Batgrl (Book Data Kept Elsewhere) > Recent Status Updates

"Uncle Monday got up off the nail keg and said in a voice so low that only the men right close to him could hear what he said, "I have been dead for many a year. I have come back from where you are going." Then he walked away with his quick short steps, and his arms bent at the elbow, keeping time with his feet."

"Everybody saw Uncle Monday come thru the town, but still Merchant's tale was hard to swallow. But, by degrees, people came to believe that Uncle Monday could shed any injured member of his body and grow a new one in its place. At any rate, when he reappeared his right hand and arm bore no scars."

Uncle Monday: "Another thing that struck everybody unpleasantly was the fact that he never asked a name nor a direction. Just seemed to know who everybody was, and called each and every one by their right name. Knew where everybody lived too."

"Shouting is a community thing. It thrives in concert. It is the first shout that is difficult for the preacher to arouse. After that one they are likely to sweep like fire over the church."

Folklore: "God and the Devil are paired, and are treated no more reverently than Rockefeller and Ford. Both of these men are prominent in folklore, Ford being particularly strong, and they talk and act like good-natured stevedores or mill-hands." - from the Selected Writings section, which I skipped to, as ebook loan expires soon. (I own Dust Tracks.) Will see how far I can manage to get to the end.

"These cords are made from the dried and well cured intestines of human beings who have been the victims of other raids. They are light and have the tensile strength of cello strings. The gut of one victim drags to his death his successor. Except in special cases no particular person is hunted."

"The last two men came out of the gate walking walking backwards brandishing well sharpened machetes, defending the rear from an attack by the Lord of the Dead." - and this is not the sexy Lord of the Dead from any novel, this is anthropology remember.

Finally the doctor forcibly uncovered her and held her so that I could take [a photo of] her face. And the sight was dreadful. That blank face with the dead eyes. The eyelids were white all around the eyes as if they had been burned with acid. It was pronounced enough to come out in the picture."

"..."You know, you should not go around alone picking acquaintances with these houngans. You are liable to get involved in something that is not good..." I laughed it off at the time, but months later I began to see what she was hinting at." - about the inability to tell good from bad priests (bad = ones that create Zombies), since many dealt in both types of voodoo

"Then the big jars under the table that contain spirits of houngans long dead begin to groan. These spirits in jars have been at the bottom of the water for a long time."

First he [the victim/Zombie] is carried past the house where he lived. This is always done. Must be. If the victim were not taken past his former house, later on he would recognize it and return. But once he is taken past, it is gone from his consciousness forever. It is as if it never existed for him."

"...Bocor enters the tomb, calls the name of the victim. He must answer because the Bocor has the soul there in his hand. ...Then he beats the victim on the head to awaken him further. Then he leads him forth and the tomb is closed again as if it had never been disturbed."

"There he places his lips to the crack of the door and sucks out the soul of the victim and rides off in all speed. Soon the victim falls ill, usually beginning with a headache, and in a few hours is dead."

I had the rare opportunity to see and touch an authentic case. I listened to the broken noises in its throat, and then, I did what no one else had ever done, I photographed it. If I had not experienced all of this in the strong sunlight of a hospital yard, I might have come away from Haiti interested but doubtful. But I saw the case of Felicia Felix-Mentor which was vouched for by the highest authority."

"...Family and friends can not rescue the victim because they do not know. They think the loved one is sleeping peacefully in his grave. They may motor past the plantation where the Zombie who was once dear to them is held captive often and again and its soulless eyes may have fallen upon them without thought or recognition."

"...Also the little girl Zombies who are sent out by their owners in the dark dawn to sell little packets of roasted coffee. Before sun up their cries of "Cafe grille" can be heard from dark places in the streets and one can only see them if one calls out for the seller to come with her goods. Then the little dead one makes herself visible and mounts the steps."

"What is the whole truth and nothing else but the truth about Zombies? I do not know, but I know that I saw the broken remnant, relic, or refuse of Felicia Felix-Mentor in a hospital yard." - first lines of Ch. 13: Zombies.

"Archahaie is the most famous and the most dreaded spot in all Haiti for Voodoo work. It is supposed to be the great center of the Zombie trade."

"Everybody knows that La Gonave is a whale that lingered so long in Haitian waters that he became an island." - I always love a good "this landform is really an X" story.

"At any rate, concerning Moses' rod and the serpent, they say that many witch doctors in Africa can so hypnotize a snake that it can be made rigid and seemingly lifeless and carried as a cane and brought to life again at the will of the witch doctor. ...Such were the "rods" of the magicians of the Pharaoh." - folktales (non Biblical) of Moses and his supernatural powers, found in south US, West Indies, and Haiti.

"And right here, let it be said that the Haitian gods, mysteres, or loa are not the catholic calendar of saints done over in black as has been stated by casual observers. This has been said over and over in print because the adepts have been seen buying the lithographs of saints, but this is done because they wish some visual representation of the invisible ones..." - and Haitian artists hadn't created such art.

"Voodoo is a religion of creation and life. It is the worship of the sun, the water and other natural forces, but the symbolism is no better understood than that of other religions and consequently is taken too literally."

Apparently there are multiple stories about the way President Cincinnatus Leconte really died, because supposedly no one believed the "died in the palace explosion" business. That wikipedia link even mentions this book. Again, I really need to read more about the history of Haiti.

Wikipedia doesn't have the story of Haiti's President Simon, his daughter Celestina (Mambo/priestess), and the goat Simalo. But you can read about them in the chapter The Black Joan of Arc (I think that's the full chapter). It's kind of amazing and surreal.

"In the first place Haiti had never been a country. It had always been a colony so that there had never been any real government there. So that the victors were not taking over an established government. They were trying to make a government of the wreck of a colony."

Now that I'm reading the book on Haiti I realize how little of that country's history I've actually read. Hurston gives some background, but you can tell there's a huge story here and with multiple revolutions and cultures there has to be a lot of summing up. In other words, here's another bit of history I should read more about. Especially since her book is only as recent as 1938 Haiti.

Haiti: "...He dragged him to the sidewalk and gave him three calming bullets, one for each of his murdered sons and stepped over the dead body where it lay and strode off. The crowd followed him to the home of Etienne where they stripped it first and then leveled it to its foundation." Oscar Etienne, police chief of president Vilbrun Guillaume Sam

Seems odd that I can't find a book on the history/work of Edna Manley, "mother of Jamaican art." Or more than two on Paul Bogle, who had a fascinating history. Maybe I'm just failing on my book googling.

A dance ceremony: "There was a big movement and a little movement. The big movement was like a sunset in its scope and color. The little movement had the almost imperceptible ripple of a serpent's back. It was a cameo in dancing."

"At last a way-off whisper began to put on flesh. In the space of a dozen breaths the keening harmony was lapping at our ears. Somebody among us struck matches and our naked lights flared. The shapeless crowd-mass became individuals. A hum seemed to rise from the ground around us and became singing in answer to the coming singers and in welcome to the dead."