Competition, Cooperation,
 Efficiency and
 Social Organization


 Introduction to a Political
 Economy
 by Antonio Jorge

 Professor Jorge's innovative study advo-
 cates a new and different perspective on the
 joined disciplines of history, economic
 theory, and the social sciences, and calls for a
 wider scope and a more flexible, if initially
 more complex, approach in the perception of
 socioeconomic reality.
 The book deals with competition and
 cooperation as antithetical approaches to
 human interaction in the social field. Com-
 petition and cooperation mix in an infinite
 variety of combinations, giving rise to a wide
 spectrum of different types of organizations.
 They also reflect, particularly in the long run,
 the nature of the motivational composite
 behind them.
 The essence of Jorge's message is that
 productivity and efficiency can be incorpo-
 rated into a variety of social arrangements,
 and that no particular model needs to be a
 maximum maximorum.


 $15.00
 ISNB 0-8386-2026-4 L.C. 76-20272
 FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON UNIVERSITY PRESS
 PO. Box 421, Cranbury, New Jersey 08512


grew on its back. It was roasted over the fire
and also ground into a powder. A small sea
crab in its shell which is known by a variety
of names: ti soldat, pagure and Bernard
the hermit was roasted and powdered. To
these ingredients they then added other
powders popularly known in Haitian folk
medicines which Douyon says are nothing
but talcum powder with a little coloring and
impressive names. "These different
powders talcss) have supposedly different
virtues and they are the magical part of the
concoction," says Douyon. The zombie
powder, according to the Haitian psychia-
trist, is called tan' qa vui which translates
"wait until it's old," the meaning of which is
that one must wait until a quarrel has been
forgotten by his enemy before using it so
that one would not be suspected in the
zombie-making process.
 It is the bocor's assistants, madiawes,
who prepare the powder. They are the poi-
son experts. (It is the bocor who then sells
the powder. The going price for a spoonful
of this powder is at least US$300.00.) The
powder is applied on a victim in the follow-
ing manner: The habits of the would-be
victim are carefully watched. Then the
madiaw6 assistant to the bocor places the
powder where it will come in contact with
the victim's skin. The powder is absorbed
cutaneously; the substance seems to be a
skin-acting poison.
 The powder places the body in such a
 deep anaesthetic state that vital signs prac-
 tically disappear (to clinical examination),
 and the metabolism and, therefore, oxygen
 requirements of the body are reduced to a
 minimum, making the "dead" able to sur-


44/CArBBEAN rEVIEW


vive for up to eight hours on the air and
oxygen trapped in the casket, Douyon hy-
pothesizes. Bocors, according to Douyon,
have confirmed that the poison works for
eight and a half hours, and if the person is
not brought to the surface before the end of
that period he dies of asphyxiation. Dou-
yon's bocor contacts insist there is no anti-
dote. Thebocors claim that after a period of
eight to eight and a half hours the poison
wears off to a point where the mortt" can be
revived.
 Douyon's research into the reanimation
process has led to embarrassing and fright-
ening confrontations. The first time he ar-
ranged with a bocor to be in a cemetery at
midnight, where a freshly buried body
would be "raised," they arrived to find the
body already had been removed. The sec-
ond time Douyon was accompanied by a
film crew. They ended up jailed.
 The reanimation process Douyon ob-
served was surrounded by rich voudou rit-
ual. "You must stay fully alert and able to
discard what is ritual and what is really re-
animation, as the bocors try to enmesh the
two and it's not always easy to discern what
is the truly efficacious maneuver," says
Douyon. At the cemetery in the dead of
night, a bottle of three-star Barbancourt
Rhum is sprinkled liberally on the cross of
Baron Samedi, Guardian of the Cemetery,
and then they flame it. A small amount of
money is left at the cross as an offering to
Baron Samedi. After dealing with Baron
Samedi, who represents the Guede spirit of
death, and appeasing him, the madiawes
go to the fresh grave which is a mound of
earth. They then take positions around the