#3906: "se bon ki ra" : Wexler comments

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Josef R. Wexler <wexler@massed.net>

Dear Michel,
     I don't know if it has the status of a proverb, but I first came across
"se bon ki ra" in a Vodou song discussed by Gerdes Fleurant in his doctoral
dissertation as a rarely sung form of warning to unscrupulous oungan or to
newly initiated oungan who are thus admonished not to betray the trust of
the community.  The song is transcribed by Fleurant as follows:

Oungan pa manke
O an efe la
Se bon ki ra-e
O Legwa-e
Si mwen te konnen
M ta mache a drapo m
Pou m salye oungan mwen
Si mwen te konnen
M ta mache a drapo m
Pou m salye oungan mwen la
An efe se bon ki ra-e
O Legwa-e. (from  THE ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OF YANVALOU: A STUDY OF THE RADA RITE
OF HAITI, Tufts University, 1987, pp.161-2).

                                                   Warm regards,


Anna Wexler