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feel free to post your thoughts

aka Kevlocks and Taina lol

Alafia everyone:

Before I can post my thought about the 2 I need to first post some information:

Abakua Music
The Afro-Cuban secret society and its music and religion

Abakua is a men's secret society in Cuba with customs, religion, and music derived from the Efik people of the Calabar area, in present-day Nigeria. Ndem Efik was a water deity, and Ekpe was a secret society related to the leopard, as well as a deity of the forest.
The musical instruments used are the biankomeko drums: Bonko-enchemiya (largest, lowest pitch, lead drum, playing variations), Obi-Apa (medium-low pitch), Kuchi-Yerema (medium-high pitch), & Biankome (highest pitch). The iron bell is called the Ekon or Banka. The drums are held under the left arm and played with the right bare hand, with taps played on the shell. The lead drum is played with both hands by a seated player.

Ireme, or ñañigo dancing:


http://www.afrocubaweb.com/abakwa/abakua.htm

Abakuá members derive their culture from the Efik and Efo of the Cross River Delta in Nigeria. They are organized in a set of over 130 potencias located mainly in Havana, Matanzas, and Cardenas.

The Abakuá societies have a male-only membership, their equivalent in the Cross River Delta are called lodges in English, they are fraternities. There is an Efo cultural manifestation organized along family lines, the Brikamo, carried by the Calle family in Matanzas.

In 2001, the Efik National Association in the US began to have contact with Cuban Abakuá. There is evidence of prior contacts between the Abakuá and the Efik in Cuba, but the contact has not until now been sustained. Among such evidence is a plaque hanging on the walls of a potencia in Havana given by an Obong, a traditional leader of the Efiks.

The Abakuá gave us the rumba, one of Cuba's principal musical traditions. The Calle family, for example, is of Efo origin and is said to have invented the guaguanco, a type of rumba.

http://www.afrocubaweb.com/efik.htm from 2001

Reading this article here about: Nigerian Efiks and Cuban Abakua re-unite

The immediate and mutual recognition of the Efik and Cuban Abakuá provokes basic questions about West African cultural continuities in the Caribbean, as well as the impact of these Caribbean continuities in West Africa, where people are reconstructing their local histories, and forging their traditional practices to grapple with contemporary issues of the nation state, education, and economic globalization. The fact that both Efik Ekpe members and Cuban Abakua members recognize themselves in the other’s language and ritual practice suggests the importance of ancestral memory and tradition in creating local ethnic identities that resist alienation by maintaining social cohesiveness.-- Ivor Miller

nice post

POWERFUL point within what you hilighted!!!

dang i need to come back and read this post...too many nosey ppl around me at wuk