Sorcery Narratives in the History of Haiti and the Dominican Republic

FAIN: FA-251528-17

Lauren Hutchinson Derby
UCLA; Regents of the University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA 90024-4201)

A book-length study of Hispaniola focusing on the shared folklore, historical memory, and environment of the borderlands between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

This proposal seeks twelve months of support for completion of a book manuscript on sorcery narratives as a form of historical memory in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, a project that brings the cultural meanings of animals into the social and environmental history of Latin America and the Caribbean. The final product will be a book with supplemental oral history video clips that I plan to submit to Duke University Press.

Associated Products

Bêtes Noires: Sorcery as History in the Haitian-Dominican Borderlands (Book)
Title: Bêtes Noires: Sorcery as History in the Haitian-Dominican Borderlands
Author: Lauren Derby
Abstract: n Bêtes Noires, Lauren Derby explores storytelling traditions between the people of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, focusing on shapeshifting spirit demons called baka/bacá. Drawing on interviews and life stories of residents in a central Haitian-Dominican frontier town, Derby contends that bacás—hot spirits from the sorcery side of Vodou/Vodú that present as animals and generate wealth for their owners—are a manifestation of what Dominicans call fukú, the curse of Columbus. The dogs, pigs, cattle, and horses that Columbus brought with him are the only types of animals that bacás become. As instruments of indigenous dispossession, these animals and their spirit demons convey a history of trauma and racialization in Dominican popular culture. In the context of slavery and beyond, bacás keep alive the promise of freedom, since shapeshifting has long enabled fugitivity. As Derby demonstrates, bacás represent a complex history of race, religion, repression, and resistance.
Year: 2025
Publisher: Duke University Press
Type: Single author monograph

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