Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Haiti: The Society and Its Environment
addition to home remedies, herbal specialists (doktefey) provide
massage and remedies. Many voodoo specialists and diviners
(houngan) are also experts in herbal remedies. An
estimated 11,000 traditional midwives attend most rural births.
Some midwives receive training in modern methods from public
and private community health programs. Home remedies
and traditional healers provide important services in the
absence of modern medical facilities for the majority of rural
people.
Welfare
Social security and welfare services are very limited. The government
provides pensions to some retired public officials, but
there are no guaranteed pensions for civil servants. A socialinsurance
system for employees of industrial, commercial, and
agricultural firms provides pensions at age fifty-five after twenty
years of service and compensation for total incapacity after fifteen
years of service. A system of work-injury benefits also covers
private and public employees for partial or total disability.
The Ministry of Social Affairs administers these programs.
The dearth of government social programs forces most Haitians
to rely on their families. Individuals without kin or land in
rural areas are truly destitute. A large number of international
donors and nongovernmental organizations provide public
goods and services in the absence of state services. In general,
Haitians cultivate personalized networks of kinship and other
traditional ties and obligations in order to cope with hardship,
scarcity, and the limited availability of public services.
* * *
Classic works on Haiti in English include James G. Leyburn's
The Haitian People, an excellent social history, especially the
1966 edition with a forward by anthropologist Sidney Mintz;
Life in a Haitian Valley by Melville J. Herskovits, detailing the life
of peasants and townspeople in the 1930s; Harold Courlander's
interesting study of Haitian folklore in The Drum and the Hoe:
Life and Lore of the Haitian People', Alfred Metraux's landmark
study, Voodoo in Haiti', and the pioneering work of Haitian ethnologist
Jean Price-Mars, Thus Spoke the Uncle (Ainsi parla
Voncle), which appeared in 1928 and was published in English
in 1983.
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