Yoruba Vestiges in Nancy Morejon's Poetry

Abstract

Nancy Morejon cannot escape the African Nancy Morejon. Given the rich and complex history of blacks in Cuba, Morejon inherits a wealth of stories, words, images, rhythms, and sounds—all tracing waves back to Africa. My intention in this essay is to bring forward manifestations of Yoruba vestiges in Morejon's poetry after presenting a brief scenario of the Afro-Cuban presence in Cuba, specifically focused on the participation of blacks in struggles for independence during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although it is true that Morejon fights all labels placed on her other than Cuban poet, she does write black and feminist poems. Her enigmatic and liberating approach to these sensitive issues makes her poetry a wonderful blend of many other categories as well. She writes above all from her poetic soul, not from a political or racial stance. Her poetry springs up from within and includes both her position in history as witness and active participant in the Revolution, as well as her racial identity as a black Cuban. These two themes are essential to her poetry. This paper will focus only on the religious aspect of her African self and how the poetry is charged with multiple layers of meanings. For example, a line such as put this African feather in your hair overlooks the real meaning of an African feather placed on someone's head. 1 To better understand blacks and why Morejon uses hidden traces in reference to her black imaginary identity, a brief history of the African/black pres- ence in Cuba is in order. In 1791, during the first victory in the Haitian Revolution, whites, who had come to Cuba during the Spanish quest for gold, outnumbered blacks in the mainland territories and in the small enclaves where white cattle ranchers had settled over huge expanses of land. ratio of whites to blacks changed when white landowners and their slaves fled Hispaniola for Cuba and helped transform Cuba into the biggest producer of sugar for Europe. Since sugar production necessitated masses of laborers, the trafficking of Africans intensified until slavery was abolished in 1886. By 1810 the nonwhite population of Cuba exceeded the white population. In fact, the slave population increased seven times between 1792 and 1841, while the number of free colored inhabitants tripled (Fernandez Robaina 57). Many have proclaimed the absence of racial identity in Cuba in official documents, speeches and history books. nineteenth-century struggles for independence, in which blacks and whites fought side by side, may confirm such affirmations. The experience of war had united forever black and white and had converted both into