1937: (Suzanne’s Kenscoff Research and the Conceptual Wake — After Her Parents’ Deaths Suzanne Leaving Haiti to Study Abroad Then Returning and Revisiting th…

1937: (Suzanne’s Kenscoff Research and the Conceptual Wake — After Her Parents’ Deaths Suzanne Leaving Haiti to Study Abroad Then Returning and Revisiting the Death Space Through Research in Kenscoff Which She Characterized as a “Dead City,” Fifteen Miles Outside Port-au-Prince with 7,500 People and One Hundred Gravestones at the Town’s Entrance, Suzanne Studying Rituals of the Dead — Kneeling on the Ground Touching Earth and Stone and Sketching Women’s Graves, Writing That in Kenscoff There Are Two Kinds of Mourning: Grand Deuil and Petit Deuil — Petit Beginning the Day of the Funeral Lasting Six Months, Grand Deuil Beginning Ten Years After a Parent’s Death Lasting Two Additional Years for the Mother, at the End the Bereaved Singing a Libera — a Song of Release and Freedom — Over the Tomb): Shortly after her parents’ deaths, Suzanne left Haiti to study abroad. When she returned for an extended period, she revisited the death space through her research in Kenscoff, which in 1937 she characterized as a dead city — fifteen miles outside the rapidly growing Port-au-Prince, with a population of approximately 7,500, houses spaced throughout a sea of pine and eucalyptus trees atop steep mountains that were also covered with about one hundred gravestones at the town’s entrance. Suzanne traveled to Kenscoff to study the rituals of the dead. Like the mourners at her father’s burial a decade earlier, her detailed sketching of grave sites and memorials suggests that she got close to the material record of people’s mourning. She knelt on the ground. She touched the earth and the stone. And she sketched women’s graves. In her later scholarship about funerals in Kenscoff, Suzanne wrote extensively about mourning. She explained that in the village there are two kinds of mourning: grand deuil and petit deuil. Petit mourning begins the day of the funeral, and for the immediate family lasts six months. Ten years after the death of a mother or father, the children initiate a service to begin the grand mourning, which lasts an additional two years for the mother and eighteen months for the father. At the end of the period, the bereaved hold a ceremony or mass for the peaceful rest of the deceased spirit, and sing a libera — a song of release and freedom for the spirit — over the tomb. Suzanne arrived in Kenscoff a decade and two years — grand deuil — after her parents’ death.