Saamaka Dreaming

Richard Price taught for many years at Yale University and Johns Hopkins University and is Professor Emeritus at the College of William and Mary. His numerous prize-winning books include Travels with Tooy: History, Memory, and the African American Imagination and Rainforest Warriors: Human Rights on Trial.Sally Price has taught in the United States, France, and Brazil and is Professor Emerita at the College of William and Mary. Her studies of the place of “primitive art” in the imaginary of Western viewers include Primitive Art in Civilized Places and Paris Primitive: Jacques Chirac’s Museum on the Quai Branly. The Prices have coauthored many books, including Romare Bearden: The Caribbean Dimension.

• Preface  ix1. Testing the Waters  12. On Trial  133. A Feast for the Ancestors  284. Going "Outside"  345. On Nai's Doorstep  406. Under Kala's House  517. The Sika  588. What Month It It?  629. The Captain's "Granddaughter"  7110. Upriver  7411. At the Ancestor Shrine  8612. The Cock's Balls  10013. Nai's Rivergod  10314. Agbago's Seagod  10815. Kala's Snakegod  11416. A Touch of Madness  12317. Playing for the Gods  13218. A Tree Falls  13919. Sickness  14420. Death of a Witch  15521. Chasing Ghosts  17322. Death of a Child  17923. Returns  19024. Foto  20225. Looking at Paper  20526. The End of an Era  215Notes  231Bibliography  243Index  247

"Beautifully written, this book presents a satisfying commentary on the anthropological enterprise, to be enjoyed by a wide variety of readers. Essential. All public and academic levels/libraries."- P. Passariello (Choice) "A complex ethnographic narrative . . .  a dynamic story with a cast of Saamaka characters. . . . Though the book is published over fifty years after the initial research, it still shows a candor and eye for painstaking detail of moment to moment happenings in daily life." - Cheryl White (Anthropos) "This inspiring book combines ethnography with a brilliantly written autobiographical account. . . .  The way in which Richard Price and Sally Price position themselves as the main protagonists of their interlocutions with Saamaka villagers, is precisely what makes the book so rich."   - Olivia M. Gomes da Cunha (New West Indian Guide) "A retrospective on a life’s work, Saamaka Dreaming stands alone as an introduction to understanding social memory in the black diaspora via ethnographic practice. But it also shows us how that memory can shape political engagement in the present premised on what we might call the hopes-or dreams-of a better future that anthropologists can also help create." - Sarah E. Vaughn (American Ethnologist) "This is an inspiring narrative on Saamaka Maroons lifestyle changes through half a century, on changes from an anthropological perspective on these people, as well as the development of anthropology as a science and the impact that a researcher can make. It is not only a great source to learn about Saamaka culture but also a great narrative to read-it is literary anthropology at its best." - Asnate Morozova (Anthropological Notebooks)