El monte

Record summary

Lydia Cabrera’s El monte, first published in 1954, records Afro-Cuban religious knowledge, narratives, plants, ritual practices, and entities associated with traditions including Regla de Palo and Yoruba-derived religion. It is a major lead for comparing named spirits, sacred landscapes, and transmission between oral practice and print ethnography. The book’s testimony is culturally significant but unevenly contextualized by contemporary standards. Researchers should consult later scholarship, community perspectives, and distinctions among religious systems rather than collapsing them into generic ‘witchcraft.’