Ik� and Cuban Nationhood: Yoruba Mythology in the FilmGuantanamera

Abstract

Tomas Gutierrez Alea's film Guantanamera uses Yoruba mythology as a trope for Cuban spirituality. By inserting the Yoruba mythological figure of Iku throughout the film, Alea resituates the African as distinctly Cuban. Alea's cinematic amalgamation of Yoruba-Cuban mythology emphasizes the significant role that the reconstruction of Africanness has played in the creation of Cuban nationhood and cultural identity. Furthermore, the film speaks to how the naturalization of African epistemologies in New World contexts lends itself to political commentary and manipulation. Alea's cross-cultural adaptation of Yoruba mythology ironically represents Afrocuban religion on both a local and global scale: the film medium allows for its (re)presentation in multiple cultural contexts. Ultimately, Guantanamera is only one Cuban cultural production that resituates the Yoruba as Cuban. In popular religion, music, foodways, and other aspects of Cuban folklore, African cultures in Cuba dominate many of the products that are part of the process of creolization. By focusing on cimena, I address a type of cultural production that challenges bounded notions of African identity and expressive culture.

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