The Muntu in contemporary literature: Philosophy of La fuerza vital in Fe en disfraz (2009) de Mayra Santos-Febres

Abstract

In Fe en disfraz (2009), by Mayra Santos Febres (1966), the author presents a representation of ancestral spirituality that can be considered Muntu. This philosophy is made up of different ways of conceiving the world. Despite the fact that the arrival of the enslaved people to America was transformed into a process of concealment and constant syncretism, Muntu remains in various ways in the black peoples of the Americas, mainly the Caribbean. One of those ways is the Fuerza vital and reading Fe en disfraz (2009) from this thought allows us to understand it. To develop what I affirm, I will analyze the ritualization that Fe Verdejo performs in the act of wearing the dress of the slave Xica (Chica) da Silva who, under the cosmovision of Muntu and the perspective of the philosophy of the Fuerza vital, creates in her own body an ancestral communication channel that exposes the violence with which the Afro-Caribbean identity has been built.

Keywords

• muntu
• slavery
• fuerza vital
• fe en disfraz
• afro-caribbean