Therefore, the work that has denoted her as one of the twentieth century's most influential authors did not come until after she had graduated from college.
While the literature she composed in college was by no means inferior, she remained a defiant free-spirit during even her early college career. While working on an anthropological study for her mentor, Franz Boas, she was exposed to voodoo, which she quickly embraced. She was deeply interested in the subtle nuances that voodoo had left scattered throughout Afro-American culture. She also adopted this religion, which contrasted completely with her Baptist up bringing, because it gave her a new artistic sense. These roots are obvious in reading, ôTell My Horse...ö, a story that deals primarily with voodoo and life in the voodoo cultures within Haiti and Jamaica.
Voodoo freed her from the institutional restraints that she experienced as a black woman in a white
...