Island Possessed

by Katherine Dunham

Just as surely as Haiti is "possessed" by the gods and spirits of vaudun (voodoo), the island "possessed" Katherine Dunham when she first went there in 1936 to study dance and ritual. In this book, Dunham reveals how her anthropological research, her work in dance, and her fascination for the people and cults of Haiti worked their spell, catapulting her into experiences that she was often lucky to survive. Here Dunham tells how the island came to be possessed by the demons of voodoo and other cults imported from various parts of Africa, as well as by the deep class divisions, particularly between blacks and mulattos, and the political hatred still very much in evidence today. Full of the flare and suspense of immersion in a strange and enchanting culture, Island Possessed is also a pioneering work in the anthropology of dance and a fascinating document on Haitian politics and voodoo.

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, History, Religion, Spirituality

287 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 1994

About the author

was an American dancer, choreographer, songwriter, author, educator and activist who was trained as an anthropologist. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers in American and European theater of the 20th century and has been called the "Matriarch and Queen Mother of Black Dance".[1]

During her heyday in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, she was renowned throughout Europe and Latin America as La Grande Katherine, and the Washington Post called her "Dance's Katherine the Great". For more than 30 years she maintained the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, the only permanent, self-subsidized American black dance troupe at that time, and over her long career she choreographed more than 90 individual dances. Dunham was an innovator in African-American modern dance as well as a leader in the field of Dance Anthropology, or Ethno choreology.

In 1992, at the age of 82, Katherine Dunham went on a highly publicized 47-day hunger strike to protest what she condemned as the discriminatory U.S. foreign policy against Haitian boat-people.

Reviews

[Kati Stovall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic writing. I may be slightly biased since the author is my godmother, but it's enlightening and gives a picture of Hatian culture.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The structure of the book kind of throws me off. I think it's best categorized as a memoir but at times it feels like it wants to be a series of essays and I wish it leaned more strongly one way or the other. As it stands, I appreciate it mostly as a fascinating artifact not only of this episode of Dunham's life, but also a fairly ethical ethnography of Haiti. There's no getting around that Dunham is giving us an outsider's perspective, but both her Blackness and her conscious effort to immerse herself in the culture makes it feel more engaged than the typical ethnographic reporting style. I can't really recommend this book as beach reading, but if you're at all interested in either Katherin Dunham or Haitian history and culture then you won't be disappointed.

[Hogai Aryoubi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful personal ethnography

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

When reading this book I had to keep reminding myself that it was written in the 60's by someone explaining her experiences in the 30's. There was a lot of antiquated language and references no longer popular. A lot of time was spent looking up words (i.e., quaquaversal) and people (i.e., Argentinita). The author also had a habit of going on tangents that made the book even more difficult to follow. This book was full of interesting stories and insights into a culture that was new and foreign to Dunham. However, her style of writing left a lot to be desired in my opinion. I would not recommend this book to anyone who wanted an introduction into Haiti's culture. Dunham focused primarily on voodoo (when there is so much more to Haiti) and a bit on dancing.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Found this unfortunately unreadable...just couldn't make my way through the "English" in which this was supposedly written. I gave up after about 10 pages.