50 pages • 1 hour read
Zora Neale HurstonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Content warning: This section of the guide mentions death by suicide.
One of the loa worshipped in Haiti is Guedé. Unlike many other Voodoo gods, he has no counterpart or origin in any African pantheon and is of purely Haitian origin. In aspect and behavior, Guedé is a representation of the common people, a celebration of the Black peasant class. Hurston describes the appearance and rituals of worship associated with Guedé, explaining that the loa’s primary business is in possessing or “riding” his followers and forcing them to speak the truth. Often, this manifests in insults and mockery directed at someone in a position of power.
The speech guided by Guedé is always taken as the absolute truth, whether he speaks of past secrets or future events, and is marked by the opening phrase, “Tell my horse…”. In one instance, a woman known for lesbianism was “ridden” by Guedé, who forced her to confess to loving women and die by suicide. Naturally, people sometimes pretend to be ridden by Guedé in order to excuse themselves for insulting or mocking an enemy. Fraudsters can be distinguished from true “horses” by offering them a particular spicy pepper; possessed people will be entirely unaffected.
By Zora Neale Hurston
Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"
Zora Neale Hurston
Drenched in Light
Zora Neale Hurston
Dust Tracks on a Road
Zora Neale Hurston
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick
Zora Neale Hurston
How It Feels To Be Colored Me
Zora Neale Hurston
Jonah's Gourd Vine
Zora Neale Hurston
Moses, Man of the Mountain
Zora Neale Hurston
Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life
Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston
Mules and Men
Zora Neale Hurston
Seraph on the Suwanee
Zora Neale Hurston
Spunk
Zora Neale Hurston
Sweat
Zora Neale Hurston
The Eatonville Anthology
Zora Neale Hurston
The Gilded Six-Bits
Zora Neale Hurston
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston