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Recursion

(56,582 posts)
Sun Feb 28, 2016, 05:59 AM Feb 2016

This Documentary Uncovers An Afro-Cuban Community Singing In An Almost Extinct African Language

http://remezcla.com/features/film/documentary-uncovers-afro-cuban-community-singing-almost-extinct-african-language/

Very cool

They Are We tells a story that, were it not told by a University professor in the middle of a documentary, you’d swear couldn’t possibly be true. Emma Christopher, who’s written extensively on the Atlantic slave trade and teaches at the University of Sydney, found herself connecting a remote chiefdom in Sierra Leone with a small Afro-Cuban community in Perico whose traditional song and dances suggest a direct lineage to that Western African group. The film’s title is a direct quote from a Sierra Leonean upon watching videos of the Cuban dancers: “They are we!” he exclaimed, seeing something in the annual San Lazaro ceremony that looked all too familiar.

That’s right, a lively celebration by the proud members of the Gangá-Longobá in central Cuba eventually led Christopher to find the African village from whence the songs came from generations ago. Moreover, she arranged for these Afro-Cuban people to fly to the place where their ancestor was torn from her family, sold to slavery, and taken to the Caribbean island all those years ago.

As Christopher told an audience here in New York, “It’s completely incredible that they’ve kept these songs and dances alive for all these centuries!” The songs were being sung in a very particular kind of language — the Banta tongue — which is nearing extinction in Western Africa. Armed with this amazing story, Christopher moved to Cuba for two years and ended up getting a Fellowship from the Australian Research Council that helped her fund the finished film. In it, we see four Cubans from Perico make the journey to Sierra Leone where they are met with open arms by a community that was all too happy to get to know these long-lost family members. They Are We is a moving story that celebrates this colorful and vibrant slice of Afro-Cuban culture, and which shows the resilience of tradition even in the face of historical violence.

Christopher was on hand after the film’s screening at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Dance on Camera series for a Q&A where she talked about the long-gestating project, and explained more about the cultural similarities between these two geographically distinct communities. Find some highlights from the Q&A below.
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This Documentary Uncovers An Afro-Cuban Community Singing In An Almost Extinct African Language (Original Post) Recursion Feb 2016 OP
Wonderful--you can click through to a preview of the film. It looks like it was beautifully shot. MADem Feb 2016 #1
Thank You For Sharing cantbeserious Feb 2016 #2
How beautiful! They honored and respected their heritage, and preserved it perfectly. Judi Lynn Feb 2016 #3
Well, if not perfectly. Igel Feb 2016 #4
That is such an interesting post, Igel. nt brer cat Feb 2016 #5
What an amazing discovery. brer cat Feb 2016 #6

MADem

(135,425 posts)
1. Wonderful--you can click through to a preview of the film. It looks like it was beautifully shot.
Sun Feb 28, 2016, 06:21 AM
Feb 2016

the music and imagery are very compelling.

Judi Lynn

(160,211 posts)
3. How beautiful! They honored and respected their heritage, and preserved it perfectly.
Sun Feb 28, 2016, 10:44 AM
Feb 2016

They were such good custodians of their ancestors' ways.

Tears came to the eyes, hearing "Our people who were taken away have found their way home again," from the man on the Continent, and "My body is in Cuba, but my spirit is in Africa," from the Cuban visitor.

Bless all these people, and all those who know their ancestors, as well, were ripped from their worlds, their families, neighbors, countryside, customs, and made to work for the rest of their lives among strangers who hated and completely disrespected them, who wouldn't think twice about hurting them, even killing them.

These Cubans have brought joy to their distant relatives, and to any human beings who learn about their trip to their homeland.

May the world become kinder to human beings in our lifetimes. It's about time, isn't it?

Would you consider cross-posting this material in the Latin America forum? Thank you.

Igel

(35,191 posts)
4. Well, if not perfectly.
Sun Feb 28, 2016, 11:07 AM
Feb 2016

A number of women's languages are attested around the world in response to invasion and assimilation. The woman learns it from women of her mother's generation and teaches it to her children in private, continuing to use it in private with other women. The man does not speak the woman's language--it would be shameful--but understands it since its how he was raised. The public language is usually the men's language. In a few cases that practice has to go back a thousand years or more--for example, in some minority areas assimilated by the Han Chinese long ago, this still happens. Also a few places in Africa have examples of this, but with a far lesser time depth.

In some cases there's a special variety that the men aren't privy to--girl children are taught it when the boy children are under their fathers' tutelage. Usually that's not a full language but just vocabulary. To be fair, in a number of cultures men have their own language that they teach boys prior to their coming of age rituals.


In most genocide-practicing areas this didn't happen. While we like to think of genocide as a modern invention and romantize the past, it was standard practice in some public-honor-based cultures where no compromise was possible to solve a war or conflict. It's better than the alternative--bloodshed that kills thousands over a couple hundred years; instead, just wipe out enemy's men and be done with the enemy tribe. The men were killed, the women taken, and their language--often closely related to the conqueror's language--just vanished. We may think this is harsh, and they should have done something else, but the cultures admitted no third way--in the end it was total victory or total defeat. (It's a practice many Westerners are still enamored of, to be honest.)

brer cat

(24,401 posts)
6. What an amazing discovery.
Sun Feb 28, 2016, 12:36 PM
Feb 2016

One would think after so many generations assimilation would have been nearly complete.

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