Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (Revised) - Paperback

by Maya Deren (Author), Joseph Campbell (Foreword by)

This is the classic, intimate study, movingly written with the special insight of direct encounter, which was first published in 1953 by the fledgling Thames & Hudson firm in a series edited by Joseph Campbell. Maya Deren's Divine Horsemen is recognized throughout the world as a primary source book on the culture and spirituality of Haitian Voudoun. The work includes all the original photographs and illustrations, glossary, appendices and index. It includes the original Campbell foreword along with the foreword Campbell added to a later edition.

Front Jacket

Maya Deren's famous account of the Haitian deities, practitioners, and rituals of Voudoun was written with the special insight of personal encounter. In the foreword to this book, Joseph Campbell calls Divine Horsemen "the most illuminating introduction that has yet been rendered to the whole marvel of the Haitian mystres as 'facts of the mind.'" Deren had journeyed to Haiti to make a film ofritual dances; instead, she came to be accepted as a Voudoun initiate. Afterward, Deren undertook the writing of this book at the urging of Campbell and Gregory Bateson, and brought her entire aesthetic sensibility to bear in this profound study of "the total integrity of cultural form."