Ethnological Counterpoint: Fernando Ortiz and Jean Price-Mars, or Santeria and Vodou (original) (raw)

also the abolition of slavery. In this sense, Haiti is a much older country than Cuba, just as Ainsi parla l'oncle is a work of maturity and Los negros brujos is a work of youth. Enough numerology, now is the time to weigh the colonial against the postcolonial approach to the people and the religions of African origin that thrived in the Caribbean environment. Rather than an attempt to compare two similar yet distinct Afro-Caribbean religions, or to find the interface between these religions and the study of these religions, this is a comparative reading and interpretation of Fernando Ortiz's Los negros brujos and Jean Price-Mars's Ainsi parla l'oncle. Although this article is a reference to Ortiz's Cuban Counterpoint published in 1940 in Miami, Florida. I will be focusing on an earlier Ortiz here: the Ortiz who wrote Los negros brujos (The Black sorcerers). Although Ortiz would eventually be considered part of the negritude movement and even coin the concept of transculturation, when he published Los negros brujos at age 25 his thought process and outlook contained all the remnants of a slave holding society. To begin, Ortiz's Los negros brujos was to Cuba what Price-Mars' Ainsi parla l'oncle (Thus spoke the uncle) was to Haiti in the sense that both were ethnological texts that focused on the culture, the folklore, the religion, and the society of, respectively, Cuban or Haitian people of African ancestry. Both texts also explained, analyzed, and explored the past, the present, and the future of what, for the time being, I will refer to as Afro-Catholic-Caribbean religions. Initially, Price-Mars set out to give the Haitian people a sense of identity and self-worth by rehabilitating their folklore. Critics such as McAlister (2013) see Price-Mars's efforts to put Vodou back where it belonged-in the heart of Haitian popular culture-as a response to the U.S. Marine occupation of 1915-1934, and "in step with decolonizing cultural, movements throughout the Americas, including negritude and Pan-Africanism" (p. 215). To "shift African cultural traits to occupy a position of positive value" (p. 215), Price-Mars (2009) first sought to distinguish Vodou from magic and give it the status of a religion by relegating magic to a primitive stage ascending march toward the light and making religion, as the critic André Corten (2009) believes, the result of a process of rationalization. André Corten (2009) writes that Price-Mars succeeded in rendering Vodou respectable. In other words, Vodou and Catholicism were much the same in their beliefs and their rituals. Unfortunately, the point of arrival is a belief that Vodou will-if not disappear-eventually become nothing 537084S GOXXX10.