In Caribbean Folklore: A Handbook, anthropologist Donald Hill has compiled an introductory guide to Caribbean folklore, its topics, and its extant scholarly works. The book is neither exhaustive nor definitive and makes no claim to be so. It is rather Hill’s attempt to bring together disparate studies and sources and “present a structure, not a ‘theory,’ of how all this information may be comprehended” (5) while pointing to means of discovering more such information. The book is geared toward the undergraduate student and general reader in both content and style. Throughout, Hill promotes the use of Internet-based research and resources.
Hill’s notions of folklore, those who collect it, and the geographic area of the Caribbean are broad and inclusive. Beginning with a classic definition of folklore as the traditional behaviors and beliefs of a group, which are transmitted in face-to-face encounters, and which evidence variation within structure (8–9), he expands the notion to include almost anything, found anywhere. He brings together the disciplines of folklore, cultural anthropology, and ethnomusicology, as well as additional fields that he conceives of as collecting folklore. Hill treats the Caribbean as a geographic and conceptual unity, addressing the long-standing academic separation of the region based upon language, specifically the division of the Hispanophone Caribbean from the Anglophone, Francophone, Nederlandophone, and Papiamento-speaking West Indies. He posits a “unity of circumstances” (5)—the region’s shared history of colonialism, slavery, and racial and cultural heterogeneity—as the foundation for a shared folklore. He includes in this definitional unity Louisiana, the Gullah Islands off the coast of the Carolinas, Mexico, all of Central America, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, and transnational communities of the Caribbean in North America and Europe. He does not include Colombia, Venezuela, or northern Brazil.
A “nonideological Afrocentrist” (4) in the tradition of Herskovits, Hill emphasizes the conjunction of European and African peoples and cultures. To be sure, academic interest has focused on the Afro-Caribbean and available resources reflect that interest, as opposed to, say, the Asian-Caribbean. Hill’s own research centers on Anglophone-Caribbean communities. The materials he selects are English-language based.
Chapters are written to stand alone and each concludes with a small list of works cited. Chapter 1, “Introduction,” presents a brief historical overview of the disciplines of folklore and anthropology and how they intersect and diverge in their approaches to the complexity of the Caribbean. Chapter 2, “Definitions and Classifications,” familiarizes the reader with terms and concepts, including but not limited to “folklife,” “tradition,” “ethnic identity,” “vernacular,” “belief,” “myth,” and “bricolage.” It covers also topics of interest such as foodways, rites, verbal and nonverbal communication, music and dance, “bush medicine,” and “magic, sorcery, and witchcraft.” Chapter 3, “Examples and Texts,” provides examples of oral traditions, including myths and folktales, customs, music and dance, and festivals. Each example is followed by a brief commentary. Chapter 4, “Scholarship and Approaches,” is a useful chronological literature review of academic approaches and existing scholarship on the Caribbean. It begins with a discussion of ethnography as developed by Bronislaw Malinowski and Franz Boas, continues with historical approaches, emphasizing Melville Herskovits and Fernando Ortiz, and dips into Afrocentrism, performance-centered approaches, the folklore of everyday life, postmodern theory, and “Creolist” approaches including linguistic interest in Creole languages. Chapter 5, “Contexts,” examines mainstream contexts in which folklore may be found, utilized, and disseminated. Literature, film, theatre, music, and tourist-oriented materials such as art and cultural performances are highlighted. The book concludes with a glossary of terms, a bibliography, and a listing of web resources with guidelines on how to gauge any given site’s informational legitimacy.
A detriment to this work, whose aim is to serve as a guide, is that not all assertions are followed by a citation. This makes it difficult to determine where the author came by his information and thus where to learn more about or interrogate more fully those assertions, despite the included bibliographies. This is an obstacle to a reader at any level. To “Google the term” for more information (153), as Hill suggests, reaps little if any viable reward. This is not surprising.
Scholars in various disciplines who have more than a basic introductory knowledge of folklore and/or the Caribbean will find room to quibble with Hill’s use of terminology and broad generalizations. As one example, the assertion that “most people from the Caribbean are Creoles” and identify as such (11) is as unwarranted as it is problematic from both a historical and a contemporary theoretical standpoint. As an issue of “identity,” the signifier “Creole” may hold true for all or part of the West Indies but it is certainly not the case in the Hispanophone Caribbean. This example, along with others, indicates that Hill’s comfort zone resides in the West Indies, and this is a hindrance to a unification of the Caribbean in this work.
Practicing folklorists may feel that a handbook on folklore would be better served by a full-time folklorist than an anthropologist with some early training in folklore. Folklorists will note worn descriptions of concepts that do not reflect contemporary disciplinary understandings and practices, such as that on “belief.” They may also feel that the ongoing comparison of the disciplines of folklore and anthropology tend to favor the latter.
Hill’s impulse to unify the Caribbean is both noble and necessary to scholarship. With such a vast geographic and topical field as he defines, he cannot help but to generalize and simplify. The broad strokes may, as he hopes, entice readers to more in-depth research. Yet it is as likely that the information Hill provides will be taken at face value. If such is the case, little else will be accomplished than a continuation of the misunderstandings about the Caribbean and its peoples. In essence, the danger of generalizing about the Caribbean is the conflation of experience, which leads to homogenization—that is, this as what all people in and of the Caribbean do, say, think, or believe. Certainly, this is not Hill’s intent.
What is truly needed, and what this book looks toward, is academic attention to commonalities in shared yet not equivalent histories in the Caribbean which also tends to specifics of experience and expression in particular locales. Folklore as a discipline and folklore as materials are particularly well-suited for this work. Therefore, in this reviewer’s opinion, Caribbean Folklore: A Handbook, holds the potential to be most useful in a classroom environment where concepts and topics can be fleshed out and contextualized through guided discussion and research.
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[Review length: 1086 words • Review posted on February 2, 2010]