Description
Book SynopsisThe first book-length ethnographic study on music and Ifá divination in Cuba and Nigeria. Hailing from Cuba, Nigeria, and various sites across Latin America and the Caribbean, Ifá missionary-practitioners are transforming the landscape of Ifá divination and deity (òri`s?a`/oricha) worship through transatlantic travel and reconnection. In Cuba, where Ifá and Santería emerged as an interrelated, Yorùbá-inspired ritual complex, worshippers are driven to African traditionalism by its promise of efficacy: they find Yorùbá approaches more powerful, potent, and efficacious. In the first book-length study on music and Ifá, Ruthie Meadows draws on extensive, multisited fieldwork in Cuba and Yorùbáland, Nigeria, to examine the controversial Nigerian-style ritual movement in Cuban Ifá divination. Meadows uses feminist and queer of color theory along with critical studies of Africanity to excavate the relation between utility and affect within translocal ritual music circulations. Meadows t
Trade Review“With this innovative book, Meadows significantly expands our understanding of Afro-Cuban religious music and its ever-changing manifestations. Her exploration of ritual music associated with divination across the island, her focus on transatlantic religious dialogues between Nigeria and Cuba, her emphasis on the contested nature of religious orthodoxy, and her close attention to the struggles of women all represent major contributions to existing scholarship.” * Robin Moore, The University of Texas at Austin *
“Meadows’s years of research and solid scholarship shed new light on the fast-moving
nigeriano religious movement in Cuba. Her accessible and engaging writing allows diverse kinds of readers to understand a complex phenomenon. This important book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of Cuban and Yorùbá music and religion, as well as a vast international readership of òrìṣà devotees and musicians.” * Amanda Villepastour, Cardiff University *
Table of ContentsList of Examples and Transcriptions
List of Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction
Chapter One: The Global Ifá Missionary: Revisionism and Nigerian-Style Ifá-Òrìṣà in Cuba
Chapter Two: Yorùbá Geographies and the Efficacy of the Far: The
Dùndún “Talking Drums” and Transatlantic Institutions in Havana
Chapter Three: Revolutionary Feminism and Gendered Translocality: Women and Consecrated
Batá Chapter Four: Ìyánífá: Gendered Polarity and “Speaking Ifá”
Chapter Five: The Efficacy of Pleasure and the Utility of the Close: Regionalism and All-Male
Egúngún Masquerade
Epilogue: The “Leopards” of Nigerian-Style Ifá-Òrìṣà: Visions from Cuba to Yorùbáland
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Notes
References
Index
