Among the Babalawos: Fieldwork in Cuba I

Somehow my godfather convinced me that he was going to lead me down the garden path.

It was June 1986. He was wise, articulate, and of many years in Ifa, the fraternity of Yoruba diviners in Cuba. I was an enthusiastic graduate student commencing the first phase of my doctoral fieldwork.

Across his wrought iron desk piled high with dog-eared papers and exotic divination equipment, he demonstrated his command of Lucumi, the Yoruba ritual language in Cuba. I think it was his earnest performance of the leader and healer that got me. "I am a senior babalawo, diviner of the Ifa oracle. My mission is to help people. Look around me; this is a poor house. I work with Orunmila to save humanity and have no interest in enriching myself."

In fact, Hermes Valera Ramirez Otura Sa, who fought for Fidel and hid from Batista's agents for many years, committed himself to my research, guiding me in my questions and introducing me to the eldest and most knowledgeable babalawos in Cuba. He had worked with all of them since at least 1963, when he was initiated in the lineage of the great Bernardo Rojas Irete Untedi of Marianao.

Hermes was a bulldog of a man: short, tough, and a chain-smoker. He barked at such a fast clip that no few Cubans could understand him at all. With him I learned some of my best Cuban Spanish, including precious laconic phrases that I often had to translate to my friends: hay mucha mentira en esa casa; ese tipo era asi: siempre se comio la plata; hay mucha pena en tanta' cosa'. He ended virtually every proposition with the machine-gunned words, y otra serie de cuestiones (and a whole series of other issues), as if he could talk for four more hours on the subject "but we don't have time now and you wouldn't understand anyway."

For days on end we drove in my battered rental Nissan to every little corner of greater Havana to meet the best of the best surviving babalawos. So that I knew where we were going, I had to keep my diminutive co-pilot in cigarettes and coffee, lest he nod off in the passenger seat and bump his head on the dashboard. No one uses seat belts in Cuba.

During several weeks in 1991, we scoured Cayo Hueso, Central Havana, Vedado, Marianao, La Lisa, Coco Solo, Pogolotti, Buena Vista, El Cerro, Lawton, Luyano, 10 de Octubre, Mantilla, and Parraga, sometimes spending hours on end with babalawos whom Hermes hadn't seen in years.


As I gained research contacts, he got to renew old acquaintances and, not least, demonstrate his good fortune in being chauffered around by a turista. He would gladhand his old friends, chat them up, and introduce me as "the great researcher from the University of Atlanta." Sometimes I felt like Edward Gibbon, a hard act to follow.

Professor David Brown wants to research our great tradition of Ifa. We're not talking about revealing any secrets but showing the world the great achievements of luminaries like Adechina, Ifa Omi, Kainde, Bernardo Rojas and everything they bequeathed to us. Everyone knows about Caesar and Napolean because many books have been written about them. But no one knows about their forefathers in Ifa. We have to teach the young babalawos about their heritage, because most of them honor their ancestors but have no idea who they were. So Professor Brown would like to interview you about your biography, your lineage, your memories, and a whole series of other issues.

Before I could get a word out, he'd then start chatting up his old friend for twenty minutes while coffee, water, and, sometimes, rum and cigars, were served by dutiful wives and housekeepers.

He'd then turn to me and ask me if I had any questions for his friend. However, if he was tired or had not had enough coffee, he'd say, "so, are you ready to go?" before I could get down when and where the babalawo was born. Still, on other occasions, we worked intensively for three or four days with a single babalawo, interviewing him on tape, collecting dozens of stories, photographing old documents and pictures, and taking portraits.


This was hard work, and invariably I'd treat him to a two-hour killer meal that most Cubans couldn't afford with two or three months' salary. The elegant colonnaded Casona 17 in Vedado was our favorite hangout and we ensconced ourselves in a private sideroom beneath a huge air conditioner blasting frigid air.

There we'd knock back a few beers or weeskies, go over our interviews, plan the following days' work. Occasionally Hermes would propose to me a few ideas of his own, and other series of other issues...