Hurston, Zora Neale. Tell My Horse. Turtle Island, 1938.
Reason read: Hurston was born on January 7th. Read in her honor. I also needed a book written before 1940 for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge for 2024. Tell My Horse was first published in 1938.
I was first attracted to Hurston as a person when I learned that she was a visionary anthropologist. She dressed flashy and was considered outlandish and flamboyant. Quite the opposite of her writing which is considered serious, scholarly, didactic, and intellectual. I expected Tell My Horse to be a combination of the two and I was not disappointed. Hurston claims to have seen a real zombie, Felicia Felix-Mentor, and even photographed her! Sadly, she does not share them within the pages of Tell My Horse.
There is a sly humor hidden in Huston’s prose which is not easy to do when describing Haiti’s violent history. I particularly enjoyed the section on voodoo. Voodoo is a belief, almost like a religion or an ancient form of mysticism. Hurston is patient with her readers while she explains the culture, delving into the powers of a Mambo, a loa or houngan. Do not mess with Ogoun Feraille, god of war. Make sure to honor other gods like Damballa and Guede as well.
Tell My Horse is riddled with superstitions like do not sharpen hunting blades on the day of the hunt or your dogs will be killed. Soups have to be male (cock soup instead of chicken soup). There is a stone that urinates. A goat can be a consort. The story of Celestina and her goat, Simalo, was bizarre. Rumor had it Celestina and Simalo were married. In order to marry a wealthy man, Celestina needed a “divorce” from the goat. Her father ended up murdering the goat and giving it a Christian burial with flowers, closed casket, and smoking censora as the goat was Celestina’s father’s best friend.
In truth, I wished Tell My Horse came with a soundtrack. I would have enjoyed listening to the songs of invocation. There is a whole section at the end of Tell My Horse of songs of worship to voodoo gods.
Lines I liked, “By that time the place was on fire with life” (p 25), “At any rate, the palace food proved too rich for him, for less than a year after he had taken office he died of a digestive disturbance that his enemies called poison” (p 133),
As an aside, I will never look at the hand shake where thumbs are encircled the same way again. Such handshakes are seen as sexual!
I also want to know if it is still true that you should never pay a Haitian in advance because he (or she) will just steal off with your money without delivering the good or service.
And dare I say that President Stenio Vinient sounded like another delusional man who was once in office? I think I just did.
Author fact: the exact year of Hurston’s birth is a mystery. She lost her mother at the age of nine and left home when she was only fourteen. Like me. She also loved to read. One other “fact” – Hurston reminds me of Queen Latifa in some photographs. I think it’s the smile.
Book trivia: Tell My Horse is a phrase (parlay cheval ou) spoken by those “possessed” by guedes (spirits). As an aside, what is the deal with the cover of Tell My Horse? the man in the cover looks either dead or deep in a trance.
Playlist: “Donkey Want Water”, “Sally Brown”, “Lead kindly Light”, “Good Night”, Ludoric Lamotte, and “Erzulie, Nin Nin Oh!”.
Nancy said: Pearl said that Tell My Horse is a good book to read if you would like a little background history on voodoo.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust to Go in the chapter called “Cavorting Through the Caribbean: Haiti” (p 55).
~*LunaSea*~ 