Carribean - Spanish West Indies
When many Americans think of the Caribbean, they picture beaches, big cruise ships and rum. Usually the first thing that comes to mind isn’t the cultural and historic diversity from island to island and coast to coast. In many ways, the history of the Caribbean is layered and mixed like that of Europe. Hundreds of years of wars, trade and disease made this place the diverse melting pot it is today. A clash of cultures forged it’s identities. It would be difficult to visit and cover all the islands in the Carribean and we’re not going to try that here. Instead, this series of posts will focus on the Spanish speaking region, El Caribe.
In the last year we’ve visited several hot spots of the Spanish West Indies. We found that despite having similar Spanish accents, these cities all have a diversity of character and distinct flavor - even if their buildings are all equally colorful!
El Caribe traces its rich historical, culinary and religious heritage back to three main groups of people: Native Americans, West Africans and Iberians.
Of course, Catholicism is still big here and the native spiritual customs are nearly extinct in their original form. There is, however, a series of sub religions which originated in the Caribbean. These are the modern Yoruba religions. Perhaps the most famous being the practices of Santeria and Voodoo. While these practices are often feared and misunderstood in North America, they are nothing to fear and pop culture has gone a long way to add to the misunderstanding.
The Yoruba religions have their origins in West Africa, while borrowing from Native beliefs and Catholic icons. Saints and Christian symbols are used as a cover for the Yoruba gods and spirits. Many symbols were taken directly from Catholic iconography so as to avoid punishment for non-Catholic practices in the days of the slave trade. In a beautifully clever way, this allowed slaves to maintain an altered form of their old religion. To this day, these Yoruba practices carry on in semi secrecy around the Caribbean. The most open places of Yoruba worship seem to be in Cuba but if you keep your eyes peeled you can see small signs of the practices from the US all the way down to the Andes in South America.
Watch for a few key things during your travels. Sacred Ceiba trees, sometimes located conspicuously close to landmarks, are a sacred piece of the Yoruba world. Their knots resemble eyes which are holy portals in the Yoruba practices. Nearby you may find circles of smashed plates from a recent ceremony. As you walk through the streets also watch for people dressed head to toe in seemingly normal clothes with the exception that the clothes are all completely white and sometimes accompanied by colorful beads. In some practices, they must remained dressed in all white for a year as an initiate into the Yoruba faith.
The food of the Caribbean also takes on a strong culinary cue from Africa in places like Puerto Rico’s signature dish Mofongo. The Native American tribe, the Taino are responsible for the ever popular Yuca, varieties beans and of course barbacoa - a forefather to American barbecue. The obviously Spanish influences include all cuts and preparations of pork and heavy use of garlic.
Oddly, the Caribbean is home to some other unifying and stupefying quirks. The game of Dominoes is very popular across the entire Caribbean, not just the Spanish speaking countries. El Domino, as it’s known in Puerto Rico, somehow dominates as a board game and is seen as a fairly machismo activity. Baseball, not fútbol, also reigns supreme. This runs contrary to the rest of Latin America.
As if the personalities of the Caribbean are not outsized enough, the mainstream world music of today is more and more Latino. From cafes in Italy to taxis in Egypt and hotels in Asia, Latino music is undeniably penetrating the global airwaves around the world. No one was able to avoid the onslaught of Despacito. Of these emerging global Latino pop superstars, the vast majority are Caribbean by influence, if not by blood.
The Americas are a place of cultural diversity and migration on an unprecedented historic scale. The Caribbean is where all of it began. A home to all the shades of wonder and horror that humanity has to offer.
