#2492: Answer to Ange Perrault (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:Moibibi@aol.com

You write: "Denial of African Heritage is an evil that is eating black people 
alive" 

This may be true for some black people but not all of them. In Haiti, keeping 
up with our African Heritage has been deadly for many at least 13 times in 
the two past centuries (13 déchoukaj). Claiming and acting responsibly as a 
pitit Ginen today is still like living as an outcast and being the target of 
protestant missionaries and still, in some places, of the Catholic church.

I do not blame those who have chosen another path. We have to feel for those 
who lack convictions and courage. They are the victims of centuries of 
intolerance, brainwashing, and others refusal to recognize their dignity and 
their basic rights. They act in self-defense.

It might be why, in Vodoun, we have chosen to keep an oral tradition. 
Everything is in our songs and prayers.  I personally wish it remains that 
way. Quite a few books have been written about Vodoun and are available in 
libraries. Most of them relate one's personal experience as an initiate, a 
spectator or a researcher. No editor will pay a Haitian to do the necessary 
researches which seem to be of interest to you. You might have to start your 
own spiritual journey to know more.

Charlot, a Flathead chief wrote in 1876,

". . . We were happy when he first came. We first thought he came from the 
light, but he comes like the dusk of the evening now, not like the dawn of 
the morning. He comes like a day that has passed, and night enters our future 
with him . . .  "

We are not the only ones. I feel that we lack to identify with the sufferings 
of our brothers and support, if not help, one another.

Bébé
A Haitian proverb states "The one who delivers the blow forgets, the one who 
bears its mark remembers."