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A Party for Lazarus is the story of a Cuban family, six generations removed from slavery, struggling to honor its ancestors amid changing fortunes and a crumbling state. This intimate intergenerational account centers on an annual feast celebrating ancestors and orisás—the life-changing spirits at the heart of Black Atlantic religious life. Based on twenty years of fieldwork, Todd Ramón Ochoa’s masterful ethnography shows how orisá praise and everyday life have changed in revolutionary Cuba over two decades of economic hardship.
"Much more than a traditional ethnography, this work is an affective journey, one that marks the rhythms and sensations of everyday life in a home where Catholic saints, African gods, and the Cuban dead comingle with family, friends, and neighbors."
Preface
PART ONE
1 • The Ring and the Altar
2 • La Sociedad Africana, 1880–1940: Chacha Cairo
among the Dead and the Santos-Orisás
3 • Cucusa Sáez and Her Children
PART TWO
4 • 1999: Return
5 • A Meal for the Dead
6 • Opening
7 • Slaughter
8 • A Bembé for San Lázaro–Babalú Ayé
PART THREE
9 • 2005: Loss
10 • A Hole to Fill
11 • Dear Elégua
12 • 2006: Decay
13 • Oyá
PART FOUR
14 • 2009: Deceit
15 • Voices of the Dead
16 • 2012: Prohibition
17 • Lázaro M.
18 • Two Bembés
PART FIVE
19 • 2014: Despair
20 • Sovereigns of Affliction
Epilogue • 2018: Recovery
Notes
Bibliography
Index