Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica

In 1936 Zora Neale Hurston was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to study Afro-Caribbean religion, apparently on the basis of folkloric research she had done in the American South a decade before and written up as "Mules and Men" (1935) and "Hoodoo in America" (1931 in the "Journal of American Folklore"). She went to Jamaica in 1936 and Haiti (twice) in 1937 and was apparently granted unprecedented access to Voodoo in practice--she does not explain how. This strange book is an account of her putative experiences in both places."Tell My Horse" isn't really a coherent book. It's a collection of free-standing chapters/narratives, with no general introduction, no transitions, and no summing-up or conclusions; it just starts and ends. There is no glossary. It's as if Hurston expects the reader to be familiar already with the vocabulary of voodoo, to know what a houngan or a hounci or a canzo is, or for that matter what a loa is and how loas and orishas are related. Occasionally a word that has been used many times before is suddenly defined in parentheses, again underscoring the independence of the various chapters. The names of Haitian historical figures, some quite obscure, are flung around as if everyone knows their histories. Herbal medicines and plants used in magic are named, but not identified botanically. Songs, chants and prayers are reproduced in full in the original Creole--and almost never translated. It gets very frustrating.And yet--no one can deny that it is a mesmerizing "read." The detailed descriptions of voodoo practices are both fascinating and horrifying, often entailing bloody animal sacrifice. (Such stuff is going on today right here in the United States; there was recent evidence of it in Sacramento, California, a seemingly unlikely venue.) There are numerous photographs, mostly too murkily reproduced, at least in this edition, to be very informative.The big question about this book is how to read it. Is it descriptive anthropology? Hurston seems swept into the milieu she describes. Does she believe in what she writes about? Does she believe in the power of voodoo ritual? Most of all, does she believe in zombies? She claims to have tried to interview one, and provides the only known photograph of one. But how does she know this is a zombie? She allows for the possibility that zombies are not and never have been dead--that their masters, the bocors, have a secret drug that puts the victim in a death-like state such that he or she is buried, only to be surreptitiously exhumed and put to work as a zombie. The existence of such a secret "zombie powder" has been much discussed by people interested in such stuff, but never proven or disproven. The topic of voodoo zombies (as against the contemporary pop-culture version) refuses to die. Yes, a very strange book.

Good read

Although most of those who recognize Zora Neal Hurston’s name think of her fiction, Hurston was also an anthropologist, a Student of Franz “papa” Boas, one of the last great public intellectuals in the 20th century. This wonderful, unique monograph provides a history of key events and impressions of daily life in Haiti in a beautiful, accessible manner. History, politics, and Voodoo are the main topics, and each is covered in a way that is both readable and informative. Hurston’s voice is uncommon as an anthropologist (there were not many black women anthropologists at the time), and her narrative weaves observation with interpretations smoothly and beautifully, so that it has about it the feel of a folktale, with scenes joyous, haunting, horrible, and at times, downright creepy.Hurston, who did not often (if ever) say why she was there, was truly a part of the daily lives of the people with whom she stayed, and she withheld information about why she was there because she knew that if she told the people, she would see a performance of people’s lives, rather than actual lives, staged dances rather than real dances. Hurston also brings us a superb example of participant observation, and she makes no pretense that she can somehow get data that is completely uninformed by her presence. Neither does she accept stated perceptions at face value, but rather, challenges them when she feels it is appropriate. Consequently, her grasp of what is going in around her is much stronger.One critique I do have is that Hurston makes sweeping, reductionist statements that betray her positionality (an educated black woman from the United States) in some aspects. I am not saying she wasn’t reflective, as there are many comments throughout the book that lead me to believe she was, but rather, that reflectiveness isn’t ever explicitly stated.For those who enjoy political intrigue, reading about the death of Leconte (chapter 9) might prove quite enjoyable. Leconte isn’t the only memorable character in the book, even if, historically speaking, he may be the best known. Or perhaps that nod goes to Vilbrun Sam. In any case, there is also the buffoon president, his Voodoo priestess daughter, and her husband the goat. Oh, and zombies. The layout of Hurston’s book sets the reader up for the world in which voodoo is at work at that period of time in history, in all places, at all levels of society, leading up to the title chapter, “Go Tell My Horse,” which refers to the “mounting” (or possession) of a person by a loa.Whether for enjoyment or assignment (although I do hope those aren’t mutually exclusive), Go Tell My Horse is an enjoyable, fascinating observation of Haiti in the first half of the 20th century, and I highly recommend you give it a read.

Zora Neale Hurston explored Jamaica & Haiti with an openness and an abundance of curiosity. She did things other women of he background would have declined to do and ventured where others would not. But all the time she must have been taking careful notes, because the resulting document is richly detailed. Her curiosity shines through every page. That the subject matter is so strange and outre undoubtedly spurred her investigations. It's the best book on voodoo I've ever read.

Was very amazing

First things first - Tell My Horse is a classic piece of anthropological literature and this review is not slagging off the inimitable Zora Neale Hurston.My copy of the book, however, is missing several pages. Specifically there is no introduction by Ishmael Reed as promised on the cover and in the table of contents. This isn't why I bought it, of course, but that's a pretty obvious error so points off for sloppy publishing.

Such an excellent and even important seeming book. I was reintroduced to Zora Neale Hurston through her folktales in audio after thinking I hated her writing. Like many, I was forced to read Their Eyes Were Watching God in high school, and thought that all her writing would require the amount of work required to read in heavily accented English. As others have commented this is a great example of her work as an essayist and trained anthropologist. For such an excellent piece of work, I just wish it was available in an excellent audio format like much of her fiction.

I bought this book for my wife and didn’t intend to read it myself. I’d read Their Eyes Were Watching God and enjoyed it and I thought one day I would read Hurston’s other novels, but I didn’t think I’d want to read this exploration of Jamaican burial rites and boar hunting and Haitian voodoo. I’m glad I did.Hurston went to Jamaica and Haiti as a mixture of things: an anthropologist, a journalist, a creative writer, a first worlder, a US citizen, an African-America, a woman….and that mixture influenced how she looked at the people she met and their customs, and how she wrote about them. The result is an account of customs and beliefs that is detached yet sympathetic with no trace of condescension (at least I couldn’t detect any). Some of it seemed familiar as I’ve lived in Jamaica and I know many people of Jamaican heritage in the UK. I thought I knew something about Haiti as well, but I learned a lot more from this book.However, you can see why Hurston was marginalised, not just by the white publishers and reviewers but also by mainstream Black literati. Her independent thinking meant she was frequently off-message. The chapter on women in the Caribbean is a good example of that. I suppose one thing that would have made a conscious African-American in the 30s/40s or later cringe is the way Hurston focuses on conflict and strife within Black communities rather between white and Black. Also she doesn’t present that conflict and strife in a context of slavery and continued oppression. She is more comfortable with folk lore than with political analysis. There’s a suggestion that slavery and oppression mixed with African heritage gives Black people an enhanced and spiritual/esoteric outlook on life compared to whites. In that context it is perfectly reasonable for Jamaicans to believe in duppies, a belief that the white colonial masters would dismiss as ignorant superstition. The writers of the Harlem Renaissance were very uncomfortable with this approach and Hurston, sadly, ended her life in poverty and obscurity.Kudos to Alice Walker for rediscovering her.This edition has a very illuminating afterword by Henry Louis Gates Jr.I’ve since read Hurston’s Complete Stories in the Harper Perennial edition. These editions of Hurston’s works are great value as they include additional material about Hurston’s life and work. The Complete Stories has an account by Alice Walker about how she tracked down Hurston’s tomb in an overgrown cemetery in Florida.

Tell My Horse is Zora Neale Hurston's observation of voodoo/obeah in Haiti and Jamaica respectively. She calls up images in clear, conversational prose, and most times, tries not to project her Western sensibilities into the narrative, but when she does, she's mostly good at calling herself out on it. It's interesting, the fact that she interviewed people who remembered when they were taken from Africa and shipped to Haiti to become slaves, and the various spells/concoctions they carried with them from their native lands, but never shared with Hurston under the pain of death.Where the book falls down is the pictures- terribly reprinted, you can barely see anything, and the side rambling into Haitian local politics (in the present day then) that really means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps if there'd been a footnote by a scholar to say how that local bit of political history impacted on Haiti today, I'd have been happy, but as it is, it took me out of the story. Overall, a good read if you read it in the day. It's spooky reading it at night!

WOW. WHAT A GIFTED WRITER SHE WAS. THIS BOOK IS SO INFORMATIVE. HER WORDS ILLUMINATE YOUR IMAGINATION. SHE REALLY DID HER RESEARCH IN THE GIVEN SUBJECT.

Excellently written, & very interesting

Good insight