Full Description
In Bêtes Noires, Lauren Derby explores storytelling traditions between the people of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, focusing on shapeshifting spirit demons called baka/bacá. Drawing on interviews and life stories of residents in a central Haitian-Dominican frontier town, Derby contends that bacás - hot spirits from the sorcery side of Vodou/Vodú that present as animals and generate wealth for their owners - are a manifestation of what Dominicans call fukú, the curse of Columbus. The dogs, pigs, cattle, and horses that Columbus brought with him are the only types of animals that bacás become. As instruments of indigenous dispossession, these animals and their spirit demons convey a history of trauma and racialization in Dominican popular culture. In the context of slavery and beyond, bacás keep alive the promise of freedom, since shapeshifting has long enabled fugitivity. As Derby demonstrates, bacás represent a complex history of race, religion, repression, and resistance.
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Preface. From the Mouth of the Goat xiii
Introduction. Spirits, History, and Power 1
1. Preternaturalia: Of Talking Cows 17
2. The Mysterious Murder of Javier 43
3. The Inscrutable Jailbreak of Clément Barbot 68
4. Creole Pigs as Memento Mori 87
5. Specters of Columbus 112
6. Big Men and Tall Tails 128
7. Becoming Animal: Food, Sex, and the Animal Grotesque 161
Notes 187
Bibliography 265
Index
