Subtitle: Vodou, Santera, Obeah, and the Caribbean
Editors: Margarite Fernndez Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert
Subject: Caribbean Studies/Anthropology/Religion
Paperback ISBN 0-8135-2361-3
Pages: 325 pp. 29 b & w illus.
Description:

Sacred Possessions is an unprecedented collection of thirteen comparative and interdisciplinary essays exploring the cross-cultural dynamics of African-based religious systems in the Caribbean. The contributors analyze the nature and liturgies of Vodou, Santería, Obeah, Quimbois, and Gaga as they form one central cultural matrix in the region. They ask how these belief systems were affected by differing colonial histories and landscapes, how they affected other cultural expressions (from the oral tradition to popular art and literature), and how they have been perceived and (mis)represented by the West. The book is a unique contribution to the study of the Caribbean as a site of multiculturalism, demonstrating the linkages between anthropology, religion, literature, and popular culture. Also included are a stunning photoessay on Cuban Santería, a glossary of terms, and an insightful introduction by the editors.

In addition to the editors, the contributors are Miguel Barnet, Joan Dayan, Héctor Delgado, Karla Y. Frye, Eugenio Matibag, Brinda Mehta, José Piedra, Alan Richardson, Ivette Romero-Cesareo, Elaine Savory, and Anna Wexler.

Margarite Fernández Olmos is a professor of Spanish at Brooklyn College of CUNY. She is co-editor and translator with Lizabeth Paravisini of Pleasure in the Word: Erotic Writing by Latin American Women and Remaking a Lost Harmony: Stories from the Hispanic Caribbean.

Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert is an associate professor of Caribbean and Latin American literature in the Department of Hispanic Studies at Vassar College. She is the co-editor of Green Cane and Juicy Flotsam: Short Stories by Caribbean Women and author of Phyllis Shand Allfrey: A Caribbean Life (both from Rutgers University Press).