Thus Spoke the Uncle

Winston James describes Price-Mars as a doctor, school master, university lecturer and rector, deputy, senator, diplomat, presidential candidate, cabinet minister, and prolific author who helped established Haiti as the forerunner in the Caribbean for reconsidering the African contributions to the culture of the region (James 453). In addition, James also places the work of Mars in the wider context, one where the US occupation sparked a ethnological movement (indigenist, noirist) among black and colored Haitian intelligentsia (452). Price-Mars, a descendant of Jean-Baptiste Belley, according to Laurent Dubois, was also a scion of a long family of other distinguished Haitians. His magnum opus, Ainsi parla l'oncle, published in 1928 used anthropology, history, linguistics, musicology, sociology, and literary criticism to bring to light what he called the ‘indigenous’ black culture of Haiti, analyzed Haitian folklore and examined Kreyol as a fully formed language and praised Haitian cultural debt to African ancestral roots and considered Haitian linkages to contemporary Africa (453). James goes on to assert the influence of Jean Price-Mars in future Haitian intellectuals and writers, including Jacques Roumain, Carles Brouard, Francois Duvalier, and the entirety of the negritude and black nationalist movements of the Caribbean and Africa (454).

Danton also praises Jean Price-Mars, who challenged notions that black populations in the Americas lacked historical depth/culture because of the destructive forces of slavery as well as broadened  the scope of historical research to include Haitian rural masses before Western Marxist historians began including it in their narratives (Danton 166). According to Danton, he was also the first to establish the study of Vodou as a religion in its own right, based on its own theology, it orders time and space, and possesses its own ethic (169). Thus, these pre-emptive readings make it seem that this important text is a brilliant study of Africanisms in Haitian culture, Vodou, an example of subaltern studies, and an interdisciplinary work of religious, anthropological, and historical inquiry, which was necessary to validate the Haitian majority and the black race, presaging noirist thought, in the midst of a racist and brutal American occupying force.

With such lofty words from Winston James, let's see how my perspective on Ainsi parla l'oncle may differ. My interpretation relies on a translation by Magdaline W. Shannon, published by Three Continents Press. The introduction endeavors to establish the author as a refutation of the racial theories of Le Bon historically, ethnologically, and biologically, emphasizing the African past and its contribution to contemporary Haitian social structure, and Voodoo as a New-World phenomenon and not an African survival. The early chapter focuses on folklore and its importance in the knowledge of the masses, as well as its French and African influences that make up Ti-Malice, Ti-Bouqui, and other characters in Haitian folk tales. One can see evidence of the author's defense of the Creole/Kreyol language, too, and he cites a Kreyol expression from the Haitian Revolution that survives to this day, a chant song at battle of Vertieres:

“Grenadiers a l’assault!

Ca qui mouri zaffaire a yo!

Nan point manman nan point papa!

Grenadiers a l’assault!

Ca qui mouri zaffaire a yo! (Price-Mars 27)

He also refers to Romaine the Prophetess (24) as well as "Choucoune" and Oswald Durand (33), to establish the literary credentials, history, and power of Kreyol to the majority of the Haitian people. 

In the second chapter, on popular belief, Price-Mars defines Vodou as a religion based on the following factors: 

1. all of its adherents believe in the existence of spiritual beings who live anywhere in the universe in close intimacy with humans whose activity they dominate

2. these invisible beings constitute a pantheon in which the greatest among them bear the title of Papa or Grand Master

3. the cult appertaining to its gods requires a hierarchical priestly body, a society of the faithful, temples, altars, ceremonies, and oral tradition that has passed down the essential elements of worship

4. theology, a system of representation thanks to which our African ancestors have accounted for natural phenomena (39)

He also approaches the question of sorcery, witchcraft and magic (42) and discusses the presence of Catholicism among African slaves as something embedded in the Code Noir but never really enforced (proselytizing among the enslaved seems to have been on the bottom of the priorities for the slave regime), though technically Catolicism was the only religion allowed in the colony (47). He cites Moreau de St. Mery to illustrate that most blacks in the colony from the coast of Congo and Angola, taken from an area between Cape Lopez and Cape Negre (51). This information is used to establish a background on Haitian popular culture from the slave period to the 20th century, where the specific African origins of the Haitian people are necessary to understand, as well as its impact on slave culture, religion, and resistance, which are not separable from the Haitian Revolution and the course of Haitian history. His defense of Vodou as religion is also of value, since legislation, Catholic Church missions, and international eyes to this day perceive Vodou as just black magic, witchcraft, zombies, and savage superstition.

Moving on to the subject of Africa and it's history and cultural impact on Haitian popular culture, examined in detail in the third chapter, it becomes clear that the limitations of the 1920s impacted negatively Jean Price-Mars. Falling back on the theory of Hamites (63) and outdated theories on the origin of the black race, unfortunately this is where I began to lose interest in the text. Although rooted in the theories of his day, which were, unfortunately, colonialist, racist, and for the most part unfounded, one should still commend the overall text for arguing against racism, but the tone and clearly out of date theoretical underpinnings of this text on Africa is problematic. That said, it still has inherent value and he defends the African past and black civilizations with references to the general history of the empires of the Western Sudan, Ghana, Mali, and Songhai (68). Nevertheless, I take issue with his climatic or geographical determinism on the black inhabitants of the equatorial region of Africa: “Those who reproach Negroes for their inferiority or their so-called inaptitude for civilization disregard too easily the terrible conditions of Negro life in the equatorial zone. For the conclusion of these superficial critiques clashes with contradictory facts found in other black communities favored with better climatic conditions” (78). This is a very problematic point, although one Firmin would likely have agreed with. However, it dismisses the history and relevance of the equatorial region of Africa, from whence the ancestors of perhaps the majority of Haitians descend, in ways that are similar to Jared Diamond's controversial and Eurocentric Guns, Germs, and Steels. To prove his theory that better climatic conditions show the equality of the black race, Price-Mars refers to the Western Sudan and the various empires and kingdoms that existed in that region, between the Mediterranean and tropical Africa. Naturally, I agree with Price-Mars on the equality of the races of humanity, but to measure "civilized" societies on a seemingly Eurocentric ruler, does a disservice to the Kongo, Kuba, Ndongo, Matamba, and various West African kingdoms and societies of the "torrid" equatorial region, societies with complex social organization, highly developed religious and intellectual traditions, advanced metallurgy, etc.

In the sixth chapter, Price-Mars dissects Haitian Vodou further, discussing the Catholic symbolic influences, such as Ogou Balindjo as St. James (168). He also alludes to Dessaline ordering to death practitioners of the predecessor of Vodou in 1801 after a ceremony on the plain of the Cul de Sac, an example of the Haitian elite persecuting Vodouisants (155). He also compares Haitian belief in magic and superstition to that of other peoples/religions around the world and throughout history, showing how normal or universal Haitian popular beliefs can be when it comes to the question of supernatural phenomena and superstition. Later, Price-Mars engages in literary commentary and analysis of George Sylvain, Frederic Marcelin, Fernand Hibbert, Justin Lherisson, Massillon Coicou, Burr-Reynaud, Dantes Rey, Carolus, and others, thereby demonstrating the validity of Haitian literature, oral traditions and folklore by showing intersections of the talent of writers with that of folkloric and popular culture.

In conclusion, the text is definitely revolutionary and progressive for its time, though the writing style and some of the content naturally comes off as inaccurate and dated. Written as a defense of Haiti, Haitian peasant culture and popular beliefs, Price-Mars deserves the accolades for pushing against the elite's condescending and racist Bovarism that denied or suppressed that which made Haitians Haitian. As a product of  a context which included oppressive US occupation forces, Price-Mars also spoke to the experiences of other subjugated people to American military and commercial expansion in the Caribbean in the early 1900s, particulary in indigenist and noirist thought. In addition, his critique of the Ardouin brothers, Thomas Madiou, and other 19th century Haitian mulatto historians speaks to challenge the ways elite Haitians have written off or perpetuated negative stereotypes toward those who comprise the majority of the population, who described black Haitians as fetishists and never portrayed Vodou in a positive or neutral light (167). Thus, the importance of Price-Mars for establishing Haitian popular religion as a proper field of study with it's own internal set of rules and theology was significant for challenging racist derogatory attitudes toward Afro-Caribbean religious thought and African religions and establishing a sense of Haitian cultural nationalism removed from Eurocentric standards. One could argue for a long precedent for such attitudes among earlier Haitian nationalists, such as Firmin to a certain degree, or even back to Vastey, who wrote about the brilliance of ancient African civilizations, but neither of these figures wrote so much on Haitian popular culture and beliefs as Price-Mars. For that reason, this book deserves it's place of high regard in Haitian intellectual thought and Caribbean intellectual history, despite it's weaknesses, slight Eurocentrism, outdated information, and seemingly hodgepodge structure.

Sources

Gerarde Magloire-Danton, “Anténor Firmin and Jean Price-Mars: Revolution, Memory, Humanism,” Small Axe 18:9 (2005).

Winston James in “Culture, Labor, and Race in the Shadow of US Capital from The Caribbean: A History of the Region and Its Peoples, eds. Stephan Palmie and Francisco A. Scarano, University of Chicago Press, 2011.

Jean Price-Mars, So Spoke the Uncle: Ethnographic Essays. Washington, D.C.: Three

Continents Press, Inc., 1983.