Abstract
The first sections of this final chapter expand on and go into detail about certain customary and spiritual areas of cultural survival in Borikén. The testimonies are powerful and help us to see clearer the extent of the Jíbaro presence. The shamanistic practice that came to be known as “espiritismo” (spiritualism), essentially predicting the future, spiritual healing, or assisting one on a spiritual level, has deep roots on the island. Over time, some important aspects of the Christian and African traditions were adopted and syncretized into the indigenous belief structure. I will comment on the meaning of this syncretism and how it pertains to certain spiritual traditions, such as the Rosario Can-tar. I’ll further draw on analogies of how these practices relate back to ancient times and a general indigenous philosophy. Espiritismo was widely used in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, and is still practiced today. Medicinal healing and linguistic survival are other significant areas that are looked at. These forms of survival are testament to degrees of resistance that were set into place over time. It should also be noted that espiritistas and cuanderos were prevalent and widely used among the early Boricua who went to Hawai’i. This is documented by Arroyo, who tells numerous stories of different forms of healing performed and of telepathy.
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Notes
See Ronald D. Arroyo, “Da Borinkees: The Puerto Ricans of Hawaii” (PhD diss. Union Graduate School, 1977), 101–11, 139–40.
Loida Figueroa Mercado, History of Puerto Rico: From the Beginning to 1892 (New York: L. A. Publishing Company, 1978), 46.
Fray Bartolomé Las Casas, in Fray Ramón Pané, An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians, trans. Susan C. Griswold (c. 1498; Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 62.
Adalberto López, “Birth of a Nation: Puerto Rico in the Nineteenth Century,” in The Puerto Ricans: Their History, Culture, and Society, ed. Adalberto López (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1980), 61.
See María Dolores Hajosy Benedetti, Earth & Spirit: Healing Lore and More from Puerto Rico (Maplewood, NJ: Waterfront Press, 1989).
Uahtibili Báez Santiago and Huana Naboli Martínez Prieto, “Puerto Rico”: la gran mentira (Camuy, Puerto Rico: Edición Revisada, 2008), 26.
Frances Robles, “Puerto Rico Archaeological Find Mired in Politics,” Miami Herald, July 1, 2008.
Walter D. Mignolo, The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality, & Colonization (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995), 30.
Quoted in Norma Carr, “The Puerto Ricans in Hawaii: 1900–1958” (PhD diss., University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, 1989), 47.
Jesse Walter Fewkes, The Aborigines of Porto Rico and Neighboring Islands, 25th Annual Report, B. A. E. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1907), 20.
See Nelsonrafael Collazo, Imágenes del Indio Puertorriqueño (Jayuya, Puerto Rico: Nelsonrafael Collazo Grau, 1999), 184–86.
José Luis Morín, “Chiapas Uprising: An Indigenous Peoples’ Struggle for Justice,” Covert Action Quarterly, no. 48 (Spring 1994): 39.
Luis A. Gómez, “Evo Morales Turns the Tide of History,” in Dispatches from Latin America: On the Frontlines against Neoliberalism, ed. Teo Ballvé and Vijay Prashad (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2006), 141.
Isolina Rondón, quoted in Jean Wiley Zwickel, Voices for Independence: In the Spirit of Valor and Sacrifice (Pittsburg, CA: White Star Press, 1988, 1993), 24.
Edwin Meléndez and Edgardo Meléndez, eds., “Introduction,” Colonial Dilemma: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Puerto Rico (Boston: South End Press, 1993), 5.
Déborah Berman Santana, “Indigenous Identity and the Struggle for Independence in Puerto Rico,” in Sovereignty Matters: Locations of Contestation and Possibility in Indigenous Struggles for Self-Determination, ed. Joanne Barker (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 211.
Morris Morley, “Dependence and Development in Puerto Rico,” in The Puerto Ricans: Their History, Culture, and Society, ed. Adalberto Lopez (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1980), 179.
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© 2011 Tony Castanha
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Castanha, T. (2011). Cultural Survival and the Indigenous Movement. In: The Myth of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230116405_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230116405_6
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