The Saga of Lohodann: Making Sense of an Annobonese Folktale Rooted in Carolingian Drama

From Firenze University Press Journal: Journal of Early Modern Studies (JEMS)

Jeroen Dewulf, University of California

Every third year, the population of the small African island of Annobón gathers for three consecutive days during Holy Week to hear the saga of Lohodann, recited from memory in the local Luso-African creole language Fa d’Ambun. An intriguing charac-teristic of this tradition is that the initial storyline of Lohodann follows to a large extent the birth and youth of the Carolingian knight Roland, as it was first recorded in the fourteenth-century Geste Francor. This story reached the Iberian Peninsula in the early modern era via the Reali di Francia, from where it travelled to Africa. In fact, the hero’s name Lohodann (or Lodã) corresponds to the local pronunciation of the Iberian Roldán/Roldão. Even more intriguing is the story’s ending; rather than a heroic death on the battlefield of Roncesvalles, Lohodann’s life ends after a mission to hell in pursuit of a witch, and the subsequent stabbing of all unworthy Christians at a church service. This curious ending indicates the degree to which the saga of Roland was adapted to local culture, which allowed this key figure in the Matter of France to become an African hero. In this article, I will attempt to provide a better understan-ding of the saga of Lohodann in connection with the idiosyn-cratic cultural and religious history of Annobón. I will also relate the case of Lohodann to similar cultural traditions deriving from Carolingian literature that thrive on the nearby islands of São Tomé and Príncipe. In order to explain the fascination for European medieval chivalric literature on these African Atlantic islands, I will analyze the reli-gious culture of Annobón in parallel to that of other parts of Africa that experienced a strong Portuguese influence during the early modern era. I will do so by focusing on the importance of Afro-Catholic lay confraternities, in the context of which people reinvented and reimagined Iberian culture and religion from an African perspective.

1. Annobón

The name Annobón derives from the Portuguese Ano Bom (Good Year), a designation for the first of January, the day on which a Portuguese expedition, probably around 1480, first sighted this uninhabited island in the Gulf of Guinea. Since the Portuguese chose different islands in the region as their centers of operation, first São Tomé and later Príncipe, it took several de-cades before the exploitation of Annobón began. During that time, the authorities had come to realize that the small number of Portuguese settlers in São Tomé — mainly banished men and New Christians — would be unable to keep control over the quickly growing numbers of enslaved Africans who were taken there from the continent. They dealt with this challenge by establishing a hierarchy within the Black community that, in exceptional cases, could lead to freedom. Being Black in São Tomé was thus not tantamount to being enslaved. Ascending the hierarchy within the population of African descent went hand in hand with the display of acts of loyalty to Portugal, as well as the adoption of Portuguese identity markers, most notably the language and religion. On an island where there were virtually no European women, this system naturally privileged the offspring of Portuguese men and African women. According to an anonymous sixteenth-century source, such relationships were an accepted practice in São Tomé because ‘os habitantes negros são de grande inteligência e riqueza, criando as suas filhas ao nosso modo, tanto nos costumes como no trajos’ (inCaldeira 2000, 104).1 Over time, this practice resulted in a slave society that, besides a Portuguese upper class, also included an in-creasingly numerous Black, predominantly Mulatto, elite (Henriques 2000, 64–92). By the mid-sixteenth century, a small group of Portuguese and/or Luso-Africans began colonizing Annobón with enslaved African laborers. While some of the latter may have had roots in the region of Benin, the majority likely originated from the Kongo region. Considering that the creole language of Annobón is similar to that of São Tomé, it is assumed that these men and women had previously lived or were even born on São Tomé, which implies that they were subjected to Christianization before their arrival (Caldeira 2009).The first inhabitants were accompanied by priests, who ensured that a church was erected in what was to become the island’s capital, Santo António da Praia, today known as Palé(a). In 1592, a Portuguese governor, a schoolmaster, and a (Black) priest were sent from São Tomé to Annobón. The latter did not stay permanently. Only five years later, the bishop of São Tomé promised the Pope that he would cater to the population of Annobón by sending a priest to the island annually to hear confessions and perform sacraments.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/jems-2279-7149-15262

Read Full Text: https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-jems/article/view/15262