Ethnographic atlas of Cuba

The historic and cultural study of rural houses is important not only to characterize their ethnic contents in the process of formation and consolidation of our national identity, but also to project their future development with the preservation of traditionally transmitted values and information. The contemporary assimilation of their typologies, building materials, technologies and adjustment to the ecological environment, according to the characteristics of the rural settlements, contributes to maintain their landscape distinctiveness and main economic activity.

In cultural anthropology, this type of houses have been studied from the point of view of their social contents, that is, from the function they play in the cooperation and division of work by sexes and occupations during the construction process, the work or social standing of the builders, who takes part in the construction process -- that is mainly collective, by the family and the neighbors --, the name of each part of the house, their relationship with the family structure and the use of the land. In brief, it was a characterization of the ethnic specificities of the houses and their auxiliary facilities as a mechanism for the self-identification and differentiation of their dwellers within a given community or a disperse settlement.

To understand the social and cultural significance of rural houses and their auxiliary facilities in Cuba, we considered the variations in space and time of this type of vernacular constructions because of the various living standards of the social classes, groups and sectors in the countryside. The use of traditional building technologies and materials was also taken into account, together with the types of houses according to the materials of their walls, roofs and ground plan, their inner distribution, water and power supply, the function of the human groups in that environment and everything having to do with their adjustment to the ecosystem. Only by a new reading of the relationship between human beings and their environment, keeping in mind the present increase in material and social living standards according to the general development that has been reached, will the concept of rural houses being a sign of poverty be left aside.

The present section of the Atlas is based on a national sample allowing us to compare and complete the findings of past research on the function and place of houses in the material cultural complex in rural areas.

The historic process of human settlements near to or far from the main urban centers founded in Cuba since the first half of the 16th century until the last years of the 19th century, whether concentrated or disperse, conditioned the emergence and development of cultural specificities having to do with the urban population, their geographical location and the type of economic activity they engaged in.

These specificities are seen in the houses as well as in the food, the clothes, the house implements and the agricultural tools, obtained from the natural environment without causing the ecologic unbalance of urban areas.

There are four fundamental types of rural houses: bohíos, houses with porch roofs, economic houses and chalets. That is, from the most traditional and rudimentary to the more elaborate and complex.

Bohíos have four subtypes, according to the morphology of their ground plan: with the form of an I, an L, a T, and parallel or double I. Each of these morphologies has, in turn, variants that are to be found throughout the country. The number of this type of houses has declined in relation with the other types in the study, above all because of an improvement in the living standards of the rural population.

According to the distribution of their inner spaces, there are seven subtypes of houses with porch roofs, since their ground plan is generally rectangular.

There are six subtypes of economic houses. Their inner distribution is similar to that of the urban houses in the first half of this century, with a side corridor communicating all living quarters. Houses with porch roofs and economic houses have increased in relation to the other rural houses and new building materials are being used.

There are four types of rural chalets, even when they are few in number. Chalets repeat the ground plan characteristics of the economic houses, but with larger rooms and verandas in the front or surrounding them completely, as was the case in many of the houses in the sugar mill bateyes.

A diversity of building materials is used in walls, roofs and floors and they are closely linked to the type of houses.

Walls are made of palm planks, mainly from royal palms (Roystonea regia, H.K.B.) and cana palm (Sabal florida, Becc.), boards from various hardwood trees, mud and straw molded with sticks forming the walls, and bricks, blocks or pre-fab.

Roofs are made of palm leaves, creole (with one canal) or French or square (with two canals) mud tiles, not so frequently of wooden shingles, zinc sheets, fibroasphalt or fibrocement and reinforced concrete.

Floors may be packed down earth, wet and mixed with ashes and calcium carbonate, wood (mostly in houses built on stakes), cement (whether naturally grey or with powders giving it any other color), and industrial floor tiles.

In rural houses a close relationship may be found between the durability of building materials and the rise in living standards: most of the bohíos still have palm plank or wood walls, palm leaf roofs and cement or earth floors, but their number is decreasing; most of the rural houses with porch roofs, economic houses and chalets are built from tongued and grooved wood or bricks, tiled or reinforced concrete roofs and cement or tile floors. Their number is increasing. This is an evidence of a national and provincial rise in living standards if compared with the period before the revolution.

Census information, available from the 19th century, allows to research the evolution of building materials and the role wood, mud and palm leaves played in rural houses and their auxiliary facilities for several centuries.

In the 1827 census, that divided the island into three departments, mud, palm leaves (their petiolated part) and wood were used in three fourths of the houses.

Data for 1861 classify six types of building materials, from the most comfortable (board walls and tile roofs) to the most precarious (palm planks or leaves for the walls and palm leaves for the roofs) and a full correspondence is obviously seen between the social and economic development in the central and western regions and the backwardness in the eastern part of the country. Nevertheless, three fourths of the houses in the island had palm plank walls and palm leaf roofs or adobe walls with palm leaf roofs, an evidence of the precarious living standards of the peasant population. With the passage of time, this type of house became a symbol of poverty.

The 1970 census allows a reconstruction of a historical series from 1901 to 1970. Variations in the durability of the building materials of rural houses by provinces show an increase in wood and tiles during the first thirty years of the century and a gradual process of decline in the use of more precarious materials, with the exception of the provinces with the highest proportion of rural population (Pinar del Rio and Oriente).

However, from 1934 to 1958, wood and palm leaf characterized rural houses in these provinces with more rural population. During the 1959-70 period, wood and palm leaf houses still prevailed, with the exception of Las Villas, where there was great abundance of an important natural resource: mud.

If in this census we analyze by periods the development of each building material, we see that the houses with wood walls and tile roofs, the more comfortable ones, and adobe walls and tile roofs, tended to decrease from 1901 to 1945 as a reflection of the difficult social and economic situation the country was undergoing. Wood and tile houses increased in number in the 1946-58 period and then decreased again in that of 1959-70 because other building materials began to be used. The number of adobe and tile roof houses also increased, but to a lesser extent, since they were only built in a limited area in the country.

Those built with other traditional building materials --wood walls and palm leaf roofs, adobe walls and palm leaf roofs, palm planks and tile roofs -- increased uninterruptedly in number, reflecting a cultural persistence caused by the full adaptation and use of resources in the environment. They were built by those who were to live in them together with their relatives and neighbors with an empiric transmission of knowledge of building materials and techniques, an appropriation and transmission of a cultural modality influencing every aspect of the life cycle.

Water and power supply in today′s rural houses is very varied. Water sources may be rivers or springs. Wells and pools may be built or water may come through pipes, as in urban areas.

There is a decreasing dependence on natural forms of drinkable water supply in rural areas, no matter what the type of house, and an increasing use of man-made sources. The more comfortable (and modern) the house, the larger use of piped water.

Houses are lighted with kerosene, carbide, candles and electricity, whether from individual plants or large power plants. Electric power prevails, even when a considerable number of bohíos still use kerosene.

From 1959 to 1963, 26 000 rural houses were built in 150 towns or farms with living standards the peasant population never before had access to. Cooperatives also promoted the building of new houses, that not always took into account the peasants′ building traditions. In the Cuban rural environment a house is not merely a space topped by a roof, but everything surrounding it -- the auxiliary facilities in it and the open air space where the daily cycle is lived. This notion is essential to understand the ethnic and cultural characteristics of a habitat integrated to the daily needs and the perspectives of this part of the population.

There are six types of auxiliary facilities, generally forming a substantial part of the rural concept of what a house is: the bohio vara en tierra, the rancho, the corrals, the pen, the tobacco house, and the coffee or cacao drying area.

There are four subtypes of bohíos vara en tierra, according to whether they have front and back walls or not, since the structure is made up of hip or peak roofs without walls. This is the auxiliary facility that better resists hurricanes and has been used as a storeroom, a spare room and a guest room when the size of the main house requires it.

There are five main types of ranchos, each of them with two or three variations depending on the presence of walls and stakes and of a small porch used for household chores. Ranchos can also be used as storerooms, storeroom-bathroom, storeroom-washroom and other functions depending on the main economic activity in the household. Bohíos vara en tierra and ranchos are smaller than the main house to which they belong.

Among the many varieties of corrals, four subtypes with their respective variations may be identified, depending on whether they have roofs or not. They are mainly used for the breeding and care of livestock (bovines, horses, swine and goats), are built farther away from the houses and their size depends on the type of cattle they are to contain.

Other auxiliary facilities are the pens used for poultry (hens, doves, ducks, turkeys) and mammals (rabbits, guinea pigs, jutees). There are four other subtypes with variations having to do with the animals to be bred and the available construction materials.

The other auxiliary facilities depend on three specific types of economic activity.

Tobacco houses, with eight subtypes, vary in size and building materials. They are found in lands under tobacco and are used to dry recently harvested tobacco leaves. Their forms vary from those with peak roofs and no walls, as a large vara en tierra, to zinc roofs and board walls, similar to the rural chalet, although with no porch.

Dryers, as can be imagined by their name, are used to dry cacao and coffee beans under the sun. There are five types of them. They vary in size and design according to the topography of the land and the volume of the crops. Most of them have no roof. When they do, roofs are used to protect cacao from rain or dew; on the following day, cacao is again spread and turned several times so it can make the best use of the sun.

Rural houses and their auxiliary facilities underwent an accelerated process of change when very disperse populations lacking the most elementary access to health, educational, commercial, electrical and recreational facilities were grouped into communities. The establishment of state farms, credit and service cooperatives, agricultural and cattle breeding cooperatives, that concentrated peasants and agricultural workers, has had an impact on this. These entities are linked with the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) and the Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPC).

The impact of these developments has resulted in:

1. the inclusion of bathrooms with toilets in the roofed area of the houses built in the new communities. There has been an intense national campaign to build privies inside or next to the houses that are not yet part of the new communities;
2. the use of cement or tile floors to eliminate pounded earth floors, since they transmit many diseases, especially to the children.
3. the building of pens for poultry, swine and other animals so they will not be in the areas where people live, thus preventing the diseases they transmit.

Accelerated development gives rise to many types of changes and transformations, advances and new problems that must be considered, but it is aimed at human beings, constantly trying to preserve their cultural essence and reaffirm their condition. And houses are a substantial part of their condition as human beings.

Dr. Jesus Guanche Perez