Lydia Cabrera (May 20, 1899 in Havana, Cuba

) was a Cuban anthropologist and poet.

September 19, 1991 in Miami, Florida

Cabrera was a Cuban writer and literary activist. She was an authority on Santera
and other Afro-Cuban religions. During her lifetime she published over one hund
red books; little if any of her work is available in English. Her most important
book is El Monte (Spanish: "The Wilderness"), which was the first major anthrop
ological study of Afro-Cuban traditions. She donated her research collection to
the library of the University of Miami. A section in Guillermo Cabrera Infante's
book Tres Tigres Tristes is written under Lydia Cabrera's name, in a comical re
ndition of her literary voice. She was one of the first writers to recognize and
make public the richness of Afro-Cuban culture. She made valuable contributions
in the areas of literature, anthropology, and ethnology. Her most famous book "
El Monte" (The Forest), published in 1954, became a "bible" for Santeros who pra
ctice Santeria, a blend of Catholic teachings and native African religions that
evolved among former African slaves in the Caribbean.
In El Monte, Cabrera fully described the major Afro-Cuban religions: the Regla d
e Ocha (commonly known as Santeria) and the Ifa cult, which are both derived from
traditional Yoruba religion; and Palo Monte, which originated in Central Africa
. Both the literary and anthropological perspectives on Cabrera s work assume that
she wrote about mainly oral, practical religions with only an embryonic written t
radition. She is credited by literary critics for having transformed Afro-Cuban
oral narratives into literature, which is, written works of art, while anthropol
ogists rely on her accounts of oral information collected during interviews with
santeros, babalaos, or paleros, and on her descriptions of religious ceremonies
. There is a dialectical relationship between Afro-Cuban religious writing and C
abrera s work; she used a religious writing tradition that has now internalized he
r own ethnography.
Contents [hide]
1 Early life and education
2 Involvement in Afrocubanismo and the preservation of Afro-Cuban culture
3 Main work themes
4 Coming to the United States
5 References
6 Bibliography
7 External links
Early life and education[edit]
Born in Havana in 1899 as the youngest of eight siblings, she comes from a Cuban
family of social and financial privilege in pre-revolutionary Cuba. Her father,
Raimundo Cabrera, who was a writer, jurist, and lawyer, was a prominent man in
society as well as an advocate for Cuba's independence. He was the owner and edi
tor of the Cuban journal, Cuba y America. This news paper involved politics and
her father wanted to become independent from Spain. Her mother, Elisa Marcaida C
asanova, was a housewife and respected socialite. The family had many Afro-Cuban
servants and child caretakers, through whom young Lydia learned about African f
olklore, stories,tradition,religions, and their mystical world. Her father was a
lso the president of the first Cuban corporation, La Sociedad Econmica de Amigos
del Pas, founded in the eighteenth century. He owned a popular literary journal,
Cuba y America, where Lydia got her first experience as a writer. At the age of
thirteen, Cabrera wrote a weekly anonymous column that appeared in her father's
journal. She covered topics relevant to her specific community, such as wedding
announcements, childbirths, or obituaries.[1]
Like the majority of wealthy Cubans in the early 1900s, private tutors came to t
he home of the Cabreras to educate the children. For a short period of time, she
attended the private school of Maria Luisa Dolz. At that time it was not social
ly acceptable for a woman to pursue a high school diploma, so Cabrera finished h
er secondary education on her own.[2]

By 1927 Cabrera found herself wanting to make money on her own and she wanted to
become independent of her family. She moved to Paris to study art and religion
at L'Ecole du Louvre [3] She studied drawing and painting in Paris with theatric
al Russian exile Alexandra Exter. Cabrera lived in Paris for 11 years and return
ed home in 1938.Once graduated from art school, she chose not to become an artis
t as expected. Instead she chose to move back to Cuba to study Afro-Cuban cultur
e, especially their traditions and folklore.Lydia Cabrera is a creative writer w
ho writes in order to retell the history of Cuba. She worked closely with Fernan
do Ortiz even though she was younger than him.
Involvement in Afrocubanismo and the preservation of Afro-Cuban culture[edit]
For almost all of her life, Cabrera possessed a large interest in Afro-Cuban cul
ture. She had been introduced to their folklore at a very young age by her AfroCuban nanny and Afro-Cuban seamstress. Three factors influenced her decision to
study Afrocubanismo as an adult. The first influence was her experience in Europ
e, where studying African art became very popular. Secondly she was influenced b
y her studies in Paris, where she began to see the large influence that African
art had on Cuban art. Thirdly she had a companion Teresa de la Parra, a Venezuel
an socialite whom she met while studying in Europe, and who enjoyed reading Cuba
n books with her. They often studied about the island together.[4]
With her focus on thoroughly exploring Afro-Cuban culture, she returned to Cuba
in 1930. She moved to a ranch, La Quinta San Jose, in the suburb of Havana, Mari
anao, located just outside the barrio Pogolotti where she conducted most her res
earch on Afro-Cuban culture.[5] Between 1937 and 1948, she published her second
book of short stories Por Que...Cuentos negros de Cuba. For this collection, she
participated in the culture of the Afro-Cubans and recorded their religious rit
uals and traditions.
During the late 1950s she continued to publish several books about Afro-Cuban re
ligions, especially focusing on the Abakus. Being a secret society, the Abakus wer
e reluctant to talk to her about their religion.[6] Since they did not accept wo
men as members, Cabrera relied on the use of interviews to gain information for
her book. It focused on the origins of the group, the myth of Sikaneke, and the
hierarchy of its members. Somehow she managed to photograph their sacred drum, w
hich is supposed to remain hidden at all times, to include within her research.[
7]
Main work themes[edit]
Her career spanned decades before the Revolution, as well as many years after th
e revolution in Cuba. Although she was never schooled in anthropology, she takes
a very anthropological approach to studying her subject matter. The main theme
in her work is the focus on to the once-marginalized Afro-Cubans, giving them a
respectable identity. Through the use of imagery and storytelling in her work, s
he seeks to retell the history of the Cuban people through the Afro-Cuban lens.[
8] Generally, her work blurs the line between what society has deemed as "fact"
and "fiction." [9] She attempts to pose ideas and theories that force one to que
stion what they have been told.In Afro-Cuban Tales = Cuentos Negros De Cuba, She
writes, "They dance when they're born, they dance when they die, they dance for
killings. They celebrate everything!" (Cabrera 67). Here, she is connecting Afr
o-Cuban tales with African rituals because it is important to celebrate birth, p
assage to adulthood, marriage, and death.
Coming to the United States[edit]
She left the country in 1960 shortly after the revolution and never returned. Sh
e left as an exile, first going to Madrid and later sttling in Miami, FL., where
she remained the rest of her life. Ms. Cabrera received several honorary doctor
ate degrees, including one from the University of Miami in 1987. Cabrera describ
es her stories as "transpositions," but they went much further than a simple ret

elling. She recreated and altered elements, characters, and themes of African an
d universal folklore, but she also modified the traditional stories by adding de
tails of Cuban customs of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Toward the last years of her life, Lydia Cabrera worked diligently to edit and p
ublish the many notes she had collected during more than thirty years of researc
h in Cuba.
The real reason why she left is still unknown. Some claim that she left because
of the lifestyle the revolution was trying to instill. For many years, Cabrera h
ad stated her dislike for the revolution and socialist-Marxist ideology.[10] Oth
ers claim she left because members of the Abakus were hunting her down since she
had made their secret society public.[11] Although the reason why she left is un
known, she never returned and spent the rest of her life living in Miami until h
er death in September 19, 1991.
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Rodrguez-Mangual, E. "Introduction," Lydia Cabrera and the Construction
of an Afro-Cuban Cultural Identity. Chapel Hill: The University of North Caroli
na Press, 2004: 7.
Jump up ^ Rodrguez-Mangual, E. "Introduction," 8.
Jump up ^ "Lydia Cabrera," Encyclopedia of Cuba: People, history, culture. Ed. L
uis Martinez Fernandez 1st Vol. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2003: 321.
Jump up ^ Rodrguez-Mangual, E. "Introduction," 10.
Jump up ^ Rodrguez-Mangual, E. "Introduction," 11.
Jump up ^ Rodrguez-Mangual, E. "Introduction," 12.
Jump up ^ Rodrguez-Mangual, E. "Introduction," 13.
Jump up ^ "Lydia Cabrera," 322.
Jump up ^ Rodrguez-Mangual, E. "Introduction," 4.
Jump up ^ Rodrguez-Mangual, E. "Introduction," 14.
Jump up ^ Rodrguez-Mangual, E. "Introduction," 15.
Bibliography[edit]
Cuentos negros de Cuba, OCLC 054988800
Por qu? Cuentos negros de Cuba
El Monte
Refranes de negros viejos
Anag : vocabulario lucum (el yoruba que se habla en Cuba), OCLC 000833329
La sociedad secreta Abaku, narrada por viejos adeptos.
Otn iyebiy: las piedras preciosas, OCLC 000338426
Ayap : cuentos de Jicotea, OCLC 000676675
La laguna sagrada de San Joaqun
Yemay y Ochn, OCLC 006368199
Anaforuana: ritual y smbolos de la iniciacin en la sociedad secreta Abaku
Francisco y Francisca: chascarrillos de negros viejos
Itinerarios del Insomnio: Trinidad de Cuba
Reglas de Congo: Palo Monte Mayombe
Koeko iyaw, aprende novicia: pequeo tratado de regla lucum
Cuentos para adultos nios y retrasados mentales, OCLC 009775722
La Regla Kimbisa del Santo Cristo del Buen Viaje, OCLC 015119327
Pginas Sueltas
Arnedo-Gmez, Miguel. Writing Rumba: The Afrocubanista Movement in Poetry. Charlot
tesville: University of Virginia Press. 2006: 1 2, 25, 87, 147, 149, 152, 157.
Garca, Cristina. "Clave 1: Danzon," Cubanismo! New York: Vintage Books, 2002: 54 66
.
Luis, William. "Present and Future Antislavery Narratives", Literary Bondage. Au
stin: University of Texas Press. 1990: 238 248.
"Lydia Cabrera," Encyclopedia of Cuba: People, History, Culture. Ed. Luis Martin
ez Fernandez 1st Vol. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2003: 321 322.
Moore, Robin D. "The Minorista Vanguard: Modernism and Afrocubanismo", Nationali
zing Blackness: Afrocubansimo and Artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920 1940. Pittsb

urgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997: 195 200.

Rdriguez-Mangual, Edna M. "Introduction", Lydia Cabrera and the Construction of a
n Afro-Cuban Cultural Identity. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Pr
ess, 2004: 1 167. OCLC 055105528
Cabrera, Lydia. Afro-Cuban Tales = Cuentos Negros De Cuba. Lincoln: University o
f Nebraska, 2004. Print.
Rodriguez-Mangual, Edna M. Lydia Cabrera and the Construction of Afro-Cuban Cult
ural Identity. North Carolina: University of North Carolina, 2004. Print.
External links[edit]
Lydia Cabrera Papers, 1910-1991 at the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of
Miami Libraries
Digital images from the Lydia Cabrera Papers at the Cuban Heritage Collection, U
niversity of Miami Libraries
Lydia Cabrera (1899 1999): Recapitulando en la alborada de su centenario (Spanish
language link)