Ethnographic atlas of Cuba

Rice with meat: Dish made with rice cooked with meat, preferably pork, although beef and mutton are also used.

Royal Palm: It is the celebrated palm tree (Roystonea regia) in the Cuban countryside. Planks for rural houses are made from its trunks. Its leaves are used to thatch houses and give shade to tobacco plantations. Its dry leaves are used for baskets and bales for leaf tobacco; they are also used in walls and roofs. The fruit, called palmiche, is excellent swine feed.

Rabo del macho (Pig's tail): Dance considered a variation of the son montuno. Today it is only performed in the peasant parties of the Red and Blue Bands of Majagua, Ciego de Avila province. It is an artistic projection of a traditional event in peasant guateques: stealing the tail of a roasted pork, to play a practical joke on its owner and give it to the guests.

Radá: 1. Religious cult practiced in Haiti as part of the voodoo. It entered in Cuba with immigrants from that country. Its basic elements are the following: (a) Ceremonial hierarchy depending on the type of religious activities (the priests and their attendants); (b) Temple and altars, also rooms with all the cult paraphernalia (central pole, costumes, sacred stones and others); (c) Vessels for the souls of the members of the cult when they are initiated or die and for the loas when they leave; (d) Special ceremonies to include a person into the religious group: head washing, initiation, partition (separation of the soul from its material wrappings); (e) Habitual cult including ceremonies or services to the loa radá, beats, songs and dances. // 2. Single membrane drums that are struck directly (See Dahome).

Refresco: Name given in Cuba to industrial soft drinks, as opposite to homemade fruit juices.

Reja: Plow tooth used as a percussion instrument with an indeterminate sound. It is struck with a railroad nail.

Resegné: Lay dance of a Haitian origin, danced only by some Haitians living in Holguín, Cueto, Guantánamo and Santiago de Cuba. Positions and movements are deeply linked with the steps. Partners try to make pelvic contact while dancing.

Richeliu (embroidery): A backstitch makes a design in the material. Its inner part is removed and small bars of thread are made perpendicularly to the lines of the design. Its outlines are then blocked with a chord that is then totally covered with thread.

Rococó: Type of machine embroidery for girl's garments combining ribbons and backstitches in flower motifs. It can also be hand-made.

Round dance: Lay dance of immigrants from the Cayman Islands that settled in the Isle of Youth towards the end of the 19th century and first decades of the 20th. Couples dance with free turns, lateral movements and changes of partners. Some compare it with the sucu-sucu, since they have common elements: the same number of movements and the fact that feet never leave the floor. The movements of shoulders and arms are similar, also the way the partner is held. The main difference is that the round dance is danced laterally while sucu-sucu goes forwards and backwards, from one side to the other. Round dance is slower, like a hall dance, while sucu-sucu has a quicker pace.

Rumba: Popular Cuban dance, perhaps the most characteristically Cuban. Every rumba begins by a narrative song, a suggestion, followed by another one where the chorus takes part. Then comes the dancing: the "rumba erupts" when a couple -- or a single male spectator in its columbia variation -- takes the center of the circle. These three acts in the rumba have a characteristic development and their variations create the modalities of this musical and dancing genre.

Rumba de botella (Bottle rumba): A variation in the way rumba is danced. The performer dances around a bottle, without causing it to fall, to earn the right to drink it. In some places, such as Yaguajay, the dance, known as como no (how not), is actually very complex. There is a musical refrain and the dancers are mostly guided by the rhythms played by the quinto.

Rumba cruzada con palo (Rumba mixed with palo): A variation of the rumba, actually a columbia, with Congo words and musical elements.

Rumba de Navidad (Christmas rumba): Group that, riding a carriage with guitars, tumbadoras and a saxophone, sang Christmas carols on the streets of Mantua, Pinar del Río.

Rumba de santo (santería rumba): It is played at the end of santería gatherings and also in other celebrations. Among this type of rumba there are those played with batá drums, with very specific beats, as the ones played for Changó; extemporized rumbas in Spanish to any deity, and rumbas using Yoruba expressions.