Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica

A bocor (also written as “bokor”) is a priest in Haitian Voodoo who serves both Rada and Petra loa and uses their powers for evil as well as good. Bocor are particularly associated with the creation of zombies and the manipulation of spirits and may work openly in their communities as hougan while simultaneously doing the work of a bocor in secret.

In Caribbean folklore, a duppy is the malevolent ghost or spirit of a deceased person. Since duppies are believed capable of causing harm to the living, either of their own volition or at the command of others, great efforts are made in traditional funerary rites to settle and secure the duppy of the newly deceased. There are many contradictory and competing beliefs relating to duppies in the Caribbean, and numerous superstitions detailing how to protect oneself and one’s home against them.

Ethnography is a branch of social anthropology focused on analyzing and comparing human cultures, as well as a method of social research investigating behavior. Hurston was an ethnographer and studied under famed American anthropologist Franz Boas. She undertook fieldwork in Black communities across the Southern USA and the Caribbean. Tell My Horse is a key ethnographic work on the cultures of early 20th century Haiti and Jamaica.