_Les Daïmons du Culte Voudo._ By DR. ARTHUR HOLLY, Port-au
Prince, Haiti, 1919. Pp. lx-523.
The author of this unique volume declares himself "boldly, but without
vanity, or false modesty" an esoterist, that is to say, one who is an
adept at the interpretation of the occult and secret doctrines. This
book, an exposition of the secret doctrine, is not, therefore, as its
title might suggest, a scientific treatise upon the Voudo cult as it
has existed and as it still exists in Haiti. It is rather an
interpretation and defense of the primitive religion of Africa,
particularly as it is represented in the religious customs and
practices of the common people in Haiti today.
The sentiments which have inspired this undertaking are altogether
admirable. "Haitiens," he says, "have reached a point in their efforts
to conform to an alien culture where they are in danger of losing
their personality as a people as well as their native culture." But
now if ever is the moment, after the great cataclysm in Europe, to
lift the ancestral cult from the dust and make it worthy of Haiti, of
the African race.
"We are," he continues, "African-Latins. But our Latin culture is all
on the surface. The old African heritage persists in us and controls
us to such an extent that under certain circumstances we feel
ourselves moved by mysterious forces when the silence of the night,
throbs with the irregular rhythm, melancholly, passionate and magical,
of the sacred dances of _Voudo_."
Dr. Arthur Holly is evidently learning, but he draws his knowledge
from sources that are esoteric and therefore inaccessible to all
except the adepts. What he has written is, therefore, neither science
nor history. It has the character rather of revelation. It is
impressive, but not intelligible to the uninitiated.
From his introduction, however, one gathers that he intends to show
that Christianity and Voudoism are from a common source, that "the
Bible," as he says, "belongs to us," _i.e._, the black people, but
that this earlier and more primitive form of religion which is
revealed in it has been corrupted by the white race.
It is an interesting idea, but more interesting is the evidence that
it offers of the rise, among the Negro people of Haiti, of a racial
consciousness which embraces in one conscious unity the Negro peoples
of Africa and America. It is another spontaneous manifestation of that
unrest of the black man which has found expression in pan-Africanism
and in the movement in this country headed by Marcus Garvey, whose
program is Africa for the Africans.
ROBERT E. PARK
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
_The Wings of Oppression._ By LESLIE PINCKNEY HILL. The Stratford
Company, Publishers, Boston, Massachusetts. Price by mail, $2.15.
Bearing the certificate of the Lyric Muse, Mr. Leslie Pinckney Hill,
schoolmaster of Cheney, Pennsylvania, and authentic singer, is the
newest arrival on the slopes of Parnassus. A first glance tells that
he is an agile climber, sinewy, easy of movement, light of step, with
both grace and strength. Every indication in form and motion is for
some point far up toward the summit. Youthful is he, ambitious
plainly, and, in spite of a burden, buoyant. "Climber," I said. I will
drop the figure. Poets were never pedestrians. Mr. Hill comes not
afoot. If not on the wings of Pegasus, yet on wings he comes--_the
wings of oppression_. Sad wings! Yet it must be remarked that it is
commonly on such wings that poets of whatever race and time rise. And
Mr. Hill's race knows no other wings. On the wings of oppression the
Negro poet and the Negro people are rising toward the summits of
Parnassus, Pisgah, and other peaks. This they know, too, and of it
they are justly proud.
In his _Foreword_ Mr. Hill thus states the case of his people, and, by
implication, of himself:
"Nothing in the life of the nation has seemed to me more
significant than that dark civilization which the colored man has
built up in the midst of a white society organized against it.
The Negro has been driven under all the burdens of oppression,
both material and spiritual, to the brink of desperation, but he
has always been saved by his philosophy of life. He has advanced
against all opposition by a certain elevation of his spirit. He
has been made strong in tribulation. He has constrained
oppression to give him wings."
The significant thing about these wings, in a critical view, is that
they fulfill the proper function of wings--bear aloft and sustain in
flight through the azure depths. Mr. Hill's wings do bear aloft and
sustain: if not always, nor even ever, into the very empyrean of
poetry, yet invariably, seventy times, into the ampler air. Like all
his race, he has suffered much; and, like all his race still, he has
gathered wisdom from sorrow. As a true poet should have, he has
philosophy, also vision and imagination--vision for himself and his
people, imagination that sees facts in terms of beauty and presents
truths with vital imagery. Add thereto craftsmanship acquired in the
best traditions of English poetry and you have Hill the poet.
The merits of this book cannot be shown by the quoting of lines and
stanzas. As ever with true art, the merit lies in the effect of
complete poems. Still, we can here detach from this and that poem a
stanza or two, despite the wrong to art. The first and fourth stanzas
of the title-poem will indicate Mr. Hill's technique and philosophy:
I have a song that few will sing
In honor of all suffering,
A song to which my heart can bring
The homage of believing--
A song the heavy-laden hears
Above the clamor of his fears,
While still he walks with blinding tears,
And drains the cap of grieving.
* * * * *
So long as life is steeped in wrong,
And nations cry: "How long, how long!"
I look not to the wise and strong
For peace and self-possession:
But right will rise, and mercy shine,
And justice lift her conquering sign
Where lowly people starve and pine
Beneath a world oppression.
Significant as interpreting the character and temper of the Negro with
whom today the white world has to deal, are the following lines from
the blank verse poem entitled _Armageddon_:
Because ye schooled them in the arts of life,
and gave to them your God, and poured your blood
Into their veins to make them what they are,
They shall not fail you in your hour of need,
They hold in them enough of you to feel
All that has made you masters in your time--
The power of art and wealth, unending toil,
Proud types of beauty, an unbounded will
To triumph, wondrous science, and old law--
These have they learned to value and to share.
If these poems, taken collectively, do not declare "what is on the
Negro's mind," they yet truly reveal, to the reflecting person, what
has sunk deep into his heart. They are therefore a message to America,
a protest, an appeal, and a warning. They will penetrate, I predict,
through breast armor of _aes triplex_ into the hearts of those whom
sermons and editorials fail to touch in the springs of action. Such is
the virtue of music wed to persuasive words.
A sonnet entitled _To a Caged Canary in a Negro Restaurant_ will
present the poet's people and his own manner of poetic musing:
Thou little golden bird of happy song!
A cage cannot restrain the rapturous joy
Which thou dost shed abroad. Thou dost employ
Thy bondage for high uses. Grievous wrong
Is thine; yet in thy heart glows full and strong
The tropic sun, though far beyond thy flight,
And though thou flutterest there by day and night
Above the clamor of a dusky throng.
So let my will, albeit hedged about
By creed and caste, feed on the light within;
So let my song sing through the bars of doubt
With light and healing where despair has been;
So let my people bide their time and place,
A hindered but a sunny-hearted race.
It would be an injustice to this poet did I convey the idea that his
seventy-odd poems are exclusively occupied with race wrongs and
oppression. Not a few of them bear no stamp of an oppressed or
afflicted spirit, though of sorrow they may have been nurtured.
A lyric of pure loveliness is the following, entitled: