Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
At one moment the houncis were dancing in two lines, at another round the pillar, falling rhythmically
to the ground in a circle and kissing the ground, so that the radiation of their white figures formed a white
corolla; rising again with the dust grey on their lips and foreheads, chanting, all the time, to the clatter
of the drums. The mambo appeared laden with their long necklaces of coloured beads, which they knelt
in turn to receive. She arranged them so that they crossed in saltire on their breasts and backs. Libations
were spilt, and a magic ring of white maize-flour drawn round the pillar, encompassed, in a circle about
a yard in diameter, by the white cognizances of each great Lwa. The drums fell silent, and the initiates
sank to their knees in a compact group and bowed their heads. In the universal hush the Houngan softly
intoned a long series of prayers in French. The first (as copied by Dr. Maximilian from the notebook
of a Houngan) is: 'Venez mon Dieu, venez, venez mon doux Sauveur, venez régner en moi au centre de
mon coeur, venez mon Dieu, venez …' This is succeeded by prayers to St. Gabriel, St. Philomena, the
Blessèd Virgin, St. Mary Magdalen (' Hélas, Hélas, Hélas, la Madeleine mérite le pardon …') and to Our
Lord, followed by a litany to St. Antony of Padua, St. Nicholas, St. Joseph, St. Andrew, St. Moses, St.
Augustin, St. Gérard, St. Ulrich, St. Patrick, SS. Cosmo and Damian, the Twelve Apostles, St. Charles
Borromspeo…. ' Vierge Altagrace, vierge Caridad, vierge des Mont Carmel, St. Claire, tout les Saints et
Saintes qui sont dans le ciel '; then it slowly slides into the queer sacerdotal language, ' tout rondi-oroum
dans le ciel. Zo lissandole zo, zo lissabagui zo , lissabagui wangan ciqué lissandole zo.' Next, beginning
with Legba, comes the invocation of the Lwas, a prolonged rubaiyat that grows more cabalistic in sug-
gestion, until the names of the Lwas cease, to be replaced by a monody of pure sound from which all ap-
parent significance has been purged: ' Lade immennou daguinin soilade aguignaminsou…. Oh! Oh! Oh!
… Pingolo Pingolo roi montré nous la prié qui minnin africain … Wanguinan Wannimé …. ' En hen man-
dioment en hen ….' And so on for six pages. It seems that only a minimum of these words are of African
origin, and their meaning is totally obscure. Nobody knows where or how they originated; whether they
evolved in Haiti, or whether they are a memory of some hermetic language of the priests in Africa. Softly
towards the end of these orisons the drums began to throb, first a tentative tap, then another, then half a
dozen, until, after a pause, all the voices and drums had struck up again louder than ever, and the houncis
were shuffling and revolving their way through a yanvalloux . They danced slowly into the temple and the
doors were closed. The peristyle was bare for a while of all but the drummers.
After half an hour of this emptiness, the door was thrown open and the swordsman and standard-
bearers, waving their emblems, sprang down the steps in a single flying arc. The others streamed after
them, howling, rather than singing, at the top of their voices. The procession, ceremoniously carrying
little cauldrons, bottles, iron pegs, bundles of firewood and sheaves of green branches, began to revolve
round the pillar at breakneck speed. The mambo danced at the rear of the saraband, waving flurried
trusses of live white chickens above her head. Some of the dancers continued their round, while the others
drove sets of iron pegs into the ground, sloping inwards to form primitive tripods, at three points round
the pillar. Fires were kindled and flames were soon leaping up. The green branches were spread out all
round them in a rustic carpet. Pouring liquids into the flames, the mambo flourished the clucking fowls
along the proffered limbs of the houncis, and ceremoniously waved them to the four cardinal points: ' A
table,' 'Dabord,' 'Olandé ,' and ' Adonai .' [5] When the birds had pecked at the scattered maize in token
of their willingness to be offered up—an omen which was greeted by jubilant shouts of 'Ah! Bobo! Ah!
Bobo!'—they were consigned to the various officers of the tonnelle , who crouched with them beside the
fires, over which the earthenware cauldrons—the zins —had now been placed on the tripods.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search