Product Description

As a first-hand account of the weird mysteries and horrors of voodoo, Tell My Horse is an invaluable resource and fascinating guide. Based on Zora Neale Hurston's personal experiences in Haiti and Jamaica, where she participated as an initiate rather than just an observer of voodoo practices during her visits in the 1930s, this travelogue into a dark world paints a vividly authentic picture of ceremonies and customs and superstitions of great cultural interest.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #183911 in Books
• Published on: 1990-02-28
• Released on: 1990-01-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
"Strikingly dramatic, yet simple and unrestrained...an unusual and intensely interesting book richly packed with strange information."-- "New York Times Book Review"

About the Author
In her award-winning autobiography, Dust Trackson a Road (1942), Zora Neale Hurston claimed to have been born inEatonville, Florida, in 1901. She was, in fact, born in Notasulga, Alabama, onJanuary 7, 1891, the fifth child of John Hurston (farmer, carpenter, and Baptistpreacher) and Lucy Ann Potts (school teacher). The author of numerous books,including Their Eyes Were Watching God, Jonah's Gourd Vine, Mulesand Men, and Moses, Man of the Mountain, Hurston had achieved fameand sparked controversy as a novelist, anthropologist, outspoken essayist,lecturer, and theatrical producer during her sixty-nine years. Hurston's finestwork of fiction appeared at a time when artistic and politicalstatements--whether single sentences or book-length fictions--were peculiarlyconflated. Many works of fiction were informed by purely political motives;political pronouncements frequently appeared in polished literary prose. AndHurston's own political statements, relating to racial issues or addressingnational politics, did not ingratiate her with her black male contemporaries.The end result was that Their Eyes Were Watching God went out of printnot long after its first appearance and remained out of print for nearly thirtyyears. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has been one among many to ask: "How couldthe recipient of two Guggenheims and the author of four novels, a dozen shortstories, two musicals, two books on black mythology, dozens of essays, and aprizewinning autobiography virtually 'disappear' from her readership for threefull decades?"

That question remains unanswered. The fact remains thatevery one of Hurston's books went quickly out of print; and it was only throughthe determined efforts, in the 1970s, of Alice Walker, Robert Hemenway (Hurston'sbiographer), Toni Cade Bambara, and other writers and scholars that all of herbooks are now back in print and that she has taken her rightful place in thepantheon of American authors.

In 1973, Walker, distressed that Hurston's writings hadbeen all but forgotten, found Hurston's grave in the Garden of Heavenly Rest andinstalled a gravemarker. "After loving and teaching her work for a numberof years," Walker later reported, "I could not bear that she did nothave a known grave." The gravemarker now bears the words that Walker hadinscribed there:

ZORA NEALE HURSTON
GENIUS OF THE SOUTH
NOVELIST FOLKLORIST ANTHROPOLOGIST
(1891-1960)

In Brief
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist whose fictional and factual accounts of black heritage are unparalleled. She Is the author of many books, including Their Eyes Were Watching God, Dust Tracks on a Road, Tell My Horse, and Mules and Men.

Customer Reviews

Zora's trip into voodoo
In the late 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston toured Jamaica and Haiti on a Guggenheim Fellowship collecting folklore and voodoo materials for this book, published in 1938. The book is in three sections, covering her views of and experiences in Jamaica, people and politics of Haiti, and finally her initiation and participation in the world of Haitian voodoo. Zora maintains her usual stance of the involved, inquisitive participant, and her initiation into the ways of voodoo was, and is, both remarkable and engaging. From sexism in Jamaica to threats about her voodoo investigations, from commentary on her role as ethnographer to criticism of previous white studies of voodoo, the book is wild, and collects a huge range of important black cultural practices. Zora left the field hurriedly in 1938, desperately ill, convinced she might die, and sure that she had been 'hexed' for delving too deep into the world of 'bad' (petro) voodoo...have a read of one of the most important pieces of black folklore research of the 1930s. Parlay cheval ou! Ah bo bo!

Engaging reading, fantastic stories
Reading this book is like travelling along with Ms. Neale Hurston as she explores life in Haiti. You will meet fanscinating and intriguing people. The practices and beliefs are explained in just enough detail to make you feel like you were there, but all the mystery is retained as even the author is unable to explain or understand the depth of experience and strength of beliefs held by the native Haitians. Finding non-fiction that reads like a novel is a rare and wonderful treasure.

It Will Change Your Reality
If this book was fiction I would call it one of the most imaginative books I have ever read, but it's real. It is scary, unbelievably deep, and true. A wonderful anthropological gathering of stories, ceremonies , and everyday life. Let me wash my face with Jalapeno rum if I'm not telling the truth about this book being great. You can tell my horse.