Tierra Sagrada

Tierra Sagrada features wall-to-wall music with different varieties of African-descended drums, some of which have not been previously seen on film. Each scene features master drummers and charismatic singers who have devoted themselves to their extensive liturgies, functioning as spiritual technicians within their communities. The drums drive the film’s action throughout, with momentum toward the dramatic experience of spirit trance.  

Oru Seco in Pueblo Nuevo, Matanzas, the opening sequence, provides background information in the form of titles, which are intercut with a rhythmically complex oru seco (a sacred batá drum cycle without voices, played facing the altar prior to the main ceremony). It takes place in the casa templo (house temple) of Ana Pérez, emeritus member of the famed group Los Muñequitos de Matanzas.  

Tambor for Oggún at the Casa Templo de Berriel, Jovellanos shows a sacred drum ceremony, with intense dancing, for Oggún, the Yoruba orisha of iron and war. It takes place in the casa templo of 82-year-old Israel Berriel’s family. Berriel, who appears in this sequence and whose trance cuts it short, was well known in Cuba as the akpwon, or sacred-music vocalist, with Los Muñequitos de Matanzas. He died 10 months after filming.  

Song for Iroko in Carlos Rojas 
To the north of Jovellanos is the town of Carlos Rojas. Once called Cimarrones, its ceiba trees are associated with spirit and could hide self-emancipated formerly enslaved people in their hollow trunks. Ceiba trees are sacred and must not be cut down. Iroko, an orisha in the Yoruba tradition, lives in these trees, which are festooned with kerchiefs and with a female spirit figure in the form of a doll, to whom homage is given. The song may be unique to this community; no other version of it seems to exist.

Tambor for Oyá at the Casa Templo de Omo Layé, Barrio La Marina, Matanzas 
Shot at Omo Layé, the female-directed cabildo (religious organization) that is one of the most venerable in Matanzas, this is the longest scene in the film, at 18 minutes. It depicts the interplay of drumming and spiritual energy like nothing else on film, anywhere.  

Día de Reyes Procession in Barrio La Marina, Matanzas 
This tour de force of active street photography by New Orleans’s Lily Keber follows from the previous scene. After the ceremony at Omo Layé, the drummers and singers moved out into the street for a magnificent parade evoking the 19th-century Día de Reyes festivities. In slavery days, Día de Reyes (Epiphany, Jan. 6) was historically the day that Black Cubans took to the streets in ancestral regalia. In Matanzas, the tradition restarted in the 21st century. You’ve never seen a street procession like this, featuring high-energy student dancers of a community project that teaches traditional dance at a 100% real level: Barrio La Marina’s La Rumba Soy Yo Academia de Baile, a project associated with Los Muñequitos de Matanzas.  

Tambor at the Casa Templo of the Echarte Family, Coralillo 
Photographed in a sacred grove in rural Cuba, as the sun goes down, this scene shows a rural family playing their variety of African-descended drum, together with what Sublette calls “a Congo style of singing Yoruba music.” A dramatic spirit possession cuts the segment off.  

Palo Songs in the Barrio San Juan, Sagua La Grande 
Palo, meaning stick, or wood, refers to the Congo-descended Cuban religion. It’s a different practice, with different music, from the Yoruba practice whose music opens the film. Congo music is intensely repetitive. It has a strongly marked beat, often with a thump that has been adapted and simplified in the world’s popular music today. We’ve come a long way from the complex polyrhythm with which the film began. 

Palo Yaya 
“I’m a rumbera / Since I was in my mother’s womb.” The final credits sequence features a song of Cuban lore composed by Matanzas songwriter Francisco Domínguez. The only non-ceremonial piece in the film, it was a throwaway end-of-night jam in Matanzas that began with the oru seco that opened the film. It features three generations of women, including Ana Pérez, Yuriem García Pérez, and 15-year old Kilma Alfonso on conga. 

Events in Cuba produced by Caridad Diez for Rumbaways 
Director of Photography: Lily Keber 
Recorded during a Postmambo Music Seminar, January 2020.  
Executive Producer: Ned Sublette for Postmambo Films 
© (p) 2020, 2026