Efficacy of Sound

The first book-length ethnographic study on music and If divination in Cuba and Nigeria. Hailing from Cuba, Nigeria, and various sites across Latin America and the Caribbean, If missionary-practitioners are transforming the landscape of If divination and deity (risa/oricha) worship through transatlantic travel and reconnection. In Cuba, where If and Santera emerged as an interrelated, Yorb-inspired ritual complex, worshippers are driven to African traditionalism by its promise of efficacy: they find Yorb approaches more powerful, potent, and efficacious. In the first book-length study on music and If, Ruthie Meadows draws on extensive, multisited fieldwork in Cuba and Yorbland, Nigeria, to examine the controversial Nigerian-style ritual movement in Cuban If divination. Meadows uses feminist and queer of color theory along with critical studies of Africanity to excavate the relation between utility and affect within translocal ritual music circulations. Meadows traces how translocal If priestesses (ynf), female bat drummers (bataleras), and priests (babalwo) harness Yorb-centric approaches to ritual music and sound to heighten efficacy, achieve desired ritual outcomes, and reshape the conditions of their lives. Within a contentious religious landscape marked by the idiosyncrasies of revolutionary state policy, Nigerian-style If-risa is leveraged to transform femininity and masculinity, state religious policy, and transatlantic ritual authority on the island.