Pénétrer le monde des morts
Abstract
This article aims to show how Palo Monte ritual identity is created, by focusing on the processes that allow a person to be considered a rightful initiate. Palo Monte is a Cuban religion of Bantu influence whose origin is attributed to the arrival of African slaves on Cuban soil. The main Palo Monte supernatural agents, and the ones with whom worshippers interact daily, are certain spirits of the dead with exceptional powers, named nfumbis. Believing that these spirits have the ability to influence human matters, practitioners try to make them their allies, by making ritual pacts with them. The stronger the alliance and higher the degree of intimacy with the nfumbis, the more the palero (the worshipper) gains magical efficacy. Therefore, some practitioners prefer spending a large portion of their time with the dead, sometimes neglecting the company of the living. In this article, we will see that in order to establish the alliance with the nfumbis and to gain their favour, the candidate undergoes an initiation, which transforms him or her ontologically. Specifically, some of the sequences performed during the ritual enable an ontological conversion between the person and the spirit; they assimilate the initiate to the spirit by imbuing him or her with some of its properties. This ontological proximity establishes the basis for true intimacy between worshipper and spirit. Next, we will see how this intimacy and proximity are developed in everyday life. The dead is actually materialized, in a cauldron, the nganga. This ritual, individualized object, which is the embodiment of the spirit, is displayed in the worshipper’s home. This cohabitation enables the worshipper to interact and communicate with the spirit on a daily basis. The practitioner visits the spirit’s material envelope every day to ask advice and benefit from its divinatory gifts; worshippers believe that the spirit, and metonymically the nganga, have the power of prescience. This article shows that these daily interactions create proximity and intimacy between the officiant and his/her spirit in true affection, or ‘love’, to use a Palo Monte term. This ‘love’ for the dead is a keystone of Palo Monte and the foundation on which paleros ritual identity is built.
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