Among animals, symbols are transmitted by tradition from generation to generation, and it is here, if one wishes, that one may dra...w the border line between the "animal" and man. In animals, individually acquired experience is sometimes transmitted by teaching and learning, from elder to younger individuals, though such true tradition is only seen in those forms whose high capacity for learning is combined with a higher development of their social life. True tradition has been demonstrated in jackdaws, greyleg geese, and rats. But knowledge thus transmitted is limited to very simple things, such as pathfinding, recognition of certain foods and of enemies of the species, and--in rats--knowledge of the danger of poisons. However, no means of communication, no learned rituals are ever handed by tradition in animals. In other words, animals have no culture.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We sing the funeral, as goes the custom, with the hymn of the Dead. But Manuel, he chose a hymn for the living: the song of the co...umbite, the song of the earth, of the water, the plants, of fellowship between peasants because he wanted, as I now understand it, that his death for you be the renewal of life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He touched the soil, caressing its grains between his fingers: "I am this: this earth here, and I have it in my blood. Look at my ...color; it seems as though the earth faded onto me and onto you too. This country belongs to the black man and each time others tried to take it away from us, we mowed down injustice with our machetes".LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What are we? Well, if you are asking me a question, I will answer you. Here it is: we are this country and it is nothing without u...s, nothing at all.... And in spite of all this, we are poor, it is true; we are indigent, that's true; we are miserable, that's true too. But, brother, do you know why? Because of our ignorance: we do not yet know that we are a force, a unified force--all of us, the peasants, the Negroes of the plains and of the mountains put together. One day, we will have understood this fact, and we will rise from one end of the country to another, and we will form the general assembly of the masters of the dew, the great coumbite of the workers of the earth to clear away misery and plant a new life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Oh sure, everyone goes back to the earth at some point, but life itself is a thread that is never broken, never lost. Do you know ...why? Because each man makes a knot in the thread during his lifetime: it is the work he has done and that's what gives life to life in the long stretch of time: the usefulness of man on this earth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Education is a necessity, it helps to understand life. Like that compagnero in Cuba who talked about politics, back when they were... on strike. He knew many things, that hijo de puta, and he unraveled the most confusing situations in a marvelous way. You could see each point in front of you on the line of his reasoning like rinsed laundry set up to dry; he explained things to you so clearly that you could grasp it like a good hunk of bread with your hand.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Being resigned is no good; it amounts to the same as being discouraged. It breaks your two arms, and you wait around for miracles ...and for Providence, holding your rosary, doing nothing. You pray for rain, you pray for the harvest, you do your litanies to the saints and to the loas. But, let me tell you, Providence is nothing but man's will not to accept hardship, to tame, day to day, the earth's bad will, to bend the water's whims to fit his needs. Then the earth calls him 'Dear Master', and the water too calls him 'Dear Master', and there is no other Providence than his work as a serious peasant, no other miracle than the fruits of his hands.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I respect the ways of old folks, but the blood of a rooster or a goat cannot turn the seasons, change the course of the clouds and... fill them up with water like bladders. The other night, at the ceremony for Legba, I danced and sang my fill: I am a black man, no? and I enjoyed it like a true Negro should. When the drums beat, I feel it in the pit of my stomach, I feel the itch in my hips and up and down my legs, I have got to join the party. But that is all.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »