The old slave woman, intimate of the gods, buries her machete in the throat of a black wild boar. The earth of Haiti drinks the blood. Under the protection of the gods of war and of fire, two hundred blacks sing and dance the oath of freedom. In the prohibited voodoo ceremony aglow with lightning bolts, two hundred slaves decide to turn this land of punishment into a fatherland.
Eduardo Galeano, “1791: Bois Caiman: The Conspirators of Haiti,” Faces and Masks: Memory of Fire, Volume II, Cedric Belfage, Trans., 1987.
La vieja esclava, la íntima de los dioses, hunde el machete en la garanta de un jabalí negro. La tierra de Haití bebe la sangre. Al amparo de los dioses de la Guerra y del fuego, doscientos negros cantan y danzan el juramento de la libertad. En la prohibida ceremonia de vudú, luminosa de relámpagos, los doscientos esclavos deciden convertir en patria esta tierra de castigo.
Eduardo Galeano, “1791: Bois Caiman: Los conjurados de Haiti,” Memoria del fuego: Las caras y las mascaras, Volume 2 (1984)
Image: Castera Bazile (1923–1966), “Petwo Ceremony Commemorating Bwa Kayiman,” 1950. Oil on Masonite. (58.42 x 48.9 cm) Source: Milwaukee Art Museum.
6 Comments
Cécile Fatiman, Boukman Dutty & Bois Caiman, 1791: http://t.co/TZo9tMKv #haiti #archives
Cécile Fatiman, Boukman Dutty & Bois Caiman, 1791: http://t.co/TZo9tMKv #haiti #archives #1791
Cécile Fatiman, Boukman Dutty & Bois Caiman http://t.co/SRTglQ4D #Haiti #art
The Ceremony at Bois Caiman, 1791: http://t.co/TZo9tMKv #haiti #archives #1791
Bois Caiman, 1791: http://t.co/TZo9tMKv #archives #haiti
Could you supply a jpg of Cecile Fadiman for use in my book, Caribbean Women’s Art, along with permission to publish?
Mary Ellen Snodgrass
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aphra@charter.net
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[…] the couple were taken to Cap-Haïtien where Charles Belair was shot and Sanité decapitated. Cécile Fatiman was a voudou high priestess, a mambo who was one of the presiding priests along with Dutty Boukman […]
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