#1176: Re: #1106-1123-1143, etc.: Vodou, HAITI, Simidor's humble opinion (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:Moibibi@aol.com

"I am not young enough to know everything. " 
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) 
 anthropologist George Simpson either. 
1. Moreau de Saint Mery has never been a priest. May I suggest you consult  
The Dictionary of American Biography, pp. 156-157. 
2. In his important work, he did describe one ceremony, probably performed by 
a Marron society located in their stronghold, the artibonite wooded area. If 
he said that: " At this point the catholic elements in the ritual were 
practically non-existent", this was his opinion, at one time, in one place. 
The extrapolation is farfetched.
3. Since the very beginning of Vodou in Haiti, there has been an effort to 
unify and standardize our Tradition. Catholicism ,to our enslaved ancestor, 
was a religion. He was taught that way. Without religion, he was savage, 
un-civilized, an heretic and his life wasn't worth much. The reality was very 
different .... That devastated slave was too religious to ever think of such 
a word as religion... but to survive, it seemed necessary to have a 
"religion"... why not? That didn't obliterate his own belief, he had never 
wanted it seen as a religion. Remember Boukman's prayer? 

If one accepts the fact that our "religion" has survived because of its oral 
tradition. May I suggest that you make a careful survey of all our songs and 
prayers. Then we will be obliged to revise your post. The syncretism, you 
refer too is, minimal. 

In the same scope, those who describe Ezili Fréda as a "mulatress"???  should 
be asked if they know of any song? any language?  to support their statement. 
A tremendous lot of people see her in her dreams, she appears light skinned 
to those who wish it that way; to other she may just look like a grimelle or 
a perfectly "rouj anba po" Haitian...   Some Hougan, tell their hounsis that 
the most honored Loas are described as blan for lack of better term  to 
describe their radiance, their luminosity. Photographers are well aware that 
the lights are critical on any darker skin subject... the subject can turn 
out white as snow or dark as an overcast future....

I wish to see Vodou become a topic of intelligent discussion. Will the day 
ever come when we stop making reference to such or such ethnologist, 
anthropologist or missionary =CIA spy? (Believe me, those are very 
daring..... mm) When will we develop some "gren" some "gutt", some humility. 
Yes, it does require humility to admit that those often  called   
"illiterate" have hardly anything to learn us but that we have everything to 
learn from them.  

It is difficult. Up to this day, I haven't found anyone who has done it. 
"You talk too much...." local song.

Funny, funny "Mambo"? Sé ou k'di sa-a

Lè wap bam istwa kek vyè blan, wap fé'm kriyé epi kibod pam fé kriz. Pa afé 
sa a ankò, tandé?