African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
420 p, The Garifuna are presented as an African-Amerindian culture which has successfully fought and won several wars with Europeans (French and British). Chronicled are their struggles for survival after European attempts of extermination and exile; and their 20th century thrust toward cultural awareness as an African people as they redefined (renamed) themselves and remained committed to the retention of their African and Amerindian traditions (Africanisms). Moreover, possible African anteriors are suggested in the rituals of ancestor rites of the Yoruba, Igbo and Dahomey cultures of West Africa; and as they are also seen in some Afro-Caribbean
333 p., Examines both historical and contemporary attempts by the people of Ouidah, Benin Republic in West Africa and in the Caribbean country of Haiti to confront and reconcile their relationship via the transatlantic slave trade. Oral and visual narrative have been central to this process as people represent, reflect and interpret a past that is fraught with gaps, silences and erasures. Proposes that the process of remembrance mirrors a traditional rites of passage whereby one lives as part of a community, dies to the past and then is reborn anew in the community. Both Ouidahans and Haitians now occupy a liminal space--an exilic space--in which they struggle to remember a past that was for many years repressed and suppressed.
164 p., Traces the journey of blacks from the Middle Passage through urban migration northward in black fiction. Argues that the historical use of religious rhetoric is transcended in black writing of the 20th century in order to recast black victimization during slavery, counter the progress of turn-of-the-century white supremacy, and chronicle the rise of economic racism which created the 20th century black ghetto. The religious doctrines discussed in this study include Puritan missionizing and heretical purges in I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem , the social work of the Catholic church in Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South , and the cultural intensity of the Pentecostal/Apostolic church in Go Tell It on the Mountain.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
72 p., Examines the recurrence of the image of sugarcane in Caribbean literature and traces a timeline of oppressive discourse. The image of the cane field represents a tension between silencing voice and identity independent of European nation-building ideologies. There is a history of silencing associated with sugarcane, even as Caribbean authors seek a potential to use this history to create a voice. While the authors examined employ the image of the cane field to create a voice outside of the dominant discourse, the voice of the Caribbean is nonetheless restricted.
480 p., By the end of 1825, 6,000 African Americans had left the United States to settle in the free black Republic of Haiti. After arriving on the island, 200 immigrants formed an enclave in what is now Samaná, Dominican Republic. The Americans in Samaná continued to speak English, remained Protestant (in a country of devout Catholics), and retained American cultural practices for over 150 years. Relying on historical archaeological methods, this dissertation explores the processes of community formation, maintenance, and dissolution, while paying particular attention to intersections of race and nation.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
322 p., Kweh-kweh is an African Guyanese pre-wedding ritual system that emerged among African slaves in Guyana and historically functioned as a medium for music-centered matrimonial instruction for soon-to-be-married couples. The ritual is executed on the eve of a wedding ceremony and encompasses music, dance, proverbial speech, and a plethora of ritual practices that allow participants to chide, praise, and instruct the bride and groom and their nations (relatives, friends, and representatives) on matters of marriage. However, kweh-kweh performances also reveal embedded values of the Guyanese community, such as what it means to be a "real man" or a "proper woman." African Guyanese hold conflicting views on kweh-kweh, but at the onset of a wedding, they devise ways to celebrate kweh-kweh, a "pagan" ritual they also regard "our culture." This work demonstrates how African Guyanese manipulate the kweh-kweh ritual, their religious values, and themselves to articulate the complex of their identities, particularly racial and gendered identities.
