Three Afro-Cuban spiritual practices—Regla de Palo Monte (Mayombe),
Abakuá, and Regla de Osha (Santería)—are living testaments of African
resistance to European colonisation. The survival of strong African traits
in a mixed-race island in the Caribbean, like Cuba, demonstrates the
successful integration of African philosophies and beliefs in the search for
peaceful co-existence. Through an adaptive process of transculturation,
these three spiritual practices, originally from West and Central Africa,

Neo-slave narratives elucidate the false discourse of freedom and the need
for an ongoing project of abolition. Dionne Brand’s At the full and
change of the moon fits into this tradition, but reflects on the legacies of
specific slaves: the Maroons. By analyzing the development of Terre
Bouillante, the novel’s fictional Maroon settlement, we can see how its
legacy can be detrimental if seclusion is privileged. Yet, for some of this
settlement’s twentieth-century descendants, neo-marronage becomes