In the text above, Cr means Cr ole version. Haitian handicraft and naive art is the best in the Caribbean. Even such utilitarian articles as the woven straw shoulder bags and the tooled-leather scabbards of the peasant machete have great beauty. Haitian naive art on canvas emerged only in response to the demand of travellers and tourists in the 1930s and 40s, but it had always existed on the walls of Voodoo temples, where some of the best representations of the spirit world are to be found. Weddings, cock fights, market scenes or fantasy African jungles are other favoured themes.
Good paintings can range from one hundred to several thousand dollars.
Negotiating with street vendors and artists can be an animated experience, offering insights into the nation s personality. Exposure to white racism during the US occupation shook some of the mulatto intellectuals out of their complacent Francophilia. Ren Depestre, now resident in Paris after years in Cuba, is viewed as Haiti s greatest living novelist. Voodoo, politics and acerbic social comment are blended in the novels of Gary Victor, a deputy minister in the Aristide government before the coup. This is a people whose most popular religion worships the deities through singing, drumming and dancing.