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Jesús Fuentes Guerra and Armin Schwegler. Lengua y ritos del Palo Monte Mayombe: Dioses cubanos y sus fuentes africanas. Madrid: Iberoamericana; Frankfurt: Vervuert, 2005. 258 pp.
This book comprises a sociohistorical, cultural, and linguistic study of an Afro-Cuban religion known as Regla de Palo Monte (also Regla Conga). This Congo-derived religion is one of four Afro-Cuban faiths practiced today: the other three are Santería (Yoruba-derived), Regla Arará (Adja-Fon-derived), and Abakuá (Efik-Ibibio-derived). Jesús Fuentes Guerra and Armin Schwegler argue that the Palo Monte religion and its subsequent liturgical language-a sacrolect known as lengua, also called habla palera or habla congo-have originated from the Bakongo kingdom of West Africa. Slaves taken from the kingdom were speakers of Kikongo, a Bantu language spoken today primarily in the Democratic Republic of Congo, northern Angola, and southern Gabon. Bakongo slaves arrived to Cuba en masse during the Cuban "sugar boom" of 1835-1862. This concentration of a single ethnic group was effectively the social catalyst for the Bakongo's religious beliefs to take root and expand throughout Cuba. This religion initiated around the southern-central Cuban city of Cienfuegos, later extending to nearby areas such as Santa Clara and Matanzas. The authors contend that Regla de Palo Monte is practiced today in a virtually undistorted form since its African origins, of which lengua is a fundamental component. Furthermore, the authors aim to challenge the widely accepted thesis that this religion and its sacrolect are one of multi-linguistic African origins, as has been argued...