In Bayamo, where every October 20th the memory of Perucho is honored and the sun seems to rise with the tune of “Al combate,” a group of neighbors decided to pay tribute to the mambises… or something like that.
There is not enough information to decipher what occurred, except for a video shared by Facebook user Edmundo Dantés Junior, featuring a group of people dressed in white, holding hands to form a circle and moving in time to an ancestral chant.
“Invoking the mambises by doing ‘areíto’ in the streets of Bayamo,” the influencer said with sarcasm. In the comments, Cuban netizens expressed their shock at the images.
The barely discernible chant said something like, "I am asking the mambises to come and fly. And to the Father (or Fidel Father), commissions to free us from all evil. Here we go, my senses... Joringué joringué..."
According to a user who commented on the post, the unusual scene involving the fervent individuals in the streets of Bayamo is nothing more than a ritual characteristic of the so-called "cord spiritism."
According to scholars on the subject, it is a practice that blends Kardecist spiritism, popular religiosity, and community choreography.
However, judging by the invocations and the official tone that surrounded the ceremony, the ritual seemed more like a patriotic dance with trance elements included.
Tradition has it that participants connect with the spirits of their ancestors, although this time it seems that the spiritual channels were crossed and someone ended up invoking the unnameable.
And it is that Cuban spiritism works with ETECSA's mobile data, a state-owned company belonging to GAESA, which controls damages and fires, especially in Bayamo on a day of such inflamed patriotism.
Neither the mambises, nor the orishas, nor the spirits of Allan Kardec seem sufficient to lift Cuba from the grip of its earthly troubles.
Inflation moves faster than mediums in trance, power outages occur more regularly than saints, and public transportation has become a mystical experience where only a miracle allows one to find a bus.
Add to that the shortage of supplies, mass emigration, and internet costs that are out of this world: an infernal trilogy that not even Changó himself in a full session could resolve.
Perhaps the only hope is to convene a summit of all the deities: the mambises, the babalaos, the spirits of Monte Oscuro, the Virgin of Charity, Saint Lazarus, and even the very Saint Google himself, so that together they can form a celestial front against the eternal blackout.
Because, let us engage in introspection and reflect: if for over sixty years Cubans have been unable to free themselves from a regime filled with unholy ministers, bloodthirsty repressors, and corrupt leaders who have caused this crisis, perhaps the time has come to try a national exorcism.
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