Tidalectical Dishonor

“Tidalectical Dishonor centers on the lwa Marasa and argues that from a metaphysical standpoint, the twinned relationship between the living and the dead was severely disrupted in the 2010 earthquake. It is up to the living, in collaboration with the dead, to return order to the land as the oral stories from the chapter suggests.

Bociọ, Nkisi, Legba, Ogun, and Ghede across the Water

“Bociọ, Nkisi, Legba, Ogun, and Ghede across the Water” argues that vestiges of the Dahomean power object, bociọ, that comes through in the recycled artwork by artists who are members of an art collective called Atis Rezistans on the Grand Rue in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti is evidence of a “habit of attention” oriented toward a Kôngo episteme. In addition, Pressley-Sanon proposes that the gods who manifest visually in the recycled art by several members of the collective evoke those from Dahomey who made their way into the diaspora during the slave era.

The Changing Same

“The Changing Same” discusses a story from the oral tradition of Dahomey that Melville Herskovits published in the second volume of Dahomey: An Ancient West African Kingdom (1938) as a source for exploring the history and legacy of the slave trade and slavery. The story may be read in several ways and through Pressley-Sanon’s exploration of its multiple meanings, Istwa across the Water argues that contemporary explorations of such stories from the oral tradition add valuable dimensions to our understanding of the continuities and ruptures that constitute the relationship between Africa and its diaspora.

Groundings

Groundings lays the theoretical and methodological groundwork for Istwa across the Water, defining the key concepts of istwa, tidalectics, and marasa, as well as Istwa across the Water’s orientation from within a Vodou episteme. It also provides an overview of the chapters.

Epilogue

This epilogue pulls all of the chapters together by reaffirming Pressley-Sanon’s advocacy for a reading of Haiti’s history, memory, and cultural production through the lens of the ocean’s waves as well as its spiritual tradition in general and the Marasa specifically.

Of Bociọ, Bo, Cakatú, Zonbi, Nkisi, and Pakèt Kongo

“Of Bociọ, Bo, Cakatú, Zonbi, Nkisi, and Pakèt Kongos” discusses how the methods and means of socio-political control in the form of several cultural artifacts: bociọ, bo, and cakatú in Dahomey and nkisi in Kôngo resonate in Haiti in the pakèt kongo, and the zonbi. Pressley-Sanon argues that these forms of oral and material culture embody historically significant memories and continue to be useful in disfranchised people’s resistance to contemporary attempts to silence and disfranchise them.