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Orbeín: Back to His Roots
José Orbeín. The Speech of the Mute, 2008, Mixed media on canvas. 68” x 74”
By Raisa Clavijo
The culture of the Caribbean invariably bears the mark of mixed races and cultural syncretism dating back to the 16th Century. It is impossible to analyze the Cuban and Caribbean scene from a socio-cultural point of view without considering the influence of Africa. (1)
The anthropologist and ethnologist, Fernando Ortiz, in his Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y del azúcar employs the term “transculturation” to explain the process of transition and adaptation, which occurred between the cultures that converged in the Caribbean at the time of the Conquest and Colonization. In this respect, he states:
“… the term ‘transculturation’ best expresses the different phases of the transitive process from one culture to another, because this entails not only the acquisition of a different culture, which is strictly speaking what the Anglo-American term “acculturation” means, but the process also necessarily implies the loss or uprooting of a preceding culture (…) The union of cultures occurs similarly to the genetic coupling of individuals: the child always has something of each progenitor, but is also always different from each of them.”(2)
An inevitable symbiosis was produced, a crossbreeding, a mixing of races that resulted in a new product, which although it bore the traces of its origins, had its own voice and characteristics. Since the beginning of the 16th Century, Africans, brought over as slaves to those insular territories, suffered the imposition of a totally-foreign social, cultural and belief system. Nevertheless, in spite of adverse living conditions, they absorbed European, Asian, and to a lesser extent indigenous influences (3), without losing the essence of their own cults and customs.
As a result, these endured and were transmitted from generation to generation: work styles, rituals, belief systems, ethical and moral values, traces of a distant Africa today viewed with respect, and which survive, reproduced in domestic and familial spaces. The oeuvre of the artist, José Orbeín (1951), is a believable example of how traditional African values have survived the passage of time and the onslaught of modernity.
Orbeín was born and grew up in the working-class neighborhood of Cayo Hueso, in Havana, in the heart of a family of carabalí (4) origin, according to a family tree that his maternal grandmother kept, who in turn had inherited it from hers. He grew up in an environment marked by deep religiosity, in the midst of a difficult family economic crisis, and in a context in which respect was gained with one’s fists. In an interview he told me that, from the time he was a little boy, his greatest desire was to become Efori Enkomó, that is to say ekobio or a member of the Abakuá Society, as were many men from his neighborhood. The Abakuá Society constitutes a unique phenomenon in America. It is a secret mutual aid society, comprised only of men, whose origins can be precisely traced back to the Calabar region of Nigeria. It is a phenomenon that only manifests itself in Nigeria and in Cuba, where it was initiated at around the third decade of the 19th Century, specifically in Havana and in the neighboring towns of Regla and Guanabacoa; as well as in the cities of Matanzas and Cárdenas, also located on the western part of the Island.(5) Today the foundations and rituals of this secret society survive intact, barely contaminated by the influences of other cultures or contemporary life.
The historian and ethnologist, Enrique Sosa, in his book Los ñáñigos, writes of the Abakuá Society:
“Abakuá, secret society exclusively for men, self-financed through membership fees and money collected from its members, with a complex hierarchical organization of dignitaries (plazas) and assistants, the presence of otherworldly beings, a dark ritual whose secret - jealously guarded - is made manifest in a drum called ekwé, ceremonies of initiation, renewal, purification and death, temporal and eternal blessings, internal laws and punishments of obligatory execution and acceptance, an inscrutable, esoteric language, and a graphic language, accompanied by signatures, seals and sacred strokes, constitutes, to this day, an unparalleled cultural phenomenon in Cuba and in America (…)”(6)
The Abakuá Society is ideologically based on the myth of Sikán or Sikanekue (7), an ancient legend which recounts the discovery and death of the miraculous fish, Tánze, who was to bring prosperity and a glorious future to all who possessed him.
Through his work, José Orbeín attempts to vindicate the figure of the Abakuá, discredited within Cuban society because of a collection of stories, most of them false, which associate its members with criminal acts. For this reason, the artist takes elements from the sect’s beliefs and rituals, in order to capture aspects of current reality and to exalt the values of the rigorous codes of ethics and conduct that govern the group. Although the Abakuá theme has always been present, it is only in the last eight years that its presence has been made almost constant in the works of this artist.
Orbeín began painting intuitively. This aptitude was encouraged by his maternal grandmother, who lacking the resources to provide him with materials, gave him cardboard and craft paper, so that he could paint on them with charcoal or anything else he might find; elements that the author has taken up again in many of his recent works. Orbeín confesses that it was painting that saved him from a difficult childhood and an adolescence marked by delinquency and marginality. He did not study arts formally; instead, he had possibly the best of all masters, the Cuban painter, Humberto Peña. Friendship with this creator provided him with theoretical training and a solid upbringing.
In 1980, Orbeín settled in the United States and trained as a graphic designer at Penn State University continuing studies which he had started in Cuba. The artist confesses that once he became acquainted with it all, having had access to great museums and the works of the great masters; he intuitively returned to his origins, and he concentrated on depicting over and over again his family background, his culture, the legends of his childhood, the stories of his Cayo Hueso neighborhood. He felt proud of his roots and committed to restoring the prestige of the Abakuá through his work.
From a formal point of view, it is common to find semiabstract backgrounds in his pieces, in which one can play at finding hidden figures. These backgrounds come from his memories of the crumbling, peeling, faded walls of his house, on which he imagined the silhouettes of fish, birds, reptiles, leopards, great warriors and other elements that his mind constructed out of the enormous wealth of African myths and tales that enlivened his childhood. Elongated forms which look like knives or boomerangs proliferate in his paintings and drawings, reminiscent of the works of the Chilean, Roberto Matta, to whose oeuvre he was closely linked stylistically in his first pieces at the end of the seventies. These forms are combined with free and gestural brushstrokes, alluding at times to the strokes of Cy Twombly; and which, in turn, coexist with expressionist and almost tactile backgrounds, calling to mind some of Anselm Kiefer’s pieces. Nevertheless, his style is very personal and defined; it comes from an ability to learn from the great masters without falling prey to mimicry, instead unleashing his own means of expressing himself ungoverned by trends.
In Orbeín’s oeuvre we find passages alluding to different moments in the myth which upholds the Abakuá Secret Society, combined with a dense undergrowth of symbols associated with this group’s rituals. There is an abundance of ideograms or “anaforuanas,” kinds of symbols made with chalk that allude to specific elements within the ritual and which have a consecrating function within it. On occasion these ideograms are accompanied by written texts, most in the Ibibio language, although they can also indiscriminately appear in English or Spanish. Usually these texts refer metaphorically to rules or codes of ethics or conduct within the sect. When an investigator or art critic approaches to interpret this artist’s work in depth, he runs across the impediment that on many occasions interpretation of each of the symbols is made difficult; because many of them cannot be revealed in their entirety, since they contain details of the Abakuá secret.
Among the pieces that express a message associated with the code of ethics of the society is “Ekué Brusón Obonekue, Mbori Mapá Eriero” (The goat who breaks the drum will pay for it with his skin), 2008. This painting addresses an Abakuá fundamental principle, which is that the individual is responsible for his actions and should answer for them in front of others. During the initiation rite, a goat is sacrificed, “paying” with his skin, which is then used to make the drum or ekwé on which this group’s tradition is based. That is why the metaphor of the sacrificial goat is used to remind the Abakuá of the responsibility he must have for his behavior. Other works that display Abakuá rules of conduct are “The Speech of the Mute” and “Aguarandabia Consundabia, Consundabia Agueremí” (Friend with friends, enemy with enemies), both created in 2008. While the first refers to the fact that group members are prohibited from spreading rumors, let alone revealing any of the sect’s mysteries; the second alludes to the implacable punishment, often mortal with which the Abakuá can cleanse an affront.
For their part, pieces such as “Otowañé” and “Sikanekue,” both from 2007 deal with fragments of myths that swirl around the sect. “Sikanekue” is a work of large dimensions featuring Princess Sikán, the first Abakuá, since she was the first being to find the mythical fish Tánze and receive consecration. However, at the same time, she was the first to betray the sect’s secret. In “Otowañé” (8) the artist shows, associated with the history of this mythical personage, the symbolic figure of the íreme (or “diablito” - little devil - as he is also known in Cuba). The íreme, representing ancestral spirits, participates in initiation ceremonies and, particularly in Cuba, dances the Otowañé Mbeke dance, among others.
In other works, such as, Ekobio Mukarará (White Brother) 2007, the artist addresses important moments in the history of the Abakuá Society in Cuba. This painting specifically refers to the admission of White and Mulatto men into the sect initially reserved only to men of pure African descent. With this gesture, he vindicates the figure of Andrés Facundo de los Dolores Petit (9), who in 1863 founded the Akanarán Efó or Okobio Mukarará Efó (10) lodge, and whose decision to allow the initiation into the sect of Whites and mestizos, who usually enjoyed the greatest power within the social framework, allowed it to survive the persecutions it was subjected to during most of the 19th and 20th Centuries. This painting is dedicated to his friend, the renowned artist, José Bedia, whose oeuvre addresses, from an anthropological perspective, religious cults and the traditions of primitive cultures, not only of African origin, but also of indigenous groups of Latin America. In contrast to Bedia, who interested in delving into the Primigenious origins of the human species, takes these cultures as raw material for his work; Orbeín approaches the Abakuá phenomenon from a purely social commitment.
This short expanse of text is insufficient for an in-depth analysis of each of the works of this artist, which are conceptually linked to the Abakuá Society, a very extensive and complex universe. Let this article then serve as a starting point for future research on the oeuvre of this creator, whose principal merit rests on being a generator of spaces of mutual appreciation. Starting with a desire to restore the prestige of the context into which he was born, Orbeín has succeeded in analyzing current reality in light of the principles that govern the code of the Abakuá, a code that still applies today, because its essence contains ethical and moral values of a universal order.
Notes
(1) Fernando Ortiz in “Los negros esclavos” (The Black slaves) mentions that the importation of African slaves to America was initiated at the beginning of the 16th Century as a result of the Conquest. Ortiz cites José A. Saco, who in his book Historia de la esclavitud de la raza Africana en el Nuevo Mundo y en especial en los países américo-hispanos (The History of African Slavery in the New World and Especially in the Hispanic Countries). (Imprenta de Jaime Jepús, Barcelona, 1879) assumes that with the expedition of Diego Velásquez (1511-1512), they were probably already bringing Black slaves to Cuba. Ortiz mentions that some other documentary sources make note of the arrival of Blacks to Cuba long before, around 1501, taking into account that since the Middle Ages, Arabs had introduced Black slaves into Spain to perform domestic chores. See: Ortiz, Fernando. Los negros esclavos, Editorial Ciencias Sociales, Havana, 1996, p.46-47
(2) Ortiz, Fernando, Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y del azúcar (Advertencia de sus contrastes agrarios, económicos, históricos y sociales, su etnografía y su transculturación.)(Cuban Counterpoint of Tobacco and Sugar - Notice of its agrarian, economic, historic and social contrasts, its ethnography and transculturation.) Madrid, 1999, p. 83
(3) In Cuba, in contrast to Central and South America, the indigenous population was practically eradicated in less than a century (Portuondo: 94). In the 16th Century, when the first sugar mills were established, the number of slaves brought from Africa increased to make up for the lack of indigenous manpower in the gold mines and plantations. (Portuondo: 75). See: Fernando Portuondo del Prado. Historia de Cuba 1492 - 1898. Instituto Cubano del Libro, 1975.
(4) The carabalí area (on the African continent) was included in the so-called Oil Rivers, signaling the importance of the export of palm oil from the wharfs of the vast Niger delta and the Cross River, in southern Nigeria and part of Cameroun, opposite the bay of Biafra. Selected texts from Los ñáñigos, by Enrique Sosa, Ediciones Casa de las Américas, 1982. In: Abakuá, una secta secreta (Abakuá, a secret sect). Colección Etnos. Casa de Africa. Museo de la Ciudad, Havana, 1993, P.13
(5) They arose associated with the so-called “cabildos de nación“, mutual aid and protection groups comprised of Black slaves and freed men. Their members in addition to supporting and protecting each other, tried to perpetuate their culture through celebrations and rituals that helped maintain their traditions intact.
(6) Sosa, Op. cit, p. 14
(7) Sikán was a princess, daughter of King Iyamba of the Efó nation. At a time when there were wars between the Efik and Efó tribes, the great marabout, Nasakó, summoned the fish Tánze, who was the reincarnation of Abasi, the supreme deity. Sikán accidentally took the fish out of the river in a large earthenware jar and when she placed the jar on her head, the fish let out a great roar revealing his secret. She promised her father and Nasakó that she would not reveal the secret, but she did not keep her promise and she told her betrothed who was the son of the king of the rival Efik tribe. The Efik came to claim possession of the fish and the Efó had to share the secret with them in order to avoid war. Although there was peace between the two tribes, Sikán was sacrificed because of her indiscretion and with her skin they tried to consolidate the essence and the strength of the fish Tánze, but the fish died and only by using the skin of a goat were they able to rescue his essence. To this day, goat skin is used to make the ekwé drum on which the strength of this secret society rests. The myth about Sikán or Sikanekue defines that the sect be limited only to individuals of the masculine sex who embody a set of moral conditions and who are able to rigorously follow the Abakuá code of ethics, some of its principles being: to be a good son, good father, good brother and good friend. See: Abakuá, una secta secreta. Colección Etnos. Casa de Africa. Museo de la Ciudad, Havana, 1993, pp. 15-26
(8) Prince of the Efó tribe who got lost in the forest. The Efik found him by accident and instead of sacrificing him, they converted him to Abakuá beliefs bringing peace to the two tribes.
(9) Andrés Facundo de los Dolores Petit was a humble mestizo of great intelligence and universal renown. It is said that he was a tertiary of the Franciscan order, was initiated into the Regla Palo Mayombe, to which he made great contributions, and belonged to the Abakuá Secret Society. He was a very influential personage in 19th Century Cuba. His biography is usually a mixture of history and fiction. He is credited with the admission of Whites and Mulattos into the sect. It is said that with the fees he charged for these initiations, he paid for the liberty of many Abakuás who were slaves.
(10) Fact noted by María del C. Muzio in her unpublished work “Angeles y Demonios. El Universo de Andrés Petit” (Angels and Demons. The Universe of Andres Petit), presented at Cultura para el Desarrollo, Havana, 1996.
Raisa Clavijo: Curator and art critic. BA in Art History (University of Havana, Cuba), MA in Museology (Iberoamerican University, Mexico). Former Chief Curator of Arocena Museum (Mexico). Editor of Wynwood, The Art Magazine.
