Obeah, Orisa, and Religious Identity in Trinidad is an expansive two-volume examination of social imaginaries concerning Obeah and Yoruba-Orisa from colonialism to the present. Analyzing their entangled histories and systems of devotion, Tracey E. Hucks and Dianne M. Stewart articulate how these religions were criminalized during slavery and colonialism yet still demonstrated autonomous modes of expression and self-defense. In Volume I, Obeah, Hucks traces the history of African religious repression in colonial Trinidad through the late nineteenth century. Drawing on sources ranging from colonial records, laws, and legal transcripts to travel diaries, literary fiction, and written correspondence, she documents the persecution and violent penalization of African religious practices encoded under the legal classification of "obeah." A cult of antiblack fixation emerged as white settlers defined themselves in opposition to Obeah, which they imagined as terrifying African witchcraft. These preoccupations revealed the fears that bound whites to one another. At the same time, persons accused of obeah sought legal vindication and marshaled their own spiritual and medicinal technologies to fortify the cultural heritages, religious identities, and life systems of African-diasporic communities in Trinidad.

About the Author
Tracey E. Hucks is Victor S. Thomas Professor of Africana Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School and Suzanne Young Murray Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. She is the author of Yoruba Traditions and African American Religious Nationalism.

Reviews

"A powerful, original contribution to this emerging literature. . . . [T]hese two volumes will be of great interest to scholars working in Caribbean and African Diaspora Religions."

-- Alexander Rocklin * Nova Religio *
"On its own or in conjunction with its companionate volume II on Orisa, Obeah, Orisa, & Religious Identity in Trinidad is a welcome and valuable contribution to Africana religious studies, Atlantic studies, and Caribbean historiography." -- Aisha Khan * Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology *

"A model of rigorous scholarship that offers a thoughtful and nuanced reflection on the dynamic constructions of African religion and identity in Trinidad from the colonial period to the present."

-- Brendan Jamal Thornton * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *



Book Information
ISBN 9781478014850
Author Tracey E. Hucks
Format Paperback
Page Count 280
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 386g