Table Of ContentFernando Ortiz on Music
In the series
Studies in Latin American and Caribbean Music,
edited by Peter Manuel
ALSO IN THIS SERIES:
Sydney Hutchinson, ed., Salsa World: A Global Dance in Local Contexts
Ketty Wong, Whose National Music? Identity, Mestizaje,
and Migration in Ecuador
Peter Manuel, ed., Creolizing Contradance in the Caribbean
Cathy Ragland, Música Norteña: Mexican Migrants Creating
a Nation between Nations
Alejandro L. Madrid, Sounds of the Modern Nation: Music, Culture,
and Ideas in Post-Revolutionary Mexico
Christopher Washburne, Sounding Salsa: Performing Popular
Latin Dance Music in New York City
David F. Garcia, Arsenio Rodríguez and the Transnational Flows
of Latin Popular Music
Sergio Navarrete Pellicer, Maya Achi Marimba Music in Guatemala
Peter Manuel, East Indian Music in the West Indies: Tân-Singing,
Chutney, and the Making of Indo-Caribbean Culture
María Teresa Vélez, Drumming for the Gods: The Life and Times
of Felipe García Villamil, santero, palero, and abakuá
FERNANDO ORTIZ
ON MUSIC
Selected Writing on Afro-Cuban Culture
Edited and with an Introduction by
Robin D. Moore
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Philadelphia • Rome • Tokyo
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122
www.temple.edu/tempress
Copyright © 2018 by Temple University—Of The Commonwealth System
of Higher Education
All rights reserved
Published 2018
COVER IMAGES. Front: A photograph of Fernando Ortiz together with batá drummers
Aguedo Morales (left) and Pablo Roche (right). Back: The full original photograph includes
batá drummer Jesús Pérez (far right), who also was present at this event. The image was
taken on May 30, 1937, as part of the first public lecture and demonstration of Afro-Cuban
religious drumming and dance in the Campoamor Theater entitled “The Sacred Music of
Black Yorubas in Cuba.” (Images courtesy of María Fernanda Ortiz, representative of the
Ortiz Successors, and edited by Judith Gutiérrez Ganzaraín.)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ortiz, Fernando, 1881-1969, author. | Moore, Robin D., 1964- editor.
Title: Fernando Ortiz on music : selected writing on Afro-Cuban culture /
edited and with an Introduction by Robin D. Moore.
Description: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : Temple University Press, 2018. |
Series: Studies in Latin American and Caribbean music | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017050958 (print) | LCCN 2017052171 (ebook) | ISBN
9781439911754 (E-book) | ISBN 9781439911730 (cloth : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Music—Cuba—History and criticism. |
Blacks—Cuba—Music—History and criticism.
Classification: LCC ML207.C8 (ebook) | LCC ML207.C8 O77 2018 (print) | DDC
780.97291—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017050958
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1992
Printed in the United States of America
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction • Fernando Ortiz: Ideology and Praxis
of the Founder of Afro-Cuban Studies • Robin D. Moore 1
Part I Early Writings
1 The Future of Cuban Witchcraft • Translated by Robin D. Moore 45
2 Afro-Cuban Cabildos • Translated by Robin D. Moore 68
Part II Instrument Essays
3 Makuta • Translated by David F. Garcia 99
4 Arará Drums • Translated by David F. Garcia 113
5 The Chekeré, Ágbe, or Aggüé • Translated by Cary Peñate 138
6 The Conga • Translated by Sarah Lahasky 153
Part III Ethnographic Essays
7 Kongo Traditions • Translated by Robin D. Moore 163
8 The Religious Music of Black Cuban Yorubas
• Translated by Robin D. Moore 186
vi Contents
9 The “Tragedy” of the Ñáñigos • Translated by Susan Thomas 212
10 Satirical and Commercial Song • Translated by Robin D. Moore 236
Appendix
Selected Publications by Fernando Ortiz on Afro-Cuban
Music and Cultural History 251
Glossary 259
References 267
Contributors 277
Index 279
Preface
This project originated in conversations with Peter Manuel more than
a decade ago. Peter has edited a Temple University Press book series
on Latin American and Caribbean music for many years and encour-
aged me to publish a selected anthology of writings by Fernando Ortiz as
part of it. Several projects and life events took my attention away from his
suggestion for a time, but, finally, in the summer of 2014, I began work on
the book in earnest. Preparations involved reading or rereading Ortiz’s vo-
luminous writings on music and dance, noting pivotal moments in his aca-
demic career, looking through secondary literature on his life and legacy,
considering the relationship of both to broader sociopolitical events in Cuba
and the region, and so on. As part of the same process, I also began to dia-
logue with Cuban musicologists on the topic of Ortiz’s legacy; to contact li-
braries and other research centers in Havana that contain materials related
to Ortiz’s academic career; and to correspond with the Ortiz family in order
to obtain the rights to reproduce his work. The close attention to Ortiz’s
scholarship that the book required has deepened my appreciation of his
legacy and the many lessons that can be learned from his publications.
It was difficult to decide which essays to include in this collection, as one
might imagine. My initial idea was to focus exclusively on “the best” of Or-
tiz’s work from the perspective of the present, and thus to consider writings
only from the mid-1930s onward. But friends such as Alejandro Madrid sug-
gested it would be useful to include a more comprehensive overview of his
work, beginning with early publications, to demonstrate his intellectual
viii Preface
development. In the end I chose one essay from Ortiz’s “criminological”
phase and one early historical-ethnographic study, devoting the remainder
of the volume to his later publications. As a group, the essays provide a fair-
ly comprehensive feel for Ortiz’s academic publications, his initial interest in
black heritage as pathology or atavism, and his increasing recognition of its
importance and inherent aesthetic value. One can sense his enthusiasm for
Afro-Cuban music in later years and the role he hoped his writings would
have as a means of local valorization and in overcoming racial division.
Obviously this selection of Ortiz’s essays has a great deal to offer indi-
viduals interested in Caribbean and Latin American music. But I hope that
students and scholars of varying research specializations whose languages
do not typically include Spanish (for instance, those in fields such as African
studies, African American studies, dance, diaspora studies, folklore, musi-
cology, subaltern studies) as well as readers beyond academia (those working
in museums and other public programming, for instance) will find his work
valuable. Africanist scholars may find much of interest in the volume, given
Ortiz’s fascination with the cultural and linguistic practices of African de-
scendants. Ortiz’s writings should also be relevant to those interested in the
history of anthropology, as they expand our understanding of early
twentieth-century research. The book allows for a more comprehensive as-
sessment of ethnography as practiced in developing countries and thus
makes an important contribution to mainstream literature dominated by
North American and British perspectives. And it dialogues in important
ways with research on African American history more broadly, for instance
the publications of Lawrence Levine and Sterling Stuckey on slave culture in
the United States, and provides similarly unique insights into the lived ex-
periences of black people in the Americas.
David Garcia and Susan Thomas supported this initiative by serving as
lead translators on three of the essays in the anthology; their help has been
invaluable. Graduate students Sarah Lahasky and Cary Peñate also trans-
lated an essay each, and Sarah helped compile the Appendix. The project
received a $5,000 book subvention award from the University of Texas
Co-Op without which it never would have appeared. Emma Shoultz sup-
ported the project as a research assistant during the 2014–15 academic year,
and Natalie Ruiz during the fall 2016 semester. Special thanks to Susana
Arenas Pedroso, Alira Ashvo-Muñoz, Rodolfo de la Fuente, Lorraine Leu,
Ivor Miller, and Elizabeth Sayre, all of whom provided key insights into the
translation of difficult passages in various essays, and to David Font, John
Santos, and Michael Spiro who helped identify percussionists in several pho-
tographs and suggested translations to a number of the religious chants re-
produced by Ortiz. I extend my heartfelt thanks also to María Fernanda
Ortiz, Fernando Ortiz’s surviving daughter, for permission to reproduce his
work in this volume and for providing additional photographs of her father
Preface ix
and commentary on his work; to Sara Cohen and others at Temple Univer-
sity Press for their support of the project; to Stephan Palmié for his insightful
comments on the volume, as well as those of a second, anonymous reviewer;
and, of course, to Peter Manuel for helping conceive and impel the initiative
from its outset.
