50 pages • 1 hour read
Zora Neale HurstonTell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1938A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapters 15-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3, Chapter 15 Summary: “Parlay Cheval Ou (Tell My Horse)”
Content warning: This section of the guide mentions death by suicide.
One of the loa worshipped in Haiti is Guedé. Unlike many other Voodoo gods, he has no counterpart or origin in any African pantheon and is of purely Haitian origin. In aspect and behavior, Guedé is a representation of the common people, a celebration of the Black peasant class. Hurston describes the appearance and rituals of worship associated with Guedé, explaining that the loa’s primary business is in possessing or “riding” his followers and forcing them to speak the truth. Often, this manifests in insults and mockery directed at someone in a position of power.
The speech guided by Guedé is always taken as the absolute truth, whether he speaks of past secrets or future events, and is marked by the opening phrase, “Tell my horse…”. In one instance, a woman known for lesbianism was “ridden” by Guedé, who forced her to confess to loving women and die by suicide. Naturally, people sometimes pretend to be ridden by Guedé in order to excuse themselves for insulting or mocking an enemy. Fraudsters can be distinguished from true “horses” by offering them a particular spicy pepper; possessed people will be entirely unaffected.
Guedé’s origins are in the south and west of Haiti, some say Miragoane in particular, and Hurston likens him to Baron Samedi but with a social consciousness. Hurston describes Baron Samedi, the god with three names and the head of the Petra gods, as well as some of the ceremonies used to summon or evoke his power.
There is an annual Voodoo celebration known as “Tete L’Eau” which is celebrated at waterfall and springs all across Haiti. The Cascade Saut D’Eau is usually the site of a large gathering with many festivities, although the local Christian church naturally disapproves wholeheartedly of the event and attempts to suppress it.
Part 3, Chapter 16 Summary: “Graveyard Dirt and Other Poisons”
All over the world it is believed by Black people that the dirt from a graveyard holds the power to curse and poison people. Recent scientific advancements have shown that this can be true, but not for supernatural reasons: Graveyard dirt is often full of infectious diseases and germs from decomposing bodies and, depending on the soil, it can very much be used as a deadly poison and to spread illness.
Poisoning is a relatively common method of murder in Haiti, one which is very difficult for authorities to track or prove. There are countless motivations for the murders, and almost as many methods. Many people are wary of poison and make a habit of incorporating preemptive measures into their daily lives. Such paranoia is especially prevalent among the rich, powerful, and those who know they have enemies.
The cult of poison was brought over from Africa during the time of the transatlantic slave trade (See: Index of Terms), and in the African style, the vast majority of Haitian poisons come from natural sources rather than store-bought minerals, as are more commonly used in Europe and the USA. One exception to this is arsenic, which is popular and well-known, though not necessarily easy to get a hold of given the uproar raised when a batch of it went missing recently.
Popular poisons from Africa had to be adapted and reimagined when the people were brought to Haiti and could no longer access their native ingredients. For instance, the whisker of a leopard is thought to be so poisonous that in some parts of Africa it is illegal to keep the head of a slaughtered leopard, since it is assumed that anyone hoarding one must have nefarious intentions for its whiskers. In Haiti, the coarse hair of a horse’s tail is used in place of a leopard’s whisker, and in Jamaica it’s the grime from a horse’s comb. Hurston provides several lists of popular poisons from the Caribbean and their antidotes, organized by type and origin.
Part 3, Chapter 17 Summary: “Doctor Reser”
Doctor Reser is a white Voodoo priest from the USA who has lived many years in Haiti, and about whom many legends have arisen. He is the officer in charge of a psychiatric hospital, and is generally very well-liked by the Haitian people. He is kind to his charges, allowing those who aren’t dangerous to roam with a measure of freedom around the hospital’s grounds, patiently listening to their ramblings from his porch.
At Reser’s invitation, Hurston attends a dinner which is held for visiting American dignitaries, and which showcases Voodoo dancing and a famous Haitian drummer. The following day, a woman invites Reser to a special annual meal in Southern Haiti which is cooked without fire, displaying the technique by apparently cooking an egg in her hands with no more than a word and gesture. When Reser is prevailed upon to eat the egg, she informs him that it has granted him immunity from poison.
Both Hurston and Reser attend the dinner, and the large cauldron of prepared food is seemingly cooked by nothing more than chanting and the fanning of nonexistent flames. Both Hurston and Reser are desperate to learn how this was achieved, but no participant can be prevailed upon to reveal the secret, even when Reser agrees to be baptized into their group. All he can learn is that the process is a family secret brought over from Africa.
Most everyone significant who visits Port-au-Prince calls on Dr. Reser, and Hurston is no exception. She spends a significant amount of time with him, partially to enjoy his company and partially to study him because he cuts so extraordinary a figure. Unlike the majority of people who come to Haiti to research its culture or Voodoo, Hurston doesn’t ask any research questions of Reser, believing that she is well-equipped to find more thorough answers herself first-hand through fieldwork. They spend a significant amount of time conversing on Reser’s porch.
Hurston has difficulty reconciling Reser’s identity as an intelligent and educated man of science with the depth of his emotional and credulous commitment to Voodoo and the fact that he has been possessed multiple times. When he speaks of possession, Hurston feels as if the spirit of Africa is speaking through him, lighting him up from the inside.
Part 3, Chapter 18 Summary: “God and the Pintards”
This final chapter relates a short folk story explaining the origin of music and dance. It opens with Hurston’s declaration that it is impossible not to love the Haitian people. They are akin to the guineafowls or “pintards” who once were eating all of the celestial rice that God was growing in heaven. To protect his crop, God sent the angel Michael out with God’s gun to shoot the birds. However, when they saw Michael approach, the pintards flew into a tree and beat their wings in rhythm, singing and dancing so enticingly that Michael couldn’t help but dance too. Unable to bring himself to kill them, Michael returned in shame to God and admitted his failure.
God then sent out the angel Gabriel to shoot the birds, who were continuing to devour his rice, but Gabriel was equally charmed by their music and dancing, and was also unable to shoot them. Too ashamed to return to god, Gabriel asked Saint Peter to return God’s gun to him and explain Gabriel’s failure. Angry, God sent Saint Peter out next to kill the birds, but just like the angels, Peter was charmed and moved to dance and could not complete his mission.
Finally, God himself went out to shoot the birds, who immediately flew into their tree and exerted themselves dancing, singing, and beating their wings more rousingly than they ever had before. God couldn’t help but be charmed, but he nonetheless refused to allow them to keep destroying his crop. Rather than kill them, he commanded the god of thunder to send the pintards down to the dreary earth so as to bless the world with their music. They landed in Guinea, and this is how Guinea came to be the origin of music and dance on Earth.
Part 3, Chapters 15-18 Analysis
The final half of Tell My Horse’s last part continues to discuss the culture of Haiti and the religion of Voodoo. In Chapters 15-17, Hurston provides information primarily on the theme of the Rituals and Beliefs of Voodoo. She provides formatted and organized lists of the poisons used by Haitians, as well as their antidotes, seemingly valuing the revelation of information more than she fears the possibility of that shared knowledge being abused.
Hurston also recounts her own experiences and impressions, her accounts functioning similarly to a travelogue. Hurston’s first-person perspective provides a full and nuanced view of the complex anthropological details depicted, revealing her own experiences with the culture she studies. The unique quality and integrity of the work is made clear in Hurston’s decision not to ask Reser for information on Haiti or Voodoo. Unlike many other researchers, she is capable and willing of doing first-hand research. This means she is not dependent on the potentially biased, possibly misleading impressions of other people. She is also able to connect more deeply and personally with Reser as a result, learning about him and his personal connection with Voodoo and African diasporic culture. Her academic background in social anthropology also means that she has the knowledge and ability to include relevant details using precise field-specific terms.
The loa Guedé is an important figure in the theme of Power Inequalities and Discrimination in Caribbean Societies, and also the Blurred Lines Between Truth and Fiction. Being “ridden” by Guedé gives someone who might ordinarily be powerless the opportunity to flout social conventions and enforced hierarchies and strike back at those who believe themselves untouchable. Mockery and honesty are made into weapons by the peasant class and the god who represents them. However, the fact that possession is a decidedly unproven phenomenon—as well as the acknowledged reality that people pretend to be possessed in order to speak their own minds freely—casts doubt upon the truth of the words spoken by Guedé’s “horses.” Hurston herself admits to difficulty reconciling her idea of Reser as an intellectual with the fact that he claims to have been possessed.
Chapter 18 is something of an exception in Tell My Horse because it simply relates the entirety of a folk tale from Haiti, without commentary from Hurston. The book ends with this tale, told in the style of a typical oral history or fable, with formulaic repetition and an explanation of its meaning at the end. This emphasizes the importance of storytelling and folklore to the people of the Caribbean and drives home the fact that traditional culture and beliefs are at the core of this work. The tale itself displays many aspects of the culture which have been discussed by Hurston throughout earlier chapters of Tell My Horse. For instance, the syncretic influences of Christianity and West African religions are shown in the presence of both the Christian God and a pagan god of thunder. Music, drumming, and dance are all important elements of Caribbean celebrations, ceremonies, and social or cultural events. Finally, Guinea is given as the origin of dance and music, just as Africa was the origin of the peoples who were brought to live in the Caribbean. This short tale is thus a final reflection and concentration of the societies explored in Tell My Horse.
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By Zora Neale Hurston
