Cool Story: Cuban Ethnic Group's Heritage is Traced to Sierra Leone Through Song

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For decades the Ganga-Longoba of Perico have been singing the same chants, a tradition passed down the generations.

But until recently this Afro-Cuban community knew little of the origin of the songs, or of their own ancestors.

Now, thanks to the work of an Australian academic, Cuba's Ganga believe their roots lie in a remote village in Sierra Leone from where it is thought their relatives were sold into slavery more than 170 years ago.

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The initial breakthrough came when a group in Liberia saw her footage of a Cuban ceremony and recognised part of a local ritual.

Spurred on to seek the songs' exact origins, the academic spent two years showing the film across the region until she confirmed that the Cubans were singing in the almost extinct language of an ethnic group decimated by the slave trade.

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Dr Christopher has singled out a woman known by her slave-name "Josefa" as the likely link between Perico and Sierra Leone. It's thought she arrived in the 1830s when the Gallinas slaving port was most active.

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Every December they meet to worship Yebbe, as the Ganga call San Lazaro (St Lazarus), in a night-long ceremony of dance, drumming and song that has remained intact through the decades.

San Lazaro is a saint known for curing the sick, and is worshipped by Roman Catholic and syncretic faiths in Cuba.

It was Florinda Diago, thought to be Josefa's great-granddaughter, who preserved their heritage in Cuba; she then entrusted that task to the current "grande dame" of the Ganga community, a frail but feisty woman in her 80s known as Piyuya.
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Continued at Link. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-25876023