system of a language

(Crystal, 2009:361). For example /c/ and /p/ are two phonemes of English: cat and pat are

two different words. Phonemically represented messages have an isomorphic relationship

with the original (base) word. Furthermore, the order in which phonemes occur in the

original message is preserved. These representations are further realised by abridgement

and encoding. In abridgement, the transmitted sign resembles its corresponding word

phonically; i.e. there are correspondences between the tonal and rhythmic qualities of

speech. Whilst abridgement retains recognisable phonic elements, it can only partially

represent the original message phonemically. Encoding differs from abrigdement in that it

dispense with phonic resemblance as a requirement for semantic intelligibity. Encoded

messages are therefore as accurate as full phonetic transcriptions, however, there is no

recourse to any intonational or stress features that may be present in the original message

(Stern, 1957).

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Accoriding to Stern (1957), speech surrogacy also utilises lexical and morphemic

points of reference. Lexical refers to the vocabulary of a language (Crystal, 2009:279)

morphemic is the adjective of morpheme and is the smallest unit of meaning in any given

word (Ibid: 313). For example, the word ‘hunter’ contains two morphemes: ‘hunt’ meaning

the activity of catching animals for food or sport and ‘er’ the person engaged in that

activity. In lexical representation, surrogate signs retain the phonemic and lexical sequence

of spoken messages. Abridgement or encoding systems manifest these surrogate signs.

There are two ways that lexical and morphemic representations are actuated; namely direct

transmission and translation. In direct transmission, the morphemic and phonemic integrity

of lexical units is preserved. In translation, synonyms or substitute words replace lexical

units in the original bàṣẹmessage. Similar to how encoded sounds replace phonemes on the

phonetic level, translation necessarily involves substitution on the lexical level. However,

the syntax of the bàṣẹmessage can change if abridgement is applied to a substituted word.

This has the potential to distort meaning and coherency. The entire word can also be

substituted for a lexical ideograph, where a surrogate sign represents an entire word. In a

lexical ideograph, there is no reference to the phonemic or morphological structure of the

base word, however the ideograph directly symbolizes the concept that it represents (Stern,

1957).

The bàtá in relation to other Yorùbá ‘talking drums’

Musicologist Akin Euba (1990) describes three distinct modes of drumming in his

analysis of the speech surrogacy capabilities of the Yorùbá dúndùn. These three definitions

are broadly applicable to the ways that the bàtá represents speech on both sides of the

Atlantic, as the role of the ìyàálu [leading drum], in relation to the accompanying drums in

both the dúndùn and bàtá ensembles is the same. Euba’s three classifications are direct

25  
 
  

speech form, musical speech form, and song form (Euba, 1990:193). A dúndùn ìyàálu

player in direct speech form reproduces the tonal and rhythmic patterns of Yorùbá speech

on the drums through abridgement (Villepastour, 2010) In musical speech form, the

drummer performs heightened speech in strict rhythm (Euba, 1990). In ‘song form’ the

playing is purely musical and provides a rhythmic and melodic accompaniment to singing

and movement. Other studies of speech surrogates reveal similarities in these modes of

transmission all along the Slave Coast. For example, J.H.K Nketia’s 1963 study of Akan

drumming in Ghana, describes three discrete modes of drumming; the speech mode, the

signal mode and dance mode. ‘Speech mode is isomorphic with ordinary language, signal

mode with poetic language and dance mode with a heightened form of poetic language’

(Nketia, 1963).

Comparing the bàtá to other Yorùbá talking drums, Euba argues that the Yorùbá

bàtá and the Yorùbá dúndùn speak similarly but their respective abilities for rendering

speech are realised in different ways (Euba, 1990). The ìyàálù is the leading drum in both

ensembles and the primary vehicle for representing speech. However, because the dúndùn,

unlike the bàtá, has a variable pitch drumhead, it is able to reproduce all pitches in spoken

Yorùbá as well as pitch glides. The recreation of pitch glides contributes largely to the

dúndùn’s intelligibility, in that when the dúndùn mimics glided vowels, it reproduces both

the pitch and rhythmic structures inherent in spoken Yorùbá. Villepastour’s research also

shows the dúndùn performs syllabic elisions by mimicking the speech rhythm. An elision

is the omission of one or more sounds (vowel consonant, syllable) in a given word or

phrase to allow easier pronunciation. The difference between the bàtá and the dúndùn is

that the bàtá encodes the elision, thus altering the rhythmic structure of the message

(VIllepastour, 2010). Villepastour shows that the dúndùn ìyàálu also renders texts more

slowly than the bàtá ìyàálu, which allows greater intelligibility on the part of the listener.

26  
 
  

Furthermore, the dúndùn’s textual repertoire does not require knowledge of traditional

liturgical texts as the bàtá’s repertoire does, as it is not limited contextually in its

performance of speech (Ibid.).

The bàtá drums prove to be highly effective in the rendering of speech, despite their

seemingly oblique representations of spoken Yorùbá. If one thinks of the bàtá’s capacity

for speech transmission in terms of an encoding system as defined by Stern (1957), the

bàtá’s speech capabilities are represented more accurately (Villepastour, 2010). The ìyàálu

bàtá articulates the three tones in Yorùba language only when playing in direct speech

form. The ṣáṣà (small drumhead) is played on syllables with the strong vowel sound a but

is dropped when representing a pitch glissando, and not played on the Yorùbá soft vowels i

and u. The ṣáṣà is often omitted on vowel sounds ẹ, e, o,and ọ (Villepastour, 2010:52). The

ìyàálu does not usually articulate mid tones on its larger drumhead. Instead, this role is

divided between with the accompanying omele abo (ibid). This division also happens three

ways between the ìyàálu (representing Yorùbá low speech tones) the mid tone played open

on the omele abo (large skin) and the high tone on the ìyàálu ṣáṣà. Tempo and rhythmic

placement are also a factor in determining whether or not mid and high tones are

articulated on the ìyàálu. For example, a relatively long note value on a mid or high tone

may be played on the ìyàálu’s large drumhead, but if a mid or high tone falls in a

metrically weak position, it is usually played on the omele abo. Downward pitch glissandi

on vowels are usually articulated by grace notes between the ṣáṣà and the destination

lower drumhead, upward pitch glissandi starting on lower tones are articulated by pressing

the lower drumhead on the ìyàálu, increasing skin tension and thus raising pitch.

(Villepastour, 2010:55).

27  
 
  
VOWEL TYPE AND SPEECH TONE DRUM DRUM STROKE

Intense vowel on low tone: à è ẹ̀ ò ọ̀ àn ẹ̀n ọ̀n Ìyàálù Open tone with ṣáṣà

omele abo None

Soft vowel on low tone: ì ù ìn ùn Ìyàálù Open tone

omele abo None

Intense vowel on mid tone: a, e, ẹ, o, ọ, ẹn, ọn Ìyàálù Muffled tone with ṣáṣà

omele abo Resonant tone

Soft vowel on mid tone: i, u, in, un Ìyàálù Muted tone

omele abo Resonant tone

Intense vowel on high tone: á, é, ó, ọ́, án, ẹ́n, ọ́n Ìyàálù Slap mute with ṣáṣà

omele abo Muted tone

Soft vowel on a high tone: í, ú, ín, ún Ìyàálù Ṣáṣà

omele abo Muted tone

The ṣáṣà [small drumhead] has two functions; it articulates strong vowel sounds on high

tones with slap mutes, and marking high tones, however, it is often omitted to reinforce the

tonal contour of spoken Yorùba, particularly on strong vowel sounds. The ṣáṣà is also

usually omitted on words that begin with negative marker vowels and downward pitch

glides. On words beginning with e, ẹ̀, o, and ọ, a ṣáṣà stroke is often omitted because these

vowels are often approached by pitch glides. The syllabic nasals n and m are either omitted

or marked by lengthened syllables (Villepastour, 2010:57).

Villepastour research shows that the interplay between the ìyàálu and the omele abo

occurs on the lexical plane, rather than having any western notions of imitative

counterpoint or antiphony, however it, can be likened to hocket, in European mediaeval

polyphony where linear notes are interchanged rhythmically between parts. The role of the

omele abo is to support and accompany the ìyàálu, which it does by providing rhythmic

accompaniment whilst the ìyàálu renders speech. Furthermore, the omele abo articulates

28  
 
  

mid- tone Yorùbá syllables on the enu [large drumhead]. This creates a melo-ryhthmic

interplay between the two large drumheads of the ìyàálu and omele abo. Articulation of

high-tone syllables on the omele abo is dependent on tempo and rhythmic intensity, at

higher tempos they are sometimes omitted. However, the omele abo ṣáṣà sometimes

represents high and mid-tone intense vowel sounds by playing open and mute strokes .The

ṣáṣà also provides offbeat patterns that have no linguistic function, as the enu [large

drumhead] of the omele abo interacts on the linguistic plane with the ìyàálu (ibid).

Bàtá drums and the ‘speech’ act.

I have shown (see chapter 1) that Yorùbá performance of panegyric poetry forms

such as oríkì and oríkì òrìṣà include an‘extra-dimensional musical conceptualisation of

lingual texting’ (Nzewi et al, 2001:91). Furthermore, ‘drum speaking’ requires an

enlightened, culturally sympathetic ‘audience’ in order to decode the societal, contextual,

and ritual properties of drummed ‘texts’. Nzewi et al argue that text in African music is

encountered as vocal processing of language (song), instrumental processing of language,

described as ‘metasong’, choreographic processing of language in dance and as ‘symbolic

documentation of cultural statements. These include extra-musical meanings of special

musical instruments and costumes. (Nzewi, et al, 2001) Nzewi et al argue that:

‘For the African, a transcendental communication is more compelling than

ordinary human communication, and cannot be countermanded for fear of

divine sanction or supernatural repercussion. The musical process for the

African, is a neutral and therefore most powerful institution for transacting

public as well as humanising business. It is a supernaturally empowered and

thereby spiritually affective, as well as effective medium. As such, what is said

29  
 
  

and acted in a musical process by the appropriate, contextually enspirited

performers is more impressive as well as imperative than verbal utterances by

subjective and manipulable human agents…a lingual communication voiced by

an instrument is on a higher supra human order’ (ibid: 92).

Yorùbá verbal art forms, whether performed on the drum or vocally, presuppose a listener.

This applies to oríkì-òrìṣà, where the listener is presupposed to be a supernatural agent. As

this phenomenon relates to a culturally accepted communicative situation, pragmatic

analysis of presupposition, in the linguistic sense, may offer insights into the rational

strategies that òrìṣà devotees employ to communicate with the divine. According to

Stalnaker, there are two ways to explain that a particular communicative act requires or

asserts a presupposition. The first is to ‘hypothesise that it is simply a fact about some

word or construction used in making the assertion’ (Stalnaker, 1999:53). This requires the

presupposition to be written into either a dictionary or the semantics. Stalnaker argues that:

‘Since we have an account of the function of presuppositions in conversations,

we may be able to explain facts about them without such a hypothesis… More

generally, it might be that one can make sense of a conversation as a sequence

of rational actions only on the assumption that the speaker and his audience

share certain presuppositions. If this kind of explanation can be given for the

fact that a certain statement tends to require a certain presupposition, then there

will be no need to complicate the semantics or the lexicon’ (Stalnaker,

1991:55).

Speech acts are acts that crucially involve the production of language. I have shown that

the bàtá drums convey language through the substitution of linguistic signs, either singly,

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as in the direct speech mode of the ìyàálu, or as composites, which involve the interplay of

the drums on the lexical plane, where the semantic weight of Yorùbá pitch phonemes is

distributed in melo-rhythmic patterns. Pragmatic analysis shows that the presupposition of

an addressee (in our case, the òrìṣà.) frames these phenomena as a sequence of rational

acts based on culturally defined shared criteria. These actions can broadly be defined as

‘speech acts’ albeit employing substitute sign systems.

British philosopher J.L Austin’s research on performative utterances – ‘utterances

in the uttering of which, in appropriate circumstances, one performs particular actions’

(Bussman, 1996:878) led to a discourse about the actions that may accompany these

speech. Furthermore, Austin added the concept of ‘possibility’ to evaluate these acts, as

opposed to evaluating statements in terms of truth or falsity. Instead, Austin’s work on

performatives emphasises the ritual and conventional functions that involve language in a

given society or culture. Austin postulates three different types of speech acts: locutionary

acts, illocutionary acts, and perlocutionary acts. A locutionary act is an utterance that has

an intended structure. An illocutionary act is a speech act performed by an addresser that

has a dimension of intentionality in an appropriate context. In our case, the ‘addresser’ can

be construed either as the ìyàálu player in direct speech mode or the entire ensemble

representing lexical units of spoken Yorùbá in the melo-rhythmic interplay between the

various drums. Bussman defines a perlocutionary act as a speech act that depends on the

production of a specific effect in the listener (ibid). Each of these speech acts has degrees

of ‘illocutionary force’. This illocutionary force may be signalled explicitly by

performative verbs such as thank, praise, beg, promise. In the pragmatic sense,

illocutionary force may also be implicit in the speech act, inferred through the context in

which it operates. Bussman reiterates Austin’s argument that for a given instance of an

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illocutionary act to function normally, it must meet certain contextual conditions, known as

felicity conditions. These acts are classified in various ways:

1. Assertives: speech acts that commit the speaker to the truth of a given statement,

2. Directives: speech acts enacted in order to encourage an addressee to act in a way

desired by the addresser.

3. Commissives: speech acts that commit the addresser to act in a given way in the

future

4. Expressives: these express the emotional state or feelings of the addresser

5. Declaratives: speech acts that produce a change in the physical world.

I have shown that in performances of oŕikì òrìṣà, the Yorùbá presuppose a listener. If we

adopt the pragmatic model and accept this presupposition as a culturally defined truth, it

becomes clear that panegyric poetry performed on bàtá drums fulfils Austin’s criteria as a

performative speech act. Through the textual repertoire of drummed oŕikì òrìṣà, it can be

argued that bàtá drums perform declaritives by encouraging the òrìṣà to engage in the

possession of practitioners, expressives in the form of praise and veneration, directives in

the encouragement of òrìṣà to bestow blessings, and assertives in that the drum texts

express belief in the truth of the òrìṣà as a supernatural agent. In my view, this model is

congruent with the reciprocality of Yorùbá òrìṣà worship, and furthermore fits with a

pragmatic (i.e contextually based) analysis of the communicative capabilities of the bàtá

drums use in ritual.

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A Semiosis of the bàtá drums?

 
 
Batá drums utilise a substitute sign system to venerate the òrìṣà and perform the

oríkì of humans. This next section explores the bàtá drums’ speech capabilities, framed by

a semiotic analysis. I argue that the representation of Yorùbá phonemes and lexical units

through differing drumstrokes and the interplay between drums is iconic. Framed by the

work of Charles Sanders Peirce and Umberto Eco, this section explores the concept of

iconicity as it relates to the rendering of speech on bàtá drums. Like all linguistic systems,

speech surrogates relate to the concept of the sign and its signifying relationships as

outlined by Charles Sanders Peirce, Ferdinand de Saussure, and others. Semiotics (from

the Greek Semion), is the study of signs and symbols. Semiotic signs take the form of

words, images, gestures, sounds, (both musical and non-musical) and physical objects.

Peirce’s model of semiotics was closely related to philosophical logic and was what he

described as a formal doctrine of signs. For Peirce, 'a sign... is something which stands to

somebody for something in some respect or capacity' (Peirce 1931-58:228). Peirce’s

semiotic model is complex and therefore warrants an introduction, in order to apply it to

drum language. Peirce’s model describes three signifying categories, the representamen,

the object, and the interpretant. The representamen is a culturally agreed but arbitrary

signifier (for example, a word) used to denote a sign’s object. Peirce describes the object as

the ‘semiotic object’ or ‘signified’, to which the sign relates. According to Peirce, it is

impossible for the semiotic object and the ‘real’ object to be identical because human

knowledge can never be absolute. Our senses are inputs for all knowledge, and as they are

unreliable, it is possible only to receive an approximation of an object. The interpretant is

the effect that the sign has on the observer. The effect of the interpretant on the observer

ranges from physical reactions, feelings, and emotions, to linguistically articulated ideas.

33  
 
  

Sign  or  Representamen-­  

 
(Something  that  functions  as  a  sign)  
 

Interpretant-­    
 
Object-­  
(The  effect  the  sign  has  on  
 
the  observer)  
 (What  the  sign  stands  for)  

There are three categories of dynamic interpretants in Peircian semiotics and they

can be described as emotional, energetic and sign interpretant. An emotional interpretant is

the direct emotional response provoked by the sign in the observer. An energetic

interpretant is the physical response provoked by the sign in the observer for example,

nausea, foot tapping, or increased muscle tension/relaxation. A sign interpretant is the

linguistic concept provoked by the observer’s response to a given sign or signs. These

three categories of interpretants give us a theoretical framework for describing an entire

spectrum of phenomena. Peirce’s model explains ‘meaning’ as the effect (emotional,

physical or linguistic) of a given sign on an observer. Through interpretants a dynamic

chain of semiosis occurs when interpretants become new signs in a process of ‘semantic

snowballing’. This process continues until either a conclusion is reached or a new train of

thought is introduced.

Similar to Peirce’s definition, Umberto Eco’s definition of a sign that as ‘something

that can be taken as significantly substituting for something else’ (Eco, 1976:9) disregards

whether that ‘something’ has any existential truth. This has broad implications in the study

of culture; Eco says that ‘every act of communication to or between human beings- or any

34  
 
  

intelligent biological or mechanical apparatus-presupposes a signification system as its

necessary condition’ (Ibid). Signs are culturally constructed and fused with the cultural

conventions from which they emerge, rather than expressing universal absolutes, they are

culturally agreed conventions that facilitate communicative processes within that group

(Clark, 2003) Eco says: ‘Every attempt to establish what the referent [in Peircian terms, the

object] of a sign forces us to refer to it in terms of an abstract entity which moreover, is a

cultural convention’ (Eco, 1976:66). Eco argues that even if we admit that we wish to

attest the possibility that we can indicate the presence of a perceivable object, whenever we

identify a meaning with the object, this makes the value of the sign-vehicle dependent on

the object’s presence, which ‘forces us to remove from a discussion of meaning all sign

vehicles which cannot correspond to a real object’ (ibid). Eco argues that the meaning of

term then can only be a cultural unit. Eco argues that a cultural unit can be anything that is

perceived as culturally conventional and differentiated as an entity. It can be a physical or

supernatural entity, an emotion, an ideal, a concept. These units can also be defined inter-

culturally, for example, an invariable unit (such as a cat, for example) remains a cultural

unit despite the disparity of linguistic symbols used to denote it (chat, kočka, katze, etc).

Cultural units can be defined semiotically as units of meaning within a culture. This

subjectivity leads to a series of infinite regressions, as each object (signified) becomes the

representamen (sign) of some other cultural unit. There is an infinite chain of semiosis

implied as signs can refer to each other and be self-referential. Eco argues:

‘Culture continuously translates signs into other signs, and definitions into

other definitions, words into icons, icons into ostensive signs, ostensive signs

into new definitions, new definitions into propositional functions, propositional

functions into exemplifying sentences and so on’ (Eco, 1976:71).

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Peirce devised three trichotomies to categorise signs and their relationships thus:

DESCRIPTION FIRSTNESS SECONDNESS THIRDNESS

Firstness A sign is: A quality: An instance: A category:
Qualisign Sinsign Legisign
Secondness Relates to object Resembles Relation to object: Relation to int:
by: object: (Index) (Symbol)
(Icon)
Thirdness Interpretant Possibility: Fact: Reason
represents the
(Rheme) (Dicent) (Argument)
sign as a sign of:

The first trichotomy describes the nature of the sign. The first category in trichotomy 1 is

called the qualisign. A qualisign describes a quality inherent in the sign, for example the

‘blueness’ of a sapphire. The second category Peirce calls the sinsign. This describes the

particular instance of a sign such as the ‘blueness’ of a particular sapphire. The third

category is a general categorisation of types of signs. These are called legisigns. For

example, sapphires would belong to the legisign ‘precious stones,’ or ‘blue things’. These

three categorisations are interdependent, in that qualisigns and legisigns are dependent

36  
 
  

upon instances of signs. The inherent qualities in signs enable us to perceive them

(qualisigns) and crucially, the culturally agreed meaning of a sign’s instance (sinsign) is

determined by its recognition in the context of a wider group of signs (legisigns).

The second of Peirce’s trichotomies describes icons, indices, and symbols. Icons by

definition refer to a signs object by resemblance or continuity. A sign is iconic when its

subject secures its reference to it. An indexical sign is a sign that refers to its object by a

natural correlation, for example, a symptom is an ‘index’ that corresponds to an illness.

Icons and indices describe connections, resemblances, and commonalities; the experience

of the perceiver determines the interpretation of indexical signs, as such, these

interpretations are fluid and diverse. A Peircian symbol is a sign that relates to its object

via language. Language is the only semiotic mode that has symbolic capability, in that

words themselves are culturally agreed symbols that represent objects or meanings

(Turino, 1999). Symbolic functions in language enable us to conceptualise and express

generalities. However, as language symbols are fixed, culturally agreed, but arbitrary

signifiers, they do not have any inherent ‘meaning’ of their own. Furthermore, direct

connections to objects are detachable; therefore, symbols are incapable of replicating the

experiential and emotional associations of their objects.

Peirce’s third trichotomy describes the ‘way that a sign is interpreted as representing

its object’ (Turino, 1999). The elements that make up the third trichotomy are rheme,

dicent, and argument. A rheme is a sign that represents its object as a sign of posssibility.

Rhemes suggest the possibility of an object or entity without any claims that the entity is

true or false in its existence. For example, nouns like God, fairy, dog etc., propose

existential possibilities without asserting any claims to the truth of their existence.

A dicent is a sign that represents its object existentially and furthermore, is affected by the

objects existence. For example, a thermometer is a dicent-index of temperature, because

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the air temperature affects the mercury level. It is indexical because the mercury level and

temperature occur simultaneously. Argument is in the realm of propositional domain of

linguistics, and is not relevant the analysis of speech surrogacy as a semiotic system.

Peirce based his entire semiotic framework on three basic categories that relate to all

phenomena. These are firstness: something that is autonomous, bearing no relationship

with any other entity other than itself, secondness: the relationship between two semiotic

objects, with no mediatory relationship to a third, and thirdness: the mediation of a human

being, to bring into relationship a first and second object. This mediation may be in general

or artificial terms. Cultural analysis of signs is dependent on the ways that sinsigns are

categorised and grouped with each other to form general sign types (legisigns). In a

particular instance of a sign, the elements that are most prominent in its function allow us

to identify its meaning. The same sign can be identified as dicent, dicent index, or rhematic

dicent index, depending on what is required by the analysis or description. Peirce

developed this interpretation of the combination of sign characteristics to produce ten

classifications of signs thus:

 
NUMBER R O I CLASSIFICATION
I R1 O1 I1 Rhematic Iconic Qualisign
II R2 O1 I1 Rhematic Iconic Sinsign
III R2 O2 I1 Rhematic Indexical Sinsign
IV R2 O2 I2 Dicent Indexical Sinsign
V R3 O1 I1 Rhematic Iconic Legisign
VI R3 O2 I1 Rhematic Indexical Legisign
VII R3 O2 I2 Dicent Indexical Legisign
VIII R3 O3 I1 Rhematic Symbolic Legisign
IX R3 O3 I2 Dicent Symbolic Legisign
X R3 O3 I3 Argument Symbolic Legisign

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The iconicity of drum language

Drum language, like all semiotic processes involves mediation between the sign

and its object via the interpretant. Peirce describes this as thirdness, however, within

Peirce’s framework, there are multiple combinations of firstness, secondness and thirdness.

Within this continuum, iconic and indexical signs fall midway between signs that function

most directly (eg iconic sinsign) and signs that operate at the most general level

(argument). Drum strokes that mimic morphological and phonemic values in tonal

languages operate on the level of secondness ie icon index and symbol. They are iconic in

that they acoustically resemble the tonal and rhythmic values in token spoken Yorùbá.

However, the notion that the drum stroke or òrìṣà rhythm is iconic presents difficulties.

Yorùbá, like any other language has conventions that govern it. Linguistic competence is

determined by the mastery of culturally specific rules that affect communication within a

given speech community.

As I have shown, all language operates on the symbolic level, as the mediation

between object and interpretant based on conventionally agreed signifiers that have no

‘inherent’ meaning. From the position of a cultural outsider, a performance of oríkì on bàtá

drums in direct speech mode has no semantic charge, although it is certainly interesting to

watch. In my view, which follows Eco’s, it is impossible to interpret a symbol without any

reference to the conventions that govern it. Linguistic signs, including substituted ones,

relate to their objects through cultural conventions, however, icons and indices by

definition bear some relationship to their objects, regardless of whether they are interpreted

as such. A sign can only function as an icon if it is interpreted as an icon, ie if it signifies

and bears resemblance to its object. However, as we already know, signification

necessarily requires an interpretant or series of interpretants, so icons and indices, having

some resemblance and relation to the interpretant, are symbols, if we follow Peirce’s

39  
 
  

definition. Elgin argues that ‘if any distinction is to be made it must be within the class of

symbols not between signs that are symbolic and signs that are not’ (1995:183). The

difficulty is this: if drum stroke X (sign) refers to object Y, X is a symbol of Y.

Furthermore, X resembles Y acoustically, so can therefore be construed as iconic in some

sense. There is also a ‘factual correspondence’ between X and Y if we take Stanalker’s

pragmatic analysis of presuppositions into account, that correspondence can therefore be

interpreted as indexical. The definitions ‘icon, index and symbol’ collapse into each other.

Following Peirce’s definition, a symbol is a sign that relates to its object via

language, as language is governed by convention, potentially, anything can symbolise

anything else, if the necessary conventions are in place. Although icons and indices require

what Elgin describes as a ‘non-conventional hook’, it can also be argued that if two objects

are alike in some respect, anything could be an icon of anything else. Similarly, if any two

objects are connected in fact, any object can be interpreted as an index of another. What

concerns us here is not whether drum stroke or rhythm X could be icon of object Y but

whether it is one. How drum stroke X, by proxy, is a symbol (a sign that refers to its object

via language) is determined by the way it functions. To define X as an icon of Y, the

acoustic similarity is not enough; X must refer to Y via that resemblance. Elgin argues that

‘unlike purely conventional symbols… icons and indices use nonconventional links to their

objects for referential purposes’ (Elgin, 1995:183). What then, is involved in referring via

a feature? Elgin suggests that ‘to refer to an object via a feature is to refer to it by means of

a referential chain that has the exemplification of that feature as an intermediate link’

(Elgin, 1995:184).

One possible solution is found in Nelson Goodman’s devices of exemplification and

denotation. (Goodman, 1976:52). In Goodman’s nominalist approach, possessing a quality

(or in Peirceian terms a ‘qualisign’ such as blueness) amounts to being denoted by a

40  
 
  

certain predicate, or what Goodman calls a ‘label’ (for example, “blue”). Goodman argues

that possession of a quality can therefore be defined as the antithesis of denotation.

Furthermore, Goodman’s ‘labels’ are not limited to linguistic ones; Goodman argues that

‘Symbols from other systems, musical, acoustic, gestural, diagrammatic etc. all function as

predicates of language’ (Goodman, 1976:57). All these other ‘labels’ have the potential to

classify objects. Exemplification is defined as ‘possession plus reference’ (Goodman

1976:53). To possess a quality, by itself, is obviously not a form of symbolisation,

Goodman’s notion of exemplification requires that the exemplifying symbol refers back to

the label or predicate that denotes it. Goodman illustrates this with the example of a tailor’s

swatch, which is a ‘sample’, or in Peircian terms a sinsign, of texture, pattern colour etc.

but not a sample of the size or shape of the fabric. sinsigns are selective in how they

operate symbolically, in that a tailor’s swatch does not denote all of the features or

predicates it possesses, only those for which it is a symbol, for example, features that

denote texture, colour, or weave of fabric, rather than predicates that denote size or shape.

(ibid). The properties that a particular instantiation of a symbol represent, depends on the

system the sign operates in. How this relates to speech surrogacy in Yorùbá drumming can

be explained like this: An iconic sign, such as a drum stroke or rhythm that acoustically

resembles a phoneme or phrase, refers via a resemblance only if the exemplification of that

resemblance operates as an intermediate link that connects the linguistic sign to its object.

Code talking in Yorùbá drum language.

Another semiotic process involved with Yorùbá bàtá drumming is ‘code talking’ or

ẹná. As spoken Yorùbá is suitable for encoding and abridgement systems on drums as

outlined by Stern (1957), the three-tone system of the Yorùbá language itself lends itself to

code talking, known in Yorùbá as ẹná. The term ẹná in Yorùbá implies some sort of

41  
 
  

exclusion or secrecy, Villepastour (2010) tells us that there is the ẹná of children and

adults, spoken to exclude adults and children respectively, the ẹná of hunters, intended to

exclude animals who may recognise their names during the hunt, and the ẹná of religious

insiders, designed to exclude the uninitiated from ritual secrets (Villepastour, 2010:91).

According to Ìṣọ̀lá (1982), there are four methods of ẹnà code-talking in spoken

Yorùbá, the following section is a brief summary of these systems. Although Yorùbá bàtá

drummers do not specifically uses these systems to map Yorùbá phonemes onto bàtá

drums, they are related as I will show. Amanda Villlepastour’s informant, Àyándòkun,

describes three different systems of ẹnà bàtá, namely what he calls ‘drum language,

defined as ‘utterances which are comprised only of the vocables that have a direct

relationship to bàtá strokes,’ spoken ẹnà, which ‘includes syllables and words which

overlap with ‘drum language’ but also includes syllable not idiomatic to drum language’

and finally, ‘broken ẹnà’ which includes elements of the first two of Àyándòkun’s

definitions, which combines the ẹná words with other Yorùbá words and elements of

Ìṣọ̀lá’s systems (Villepastour, 2010:94).

1. Syllabic disruption

Ìṣọ̀lá describes this as the simplest encoding system as ‘no extraneous material is

introduced to confuse the enemy. Only the normal grammatical order of the words and the

sentence are altered.’ (1982:44). In this method there are no strict rules for the ways that

the sentence structure is disrupted, however, the pitch values of the sentence must be

retained. Once the pitch structure of the sentence is given in the ‘clear’ message, several

sentence possibilities become available. Indigenous Yorùbá speakers are able to decode the

message based on their knowledge of linguistic conventions in Yorùbá language.

42  
 
  

2. Addition of Null Tags to Syllabic Units.

A null tag is a meaningless syllable attached to every syllable in an utterance in order to

disrupt the semantic content of that utterance. The system allows two choices of consonant,

the voiceless labio-dental fricative and the voiced velar-plosive, consonant choice must be

consistent throughout the encoded message so that the message can be decoded. Variable

interpolation of null-value vowels is determined by the preceding vowel of the uncoded

syllabic unit. Similar to the first system, the pitch values of the original message are

retained, with the pitch values of the null tags matching the pitch values of the clear

message. In this system, phonological (pitch value) rules override grammatical rules.

Identical vowels with differing pitch values are normally treated as discrete syllabic units

in spoken Yorùbá, however, in this system, a sequence of two vowels with identical pitch

values are treated as a single syllabic unit. To mark stops or pauses, the final null syllable

is preceded by a syllabic nasal. A simpler variant of this system tags the null syllable onto

every syllable of the original message but this distorts the pitch structure of the utterance

and has no way of marking stops or pauses.

3. Inversion of End-of- group Syllables and Substitution of Null Tags

This system operates not only at the syllabic level, as in the first two methods, but also

operates on what Ìṣọ̀la classifies as ‘sense groups’. The determination of a ‘sense group is

at the discretion of the speaker. Once the ‘sense group’ is established, the last syllable of

the ‘sense group’ is substituted with the first syllable. Two null syllables are available: the

syllabic nasal ń, and tin, the null ń is transferred to the beginning of the ‘sense group’ with

the null tin replacing the last syllable. The null syllable ń thus introduces each ‘sense

43  
 
  

group’ furthermore, Ìṣọ̀la tells us that together with the transference from end of ‘sense

group’ to beginning, this syllabic null always bears a low pitch value, regardless of the

pitch value of the original uncoded syllable. All other syllables retain their original pitch

values, however, the null syllable tin assumes the pitch value of the syllable it replaces.

4. Vowel Numbers

This system was adopted with the advent of literacy and is based in Yorùbá orthography.

Null tags, syllabic disruption and ‘sense groups’ are not featured, rather it is based on

knowledge of Yorùbá spelling. There are two variants, the first is based on five vowel

sounds—a, e ,i, o, u—and disregards the difference between half-open and half-closed

vowel sounds written with an under-dot, for example, ẹ. The code substitutes the numbers

one to five in English, for these vowel sounds in a given word. In spoken form, all

consonants are treated as syllables but the vowel sound à is added with the its

corresponding downward pitch phoneme, for example p becomes pà. The second variant

recognises the half closed vowels ẹ and ụ and thus changes the numbering. This yields the

seven vowel sounds a-1,e-2,ẹ-3,i-4,o-5,ọ-6,u-7. This system relies on knowledge of

English and Yorùbá orthography as opposed to Yorùbá phonology, and is not relevant to

ẹnà bàtá, which requires neither.

Ẹnà bàtá: drum code of the Àyán alubàtá

According to Villepastour, rather than using the systems described by Ìṣọ̀lá above,

ẹnà bàtá encodes syllabic units in spoken Yorùbá by using the vocables of ẹnà bàtá to

transmit strokes on the bàtá (Villepastour, 2010:91) In contemporary Yorùbáland, ẹnà bàtá

has several functions. Villepastour argues that ẹnà bàtá is a kind of ‘oral notation’ or

mnemonic aid used to teach children both language acquisition and the corresponding

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drums strokes that are used to communicate it (Villepastour, 2010:93). Bàtá drummers also

use ẹnà bàtá as a memory aid during performances, in both ritual and ‘folkoric’

performances (ibid.). Furthermore, ẹnà bàtá is used as a kind of lingua franca to converse

with drummers from different regional and dialect groups (ibid.). This establishes

insidership, excluding non-speakers, which asserts the lineage of Àyán drummers. Space

does not allow a full account of Villepastour’s compelling findings, (see Villepastour,

2010:109-113) however, the following is a summary of her main points.

1. The syllable is the basic linguistic unit in ẹnà bàtá.

2. The syllabic content of ẹnà bàtá matches the pitch structure of spoken Yorùbá.

3. Ẹnà syllables always begin with consonants. If the Yorùbá word begins with a

vowel a consonant is added. This is because the drum vocable requires a consonant

to denote the transient attack by the player’s hand on the drumhead.

4. Yorùbá syllables containing i or u will always be rendered by ẹnà syllables i and a

respectively. Spoken Yorùbá syllables that contain e,ẹ,o and ọ usually rendered

with ẹnà syllables that contain a, but are occasionally rendered with ẹnà syllables

that contain the harder vowel sound a. Villepastour argues that this is relates to a

psychoacoustic scale of intrinsic intensity that pertains to vowel sounds devised by

Hughes (1999), where a has the greatest perceptual intensity and i the least. The

vowel sounds in between i and u, namely e,ẹ,o and ọ are variable in intensity.

Villepastour notes that ‘the cases of these intense vowels becoming soft vowels in

ẹná are so numerous that it would be misleading to state that [all] intense Yorùbá

vowels are rendered with ẹná syllables that contain an a’ (Villepastour, 2010:109-

110). At present, Villepastour cannot explain fully why exceptions to soft and

45  
 
  

intense vowels occur in ẹnà, however Villepastour found that ‘most instances

involve some kind of [pitch] glide’ (ibid).  

Codes of secrecy

In òrìṣà worship, Apter argues that ‘the symbolic exegesis of òrìṣà cult ritual is

publicly prohibited because it belongs to a corpus of esoteric secrets which provides access

to ritual power (àṣẹ) itself’ (Apter, 1992:107). When neophytes join an òrìṣà cult, they

undergo extensive initiation and swear blood oaths [ímulẹ̀] not to reveal secrets. This

knowledge is distributed on the basis of ritual seniority; elders and priests are holders of

‘deep’ knowledge to which junior members and new initiates are excluded (ibid.). In drum

consecrations, it is certainly conceivable that Àyán drummers used ẹná bàtá as a coded

ritual language to ensure that ritual secrets were not betrayed (ibid). Villpastour’s research

tells us that in practice, Yorùbá ritual bàtá drummers do not directly encode spoken

Yorùbá into drum strokes. Instead, they translate the Yorùbá language into ẹná bàtá, which

has fewer syllabic units than spoken Yorùbá. This translation prescribes which drum

strokes are used, and thus mediates between what is spoken and what is played. However,

in order to understand the language of the drums, native fluency in Yorùbá is not enough;

interpretation requires ritual understanding. Similarly, the rendering of spoken Yorùbá to

drum language is a specialised skill restricted to insiders with specialised knowledge.

Villepastour’s research shows that only the Àyán alubàtá, the Àyán lineage of bàtá

drummers, and the some members of the oje lineage of egúngún masqueraders that have

the exclusive knowledge required to encode spoken Yorùbá into ẹná. Of these, only the

Àyán alubàtá are able to translate the ẹná code directly into drumstrokes. Villepastour

posits that as the bàtá is also the drum of the egúngún cult, ‘Oje lineage members as well

46  
 
  

as olòrìṣà.s [òrìṣà initiates] must be able to understand the drum in order to contextualise

the drum’s messages for dance and ritual’ (Villepastour, 2010:106). The connection

between the egúngún cult and the Àyán cult is demonstrated by the fact that these two

lineages often intermarry. The ability to understand the language of the bàtá drums is

mainly found in the cults of Ṣàngó, Esú, Oyá and the egúngún cult, although according to

Villepastour, other cult members may be conversant (ibid). Similarly, many kings, chiefs,

big men and women are able to interpret the language of the bàtá as it is played, however,

they usually are not able to understand the ena code as the Àyán alubàtáa and oje members

do (ibid). Villepastour along with her informant Adegbola present a theoretical model of

the bàtá’s speech process, in which ẹná bàtá functions as a kind of ‘machine language’.

Villepastour argues that ‘Like the interface of computer formal language, ẹná reduces

Yorùbá vowels to a binary scheme’ (Villpastour, 2010:108). According to Villepastour,

‘one of the important cognitive needs met by higher-level computer languages is that they

provide mnemonics as memory aids to the computer programmer’. Similarly, alubàtá

require some means of converting statements uttered in Yorùbá into drum strokes; ẹná

bàtá functions as such a mnemonic aid. Villepastour also speculates that it functions as an

oral dance notation for the egúngún dancers in a similar way. Villepastour writes:

‘Even though the end product of these drum strokes may harbour some level of

ambiguity for some listeners (ogbèri, or outsiders), there is little ambiguity

between the intentions of a master alubàtá, the sounds produced and what an

awo [insider, or holder of the secret] will hear when listening to the bàtá.

Hence, as a bàtá drum statement is in formal language, there is a one to one

correspondence between the statement (what the alubàtá plays) and its

realisation (the sound produced, and what is intelligible to awo (ibid).

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Conclusion:

Speech surrogacy is a highly complex process. Comparing the bàtá drums with

other Yorùbá drums such as the dúndùn shows that intepretation of bàtá ‘texts’ requires

ritual understanding as well as native fluency in spoken Yorùbá. In the performance of

verbal art forms such as oríkì, I have shown how bàtá drummers perform ‘speech acts’

using an alternative sign system and explored the performative, pragmatic, and semantic

aspects of ‘drum language’. The iconic aspects of bàtá drum language intersect with the

Yorùbá conceptions of secrecy and ritual insider-ship, in that only Àyán and egúngún

drummers are able to translate spoken Yorùbá into the ‘machine language’ of ẹná bàtá.

I have demonstrated how bàtá drumming and Yorùbá oral traditions relate to the assertion

and perpetuation of Ǫ́yǒ hegemony through the role of the bàtá drums in the cult of Ṣàngó.

Ǫ́yǒ’s disintegration in the early nineteenth century was a significant factor in the forced

displacement of large numbers of Yorùbá speakers to the ‘New World’ as slaves. In Cuba,

the Yorùbá bàtá ‘tradition’ was reconstructed and significantly revised, as I demonstrate in

the following chapter.

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CHAPTER THREE: ÒRÌṢÀ WORSHIP AND THE BÀTÁ

DRUMS IN CUBA
 

Following the collapse of the Ǫ́yǒ Empire, Yorùbá speaking slaves arrived in Cuba

and throughout the new world in large numbers. Among these were religious specialists,

who carried in their minds the vast corpus of oral of divination texts, oŕikì-òrìṣà, proverbs,

and ritual knowledge. The Atlantic slave trade forced the bearers of this knowledge into

contact with the European Catholicism of slave owners and the belief systems of other

enslaved African ethnicities. The importation of African slaves into Cuba took place over

some 350 years within the context of a wider Atlantic slave trade that included the French,

British, and Portuguese as key players. A fully comprehensive account of either the

Atlantic slave trade or the history of slavery in Cuba is both unnecessary and prohibitive in

terms of space (see Thomas, 1997, Klein, 1967, Hall, 1970 for comprehensive accounts of

slavery in Cuba). However, the ways that enslaved Yorùbá (known in Cuba as Lucumí)

reconstituted African belief systems in new geographical and social contexts are important

to understand; The preservation, adaptation, and reinterpretation of ritual systems within

these new geographical and cultural contexts marks the transformation of African òrìṣà

worship into its distinctly Afro-Cuban form, known as Santería or La Regla de Ocha.

These processes of reinterpretation and change provide one framework for

understanding why the interpretation of linguistic capabilities of the bàtá drums declined

in Cuba. Possible explanations for the decline of intelligibility in Cuban ritual bàtá ‘texts’

are explored in chapter four. This chapter explores the socio-religious and historical

continuum in which this decline of intelligibility gradually took place. Similarly, space

does not allow an account of the entire ritual structure of Santería (see Murphy,

1981,1988, Brown 2003, Brandon 1992, Sandoval 2005 for comprehensive accounts of the

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Santería religion), however, the latter part of this chapter explores key points pertaining to

the origins and role of the bàtá drums within Cuban òrìṣà worship.

Cabildos

In Cuba, distinct African identities were neither swiftly subsumed nor homogenised

by a dominant Hispanic culture, nor were they preserved in a purely African, pre-slavery

state. They were, however, reconstituted in new but culturally familiar forms through the

network of African nation institutions called cabildos de nación and in the yearly cycle of

feast days and carnivals (Brown, 2003:27). Cabildos de nación, predominantly situated in

urban areas such as Havana and Matanzas, operated as mutual aid societies that provided

economic assistance to the sick, disabled, and elderly, helped with members’ funerals

costs, and raised funds to pay for manumission (Murphy, 1981). The Spanish word cabildo

translates into English as ‘town council’. The origins of cabildos date back to medieval

Spain, where the word applied to religious brotherhoods and trade guilds that held

processions on important feast days such as Corpus Christi. As the etymology and

historical background of the term cabildos de nación suggests, in Cuba, slaves were

divided along ethnic lines in accordance with civil and ecclesiastical policies initiated by

the Church and colonial authorities. Mercedes Cros-Sandoval argues that the cabildos

‘probably triggered the awareness of commonalities in language, religion, family structure

and other cultural features that they shared and were not necessarily aware of before’

(Cros-Sandoval, 2006:54).

In the Cuban cities, cabildo ‘Kings’ or ‘Queens’ protected the property rights of the

cabildo acting as representatives on behalf of both slaves and manumitted blacks in legal

matters. Ortiz tells us that the cabildo kings were ‘ the political link that legally united his

African constituencies to the society of the whites’ (Ortiz, 1921, cited in Brown, 2003:35).

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Brown places these power relationships in a broader Atlantic context, juxtaposing the

Cuban system of indirect rule with the British Empire’s rule of Nigeria, where the

governance of the indigenous populations emerged from negotiations with localised chiefs

and kings (Brown, 2003).

In Havana, many slaves and free people of colour lived within the city walls in the

neighbourhoods known as the ‘barrios intramuros’ where numerous cabildos were

located. The predominantly white bourgeoisie population of the intramuros initially

tolerated the cabildos, as they functioned as a means of catechising Africans and their

descendents into the Catholic Church, and as a means of social control (Bastide, 1972).

However, by 1792, the colonial authorities introduced legislation that moved the cabildo

houses to the fringes of the city, and by the beginning of the nineteenth century, they were

moved outside the city walls, to the extramuros (Ramos, 2000). Importantly, for cabildo

members, the eviction to the extramuros provided a space for the preservation and

reinterpretation of African socio-religious institutions relatively unhindered by the

authorities.

Cabildos as nodes of resistance

As well as spaces that allowed the retention and transformation of heterogeneous

African cultures, the cabildos functioned as nodes of resistance to Hispanic hegemony.

The 1812 slave revolt led by José Antonio Aponté, a sculptor and manumitted slave, was

planned in a Havana cabildo. According to Manuel Barciá, this plot was ‘the broadest

based of all the nineteenth century movements of resistance’ (2008:30). Aponté’s co-

collaborators forged tight links with slaves from the rural areas that surrounded Havana,

persuading them to join them in an insurrection on the scale of the successful Haitian

revolution of 1804. Barcia argues that ‘the combination of different cosmologies and

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cultural backgrounds is one of the most important characteristics of the Aponté conspiracy’

(ibid). This illustrates that the cabildos were an important space where heterogeneous,

ethnically divided, African ‘naciónes’, began to coalesce into an embryonic ‘Afro-Cuban’

identity. However, unfortunately for Aponté ́, the authorities discovered both him and his

co-conspirators before the insurrection could take place, and they were subsequently tried

and executed. Following the discovery of the Aponté plot, the cabildos came under greater

scrutiny from the authorities, which introduced repressive legislation to stamp out any

resistance to white rule. In spite of this, the cabildos ‘continued to be a focus for liberation

hopes and played important roles in marshalling Afro-Cuban participation in the wars of

independence and the post-independence struggle for civil rights.’ (Murphy, 2012:73).

Aponté’s particular cabildo was dedicated to Ṣàngó and was called ‘Cabildo Ṣàngó

Tedún’ [Ṣàngó is the thundergod]. In the same way that that Toussaint L’ouverture, leader

of the Haitian revolution was believed to have supernatural powers (Adams, 2010:15),

Aponté’s association with Ṣàngó was widely believed to have provided him with

supernatural ‘invincibility.’ Historian Phillip Howard writes:

‘From Ṣàngó they received special spiritual powers by heredity. It is possible

that their belief in Ṣàngó may have prompted them to engage in conspiracy,

thinking that the god might protect them as they plotted to make war on Spain’

(Howard, 1998:74).

The association with Aponté in all likelihood made the Cabildo Ṣàngó Tedún’ the most

famous of all the cabildos in Cuba (Murphy, 2012:73). Similarly, Ramos argues that there

were at least five ‘Ṣàngó Tedún’ cabildos with at least two attempts to revive the cabildo

as late as the 1940s (Ramos, 2000:82). Ramos argues that oral history accredits the Ǫ́yǒ

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Lucumí with the founding of these cabildos, and that during the nineteenth century there

were at least three Ǫ́yǒ–centric cabildos dedicated to Ṣàngó in the Havana/ Matanzas

region (ibid).

Carnival

The discourse that surrounds Cuban cultural life is polysemic, complex, and

multilayered. This is demonstrated most cogently in the feast of the Epiphany, known as

Dia de los Reyes [Day of the Kings]. The Day of the Kings, which took place annually on

January 6th, was perhaps the most important day in the nineteenth century Afro-Cuban

calendar. This was day the day when African ethnicity in colonial Cuba was expressed

most vividly, with the full permission of the Church and authorities. The inversion of

societal norms on the Day of the Kings demonstrates the acknowledgement of the blacks’

place in Creole society by the Church and authorities. For slaves and free-blacks, the Day

of the Kings allowed the assertion of disparate African ethnicities and was a space where

alternative structures of authority were asserted and defined. In festivals such as Day of the

Kings, the Church encouraged slaves to identify with hagio-centric Christian mythology in

the veneration of Melchoir the Magi, one of the ‘three wise men’ of the Nativity, who is

traditionally depicted as black. Bastide argues that:

‘The veneration of black saints and virgins was initially imposed on the

Africans from the outside. [This] was a step towards their Christianisation,

and… the white masters regarded it as a means of social control to promote

subservience in their slaves’ (Bastide, 1978:113).

Contemporary accounts stress the riot of colour, noise and motion that epitomised the

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celebrations, usually beginning before dawn, with the sound of drums reverberating

through the streets of Havana; Fernando Ortiz quotes Cuban scholar Ramón Meza’s

description from 1891:

‘The Congo and the Lucumí, with their great feathered hats, blue striped shirts

and red percale pants; the Arará, with their cheeks lacerated from cuts and

branding iron, covered in shells, crocodile and dog teeth, threaded bone and

glass beads, the dancers from the waist down in a voluminous vegetable-fibre

hooped skirt; The Mandingo, very fancy in their wide pants, short jackets and

blue or pink silk turbans, embroidered with marabou; and the many others with

the difficult names and whimsical costumes that were not entirely in the style

of those in Africa, but changed and modified by civilised industry’

(Meza, 1891, in Ortiz, 1920).

Ortiz recounts another contemporary narrative, this time from journalist A. de Garcia,

writing for the January 6th, 1842 issue of the Havana newspaper El Faro Industrial,

describes the sheer noise and cathartic exuberance that accompanied the festivities:

‘Readers of my spirit who read this copy, I deceive you not: You who

contemplate those multi-coloured sea and salt-swept faces, those hyperbolic

gestures, those costumes, more extravagant than the most exaggerated idea of

the greatest extravagance, and those unparalleled instruments, listen to them,

and to that unharmonic howling of voices, to the echo of which they execute

their singular dances, and at the same time marvel at the ludicrous gravity with

which the cabildos practice their ceremonies, bearing their blessed standards

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up front, the veneer of religious solemnity they give to these profane acts and

the sumptuosness of the negro women of the nation, alongside the outlandish

attire of their retainers and diablitos’ (Garcia 1842, in Ortiz, 1920)

Anthropologist Judith Bettelheim argues that the use of ethnically marked regalia,

costumes, flags and musical instruments were ways that cabildo members could mock the

authorities, as well as display ethnic autonomy amongst other naciones by imitating

courtly European dress (Betteleheim, 1991). Ortiz tells us that on Dia de Reyes, cabildo

processions encroached onto the main streets of the Havana’s bourgeois intramuros, to

such an extent that the predominantly white residents were reluctant to venture onto the

streets. According to Ortiz account, white residents preferred to view the processions from

balconies and distribute aguinaldo [Christmas money] through barred windows (Ortiz,

1920 in Brown, 2003). Brown argues that:

‘The ritualized exchange of aguinaldo exemplified the ways in which carnival

could be an arena of contested meanings. For the giver of Aguinaldo the

exchange could mean a condescending tip to an amusing black buffoon. For

the receiver, aguinaldo could mean the power to extract tribute on a day in

which status assignments became more fluid and the streets were temporarily

owned by Havana’s Africans’ (Brown, 2003:36).

Brown (2003) argues that the courtly and military attributes of carnival processions,

although an impressive display that won aguinaldo from spectators, were also intended to

reiterate the authority of the cabildo kings. Wurdemann’s 1884 account describes the

naciónes parading proudly behind the their respective cabildo flags:

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‘On Día de los Reyes, almost unlimited liberty was given to the negroes. Each

tribe, having elected its king and queen, paraded the streets with a flag, having

its name and the words ‘viva Isabella’, with the arms of Spain, painted on it.

Their majesties were dressed in the extreme of the fashion, and were very

ceremoniously waited on by the ladies and gentlemen of the court, one of the

ladies holding an umbrella above the head of the queen. They bore their

honours with that dignity which the negroes love so much to assume, which

they moreover, preserved in the presence of the whites. The whole gang was

under the command of a negro marshall, who, with drawn sword, having a

piece of sugar cane on its point, was continually on the move to preserve order

in the ranks’ (Wurdemann, 1884:83-84).

The adoption of authoritative symbols, such as courtly dress or military regalia not

only represents symbols of ‘anti-structure’ in the form of mimicking the authority symbols

of the whites, but reiterates ongoing alternative structures of authority (Brown, 2003).

Although these alternative authority structures only appeared publicly on festival days and

carnival, the kings and queens of the cabildos ruled their naciónes throughout the year.

The reversal of social status between blacks and whites is exemplified in giving and

receiving of Aguinaldo in the redefined, ‘Africanised’, urban spaces of the whites (Brown,

2003) Similiarly, the rejection of European behavioural norms expressed in the ‘wild

dancing’ performed in the festival celebrations demonstrates dynamic expressions of an

unmaking of European hegemony. Apter argues that:

‘By appropriating the categories of the dominant classes, ranging from official

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Catholicism to more nuanced markers of social status and cultural style and by

resisting the dominant disciplines of bodily reform through the ‘hysterical fits’ of

spiritual possession, New World blacks empowered their bodies and souls to

remake their place within Caribbean societies’ (Apter, 1991:255).

In the slave societies of the Spanish Americas, Bastide describe two Catholicisms, one

African, one European (Bastide 1972). The interface between European Catholicism and

African religions has been part of Cuban academic discourse since at least the early

twentieth century writings of Fernando Ortiz and to this I will now turn. The term

‘syncretism’ has been used to describe the blending or fusion of different cultural,

linguistic, or religious elements. Although all religions are ‘syncretic’ to a greater or lesser

extent, the syncretic debate has been part of the discourse in the African diaspora since at

least the early twentieth century in the writings of Melville. J Herskovits. The following

section is a critique of the syncretic paradigm initially proposed by Melville J. Herskovits.

Syncretism

A large proportion of scholarly discourse on African religions in the New World

include a discussion Herskovits’ syncretic paradigm, in which he suggests the linear

transfer of ‘Africanisms’ between old world and new is most clearly demonstrated in the

correspondences between African deities and Catholic saints. Herskovits’ theory of

acculturation formed the conceptual framework for his explanation of the transformation of

African ‘cultural traits’ in to distinctly Afro-American ones. However, Herskovits’ theory

is highly problematic in that it exoticises African slaves relative to Cubans of Spanish

descent, and is methodologically flawed as I will demonstrate. Herskovits defines

acculturation thus:

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‘Acculturation comprehends those phenomena which result when groups of

individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact,

with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both

groups’ (Redfield, Linton & Herskovits, 1936:149).

Space does not allow me to discuss Herskovits’ arguments at length (see Herskovits 1928,

1936,1937, 1958, 1966). However, I provide a brief synopsis of his ideas. For Herskovits,

the primary factors that crystallised the correspondences between African deities and

Catholic saints, were slavery, as the dominant social institution, and Catholicism as the

official religion of the masters. According to Herskovits, the combination of these two

factors explains distinct patterns of religious syncretism throughout the Catholic Americas.

Herskovits argues that syncretism occurs where one or more cultures exhibit ‘the tendency

to identify those elements in the new culture with similar elements in the old one, enabling

the persons experiencing the contact to move from one to the other, and back again, with

psychological ease’ (Herskovits, 1966:57). These identifications occur most frequently in

situations of what Herskovits describes as ‘culture contact’ (ibid).

Herskovits’ posits that in the Catholic New World, African slaves recognised the

attributes of African deities in the iconic chromolithographs of Catholic saints. As the

Catholic Church had effectively banned African religious practices, Herskovits argues that

African slaves were forced to worship their Gods secretly, disguised as Catholic saints.

According to Herskovits, this secrecy, coupled with the fear of insurrection on the part of

the white majority, explained the ‘inferior social position held by these ‘fetish cults’

wherever they are found’ (Herskovits, 1937:636). Herskovits further argues that due to

‘social scorn and official disapprobation’ (ibid) practitioners organised themselves into

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localised groupings, dominated by the personalities of ‘priests,’ responsible for any

‘principal drive toward any outer organization the cult-group under his charge may

achieve’. Later scholars, such as Andrew Apter writing in 1991, point out the difficulties

with Herskovits’ model. Apter argues, Herskovits’ correspondences include only Fon and

Yorùbá as African sources excluding any other African influence, and furthermore

includes deities that have a clear European influence and could not have existed in pre-

contact Africa (Apter, 1991:245). Apter argues that Herskovits’ model perpetuates notions

of a homogenized ‘African’ cultural purity, overlooks the differences between urban and

rural slavery, and omits any discussion of the place of manumitted slaves within the

racialised social hierarchy of colonial Cuba. However, despite the difficulties with

Herskovits’ model, the concept of ‘syncretism’ often reappears in discourse about

‘African’ identity and culture in the New World. As Apter points out:

‘… But there is also something elusively tenacious about the concept of

syncretism. Even when critically deconstructed, it somehow slips back into any

meaningful discussion of Africanity in the New World. And even as we

recognize that ‘Africa’ has been ideologically constructed to create imagined

communities in the black Americas—as Guinée in Haitian Vodoun, or the

nations of Cuban Santería and Brazilian Candomblé—such invented identities

cannot be totally severed from their cultural analogues (dare we say origins?)

in West Africa’. (Apter, 1991:235-6)

Apter argues that the adoption of Catholic iconography into Cuban òrìṣà worship

was an act of resistance and empowerment that countered the monolithic dogma of the

Catholic church, thus reframing Herskovits’ syncretic paradigm as a counter-hegemonic

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strategy as opposed to a psychological process that allowed slaves to culturally integrate

with the religion of their masters. Rather than Santería functioning as an ‘ecumenical

screen’ where African deities were hidden behind a veneer of Catholicism, Apter argues

that the incorporation of Catholic imagery into the sacroscape of Cuban òrìṣà worship was

a transformation of the religious hegemony of the masters, appropriated by slaves to

harness its power. This appropriation allowed slaves to ‘take possession of Catholicism

and thereby repossess themselves as ‘active spiritual subjects’ (Apter, 1991:254). The 1812

Aponté rebellion and the escaléro insurrection of 1844, both planned in the cabildos,

demonstrate a violent culmination of these strategies. The reinterpretation and

reconstitution of African òrìṣà worship in Cuba was one strategy devised by blacks to

negotiate their ‘otherness’ in the face of European hegemony. In conjunction with the

reinterpretation of òrìṣà worship, other ritual artifacts of African òrìṣà worship, namely the

bàtá drums were creatively reconstructed in Cuba. The following section explores the

historiography that surrounds the origins of the Cuban bàtá drums.

The bàtá drums’ reconstruction in Cuba

The influx of Yorùbá slaves that arrived in Cuba in the mid-nineteenth century

‘brought with them orally transmitted stories that emphasise the particular and the local’

(Brown, 2003:293). Similarly, Yorùbá slaves brought with them old rivalries and

conflicting belief systems that in the new context geographical context of Cuba, competed

for dominance and ritual authority. Conflicting claims for ritual authority are one thread in

a complex web of discourse surrounding the ascendency of the bàtá drums in Cuba.

Struggles for ritual legitimacy in Cuba began in Yorùbáland between two conflicting

‘ritual fields’ (Apter, 1992), one from Ilé-Ifẹ, the ‘spiritual home’ of the Yorùbá, the other

from Ǫ́yǒ with its association with the Ṣàngó cult and the bàtá drums (Peel, 1991, Ch7).

These contested claims offer possible explanations for the changes in the relationship of

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the bàtá drums to Àyán (see chapter one), access restrictions to the drums based on gender

and sexuality, and the homogenization of the òrìṣà ‘pantheon’ in Cuba. These changes

provide one avenue of inquiry into the bàtá’s drums linguistic decline in Cuba, as I

demonstrate in the following chapter. Fernando Ortiz attributes the reconstruction of the

bàtá in Cuba to a single event in 1830. Ortiz writes:

‘The bàtá drums did not arrive [in Cuba] with their sacred form and character

until the nineteenth century. [...] In Cuba, the bàtá were first played in a

Lucumí cabildo called Alakisá, which means 'rags' or 'garbage', which was

located on egido street. In the first third of the past century, a black Lucumí

arrived in Cuba by the name of Añabi, who in Cuba was known by the name

Juan 'the Cripple'. It was said that in his land he was a babaláwo, Osanyin

priest, and drummer. Soon after arriving in Cuba and being taken to work at a

sugar mill, a wagon loaded with sugar cane fractured his leg and he was moved

to a hospital barrack for slaves in Regla [a neighbourhood of Havana on the

northeast side of the bay]. Here, he was overwhelmed upon hearing the

religious drumming of the Lucumí that he had yet to hear in Cuba and he met

another elderly Lucumí slave such as himself called Atandá Filomeno García,

with whom he had interacted with as a bàtá drummer in Africa. The two of

them went to the aforementioned cabildo and learned that the drums that were

being used there were not orthodox—they were unbaptised—and that in Cuba

there were no ritually consecrated drums. And so, it is said that by/about 1830,

the African drummer Añabi came to an accord with Atandá who was an

agbegui [agbégi] or wood carver in Africa and, in Cuba, also had a reputation

for the idols that he carved which are remembered as ‘very beautiful’. Atandá

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also knew how to construct drums and the two friends made the first set of

hourglass bàtá and, in full ritual, consecrated them. And they ‘baptized’ them

with his own name, Añabi, which means ‘born of’ or ‘son of ‘Aña [Àyán]. It

was in this manner that the first true set of bàtá in Cuba were consecrated to

Ana’. (Ortiz, 1955: 315-316)

Scholars dispute the plausibility of Ortiz’ account, arguing that there is no firm

contemporary evidence to support it, furthermore, the validity of a claim of an unbroken

bàtá or Àyán lineage in Cuba, faithful to a single ‘source’ in Yorùbáland, is highly

questionable, given that it is unlikely that a homogenous bàtá or Àyán tradition existed in

Yorùbáland (Marcuzzi, 2005, Vincent 2006). Vincent argues that ‘It seems more likely that

the bàtá in Cuba was ‘reconstructed’ or ‘reconstituted’ by a small group of knowledgeable

practitioners in nineteenth-century Cuba (possibly more than the documented two, Añabi

and Atandá)’ (Vincent, 2006:123). Ortiz’ account is methodologically problematic in that

it could conceivably be based on the testimony of a single informant, as Ortiz provides no

historical evidence to corroborate his account; Marcuzzi argues that despite the fact that

contemporary bàtáléros hold Ortiz account as definitive, there is no real justification given

for his claim of 1830 as the Cuban bàtá’s ‘big bang,’ as the next recorded set of

consecrated bàtá drums apparently did not appear until around 1866, at the cabildo

Yemaya near the church of the Virgin del cobre in Regla (2005:341-2). In Ortiz’ account,

Añabi and Atandá became associated with a prominent babaláwo [Ifá divination priest]

named Remigio ‘Adechina’ Herrera, and with him were the founders of the Cabildo

Yemayá in Reglá (Ortiz, 1955:316). The drums in the cabildo were named ‘Atandá’

presumably after their carver, Marcuzzi argues that this implies that the construction of this

set took place around the time of the cabildo’s founding. Marcuzzi writes:

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‘Assuming that the expertise of these two individuals [Añabi and Atandá]

would have likely been in great demand, not only as drummers but also as

makers of sacred drums after the construction of that first set of Àyán

[consecrated drums]—which helped to economically supplant other drummers

in the region—then, it seems unlikely that this much time passed between the

consecration of these first two sets of drums’ (Marcuzzi 2005:341).

Ortiz’ account describes the authoritative influence of Añabi and Atandá on the

construction and consecration of bàtá drums, in nineteenth century Havana and Matanzas.

As the cabildo Yemaya was a prominent early site for African religious practice in Cuba,

and was associated with the Ifá cult, Marcuzzi argues that this association imputed Añabi

and Atandá’s drum constructions and consecrations with the ritual ‘legitimisation’ of the

Ifá priesthood (Marcuzzi, 2005:342)

Ṣàngó in Cuba

As I have shown, the bàtá drums are associated with the Ṣàngó cult in both Cuba

and Yorùbland (see chapter 1), however, the heterogeneity of Yorùbá African slaves

brought to Cuba during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries counters the notion of

a reified Ǫ́yǒ culture arriving in Cuba intact. In Yorùbáland, The Ṣàngó cult had

considerable influence outside the Ǫ́yǒ kingdom, especially in cities like Ibadan and

Abeokuta. These cities, in the midst of the massive social and political turmoil of the early

nineteenth-century Yorùbá wars, provided sanctuary for Yorùbás of diverse geographical

origins. Henry B. Lovejoy hypothesises that due to the huge influx of Ǫ́yǒ Yorùbá to

Cuba, Lucumí slaves and their descendents appropriated Dia de Reyes as a symbolic re-

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establishment of the Ǫ́yǒ Empire in Cuba. Lovejoy argues that Dia de Reyes was a re-

enactment of the Yorùbá festivals of beere, Molè and Orun in which the bàtá drums and

Ṣàngó were highly prominent. The Yorùbá beere festival marked the end of the

agricultural year and marked the passing of another year of the Aláàfin’s reign. Beere grass

was paid was used to thatch houses and was paid in tribute to the Aláàfin. In the beere

festival, the bàtá drums were used in the processions that were part of the celebrations and

during the ceremonial burning of the fields, as Ṣàngó is associated with fire. In Cuba, fires

were set during the sugarcane harvest, coincidentally close to the Christian New-Year and t

Día de Reyes. As the burning of plantations was a resistance technique utilised by slaves,

Lovejoy argues that for the Ǫ́yǒ Yorùbá in Cuba, the burning of the cane fields and the Dia

de Reyes festival became symbols of Ṣàngó’s power in the New World (Lovejoy,

2009:303)

This seems to suggest an Ǫ́yǒ-centric dominance in nineteenth century Cuban òrìṣà

worship (Brown 2003:116-7 and 144-5). The prominence of the Ṣàngó cult in Cuba is

demonstrated by the fact that all Lucumí initiation procedures are derived from the

initiation rituals performed to inordinate Ṣàngó priests in Yorùbáland (Brown 2003,

Ramos, 2000). This is demonstrated in a principle consecration tool, the pilon, used in the

asiento [crowning] ceremony where the òrìṣà is seated in the head of an initiate to the

priesthood The pilón is a mortar shaped stool, cylindrical and either pedastal shaped or

hour-glass shaped, and like the bàtá drums represents Ṣàngó’s thunder axe in its shape.

However, Brown argues that ‘the Cuban Ṣàngó was not necessarily a one to one reflection

of a single Ǫ́yǒ Yorùbá archetype. Ṣàngó, as did many of the Lucumí òrìṣà.s, absorbed

other regional Yorùbá gods of similar identity’ (2003:116).

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Fundamentos
 
 
Ṣàngó’s pilon is a fundamento. This term refers to the symbolic vehicle for the òrìṣà’s àṣẹ

and is usually in the form of stones [otanes]. William Bascom’s informants in Havana and

Matanzas stressed the primary importance of the stones in fieldwork during the early

1950s. Bascom writes:

‘While chromolithographs and plaster images of the Catholic saints are

prominently displayed in the shrines and houses of the Santéros, they are

regarded only as empty ornaments or decorations, which may be dispensed

with. The real power of the Santos resides in the stones, hidden behind a

curtain in the lower part of the altar, without which no Santería shrine could

exist.’ (Bascom, 1950:65)

Bascom thus argues that the Cuban concept of the fundamento is similar to the Yorùbá

concept of iponri the physical manifestation of the òrìṣà. Fundamentos are physical objects

that represent the àṣẹ of the òrìṣà: it is to these objects that sacrifices are made. They are

believed to protect initiates, who believe that they are the vehicles by which the òrìṣà

bestow blessings. In sacrificial rites, fundamentos are baptised with herbs and blood; this

process endows the stones with àṣẹ. Unbaptised stones along with any other unconsecrated

ritual paraphenalia are described as ‘Jewish’ (perhaps an echo of the inquistion) and

deemed both powerless and offensive to the òrìṣà (Ibid.).

For Cuban òrìṣà worshippers, consecrated bàtá drums are also fundamentos, the

literal embodiment of the òrìṣà Àyán. Robert Farris Thompson tells us, ‘Ṣàngó may have

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made the first bàtá (another story says his mother brought them to Ǫ́yǒ from the land of

Nupé, across the Niger), but it is the òrìṣà Àyán], deity of the drums who presides over

their actual playing’ (Thompson, 1993:169). Thompson recounts a fragment of panegyric

to Àyán:

Ruler of the speech released from trees

Who takes you on a road you never saw before
Tall tree who grows [brass leaves of] money
The one who finds brass and carries it to complete his speech,
Deliver me,
To follow you is never to be hungry.

Agulú asórò igi

Amúni mo ona ti a kò de ri
Igi gogoro ti I so owó
Aridegbe sòhúngòbi àyàn gbè mi
A ki I tele ó k’ ebi o tun pa mi

As the bàtá drums are the physical representation of the òrìṣà Àyán, for Cuban bàtáleros,

there appears to be no substantial differentiation between the drums and the òrìṣà (Marcuzzi,

2005, Vincent 2006). However, in Yorùbáland, this is distinction is often made. Marcuzzi

argues that ‘there are a variety of sacred drum constructions in Nigeria that are embraced

by an established Àyán cult as opposed to the single consecrated tradition in Cuba’

(Marcuzzi, 2005) These distinctions on both sides of the Atlantic are not clearly delineated,

as Marcuzzi’s Nigerian informants often freely interchanged references to the òrìṣà and the

drum. Similarly, his informants in Cuba would ‘make a distinction if they needed to’

(Marcuzzi, 2005,). Nevertheless, Cuban bàtáleros widely believe that consecrated drums

are literally the physical embodiment of the òrìṣà (Marcuzzi, 2005). Similarly, consecrated

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bàtá drums are believed to have a will of their own, which is sometimes at odds with the will

of the drummer. As embodiments of the òrìṣà, bàtá drums, as opposed to bàtá drummers,

are sacred; As María Teresa Veléz, describes in her account of the life of bàtáléro Felipe

Garcia Villamil:

‘They are the ones saluted and paid tribute to during the rituals. It is with

the set of drums that an initiate, after a special ritual, establishes a special

relationship that will last during his or her lifetime. Drums talk to the òrìṣà or

speak with the voices of the òrìṣà.s; they are the actors. Drummers are vehicles

to make this ‘voice’ heard; they are the instruments. The history of sacred bàtá

drumming and drummers is, then, intimately intertwined with the history of

sacred bàtá drums’ (Veléz, 2006:50)

The òrìṣà Àyán in Cuba is a cult in its own right, although one without a dedicated

priesthood. Instead, Àyán devotees form a fraternity of drummers, this fraternity functions

very much like a mutual aid society. Oral testimony and ethnographic data points to a

belief that Àyán’s arrival in Yorùbáland predates the establishment of drumming

traditions. Marcuzzi argues that although it is feasible that Àyán was an important

historical figure, it would be impossible for him to be responsible for the introduction of all

Yorùba drumming traditions over centuries of change and inter-cultural contact

(2005:170). Marcuzzi argues that Àyán, as a historical figure, was more likely to be

responsible for the establishment of a socio-religious order as a provision for the

drumming profession. Marcuzzi writes:

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‘In short, even if we entertain the historicity of a famous drummer named Àyán

and consider the potentially profound influence that this musician may have

had upon Yorùbá drumming styles, I propose that the social structuring of the

drumming profession and the subsequent formation of a religious cult

supporting drumming and drummers are the only credible associations that can

be made with any historical figure named Àyán, as opposed to the entire

plethora of drumming styles and drum constructions as is often quoted in the

oral literature-the latter becoming an expected addition to the mytho-historical

discourse on Yorùbá drumming’ (Marcuzzi, 2005:200)

As I have shown in Chapter 1, in Yorùbáland, the Àyán lineage of drummers was

organised along familial lines. In the various òrìṣà cults in Yorùbáland, diverse drumming

traditions were usually defined internally by ritual and lineage. This ritual brotherhood

extended into drumming ‘fraternities’ that often offered their services in portative

drumming styles such as dúndùn and bàtá at òrìṣà festivals outside of their immediate

geographical locale. These diverse groups of drummers, forced into close proximity

through slavery in Cuba, transcended regionally specific repertoires and became a kind of

peripatetic fraternity of ritual drummers (Marcuzzi, 2005:202). Marcuzzi argues that in all

likelihood, this led to ad hoc solutions in Cuban contexts, and eroded any lineage based

Àyán monopoly of ritual drummers that may have survived the middle passage (2005:197).

Àyán initiations and consecrations in Cuba

Although there are records of influential Àyán priests (hence Àyán lineages) in

nineteenth century Cuba, today, the Àyán name is extremely rare (Vincent, 2006). In the

Cuban òrìṣà complex, the òrìṣà prefix is only given to a priest who has undergone an

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initiation ceremony such as asiento [crowning], whereas the prefix Àyán is only used in

Cuba as part of the consecration ceremony of the drums. Although the lineage of Àyán

drummers is recognised within the wider drumming fraternity in Yorùbáland, the

genealogy of Àyán drummers is only recognised ‘by proxy’ in Cuba. Marcuzzi attributes

the loss of the kinship factor in the Cuban Àyán cult to ‘the inability to map

consanguineous notions onto initiation ceremonies, since the joko oosa ceremonies for

Àyán- the constitution of the òrìṣà Àyán within the head of the initiate are not performed

in Cuba’ (2005:202). In Cuba, the lineage of drummers was subsequently transplanted to

the lineage of the drums themselves. Bàtá drums were (and are) ‘born’ of older drums.

Consecrations and initiations that Cuban bàtá drummers undergo are not dependent on

initiation procedures such as the ‘crowning’ of òrìṣà priests, where the òrìṣà is seated in

the head, whereas consecrations of bàtá drums requires ritual cleansing and the installation

of the ‘fundamento’, the pouches of ‘medicine’ placed in the body of the drum.

Unlike the consecrations and initiations to the Àyán cult of drummers in

Yorùbáland described in chapter one, there are three stages to initiation into the Àyán

fraternity in Cuba. The first level is the lavada de manos [washing of the hands]. The

drummer’s hands are bathed in omiéro, a mixture of sacred herbs and the ashes and blood

of sacrificial animals (Vincent, 2006:116) This ritual is not a full initiation into the wider

religious community, nor does it endow the recipient with any particular status within the

Àyán community, it simply bestows the right to play any set of consecrated bàtá drums

(Aldama, 2012). The second stage, juramento, marks formal entry into the Àyán

community. Unlike other initiation ceremonies in la Regla de Ocha, the juramento

initiation does not rename the initiate but instead bestows the title omo aña (child of

aña/Àyán) (Vincent, 2006:117). Juramento allows intiates access to ritual spaces where

other juramento ceremonies and drum consecrations are held. Unlike the asiento

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[crowning] ceremony, where a person is initiated, juramento does not involve the ‘seating’

of the òrìṣà in the head, as only the drum can be the receptacle of the òrìṣà Àyán (ibid.).

The ceremony usually takes an entire day and involves extended periods of seclusion

called la penitencia [penitence]. The initiate is bathed in omiéro and dressed in ritually

appropriate clothing, in some òrìṣà houses, the initiate’s head is presented to an iron hoop

known as the aro (ibid). The initiate then shares a ritual meal with other members of the

Àyán community, consisting of meat from sacrificed animals, and sacred medicinal herbs.

At this stage, the initiate is instructed in the ritual lineage of the drums to which they are

sworn (ibid). As all consecrated bàtá drums are ‘born’ from other fundamento, Àyán

initiates differ from other initiates in the wider Santería community; in Cuba, the lineage of

the drum is more significant than the lineage of the drummer. Following the ritual meal,

the initiate is instructed in the behavioural rules of the cult, which oblige them to protect

the drums from smoke, alcohol, non initiates, women and other potentially ‘harmful’

forces (ibid). Interestingly, initiation to the Àyán community also allows non-drummers.

Any non-drumming heterosexual male, can be ‘sworn’ if the correct signs emerge from

divination (Aldama, 2012:56). It is usually recommended for the initiate to participate in

drumming or engage in some kind of musical activity in these cases. However there is

opposition to this amongst senior members of the Àyán fraternity. Bàtá drummer Carlos

Aldama expresses concern about the inclusion of devotees not formally sworn to the

drums:

‘If you have Ocha made they have to let you play, even if you are not omo aña

[Àyán initiate] with your hands washed or formally sworn to the drum. I can’t

explain why this is, but I have seen it happen. I don’t know why. Sometimes

people who were never even drummers became olu bàtá, owners of sacred

drums’ (Aldama, 2012:57).

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Drum consecrations

The consecration of the bàtá drums is the longest, most expensive, and most

complex. This ceremony resembles the initiation of a person [asiento] only it is the bàtá

drum, as opposed to the cranium, in which the òrìṣà is seated. Similar to the asiento

ceremony, the consecration of a bàtá ensemble takes an entire week, however, most of the

ritual action takes place in the first three days. The consecration and placement of four

medicinal pouches inside the each of the drums is one of the most important elements of

this ceremony. On the third day, a group of babaláwos gathers to perform the drum’s life

divination [ita], using specially prepared palm nuts. The next few days are occupied by

activities concerned with the construction of the drums as well as primarily social

interactions between the members of the Àyán community. The final stage of the

consecration takes place on the seventh day, this is when the drums are ‘given a voice’.

The consecrated drums that ‘gave birth’ to the new set are played first with the new set

playing along quietly, gradually taking over as the old set diminishes in volume. Once this

process is complete, the new drums are fully consecrated to Àyán.

Marcuzzi argues that in initiations and the consecration of drums, the wider Àyán

fraternity acts as witnesses to the event, as opposed to the religious sponsorship received

by new intiates in the wider Cuban òrìṣà community. The disappearance of the

genealogical dimension to the Àyán cult in Cuba suggests that the Àyán cult, of diverse

origins in Yorùbáland, was very likely comprised of either scant numbers of Àyán

devotees or endowed with devotees that had less political influence than their

contemporary drummers (Marcuzzi, 2005:203) Furthermore, Marcuzzi argues that:

‘If those charged with the preservation of the initiation practices of their

patrilineal òrìṣà - those with the greatest investment in such a venture-were

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unable to arrest the disappearance of the direct Àyán initiation ceremony from

the ritual praxis of Cuban òrìṣà worship, this goes to further the thesis that a

comprehensive ritual expertise among the early cult members was beyond the

grasp of the agnate devotees and Àyán priests’ (2005:203).

It is more likely that expertise in performance and drum construction, with its

attendant rituals as well as what Marcuzzi calls the ‘axiomatic expertise of the Ifá

divination cult’ (ibid) was detrimental to the survival of the Àyán cult on purely familial

lines. Marcuzzi argues that the influence of the Ifá divination cult on the early consecration

rites of early Àyán cults in Cuba may be one of the most important factors in the decline of

consanguineous lineages in the Àyán cult, due to the fact that in the early Cuban òrìṣà

complex, devotees relied on the babaláwos to establish legitimate and effective ritual

practices in the new geographical social and religious context of Cuba. Amanda Vincent

argues that due to the inclusion of the male dominated Ifá and Ọ́sanyìn cults into the

Cuban Àyá complex, Cuban Ana ritual practice is significantly different from Àyán

practice in Nigeria. According to Vincent, there is nothing to connect the cults of Ifá and

Osanyin to the Àyán cult in Yorùbáland, furthermore whilst female members are ‘actively

engaged in social ritual and performative aspects of the Nigerian Àyán cult, In Cuba, the

Àyán cult was seemingly developed in the absence of female Àyán lineage.’ (Vincent,

2006:164)

Conclusion:

The influence of the Ifá priesthood on the creative reorganisation of the Lucumí

religion has profound ramifications for Cuban òrìṣà and the role of the bàtá drums worship

in ritual. Later in the nineteenth Century, the religious spaces for African òrìṣà worship

shifted away from the cabildos into smaller casa di santos (house-temples). In the house

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temples, instead of the Yorùbá model of discrete, regionally localised cults dedicated to

tutelary deities, òrìṣà worship became ‘directed by a single priest [who] had to pay homage

to each and every deity’ (Bastide, 1960:62). This is demonstrated by the miniaturisation of

shrine arrangements, the condensation of sung invocations, and the rearrangement of ritual

cycles (Brown, 2003:117). This restructuring of the religion has implications for the role of

the bàtá drums in Cuban òrìṣà worship and is one avenue of inquiry that into their

linguistic decline in Cuba. These ideas are explored in the following chapter.

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CHAPTER FOUR: THE DECLINE OF BÀTÁ SPEECH

SURROGACY IN CUBA

This chapter suggests possible hypotheses for the decline in understanding of the

bàtá drums’ linguistic attributes in Cuban òrìṣà worship. I have argued that the

reconstruction of consecrated bàtá drums in Cuba is not the result of a smooth linear

transition from Africa to Cuba, but rather the conscious reinvention of a conceptualised

Yorùbá past. Añabi and Atandá’s association with the prominent babaláwo, Adechina,

bought their drum constructions the ritual status associated with the Ifá priesthood. In this

chapter, I show that the Cuban incarnation of the Ifá cult as the ascendant authority in a

contested ritual continuum, introduced gender restrictions on the playing and handling of

the bàtá drums and contributed to a decline in understanding of the linguistic elements of

bàtá drumming.

Another avenue of inquiry into the decline of linguistic intelligibility of bàtá

drumming in Cuba is the language used in Santería ritual itself, known, like the people

who speak it, as Lucumí. The Lucumí language shows clear cognates with spoken Yorùbá

as David Olmstead’s study has shown (Olmsted 1953) however, in Cuba, the influence of

Spanish and other African languages brought transformations to Yorùbá pitch and stress

structure. As Yorùbá is a tonal language, this has distorted the meanings of many words,

rendering a large proportion unintelligible to contemporary Yorùbá speakers. As bàtá

drummers encode the speech tones of spoken Yorùbá, this has implications for the

intelligibility of any linguistic content embedded within Cuban bàtá rhythms. The latter

part of this chapter suggests ways that the traditional Yorùbá role of bàtá drummers as

transmitters of language was superseded by the homogenisation of Lucumí musical liturgy

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and the influence of heterogeneous African drumming practices present in nineteenth

century Cuba.

Ritual fields: the reconstitution of the Lucumí religion.

From the mid nineteenth century up until around 1945, there were significant revisions of

the Lucumí religion in Cuba. These were actively organised by five prominent babaláwos

that worked together to advance the Ifá tradition in Havana. David Brown draws a parallel

between Andrew Apter’s ‘ritual field’ model (see Chapter One) and the emergence of two

distinct branches or ramas of the Lucumí religion: la Regla de Ocha and la Regla de Ifá.

Brown argues that:

‘[an] Ocha-centric ritual field… historically emerged alongside, and in

opposition to, its Ifá-centric counterpart, armed with its own rhetorical tools.

Indeed, the two ritual fields were mutually constituted, that is, emerged in a

battle of claims, counterclaims, reforms and reversions’ (2003:149)

Early studies such as Murphy (1981), argue that the retention of the corpus of divination

verses [odu] in Cuba exemplifies Herskovits’ paradigm of linear transference of culture

from Africa to the New World. Murphy argues that Yorùbá ‘culture’ and the cults relied on

the ‘most centralised and portable repository of history and culture: the odu [verses] of the

Ifa oracle…Santería was generated from these odu and the babaláwo priesthood assumed

authority in a condensed system of cult to the òrìṣà.’ (Murphy 1981: 227). Later studies

such as Brown (2003) argue that the ritual status and ‘generalist’ role of the Cuban

babaláwo emerges not from a linear transatlantic transplantation, but rather was the result

of historical developments that took place in Cuba itself. Brown points that as Adechina

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arrived in Cuba as a teenager or pre-teenager, it is unlikely that he mastered the entire

corpus of odu [verses] prior to embarkation at the Bight of Benin. Brown argues that

alongside other prominent babaláwos who disembarked in Cuba as children, such as

Joaquín Cádiz Ifá Omí, ‘it is more likely that Adechina or Omí ‘mastered or at least

‘recompiled the Ifá corpus and its liturgy with other babaláwos in Cuba’ (Brown,

2003:146) According to Brown, ‘Ifá’s claims to ritual authority in Cuba not only attempt to

repress the rhetoric, myths, and rituals of opposed ‘ritual fields’ such as La Regla de Ocha,

but also conveniently disguise the historical problems of the reconstruction and

reconstitution of the Ifá cult in Cuba’ (Brown, 2003:146). The restructuring of the Lucumí

religion, demonstrated by the standardisation and textualisation of Ifá verses, as well as the

‘pantheonisation’ of the heterogeneous òrìṣà emerged after approximately a century of

struggle for ritual supremacy between the two ramas [branches] of the Lucumí religion

(Brown, 2003:145).

It is highly likely that the contest for religious authority in Cuba had its antecedents

in Yorùbáland. Origin myths and ethnographic evidence (Apter, 1992) show that ‘claims

for authority are rooted in the primacy of origins, particularly in the cosmogeny itself.’

(Brown, 2003:145). Apter argues that ‘When Ifá divination was first introduced to Ǫ́yǒ,

during the reign of Onibogi, the citizens of Ǫ́yǒ refused to accept it. Additionally, Ifá

enjoyed more prestige in Ilé-Ifẹ̀ than it did in Ǫ́yǒ. Similarly, Ṣàngó appears not to have

had an organized cult in Ilé-Ifẹ̀ (Apter, 1992:25). J. Lorand Matory (1994) argues that

within the Ǫ́yǒ kingdom itself, ‘sites and occasions of worship for possessing gods like

Ṣàngó, on the one hand and the non-possessing god Ògǔn, on the other are almost

invariably separate in Ǫ́yǒ north, the historical heartland of the Ǫ́yǒ kingdom’ (Matory,

1994:4).

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The divination verses of the Ifá cult, as well as claiming ritual authority, also reflect

opposing gender values concerning the role of Yorùbá women in both political and

spiritual life:

‘From Ifá, we learn that long ago, when women used to terrorise their men folk

with their knowledge of spirit possession, the men consulted Ifá, and were told

to sacrifice to Ògǔn. On the day the women were preparing to call out the spirit

of their departed elder, Ògǔn suddenly appeared in their midst… and followed

by the braver men, he chased the women into the bush’ (Euba, 1985:14 cited in

Matory, 1994:50)

Matory points out that in Yorùbáland, the balance of gender oppositions that dominates

Ṣàngó worship is absent in the worship of non-possessing deities such as Ògǔn (1994:7).

Yorùbá Ògǔn priests are exclusively male, Ṣàngó priests are mostly female, the male

priests of Ṣàngó assume socially constructed ‘feminine’ attributes, such as braided hair,

jewellery, cosmetics, and clothing. Similarly, Ṣàngó initiates are known as iyawo òrìṣà

[brides of the òrìṣà.]. Spirit possession itself is described in polysemic, gendered

terminology. The òrìṣà is said to ‘mount’ [gùn] the devotee. The term is itself

multilayered, alluding to both sexual penetration and the control of a rider on a horse; the

possessed priest or initiate is referred to as the horse of the òrìṣà. The equine imagery is

more than likely a reference to Ǫ́yǒ’s military dominance achieved largely through its use

of cavalry (ibid). Matory argues that ‘these parallel verbal associations suggest the

suitability of women and cross dressing men to a violent and sexually redolent

subordination to the royal god’ (ibid). In the Ǫ́yǒ kingdom, royal court members entrusted

with administrative roles, functioning as heads of priesthoods, royal advisers and as

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emissaries of the Aláàfin [king]. These entrusted individuals were known as the ayayba the

wives of the king (Matory, 1994:9). Other royal emissaries known as the ilarí, were free to

roam the empire on royal business, Matory recounts oral history that states in pre-colonial

Ǫ́yǒ these ilari, frequently cross-dressed and professed themselves as ‘royal wives’ (ibid).

in The 1830s, the collapse of the Ǫ́yǒ empire brought with it paradigm shift in socio-

political values. Matory tells us that ‘personal leadership (rather than birth) and the

services of war captives (rather than of wives and ‘mounted’ men) determined the extent of

one’s authority’ (Matory 1994:15).

The gendered representations of authority demonstrated by the ‘royal wives’ of the

Aláàfin and the possession cult of Ṣàngó differ significantly from the authority structures

of the Ifá Cult and priesthood. As Peel (2002:148-149) points out: ‘Ifá was set apart from

such [possession] oracles in several ways. Its keynote was control, not inspiration: instead

of surrender to trance or possession, the babaláwo depended on his mastery of a technique

and accompanying corpus of knowledge. The Ifá verses are believed to be static,

unchanging and immutable. By contrast, oŕikì is non-linear and intertextual (see Chapter

one). Babaláwos believe that this stasis preserves the integrity of the verses originally

imparted to them by Ọ́runmìlá in the mythical past. (See Appendixes 1 and 2 for a synopsis

of Ifá divination procedures and origin myths). In consultations, the babaláwo ‘activates’

portions of this immutable, fixed body of wisdom and interprets it to the divination client.

Thus, the role of the babaláwo is to mediate between the verses and the client, whereas in

the performance of oŕikì, the utterance of the ‘text’ mediates between the deity and the

devotee. Barber writes:

‘Oŕikì were intended to produce an effect of sheer additive mass, suggesting

the profusion of qualities and powers attributed to the subject, the Ifá texts

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represent a way of organising material under a determinate number of

headings. In other òrìṣà cults, the priest and other devotees communicate

directly with the spiritual being, and the text-that is the utterance of oŕikì - is

the channel of communication. Through this process, the òrìṣà is enhanced and

may be induced to manifest itself in the human community, either by

possessing the priest, or in less dramatic ways’ (Barber, 1990b:202).

Barber highlights that the importance of women in Yorùbá oŕikì performance: as women

are the main performers of oŕikì, ‘they control the vital channels of communication with

the òrìṣà…rather than being the subject of ‘praise’ which puts ‘big men’ in the limelight,

they actually operate the ‘praising’ mechanism by which the flow of spiritual forces is

directed and through which, ultimately the multiple personalities of the òrìṣà are

constituted’ (Barber, 1990a: 328-9). Barber’s observation of the role and status of the

babaláwo as ‘overseer’ of the entire Yorùbá cosmology could as easily be applied to Cuba

as West Africa. Barber writes: ‘The pantheon as a whole and the relationships between all

these forces are mainly the concern of the babálawo, the highly-trained specialist Ifá

priests, who master a great corpus of divination verses dealing with every aspect of the

cosmology (Barber, 1981:729). In Cuba, the babaláwos assimilated ritual specialisations

such as herbalism (Ọ́sanyìn), Ògbóni (see Morton-Williams, 1960) and egúngún [ancestor]

rituals from other West African and Lucumí groups, furthermore it is likely that babálawos

laid claim to initiatory procedures in la Regla de Ocha (Brown, 2003:145).

Divergent interpretations

The greatest divergences between Ocha and Ifá ritual are found in divination protocols.

Ifá-centric houses regard the results of Ifá divination, performed by babaláwos, as the

definitive revelation of an individual’s destiny, particularly in the initiation ceremonies that

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determine the òrìṣà that owns the head. By contrast, Ocha-centric houses employ an oriate,

a specialist diviner of the dilogún system, an alternative system to Ifá. In this process, the

oriate casts cowrie shells to determine the initiate’s head òrìṣà. This is often followed by a

second ‘confirmatory’ divination session with the spiritual godparent [Madrina / Padrino]

of the neophyte. According to Brown:

‘Babaláwos and oriates who debate this issue rely on divergent interpretations

of their divination systems and cosmologies and mobilise variant myths of

origin to support their interpretations. Ifá-centric rhetoric predictably

emphasises Ọ́runmìlá ’s [Cuban incarnation of Ọ́runmìlá, Yorùbá òrìṣà of

divination] primacy and unique spiritual insight, which derive from his position

as ‘Witness of Creation,’ his closeness to Olófin and Odudúwa (the creator

òrìṣà who mediates heaven and earth, life and death), and his unmatched

knowledge of the destiny [orí] of all beings- humans and òrìṣà.’ (Brown,

2003:154).

The gendered contrast between Ocha and Ifá- centric ritual fields is demonstrated in the

link between the male-gendered creator God Olófin and the role of Ọ́runmìlá in the

transmission of his authority via the patriarchal ‘fathers of secrets’ the babaláwos.

Babaláwos believe that Olófin bestowed the authority to settle disputes among the

heterogeneous òrìṣà, and as such, Ifá divination given to Ọ́runmìlá by Olófin is the

definitive word on the destiny of individuals. Babaláwos believe, that by contrast, the

dilogún divination system of Ocha is more concerned with the biases and desires of the

individual òrìṣà and as such, is less powerful than Ifá (Brown, 2003: 154). As a limited

portion of Ọ́runmìlá’s wisdom, namely the secrets of the cowrie shells of dilogun, was

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given to two female gendered òrìṣà - Yemayá and Ochún, they are excluded from the

deepest secrets of Ifá. One of the odu describes recounts Yemaya’s attempt to usurp the

authority of Ọ́runmìlá, by undermining the system of Ifá (ibid.). Brown argues that: ‘in this

view, secrets ‘leak from the ‘structurally female’ heterogeneous cult vessel that is Ocha,

which is composed of men and women, gays and lesbians, while the ‘structurally male,’

homosocial and homophobic cult of Ifá remains the paradigm of integrity: its babaláwos

are the impenetrable fathers of the secret’ (ibid). The Ifá cult had a profound influence on

the role and reconstruction of the bàtá drums in Cuban òrìṣà worship, and harboured of the

‘secrets’ leaking from the ‘vessel’ of the drum, as I will demonstrate. I will show that Ifá

cult and priesthood introduced gendered access restrictions to consecrated bàtá drums in

Cuba, and propose a hypothesis that offers one possible explanation for the interpretive

decline of linguistic elements in Cuban bàtá drumming.

The reconstitution of bàtá ‘tradition’ in Cuba

Marcuzzi argues that ‘the most convincing 'historical' details of the nineteenth-

century bàtá narrative which appear in Ortiz's work are those that centralise carvers and Ifá

priests within the narrative of the 'first' Cuban Àyán (drums)’ (2005:430-1). Marcuzzi

suggests that the establishment of the Cuban bàtá tradition was the result of the

combination of diverse capabilities in construction, consecration, and performance from a

variety of sources, apparently with one Àyán lineage member, Añabi, as instigator. This

counters the notion of a Cuban bàtá tradition emerging from an established Àyán lineage

of drummers in Cuba. Marcuzzi proposes that:

‘Given the importance of the 'òrìṣà in the drums' to the larger sacro-political

agenda of Cuba's bàtá experts, amalgams of ritual activity and types of ritual

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expertise from across various ritual precincts in Cuban òrìṣà worship were

absorbed into Cuban Àyán rituals to consolidate and secure a credible and

unassailable consecratory procedure… the expertise and material culture of

two closely related cults—Ifá divination and the òrìṣà Ọ́sanyìn [òrìṣà of herbal

medicine]-became crucial to the ritual synthesis by which Àyán came to be

constituted in Cuba’ (Marcuzzi, 2005:429).

Marcuzzi further argues that as consecrated bàtá drums became more incorporated into the

wider Lucumí sacroscape, early Cuban bàtá experts took advantage of the ritual status that

the òrìṣà.-laden bàtá drums afforded to them by introducing the ritual presentation of new

òrìṣà initiates to the drums. Marcuzzi contends that this ritual ‘allowed both sacred drums

and drummers entry to the central initiation procedures of Cuban òrìṣà worship thus

making Àyán and bàtá drumming an indispensible element in sacred reproduction’ (Ibid.).

As I have shown previously, the influence of the Ifá cult on the first bàtá consecrations

bestowed ritual ‘kudos’ on the drums, due to the respect garnered by babaláwos in terms

of their ability to establish the legitimacy of ritual practices (Chapter 3). Marcuzzi argues

that it is likely that a strategic alliance between the Ifá and Àyán cults was cultivated by

Cuban Àyán drummers to secure the necessary ritual status and authorisation to ensure the

inclusion of bàtá drums in Lucumí ritual, as opposed to any deference to the Ifá cult (ibid).

Gendered restrictions

As Ifá divination is a system based on binary logic (see appendix 2) it functions as

means by which equilibrium and stability can be attained, provided the advice of the

babaláwo is heeded. The disruption of this metaphysical equilibrium could possibly

explain the gendered restrictions that surround access to the bàtá drums in Cuba.Vincent

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argues that the influence and incorporation of the Ifá and Ọ́sanyìn cults into the Cuban

Àyán complex resulted in significant differences between Àyán practices in Cuba and

Yorùbáland. According to Vincent, in Yorùbáland there is no connection between the Ifá

and Ọ́sanyìn cults and the Àyán cult, furthermore, whilst female members are ‘actively

enaged in social ritual and performative aspects of the Yorùbá Àyán cult, In Cuba, the

Àyán cult was seemingly developed in the absence of female Àyán lineage’ (Vincent,

2006). In Yorùbáland, possession of bàtá drummers by the òrìṣà Àyán is common,

whereas in the Cuba, Àyán possession is unheard of. Vincent argues that in Cuba, the

influence and ascendant ritual authority of the Ifá priesthood was more than likely

responsible for the introduction of gender restrictions that surround the consecrated bàtá

drums. The central objection to women playing the bàtá drums in Cuba is menstruation.

According to Vincent (2006:188), the main arguments against women playing consecrated

bàtá are as follows:

1. The òrìṣà eat blood and may not be able to distinguish between a menstruating

woman and a sacrificial animal. Therefore a woman may bleed to death

2. Menstrual blood has the capacity to destroy Àyán

3. Àyán is female and should therefore not be handled by females

4. Since the drums are owned by or associated with the hyper-masculine Ṣàngó, only

men can manage this male energy; (this seems to contradict the previous point)

5. Women are too susceptible to spirit possession so they should not drum in

ceremonies

6. Women do not have enough physical power to play bàtá well

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The negative framing that surrounds menstruation in Cuban òrìṣà worship ultimately

derives from Ifá divination texts that describe menstruation as a punishment for female

‘curiosity’ (Vincent, 2006). Similarly in the consecration of the drums themselves, the

metaphor of ‘birth’ is central. Vincent argues that the ‘birth’ of a new set of consecrated

bàtá drums is the creation of a metaphysical power and a surrogate birth, the control of

which must be retained by men to counteract the power of women as life-givers through

the process of birth itself (Vincent, 2006:192). As I described previously (Chapter one), the

packets of medicinal herbs charged with àṣẹ are the physical representation of the òrìṣà

sealed within the vessel of the drums, themselves a gynaecomorphic metaphor of the

uterus as container of life. Vincent points out that male power is demonstrated in the fact

that this medicinal power, controlled by the Ọ́sanyìn cult, can also be appropriated for the

production of herbal contraceptives or sex-drive suppressants, thus controlling the fertility

and sexual behaviour of women (Vincent, 2006:193).

Similarly, Marcuzzi (2005:434-5) argues that the bilateral construction of the bàtá

drums is the most evident site for the mapping of the binary logic of Ifá divination. Despite

the despite the mapping of gender roles onto particular drums in the ensemble (Thieme,

1969) male and female designations are projected onto the enu and Iya, [small and large

heads of each drum]. During construction before the heads are attached to the drums, the

male and female ends of the drums are painted with a gendered divination figure, the enu,

designated male, is painted with a ‘male’ figure. However, according to Marcuzzi’s

research:

‘The octagrams painted on the three larger female heads of each drum,

however, deviate from the expected use of the female figures. Only the female

heads (enu) of the mother drum (ìyàálu) and the female supporting drum

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(omele abo or ítótèlé ) are each painted with a particular 'female' figure; near

the large head of the omele abo (okónkolo), a specific 'male' figure is painted’

(Marcuzzi, 2005:435)

Marcuzzi argues that the painting of the female octagrams at the larger ends of the ìyàálu

and the omole abo drums appear to give the drums the power to speak to the realm of the

orishas, speech among the Yorùbá being a ‘female’ quality. Marcuzzi suggests that the

painting of male figures on the inside of the larger ‘female’ heads of the okonkolo drum

serves as a kind of ‘vocal erasure’ thus relegating the okonoklo drum to a purely musical

as opposed to a speech role (ibid.).

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CONCLUSION: HOW THE DRUMS STILL ‘SPEAK’

One or two key instigators, namely Anabi and Atanda, working in conjunction with the

reconstituted Ifá cult actively sought to re-establish batá drumming within the Lucumí

sacroscape of nineteenth century Cuba. Following Marcuzzi (2005) and Vincent (2006) the

influence of the cults of Ifá and Osanyin cults introduced gender defined access restrictions

to both batá drums and drummers in the context of contested claims for ritual authority in

Cuban òrìṣà worship. As talking is traditionally a ‘female’ quality among the Yorùbá the

‘vocal erasure’ of the okonkólo drum and the control of bàtá ‘speech’ capabilities

introduced in Cuban drum consecrations are one hypothesis for the decline in

understanding of linguistic elements embedded within bàtá rhythms. Alongside gendered

restrictions to batá ‘speech’ and placed within the context of the active homegenisation of

the Lucumí religion initiated by the ritual ascendancy of the Ifá cult, it appears that any

linguistic elements of bàtá drumming that survived the middle passage were gradually

subsumed by sung liturgy. Similarly, heterogeneous African drumming traditions present

in Cuba were introduced into Lucumí ritual practices, perhaps as ad hoc solutions to

particular ritual requirements. As a result the role of the bàtá became more musically

abstract as many (although not all) of its surrogate speech techniques and specific texts

were lost or died out.

Largely, sung repertoire compensated for the loss of the bàtá speech capabilities as

it communicates with the òrìṣà and devotees via a corpus of ceremonial texts, sung in

Lucumí, the ritual language of Santería. In the òrìṣà community, the ability to understand

these texts is indexical of a devotee’s advancement and ritual status. I will not go into a

musicological analysis of Lucumí songs here, for a comprehensive analysis, (see Manuel

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and Fiol, 2007) however, I am interested in the ways that spoken and sung Lucumí

intersect with the interpretative decline of linguistic attributes in bàtá drumming.

For Yorùbá practices to have had such a marked impact in Cuba, it is logical to

suggest that Yorùbá-speaking slaves must have had to recount their religious knowledge to

others whose native tongue was either Spanish or another unrelated African language.

Similarly, to preserve the integrity of ritually significant texts such as prayers, invocations

and sung liturgy, it is likely that these texts were conveyed in their original forms, even at

the risk of losing nuances lost in translation (Wirtz, 2007). Wirtz argues that:

‘If one conceptualizes the speech chains across which religious information

moved, in which addressees of a prior link in the speech chain then became

transmitters to the next link, at some point the recipients of the information

would, of necessity, have conveyed their stories and explanations in Spanish

and had limited ability to translate the Lucuḿı texts they knew.’ (Wirtz,

2007:113)

Wirtz argues that as a result, semantic content became disconnected from linguistic form.

After first generation native Yorùbá speaking slaves died out, Spanish would have become

the primary vehicle for conveying ritual knowledge, Significant Lucumí texts would have

retained their rituallly potent, but increasingly unintelligible, Lucumí form (Wirtz, 2007).

Although devotees perceive competence in spoken Lucumí as indexical of ritual

knowledge, relatively few Cuban Santéros, babaláwos, or akpóns [ritual singers] have

sufficient knowledge of Lucumí or the opportunity to study the Yorùbá language to be able

to analyse Lucumí texts linguistically. According to Wirtz:

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‘Most Santéros learn Lucumí words as functional and evocative labels for

religiously important people, objects, events, and acts, and they memorize

mostly unintelligible, longer Lucumí phrases and texts for their ritually

performative value, but they use Spanish for all other discourse in their

religious life, including the matrix of discourse in which ritual songs are sung

and Lucumí words are uttered’ (Wirtz, 2007:115)

Knowledge of Lucumí thus controls the interpretation and access to religiously efficacious

texts. In this way, secrets are shown but not fully revealed, this control of access ensures

the cultural capital and ritual status of the babaláwos, priests and akpóns that hold this

knowledge.

The relationship between the bàtá drums and the akpón is an important one. Master

báta drummer Daniel Alfonso argues that this relationship is central to how the drums

communicate with the òrìṣà and devotees (Alfonso, 2007). The role of the akpón appears

to have displaced any direct speech form drum texts that scant numbers of Àyán drummers

may have remembered and passed down to any subsequent Àyán lineage members. It is

feasible to suggest that any direct speech form panegyrics passed down generationally

were subject to the same sort of semantic de-coupling described by Wirtz, as

understanding the tonal aspects of drum texts and ẹná coding, is reliant on native fluency

of spoken Yorùbá, as Vincent has shown (see chapter two). Furthermore, the absence of

any cosanguineous Àyán lineage in Cuba is another likely explanation for the extreme

paucity of direct speech form bàtá drumming in Cuba. According to ethnomusicologist and

bàtá scholar Kenneth Schweitzer: ‘In Cuba…there is a clear preference for song form, and

the direct speech form is nearly extinct. Where the tonal nature of the spoken language

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system has been forgotten, song melodies remain true to their original form and are easily

imitated by the drums.’ (Schweitzer, 2003:66).

Direct speech form drumming (see chapter two) in Cuba is not entirely extinct, but it is

extremely fragmentary and is the form of short simple rhythmic phrases, as opposed to the

extended drummed oŕikì of Yorùbáland. The most recognisable is di-de [Lucumí for ‘rise’]

according to master bàtá drummer Daniel Alfonso:

‘…it is Aña [consecrated drums] that communicates to Olófin what is

happening on Earth. The drum both transmits the akpón’s prayer and speaks its

own language. The drum talks, the drum speaks its lyrics. For example, we’re

playing for Obàtála, and he comes [possesses someone], and after making his

distinctive movements, the first thing he does is prostrate himself on the floor

in front of the drums. What does the akpón do? He says ‘ala dide’ which

means ‘rise’. Then the drum says the same words’. (Alfonso, 2007)

This phrase, an open tone followed by a muffled tone on the enu [mouth] of the ìyàálu, is

also used to mark the end of a section of a song or an entire toque [rhythm], furthermore it

is played in free time to distinguish it from purely musical improvisation or variation

(Schweitzer, 2003). Alfonso states that ‘the language of the drum consists of two parts.

Each individual drum speaks in its tempo. The okónkolo, the ítótèlé and the iya express

themselves in the development of the rhythm. The logical conclusion, the complimentary

language, is when the three drums are playing together’ (Alfonso, 2007).This supports

Vincent’s analysis that the rhythmic interaction between the drums conveys linguistic

elements (see Chapter one) and would suggest that this is one aspect of the Yorùbá bàtá

tradition that survived in Cuba. The antiphonal interaction between the akpón, chorus, and

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the drums (see Manuel and Fiol, 2007) is the second of Alfonso’s explanations of the

‘language’ of the drums in Cuban òrìṣà worship:

‘ There is another aspect of the language of the drums because there are

phrases that the akpón sings that the drums also say. This is why we speak of

the language of the drum. The singer or the chorus says something, and the

drum responds’ (Alfonso, 2007)

Similarly, bàtá drummer Reynier Urrutia describes the relationship between the bàtá

drums, the akpón, and the dancers:

‘Every song has an associated drum rhythm, but there are certain songs in

which the three drums, within the polyrhythm have a conversation specifically

with that song, for example, in [Lucumí songs] ‘ala dide’, ‘Comarita dide

Ochu’ ‘Chaku malecun’ these are songs in which the drums respond with the

exact phràṣẹas the chorus affirming the singers lyrics. The singer calls and the

chorus and drums respond to what he is singing. And whatever òrìṣà is there

also has to dance to that specific song. The òrìṣà has to communicate too, the

three are related – the dancer, the drum and the singer. If the singer doesn’t

sing, the drums don’t play, and if the drums don’t play the dancer can’t dance.’

(Urrutia, 2007)

The role of the bàtá drums in sung liturgy seems to have displaced any knowledge of

direct speech form drumming that may have survived the middle passage, however Euba’s

model of ‘musical speech form’ (Chapter one) appears to have survived. Whether this is

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due to the influence of the Ifá cult on Añanbi is unclear, however following Marcuzzi’s

hypothesis of ‘strategic alliance’ between the Ifá and Àyán cults mentioned earlier, this

could suggest that at some point a compromise between differing conceptions of the ritual

role of the bàtá was reached. Ortiz documents several examples of ‘musical speech form’,

notably in the toque Iyá nko tá’ dedicated to Babalú Ayé the Cuban incarnation of

Ṣọ̀pọ̀nnọ̀ the Yorùbá òrìṣà of smallpox and pestilence. According to Ortiz the following

Lucumí phràṣẹis rendered on the drums:

Iyá nko tá.

Iyá nko tá.

Iyá nko tá.

Kokpa ni yé.

Kokpa ni yé.

Iyá nko tá.

Iyá nko tá,

(Ortiz 1950:387-8 in Schweitzer, 2003:67-8).

Schweitzer seems to corroborate Wirtz’ semantic decoupling hypothesis, noting that the

pitch structure of ‘Iyá nko tá’ has two pitch tones whereas spoken Yorùbá has three as

Schweitzer’s example of the pitch structure of the Lucumí toque shows:

I(L) yá(L) nko(L) tá(H)

I(L) yá(L) nko(L) tá(H)

I(L) yá(L) nko(L) tá(H)

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Ko(L) kpa(H) ni(H) yé(H)

Ko(L) kpa(H) ni(H) yé(H)

This flattening of Yorùbá phonemes is most likely to be the result of Spanish subsuming

the vernacular of Yorùbá-speaking slaves and is the key to the decline in intelligibity of the

Lucumí language (see Lipski, 2006 for a comprehensive account of the evolution of Afro-

Spanish).

Other influences.

I propose that the influence of heterogeneous African drumming practices present

in nineteenth century Cuba was also a factor in the interpretative decline in linguistic

elements embedded within bàtá toques. Marcuzzi argues that: ‘aside from the more recent

cohort of musical inventions, which are most often recognisable as such by the drummers

and historically traceable to a more recent past, much of the Cuban bàtá tradition was

cobbled together from a variety of Yorùbá drumming styles at one time’ (Marcuzzi, 2005:

349-50). Although the bàtá drums are associated with the Ṣàngó cult and the Òrìṣà Àyán,

Marcuzzi disputes Miguel Ramos’ theory that the bàtá tradition in Cuba emerged purely

from a hegemonic Ǫ́yǒ bàtá complex (Ramos, 2000), as the repertoire would contain an

extensive body of material dedicated to the egúngún, the òrìṣà Àyán, and Ṣàngó.

According to Marcuzzi, although there is substantial musical material dedicated to Ṣàngó,

the repertoire dedicated to the egúngún is insignificant in comparison to material dedicated

to other Orishas and there is no material dedicated to Àyán in Cuba whatsoever (Marcuzzi,

2005:350). Although the bàtá’s association with Ṣàngó is undisputed, the Cuban bàtá

tradition developed a repertoire that included all of the òrìṣà.s. Marcuzzi posits that this is

most likely the result of an assembly of a collective bàtá repertoire drawn from material

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from other drumming traditions on the island, to what extent this repertoire was included in

the earliest Cuban bàtá drumming is not known, however, Marcuzzi argues that similar to

drumming practices in contemporary Yorùbáland, ‘bàtá drummers had some semblance of

a stable repertoire dedicated to various òrìṣà. outside of their attributed expertise- the òrìṣà

Ṣàngó, the ancestral cults, Àyán and the Àyán lineages’ (ibid).The broad area of musical

expertise that the nineteenth century orisha community in Cuba drew upon suggests a

dynamic and changing musical landscape. Similarly, the notion that the language of the

bàtá, the textual content and the method of encoding texts on the drums are static and

unchanging seems facile, as both Wirtz and Lipski show that the relationship between

Spanish and African languages in Cuba is constantly evolving. Amanda Vincent argues

that:

‘As well as notions of Nigerian stasis, comparative narratives about the bàtá's

surrogate speech tend to revolve around what is ‘living’ and ‘dynamic’ in

Nigeria, and what is ‘retained’ (with all of its romance), ‘lost’ or ‘invented’

(with all of their pejorative overtones) in Cuba. It is true that with the loss of

Lucumí as a vernacular in Cuba, speech surrogacy, as a creative and

improvisational tool in drumming, has been largely superseded in Cuban bàtá

by other creative, stylistic and improvisational features.’ (2006:236)

As I have shown, there are linguistic elements embedded within Cuban bàtá drumming;

however, bàtá drumming in Cuba differs greatly from its counterpart in Yorùbáland. The

Yorùbá bàtá tradition lends it self to a vast corpus of oŕikì, owé [proverbs] and panegyric

texts that venerate the òrìṣà.s and the lineage of kings, by contrast, the textual repertoire of

the Cuban bàtá is fragmentary and largely static, relying on what is remembered or

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retained. Whether this is the result of the ascendancy of one particular ‘ritual field’ over

another, the homogenization of the repertoire or the disconnection of semantic content

from linguistic form is a complex question. I propose that it is a combination of these and

other factors that are yet to be determined, if indeed they can be. òrìṣà worship in

Yorùbáland is in decline, due to the influence of Christianity and Islam, whereas in Cuba

and beyond it is flourishing. Paradoxically because of the essentially finite musical

repertoire of Cuban òrìṣà worship, there is anxiety amongst more conservative Cuban bàtá

drummers that what linguistic elements remain in the toques will inevitably succumb to

musical changes brought by new generations of drummers and be lost forever.

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APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Bascom’s account of the Ifẹ̀ Creation myth (1969)

The Gods originally lived in the sky and below was only water. Olódùmarè the sky

god gave a chain, a piece of earth contained in a snail shell and a five-toed chicken to the

God of Whiteness, Òrìṣàlá. Olódùmarè commanded Òrìṣàlá to go down to the primeval

waters and create the Earth. As Òrìṣàlá approached the gates of Heaven to leave, he

noticed some of the other deities having a party, and stopped to acknowledge them. The

Other deities offered Òrìṣàlá some palm wine, which he accepted but soon became drunk

and fell into a deep sleep. Odúduwà, Òrìṣàla’s younger brother had overheard Olódùmarè’s

instructions. When he discovered the drunken Òrìṣàlá asleep, he took the five toed chicken,

chain and snail shell of earth from him, and went to the edge of Heaven with Chameleon.

Odúduwà let down the chain, and both he and chameleon climbed down it, to the

water below. After throwing the piece of earth onto the water, he placed the five-toed

chicken on it. The chicken began to scratch the earth, spreading it in all directions. After

Chameleon had tested the firmness of the earth, Odúduwà stepped on to it and settled

there. Where Odúduwà settled is where his sacred grove in Ifẹ̀ is to this day. Òrìṣàlá awoke

from his drunken slumber to find that Odúduwà had completed Olódùmarè’s. He

immediately put a taboo on palm wine, which his worshippers still observe. Òrìṣàlá tried to

claim ownership of the earth, as he was the one originally sent by Olódùmarè, he was, after

all, Odúduwà’s older brother and thus had authority. Odúduwà insisted that he was the

rightful owner of the earth because he had made it. The brothers began to fight and the

other deities who had followed them took sides.

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Olódùmarè soon heard of the fighting, summoned the two brothers before him, and

commanded them to stop. Olódùmarè heard both accounts and deemed that Odúduwà, was

the owner of the earth, as he had created it, and therefore he was the one who should rule

over it. To Òrìṣàlá he gave the power to make human bodies and bestowed the title of

‘creator of mankind’ on him. Olódùmarè both brothers back to earth with Oramfe, the Ifẹ̀

God of Thunder, so the brothers would not fight. With Oramfẹ, came his two companions,

Ifá the God of Divination and Eleshjie, the God of medicine.

Appendix 2: Ifá divination

 

The Ifá cult is found throughout Yorùbáland. Órunmílà/Ifá is the òrìṣà that

receives the petitions of divination clients, through the mediation of the babaláwo.

It is believed that Órunmílà (also known as Ifá ) is the deputy of Obàtálá in matters that

concern wisdom. According to creation myths, Olódùmarè sent him with Obàtálá to help

with the Earth’s creation. His special privilege is to know the origins of creation, the òrìṣà

and Human beings. Órunmílà/Ifá is Olódùmarè’s representative in matters regarding the

destiny of Human beings. Órunmílà is also believed to be a great doctor and linguist,

knowing all of the languages on Earth. His emblems are the sixteen palm kernels used in

Ifá divination, some pieces of elephant tusk and some cowrie shells. The palm nuts are

held in a bowl or dish with a lid, alongside the cowrie shells and elephants tusk, and placed

in elevation in one corner, or the centre of the room. The Ifá cult that celebrates divination

and revealed truth is the subject large bodies of study, most notably by William Bascom

(1969). Origin myths describe Ifá, as the first king of Ilé-Ifẹ̀, which clearly associates the

cult with royal lineage. William Bascom defines Ifá divination as:

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‘Ifá is a system of divination based on sixteen basic and 256 derivative figures

(odu) obtained either by the manipulation of sixteen palm nuts or by the toss of

a chain of eight half seed shells. The worship of Ifá, as the God of Divination

entails ceremonies, sacrifices, tabus, paraphernalia, drums, songs, praises,

initiation, and other ritual elements comparable to those of other Yoruba cults’

(Bascom, 1969:3)

The body of divinatory verses (odu) in the Ifá divination system is divided into

sixteen categories that correspond with the sixteen original Yorùbá kingdoms, the sixteen

divination apprentices selected from them by Ifá (Ọ́runmìlá), and the sixteen palm kernels

used in the divination ritual. Each verse reveals a ‘true’ historical account, however the

contents of verses are often ambiguous to the public. The responsibility of interpretation

falls with religious specialists called babalàwos, [literally, ‘father of secrets’]. The form

and content of the divination verses, although apparent only to babalàwos, loosely

structures the relationships between Yorùbá myths and deities, and establishes the

relationships between various Yorùbá kingdoms. The divination process is performed on a

tray adorned with ritual imagery and dusted with powder, This tray is a template for the

odu that are traced upon it in the powder, these tracings refer to the personal concerns of

the divination client and are analysed by the babalàwo.

The ritual is initiated by the invocation of Ọ́runmìlá by rhythmic tapping with the

iroke Ifá a divination tapper. The use of palm nuts is central to the divination process. The

palm nuts are held in the right hand and the babalàwo shifts them to the left, only one or

two nuts should remain. If two nuts remain, a single mark is made on the divining tray; if

one nut remains, a double mark is made. This process is repeated four times until one of

sixteen basic iterations is reached, eight times to reach a derivative iteration. The casting of

97  
 
  

a divining chain, with heads and tails instead of odds and evens can also be used to obtain

one of the 256 derivative figures. The chain is held in the middle so that four half seed

shells fall in a line on each side. Each half shell may fall either heads or tails. Reference to

odu (divination verses) facilitates the interpretation of the permutations of the palm nuts.

As odu verses represent the outcome of the divination, they are central to the divination

process. The correct choice of divination verse by the babalàwo is crucial in any

consultation; furthermore, it is also made by the client themselves in knowledge of their

problem. Yorùbá believe that it is only possible to reach the correct verse by the iterations

spelled out in the casting of the palm nuts. The verses prescribe the course of action the

client must take, and include directions for sacrifice. Once the sacrifice is made, and the

correct course of action has been taken, the matter is then in the hands of the òrìṣà

(Bascom, 1969).

98  
 
  

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Audio-Visual Material:

Alfonso, D. (2007) interview in Calvo, Alfredo et al. (Producers) (2007) La Lenguaje del

Tambour. Kabilose.

Calvo, Alfredo et al. (Producers) (2006) La Fuerza del Tambour: bata, bembe y guiro en
Matanzas Cuba. Kabilose.
Calvo, Alfredo et al. (Producers) (2007) La Lenguaje del Tambour. Kabilose

Obakaso (Producers), (2006) The Art of traditional Egungun music & Dance of Ibadan

Nigeria www.obakoso.org

Urrutia, A. (2007). Interview in: Calvo, Alfredo et al. (Producers) (2007) La Lenguaje del
Tambour. Kabilose.

Discography:    
 
Alfredo Calvo Y su Aña Oba Tola & Alberto puñales Y su bembe Makagua
Bàtá y Bembe de Matanzas : La Presentación De Un Iyawo De Chango (2003) Kabilose

Andres Chacon y el grupo Iré Iré: Tambor Lucumí (2006) Middle Path Media MPM003

Andres Chacon y el grupo Iré Iré: Lukumí: Afro-Cuban Devotional Music (2000) Lila
records

Drummers of the societe absolutent Guinin: Voodoo Drums (2001) Soul Jazz Records
USCD16

Fuerza Santera: Fuerza Santera CD (La Flor/Santero 17)

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Grupo Folklorico Conjunto de Cuba: Toques y Cantos de Santos, vol.1 (release date
unknown) Cubilandia, CUBILANDIA511

Grupo Oba Ilú: Drums of Cuba (2007) Soul Jazz Records SJRCD162

Various artists: Yorùbá Elewe- Bátá Drums and Dance: (1980) Smithsonian Folkways
recordings FE4294
 
Various artists: Sacred Rhythms of Santería (1995) Smithsonian Folkways recordings
SFW40419
 
Various Artists: Havana & Matanzas, Cuba, ca. 1957: Batá, Bembé, and Palo Songs from
the historic recordings of Lydia Cabrera and Josefina Tarafa Smithsonian Folkways
SFW40434
 
Various  artists:  Drums  of  the  Yorùbá  of  Nigeria  (1953)  Smithsonian  Folkways  
FW04441 / FE 4441

Various Artists: The World's Musical Traditions, Vol. 8: Yoruba Drums from Benin, West
Africa (1996) Smithsonian Folkways. SFW40440
 

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