Divine Horsemen

Maya Deren's famous account of the Haitian deities, practitioners, and rituals of Voudoun was written with the special insight of personal encounter. In the foreword to this book, Joseph Campbell calls Divine Horsemen "the most illuminating introduction that has yet been rendered to the whole marvel of the Haitian mystres as 'facts of the mind.'" Deren had journeyed to Haiti to make a film ofritual dances; instead, she came to be accepted as a Voudoun initiate. Afterward, Deren undertook the writing of this book at the urging of Campbell and Gregory Bateson, and brought her entire aesthetic sensibility to bear in this profound study of "the total integrity of cultural form."