Original subtitles

There is a creole expression : "to walk together".

Where life is hard, people depend upon and help each other,

Haiti amalgamated different tribes

in a common religion known as Voudoun,

so that men may pray together

to praise the same moral principles and together reaffirm them.

In Haiti, a divine spirit is called a Loa.

Legba is a Loa who is the link

between the visible mortal world and the invisible, immortal realms.

He is the means and avenue between them,

the vertical axis of the Universe.

As guardian of the sacred gateway,

it is he who grants contact with the other Loa.

Legba must be the first Loa to be ritually saluted

if this is to be achieved.

For this reason, the crossroads

is the most important of all ritual figures.

Whether drawn in flower on flat ground

or traced in the air, the sign of the crossroads

is always the juncture where communication between worlds is established,

where the traffic of energies and forces between them is set up.

Through the center post, the potomiton, the gods enter.

At its base, the vevers are drawn.

Around the center post,

all ritual movements and dances revolve.

The Rada rites are a basic African tradition

in which the deities play a protective role.

They are benevolent and paternal.

The la-place, who is an apprentice and assistant to the priest,

carries a sword representing the guardian god of the temple.

He is flanked by two flag bearers who represent the congregation.

Priest, holding his sacred rattle,

and the trio seem to engage in some strange mock battle.

There is no question,

but that it is a competition between the power of the Loa

and the congregation together against that of the hungan.

The la-place bows and kisses the earth at the priest's feet

as a mark of respect.

The priest kisses the hilt of the sword.

He kisses the tops of the flags.

From this action, we see the priest's responsibility

towards the congregation as well as towards the gods.

And now another priest salutes the trio in the same manner.

A voudoun priest is called a hungan,

HUN meaning "of the spirits" and GAN meaning "chief",

from the language of the Fon people of Africa.

He gives advice concerning spiritual

as well as economic, political and medical problems.

A strong hungan enjoys a quality and degree of respect

which the Haitian extends to no one else.

When two hungan salute,

they mirror each other with their sacred rattles.

The rattle is a calabash covered with a loose web of clay beads

and snake vertebrae with a bell attached.

It is used to summon the Loa and is a sign of priesthood.

There are many subtle gradations of salutation,

and these indicate the relative authority of the persons involved.

Possession is a psychic phenomenon

wich occurs when the divinity becomes manifest.

In the terminology of Voudoun,

it is said that the Loa mounts a person,

or that a person is mounted by the Loa.

The metaphor is drawn from a horse and his rider,

and the actions and events which result

are the expression of the will of the rider.

It is the center towards which all roads of Voudoun converge.

It is the point which one travels

by the most visible and physical means.

Yet to the traveler, it is itself invisible.

Damballa, the Snake,

arched in the path that the sun travels across the sky.

The primordial source of all life wisdom.

At once, the ancient past and the assurance of the future.

The positive force which encircles the universe.

In Voudoun, it is not the sea that is sacred,

but the spirit of the sea who is divine.

This ceremony celebrates the wedding of Agwe,

sovereign of the sea, to the goddess of love.

It is Agwe who is in a sense the ideal husband and lover,

being as the sea is, a ready strength and deep peace.

The ceremony is conducted by a female priestess called mambo.

It is perhaps the most elaborate of all ritual undertakings.

The Barque (boat) d'Agwe holds offerings of cake,

bottles of liqueur, and even champagne.

Days of preparation are spent building and painting the raft

before it is dedicated with love to Agwe.

There, was the sailboat which awaited us.

Bright trimmings dancing in the wind.

They sang, and the drums beat,

and the trumpet and conch shell called over and over.

The mambo stood near the mast sounding her rattle.

They chanted songs in praise of Agwe.

But especially, they repeated several times

the most haunting songs of all.

Protect your children,

with these voices, owned by this melody,

ruffling the waves of each of them,

calling Agwe over the vast reaches of his domain.

We are now directly over the sacred island beneath the sea

where the souls of the dead go and also where the Loa live.

When the water lay almost level with the ray of,

the men slid the boat onto the surface of the sea.

As we all watched it silently, it seemed to hesitate to a stop.

And then,

as if a great hand had reached up from below and grasped it,

it disappeared abruptly into the quiet water.

Ogoun has given woman in the figure of Erzuli

exclusive title

to that wich distinguishes humans from all other forms,

their capacity to conceive beyond reality,

to desire beyond adequacy,

to create beyond need.

In a crowded peristyle,

and among all these bodies which move with such homogeneity,

there may be one whose movements are exceedingly spectacular.

This is a sign that a Loa arrives.

In Erzuli, Voudoun salutes woman as the divinity of the dream,

the goddess of love, the muse of beauty.

She is identified with the Virgin Mary

as mother of man's myth of life.

In a sense, she is that very principle

by which man conceives and creates divinity.

To man himself, she is as mistress.

Erzuli move in an atmosphere of infinite luxury,

a perfume of refinement.

Her arrival pervades the very air.

All anxieties, all urgencies vanish.

Tempo of movements becomes more leisurely.

Tensions dissolve, and the voices soften.

One has the impression that a fresh, cooling breeze

has sprung up somewhere,

and that the heat has become less intense.

Ogoun is a Loa of might, power, authority, triumph.

He is in fact a hero type and often a political figure.

Ogoun can strengthen a devotee in ways of healing,

prophecy and magic.

Guede, the god of life and death, that eternal figure in black,

posted at the timeless crossroads

at which all men and even the sun one day arrive.

The cross upon a tomb is his symbol.

He is keeper of the cemetery,

the guardian of the history and heritage of the race.

The future stems from the past,

so life and death become one and the same.

The Catholic litany called "Action de Gr?ce"

precedes a Voudoun ceremony.

Libations are poured as a mark of respect,

a first offering.

It is a gesture of the hand inviting the gods.

The chicken is passed over the head and shoulders of the devotee,

as if it were a large feather cloth

to wipe away any impurity or evil.

When everyone has been cleansed,

the chicken is oriented to the cardinal points,

after which it eats food which lies in the cornmeal drawing.

When it eats that food, it becomes identified with the Loa.

This is a signal it may be sacrificed and accepted by the Loa.

The wings and legs are broken,

so that any impurities that it may have symbolically collected

may not fly free.

The attitude of the Haitians towards the death and blood

of these sacrificial beasts is never morbid.

The intent and emphasis of sacrifice is not upon the death of the animal.

It is upon the transfusion of its life to the Loa.

For the understanding is that flesh and blood

are of the essence of life and vigor,

and these will restore the divine energy of the God.

Similarly, the goat is offered to Guede.

Just before it is killed,

it is castrated and its beard is cut off.

The physical feasting of the Loa

is at once the most common and the most important

of the obligations of a worshiper.

To have great power is to need great energy.

And so the gods, like living matter,

have an unrelenting need for food

if their life energies are to be maintained.

The spirit of Guede is mounting the body of the priest.

He's known to be a trickster

and delights in playing games to confuse others.

Here, he pretends to hand out money.

He may be playing the clown,

but if you will call him aside,

and humbly ask him in all seriousness

an important question,

he will generally answer you thoughtfully and carefully,

and it will usually be the best possible advice.

Clown though he be, and trickster,

he is also history,

the experience from which the living learn.

And in this role,

he is as deeply responsible and trustworthy

as he is bizarre in his other aspects.

Guede is also a god of fertility and protector of children.

The women bump against him to ensure healthy children.

As guardian of the history of the race,

the continuity of its Loa lines,

he is particularly interested in seeing that a child does not die

before it has developed a soul which can be immortal.

Azaka, the god of agriculture,

appears in the form of a work peasant.

He's a very hard worker,

and is frequently feasted by the grateful farmers.

The actions and utterances of the possessed person

are not of his own expression,

but of the god's.

In this way,

the god gives instruction and exercises his authority.

Guede poses most frequently as a poor wandering beggar.

He often arrives unasked at a ceremony for another Loa.

Banda is a suggestive dance,

usually beaten by the request of a Loa,

often Guede, who feels like doing a gay dance.

Many of the participants are receiving the spirit of Guede.

Guede is ready to depart.

It is the custom

to remove all accoutrements of the guard when he leaves.

As they reach for his glasses, Guede says :

"Don't touch my glasses, I'm not finished."

The intimate relation between Loa and worshiper,

the dependence as it were of the Loa

upon the very blood of the serviteur for existence and transmission

has been the guarantee of the Loa's life.

By placing the hat and bag on another person,

Azucar transmits his spirit.

The Loa greets the other with a handshake.

Through the left hand, psychic contact is made.

The shoes are removed

because the guard likes to dance in bare feet.

Again, the Loa greets with a double handshake.

The spin takes her on a special journey

which inevitably leads to possession.

Sometimes there is a period of physical movement

which is very intense and seems violent.

This reflects the inner conflict of the soul of the person with the Loa

over the possession of the physical body.

Once the Loa is installed,

this conflict resolves and subsides.

It is the God who is the virtuoso, not the human being.

And indeed, a Loa is capable of putting its horse

through paces which the individual in a normal state

could never achieve.

The God departs the body,

and the man returns to the physical world.

The Kongo Tribe of Africa, which came to Haiti,

is known for its elegance and style.

Tribesmen brought their particular rituals,

their drumbeats and dances.

These have a strong influence in secular music.

In fact, their roots hold firmly in modern day jazz.

The rythm and sound of the drum

brings out the movements of the dancing.

It is the drumming which fuses together

the 50 or more individuals into a single body,

making them move as one,

as if all had become linked on the thread of a single pulse.

This dance of rejoicing is a dance of celebration.

Although dancers may follow a ceremonial,

their form and purpose is religious, not secular.

If the Rada Loa represents the protective guardian powers,

the Petro Loa are the patrons of aggressive action.

The Petro cult was born out of a cosmic rage.

It is the rage against the evil fate

which the African suffered because of his enslavement.

The energy from that rage enabled him to regain his freedom

by winning the revolution against the Napoleonic forces.

The bull is run at full speed

around the eight sides of the temple

with everyone in full pursuit.

The chase ends at a given tree in the courtyard.

The sacrifice of the bull is the ultimate feast for the God,

an offering which as sheer nourishment

will most invigorate the Loa.

The cross is the symbol of life and death,

the axis of the physical cycle of generation

and the metaphysical cycle of resurrection.

Life, for Guede, is a destiny,

the inevitable and erotic in man.

He is lord of that eroticism,

which being inevitable is beyond good and evil,

and beyond the elations and despairs of love.

Of this he is neither proud nor ashamed.

If anything, he is amused

by eternal persistence of the erotic,

and by man's eternally persistent pretense

that it is something else.

These men are talented performers

rather than possessed by divine spirits.

The spirit of Guede, however, the god of life and death,

does preside over the Spring Festival called Rara.

The twirling of the baton

suggests a Hunter or Warrior Festival.

The baton perhaps replacing weapons.

Carnival celebrates a triumph over Death,

of Spring life over the Winter,

which was death for the Earth.

A time for putting the Past behind,

of excitement, of hope and promise

of fresh start and a clean beginning.

All the fantasies of the people

can come to life in this period of joyous festivities.

And through all this,

the spirit of life, Papa Guede, reigns supreme.