Ballad Hunting in the Black Republic: Alan Lomax in Haiti, 1936-37

For the Haitian peasant, singing and dancing are integral parts of everyday existence. He calls his voodoo gods, wheedles favors from them and dismisses them with ceremonial drumming, dancing and singing. To find a group of men in the field with their hoes is to discover a gay festival of music and, when a Haitian tells a folk tale, the crux of the plot is likely to be a little song learned from his grandfather" (Alan Lomax, Report on the "Library of Congress Expedition to Haiti," 1936-37). (1) In 1936, scarcely more than two years after the U. S. Marines left Haiti, Alan Lomax arrived. He was part of a wave of ethnographers, artists, and folklorists whose work helped to introduce Haitian 'traditional' culture and society to audiences abroad and also profoundly influenced local Haitian perspectives on folklore, cultural patrimony, and national identity. Over the course of a four-month 'expedition' to Haiti, Lomax, his fiancee, Elizabeth Lyttleton Harold, and his assistant Revolie Polinice, recorded over 1,500 or so recordings along with six moving pictures, creating the most significant archive of Haitian culture in the early century.