We are on the threshold of the change of season, this is the month of the solstice, and the father sun shines with its maximum splendor announcing the summer. This year, the sun will announce the new season on Wednesday, the 21st.
This month, we want to highlight this important astronomical, historical, and spiritual event with a video we made in 2016. We tell several stories that are intertwined in this celebration that has been passed down from generation to generation in Kiskeya. The song is a sentimental bachata, and the lyrics tell the story of an immigrant returning from New York to attend the celebration and to assist her friends with the preparations. It is a tribute to the religious musicians who perform in the film and who sometimes perform as bachata musicians when they're not playing at the altars.
Every June 24, the Kiskeya countryside dresses up for a big celebration. The drums beat, and hordes of people walk in procession through the town while singing, playing, and accepting offerings; they stop by the river on the route, to perform a ritual, then proceed to a shrine as their final stop. Prayers start the day off, and everyone has a special meal, plays, and dances until the sun goes down.
In the view of the outside world, it is just a celebration of widespread Catholic religiosity toward Saint John the Baptist; nevertheless, for those who have stayed true to their Taino heritage, people are also worshiping the father sun and the solar power of the cacique.
In a hut and altar created particularly for them, we celebrate Caonabo and Anacaona on this day. The Taino worshiping shown in this video may be found at Hilda Peguero's celebration in Fundación Bani, which is located soutwest of Kiskeya. At the end of the video, we will be able to see the Jacana dance and listen to its music. This is a traditional ceremonial song honoring the ancestors who have preserved this heritage.
In the narration of the video, we also go back to the spiritual legacy of our Taino ancestors, and you will find the sacred story of the sun and the moon in their dance of time, taking turns to illuminate father sky. It is a storytelling of a passage of Taino spirituality where the cemí Iguanaboina, who lives in a cave to the east of Kiskeya, harbors the sun and the moon in her womb. This is a special day, it is the summer solstice, and the father sun comes out of the darkness of the cave to deliver his light to mother earth and the people on the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere.
I sincerely hope that you have all enjoyed watching this video. It combines the various syncretic ancestral layers that come together during these religious celebrations in the Dominican countryside. Long live the solstice and all of us!
Many Blessings,
Akutu Irka
Irka Mateo: Script and Iguanaboina character
Milton Sánchez Velazquez @wajacas : Film direction and camera:
@IvelCenac : Editing
@PabloChea: Taino Animation
@YolandaFranjul: Sun and moon masks
Music and dance credits
Lead vocal: Irka Mateo
@yassertejeda: Guitar and back vocals
#leopimentel: Accordion
#juniorfelix: Bass
@otonielnicolas: Drums
@elbobaytu: percussions and backvocals
#Alex"api"callender: percussions and backvocals
#yennynuñex: backvocals
Recorded by @Dannyblume at Hidden Quarry Studio, Woodstock, NY
Sun and the Moon dancers:
@chanocgerman: Sun
@attabeiraGerman: Moon
Hilda Peguero:Traditional Female dancer
Musicians in Video, original keepers of the music and Taino spiritual tradition in Bani:
Luisín Peguero
Alcapone
Bucavida
Recorded in Fundación, Bani, Dominican Republic 2017
