Schmidt uses the touring exhibition Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, which reached the American Museum of Natural History in 1998, as a mirror held up to New York rather than to Haiti. A museum shows what someone chose to show; what this one reflected, she argues, was the city's own idea of Vodou.

After working through the contested vocabulary of creole and creolization, she turns to fieldwork among Haitian New Yorkers. Temples go unregistered and are often tucked into basements and backyards, partly because of immigration status and mainly because of the religion's reputation. Practice adapts: ceremonies move indoors and onto weekends, a single priest may officiate, sometimes to recorded music, though initiates insist nothing essential has changed.

Interest in Caribbean drumming and dance meanwhile spreads well beyond Haitian circles into colleges and dance schools, and some outsiders eventually seek initiation. The music, Schmidt observes, is far easier for the city to accept than the practice.