Natalia Bolivar: Mining Cultural Riches in a Poor Country
By Tonyaa J. Weathersbee

HAVANA – When Natalia Bolivar Arostegui learned to speak, her early words weren’t just in Spanish, but in Bantu as well.

For that Bolivar, a renowned Cuban ethnologist who specializes in Afro-Cuban religions, credits one of her first teachers – her Congo-descended nanny.

“There were many descendants of Africa who lived in my house,” Bolivar told me, above the din of barking dogs and the cacophony of caged exotic birds. “One was my nanny, and she taught me about much of the stories of their oral traditions…

“She used to talk to me since I was a very little baby, one year, two years old…I begin to know words in Bantu and how to love the elements of the nations, the rivers, the seas, the woods, the sky, the thunder, everything…she taught me to love everything that is in the earth.

“I became a student of their religions, the Afro-Cuban religions. I studied all the ones who came to Cuba from the Congo, Angola and Benin, all that west part of Africa. I dedicated my life to it. I have made many books about Congo, Angola, Cameroon, and Palo [a religion practiced by slaves from the Congo basin] the secret societies of Eleggua [a Yoruba spirit honored in Santeria rites]…

“And I practice them all.”

That isn’t hard to believe.

Guarding the entrance of Bolivar’s Miramar apartment is a replica of an African deity shrouded in saintly white robes. Her sparse living space – space she shares with her daughter and granddaughter – is filled with paintings that depict everything African, from a diagram of a slave ship to the faces and forms of tribal people. And there are the birds and the dogs, and the Galapagos tortoise that occupies his own special place on the terrace.

All of that is a reflection of a lifetime of being an adherent to an African spirituality grounded in nature and humanity, not in consumption. It’s a life that the 72-year-old Bolivar wouldn’t have been able to have – at least not to its fullest – if she had fled Cuba with the rest of her relatives.

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Bolivar’s infatuation with the faiths of her servants led her to become one of Cuba’s top ethnologists. She has written more than 30 books – including a cookbook entitled “Legends of an Afro-Cuban Cook” – as well as a seminal work entitled “Los Orishas en Cuba,” about the Yoruba gods that are honored in Santeria rites. She’s also an artist; her paintings reflect Afro-Cuban religiosity.

In January, Bolivar was honored for her work during a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) workshop on social anthropology and Afro-American culture that was held in Havana. The workshop also commemorated the 21st anniversary of Africa House, or Museo de Casa de Africa, which was created in 1986 to introduce the world to the history and culture of Africa and its role in Cuban culture.
Bolivar had a hand in making that happen.

But decades before she became grounded in the mysteries of the African religions that her nanny and household servants practiced, Bolivar was better known for her worldly roots.

She’s a great-niece of Simon Bolivar, called the Liberator for his role in wars that freed Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador from Spanish rule. She’s a cousin to the scions of the Bacardi rum empire – which was based in Cuba before Fidel Castro nationalized all private businesses after he came to power in 1959. She is also a cousin of the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, the Havana-born Maria Teresa, whose family left Cuba for New York City in 1959.

But Bolivar didn’t allow herself to be defined by that lofty legacy. She carved her own path – first by choosing to pursue art and interests influenced by black servants – and secondly, by joining the Revolution and staying on in Cuba after Castro declared himself a Communist.

“No, they didn’t like it,” Bolivar said of her family’s views of her life choices. “I didn’t care. They didn’t like it because they wanted for me something better.”

Before the Castro regime came to power Bolivar used to spend summers in New York City with one of her aunts. There she studied painting with the likes of greats such as Norman Rockwell. Back in Cuba, she studied art at the University of Havana. But that was in 1955. A few years later, duty called Bolivar – as she became active in covert efforts to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

“I was in the underground. I was what they would call a terrorist today. I was tortured by Batista…I had all my ribs broken…they put [hot] irons in my ears. I still can’t hear in one ear.”

But while Bolivar supported Castro’s revolution and its egalitarian promises, most of her family did not.

“It was difficult [to see her relatives leave Cuba],” she said. “It was harsh because our families were very united…we always had the Sunday lunch. We used to meet in Miami every year. But the ones who were with me since I was a baby stayed.”

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Like most Cubans Bolivar, still a staunch supporter of the Revolution, struggles with hardships exacerbated by the 45-year-old U.S. embargo.

Not being able to get an adequate supply of fruit is a problem, she said. She’s a diabetic, and she needs it to control her blood sugar. But she finds it hard not to share with others the few fruits that she is able to buy.

“I have a little granddaughter, and I have my daughter, and they like fruit, and they are very high prices…but I cannot have the fruits for me because I cannot say, ‘Don’t eat them,” Bolivar said.

She supplements her peso income with honorarium that she earns from her speeches and travels. But despite the material shortages Bolivar – who could have defected during her many trips abroad – said she has no regrets about staying.

“No, no. I wouldn’t have lived in any place but in Cuba,” Bolivar said., even though life would have been easier for her because of her family’s wealth.

“I like to go places so that I can see things that I am interested in. But I don’t want to live anywhere else.” Besides, being in Cuba has enabled her to experience a richness that can’t be measured in money, she said.

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Bolivar said she believes that changes may come to Cuba when Castro dies. But like many other Cubans, she believes that any changes that come must come with minimal interference from the United States.

“I think that we prefer to have friends and to talk, than to have all the things that go in the market, because it loses your interest in learning,” Bolivar said. “You want to have more and more, and you have to work more and more. You’re working and working and spending money, but you’re always in debt, and you have to keep working,” she said of what she thinks life is like in the United States.

Amazingly, Bolivar, the descendant of a statesman and kin to liquor barons, found her calling in the ancient religions of subjugated black people. She didn’t just see them as servants, but as people with stories and humanity, and a way of seeing the world that was wholesome and rich.

She also sees herself as one of them.

“Many American people who come here say, ‘But I thought you were Negro,’” Bolivar said. “I say, ‘Oh no, no…I’m a mixed race, as are all humans.’” For her, honoring those links is more important than money or riches.
“I wouldn’t have lived anyplace but in Cuba, because here are my roots,” Bolivar said. “…Here are the people I have loved, my ancestors who have died, and my nanny who cared for me… “