Thursday, 25 August 2011 15:05
The Temple with its leafy Ceiba tree. Photo by L.Calvo
I invite you to visit the exact spot where a small group of future neighbors celebrated their first Catholic mass and the Council´s inaugural meeting on 15 November, 1519, in what would later become the village of San Cristóbal in Havana.
Indeed, the name itself is a strange fusion: from the patron saint (Catholic) and from a Cacique Taíno (indigenous tribe) that dominated this coastal zone.
The conclave initiative was made at the foot of a leafy Ceiba tree, and was led by the island´s then Lieutenant Govenor, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar. Those same settlers had journeyed for four years through other parts of the west´s geography to find this place, at the Carenas port, where they eventually settled.
Not until the mid-eighteenth century did they erect the historical memorial (concluded in 1828) that we see today, and which is a part of the centrical Plaza de Armas. Experts consider it the most influential work of past Cuban architecture, and the evolution of "Cuban baroque," moving along those trends related to Neoclassicism. Inside, three large paintings by French artist Jean Baptiste Vermay have been conserved, as well as a memorial plaque recognizing the historic center of the capital as a Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The Ceiba witnessed history in the making and for more than 234 years, it resisted fierce storms and tropical hurricanes, until 1753 when Captain General Francisco Cagigal de la Vega committed the heresy of replacing it with a stone monument in the form of a triangular column. Of course, the Ceiba had to be replaced various time, and our current one has been around for more than half a century.
One of Havana´s oldest yearly traditions, a syncretic mark imposed after the encounter of Spanish and African cultures, is to go around the tree counter-clockwise three times, touching, hugging and kissing it, making a wish each round starting at midnight on 15 November.
The Ceiba is one those trees sacred to Afro-Cuban religions, and right at its trunk, anywhere in the country, there are money offerings, bananas and dead chickens. And of course, the one at the Temple is no different in that which is religious and mystical. But it has and embodies something more, as Fernando Ortiz once said, "It represents itself and a virtue of consecration, something more than historical fact. We believe that the Cieba at the Temple, was an emblem of Havana´s village, and the oldest and most permanent emblem of civil liberties we hold in Cuba. For that Ceiba, our Havana peoples should make a pilgrimage when they feel depleted of their liberties."
As tradition lives on, all Havanians who can, follow and respect it, as do quite a few foreign visitors, always with all the faith possible, with satisfaction and immense pleasure. It will remain in this village-city´s history forever, soon celebrating 492 years.
Details:
Baratillo Street between O’Reilly and Enna, Plaza de Armas,
Old Havana.
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