Katherine DunhamCritiques

I read this at about the same time as I read Daughters of the Dust, and it was inevitable that I would find similarities between the two, both stories of the history of African peoples on an island in the New World, brought there by slavers, and the lives their descendants made as free people.

Katherine Dunham, probably more famous for the dance company she founded, was also a trained anthropologist, and this book is her story of the time spent doing field work in Haiti, a country which she loved and where she lived for many years.

Much of the book is a discussion of the voudon religion, in which she became an initiate of the gods of Nam 'Guinee. And there is also much discussion of the political situation in Haiti during the thirties, forties and fifties.

It's a fascinating account of a country whose history is not well-known, of a religion that is often caricatured and misunderstood, and of a complex people and society.