Once in Puerto Rico

Although we had first learned of Pura Belpre several years ago, it is only recently did we develop an interest in her work collecting and disseminating Puerto Rican folklore for children. What is most intriguing about her work is the inclusion of multiple stories from or about the indigenous past of Borinquen. Almost half of Once in Puerto Rico consists of stories about the Taino past of the island or the early Spanish conquest and settlement of the island. Some of the tales must certainly postdate the Spanish arrival. For example, the tale of Guani involves an Indian boy who plays a flute to restore his flock of goats. With the help of Yukiyu, Guani saves his goats from a spell cast by an evil toad. This tale refers to a cemi, magic, and an animal that did not exist on the island of Puerto Rico until the Spanish introduced it to the Caribbean. 

Perhaps this tale does reflect a far earlier legend or tradition that was "updated" during the colonial period with animals of Old World origin? Other tales about the Indian past, such as that of Milomaki and "The Legend of the Royal Palm," appears to be a legend explaining the singing of a tall palm tree when the wind blows through its branches.  This tale, like the "Legend of the Hummingbird" endeavors to explain a natural phenomenon and relies on references to magical or supernatural events transforming people into plants, animals, or things. The tale of Amapola and the colibri, however, has a more tragic romance feel since the the former is not allowed to have a relationship with a Carib male, eventually causing both to transform into a flower and a bird.

Other tales of the Indian past, like that of Iviahoca, unambiguously allude to events associated with the conquistadors of the island and the cacique Mabodamoca. In the case of this last story, the wife of a powerful cacique stands up to Becerrillo and manages to impress Ponce de Leon and Diego de Salazar. Through doing so, she frees herself and her son from the Spanish. The last tale with an Indian character, about Yuisa and Pedro Mexias uses the marriage of a mulatto and a cacica as a symbol for the Puerto Rican people. The two meet, fall in love, and, despite having to relinquish her power as cacica, Yuisa chooses to marry Pedro Mexias. Intriguingly, a council of bohiques is responsible for forcing Yuisa to abdicate her political office. Unfortunately, Carib raids eventually target the village and the two lovers die fighting to defend the island. The tale extolls the two for dying to defend the island and inspiring the governor of the island to attack the Caribs at Vieques. This is lovely and all, but seems to be a justification of the Spanish colony. Perhaps these stories reflect the morally ambivalent feelings of Puerto Rican society about its colonial origins. Moreover, some of these tales were passed on or inherited by others in colonial society who may have changed the tenor to fit their own interests. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note the frequent allusions to caves, cemis, and aspects of belief that mirror those of the Taino cosmovision.

Nord Alexis: Political Song

Here is an interesting recording of a political praise song from early 20th century Haiti. In praise of President Nord Alexis, it possesses that unmistakable Haitian rhythm. Although recorded by Harold Courlander several decades after the Alexis presidency, it might be a good indication of how popular music in Haiti at the time sounded. Since this rendition, lacks a band or orchestral accompaniment, it might be useful to imagine this accompanied by a military band. The liner notes certainly indicate that. 

Haiti in the 1950s

This above video, directed by Leonard Forest in 1957, not 1953, depicts numerous aspects of Haitian social, economic, and cultural life worthy of our attention. It also depicts how the Haitian government and economic elites in Haiti wanted their country to be represented in Canada. For instance, the film touches upon Canadian involvement in mining, Haiti's coffee and sisal exports there, Francophone ties with Quebec, and Haiti's tourist sector. Believe it or not, at the time, Haiti was one of the tourist hotspots in the Caribbean, and the film promotes it through video footage of nightclubs, mention of new hotels, and Haiti's cultural displays (mostly music). A French version was also released, Bonjou' soleil which features Jean Price-Mars. 

Unsurprisingly, then, the film focuses on folklore, dance, and music while also promoting an image of Haitian industrial development, dams, economic diversification, and tourism. Intriguingly, although presenting Haiti as Francophone in some respects, it also acknowledges the Creole-speaking majority and literary developments in the language, particularly a segment of a scene from a play of Morisseau-Leroy. The folkloric dancers must have been from some of the formally trained troupes in Port-au-Prince, but, sadly, none are identified. However, for those who have read subsequent studies of the period, this short-lived belle époque of Haitian culture and economy was built on glass, and crashed spectacularly with the fall of Magloire and the rise of Duvalier. The cultural nationalism plus modernization favored by the likes of Price-Mars and others failed.

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.

Werner Jaegerhuber

Voix et Harmonie interpret 3 compositions by Werner Jaegerhuber, another Haitian composer who sought inspiration in Haiti's folkloric music and traditions. Jaegerhuber's "Marassa Eou" is a personal favorite.