Society of the Dead Quita Manaquita and Palo Praise in Cuba [Paperback]

In a riveting first-person account, Todd Ram?n Ochoa explores Palo, a Kongo-inspired society of affliction that is poorly understood at the margins of Cuban popular religion. Narrated as an encounter with two teachers of Palo, the book unfolds on the outskirts of Havana as it recounts Ochoa's attempts to assimilate Palo praise of the dead. As he comes to terms with a world in which everyday events and materials are composed of the dead, Ochoa discovers in Palo unexpected resources for understanding the relationship between matter and spirit, for rethinking anthropology's rendering of sorcery, and for representing the play of power in Cuban society. The first fully detailed treatment of the world of Palo,Society of the Deaddraws upon recent critiques of Western metaphysics as it reveals what this little known practice can tell us about sensation, transformation, and redemption in the Black Atlantic.

Todd Ram?n Ochoa is a cultural anthropologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Part One. The Dead

1. Isidra
2. Kalunga, the Ambient Dead
3. Little Corners
4. Responsive Dead

Part Two. Palo Society

5. Emilio OFarril
6. Teodoro
7. Palo Society
8. Decay
9. A Feast Awry
10. Virtudes

Part Three. Prendas-Ngangas-Enquisos

11. Lucero Mundo
12. The Cauldron
13. Reckoning with the Dead
14. Nfumbe
15. Insinuation and Artifice

Part Four. Palo Craft

16. Struggle Is Praise
17. Cristianas
18. Jud?as
19. Tormenta Ndoki
20. Storms of Lent

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Todd Ochoa's important text immediately transposes us into a Kongo-Cuban sacred lÃ*