The Cooking of History: How Not to Study Afro-Cuban Religion

373 Pages·2013·2.36 MB·English

by  Stephan Palmié

The Cooking of History

The Cooking of History
How Not to Study
Afro-Cuban Religion
stephan palmié
the university of chicago press chicago and london
stephan palmié is professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago. He is the au-
thor of Wizards and Scientists: Explorations in Afro-Cuban Modernity and Tradition and,
most recently, coeditor of The Caribbean: A History of the Region and Its Peoples, also
published by the University of Chicago Press.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2013 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2013.
Printed in the United States of America
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5
isbn-13: 978-0-226-01942-0 (cloth)
isbn-13: 978-0-226-01956-7 (paper)
isbn-13: 978-0-226-01973-4 (e-book)
Cataloging-in-Publication data available from the Library of Congress.
isbn-13: 978-0-226-01942-0 (cloth)
isbn-13: 978-0-226-01956-7 (paper)
isbn-13: 978-0-226-01973-4 (e-book)
This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
A Note on Spelling xi
Introduction. BL2532.S3 or, How Not to Study “Afro”-“Cuban”
“Religion” 1
chapter 1. On Yoruba Origins, for Example . . . 33
chapter 2. Fernando Ortiz and the Cooking of History 78
chapter 3. Or “Syncretism,” for that Matter . . . 113
chapter 4. The Color of the Gods: Notes on a Question
Better Left Unasked 149
chapter 5. Afronauts of the Virtual Atlantic:
The Giant African Snail Incident, the War of
the Oriatés, and the Plague of Orichas 173
Coda. Ackee and Saltfi sh versus Amalá con Quimbombó, or More Foods
for Thought 222
Epilogue 253
Notes 265
References 313
Index 349

Acknowledgments
Intellectual projects have ways of their own. Some appear to spring
from our heads in the manner of Athena, fully formed, ready to en-
gage the world, and be engaged by it in turn. Others appear to sneak
up on their authors, revealing their contours only in occasional, blurry
glimpses at the limits of one’s visual fi eld that one catches, seemingly
fortuitously, while pursuing other questions. Such fl eeting glimpses,
however, can gradually build up to where they begin to force upon us
the dawning realization of a presence that has begun to work itself into
the author’s life, demanding recognition and acknowledgment. So it
was in the case at hand. I did not know it at the time, but in the after-
math it seems to me as if the project that became this book had been
following me around ever since I was twenty-four years old, s etting out
to do e thnographic fi eldwork on what I then thought was A fro-Cuban
religion. I like to think of it as a patient companion, looking over my
shoulder and watching over the years with detached bemusement how I
again and again practically stumbled over it, without ever fully perceiv-
ing it. But while many such presences surely never attain recognition,
and many books remain forever unwritten, this one eventually took me
by the hand and said, “Write me.” I can even date the moment with some
precision.
Parts of several chapters in The Cooking of History have led prior
lives in articles that I published in journals and edited collections over
the past twenty-some years. It was my friend Bobby Hill, and my editor,
David Brent, who initially encouraged me to integrate them into a coher-
ent text. The book proposal I eventually sent to the University of Chi-
cago Press got favorable reviews, and I received a contract. But then I
sat on it for a number of years (probably to David’s dismay). Not that the
viii Acknowledgments
initial proposal was a rabbit I had pulled out of a hat. On the contrary,
I had put considerable amount of thought into putting it together. But it
was really only in late February 2009 that it dawned upon me precisely
what this book was all about.
Midway through the winter term I had received news that my father
had fallen gravely ill, and I fl ew to Germany to be with him during what
clearly was a terminal illness. During the days I kept him company at
the hospital. At night I sat alone at the dining room table in his house in
the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, among piles and piles of books with
which he had covered practically every horizontal surface in the house—
novels of all sorts, historical biographies, the diaries of Thomas Mann
and Viktor Klemperer, a new edition of Herodotus, and who knows what
else. I spent long evenings at the spot I had cleared for my dinner plate
(my father had taken to eating his meals in the kitchen), smoking, drink-
ing beer, and trying to write my presidential lecture for the Meetings of
the Society for the Anthropology of Religion in late March. And then,
one of these evenings, The Cooking of History snuck up on me. It was
like seeing an old friend again after many a year, or like fi nally meet-
ing someone in person with whom one has carried on a lively correspon-
dence for the longest time. Just a little more patience, I said. I know who
you are, and I’ll write you as soon as I can—which I did when I was fi -
nally able to take a leave from my academic responsibilities for two aca-
demic quarters and a summer in 2011.
My father died on March 3, 2009, and while I know that he would
have loved to see this book, I like to think that the great library in the
sky where he has reserved for himself a cozy alcove with smoking priv-
ileges and full bar service will eventually acquire it (and, who knows?
shelve it under BL2335.S3). In any event, I dedicate The Cooking of His-
tory to the memory of Peter Palmié, pediatrician to a generation or two
of Murnauers, country doctor, and incorrigible bookworm, a man who
never lost his curiosity, and who had a lot to do with awakening and sup-
porting mine.
Needless to say, I had other fellow travelers—too many, in fact, to
properly acknowledge their help and generosity at various stages of the
quarter century of research and writing the result of which (at least for
now) is this book. I have not gone back to the original essays to extract
the names of those whom I thanked there, but a few of them are still on
my mind and need to be mentioned—not just because my work would
have been impossible without them, but also because I think of them as
Acknowledgments ix
long-time mentors of one kind or the other, and certainly dear friends.
They include Andrés Balaez Chenicle, Misty Bastian, David William
Cohen, Kit Davis, María del Rosario Díaz, Bobby Hill, Cecilia Laca,
Sidney Mintz, John Peel, Ernesto Pichardo, Bonno Thoden van Velzen,
Natividad Torres, Ernesto Valdés Janet and the members of the Proyecto
Orunmila, Brad Weiss, and the late Ineke van Wetering.
Over the years, I have been privileged to have had many intellec-
tual sparring partners, both patient and, at times, pleasingly punchy.
Among them count Greg Beckett, Rob Blunt, David Brown, Stefania
Capone, Jean and John Comaroff, Colin Dayan, Erwan Dianteill, Karen
Fields, Paul Johnson, Webb Keane, Aisha Khan, Randy Matory, Rich
Price, Michael Ralph, Karen Richman, Rosalind Shaw, Michael Silver-
stein, Charles Stewart, Kristina Wirtz, and Kevin Yelvington, as well as
my other colleagues and students at the University of Chicago. I have
learned a lot from you all (even if, in the case of the latter, I happened
to be your teacher), and I want to thank you for that. David Cohen, Mi-
chael Ralph, and Kristina Wirtz read the entire manuscript, and offered
invaluable advice and criticism; David Brent at the University of Chi-
cago Press not only was patience incarnate, but shepherded this project
through with unfl agging support; and Therese Boyd did a splendid job at
copyediting. My fi nal edits and corrections to the manuscript were un-
dertaken while I was a fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced
Study in Uppsala, and I want to thank its Principal, Björn Wittrock for
the invitation, and its wonderful staff for their help and patience with
someone who, when it comes to electronic matters, has never really left
the twentieth century.
Remains to thank the single one person without whom none of my
books would have ever been written: my dear wife, Doris, soulmate and
companion for by now more than thirty years. I know full well that living
and dealing with me when I am writing a book has never been a piece of
cake, but I hope that this time around I have convinced you that I have
grown quite a bit easier to handle in such situations. I love you, Doris,
and perhaps by the time another book sneaks up on me, writing it will
be a breeze.