On the trail of blood: History and kinship in Jacmel, Haiti

Abstract

This article examines narratives of blood and history in Lafond, a small rural village in the Haitian Southeast. Drawing on the constructed genealogies of descendants of Mérisier Jeannis, a historical character who was part of the political landscape of the region at the turn of the twentieth century, as well as from the description of a ritual in honor of a family spirit, I show how the two are combined in the production of what is locally understood to be kinship. At the same time, I will show how both the ritual and my interlocutors’ genealogies are historical narratives of a distinction established by peasants that is often effaced in national history, allowing us to conceive of a history beyond its canonical forms of production.