By Kevin Filan

The sunset shimmers off the lake: white-clad men pace about sprinking Florida Water on the crowd. It’s August 26, 2001 -- 310 years and twelve days after Boukman began his war against the slaveholders of St. Dominique -- and Troupe Makandal has come to Brooklyn’s Prospect Park to pay tribute to the Haitian Revolution. A tall man with dreads blows the conch, as Boukman blew the conch and brought the slaves into the hills.

As Master Drummer Frisner Augustin leads Troupe Makandal in the stately rhythms of the Rada nation, the flagbearers salute the four directions. The sequined dwapos catch the sunlight and sparkle like the lake as the Houngan sings.

“Legba nan baye,” he calls out. Several Haitians in the crowd sing with him as he repeats the words. “Legba at the gate.” Legba guards the doorway between this world and the world of the lwa. Nothing can be done in Vodou unless Legba opens the door, and every Vodou ceremony begins by giving Legba praise. “Si ou ki pour solay,” the Houngan sings to him, “si ou ki po dwapo lwa.” It is you who walk with the sun, it is you who carry the flags for the lwa.

The song changes. A skinny teenage dancer falls twitching to the ground. Papa Damballah, the great white snake, has just made an appearance. The skinny girl undulates in the dirt, her eyes rolled back in her head. The Houngan shakes his ason, the ceremonial gourd rattle which gives him some control over the spirit world. A woman rushes out from behind the drummers and drags the girl off. Sometimes the lwa are too strong for their horses; Vodouisants have been injured and even killed by particularly forceful possessions. As the song changes to a melody honoring Cousin Zaka, the good-natured lwa of farming and agriculture, the girl appears to regain her senses. The woman puts a blanket over her shoulders and someone else hands her a water bottle.

The rhythms change again; the skinny girl rejoins the dancers as the song honoring the Ibo nation ends and the songs to the Nago lwa begin. The Nago lwa are forceful and militant, lwa of war and conquest. The drumbeats are harsher than the rada rhythms, the dancing more florid and athletic. A tall black man stumbles as he comes out of a leap, then falls screaming to his knees as Ogoun mounts him.

The skinny teenage dancer falls writhing again. Ogoun paces about the circle and brandishes his machete menacingly as they carry her off. His movements are wary and methodical, a warrior’s movement, slow and cautious. Boukman held his meeting on August 14, but urged the slaves to wait until August 22, until the conch shell sounded again, to strike. In the first wave of fighting 10 slaves died for every colonist, then for every Spanish and British soldier who came in to prop up the Empire, until on the 29th of August, 1793 French Commissioner Léger-Félicité Sonthonax formally abolished slavery in St. Dominique.

Ogoun kneels again and beats his chest, shrieking with rage. Tradition says Ogoun designed the first Haitian flag, when on May 18, 1803 he came on guerilla leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines, grabbed a French flag, and “ripped out the white.” In 1804 Dessalines would declare himself Emperor of Haiti; in 1805 he would offer the last remaining colonists on the island safe passage, then order the massacre of 3,000 French men, women and children. By October 17, 1806 he would be dead, the first of several Haitian leaders assassinated in office. Ogoun beats his chest again, teeth bared, then pitches forward unconscious. The Nago rhythms subside as they lead Ogou’s horse away from the circle.

The drums begin again, the distinctive beat-beatbeat-beat-beatbeat which marks the Petwo rhythms. The Nago and Rada drumbeats come from West Africa; the Petwo rites and spirits were born out of slavery. Petwo ceremonies are often marked with gunpowder and whip-cracking, the better to remember the revolution and the lash.

“GEH-GEH-GEH-GEH-EH-EHEHEEHEHEHHE!!!!”

The stout woman throws her head up and stretches out her arms like Jesus waiting for nails. The Houngan presses a kitchen knife into her hand. Ezili Danto, the mother of the Petwo nation, has arrived.

“GEH-GEH-GEH-GEH-EH-EHEHEHEHEHEHE!!!!”

Danto wheels about, eyes rolling in her head as she stutters. Some say Danto lost her tongue in the Revolution: the generals tore it out so she wouldn’t reveal their secret attack plans. She wouldn’t have betrayed them anyway -- Danto is fiercely loyal to those she loves -- but in Haiti even the lwa can expect injustice.

Danto is the single mother, alone against the world, eking out a living for herself and her children against all the odds. She’s fierce as a she-wolf and as indomitable as the will which survived two hundred years of slavery and two hundred more years of bloodshed and tyranny. One of the dancers kneels down before her, then prostrates himself on the ground. Danto is also one of the most popular and beloved lwa in Haiti.

Others approach as Danto wheels about, knife clutched tightly behind her back. She gestures to them, then leaps up on one tall Haitian man and wraps her legs around him. In Haiti it’s not uncommon for a Vodouisant of either gender to marry Danto, although many say she prefers women to men. From the way Danto is hugging this guy, I’m guessing they’re married. Or at least very close.

Somebody pours rum on the ground and ignites it: Danto whirls about shrieking and stuttering as the flames leap up. This part of the ceremony honors Makandal, a one-armed Vodou priest and skilled herbalist responsible for a series of poisonings in 1755-57. After they caught him the colonial authorities tortured him on the rack, then burnt him at the stake. Haitian legend says that he transformed himself into a bird and broke free of the stake. Contemporary colonial records state that he broke his bounds, only to be tied more firmly a second time. Today Makandal is served as a lwa: as in Africa, it is not uncommon for an honored Haitian ancestor to be transformed over time into a powerful spirit.

I wait for Makandal to arrive as the flames leap up. Danto spins about again as a Mambo walks past with a smouldering incense brazier. The flames turn from blue to orange as Danto falls. She twitches once and claws at the ground as she leaves her horse, and then there is only the sunset and the lake and the white-clad men walking around the crowd sprinkling Florida Water.

Troupe Makandal Website: http://www.makandal.org

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