Island PossessedKatherine Dunham
Taschenbuch
Mention Haiti, and images of poor and battered refugees risking their lives attempting to reach America, or a barren Caribbean island prone to military coups and hideous zombies, come to mind. But when anthropologist-choreographer Katherine Dunham first traveled to Haiti in 1936 to study the country's dance traditions, she fell in love with the people and their culture. < I> Island Possessed, originally published in 1969, captures Dunham's experiences of the island's intricate voodoo religious dances and customs; the friction between the black peasants and the mulatto elites; and the brutal dictatorships that have plagued the nation. Of her three-day initiation into the voodoo religion as a "bride" to the Haitian serpent god Damballah, she writes, " My feeling was closer to belonging to something all-encompassing than I have ever known since. " Called by the Haitian people " Mama Katherine, " Dunham has contributed a humane and comprehensive overview of the world's first black republic. < I>-Eugene Holley Jr.
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