Kanuri Women of Borno (Nigeria): Perspectives from the Little Kingdom of Musune

Editha Platte's Kanuri Women of Borno (Nigeria): Perspectives from the Little Kingdom of Musune is a fascinating but often flawed work on a topic still neglected by those interested in the history of the Kanuri. Unfortunately, this work, which appears to contain parts of her dissertation and subsequent research, was not translated well from the German. It is usually not enough to hinder understanding, but when combined with the repetition of pages in later sections, it is enough to make the last third of the text an arduous enterprise. The second half, focusing on the life cycles experienced by Kanuri women from birth to marriage, child-rearing, and divorce or widowhood, sorely lacked a conclusion to connect it with the earlier part of the book on titles held by Kanuri women. 

One was also expecting a conclusion to connect it to the possible question of looking at the Kanuri mai mbauji for possible insights into how the Sayfawa court was organized and run. After all, if these smaller chiefdoms or princedom courts, which were ruled by local dynasties who once occupied a vassal status as tributaries to Birni Gazargamo, could possibly shed light on that topic, it would have been of interest to see that argument made explicitly or with strong examples. Some of this likely can be found in a few of the older studies or inaccessible German resources or a more thorough reading on our part of the works of Cohen on the question of women and queen mothers. 

Nonetheless, Platte apparently did not wish to engage in a more detailed historical study using the various written sources from the precolonial era which do contain allusions to women titleholders and royal women. Indeed, thanks to Platte, we began to take another look at some of the mahrams in Palmer's Bornu Sahara and Sudan and references to elite women in Muhammad Yanbu's work. Some of the connections were, in fact, quite obvious and we are embarrassed to admit we did not do this earlier. For instance, the sokotoma Aisha  bt. Ali, who was mentioned in one of the mahrams, was likely the eldest daughter of the mai. Platte also makes fascinating references to the donning of male garb in some of the installation rituals for female titleholders among the Pabir, Bolwa, and other groups. One cannot help but wonder if some of these rites, forms of seclusion, and use of male dress were also part of Sayfawa court practice for the maira or moworam. 

Also of use is Platte's reference to some of the then-recent theories about the "Sao" and Kotoko. If Musune was once a "Sao" center that transitioned into a Kotoko polity whose ruling class later claimed Maumi origin (Maami-Ariwa, though commoners were of the Ngaala clan), then Musune's history can be contextualized within the broader context of ethnic and political changes in Borno from the 1200s to the 1500s. This model of Platte assumed the "Sao" were building centers or towns at places like Musune by the 1200s (by c. 1300 for Musune). Possible proof can be found in the giant "Sao" pots in this region, dated from the 1200s-1400s. Then, a Kotoko identity gradually emerged as the Massa expanded northward. This led to the absorption or displacement of the "Sao" already in the area. Subsequent changes began when the expansionist Sayfawa state in the 1500s began to incorporate the former "Sao" and Kotoko polities. Somehow, although it is not clear from the evidence utilized by Platte, Musune transitioned from a possible Sao-Tatala affiliation to Kotoko by the 1500s. Presumably, the new ruling dynasty was installed by the Sayfawa (or they began to claim common origin with the regional hegemon). 

To what extent this aforementioned (and tentative) historical overview is accurate for Musune or the Kotoko is up for debate. One also wonders why Platte was perhaps more persuaded by the idea of the Sayfawa in Borno borrowing some of its titles or court practices from local "Sao" groups. For instance, the central role played by elite women as titleholders in the Sayfawa court in Kanem can be partially glimpsed from the Diwan for the 1100s. And why the Sayfawa would have needed to borrow so heavily from groups who, according to Platte, did not develop more elaborate political formations until the 1200s or 1300s, is not addressed. But as an introduction to one of the Kanuri princedoms of Borno and the life cycle of the Kanuri women, there is an ample amount of fascinating information. 

Le Devenir du Métissage Racial en Haïti

Le Devenir du Métissage Racial en Haïti, a brief essay on racial mixing in Haiti, is too short to be of much substance. However, as an early work of Haitian historian Henock Trouillot, it is interesting for providing insight into how Trouillot viewed race, Haitian culture, and the fate of the nation in 1948. Viewing race broadly as types of human beings not solely defined by pigmentation, the mainly African and French (the Indian mostly disappeared or left little genetic presence in Haiti, although Trouillot cites Jacob to reference the possible survival of pockets of Indians in different parts of Haiti) components in the making of the Haitian people are portrayed as the fundamental racial mixing in Haiti. While most Haitians were and are not "mulattoes" like some of the other Caribbean populations, this broader conception of "race" means that Haitians, the product of so many different types of African and French populations, are a highly mixed population. Indeed, this diversity is even praised as one of the benefits of not having a genetically isolated population. Furthermore, Trouillot's thoughts on Vodou and Creole present a mix of progressive and derogatory views. Creole, in Trouillot's mind, should be used to make the Haitian masses literate and, by extension, elevate the intellectual, social, and economic conditions of Haiti. Vodou, however, is seen as part of the primitive mentality of mysticism. This brings to mind Trouillot's later work on Vodou and the need to modernize Haiti by elevating the Haitian masses culturally. Overall, Trouillot's brief essay is more enlightening for demonstrating how Haitian intellectuals of the 1940s defined race and conceived the Haitian ethnie (though Trouillot adopts a historico-cultural model rather than a strictly bioanthropological methodology). One also sees in Trouillot how some Haitian historians and ethnologists, infused with a nationalist spirit and racial pride, sought to use education and the creation of a national mystique propagated by education and the state, to build a stronger state. One sees the influence of the Griots and Price-Mars here, albeit from a historical perspective. 

The People of Esperanza

Esperanza: An Ethnographic Study of a Peasant Community in Puerto Rico, Carlos Buitrago Ortiz's ethnographic study of the rural population of Esperanza, Puerto Rico is a detailed study of kinship and its ramifications across various facets of social life. Based on fieldwork conducted in the region during the 1960s, during a phase of great change due to emigration, the work captures a rural Puerto Rico that was already losing its "traditional" character. Nonetheless, the barrio of Esperanza's population was still predominantly poor and relied on Arecibo, San Juan or the United States for a variety of services, access to work, or representatives of church and state. Most of the residents also claimed to embody or still adhere to traditional values of Esperanza before large-scale emigration's impact. In addition, most of its population continued to value kinship and affinal ties, compadrazco relations, and defined itself based on communal values in opposition to those of the state. 

For our purposes, this ethnography does not reveal much about the indigenous inheritance of the rural population. Perhaps this is due to the specific barrio in question having substantial or conspicuous ancestry traceable to the Canary Islands. Indeed, Buitrago Ortiz himself stresses the Hispanic and Mediterranean features of rural Puerto Ricans. Like those other communities, the people of Esperanza lived in a culture in which males completely controlled the public sphere, women were to remain in the domestic sphere, and to become an adult male signified marriage with children. In other words, to become a full adult male member of the community, one must marry, (eventually) live on one's own in a separate household, and have children. Strict gender roles were commonly observed and adhered to across classes. For those unable to reach this ideal, a common-law union or consensual union was accepted as long as both parties stuck to the expected gender roles. However, the preference was on a marriage through the church. Furthermore, the male was always expected to be the provider and care for his wife and dependents, laboring on his own land or for wages to provide a house, food, and supplies for the family. 

Undoubtedly, the very Hispanic and Mediterranean aspects of Puerto Rican culture represented a sharp contrast with those of pre-Hispanic populations on the island. Nonetheless, some elements of continuity may be observable in religion, spirituality, and popular belief. It is possible that the importance of bilateral kinship ties among the people of Esperanza can also be a remnant of indigenous and African heritage. In addition, the practice of inheritance in which all children inherit equally could potentially have non-Hispanic origins or influences. Compadrazo ties created between adult males of usually equal status may be an additional example of African and indigenous legacies as well as the obvious Catholic and Hispanic heritage. 

Overall, the indigenous elements are probably best expressed in religion and spirituality. For instance, the practice of vigils organized in honor of saints after a vow to the saint for aiding one included sacred and secular phases. The vigils included secular moments with men drinking alcohol, women and children enjoying soft drinks, and the serving of coffee, cheese and crackers. Vigils lasted all night and included prayer with rosaries. The close connection with a saint for their intercession on the behalf of someone who suffered from illness, debt or an accident has obvious Catholic overtones. But one may also detect indigenous and African influences through the possible substitution of cemis with saints, the Virgin, or even Jesus Christ. The vigils could become a tradition, organized annually several years after the initial promesa or vow to the saint. In addition, wakes for vigils for the dead similarly combine sacred and secular phases. According to Buitrago Ortiz, vigils included music of the type typical of rural Puerto Rico, meaning indigenous influences were likely found. The fusion of sacred and secular in an affair open to the community brings to mind Taino areitos, with their collective or communal focus.

Besides the custom of vigils, the countryside population also engaged the services of spiritualist mediums and made promesas to the saints. Saints were represented by santos de palo, or wooden figures, and often passed down for generations. These wooden figures of the saints were associated with saints who received the promises or vows of those seeking their intercession. The curative powers of these saints made them important for healing practices. Curanderos, such as Menelao, combined the chanting of prayers while manipulating or massing limbs to cure his patients. This brings to mind the curing practices of behiques of the indigenous period, who probably also used chanting and moving of the arms and legs (in addition to stones and other practices) to cure patients. Last but certainly not least, an element of indigenous beliefs likely persisted as the rural population believed in ghosts, wandering souls, and apparitions. Certain areas at night were avoided due to the fear of ghosts, just as the indigenes of Hispaniola were afraid of walking around at night due to the opias.

While Buitrago Ortiz's ethnography is more revealing of Hispanic and Mediterranean features in the culture of Puerto Rico, one can still detect indigenous (and African) characteristics. Although not the focus of the study, and perhaps the area in question was more influenced by Canary Islanders, indigenous features in rural Puerto Rican spirituality, devotion of the saints, and the healing traditions of curanderos. Future research on this theme could possibly uncover far more indigenous "retentions" if healers like Menelao were the focus of study. Moreover, bringing the question of race into social relations could have possibly led to some interesting insights on social stratification and lineage.

Shamans, Jaguars and the Taino

Reichel-Dolmatoff's The Shaman and the Jaguar: A Study of Narcotic Drugs Among the Indians of Colombia is one of those detailed studies of a South American tropical lowland population with potential relevance for the Taino. Although the Tukano live in the Colombian Amazon region and are rather far removed from the Antilles, they share a reliance on manioc, consumption of hallucinogens, ritual purging and fasting and shamanistic practices with the Taino peoples. Indeed, when Reichel-Dolmatoff begins the book with a historical overview, it becomes rather clear that the Taino peoples shared some of these deeply-held and cherished beliefs like the Tukano. Indeed, the prominence of the shaman in healing and the art inspired by hallucinations from using drugs suggests a very deeply rooted use of plants for hallucinations and entry into the other realms. Where the Desana and other related groups differ, however, is the lack of powerful chiefs. Based on Reichel-Dolmatoff's work, one can say that most Tukano in the Vaupes River region lived in malocas with headmen, but the headmen were not nearly as powerful as, say, the caciques were reputed to be. Instead, the indigenous peoples of this region of Colombia resided in exogamous groups who followed similar prohibitions on incest. Their neighbors, including an Arawakan group and the use of Lengua Geral (Tupi), connected them to other ethnic groups who, in the distant past, may have frequently went to war.

In spite of the significant differences between the Tukano and the Taino, one can still find utility in this book for understanding elements of Taino art and culture. The role of phosphenes in the visions seen by the Tukano after yaje and other rituals, for instance, has a direct impact on the decoration motifs and styles used in ceramics, gourd rattles, and house paintings. In addition, some of the vivid images, shapes and colors seen by the Tukano are always interpreted via cultural norms and mythological beliefs. The Taino case was likely similar in which certain recurring motifs and geometric patterns likely reflect the use of cohoba and long-term impact from its use. It is also possible that the Taino Sun lore and astronomical lore likely reflected a possibly similar belief in the role of the Sun, Moon, Stars, and the origins of humanity, culture heroes (like Deminian) and the creation myths. While there may only be a few superficial parallels between the two cultures, the Taino mythology, or the fragments of it available from Pane, indicate similar incest taboos and beliefs in bush spirits and possible anthropomorphic animals. However, without the amazing jaguar and other large feline predators, the island population of the indigenous Caribbean may have mythologically substituted the jaguar with a type of dog and other animals. This may explain some of the elaborate duhos with human and animal features. Moreover, the Taino may have also restricted at least some of the cohoba rituals to males, although we lack enough evidence to understand gender dynamics of Taino shamanism and the ingestion of hallucinogens.

Overall, Reichel-Dolmatoff's work reveals an important role played by yaje and other substances in Tukano ritual, society, and myth. The historical overview of Colombia's indigenous peoples indicates shared or similar practices, such as the Kogi and Muisca. The paye or shamans of the Tukano are, of course, products of specific historical, cultural, and geographic conditions. That said, their practice, background, and intellect suggest possible ways to interpret the Taino behiques of the pre-Columbian Antilles. A study of shamans, hallucinogens and jaguar transformation among coastal lowland populations in northern South America would be even better for our purposes. That said, without an animal comparable to the jaguar, one wonders how Taino beliefs in transformation and possibly perspectivism may have operated. Were there similar beliefs about the role of transforming into a type of dog that allowed one to violate social norms on sex and violence? And is Reichel-Dolmatoff too obsessed with applying a Freudian analysis emphasizing sex in every aspect of Tukano myth and ritual?

The Kanuri of Bornu

Cohen's ethnographic study of the Kanuri people was based on research from the 1950s and 1960s in a village called Magumeri. Focusing on the household unit as the basic building block of Kanuri society, the basis for economic, familial, political, and productive activity, Cohen's The Kanuri of Bornu suggests a certain degree of continuity in Kanuri social structure that may stretch backwards in time for several centuries. Certainly back to the time of the Sefuwa dynasty's relocation to Borno from their Kanem, some of the features of 20th century Kanuri society may have already been in place. Of course, one must be careful using the ethnographic present to inform our understanding of precolonial eras. But, the period of British colonial rule seems to have continued many aspects of local government already in place by the Shehus, who in turn retained multiple aspects of Borno's political administration already established by the Sefuwa mais. Thus, one can reasonably assert that the household with its patriarchal, virilocal structure and emphasis on discipline-respect (for relationships between superiors and subordinates/clients) has probably been a dominant trend in Kanuri culture for at least a few centuries. 

Of course, the long process in which the ancestors of the Kanuri migrated to Borno from Kanem, interacting and intermarrying with other populations and becoming more influenced by Islam since the Islamization of the Sefuwas and their Magumi clan in the late 11th century, makes it difficult to know with certainty how many of the foundational elements of Kanuri society were present in the early days of the Kanem kingdom. Perhaps the early ancestors of the Kanuri during their days in Kanem were more nomadic or semi-nomadic, with less focus on agriculture and probably, as Cohen asserts, very decentralized politically. Nonetheless, the description of the household as observed by Cohen, with its focus on "discipline-respect" and the attraction of clients to wealthy men (or wealth in dependents and redistribution) probably go back several centuries. The organization of craft production on a guild model likely also exceeds far back in time, as does the widespread cottage industry level of production during dry seasons. Perhaps even under the reign of the mais peasants were able to assert some degree of agency through migration and complaints to officials, the representatives of the fief-holders who stayed in the capital of Gazargamu.

Thus, for those curious about how Kanem-Borno may have functioned in pre-19th century eras, Cohen's study offers some fascinating theories and details. Much of how trade operated in the distant past or perhaps the so-called feudal aspects of land tenure and administration in rural areas was likely different. Yet Cohen's ethnography suggests a great degree of continuity still present in the 1960s, albeit penetrated by "modernization" at varying levels. One also gets a glimpse of how the peasantry and artisans may have interacted with the upper classes through social relations filtered through the lens of the household. One weakness of Cohen's study, however, is the omission of urbanization as a historical factor in Kanem-Borno's long history. How did urban centers operate in the precolonial era? To what extent was or is there continuity? What about pre-moden wage laborers and the importance of slavery and the slave trade? Or Borno's complex history of empire and relations with neighbors? What we need next is a detailed history of Borno that integrates anthropological research with what the historical sources tell us...

Rocannon's World

Le Guin's first novel is not great. However, it already displays some of the maturity one comes to expect from her work. In its blend of science fiction and fantasy elements it intriguingly introduces the world of the Hainish Cycle while exploring time dilation and the impact of technology and intra-galactic conflict on a backwards planet settled by humanoids with feudal and "primitive" socioeconomic structures. Truly the child of an anthropologist, Le Guin uses an ethnologist for the protagonist of the novel. Along the way in his journey to end attacks on the planet by an aggressive member race of the League, Rocannon learns more about the understudied aboriginal populations of the island. What particularly stood out for this blog was the prologue, "Semley's Necklace," for an evocative short story about one native woman's encounter with advanced alien technology and the time dilation from her trip to another planet and back. Le Guin convincingly captured the wonder of advanced technology to someone from a "feudal" or fantasy-inspired setting, while also exploring the ethical dilemmas of maintaining galactic peace. Definitely a worthy read for a more intelligent example of 1960s anthropological science fiction.

Bureau d'Ethnologie

While perusing old issues of Conjonction for articles on specific topics in Haitian literature and history, I came across the above image in an issue dedicated to Jean Price-Mars. Unfortunately, Jacques Roumain, a key figure in the Haitian ethnological movement's left, is not included, but it's fascinating to see some of the major figures involved with it together. One also sees how an interest in folklore and culture could align with any political orientation, as the examples of Price-Mars, Duvalier, and Roumain demonstrates. However, since Haitian anthropology has been a tool to combat racial inequality since the 19th century, a further examination of its impact on Haitian socialists, nationalists, and Duvalierists is necessary. Perhaps this will be the topic for a future post...

Anthropology and the Paradox of Decolonization

           Linda Tuwihai Smith’s decolonizing methodologies of research for indigenous communities provide a framework with which to analyze Waskar Ari’s historical Earth Politics, Kirsch’s Reverse Anthropology, and Bacigalupo’s Thunder Shaman. Smith’s recognition of research’s ties to colonial expansion and imperialism, plus engaging with indigenous ways of knowing, challenges scholars to consider their positionality and relationship with their subjects. The works of Ari, Kirsch, and Bacigalupo exemplify the need for a decolonizing approach that can contribute to indigenous movements, and while each author contributes to that vision, the paradoxical nature of decolonized academic research persists. Issues such as liberalism as the framework for making claims, particularly for environmental struggles, may not be reconcilable with the goals of decolonization. This indicates that decolonization is a constant struggle that may never be achieved by any academic discipline, but can shape research in needed ways for building alternatives. Decolonization in an academic context should be seen as a constant struggle in which the racial, gendered, and class origins of research shape methodology but the act of decolonizing a field remain a constant orientation of anthropology.

            Ari’s Earth Politics, a history of the Alcaldes Mayores Particulares movement in 20th century Bolivia through a study of four male leaders, written by an indigenous scholar, is a good place to start. Ari endeavored to demonstrate how Aymara and Quechua-speaking Bolivians developed an independent politics combining land rights, spirituality, and ethnic preservation. The AMP drew from colonial-era laws and land titles to defend their communal lands, make claims, and resist assimilationist policies from the liberal state or the labor movement to de-Indianize their communities. Ari’s study contributes to decolonial research by conceptualizing a mode of thought or analysis for AMP leaders that possesses its own rational basis. Furthermore, the subjects of Ari’s analysis, drew on colonial-era legislation to assert their political movement, as legitimating an Indian republic. According to Smith, coloniality, or imperialism, is a lived experience and Earth Politics verifies it in the context of Aymara and Quechua-speaking Bolivia, specifying it as caste society in which internal colonialism operates (Ari, 11). He also carries out what Smith called for by incorporating indigenous ways of knowing into the text. AMP leaders, such as Toribio Miranda, conceived of land rights, Aymara religiosity, and colonial-era laws through Aymara ideas, for example, sumaqamaña (Ari, 84). Ari’s sources also include indigenous ways of knowing since he utilized memoirs and testimonies by historical actors, allowing their memories of AMP activism shape his narrative.

The notion of a simple binary of Indian versus non-Indian breaks down due to Ari’s inclusion of gender as a category of analysis, another important aspect of research Smith identified in the intersections of race and gender (Smith, 46). Gender shapes perceptions of “Indianness,” particularly dress, which meant men could sometimes shift between cholo and Indian categories. The very fluidity of Aymara and Quechua identities, as well as cholo working-class, also challenges simplistic binaries or notions of authenticity (Ari, 145). The religious and political components of earth politics in this context similarly defy essentialist explanation. Catholicism, the labor struggle among farm workers, struggles against urban segregation, and resistance to state projects of mestizaje or “de-Indianizing” all speak to a heterogeneous body of thought encapsulated by the AMP. Unfortunately, the question of where to go persists with Ari’s decolonizing history. His work illustrates that detailed historical studies of indigenous populations, Andean or otherwise, can be done. But in so doing, male historical actors are still privileged, though gender as a factor in the structure of the AMP, plus its activism against sexism from the state, is included.

            A similar decolonizing approach by Bacigalupo’s Thunder Shaman attempts to address history and indigenous epistemologies among the Mapuche. Bacigalupo, who like Ari, accounts for her own positionality in relation to her subject, a shaman named Francisca, developed a close relationship with Francisca over several years of research in Millali, Chile. Her shared hybrid identity with Rosa, for instance, created a point of contact while destabilizing essentialist assumptions (Bacigalupo, 22). Likewise, she approached the book as a bible co-produced by Francisca, for future Mapuche. A thunder shaman, or machi, possesses a form of historical consciousness that perceives time differently, opting for multitemporality, shaping history through dreams, trance, and spirits (Bacigalupo, 70). Thus, shamanic or machi historical consciousness and epistemology differs from positivistic Western narratives of history. Bacigalupa’s shaman is a practitioner of a form of cosmopolitics which combines social, political, and ecological factors (Bacigalupo, 164).

Furthermore, the history produced by shamans, often relying on memory, also challenges official or state documents and legal discourse to exceed, subvert and avoid the state archive, while drawing on indigenous grafismo and inscriptions (Bacigalupo, 132). Bacigalupo identifies a form of perspectivism and new ontologies in shamanic histories, since the machi are associated with collective ancestors and historical individuals, such as Rosa who lived in the “before time” period in the late 19th century. Mapuche views of capitalism and sorcery and their history as subjugated peoples by the state also contains a counter-narrative that alludes to the settlers as the barbarians (Bacigalupo, 59). These aforementioned aspects of Bacigalupo’s writing indicate a noble endeavor to include indigenous ways of being, systems of knowledge, and contribute to Mapuche social movements by elucidating one approach Mapuche have to history..

            Despite writing Thunder Shaman as a bible of Francisca’s work, Bacigalupo does not fully explore the question of shamanic historical consciousness in the contemporary struggles of the Mapuche over environmental and land concerns. Therefore, while writing from the lens of shamanic historical consciousness, which she argues does not follow a wingka historical narrative, she does not apply her research to contemporary issues, such as timber companies, except for distinguishing Francisca’s approach to timber companies as rejecting the frame liberalism requires of indigeneity (Bacigalupa, 165). For Smith, this would be a weakness in Bacigalupo’s ethnographic research, for not applying the results of research to contemporary conflicts with timber companies. Nonetheless, Mapuche shamanic historical consciousness undoubtedly shapes Mapuche activism and relations with the state today, and by producing a bible of Francisca recognizes the necessity for decolonizing research to contribute something that includes the subject’s testimony, acknowledges the author’s position in relation to the community while including indigenous ways of knowing. In this sense, Thunder Shaman fulfills some of the goals of decolonizing methodologies.

            Stuart Kirsch’s Reverse Anthropology, explores Yonggom indigenous analysis in Papua New Guinea. The act of positioning his work as a reversal of anthropology by foregrounding Yonggom modes of thinking constitutes a decolonizing project, or at least the promise of it. He also identifies this as aligning ethnography with social movements (Kirsch, 3). Kirsch focuses on social relations and unrequited reciprocity through Yonggom ritual, magic, myth, and relations with the Ok Tedi mine. He begins the study by subverting stereotypes of Melanesia as a land with history, showing how the region’s exchange networks with the rest of the world predate colonialism, although the focus on birds of paradise trade networks still privileges the West. However, in that relationship, Kirsch identifies the importance of Melanesian trade and colonialism for the rise of conservation (Kirsch, 36). Consequently, a more robust history of Papua New Guinea is still needed for decolonizing research that explores the region’s connections to Southeast Asia and Australia before European contact.

After establishing that Papua New Guinea was and remains connected to the broader world and shaped, through birds of paradise feather trade and colonialism, the rise of conservation movements, Kirsch endeavors to locate Yonggom and Muyu ritual, magic, and analysis of contemporary problems through the lens of reverse anthropology. For Kirsch, the Melanesian definition of social relations, which incorporates non-humans as beings with agency, is built around reciprocity. Their mode of thought shapes relations with their environmental. Komon komon hunting magic, for example, works as persuasion that acknowledge interagentivity. Yonggom practices of totemism and perspectivism, according to Kirsch, are defined through social relations as well (Kirsch, 75).

The community’s relationship with the mining corporation, which has irrevocably damaged the environment, becomes the focus of Kirsch’s argument of ethnography aligning with the movements of indigenous communities, applying research and indigenous epistemologies for ways of rethinking or finding solutions to conflicts like mining corporations and environmental impact. For the Yonggom, the corporation is responsible for not just pollution of the river, but a larger set of problems related to unrequited reciprocity with the community and environment. This constitutes corporate sorcery (Kirsch, 120). Corporate science ignores social relations, not seeing the hybrid combination of social relations and things (Kirsch, 129). The loss of a finger, for example, provides grounds for claim making and demands for compensation (Kirsch, 122). With this approach, Reverse Anthropology, though somewhat romanticized, commits ethnographic research to decolonizing projects and indigenous political movements. The damage of the mining operation and the corporate scientific studies that see resolution only in terms of monetary compensation, which ignores social relations among various beings, can become a generative moment for legal and environmental struggles that seek to subvert naturalism. In that respect, indigenous analysis, as used by Kirsch, can take on decolonizing results and methodology.

In summation, Smith’s call for decolonizing methodologies for research on indigenous peoples remains relevant. Researchers must confront the power dynamics and origin of research in colonialism, incorporate indigenous ways of thinking, avoid essentialism, promote indigenous researchers, and contribute their research to something beyond producing or reproducing knowledge. Bacigalupo, Kirsch, and Ari accomplish this to varying degrees, but it is not clear one can ever fully decolonize a field or area of study. Decolonization should be understood as a process that does not end with promoting indigenous research and using indigenous epistemologies, but one in which power dynamics of research are fully accounted for to challenge power. Decolonizing a discipline, in short, requires constant evaluation of the discipline’s methodology, history, conclusions, and is best as an ideal for research.

Bibliography

Bacigalupo, Ana M. Thunder Shaman: Making History with Mapuche Spirits in Chile and Patagonia, 2016.

Kirsch, Stuart. Reverse Anthropology: Indigenous Analysis of Social and Environmental Relations in New Guinea. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2006.

Smith, Linda T. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books, 1999.

Ari, Chachaki W. Earth Politics: Religion, Decolonization, and Bolivia's Indigenous Intellectuals, 2014.

Native American DNA

The following is another short post for an anthropology class. Native American DNA was one of my favorite assigned texts, and one I shall likely revisit.

Kim TallBear’s Native American DNA scrutinizes DNA and genetic science in the context of race and indigeneity. According to TallBear, many tribes are increasingly using DNA tests for membership in tribal rolls in addition to blood quantum. With that as a point of departure, the author borrows from feminist Donna Haraway, Aura Simpson’s ethnographic refusal, and Linda Tuwihai Smith’s decolonizing methodologies to unpack the ways in which genetic science perpetuates racialization and white domination. Indeed, TallBear’s study is more of an anthropology of white people, reversing the ethnographic gaze. She also adds nuance to the ways in which blood quantum became part of tribal membership, beginning with the 1887 Dawes act. Despite being impose from above, Indian input on who should be a member shaped how federal agents completed the allotment process. Furthermore, her nuanced discussion of blood as a sign of lineal descent, or genealogic tribalism, helps elucidate why blood quantum persists.

As someone less familiar with current trends in genetics, human migrations studies, and bioanthropology, TallBear’s dissection of those fields was often surprising. The use of knowledge of genetics as well as the ways in which indigenous communities’ views, permission, and epistemologies are not respected was not too much of a surprise, but the use of DNA studies to “prove” Native American ancestry is limited because of the faulty assumptions and racial thinking of scientists and genealogists. For instance, mtDNA or Y-DNA only tracks some of one’s paternal and maternal ancestry, meaning someone could be a member of, for example, the Sioux but a DNA test may not indicate any “Native American DNA.” As TallBear shared, many, including herself, have diverse Native ancestry and many of these groups have also formed close ties to whites and African-Americans over the centuries, thereby rendering genetic testing or gene fetishism problematic. Considering the discourse on indigeneity as the reserve of an untapped or “unmixed” gene pool closer to earlier stages of humanity, in danger of extinction or absorption, TallBear effectively argues for the resurgence of previous theories of race and racial domination. Her most powerful example, the documentary program with a white geneticist interviewing men from Tanzania, Mongolia, and a Native American, illustrate how theories of race and the dominance of European and Western ways of seeing the world permeate genetic science. 

However, one cannot help but wonder how inclusion of Native American communities or perhaps interviews with Natives dis-enrolled because of genetic testing could have shaped TallBear’s work. Without their voices, TallBear is leaving out part of the story while possibly blurring differences in the way Native American groups perceive the issue of genetics and research. And despite her criticism of the use of genetics to turn base indigeneity in biology, I am still a little confused by her treatment of blood quantum here. For TallBear, blood quantum is related to the lineal descent and genealogic tribalism, and many tribes assume the higher the blood degree, the more likely the odds of true affiliation. But does this not continue indigeneity through a biological basis? There is a tension here of essentialism that sounds like DNA and racialization. 

Rambling Thoughts on Earth Beings

The following is a short post for an anthropology course, centered on de la Cadena's use of Trouillot. I thought her book was one of the more interesting ones for the course, and my rambling thoughts on it appeared to have impressed my professor.

Marisol de la Cadena Earth Beings invokes Trouillot’s well-known Silencing of the Past multiple times throughout the book. Trouillot, who argued that the Haitian Revolution was unthinkable to European observers, is utilized by de la Cadena to argue why indigenous leaders such as Mariano Turpo were not recognized for their leadership. Like African-descended slaves in 18th century Saint Domingue, the runakuna of Peru were not seen as capable of rational political agency (61). Both liberalism and socialism perpetuate this refusal to recognize indigenous politics drawing on earth politics, which de la Cadena attributes to onto-epistemic practices of history which, beginning with Hegel and other Western thinkers, “canceled the world-making potential of practices that escaped the nature-humanity divide” (146). Similarly, the coloniality of politics and history, in which nature and humanity were divided, became the foundation of modern politics (92).

De la Cadena later connects epistemic disconcertment to Trouillot’s notion of the unthinkable, suggesting that instead of recognition, epistemic disconcertment has the potential to make one challenge what and how one knows (276). Building from her conclusions on the coloniality of modern politics and the importance of divergence or partial connections, de la Cadena seems to propose a politics underpinned by divergence (286). What this exactly looks like is not entirely clear, but she argues that the cosmo-politics of the runakuna, in which the in-ayllu includes earth-beings as well as humans, operates through divergence with modern politics and its possibility is not determined by contradiction (283). If my interpretation of de la Cadena’s argument is correct, she appears to be arguing for a coexistence of modern politics and earth politics in which neither one cancels the other. How would that work? Like Ari, she also noted the conflicts between Andean indigenous movements and their respective national governments regarding extractive mining or oil operations (284). The ontological disagreement on the rights of nature of Pachamama does not seem to be the grounds through which one can develop cosmovivir, either. 

Urban Life in the Caribbean: A Study of a Haitian Urban Community

Michel Laguerre analyzes the low-income Belair neighborhood of Port-au-Prince based on field research in the mid-1970s. Looking at Haitian urban communities in the midst of the Duvalier dictatorship in a Caribbean primate city that can also be generalized through dependency theory for other 'Third World' primate cities, Laguerre's work is relevant to broader Caribbean Urban Studies or History. Moreover, Belair is the oldest neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, stronghold of the urban proletariat since the 19th century, but divided into two separate communities: 1. Lower Belair full of middle-class homes, full of shops, streetlights, and institutions and 2. Upper Belair, consisting of poor, shack housing, mostly treeless, fritay social events on Friday nights, open Vodou practice, lakou family formations, borlette lottery numbers.

Laguerre's work brings to life the lively albeit marginalized population of Upper Belair. They can be seen as part of a localized dependency theory within the context of the primate city of Port-au-Prince. Or, to paraphrase Laguerre, Upper Belair suffers from an internal structural dependency on the Haitian elite and the Haitian state. Removed to the periphery of socio-economic status or social mobility, the retailers and laborers of Upper Belair depend on wealthier wholesalers in Lower Belair or other middle-class and elite neighborhoods of the city. Even the numbers game played by residents of Upper Belair is placed in a dependent relationship upon wealthier owners, often of Arab descent. Fortunately, the community pooled resources together through the sangue, a system of rotating credit that facilitated access to outside capital or loans.

In terms of political power, Belair is also lacking. Instead, the dreaded tonton makout represent the state and dominate the neighborhood politically and socially (many a makout were also Vodou priests with sway and other sources of power in the area). The author also explains how Vodou was central to Duvalierism in Belair because it was through Vodou that many lakous and families were oriented, which meant using the houngan as a makout and neighborhood spy reinforced the authority of the state. Laguerre also suggests that those representing Duvalier in Belair had an incentive to not start new projects or innovative programs because a rise of their popularity in the neighborhood could be interpreted as a threat or attempt to make Duvalier look bad.

In terms of job prospects, most men were unemployed, a few toiled as skilled workers or artisans, and some found factory jobs outside the neighborhood, but this only perpetuates their dependency since the forms of employment available to residents were often low income to begin with. The rural lakou also survived rural to urban migration in Belair, becoming a dispersed urban family structure. But infiltration of the lakou through Vodou priests, local officials, and the broader dependency of the community on the rest of the city weakened any attempts to overthrow the existing order. The genius of Duvalierism was its ability to infiltrate nearly every aspect of Haitian society, and in slums like Upper Belair, that included Vodou, which stood at the center for many families and community functions.

Through the lens of dependency theory, one can clearly see how Upper Belair is symptomatic of broader patterns of Haitian, Caribbean, and 'Third World' dependency and underdevelopment. As in the previous review I wrote for The Military and Society in Haiti, a fascinating project to continue Laguerre's research in Belair would be of interest for post-1986. Without Duvalier, how has that 'liberated' political discourse and action in the neighborhood? Are there any new ways in which areas like Belair of Port-au-Prince are, presumably, still on the periphery? From personal experience in Port-au-Prince, it seems importers and wholesalers still pull the strings while the neighborhood retailers and consumers pay more with less means.

The Military and Society in Haiti

“This book is a structural and hermeneutic analysis of civil-military relations in Haiti as canvassed through the magnifying lenses of a social anthropologist. My interest in studying this aspect of the security system in Haiti began to develop after the collapse of the Duvalier dynasty, when I reached the conclusion that one cannot understand the behavior of the Haitian political system without paying attention to the military. After all, it is an empirical fact that the majority of Haitian presidential regimes have been headed by generals. This observation leads us to study the military not simply as bureaucracy but also as government.”

Laguerre's analysis of the role of the military in Haitian society is rooted in an equilibrium theory of civil-military relations wherein the stability of  a political system capable of preventing military intervention is the result of 3 sets of balanced relationships, premised on 3 relationships: between military and civil society, between the military and civil government, and between the civil society and civilian government. Grounding his approach in this equilibrium theory, Laguerre's structural analysis is encompassing of the dynamics of civil and military society in Haiti. 

In order to examine the exchange between the military and civil society in Haiti as an interstate system, Laguerre studies the historical evolution of the military in Haiti, which, as he illustrates, was never powerful enough to act on its own without civil society (just as distinctions between civil and military rule were often blurred or unclear). Indeed, Laguerre discusses numerous examples of the overlap in this interstate system of Haiti, such as Masonic groups, military officials holding power in civil society and vice versa, family ties, businesses, and professions.

Due to social segmentation along class, color, and regional lines, the interstate system exhibited some of the weaknesses of the Haitian state apparatus that allowed factions from the military and/or civil society to capitalize on or spark political instability. Furthermore, as a result of the Haitian Revolution, this military state system emerged as the earliest political model, which evolved into a series of military dictators who ruled in Port-au-Prince but used lower ranking military leaders to administer the rest of the country, a process that contributed to regional competition and coups.

Thus, the various coups that characterized Haiti from 1843-1915, or perhaps, the political instability throughout its history, can be seen as rooted in the failure of a balance between military and civil society, civil society and civilian goverment, and civil society and civilian government. Indeed, Mimi Sheller has made similar arguments about the problems of the Haitian state system from the Revolution to now: the failure of the civil society and civilian government to subordinate the military appartus to civilian interests. Nothing serves to demonstrate this better than directly from Laguerre describing the 19th century military in Haiti on page 18:

The central argument is that because the army served both as the government and a bureaucratic institution of the state and because of the militarization of civil society, the coup d’etat was the outcome of an alliance between regional military units and segments of the civilian population under their aegis. The coup d’etat came about during a crisis period when the government was loosing its support from at least a regional military unit and a segment of the general civilian population; Therefore civilian support is seen as an important factor for the success of a coup d’etat.

Changes wrought by US Occupation eroded some of the militarization of civil government and strengthened political centralization of the military and government in Port-au-Prince (US Occupation also professionalized the military, profoundly transforming it from the largely unprofessional 19th century Haitian army). This played a role in the weakening of regional demarcations that contributed to instability and the frequency of coup d'etats. Laguerre argues that the rise of civilian militias under Duvalier further counterbalanced the supremacy of the military, but Baby Doc's changes in Duvalierism brought the military/state dynamic further into the center, thereby paving the way for the military to eventually have the power to stage another coup in 1986.

Laguerre's book adequately and with great detail eludicates the motivations and structural inadequecies that fueled political instability and the lack of democratization in Haiti. The conflict over the 'spoils' of the presidency, the willingness of civil Haitian elites and power-brokers to form coalitions with certain military leaders for power, the high rates of coups and rebellions, weaker military centralization and professionalization encouraged corruption, and the need to maintain and protect Haitian sovereignty in the first place (though the Haitian military was for more engaged in attacks on Haiti rather than external enemies) combined to prevent Haitian democratization and development. Foreign businesses and legations backing coups, and civil elites willing to side with various factions of the military also contributed to the predicament of cyclic coups and regional conflicts that characterized Haiti before 1915. Laguerre describes the military/civil relationship as being altered by Occupation, but the basic systemic problems remained in place or worsened as centralization in Port-au-Prince and the reconstituted Haitian army (Garde) were more organized, but no less corrupt as the institution took on a bureaucratic form.

This is not to suggest the military could not assume a 'guardian' relationship with civil society, and the 1940s and 1950s saw just that as broad-based military-civil coalitions unseated Lescot and propped up successors. According to Laguerre, Papa Doc depoliticized the military by attaining supremacy over it, and through his paramilitary organization, was able to draw in military and civilian society. By 1986, the military-civil dynamic reverted to a stronger military, which is partly analyzed by Laguerre for the late '80s. One would love to see read Laguerre's opinions on what followed in the 1990s with Raoul Cedras, the elimination of Haiti's army, and conditions on the ground today as Martelly has voiced a wish to revive the Haitian army. An interesting follow-up to Laguerre's work on Haiti from Aristide to Martelly would be enlightening since former military officials and paramilitary groups have clearly engaged in human rights abuses and violence for political ends. The same dynamic continues as descendants of the Haitian military with civil class and political allies continue to subordinate the development of democratization.

Other interesting aspects of the text abound. Laguerre even discusses the role of Vodou in the Haitian military (as a source of power, divine providence and legitimacy for military leaders such as Merisier Jeannis, Hyppolite, and Henri Christophe). Specific praetorian guards, military specialization, military academies, the institutionalization of corruption and abuse, and how the militarized governance fostered endemic instability are convincingly explained. One can see how Firmin's goals in reforming Haiti's politics failed in the face of increasing instability and economic decline, and how even he was forced to take a military title for his unsucessful attempts to become President. 

Sidney Mintz on Haiti and Puerto Rico

Watch this lecture on Haiti from renowned anthropologist Sidney Mintz. Mintz is, with good reason, one of the pioneer scholars in anthropological studies of the Caribbean and African-Americans. Mintz's lecture here focuses on history, giving an overview of Haiti's history from the colonial days to the present. Though performs more introductory than anything else to Haitian history, Mintz's lecture is useful for disseminating information on important themes in Haitian history: race, slavery, peasantry formation, coffee's importance in the export economy, despotism and the predatory state, and the market system. 

The rest of the lecture covers Mintz's research in Haiti, and it is quite enlightening for the role and importance of the peasantry in Haiti's economic history and systems of exchange. The significance of women in Haitian markets and trade is also covered in this lecture, traveling to regional markets, sleeping in the markets, carrying food and other goods, linking the rural and urban economies. These market women, overtaxed and facing precarious situations, invigorate the Haitian economy and reveal women's economic autonomy.The dire times in Haiti since Mintz's initial research in the 1950s have reduced the Caribbean peasantry to a slow, gradual death. Mintz, who conducted research in Puerto Rico and Jamaica as well, knows this better than anyone, even as women have kept their importance as market actors in Haiti. 

Later in the lecture, Mintz touches on the subject of cultural creolization, emphasizing survival, trauma, and a new setting that prompted the process of creolization. The Q&A section is quite interesting, too, largely because of the tense exchange between Mintz and Skip Gates. One might take issue with Mintz claim that Haiti has not attracted many immigrants historically, however.

After watching this lecture, check out his thoughts about Puerto Rico. Lots of useful historical and anthropological data on Puerto Rico from the 1500s to 1900s, especially Mintz's research in Jauca in the late 1940s. He personally observed and witnessed the aftermath of US conquest of Puerto Rico and the rise of sugar plantations financed by American capitalism. The utter depths of Puerto Rican poverty, low wages for workers on the modernized plantations, and case study of Mintz friend certainly illuminates the experience of what Mintz calls 'rural proletarians.' Clearly, the people of the coastal lowlands in areas like Jauca were far from peasants like Mintz studied in Haiti or Jamaica.

Mintz also offers useful commentary on the differences in gender and racial norms in Haiti, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. In Haiti, women were economically autonomous, while in Puerto Rico, women who worked outside the house in Jauca were employed in the sugarcane estates. Women who did not work outside the house, did domestic work. All women in that region were denied mobility and the community in Jauca was obsessed with virginity and being moral Catholics, even if nobody went to church or was legally married. Moreover, in terms of race, one can see how US rule has imposed a specifically US brand of racism and classification while local forms of Puerto Rican racial classification continue to define blackness differently in ways that inhibit broad-based Afro-Puerto Rican movements (a point I have read elsewhere in discussions of racial inequality in Brazil).

Ainsi Parla L'Oncle

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.

Firmin's Equality of the Races (De l'égalité des races humaines)

I finally read  The Equality of the Human Races translated by Asselin Charles after a preemptive review on this blog. This classic really challenges a lot of stereotypes about Haiti and Haitians: a black man (and not mixed-race like many of Haiti's intelligentsia and educated elite at the time) who is well-read, educated, articulate, open to scientific progress and positivism as well as connected to broader intellectual debates on the international level is striking since Haiti is supposed to be the "best nightmare on earth" and black Haitians in particular stereotyped as savage, 'Voodoo-practitioners'. In many ways the book not only offers a scientific and philosophical defense of the Haitian Revolution and black autonomy, but also a vindicationist text on ancient Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia as inherent proof of black equality, which, actually predates a lot of Afrocentric interpretations of the African past by several decades. I thought it was a little outdated at times because Firmin assumes a sort of "Western Europe" is best mentality at times by looking down upon the contemporary cultures of Africa ("now fallen into barbarism..." 287). That's hardly unique to him, I suppose, since many diasporic black peoples in the 19th century saw contemporary Africa through Eurocentric, racist lens or a Christian missionary perspective. Indeed, from what I have read via secondary sources, early 19th century Haitian writers, such as de Vastey, despite praising ancient African civilizations such as Egypt and Nubia, saw the African societies of the early 19th century as inferior culturally and technologically to Europe. Firmin also alludes to several Haitian literary and cultural figures, as well as scientists and other educated examples to further demonstrate the absence of scientific evidence for black sub-humanity or separate species. He includes "mulattoes" and mixed-race people as proof of the inherent equality of the human races, too:

But to acknowledge the intellectual equality of mulattoes and Whites is inevitably to admit the equality of Blacks and Whites. Indeed, if the two races had any innately different intellectual abilities, it would be impossible to understand how the mulatto is endowed, not with an average intelligence but, to the contrary, with an intelligence equal to that of the supposedly superior genitor. So most anthropologists simply refuse to recognize the intellectual equality of the mulatto and the White man, an equality so positively proclaimed by the author of L’Espece humaine” (204).

Nevertheless, Firmin's important text, though not nearly as widely known as that of Gobineau's Inequality of the Races, predicts future 'Afrocentric' thoughts quite brilliantly with powerful quotations such as the following, “Besides, the honor of having invented the science of numbers and surface measurement does not belong to the White race. The origin of mathematics goes back to Black Egypt, the land of the Pharaohs” (168). On page 242, he suggests that the ancient Egyptians were of a red-brown, or brick-like color, quite common in Africa, whereas elsewhere he defends African religion as practical rationalism instead of the dominant European perception of Africa as a land of superstitious fetish worship and irrationality (342). He also conducted linguistic research, examined the flora and fauna of ancient Egypt, studied migration patterns, and analyzed sculptural depictions to place ancient Egypt firmly in the world of black history, something which fit into a vindicationist framework centered on Haiti as the rehabilitation of Africa and the African diaspora.Thus, despite some rather condescending or pro-European views of 19th century Africa, the text offers a powerful critique of white supremacy and stereotypes of Haiti, Africa, and the silliness of scientific racism since ancient Africa was the bedrock of many ideas that contributed to human development and civilization. In addition, his entire book calls into question the notion of black mental inferiority from positivist and philosophical grounds, proof of how there was a space for black intellectuals from Haiti to respond to the burgeoning field of scientific racism and Social Darwinism in the late 19th century. Indeed, though Firmin was educated in Haitian institutions, he utilized the inductive positivist approach to anthropology developed by Auguste de Comte as well as personally engaging with Francophone anthropologists and scientists in Paris who actively debated the merits of scientific racism in terms of cranial measurements and outdated theories of polygenesis versus monogesis (an important debate prior to the irrefutable discovery of early anatomically-modern humans in Africa) within the Societé d'Anthropologie de Paris, where the leading scientists of the day gathered.

As an early text of Pan-Africanist thought by a pioneer in anti-racist  anthropology and science, Firmin's text's ultimate strength lies in its relevance to today's world, since pseudoscientific racism has again arose in the works of Rushton, The Bell Curve, and the recent appearance of scientific racism over claims of genetic differences between native whites in the US and Latin American immigrants that causes the latter to have lower IQs, leading to the author to call for limited immigration due to what would arguably be innately inferior IQ scores. The ugliness of scientific racism, a scourge that grew exponentially in the late 18th century and fueled by Social Darwinism and European imperialism, requires strong critiques, and Firmin's classic text provides a great example, despite it being published in 1885. Although disturbing at times for his statements (such as the mulatto being more beautiful than both blacks and whites, or referring to Africa as a land fallen to barbarism), Firmin is mostly on point by doing what the earlier black writers of Haiti had established since the days of Henri Christophe and de Vastey, vindicating the sons and daughters of Africa at home and abroad through a combination of history, science, philosophy, anthropology, and the progression of ideas over time. The equality of the human races, therefore, lies in the equal potential to reach the noblest heights of human existence, and since natural selection and evolution made human 'races' unfixed, it would be foolish to elevate one race as permanently 'superior' to that of others.

Black Folk Here and There by St. Clair Drake

St. Clair Drake's 2 volume essay in history and anthropology, Black Folk Here and There, inspired by a similarly titled book by W.E.B. DuBois, is an exploration of the presence of "Negro" or "Black" people throughout recorded history, ending with the rise of anti-black prejudice. In the two-volumed text, he explores the role and presence of "Black" people in ancient Egypt, the Greco-Roman world, early Christianity, and the Islamic world, searching for evidence of anti-black bias or racist views in each of these periods in world history. The founder of Stanford's African-American Studies department, and well-known for his sociological work in Black Metropolis, an analysis of Chicago's African-American population in the 1940s, Drake is well-suited to vindicate the legacy of "Black" Africans prior to the Atlantic slave trade, spending most of the first volume providing evidence of "Negro" Egyptian dynasts and contributions to the development of Egyptian civilization through documentary, artistic, and other evidence. Thus, Drake's first volume, concluding with the rise of Roman-dominated Egypt, rightfully challenges the approach of most Egyptologists and historians who render all "Negroes" into slaves and laborers for "whites" in the ancient Nile Valley and Mediterranean. However, unlike extreme Afrocentrists, Drake avoids making irrational claims and attempts to "blacken" everybody in ancient Egypt or the Near East. A weakness of his study also lies in the evidence from statuary and art, since color symbolism and ancient Egyptian art's tendency to represent the human form unrealistically makes it difficult to say or claim this or that figure, pharaoh, or god is "black" or "white," but in some cases it is uncontroversial (I am sure many readers would take qualm with his claims for "Black" Amarna pharaohs, best represented by Akhenaten) or very likely that the Early Dynastic, Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom, Napatan, Meroitic, and Late Dynastic art of the Nile Valley depicts people with the somatic norm of "Black Africans." Moreover, Drake uncovers no evidence of racial bias against "Nubians" or Kushites during periods of Egyptian imperialism in the Upper Nile, nor even when, under Hellenic and Roman domination, when southerners, Egyptians, and Greco-Romans alike worshipped Isis at Philae, for instance.

The second volume of Drake's major publication covers ancient Jewish perceptions of Blackness, in the Old Testament and Talmud, as well as Early Christian, Islamic, and, ending with Iberia and the New World in the 15th and 16th centuries, the signs for anti-black racism. He does not uncover signs of Jewish prejudice until the Talmud, which he attributes to Jews who, during the Babylonian Captivity, encountered enslaved East Africans and then added theories of the "curse of Ham" and black inferiority into their commentaries on the Torah. It is an interesting theory, but Drake does not provide evidence for trade linking Mesopotamia in this period with the East African coast, although it would help explain the sudden anti-black views of some Jewish religious leaders when, in the past, Moses was described as marrying a black woman, the kingdom of Judah was allied with the Egyptian-Kushite empire under Taharka against the Assyrian empire. He also discusses the color symbolism of early Christianity, in which blackness of skin was equated with sin and Christian conversion as a way of "washing the Ethiopian white," something he associates with Manichean dualism of black/white color symbolism from ancient Persia, where black/darkness was seen as evil and white/lightness as good. Although his conclusions, somewhat similar to Snowden's work on the image of the 'black' in the Greco-Roman and early Christian Mediterranean are interesting, they're far from the highlight of the of book, which is strongest in its treatment of Nile Valley societies and race. He also challenges some of the then-dominant theories of racism and the origins of it, stating that color prejudice and anti-black views were not endemic in the ancient Nile Valley nor a part of the Antiquity, nor an innate aversion to blackness in human skin.

His work also stands as a powerful rebuttal of Malvern Wan Wyk Smith's interesting but highly flawed monograph, The First Ethiopians: The Image of Africa and Africans in the Early Mediterranean World, claiming Ancient Egypt as the source for Western anti-black prejudice with very little evidence and a resurrection of outdated African racial types, such as Khoisanoid, to distinguish early Nile Valley populations from "Negroids." Furthermore, he relies on imagery of conquered Kushites and other nehesy, or southerners, in ancient Egyptian iconography as evidence for an aversion or disdain for "Negroid" Black features without any documentary evidence disparaging their facial features or showing signs of race or color prejudice. Moreover, his sources that actually do indicate denigration of dark-skinned people, come thousands of years later, under Hellenic, Roman and Christian periods. But I digress, Drake's tome, though published in the 1980s, does a much better job at describing 'race relations' in this age before race, avoiding the extreme Afrocentrism of other authors while ensuring all Nile Valley societies' ties to "Black Africa."

Great Book to Read: Antenor Firmin's The Equality of the Races

19th century Haitian intellectual, lawyer, diplomat and anthropologist's The Equality of the Races, published in 1885, is a powerful rebuttal to Gobineau's scientific racism the dominant views on black racial inferiority which still influence the 21st century. Firmin treatise on racial equality includes an analysis of world history which gives numerous examples of contributions to human development and civilization by those designated as black, focusing on Egypt. Thus, his work is interesting for demonstrating once again the long history of blacks in the United States and Haiti correctly identifying Egypt as a product of African cultures of blacks. He also backs up his statements with evidence from Egypt, quotations from classical sources such as Herodotus, and French Egyptologists of the century who actually concurred on the black origins of Kemet. 

Although published in 1885, it may sound like quite a few contemporary Afrocentric tracts and surprisingly, at times like Martin Bernal's Black Athena. So the so-called lies and therapeutic history of modern Afrocentrists has a long history going back centuries. One of these days I'll have to get my hands on this book instead of just reading reviews and the google book preview.