Instruments of Empire?: Abakuá Ritual Objects and Spanish Imperial Desire at the End of the Nineteenth Century

• In Event: The Fluid Lives of Objects: Diasporas of Black Sacred Material Culture

Description for Program

Significant social and political upheaval marked the second half of the nineteenth century in Cuba. Three anti-colonial wars and the decline of the slave system destabilized Spanish control over the island. In the urban centers of western Cuba, these key events coincided with the growing influence of the Abakuá society, an all-male initiatory organization with African-rooted spiritual practices that the Spanish colonial government villainized. This talk traces the 1889 movement of Abakuá ritual objects—including drums, staffs, and a body mask—from Havana to the Overseas Museum (Museo de Ultramar) in far-off Madrid. By analyzing these instruments’ transatlantic movement, I make two arguments: first, that ritual objects acted as instruments of negotiation between ritual leaders and the Spanish colonial state, and second, that curatorial decisions at the Overseas Museum cast practitioners of Afro-Cuban religions within narratives of colonial conquest. By examining the intersections of imperialism, ethnography, and spirituality, I propose new frameworks for understanding the entanglements of African diasporic material cultures and colonial power in the Atlantic world.

Author

• Sophia Kitlinski, University of Kentucky