BabalúAyé, “as he is also compared by the association of the believers in the Yoruba religion”, means “King or Father of the World”, Shangó’s brother
December 18, 2019
by Endrys Correa Vaillant | internet@granma.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Babalú Ayé, “as he is also compared by association with believers in the Yoruba religion”, means “King or father of the World”, Shangó’s brother.
The Chinese also see in Babalú Ayé a resemblance to one of the eight immortals of their mythology, Li Xuan, who, like Saint Lazarus or Babalú Ayé, wears thick cloth rags, is crippled on one leg, helps himself with crutches and is a lover of animals.
In these days, on the eve of December 17, his day; the devotees of this saint venerate him in different ways. Some slide with a stone on their backs, others walk barefoot or with flowers and candles. What almost everyone agrees on is that they go to the National Sanctuary of Saint Lazarus in El Rincón to deposit all their offerings. Some ask for health, others for protection, or for themselves and their families.
In El Rincón we find people of all kinds, from different places in Cuba and other countries. Even the riders go with their horses to bless them (they do it on December 17 and January 17).
It is normal to see them in the strollers known popularly as spiders moving in groups of up to 20 to fulfill their task. They arrive at the Rincón and go to the fountain in search of holy water, take it to the father of the church to bless it and cleanse their beasts to rid them of all evil, it is part of the ritual.
Like the Virgin of Charity, Saint Barbara or the Virgin of Rule, Saint Lazarus, will always have in Cubans, followers who will worship him to face his challenges, calamities and hardships. Faith in him manages to cross borders and clings to those who feel it and make it theirs.
THE LEGEND
Legend has it that Babalú Ayé, being a very womanizing man, was advised by Orula to control himself in this way because he could contract serious diseases, which he did not do. One day he met an irresistible woman, went to have fun, and when he woke up the next day his body was covered with malignant sores.
The elders of the village, seeing his condition, sewed his tongue with twelve diloggún (a divinatory system of the Osha Rule that uses the cauri snail in the hand of 18 or 21 pieces, depending on the orisha in question) and expelled him from the place.
His brother Shangó took him to Orula who, after scolding him for his disobedience, advised Shangó to look for Osain to prepare a remedy with herbs that would cure the disease. Babalú Ayé had to clean himself with them, bury the ebbó (cleaning and purification work) and go to a village where he would be proclaimed king. Ogún gave him two dogs to accompany him on the journey.
Fulfilling to the letter what Orula had told him, Babalú Ayé went to look for the place that Orula had described to him. When he buried the ebbó, it began to rain heavily and the sores that had afflicted it disappeared. To his surprise, as he entered the village he realized that everyone there was suffering from a serious illness, and the villagers who saw him went to meet him in veneration. This was because according to them, the cure for their ills would come with the man who arrived in the rain. Babalú Ayé, who knew some of Osain’s secrets of healing, began to care for the sick and was proclaimed king of the place.
Note: The data taken from the book “Con bendición de todos” by the professor and researcher Valentina Porras Potts.
December 11, 2019 12:12:07 | CLAUDIA PIS GUIROLA
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
It’s set in 1994 and Carlos is 14 years old. Some of his friends, neighbors and relatives leave Cuba behind the siren songs of the U.S. government. The US, which, while tightening the economic and financial blockade, promises benefits and guarantees to those who manage to set foot on American soil. In handmade boats, improvised from any material, they sail the seas: they are rafters. But Carlos (Damián González) is a teenager and in the midst of his personal pains, is unable to understand the full political-social dimension of the moment. Through his gaze, Agosto [August] is told. It is a film without excesses and with no desire to judge, which appeals to the collective memories of those who face the only Cuban film in competition in the section of Opera Prima during this 41st International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana.
With the support of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), this production between Cuba, Costa Rica and France had to go through a long road of almost ten years to see materialize the original project of Armando Capó (director) with script by Abel Arcos. Finally, it is now possible to enjoy a work that, beyond the dramatic force of the context in which it is set, delves into more universal values such as adolescence, the loss of loved ones and the sexual awakening of a boy who will have to assume the socially accepted demands for his gender, but made even more acute by economic precariousness.
Capó, coordinator of the Fiction Chair at the International Film and TV School of San Antonio de los Baños, tells of a long documentary production (Descubriendo Pancha, 2004; La marea, 2009; Ausencia, 2011), which may have influenced the way the story is told. There are no dramatic effects or heartbreaking catharsis. Even the treatment of color from a palette without stridencies, the tempo of the edition and the use of hand-held camera contribute to achieving a story from a calm, with an unconventional narrative structure, but very attractive from, among other things, the careful recreation of the era.
With the performances of Glenda Delgado Domínguez, Felito Lahera, Verónica Lynn and Lola Amores Rodríguez, this is a film in a very different sense that proposes a healing gaze towards that moment of farewells and separations. That August was the same for many and those who still need a reconciliation with that summer, perhaps this August, will find it.
You must be logged in to post a comment.