Voice of the leopard : African secret societies and Cuba / Ivor L. Miller.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-337) and index.

Arrival -- The fortified city -- Planting Abakuá in Cuba, 1830s to 1860s -- From Creole to Carabalí -- Dispersal : Abakuá exiled to Florida and Spanish Africa -- Disintegration of the Spanish empire -- Havana is the key : Abakuá in Cuban music -- Conclusions -- Epilogue: Cubans in Calabar : Ékpè has one voice.

"In Voice of the Leopard: African Secret Societies and Cuba, Ivor L. Miller shows how African migrants and their political fraternities played a formative role in the history of Cuba. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, no large kingdoms controlled Nigeria and Cameroon's multilingual Cross River basin. Instead, each settlement had its own lodge of the initiation society called Ekpe or "leopard" which was the highest indigenous authority. Ekpe lodges ruled local communities while also managing regional and long-distance trade. Cross River Africans, enslaved and forcibly brought to colonial Cuba, reorganized their Ekpe clubs covertly in Havana and Matanzas into a mutual-aid society called Abakua, which became foundational to Cuba's urban life and music."

"Miller's extensive fieldwork in Cuba and West Africa documents ritual languages and practices which survived the Middle Passage and evolved into a unifying charter for transplanted slaves and their successors. To gain deeper understanding of the material, Miller underwent Ekpe initiation rites in Nigeria after ten years' collaboration with Abakua initiates in Cuba and the United States. He argues that Cuban music, art, even politics rely on complexities of these African-inspired codes of conduct and leadership." "Voice of the Leopard is an unprecedented tracing of an African title-society to its Caribbean incarnation, which has deeply influenced Cuba's creative energy and popular consciousness"--Jacket.