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Life in a Haitian Valley
This book is a precious document in the intellectual history of the black Americas. Its author was surely the first academically respectable white scholar to take seriously the cultural achievements of Afro-Americans, throughout the hemisphere. His influence is still keenly felt, within and beyond his discipline.
396 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1964
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January 31, 2025
a pioneering work
Melville Herskovits, who died in 1963, is not the most famous anthropologist ever, but he was the first white man to tell the world to wake up and smell the coffee. That is, that African cultures were rich and varied, that they had been brought by slaves to the New World and still lived on, though mixed with European and Native American-derived elements. He founded the first African Studies department in the US and a great library at Northwestern University. His many studies of African cultures in West Africa, Haiti, Surinam, and Brazil showed the way to many others. In the racist society of his day, it took a white man to open the door, through which many scholars of many races have followed. It was not news to people of African descent.
Herskovits also tried to show how cultures mix and meld, how it is impossible to divide a society like Haiti's into European and African sectors---everyone lived in both sectors. At a time when "voodoo" and "zombies" were the stuff of comic books and horror tales, he attempted to describe Haitian vodun accurately, with no sensationalism, and link it to West African religion. LIFE IN A HAITIAN VALLEY is a lengthy compendium of all the details of many aspects of life that he and his wife were able to amass in some three months of intensive field work. In my opinion, that was not enough time to do a thorough job, but as one who has never set foot in Haiti, I'm not in a position to criticize his observations or comments. This is ethnology in the mid-20th century style---trying to cover in a single book life cycle, economic life, religion, magic, and the arts as well as trying to link the whole to a wider African culture. There is no link to any individual; the observed don't speak, only the observers. As I said, this was the prevailing style, so it's not a real criticism. I think the value of Herskovits' work is in a) the ties he draws very well to West Africa, b) the comments he makes about the relevance of his work to the USA and African-Americans (he uses the word "Negro"), c) the down-to-earth approach to Haitian religion, d) his comments on the mixing of cultures, which after all, is almost a human universal, whether you like it or not, and e) in providing us today a social history of Haiti 80 years ago. Maya Deren's work "Divine Horsemen" covers some similar ground especially in relation to religion but plunges into the depths of the matter so quickly that it doesn't provide much of a learning experience for those of us not so knowledgeable.
If you want basic knowledge about Haiti, and are willing to read research done in 1934, this could be your book.
Melville Herskovits, who died in 1963, is not the most famous anthropologist ever, but he was the first white man to tell the world to wake up and smell the coffee. That is, that African cultures were rich and varied, that they had been brought by slaves to the New World and still lived on, though mixed with European and Native American-derived elements. He founded the first African Studies department in the US and a great library at Northwestern University. His many studies of African cultures in West Africa, Haiti, Surinam, and Brazil showed the way to many others. In the racist society of his day, it took a white man to open the door, through which many scholars of many races have followed. It was not news to people of African descent.
Herskovits also tried to show how cultures mix and meld, how it is impossible to divide a society like Haiti's into European and African sectors---everyone lived in both sectors. At a time when "voodoo" and "zombies" were the stuff of comic books and horror tales, he attempted to describe Haitian vodun accurately, with no sensationalism, and link it to West African religion. LIFE IN A HAITIAN VALLEY is a lengthy compendium of all the details of many aspects of life that he and his wife were able to amass in some three months of intensive field work. In my opinion, that was not enough time to do a thorough job, but as one who has never set foot in Haiti, I'm not in a position to criticize his observations or comments. This is ethnology in the mid-20th century style---trying to cover in a single book life cycle, economic life, religion, magic, and the arts as well as trying to link the whole to a wider African culture. There is no link to any individual; the observed don't speak, only the observers. As I said, this was the prevailing style, so it's not a real criticism. I think the value of Herskovits' work is in a) the ties he draws very well to West Africa, b) the comments he makes about the relevance of his work to the USA and African-Americans (he uses the word "Negro"), c) the down-to-earth approach to Haitian religion, d) his comments on the mixing of cultures, which after all, is almost a human universal, whether you like it or not, and e) in providing us today a social history of Haiti 80 years ago. Maya Deren's work "Divine Horsemen" covers some similar ground especially in relation to religion but plunges into the depths of the matter so quickly that it doesn't provide much of a learning experience for those of us not so knowledgeable.
If you want basic knowledge about Haiti, and are willing to read research done in 1934, this could be your book.
December 11, 2012
A classic.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews