1

2
Chapter 3 3
4
5
Yemayá y Ochún 6
7
8
Queering the Vernacular Logics of the Waters 9
10
11
12
Solimar Otero 13
14
15
16
17
18
Sería imposible al hablar de Yemayá en la Isla de Cuba, silenciar y 19
menos separar de ella, a la popularísima Ochún, con quien comparte 20
el dominio de las aguas.
21
It would be impossible to talk about Yemayá in the island of Cuba 22
by silencing and separating her from the popular Ochún, with whom 23
she shares dominion over the waters. 24
—Lydia Cabrera, Yemayá y Ochún.1 25
26
27
Lydia Cabrera’s El Monte (1954) is one of the queerest books ever 28
written by a Cuban author. 29
30
—José Quiroga, Tropics of Desire.2
31
32
33
The above quotes by Cabrera and Quiroga serve as useful points of entry
34
to consider the queer nature of the performance of spiritual identities in
35
the contexts of Afro-Cuban religious cultures. They relate how repre-
36
sentations of Afro-Cuban religion can occur in contexts where the order
37
of the binary is subverted by their performance. In this piece, I want
38
to use fieldwork done with practitioners of Santería to investigate how
39
vernacular discourses about gender, embodiment, and the past reorder
40
these very categories. In the same vein, I want to reread Lydia Cabrera’s
41
work Yemayá y Ochún: Kariocha, Iyalorichas y Olorichas in a queer man-
42
43

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 86 Solimar Otero

1 ner that will also open up these categories to broader interpretations.3

2 As Cabrera merges ethnography with fiction and reported speech within
3 a form of play that troubles the authorial voice, her writing is an invita-
4 tion to question how we think about what we know about Afro-Cuban
5 religious culture. This is especially true in her representations of the
6 water deities Yemayá and Ochún, and it is the case in how practitioners
7 describe these deities and their relationship to them. In both instances,
8 we see that crossing boundaries and borderlands, especially in terms
9 of kinds of water (salty/sweet), is reinscribed with a kind of play that
10 challenges fixed notions of subjectivity. Thus, the relationship between
11 Yemayá and Ochún, as demonstrated in the idea of a devotee being
12 a “child of both waters / hijo/a de las dos aguas” exists as an insider
13 category that is open, multifaceted, and not fixed.
14 As a folklorist, I offer this noted vernacular relationship between
15 especially women and their female deities as a productive place to start
16 thinking about the spaces in between categories of subjectivity that entail
17 gender, race, nation, and embodiment. In using the terms “women”
18 and “female deities,” I also am suggesting that both Cabrera and my
19 collaborators in the field provoke a more complicated reading of gender
20 and embodiment than the accepted binaries surrounding these subjects.
21 The way that Afro-Cuban religion reconstitutes itself—through writing
22 and praxis—makes us understand that certain kinds of agency are found
23 in liminal spaces. These in-between spaces can be found in many sites of
24 symbolic and cultural production: between waters, deities, subjectivities,
25 and genres of writing. How these domains meet and merge in Cuban
26 Santería also expands our thinking about the nature of Afro-Atlantic
27 religious cultures, their temporality, as well as how we perceive diasporic
28 paradigms of religious performance like song, dance, divination, patakí
29 (a traditional mythological narrative), and so on. This piece, then, asks us
30 to think about the relationship between Yemayá and Ochún as providing
31 a template for understanding the intersectional practices that Afro-Cuban
32 religious discourse performs.
33 Of course, the ritual, mythological, and discursive creativity sur-
34 rounding Yemayá and Ochún that I am exploring in Afro-Cuban reli-
35 gious cultures has parallel expressions in Africa and other parts of the
36 African Diaspora. For example, in Nigerian Aladura churches, where
37 ritual creativity and co-penetration exists between Yoruba traditional
38 religion (esin ibile) and Christianity, it is believed that Olorun (God)
39 divided the waters in two: into the salty and sweet water realms of
40 Yemoja (Yemayá) and Osún (Ochún), respectively.4 Also, according to
41 R. C. Abraham’s classic Modern Dictionary of Yoruba, variations exist in
42 Yoruba mythology, ritual, and belief as to whether it is Yemoja (Yemayá)
43

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 Yemayá y Ochún 87

who gives birth to Osún (Ochún) or if it is Osún (Ochún) who gives 1

birth to Yemoja (Yemayá).5 In Brazil, there is also a good deal of cre- 2
ativity and fluidity in how the relationship between Yemanjá (Yemayá) 3
and Oxum (Ochún) is described, understood, and made into religious 4
praxis.6 As a continuation of this Afro-Atlantic conversation exploring 5
the boundaries, qualities, and fluidity between Yemayá and Ochún, I 6
investigate how practitioners and scholars of Afro-Cuban religious cul- 7
tures have a unique contribution to make in terms of questioning rigid 8
categories of gender and embodiment through this special connection. 9
As indicated, this piece explores the connections between the dei- 10
ties, the orichas, Yemayá and Ochún as expressed in Afro-Cuban belief. I 11
am interested in troubling the notion of bounded relationships between 12
deities, vernacular religious expressions, notions of embodiment, and 13
gendered personhood. Los hijo/as de las dos aguas is an open designa- 14
tion given to devotees of both orichas that signifies a fluid connection 15
between the two divinities that is expressed in ritual knowledge and 16
the performance of religious history through storytelling. This set of 17
relationships serves as a model for how to understand discourses of 18
incorporation especially within women’s religious work that focuses on 19
boundary play.7 The relationship between these two entities highlights an 20
openness to religious interaction in the history of the African Diaspora 21
in light of new ways of thinking about how ritual creativity performs 22
at the borders of race, gender, and sexuality.8 This is especially the case 23
in terms of how the connectedness of the Afro-Catholic manifestations 24
of Yemayá and Ochún may also be read as sites of boundary play that 25
defy notions of ritual and ethnic purity through the symbolic interplay 26
between La Virgen de Regla and La Caridad del Cobre, respectively.9 27
My initial fieldwork in Cuba on Afro-Cuban religions began in 28
1999. As a Cuban-American returning to Havana’s neighborhoods of 29
Arroyo Apolo and Mantilla where my mother was raised, Claudina Abreo 30
González and Mercedes Zamora Albuquerque, the women priestesses 31
discussed briefly in this chapter, have served as my mentors, collabora- 32
tors, and spiritual consultants.10 These women play the role of madrinas 33
or godmothers for many seeking spiritual and religious guidance and 34
their ritual activities provide a central conduit in creating and maintain- 35
ing spiritual kin networks.11 36
37
38
Yemayá and Ochún Revisited 39
40
Claudina Abreo González is a priestess of Ochún who has been practicing 41
the religious traditions of Santería, Palo, and Espiritismo for over thirty 42
43

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 88 Solimar Otero

1 years.12 Here I want to examine how Abreo González, as a daughter

2 of Ochún, understands her relationship to Yemayá through traditional
3 narrative and vernacular criticism of these narratives in ways that help
4 us question whom gets to create, interpret, and situate knowledge in
5 Afro-Cuban religious contexts.13 These vernacular aesthetic sensibilities,
6 as metafolklore and as a form of oral literary criticism, abound in the
7 performance of Afro-Cuban traditional narrative and ritual.14
8 Abreo González told me a patakí that exemplified for her the
9 relationship between Yemayá and Ochún. In her version of the story,
10 Yemayá and Ochún are sisters who trade physical attributes to help each
11 other. Here is how she phrased the tale:
12
13 Ochún era una mulata muy linda, tenía un cuerpo muy ele-
14 gante, muy bonita. Pero, no tenía pelo. Ella tenía el pelo muy
15 cortito, no tenía pelo, no. Entonces, ella le dice a Yemayá,
16 ‘Mira, tan linda como yo soy, y sin embargo no tengo tu
17 pelo.’ Yemayá tenía el pelo largo, [gesto a la cintura], y de
18 lo más bonito. Y Yemayá le dice, ‘Mira, para que seas feliz
19 completa yo te voy a dar mi pelo.’ Y le da el pelo a Ochún.
20
21 Ochún was a very beautiful mulata; she had a very elegant
22 figure, very pretty. But she had little to no hair. She wore her
23 hair very short; she really didn’t have any hair. One day she
24 says to Yemayá, “Look at me. Even though I am considered
25 beautiful, I don’t have your hair.” Yemayá had long hair [ges-
26 tures down to her waist],15 and really very beautiful. And so
27 Yemayá tells her, “Look, so you can be completely happy I
28 will give you my hair.” And, she gives her hair to Ochún.16
29
30 Part of the impetus for telling me this story was to provide a figu-
31 rative response to my questions about the relationship between the two
32 water deities. Cabrera places their relationship in the stories she collected
33 and wrote as one of sisterhood as well, and, like Abreo González, she
34 sees Yemayá as the elder sibling that cares for Ochún.17 Such storytelling
35 is the rich register by which Afro-Cuban religious instruction is per-
36 formed. In this rendering of the tale we see modes of reported speech
37 and indications of themes and tropes important to popular belief in Afro-
38 Cuban religion. The exchange between the two water goddesses here
39 indicates a sharing of aesthetics and attributes that connect them not
40 only in terms of narrative but also through ritual. In folklore, Yemayá’s
41 long hair and other attributes connect her with the mermaid traditions
42 found both in Europe (motifs B81 and B81.9.1) and in Africa, with
43

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 Yemayá y Ochún 89

the latter finding a symbolic interrelationship between Yemayá/Yemoja’s 1

mermaid form and the mermaid forms of the Mami Wata traditions.18 2
By bestowing her hair on Ochún, Yemayá gives a part of her magical 3
power to Ochún (though Yemayá also keeps her long beautiful hair) as 4
a mode of generosity, a way of making a bond between their realms. 5
In Cabrera’s reading of the relationship between the two water deities, 6
Yemayá often acts as the older, wiser, and indulgent sibling of Ochún 7
who is willing to either clean up Ochún’s messes or give her, and by 8
extension her sons and daughters, a magical hand.19 9
What the story world of Abreo González’s story offers us, then, 10
is a mythological configuration of how attributes like generosity and 11
beauty might be handled, shared, and understood by the community 12
through the orichas’ examples. The story worlds of patakís also tell of 13
what not to do: what to avoid in terms of mistakes made by the dei- 14
ties.20 This story, like others found in Afro-Cuban religious belief, give 15
us a template for thinking about ritual reciprocity between the two 16
deities through the vernacular concept of los hijo/as de las dos aguas. 17
Indeed, Cabrera finds a mythological transformation between the two 18
kinds of water when she describes the patakí of how Yemayá turns the 19
salt waters into sweet waters for her sister Ochún.21 However, before 20
I unpack those potential exchanges, I would like to discuss how the 21
above story also gives a metaphorical rendering of the way that Yemayá 22
and Ochún are connected—not only through their shared element of 23
water but also through gendered and racial representations of the two 24
in Cuba’s postcolonial context. 25
I want to focus for a moment on how Abreo González’s story 26
begins with a description of Ochún’s beauty, body, and mulatez. Her 27
representation of Ochún is typical of how both practitioners and Cuban 28
popular culture describe the river deity. Kutzinski and Arrizón both write 29
about how Afro-Cuban women’s bodies, especially those of the mulata, 30
do the symbolic work of negotiating Cuban identity by embodying race 31
and gender in particular ways.22 Ochún’s location as a mulata in Abreo’s 32
story is particularly hybrid because of the range of racial, cultural, and 33
religious associations she symbolizes. As a mulata, she is, of course, 34
mixed race. As Ochún, she is both Cuban and Yoruba in terms of cul- 35
ture. As associated with La Virgen de la Caridid del Cobre, she can also 36
be located on a vernacular Catholic register. It is interesting to note on 37
the last point here that La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, the patron 38
saint of Cuba, is also represented as a mixed-race virgin in church and 39
vernacular iconography.23 In terms of Ochún’s hybrid subjectivities, I 40
am inclined to see her body in Abreo González’s story as a site that 41
is shifting, as a project that Yemayá helps her reconfigure and recreate. 42
43

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 90 Solimar Otero

1 I am not suggesting that we accept this depiction of Ochún’s mula-

2 ta body uncritically. However, I do want to suggest that this mulatez can
3 be a potential source of agency rather than a solely racialized, sexualized,
4 and gendered subjectivity that always does the work of reinforcing colo-
5 nial, racial, and patriarchal hegemonies. In other words, as Arrizón aptly
6 observes about the performance of mulata embodiment, “As a hybrid
7 body, which can perform whiteness and blackness, the mulata’s subaltern
8 agency becomes a reinscription of the divided and hyphenated self.”24
9 In this formulation of the mulata, her body disrupts the stereotypical
10 racial dyadic by reinscribing mulatez in a manner that disidentifies the
11 binary categories that seek to make it solely transgressive, to mark it as
12 a racial abjection.25
13 I would also add that Ochún’s multiplicity is incorporated by her
14 devotees, where embodying the goddess becomes an act that necessarily
15 queers questions of personhood in terms of another kind of disidentifica-
16 tion. The mulata body, and the kind of mulata body Ochún represents
17 in Abreo González’s story, needs to be re-thought with these consider-
18 ations in mind when it comes to vernacular religious folklore, practice,
19 and discourse. This is because the contexts in which practitioners are
20 negotiating living texts, practices, and discourses are also a shifting ter-
21 rain of hybrid subjectivities and negotiations.
22 In Abreo González’s tale, Ochún is indebted to Yemayá for giving
23 her the attributes that perfect her beauty. The long, beautiful hair that
24 Yemayá gives to Ochún is related to both of the deities’ manifestations
25 as mermaids, water sirens, and aquatic sprites.26 Here the conversation
26 is extended to the physical attributes of beauty and allure found in the
27 folklore of these kinds of beings from all over the world. According to
28 Stith Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, motifs for both dark-
29 skinned (B81.9.5.2) and fair-skinned (B81.9.5.1) mermaids are found
30 in Indo-European folklore and mythological traditions.27 These contain
31 motifs where mermaids have physical attributes such as large breasts
32 (B81.9.2), long flowing hair (B81.9.0), and “wooly” hair (B81.9.1).28
33 In African debates surrounding the mermaid form of Mami Wata, there
34 is much discussion as to the origins and aesthetic characteristics of this
35 water spirit.29 In all of these instances, female water deities have multiple
36 characteristics that make a systematic classification of their attributes
37 elusive at best.
38 In examining how some women understand their agency within
39 Afro-Cuban vernacular religion, we also necessarily invoke traditions of
40 secrecy and hidden female power inherited from Yoruba religious dis-
41 courses.30 Yet, these traditions of secrecy also resemble queer strategies of
42 evading categorization of knowledge and the self through performances
43

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 Yemayá y Ochún 91

that code, mimic, and keep hidden key aspects of recognition. This 1
allows for a privileging of information that is rooted in many different 2
kinds of performance strategies that subvert racial, gendered, and cul- 3
tural orders that are often part of a colonial legacy, especially in Cuba.31 4
In terms of Cuba and the relationship of secrecy to Afro-Cuban religion 5
and queer identities, the saliency of what is not revealed affirms that, 6
according to José Quiroga, “circuitousness, evasion, and avoidance are 7
modes of praxis and not necessarily forms of denial.”32 That is, as we will 8
see with Cabrera’s texts that deal with Afro-Cuban queer manifestations 9
of orichas like Yemayá, the point is not one of secrecy, but of particular 10
ways of performing, in code, the fluidity and ambiguity of gender and 11
sexuality, even within a mythological-religious context. 12
In terms of vernacular speech and linguistic form, Cabrera’s texts 13
about the ambiguous and separate nature of sexuality and gender among 14
the orichas take the form of reported speech, most frequently as chisme 15
(gossip). This genre of narrative has often been queered in terms of 16
being thought of as the “talk” of women and gays and by being ren- 17
dered as a volatile and suspicious category for acquiring information in 18
literature and society.33 Chisme, as Cabrera describes it in relation to 19
the orichas in Yemayá y Ochún, is also infectious and irresistible to her 20
reader. Chisme and gossip are popular and pleasurable ways of imparting 21
vernacular histories for different communities of color because of their 22
porous and sometimes subversive narrative frames.34 23
Practitioners identify Yemayá and Ochún as having the ability to 24
work together through both oral tradition and ritual praxis. The implica- 25
tion here is that their relationship can serve as a model of cooperation for 26
different oricha-worshipping communities not only in Cuba but across 27
the African Diaspora as well.35 Yet I do not want to imply that this idea 28
of a model is one that is fixed or always consistent among practitioners. 29
In other words, the idea of a connection between Yemayá and Ochún 30
should serve as a starting point for considering how social and spiritual 31
agency can be negotiated through the lens of these two deities in their 32
connected aspects. That is, how do we navigate the flow of culture 33
from a specific source to a larger body of multiple manifestations that, 34
like the flow between the rivers and the ocean, has a tendency to feed 35
back upon itself? 36
The regenerative quality of spiritual ingenuity, innovation, and 37
ritual hybridity through experimentation with forms borrowed from 38
literature, popular culture, the internet, film, and international net- 39
works makes Afro-Cuban religiosity a thriving and mutable force in 40
Afro-Atlantic religious traditions today.36 However, within the practice 41
of innovation and borrowing is a discourse of authenticity that mirrors 42
43

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 92 Solimar Otero

1 ritual play and asserts the new in traditional practices.37 The relationship
2 and mutual admiration between Yemayá and Ochún as understood by
3 adherents is one way to think through the dilemma of locating practice
4 within this vast terrain of fluidity and multiplicity. People who identify as
5 hijo/as de las dos aguas (children of “both waters”) offer an interesting
6 palette with which we can see how difference appears where (aquatic)
7 borderlands meet, yet allow for these very boundaries to be blurred in
8 ritual and discursive assertions. It is within the zones of contact where
9 the hijo/as de las dos aguas operate, between the sweet and salty waters,
10 that practitioners perform the crossing of borders in a way that has
11 implications for how race, gender, and personhood are also mutable in
12 pervasive, mestiza ways.38
13 Abreo González describes the characteristics of those who share a
14 ritual responsibility of showing reciprocity between Ochún and Yemayá
15 in this manner:
16
17 But, they [Yemayá and Ochún] always get along very well.
18 And, for the most part, we daughters of Ochún care greatly
19 for Yemayá. We have to really care for her, really have to
20 adore her. Take myself for example, everything that I offer
21 to Ochún, who is my mama—I have to offer to Yemayá. It
22 is as if she is my mama. And that’s the way it is, the two
23 waters are one in the same. I often have to go to where
24 the river and the sea meet in order to pray to Ochún and
25 Yemayá, and that is where I put my offerings. That is where
26 one can worship them. That is where you can find both fresh
27 water and salt water.39
28
29 Here we see Abreo González explain the relationship she has to both
30 Yemayá and Ochún through examples of mutual devotion, ritual reci-
31 procity, and connection to the physical representation of the natural
32 worlds these deities represent for believers. Her relationship to Yemayá
33 operates through Ochún, her mama, meaning the oricha that governs
34 her head, who has chosen her as a devotee. Though Ochún is her pri-
35 mary oricha, Abreo González finds a second mama in Yemayá. Indeed
36 she feels devotees of Ochún have a special duty to respect, honor, and
37 give offerings to Yemayá. And, in the example above, this may even
38 take on the role of making a joint offering. This makes sense since as
39 Abreo González says, “the two waters are one in the same,”40 meaning
40 that the differentiation between these two orichas can become blurred,
41 combined, and creatively conjoined in ritual, performance, and the con-
42 struction of material culture honoring them.41
43

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 Yemayá y Ochún 93

In Yemayá y Ochún, Cabrera’s reading of the close religious prox- 1

imity of devotees of both orichas acknowledges their play with their 2
personalities, as well as proclivities toward protecting the same devotee 3
in the religious discourse. As Cabrera puts it: 4
5
Con los hijos de Yemayá y de Ochún hay que indagar meti- 6
culosamente a cual de las dos divinidades pertenecen, porque 7
Yemayá acostumbra robarse los hijos de Ochún, haciéndo- 8
les favores. Los acompaña y complace tanto que siembra la 9
confusión . . .  10
11
With the children of Yemayá and Ochún, one has to meticu- 12
lously investigate which one of the two deities they really 13
belong to, because Yemayá has the tendency to try to steal 14
away Ochún’s children by doing them favors. She [Yemayá] 15
looks after them and pleases them so that it plants a seed 16
of doubt . . .42 17
18
Cabrera goes on to say that even the adept santero/a may have some 19
problems determining the lineage of a child of two waters. Here, I am 20
interested in how Cabrera’s description of these converging and negotiated 21
boundaries between the water deities serves as a kind of model for her text. 22
Yemayá y Ochún is certainly a book that combines a range of nar- 23
rative forms: ethnography, ethnology, reported speech, folktale, chisme, 24
and mythology. It is to be expected from Cabrera’s own play on genre 25
that literary critics like José Quiroga and Edna Rodríguez-Mangual have 26
already analyzed Cabrera’s seminal work El Monte.43 I want to take 27
Cabrera’s lead here and think about how the boundary play between 28
Yemayá and Ochún for devotees is one that opens up possibilities for 29
engaging religiosity and personhood on multiple levels. For Cabrera, 30
avatars of Ochún, Ochún Akuara or Ochún Ibu manifest between the 31
waters: They “vive entre el mar y el río / live in between the sea and 32
the river.”44 Accordingly, Cabrera quotes one of her collaborators, the 33
santero Gaytán, as relating that the dualistic avatar of Yemayá, Yemayá 34
Akuara exists in the meeting of the rivers and the sea, where “se encuen- 35
tra con su hermana Ochún / she meets up with her sister Ochún.”45 36
Thus, the boundary play works in both ways for the two water 37
deities. Adding to this sense of negotiated confluence, as we see above, 38
is the popular belief that Yemayá is willing to confuse, help, and conflate 39
this boundary, acting in a form of play herself. This vernacular logic 40
acts as a kind of coding for a whole aesthetic of ritual play that can 41
be learned, taught, and inherited in a variety of ways. In a sense, these 42
43

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 94 Solimar Otero

1 narrative and ritual interpretations of Ocha reflect the complicated nature

2 of a religious culture that is discursively fluid and relies on devotees’
3 own ability to semiotically unpack and repack their religious expressions.
4 The ability to move in between the waters, as Abreo González
5 and others do, is a metaphoric representation of how devotees creatively
6 perform their spiritual selves by using liminal ritual frames.46 This cre-
7 ative boundary play can open a space for ceremonial agency, especially
8 for devotees like Abreo González, who perform their shifting and fluid
9 relationships at the very sites that physically represent these spaces, that
10 is, the meeting of the river and the sea. Also, this kind of boundary
11 play and confluence between deities and ancestors within oricha worship
12 is not unique to Yemayá and Ochún—nor to Cuba, as we see similar
13 kinds of negotiations in ritual contexts in Nigeria and Brazil.47
14 However, Abreo González’s story and personal reflections, as well
15 as Cabrera’s observations, show other avenues for the expression of
16 agency that move in directions other than ritual and praxis. Narra-
17 tives, beliefs, and practice all reveal a level of meta-analysis that offers
18 several kinds of discursive agency. The epistemological basis for creat-
19 ing knowledge about Yemayá and Ochún in these contexts allows for
20 a level of naming of various divine subjectivities and the natural and
21 magical worlds that these subjectivities control that encourages a level
22 of play with these very elements. Elsewhere I have written about how
23 the Yoruba word for the act of play, asere, as understood by Drewal
24 and Yai in ritual contexts, is fundamental to understanding the ontology
25 of Afro-Caribbean-Latino cultural production and identity that centers
26 around the worldview of Santería.48 Similarly, Abreo González’s and
27 Cabrera’s assessments of how they understand the fluidity of the worlds
28 and knowledge that Yemayá and Ochún create are made with the kind
29 of expertise that mimics the very play, flow, and form of these water
30 goddesses’ shifting and shared paradigms of being and becoming. That
31 is, they move toward and away from each other in multiple stages
32 of subjectivity that allow for a symbolic dance to be performed along
33 their aquatic borders. Furthermore, this river/sea borderland serves as
34 a site that embodies the very discourses of negotiating ritual and social
35 power for many women practicing Afro-Cuban religions, but especially
36 for those who identify with being one of los hijo/as de las dos aguas.
37 Yemayá priestess Mercedes Zamora Albuquerque, like Cabrera and
38 Abreo González, identifies Yemayá and Ochún as being attached to
39 each other in symbiotic ways. Albuquerque feels a special attachment
40 to Ochún in her own devotional practices. This is how she describes
41 the tendency for a connection with Ochún from the perspective of the
42 children of Yemayá:
43

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 Yemayá y Ochún 95

Bueno, se considera que Ochún es hermana de Yemayá. Y 1

entonces casi siempre las hijas de Yemayá tenemos tendencia 2
ser hijas de las dos aguas . . . Hijas de Yemayá, y hijas de 3
Ochún. Las de Ochún practican en el río. Y las de Yemayá 4
practican en el mar. Pero hay veces que se unen en la diluvia 5
del río en el mar. Por eso se dice, que somos hijas de los 6
dos aguas. Pero es porque tenemos tendencias en el campo 7
espiritual y en al campo material con Ochún y con Yemayá. 8
9
Well, Ochún is considered to be Yemayá’s sister. And almost 10
always we daughters of Yemayá have a tendency to be hijas 11
de las dos aguas . . . daughters of Yemayá, and daughters 12
of Ochún. The ones that belong to Ochún practice in the 13
rivers. And, the ones that belong to Yemayá practice in the 14
sea. But there are times when they are united as the river 15
flows over into the sea. Because of this we are called hijas de 16
las dos aguas. But it is really because we have tendencies [to 17
work] with Ochún and with Yemayá in spiritual and material 18
camps [of the religion].49 19
20
Here we see Albuquerque speaking about her conception of the relation- 21
ship between Yemayá and Ochún that bleeds into the ritual association 22
of los hijo/as de las dos aguas. Albuquerque emphasizes the idea that 23
Yemayá and Ochún are sisters and that their daughters, specifically, have 24
a tendency to share a reciprocal relationship with the river and the sea 25
in terms of performing religious work. 26
Again, we observe the metaphor of the river flowing into the sea 27
acting as a visual reminder for the metaphysical connection expressed 28
between the two entities for believers. The very idea of los hijo/as de 29
las dos aguas offers a meditation on how we can redefine personhood 30
and community through the idea of reciprocity. By focusing on gender 31
here, Mercedes illustrates how women, specifically daughters of Yemayá 32
and Ochún, develop a creative and consistent language to discuss the 33
parameters among deities, practice, and theology within the religion of 34
Santería. However, the fluidity of movement found between Yemayá 35
and Ochún in how practitioners play with boundaries bleeds into how 36
distinctions between religious cultures in Cuba are negotiated as well. 37
As the sea receives the overflow of the rivers, so too do the daugh- 38
ters of Yemayá, according to Albuquerque, understand this merging as 39
a starting point for developing a rich and layered spiritual life where she 40
can embody a range of subjectivities to express and extend her agency in 41
a variety realms. Her commentary specifically points out how spiritual and 42
43

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 96 Solimar Otero

1 material spheres interact in the relationship between Yemayá and Ochún in

2 an intersectional way. In so doing, she reveals that the idea of los hijo/as
3 de las dos aguas is much more than an emic label used by practitioners to
4 describe a set of practices and beliefs. Here, the idea of los hijo/as de las
5 dos aguas becomes an opening point for understanding the interrelatedness
6 of different kinds of spiritual identities performed in a range of registers.
7 Similarly, Cabrera’s Yemayá y Ochún recodifies, mimics, and extends these
8 registers in how she writes Afro-Cuban religion with a multitude of voices
9 and conventions of genre. Like Cabrera, practitioners’ registers are also
10 negotiated within the larger framework of different Afro-Cuban religious
11 cultures. In the case of how practitioners balance the intersectional tradi-
12 tions of Santería, Palo, and Espiritismo, there also exists a large amount
13 of boundary play, ritual innovation, and discursive creativity.50
14
15
16 Embodiment, Gender, and Sexuality
17
18 I had several conversations with women and men about how gender is
19 conceived and lived in Afro-Cuban vernacular religions. These discus-
20 sions about gender necessarily involved an exploration into the meaning
21 of embodiment and the construction of the self. Since Afro-Cuban reli-
22 gions are intersectional, the traditions of Santería, Palo, and Espíritismo
23 all contain some level of spirit possession that are reflexive of, compete
24 with, and also refer to each other.51 The attitudes toward what consti-
25 tutes a bounded being are fluid.
26 In terms of the performance of gender, for example, it is not
27 unusual that a person who is gendered one way in society to be gen-
28 dered ambiguously or differently in ritual and possession. That is, one’s
29 body can inhabit several selves that are constructed in a broad range
30 of ways in terms of gender, race, culture, and even time period.52 It
31 is important to note that spiritual beings are also part of the selfhood
32 of different practitioners, as noted above for Abreo González, because
33 these relationships are thought of as reciprocal. What seems to be clear
34 here, then, is that it is the performance of an identity in Afro-Cuban
35 religion that sets the parameters of who or what a practitioner is or is
36 signifying. In this manner the practitioner can call upon these identities
37 as varying parts of the self—and this means that she can shift between
38 different registers of embodiment during ritual: male, female, black,
39 white, Chinese, nun, gypsy, oricha, healer, ancestor, relative.
40 Not everyone has access to any or all identities, but most people
41 have access to several ways of performing their spiritual selves. Again,
42 these performances become part of the practitioner’s known (or poten-
43

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 Yemayá y Ochún 97

tial) identities within the community. This kind of fluidity of embodi- 1

ment mirrors the relationship between Yemayá and Ochún in the places 2
where they meet and overflow into each other: the sea and the rivers. 3
Yet, like the relationship between the two deities, there are complex 4
layers of differentiation that overlap to create a mosaic that constitutes 5
the self in Afro-Cuban religious experiential performances of being. 6
This cultural phenomenon is not an unusual or surprising site 7
for creating and performing identities when we look at how Latina/o 8
mestizaje and difference are embodied through cultural performances 9
that locate race, gender, and sexuality in a range of configurations. 10
Here I am thinking of how queer theorists like José Estaban Muñoz, 11
through his idea of disidentification, and Alicia Arrizón, through her 12
idea of transculturation as performance, have argued for understanding 13
the Latina/o gendered and racialized subject as always in flux and as 14
signifying multiple realities that refer historical configurations of these 15
subjects.53 This seems very close to the performances I have witnessed 16
in the expression of possession pasts and selves in my work with Afro- 17
Cuban religious communities as a whole. 18
Interestingly, these performances are both bounded and fluid, 19
again like the merging and splitting of the two kinds of waters that 20
make up Yemayá and Ochún. For example, a female priestess whose 21
“head” or main oricha is male incorporates this identity into her sense 22
of personhood. She also performs this “male” identity during specified 23
rituals. A santera, palera, and/or espiritista may embody, hear, and com- 24
municate other beings through her own thoughts and actions: a doctor, 25
a former nun, a Congo slave. Some of these beings are gendered as 26
male, some as female, and some as ambiguous. All of these characters 27
play an important role in creating the spiritual menagerie necessary to 28
conduct the work that Afro-Cuban vernacular religion performs socially 29
and culturally. That is, this variegated social imaginary creates a template 30
for performing a version of history that comments on colonialism, slav- 31
ery, and transculturation.54 The politics of who becomes whom and why 32
are at the heart of how we understand the relationships among race, 33
spiritual power, and nation-building in contemporary Cuba.55 And, the 34
idea of los hijo/as de las dos aguas represents a specific manifestation of 35
how this ontological process is performed and discursively understood 36
through the symbology of Yemayá and Ochún. 37
In looking at Cabrera’s readings of the orichas in Yemayá y Ochún, 38
orichas may also manifest queer sensibilities in terms of both gender and 39
sexuality. In Cabrera’s text, as Quiroga clearly marks for El monte, we 40
find talk about the orichas’ fluid identities in terms of gender and sexu- 41
ality. Information that queers deities is often divulged in a p ­ olyphonic 42
43

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 98 Solimar Otero

1 manner, through a dialogic interplay that uses rumor and reported

2 speech to convey these qualities.56 This is where Cabrera’s text mimics
3 the discursive mode of vernacular speech and folklore, where the oral
4 becomes a vehicle for imparting as permissible what is usually unspeak-
5 able. That is, her talk about the gendering and sexing the orichas often
6 takes the form of hearsay: as unofficial knowledge that could neither
7 be confirmed nor denied.
8 For example, Cabrera speaks about Yemayá’s relationship with
9 queer avatars of the orichas: Obatala, Orula, and Inle.57 She describes
10 Orula as an “adodi,” a male with a sexual preference for males, who
11 leaves Yemayá for Ogun.58 In speaking about instances of same sex love
12 between the divinities, she writes, “It [same sex love] is not such a ter-
13 rible mark of shame for Orúmbila: Obatalá Odua also had love affairs
14 with another Adó [gay male being] and lived with him in the shade of
15 a cottonwood tree.”59
16 Cabrera also asserts on the same page, “Yemayá was madly in
17 love with the androgynous, gorgeous Inle.”60 It is important to note
18 Cabrera’s positioning of Yemayá in her roles as a protector and a lover
19 of these orichas. Note Yemayá’s affinity for friendship for and infatuation
20 with queerly gendered and sexualized spiritual beings.61 For Cabrera,
21 writing as a queer (and lesbian) subject herself, her text gives the charac-
22 ter of Yemayá access to a kind of power that transforms static notions of
23 gender and sexed bodies, as well as the kinds of love and affection that
24 can be expressed through these performances of embodiment. Cabrera,
25 like a true hijo/a de las dos aguas, also positions Ochún as having a
26 sexual relationship with the androgynous Inle, one that rivals Yemayá’s
27 passion for the fish deity.62 In this manner, Cabrera depicts the fluidity
28 of Yemayá and Ochún as also extending to aspects of their sexuality,
29 passion, and emotional selves. In these very important senses, then, the
30 two refuse to be located in fixed, rigid categories in terms of how they
31 choose to express their intimacy with other beings.
32 Through this rendering of Yemayá (and of Ochún), Cabrera pro-
33 vides a coded guide for understanding queer entities that is complicated
34 and layered. She even has Yemayá perform her own queerness when
35 she writes, “Yemayá liked to hunt, to cut, to wield the machete. In
36 this camino she is marimacho and dresses like a man . . . Yemayá is
37 at times so masculine that she becomes a man.”63 Cabrera’s use of the
38 term marimacho, tomboy or masculine woman, is significant because
39 it has been appropriated by Chicana/Latina queer theorists like Gloria
40 Anzaldúa and Alicia Arrizón to represent a kind of lesbian location that
41 signals a performance of what we could call a “butch” aesthetic.64
42
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 Yemayá y Ochún 99

The use of chisme and rumor as the tone for Cabrera’s consid- 1
eration of gender and sexuality among the orichas, as in the example 2
above, illustrates a subversive mode of world making in terms of both 3
women’s speech and subaltern knowledges that cannot be verified in 4
conventional, official ways.65 These chismes about the deities perform an 5
alternate history, a queer history that wants to resist a heteronormative 6
and patriarchal domestication of the deities. In the end, we see that 7
Cabrera situates Yemayá’s gender and sexuality in the realm of perfor- 8
mance, allowing her to be feminine, masculine, and queer. This queer 9
positioning of the orichas in Cabrera’s text is not limited to this coded 10
text. Rather, Cabrera gives us clues as how to read the variegated nature 11
of the performance of gender and sexuality in religious communities that 12
stem from intersectional beliefs and practices. 13
I want to emphasize that Afro-Cuban religions also have a template 14
for reconstructing gender and sexuality in a manner that can destabilize 15
machista or patriarchal enforcements of practice.66 And the popular and 16
multifaceted deities of Yemayá and Ochún are the perfect starting points 17
for investigating fluid renditions of gender and personhood that defy 18
easy classification. There is a dislocation and relocation of gendered, 19
racialized, and transgendered subjects in performances that reinscribe the 20
body through possession. This is especially so for Yemayá and Ochún 21
because of their many avatars that can be embodied, performed, and 22
expressed in Afro-Cuban religious contexts. Add to the multiplicity of 23
Yemayás and Ochúns the vernacular Catholic iconography of La Virgen 24
de la Caridad del Cobre and La Virgen de Regla, and one gets two 25
Catholic saints whose iconography of the embodiment of the divine is 26
one of two women of color.67 27
These cultural performances and images are rooted in the post- 28
colonial historical context of Cuba in a manner that creates interest- 29
ing allegories to how queer and gendered subjects are understood to 30
emerge.68 For example, some processes of queer and gendered embodi- 31
ment as performance as described by Judith Butler and José Estaban 32
Muñoz highlight the play with signifiers that the performance of posses- 33
sion suggests.69 In addition, these performances are linked to the social 34
conditions that coordinate how santeras manage the power play in the 35
gendered, racialized, and sexualized identities that they are expected to 36
perform for the spiritual community. Quiroga rightly observes that Afro- 37
Cuban religions’ intersectionality displays a hermeneutics that combines 38
coexisting aspects that can be performed in a “simulataneous manner.”70 39
I would add that the Afro-Cuban religious subject’s ability to disidentify 40
and perform a multitude of intersecting selves that are ambiguous and 41
42
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 100 Solimar Otero

1 hard to locate in a rigid manner makes these traditions apt for queering.
2 In thinking about how these vernacular sets of practices are woven into
3 the discourse of how selfhood and the world are understood, we real-
4 ize that like Yemayá and Ochún meeting where the two waters meet,
5 contemporary Afro-Cuban religious contexts can meet the global chal-
6 lenge and lead the call toward recognizing a fluidity of gender, race,
7 and sexuality found in experience-centered religious traditions.
8
9
10 Conclusion: Reading Vernacular Religious
11 Agency and Lydia Cabrera’s Codes
12
13 A Yemayá Olokun, inmensamente, inagotablemente rica, le debe
14 Ochún, su hermana menor, la amable y pródiga dueña del Río, del
15 Amor, del Coral y del Ambar, su proverbial riqueza. . . . Es mucho
16 lo que Ochún debe a Yemayá.
17 The immensely, inexhaustibly rich Yemayá Olokun owes to Ochún,
18 her younger sister, the kind and prodigious queen of the River, of
19 Love, of Coral, of Amber, her proverbial richness. . . . It is much
20 that Ochún owes to Yemayá.
21 —Lydia Cabrera, Yemayá y Ochún.71
22
23
24 With Lydia Cabrera nothing is hidden, but then again nothing is
explained.
25
26 —José Quiroga, Tropics of Desire.72
27
28
29 I want to come full circle in closing this piece on the fluid relationship
30 between Yemayá and Ochún by thinking about how vernacular logics
31 in Afro-Cuban religion are expressed by a range of practitioners in a
32 plethora of genres of expression: personal experience narratives, ritual
33 praxis, material culture, ethnographic writing, fiction, plastic arts, and
34 so on. In doing so I also want to call attention to how Cabrera’s writ-
35 ing mimics the agency that Afro-Cuban religious boundary play affords
36 in its ability to defy categorization and rigidity. Adept practitioners like
37 Abreo González and Zamora Albuquerque negotiate the fluid discourses
38 that allow for the porous, and sometime contentious, coexistence of
39 Santería, Palo, and Espiritismo in their ritual and narrative expressions.73
40 Similarly, Cabrera creates a textured bricolage in Yemayá y Ochún by
41 playing with the boundaries of textual form. Her use of reported speech,
42 chisme, ethnographic writing, interview excerpts, and storytelling make
43

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 Yemayá y Ochún 101

this text, like El Monte, a work that mimics the vernacular logics of 1
hybridity found in the traditions she is describing and recoding for 2
her readers.74 As Quiroga notes above for Cabrera’s work, she codes 3
her text in a manner that performs the representation of Afro-Cuban 4
religions in layers, in many different voices that create a heteroglossia, 5
a polyphonic text for readers.75 6
Like with rituals of spirit possession, we find that it takes multiple 7
sets of ears to decipher the variegated voices embedded in Cabrera’s 8
Yemayá y Ochún. Some hear the nostalgic voice of a prerevolutionary 9
Cuba; others hear the gossip of the gods themselves; and still others 10
hear the loud, converging sound of an animated conversation written in 11
a Cuban vernacular. Yet, in all these instances, whether reading Cabrera’s 12
text or deciphering the message of a mounted Yemayá or Ochún, a bit 13
of translation as a creative process within itself is required. That is, both 14
Cabrera and Afro-Cuban religious discourses invoke a kind of active, 15
participatory listening that reorders our sensibilities toward both ritual 16
and text. 17
Take as an example of a coded, loaded message the following pas- 18
sage from Yamayá y Ochún: 19
20
Era increíble, cuando nos marchamos de Cuba el 1960, el 21
número de Iyalochas, babalochas, babalawos, Padres Inkisa, 22
“gangulueros,” espiritistas, ñáñigos, todos erróneamente califi- 23
cados de brujos, que vivían en paz bajo del manto de “Mama 24
Azul,” a la vera del santuario [de La Virgen de Regla]. 25
26
It was incredible, when we left Cuba in 1960, the number 27
of Iyalochas, babalochas, babalawos, Padres Inkisa, “gangu- 28
lueros,” espiritistas, ñáñigos, all erroneously classified as sor- 29
cerers, that lived in peace under the mantle of the “Mama 30
Azul” [Blue Mother], on the outskirts of the sanctuary [of 31
Our Lady of Regla].76 32
33
This passage requires that readers engage and code switch in a range of 34
linguistic and religious registers.77 In it, Cabrera combines aspects of dia- 35
sporic nostalgia, religious cross-coding between distinct Afro-Cuban reli- 36
gious cultures, and a lightly veiled reference to the syncretism between 37
Yemayá and La Virgen de Regla. The phrasing also suggests a critique 38
of the racist, colonial, and stereotypical gaze that renders all practitioners 39
of Afro-Cuban religions “sorcerers.” 40
In addition, the image of Yemayá/La Virgen de Regla as the 41
unifying figure of “Mama Azul” is presented as a benefactor to the 42
43

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 102 Solimar Otero

1 cacophony of religious practitioners living near her shrine(s). Yet these

2 images and their phrasing, as layered and mellifluous as they seem, are
3 also deceptive in certain kinds of coding by Cabrera. For example, the
4 above “Iyalochas, babalochas, babalawos, Padres Inkisa, ‘gangulueros,’
5 espiritistas, and ñáñigos” that Cabrera separates from “brujos/sorcer-
6 ers” are also indeed embedded as sources of knowledge for performing
7 magical acts in other chapters in the text. For example, one particular
8 chapter of Yemayá y Ochún, “Itaná idi ochiché. Velas, ligámenes y trabajos
9 de Santería / Itaná idi ochiché. Candles, Binding Spells, and Works of
10 Santería,”78 is entirely dedicated to describing in detail how to work
11 with herbs, stones, powders, and other ingredients that can heal, bind
12 lovers, harm an enemy, and perform other kinds of conjure.79 Thus, the
13 above quote, when taken as a part of the whole text of Yemayá y Ochún,
14 resonates with the negotiation of uncovering yet also hiding certain
15 kinds of information, resonances, and connections between the different
16 sectors of Afro-Cuban religions that Cabrera is seeking to perform, as
17 Quiroga would agree, in her text.
18 This performativity lies at the heart of understanding how los hijo/
19 as de las dos aguas manifest themselves in multiple and varying ways.
20 In this chapter we heard from a daughter of Ochún and a daughter
21 of Yemayá, Claudina Abreo Gonzalez and Mercedes Zamora Alburqu-
22 erque, who approached their ritually symbiotic relationships to Yemayá
23 and Ochún in a similar fashion. By utilizing the natural imagery of the
24 sites where the rivers flow into the ocean, both priestesses expressed the
25 inherent fluidity found in their boundary play in regards to their devo-
26 tional acts toward the water deities. Also, a proclivity toward another
27 kind of boundary play alluded to by Cabrera above that combines ele-
28 ments of Santería, Palo, and Espiritismo moves entities like Yemayá
29 into different discursive frameworks and realms of praxis. Like Cabrera,
30 practitioners push the boundaries of differentiation and incorporation
31 through a performative coding that is then actively reinterpreted and
32 added to by the religious communities as a whole.
33 A major aspect that Cabrera and practitioners’ codes of perform-
34 ing Afro-Cuban religions reveals is the fluidity of subjectivity because
35 of the shifting nature of embodiment and selfhood. As with the many
36 switches of voice in the text Yemayá y Ochún, so too are different
37 selves, names, titles, and voices expressed by practitioners of Afro-Cuban
38 religions as they create who they are in religious, cultural, and social
39 contexts. Indeed, a tendency exists toward multiplicity in constructing
40 and performing especially gendered and sexualized identities. Yet this
41 is complicated by the ramifications of Cuba’s postcolonial past in how
42 embodying history through possession rituals also marks the body in
43

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 Yemayá y Ochún 103

specific ways, such as within racial and ethnic parameters that need to be 1
critically assessed. In this regard, representations of Yemayá and Ochún 2
are profoundly marked mythological figures that display these ethnic, 3
racial, and gendered tensions. However, the fluidity attributed to these 4
representations marks a kind of agency that also challenges the stereo- 5
types used to describe them as sexualized women of color. Like Cabrera’s 6
text, images of Yemayá and Ochún described by practitioners carry their 7
own codes that can undo, confuse, and deconstruct themselves. 8
9
10
Notes 11
12
The fieldwork conducted in Cuba for this piece was made possible by 13
funding from the Harvard Divinity School’s Women’s Studies in Religion
14
Program. Many thanks to my collaborators in this chapter, Claudina Abreo
González and Mercedes Zamora Albuquerque, who generously spoke with me
15
about Yemayá and Ochún during this visit. 16
1. Lydia Cabrera, Yemayá y Ochún (Miami: Colección de Chicherekú, Edi- 17
ciones Universal 1980), 55. All translations from Spanish to English are my own. 18
2. José Quiroga, Tropics of Desire (New York: New York University Press, 19
2000), 76. 20
3. Cabrera, Yemayá, 21–41; Quiroga, Tropics, 76–78; Edna M. Rodríguez- 21
Mangual, Lydia Cabrera and the Construction of an Afro-Cuban Cultural Iden- 22
tity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 59–98. 23
4. Mei Mei Sanford, “Living Water,” in Osun across the Waters, ed. Joseph 24
Murphy and Mei-Mei Sanford (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001),
25
240.
5. Roy Clive Abrahams, Dictionary of Modern Yoruba (London: University
26
of London Press, 1958), 528. 27
6. J. Lorand Matory, Black Atlantic Religion (Princeton: Princeton Uni- 28
versity Press, 2005), 247–48. 29
7. Mary Ann Clark, Santería: Correcting the Myths and Uncovering the 30
Realities of a Growing Religion (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007); Mary Ann Clark, 31
Where Men Are Wives and Mothers Rule (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 32
2005). 33
8. Oyeronke Olajubu, Women in the Yoruba Religious Sphere (Albany: 34
State University of New York Press, 2003); Oyeronke Olademo, Gender in 35
Yoruba Oral Traditions, Lagos: Centre for Black and Africa Arts and Civilizations
36
(CBAAC), 2009; Jacob K. Olupona, “Orisa Osun: Sacred Kingship and Civil
Religion in Osogbo, Nigeria,” in Osun across the Waters, ed. Joseph Murphy
37
and Mei Mei Sanford (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 47–67; 38
Babatunde Lawal, The Gelede Spectacle (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 39
1996), 42–43, 49, 256; Rachel Elizabeth Harding, “What Part of the River 40
You’re In,” in Osun across the Waters, ed. Joseph Murphy and Mei-Mei Sanford 41
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 165–88; Matory, Black Atlantic, 42
43

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 104 Solimar Otero

1 151, 247–48; J. Lorand Matory, Sex and the Empire That Is No More (Oxford
2 and New York: Berghahn Books, 2005); Cabrera, Yemayá, 43–46; Rodríguez-
3 Mangual, Lydia Cabrera, 13, 90–93; Quiroga, Tropics, 76, 81; Randy P. Conner
4 and David Hatfield Sparks, Queering Creole Spiritual Traditions (Binghamton:
Harrington Park, 2004), 108–09; 235–37.
5
  9. See Natalia Bolívar, Los Orishas en Cuba (Havana: Unión, 1995). The
6
connections among La Virgen de Regla, La Caridad del Cobre, Yemayá, and
7 Ochún in Cuba are particularly felt in the sphere of the island’s public culture
8 on the contiguous Catholic feast days of September 7 for La Virgen de Regla
9 and September 8 for La Caridad del Cobre, where celebrations in honor of the
10 two Catholic saints and the two orichas are vigorously and elaborately expressed.
11 For more on these connections see Cabrera’s Yemayá, 9–19, 55–69.
12 10. All excerpts of Mercedes Zamora Albuquerque and Claudina Abreo
13 González in this chapter are taken from interviews that took place in November
14 2009. Both women were interviewed in their homes in Havana, Cuba.
15 11. Iyalocha can be translated as “mother of the gods.” For more on
race, religion, and gender in Havana, see Solimar Otero, “The Ruins of Havana:
16
Representations of Memory, Religion, and Gender,” Atlantic Studies 9, no. 2
17
(2012): 143–63.
18 12. Claudina Abreo González, Interview with author, Havana, Cuba,
19 2009.
20 13. This is similar to how Yoruba traditional orature also has an oral
21 literary criticism and accepted aesthetic based on quotation. For more on this
22 point see Karin Barber’s essay, “Quotation and the Constitution of Yoruba Oral
23 Texts,” Research in African Literatures 30, no. 2 (1999): 1–17.
24 14. Alan Dundes, “Metafolklore and Oral Literary Criticism,” in The
25 Meaning of Folklore, ed. Simon J. Bronner (Logan: Utah State University Press,
26 2007), 80–87.
15. Yemayá is associated with mermaids and her long hair in the tale
27
may be related to the folk literature motif B81.9.1, Mermaid’s hair reaches her
28
waist, found in Stith Thompson’s, Motif-index of Folk-Literature (Bloomington:
29 Indiana University Press, 1955–58), 370–71.
30 16. Abreo González, interview, Havana, Cuba, 2009.
31 17. Cabrera, Yemayá, 70, 83.
32 18. Thompson, Motif-index, 370–71; Henry John Drewal, ed. Sacred
33 Waters (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), xii–xvii, 1–18.
34 19. Cabrera, Yemayá, 55, 70, 83; Isabel Castellanos, “A River of Many
35 Turns: The Polysemy of Ochún in Afro-Cuban Tradition,” in Osun across the
36 Waters, ed. Joseph Murphy and Mei-Mei Sanford (Bloomington: Indiana Uni-
37 versity Press, 2001), 27, 41.
20. Cabrera, Yemayá, 117–99.
38
21. Ibid., 83–84.
39
22. Vera M. Kutzinski, Sugar’s Secrets: Race and the Erotics of Cuban
40 Nationalism (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993) 5, 75, 165–66,
41 174–79; Alicia Arrizón, Queering Mestizaje: Transculturation and Performance
42 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 101–06.
43

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 Yemayá y Ochún 105

23. For more on the connections between Ochún and La Virgen de 1

la Caridad del Cobre see Joseph Murphy, “Yéyé Cachita: Ochún in a Cuban 2
Mirror,” in Osun across the Waters, ed. Joseph Murphy and Mei-Mei Sanford 3
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 87–101. 4
24. Arrizón, Queering, 117.
5
25. Jose Estaban Muñoz, Disidentifications (Minneapolis: University of
6
Minnesota Press, 1999), 31–33.
26. Cabrera, Yemayá, 79. 7
27. Thompson, Motif-index, 371. 8
28. Ibid. 9
29. Drewal, Mami Wata, 1–18. 10
30. Barber, I Could Speak until Tomorrow (Washington, DC: Smithsonian 11
Institution Press, 1991); Olajubu, Women, 27–30; Olademo, Gender, 105–09. 12
31. Clark, Santería, 131–44; Clarke, Where Men, xix–xx. 13
32. Quiroga, Tropics, 81. 14
33. David Samper, “Cannibalizing Kids: Rumor and Resistance in Latin 15
America,” Journal of Folklore Research 39, no. 1 (2002): 1–32; Paulette Silva
16
Beauregard, “La feminización del héroe moderno y la novela en ‘Lucía Jerez’
17
y ‘El hombre de hierro,’ ” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 26,
no. 52 (2000): 135–51; Juan Pablo Dabove, “Los pasquines como alegoría de 18
la disolución de la ciudadanía en ‘La mala hora, de Gabriel García Márquez,’ ” 19
Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 26, no. 52 (2000): 269–87; Adam 20
Jaworski and Justine Coupland, “Othering in Gossip: ‘You Go out You Have 21
a Laugh and You Can Pull Yeah Okay but Like . . .’ ” Language in Society 34, 22
no.5 (2005): 667–94; Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands: La Frontera, 2nd ed. (San 23
Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1999), 76. 24
34. Laura Alexandra Harris, “Queer Black Feminism: The Pleasure Prin- 25
ciple,” Feminist Review 4 (1996): 3–30. 26
35. See Harding, “What Part,” 165–88.
27
36. Kamari Maxine Clarke, Mapping Yorùbá Networks (Durham, NC:
28
Duke University Press, 2004), 257–78.
37. Beliso De-Jesús, Aisha, “Reimagining the ‘Global’ versus ‘Local’: Reli- 29
gious Cosmopolitanisms and Transnational Santería.” Forthcoming. 30
38. See Micaela Sánchez-Díaz chapter in this volume, “ ‘Yemaya Blew that 31
Wire Fence Down’: Invoking African Spiritualities in Chicana Cultural Produc- 32
tion,” for more on mestiza representations of Yemayá. 33
39. Abreo González, interview, Havana, Cuba, 2009. 34
40. Ibid. 35
41. Ysamur Flores-Peña, “ ‘Overflowing with Beauty’: The Ochún Altar in 36
LucumíAesthetic Tradition,” in Osun across the Waters, ed. Joseph M. Murphy 37
and Mei-Mei Sanford (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 114–16,
38
20; David HilaryBrown, Santería Enthroned (Chicago: University of Chicago
39
Press, 2003), 218–19, 224; Cabrera, Yemayá, 114–15.
42. Cabrera, Yemayá, 115. 40
43. Quiroga, Tropics, 76–78, 80; Rodríguez-Mangual, Lydia Cabrera, 41
96–104. See also for an example containing Yemayá, Cabrera, El Monte Igbo 42
43

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 106 Solimar Otero

1 Finda Ewe Orisha. Vititi Nfinde (Miami: Colección de Chicherekú en el exilio,

2 Ediciones Universal, 1983), 41–42.
3 44. Cabrera, Yemayá, 70–71.
4 45. Ibid., 22, 29.
46. Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (New York: Routledge,
5
2010), 166–72; Victor Turner, The Ritual Process (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction,
6
1995), 94, 96, 102–18, 189.
7 47. Karin Barber, “Oríkì, Women and the Proliferation and Merging of
8 Orisa,” Africa 60, no. 3 (1990): 313–37; Pierre Fatumbi Verger, “Trance and
9 Convention in Nago-Yoruba Spirit Mediumship,” in Spirit Mediumship and
10 Society in Africa, ed. John Beattie and John Middleton (New York: Africana,
11 1969), 50–66; Ruth Landes, The City of Women (Albuquerque: University of
12 New Mexico Press, 1994), 231–34; Matory, Black Atlantic, 64–70, 220–24,
13 265; Matory, Sex, 215–23.
14 48. Solimar Otero, “Spirit Possession, Havana, and the Night: Listening
15 and Ritual in Cuban Fiction,” Western Folklore 66, no. 1/2 (2007): 61–64;
Margaret Thompson Drewal, Yoruba Ritual (Bloomington: Indiana University
16
Press, 1992), 12–28; Olabiyi Babalola Yai, “In Praise of Metonymy: The Con-
17
cepts of ‘Tradition’ and ‘Creativity’ in the Transmission of Yoruba Artistry over
18 Time and Space,” in The Yoruba Artist, ed. Henry Drewal et al. (Washington:
19 Smithsonian Institute Press, 1994), 113–14.
20 49. Mercedes Zamora Albuquerque, interview with author, Havana, Cuba,
21 2009.
22 50. Kali Argyriadis, La religión à la Havane (Paris: Éditions Archives
23 Contemporaines, 1999); Kamari Maxine Clarke, Mapping, 52–58, 72–73.
24 51. Raquel Romberg, “ ‘Today, Changó Is Changó’: How Africanness
25 becomes a Ritual Commodity in Puerto Rico,” Western Folklore 66, no.1/2
26 (2007): 75–106; Viarnés Carrie, “Cultural Memory in Afro-Cuban Possession:
Problematizing Spiritual Categories, Resurfacing ‘Other’ Histories,” Western
27
Folklore 66, no. 1/2 (2007): 127–60.
28
52. Kamari Maxine Clarke and Deborah A. Thomas, eds., Globalization
29 and Race (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 3–4, 10–14; Raquel Rom-
30 berg, Witchcraft and Welfare (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003), 205–07.
31 53. Muñoz, Disidentifications, 8–11, 21–23; Arrizón, Queering, 88–91,
32 95–99, 177–78.
33 54. Viarnés, “Cultural Memory,” 129–30, 150–53; Christina Ayorinde,
34 Afro-Cuban Religiosity, Revolution and National Identity (Tampa and Miami:
35 University Press of Florida, 2004), 40–43, 64–69, 144–45.
36 55. For an example of how Yemayá becomes a vehicle for similar kinds
37 of negotiations surrounding gender and ritual power in Nigerian contexts see
Matory, Sex, 243–50, 253–64.
38
56. Quiroga, Tropics, 85–88; Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination,
39
ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: Uni-
40 versity of Texas Press, 1982), 273, 278–93, 324–25, 399.
41 57. Cabrera, Yemayá, 44–45.
42 58. Ibid., 44–45; Rodríguez-Mangual, Lydia Cabrera, 91–92.
43

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 Yemayá y Ochún 107

59. Cabrera, Yemayá, 45. 1

60. Ibid. 2
61. Ibid., 44–45. 3
62. Ibid., 87. 4
63. Ibid., 45–46.
5
64. Anzaldúa in Arrizón, Queering, 158.
6
65. Anzaldúa, Borderlands, 1999, 76–79; Arrizón, Queering, 160–75;
Samper, “Cannibalizing,” 1–32; Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, “Traveling Transgres- 7
sions,” in Reading and Writing the Ambiente, ed. Susana Chávez-Silverman and 8
Librada Hernández (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 200–38; 9
Rodríguez-Mangual, Lydia Cabrera, 60–99. 10
66. Rodríguez-Mangual, Lydia Cabrera, 91, 100–12; Clark, Where Men, 11
xix–xx. 12
67. Cabrera, Yemayá, 20–44, 69–91, 112–19; Joseph M. Murphy, “Yéyé 13
Cachita,” in Osun across the Waters, ed. Joseph Murphy and Mei-Mei Sanford 14
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 87–101. 15
68. Jafari Sinclaire Allen, “Means of Desire’s Production: Male Sex Labor
16
in Cuba 1,” Identities 14, no. 1/2 (2007): 183–202.
17
69. Judith Butler, Excitable Speech (New York: Routledge, 1997), 71–73,
93, 99; Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter (New York: Routledge, 1993), 139– 18
68, 169–85; Muñoz, Disidentifications, 12–13, 80, 92, 189–93. 19
70. Quiroga, Tropics, 79. 20
71. Cabrera, Yamayá, 55. 21
72. Quiroga, Tropics, 77–78. 22
73. Viarnés, “Cultural Memory,” 127–60; Romberg, “Today Changó,” 23
75–106; Julyanne E. Dodson, Sacred Spaces and Religious Traditions in Oriente 24
Cuba (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2008), 7–8, 81–103, 25
124–46. 26
74. Rodríguez-Mangual, Lydia Cabrera, 59–98.
27
75. Quiroga, Tropics, 80–84; Bakhtin, The Dialogic, 270–72, 300–02, 430.
28
76. Cabrera, Yemayá, 16.
77. Kristina Wirtz, Ritual, Discourse, and Community in Cuban Santería 29
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007); Isabel Castellanos, “From Ulu- 30
kumí to Lucumí,” in Santería Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art, 31
ed. Arturo Lindsay (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institute Press, 32
1996), 39–50. 33
78. Cabrera translates the lucumí phrases Itaná, idi, ochiché in Spanish as 34
velas, amarres, and hechizos, respectively. See Cabrera, Yemayá, 290n184. 35
79. Cabrera, Yemayá, 290–341. 36
37
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