The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Religions was finally published – after six long years in the works! My contribution is Chapter 22, “Divination in the Caribbean.”
Divination is the pivot on which a number of critical religious practices hinge—initiation, healing and protection, sacrifice, and possession trance. It commissions or sanctions these other rites. The chapter presents the principles of divination as well as approaches to the study of Afro-Caribbean forms. It details various practices in the Caribbean, tracing their African origins while underscoring a common underlying logic.
Featured traditions are: Obi, Ifá, and Diloggun divination in Lucumí tradition in Cuba; Palo Monte and Kongo divinatory forms in Cuba; Obeah and Myal in Jamaica; Possession trance and divination in Haitian Vodou; Hoodoo in the Caribbean Flows; and the healing arts in Trinidad and Tobago.
These traditions are presented in historical context, including discussion of shifting power relations: race and empire; the criminalization and denigration of African-derived traditions by colonial law; and vying interpretations by insiders and outsiders. It concludes by considering the mobility, fluidity, and vitality of divinatory practices in the region.
Divination has long been a specialization of mine. My PhD dissertation was on West African Divination. I learned a lot by researching and tracing the consonances and differences among the forms that survived and were reshaped in Afro-Caribbean flows.
To see the volume:
https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/56208?searchresult=1
The chapter:
https://www.academia.edu/120381967/Divination_in_Afro_Caribbean_Religions
