Havana Cuba. – The May 20th It is a date with double significance for Cuba: the emergence of the Republic in 1902 and, three years earlier, in 1899, the birth of a transcendental figure of Cuban anthropology and ethnology, Lydia Cabrera.
For the same political reasons that the Republic is reviled by Castroism, Lydia Cabrera is practically ignored.
Being the daughter of a prestigious lawyer and author of several books, Raimundo Cabrera, and sister-in-law of the famous intellectual Fernando Ortiz, had a lot to do with the path chosen by Lydia.
Great connoisseur of Afro-Cuban religious practices, rituals and myths, of the more than fifteen books she wrote, the most important are Black stories from Cuba (1936) and The mountain (1954), which is considered the Bible of Afro-Cuban religions.
Lydia Cabrera’s work, despite its importance for national culture, was banned after she went into exile in 1961.
Castroism, furiously atheist in its first decades, did not care about the study of Afro-Cuban religions, which they considered “a backward holdover from the past.”
for several decades The mountain it was not published again in Cuba. It was not until the end of the 1980s that it was reissued by Editorial Letras Cubanas, without permission or payment of copyright. The Monte now sells for 350 pesos, the equivalent of $12.50.
Lydia Cabrera died in Miami on September 19, 1991.
For the official culture, it is almost as if the most important scholar of syncretic cults and Afro-Cuban traditions had not existed. In an attempt to erase her and make her be forgotten, they destroyed even her house, Quinta San José, located on Avenida 51 between 92 and 94, in the neighborhood of Pogolotti, Marianao, where she wrote The mountain and other of his books.
The ranch area, one of the most beautiful buildings in the area, covered about 100 meters in front by almost 250 meters in depth and was surrounded by a high fence.
The owner of the villa was the father of María Teresa de Rojas (Titina), who was the sentimental partner of Lydia Cabrera.
Quinta San José was razed to the ground in 1962, a few months after Lydia Cabrera went into exile, to build the “Jesús Menéndez” Sports Center there. Only the tall palm trees that surrounded the place remained standing.
Today, the areas for the practice of baseball, soccer and the basketball court are quite dilapidated. There is a swimming pool that has not worked for many years, because the filling water pump is broken. In addition, it would be impossible to use so much water for the pool, since it would leave the inhabitants of the area without the precious liquid.
The two-story building, which has rooms for teaching dance, musical group rehearsals, a small theater and a cafeteria, was partially repaired, since the deterioration suffered due to lack of maintenance destroyed the glassware and the carpentry.
Not even a plaque that reminds us that Lydia Cabrera’s house was there
Until a few years ago, when they took foreign tourists to visit the sports center, they were informed of the activities carried out there with children and the elderly, but without telling them who their former resident was or the importance of their work for the national culture.
According to the historian Fernando Inclán Lavastida, Marianao was founded in the surroundings of this place, at a point that had the same name as the ranch. It is possible that Quinta San José is the original nucleus of the territory, and therefore its heritage value is multiplied. In addition, very close to there is the place where the scientist Carlos Juan Finlay did the research that resulted in the discovery of the Aedes Aegypti mosquito as a transmitter of yellow fever.
I was hospitalized for more than five years in the San Rafael Home, run by the Order of the Brothers of San Juan de Dios, and I know that most of the inhabitants of the area are unaware of the history of the Quinta San José and who Lydia Cabrera was, except the practitioners of religious cults of African origin who live in the neighborhood.
OPINION ARTICLE
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