Caliban's Reason and the Folk: A Comment

Caliban's Reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy, Paget Henry. New York: Routledge, 2000. ISBN 0415926459

In Shakespeare's Tempest, Prospero the European, cast away on a tropical island, finds a "savage," whom he has "taught . . . / One thing or other," since Prospero considers Caliban a creature who "didst not. . . / Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like / A thing most brutish" (1.2). Using this analogy of a dichotomy between ego-conscious and unconscious knowledge, Paget Henry has broken new ground by inserting as worthy of analysis the dimension of unconsciously held philosophy into the spectrum of approaches to Caribbean living and experience. Of course, the Prospero/Caliban, master/slave, metropole/periphery relationship propounded, among others, by Albert Memmi ¹ and George Lamming ² inheres in the differentiation between accredited and "discredited knowledge." ³ Henry sets out to show that, ironically, Caliban does possess reason, a faculty Prospero denies him, but that this reason occupies somewhat different parameters from those validated by European philosophical schools. These different parameters have been conditioned by the ethnic heritage of African-Caribbean peoples and by the historical-political causes of modern Caribbean social formation. The philosophies that inform the socio-political analyses of Caribbean life Henry posits as historicist, and he labels the mythical and metaphoric interpretations as poeticist. This short comment will concentrate on the poeticist tradition as it relates to the African philosophic dimensions of Caribbean experience.

In treating the "religious vision of traditional African philosophy" (pp. 22-28), Henry discusses the "identity-forming and behavior-regulating significance of origin narratives." In some African religions, a pantheon of deities occupies the pinnacle of spirit being, whereas in others it is the First Ancestor and a hierarchy of ancestors. ⁴ These spiritual beings are seen "as ambivalent authority figures with the power to intervene constructively or destructively in the human self-formative process." Their guidance "has as its aim making humans more aware of the cosmic order of which they [are] a part, and with which they must seek harmony" (pp. 26-27). Neglect of this supersensible proactive world can lead to "crises in ego formation," since such disconnection precipitates tensions between individuals and their destinies, which are established at conception or birth. Such beliefs are powerfully present in the Caribbean, where individuals' fortunes and health are perceived to be conditional on the quality of their relationship with their spiritual "father" or "mother" in the case of adherents to the regla de ocha in Cuba; to the orisha and vudunu in Trinidad and Tobago; to the vodun in Haiti; to the winti in Suriname and kumfa in Guyana; or with ancestors, such as those observing Maroon religions in Suriname and Jamaica; kumina, convince, and etu in Jamaica; saraka and nation dance in Carriacou and Tobago; and palo monte in Cuba. Dreams in general are believed to bear meanings, which can be decoded and used as guides to future action. Similarly, messages that guide choices or warn are conveyed by way of trance states. Such states are the "primary technique of interrupting or bypassing the ego used by traditional African religions" and their Caribbean offshoots, including African-Christian religions such as Revival and Zion in Jamaica, and the Shouter and Spiritual Baptist religions in the Eastern Caribbean and Guyana. This access to knowledge through trances underlies notions of spiritual or metaphysical causation among African and African-descended peoples (p. 42). Such causation does not, however, erase the acknowledgement of causations regarding "the everyday, sensible world," which are "acquired through the normal functioning of the senses, the emotions and the mind" (p. 41).

These religious and genealogical discourses form part of the poeticist traditions that Henry sets out to examine. He focuses on the works and ideas of creative writers such as Wilson Harris, Sylvia Wynter, and Jamaica Kincaid. Harris's treatment of character as "nested" consciousnesses transmuting with the power of Anansi-/Legba-/Eshu-like divinities, his understanding of the material world...