Haitian Culture Curriculum Guide

shelled kernels are kept in a large basket-weave tray. In rural areas, cooking is either done on a
raised mud platform in the cooking shelter as in West Africa, or on three stones, employed as rests
for the pots, a method that is also from Africa.
The prevalence of stews, deep fried foods, and the generous use of pepper as seasoning are
typically African. Even the names of certain dishes such as “acasan,” a Nigerian-Dahomean term
used for cooked balls of cornmeal, are African. One of the few European imports is white bread.
Cassava cakes, also important in the Haitian diet, were derived from early Native American
inhabitants.
For the most part, Haitian food is boiled. Examples are cereal, beans, meats, and vegetables. The
“boucanage” is fairly common and consists of roasting ears of corn or plantains. The cook
usually adds some oil or lard to broths or soups; in some regions of Haiti, grated coconut may be
added to rice, broths or soups. Little frying is done at home. Fried meat and beignets, or Haitian
pancakes, can be bought on the streets.
Some of the commonly used spices are hot peppers, pickles, cloves, onions, and laurel leaves. Very
often meat is cleansed with lemon juice or a sour orange before cooking.
Although Haitian cuisine has maintained its African roots, table manners, fine pastry, and table
manners are typically French in nature.
Haitian Art: In the late 1940s, Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere,
attracted international recognition with a dynamic art movement created by unschooled painters.
Successive generations have continued to produce artists with genuine, innovative talent whose work
reflects the Haitian experience. In 1944, DeWitt Peters, an American artist on a wartime mission to
teach English to the Haitians, discovered in the countryside a number of Haitians whose paintings
attracted his admiration. He opened Le Centre d'Art in the capital city of Port-au-Prince to
encourage them. At Le Centre d'Arte, Haitians could take studio art classes and sell their work. To
DeWitt's surprise, artists with styles of their own began to bring their work to him. Within a year
or two, the work of talented painters had enormous appeal with its genuine expression of the
Haitian experience.
The kind of art produced by the Haitian artists has been labeled "primitive," "naive," or "folk" art.
Without formal art training, the "folk" artists handle the elements of art (line, shape, color, texture,
space), and the principles of design (balance, contrast, tension, proportion, emphasis) according to
their individual vision.
Andre Breton, the European Surrealist poet and ideologue, visited Port-au-Prince in 1946. He
bought several paintings and exhibited them in the first UNESCO exhibition with the prediction
that they would revolutionize modern art. All of this was surprising to the outside world, for Haiti’s
“folk” art had been ignored by Haiti’s ‘elite’ who bought their art in Paris, the world center for
western art until the onset of World War II.
Haitian art is filled with allusions to Vodun ceremonies and symbols of traditional Haitian life and
the seen and unseen forces of nature and the surrounding world. Haitian artists primarily seek
inspiration from traditional Haitian culture. The cultural sources originated in Africa among the
Fon, Yoruba, Igbo, Bamana, and Mende tribes. The works have become a sign language with
abstract symbols used in ceremonial flags and ground paintings similar to the sand paintings of
some Native American tribes.
In addition to inspiration from their African past, Haitian artists depict everyday life and folklore.
These works are primarily infused with symbolism known and understood only by the Haitian
people, (e.g., the mapou sacred tree represented as a traditional gathering place).
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