a1523: Hoffmann again (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: karioka9@cs.com

In his review of Leon-Francois Hoffmann's book on Haitian fiction, Bob Corbett repeats Hoffmann's claim that the Bois Caiman ceremony was a myth, without looking at the evidence, historical and otherwise, in favor of a factual Bois Caiman.  That the August 1791 General Uprising was an orgy of blood sums it up quite nicely for Hoffmann; the blood spilled in that case was French after all.  That the rebel slaves abhorred the culture of their oppressors, or that they as a class held a separate agenda independent of all other classes in the colony, is too much for Hoffmann to contemplate.  Indeed, his work is part of a French revisionist tradition that looks upon the Haitian revolution as a by-product of the French revolution.  It is consistent with that claim to downplay the Bois Caiman ceremony or to deny that it ever took place (and then to neatly label Toussaint as a French General).  Hoffman underestimated the people's recollection of such a momentous event, however, and Rachel Beauvoir-Dominique's experiment in local history in the Morne Rouge area proves how strong that memory remains within the Vodou tradition.  The more one thinks about it, the clearer it becomes that Hoffmann proved nothing if not his own bias.

It is unfortunate, however, that Herard Dumesle's "Voyage dans le Nord d'Haiti" is so hard to find.  (Someone with a copy ought to create an electronic version of the chapter on Bois Caiman.)  Dumesle published a rendition of Boukman's prayer at Bois Caiman that Hoffmann derides because it is written in verse.  Hoffmann rejects the verses as an outright impossibility.  Yet, if Boukman was literate as so many people claim, is it not conceivable that he could have rehearsed his incantation ahead of time? Also, given the fact of what is known about him, is it not equally conceivable that Bookman was a Marabout, i.e. a muslim cleric, captured and deported to the New World during one of the numerous slave raids in West Africa? (Indeed, if Boukman had been a 29 year-old orthodox Jew killed in Brooklyn in 1991, he would have been hailed universally as a scholar!)  Some people object (as proof that Boukman was not a Muslim or that the Bois Caiman ceremony was a myth) that Boukman as a Muslim cleric could not have sacrificed a pig.  But the legend only says that he presided at the ceremony; a Manbo, or Vodou priestess presumably carried out the sacrifice of the pig.

Daniel Simidor