Hurston introduces Pocomania, Jamaica's folk religion, and describes the racial hierarchy where proximity to whiteness determines social status.

Port Maria holds a Curry Goat Feed in Hurston's honor, making her the first woman ever celebrated with this masculine tradition.

Hurston convinces a group of Maroon men to join her on a dangerous days-long wild boar hunt in the Accompong hills.

After a Jamaican peasant dies, his community holds a nine-night vigil with offerings and stories to subdue his harmful spirit.

Hurston recounts how two Jamaican women's lives are ruined by men who face no punishment for sexual cruelty and manipulation.

Word spreads that political prisoners held in Haiti's National Penitentiary have been shot and butchered in their cells overnight.

An outraged Haitian mob storms government consulates, kills President Sam and his military officer Etienne, and parades their bodies through the streets.

The American flagship USS Washington arrives in Haiti, signaling the start of a military occupation that will last nearly two decades.

Hurston places Haiti's hope for the future in a new educated generation centered around Minister Dividnaud and public health chief Dr. Leon.

Celestina Simon reportedly inspires her father's troops before battle and makes them impervious to enemy bullets through Voodoo power.

General Simon is deposed and flees Haiti, while Celestina stays behind and lives in poverty, obscurity, and sinister rumor.

Hurston explains the Voodoo loa pantheon, distinguishing the good Rada gods from the evil Petra and introducing key deities including Damballah.

Hurston arrives at the compound of houngan Dieu Donnez in Archahaie, where mambo Etienne guides her through daily Voodoo ceremonies.

Hurston meets zombie Felicia Felix-Mentor at a Port-au-Prince asylum, finding her non-verbal and only semi-conscious years after her burial.

A Haitian folk tale explains how God sent the joyful pintard birds to earth and Guinea became the origin of music and dance.

Hurston arrives in Jamaica and immediately confronts its colonial legacy through the Pocomania religion and a racial hierarchy in which whiteness determines social status. She is celebrated with a Curry Goat Feed as the first woman to receive such an honor, joins a dangerous wild boar hunt with the Accompong Maroons, and witnesses a nine-night duppy vigil. After documenting the bleak treatment of Jamaican women, she turns to Haiti, tracing the political violence that led to the massacre of political prisoners, the lynching of President Sam, and the arrival of American forces. Moving through Haiti's troubled political history and into its Voodoo religion, she stays with the powerful houngan Dieu Donnez and encounters the zombie Felicia Felix-Mentor. The book closes with a folk tale tracing the origin of music and dance to Guinea, celebrating the African roots of Caribbean culture.

The headline events of Hurston's Caribbean fieldwork.

African American John Hope scandalizes census white Jamaicans by publicly identifying himself as a Negro during a visit to the island.

Hurston attends the wedding of a middle-aged Jamaican couple who postponed their official ceremony for years until they could afford it.

Hurston stays with Colonel Rowe, leader of the Accompong Maroons, and grows fond of his cruelly mistreated grandson Little Tom.

A medicine man in Accompong silences frogs on a distant hillside with a single gesture, leaving Hurston unable to explain what she witnessed.

A woman in Accompong ignores the medicine man's advice to cut down a fruit tree, and her daughter subsequently dies.

During a Maroon funerary rite, religious leader The Power collapses and a calabash full of water rises inexplicably into the air.

Hurston describes Haiti's culture of accepted falsehoods, illustrated by President Vincent's brazen public lies about his role in ending American occupation.

Goat Simalo dies shortly after Celestina reportedly divorces it, and a heartbroken General Simon holds a lavish state funeral for the animal.

Conspirators murder President Leconte at an emergency palace meeting and blow up the building to conceal the assassination.

Hurston and an American friend make a night-time sea passage to Gonave Island, where islanders revere aboriginal stone tools as sacred loa objects.

During celebrations at Dieu Donnez's compound, a man is seized by an evil spirit and Donnez fights it off to free him.

Hurston describes how bocors create zombies by calling the newly dead from their tombs at midnight while holding their captive souls.

Hurston learns that the secret Secte Rouge society disguises itself as a Voodoo sect while conducting human sacrifice and cannibalism.

Hurston describes the annual Tete L'Eau celebration held at waterfalls across Haiti, including a large gathering at the Cascade Saut D'Eau.

Hurston and Dr. Reser attend a feast where a large cauldron of food is cooked entirely through chanting without any visible fire.

Beneath the headline events of Hurston's fieldwork lie a series of revelatory encounters and vivid scenes. In Jamaica, an African American visitor's self-identification as Negro unsettles the island's color hierarchy, while Hurston observes a traditional wedding, befriends the Maroons, and witnesses a medicine man's inexplicable powers. A Maroon funerary rite produces an eerie moment when a calabash rises into the air, and Haiti's culture of accepted falsehoods is illustrated by a president's brazen public lies. In recent Haitian history, the deaths of a presidential goat and a sitting president both conceal deeper political truths. Hurston's deepening immersion in Voodoo leads her to the bocor's zombie-making process, the cannibalistic Secte Rouge, a major annual celebration at the waterfalls, and a feast at which food is cooked through chanting alone.

Significant encounters and discoveries behind the main narrative.

A young Jamaican woman spends the week before her wedding being instructed and physically prepared for married life by a professional older woman.

Hurston oversees the construction of the Maroon settlement's first modern stove during her stay in Accompong.

On the ninth night of a Jamaican duppy vigil, the community commands the spirit to leave forever and the body is finally buried.

At a Courir Zinc ceremony, a dead houngan's corpse sits upright and drops the stone containing its loa to the ground.

Hurston frames Haiti as a nation always split by opposing power dynamics, viewing the end of American occupation as a pivotal new beginning.

Celestina Simon reportedly enters a spiritual marriage with her father General Simon's beloved pet goat Simalo to secure Voodoo power for his presidency.

President Leconte dismisses his minister Sansarique's warnings of a conspiracy and is lured to a palace meeting where he is killed.

The president installed after Leconte's death, Tancred Auguste, also dies shortly after taking office, deepening Haiti's political instability.

Hurston describes the stages required to become a Voodoo priest and reveals she herself has attained the canzo level of initiation.

Hurston describes the give man ceremony, a bocor-mediated pact in which a person sacrifices loved ones one by one in exchange for wealth.

A servant begins to hint to Hurston about secret societies but is silenced by an upper-class Haitian before he can say more.

A friend warns Hurston not to follow the sound of certain drums, as the ceremonies they accompany are dangerous and far from benign.

A woman known for loving women is ridden by the loa Guedé, forced to publicly confess, and subsequently dies by suicide.

A woman demonstrates cooking an egg without fire and informs Dr. Reser that the act has granted him immunity from poison.

Hurston struggles to reconcile Dr. Reser's identity as a man of science with his deep, sincere belief in having been possessed by loa.

This pool traces the pivotal moments of discovery and decision that deepen Hurston's understanding of Caribbean societies. In Jamaica, a pre-wedding preparation ritual and a commanding ninth-night duppy ceremony reveal the traditions governing life's most important transitions, while a shocking funerary rite in which a corpse sits upright marks Hurston's immersion in Voodoo. Haiti's cyclical political violence—from Leconte's assassination to his successor's swift death—underscores the fragility of power, and Celestina's reported marriage to a goat illustrates how belief and politics intertwine. Hurston's own attainment of the canzo level and her first cautious encounters with secret societies mark turning points in her fieldwork. The book's final revelations range from the loa Guedé forcing a devastating confession to a mysterious fireless feast, closing with Hurston's inability to fully reconcile scientific rationalism with the depths of Voodoo belief she has witnessed.