However, the steady arrival of waves of American Protestant and Pentecostal missionaries in Haiti for the past thirty years has been shuffling the deck. Instead of simply introducing their god to the Haitians, their missions reveal to condemn Roman Catholicism as corrupted by Vodou, and to demonize the latter, equating the Afro-Haitian religion with a satanic cult. On others, they close ranks to fight an intra-Christian or even intra-Pentecostal battle.
Melvin Butler. As it is often the case with tragedies, the earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, , boosted proselytism. The number of missionaries making short-term visits is more difficult to estimate, but some organizations say it is as high as 10, Germain, p. The cover of the single is a painting representing the ceremony.
References to the ceremony and to its demonization are in bold , my translation in italics. Smh first comment is correct. This is why I believe that Hoffmannn, Geggus and all those discussing this matter would have interest in coming to the field to discuss with those who remember, those whose parents remembered, those who have the oral history. Such an approach is basic. Memory of the Bois Caiman is vivid amongst the population who remembers the exact points where events took place.
Isn't it strange to proponents of the legend hypothesis that all the various authors cited by Hoffmannn Metral, Civique de Gastine, Harard-Dumesle, Robin, Sannon, Schoelchere all, throughout the nineteenth century kept, basically, re-telling the same story, albeit with variations?
The political analysis, further, corroborates the holding of a Bois Caiman ceremony. The BC was, before all, a political climax, fruit of a progression. As is known, since , talk of abolition of the whip and ameliorated work conditions was common in the French colonies.
By , conditions were ripe and it is quite logical that it be accompanied of socio-religious preparations. In this sense, the Boukman Prayer is astonishing in that it very precisely describes this heightening of political-ideological consciousness. If one reads it precisely, one finds that it is as of voices superimposed, speaking, at first, of a a God in the clouds, observing; b two Gods, one White - of crime -, and one Black - of liberation; c explosion of a new vision: that of total liberation: "listen to the liberty speaking in our hearts".
Analyzing primary source documents 10 of them! It appears this was due to an "accident" precipitation of a few? The fact is that fire was set to a plantation in the Limbe region Habitation Chabaud which provoked interrogations by the authorities. Those arrested clearly indicated that there was a meeting at the Bois Caiman where it was decided to put fire to the colony and massacre all colonialists.
Please note these reports date of 17 Aug. Roume, the Civil Commissioner, in his report, showed that every Sunday the slaves met to prepare the insurrection. The fact is that the first testimony of religious celebrations appear in Dalmas which could be quite normal, as all of the preceding are, basically, police reports. It would be augmented by the more tardive authors, Gastines, Dumesle, Celigny Ardouine It seems that in the present discussion an important element, explaining certain apparent "digressions" has been lost.
This is the fact that Morne Rouge, the place where BC ceremony hypotheses converge, is also the only place in Haiti to retain an important Islamic cult. This is because the first wave of slaves were from the Senegambian region and had already undergone heavy Islamic influence. Up to date, Mori Barthelemy and followers of the region maintain this tradition, with honor to the sun, specific funeral rites and so on. If one returns to sources of the 16th century, one finds that there is where the first copper mines were established by the Spaniards, when they started giving up on the gold.
These Senegambian Islamists were also traditional; in fact, their secret societies in Mali, for example, the Kore resemble closely those of Haiti. So the result is semi-Islamic Haitian secret societies whose responsibility, according to interviews, is "closing the circle". I do not want to be too long so I will stop here.
In ending, however, I would like to quote one interview whose viewpoint was quite strong: "The houngan 'walks'" on 21 "pwen" forces though there are All the escorts, all the Ginen African nations. They all work together: always male and female, always light and dark. The Secret Societies, which were at the basis of the Bois Caiman "regleman" are one of the great parts of this whole, but they had to "pass bye" the other part to attain their objectives. That is in fact the very principle of the Vodoun "reglemane".
This quote, amongst others, ascertains the BC ceremony as one of coming together. A few discussions of the relationship between "Makaya" secret society art and history are included there. Rachel Beauvoir-Dominique. Daniel Simidor replies: Daniel Simidor April In his review of Leon-Francois Hoffmannn's book on Haitian fiction, Bob Corbett repeats Hoffmannn's claim that the Bois Caiman ceremony was a myth, without looking at the evidence, historical and otherwise, in favor of a factual Bois Caiman.
That the August General Uprising was an orgy of blood sums it up quite nicely for Hoffmannn; the blood spilled in that case was French after all. That the rebel slaves abhorred the culture of their oppressors, or that they as a class held a separate agenda independent of all other classes in the colony, is too much for Hoffmannn to contemplate. Indeed, his work is part of a French revisionist tradition that looks upon the Haitian revolution as a by-product of the French revolution.
It is consistent with that claim to downplay the Bois Caiman ceremony or to deny that it ever took place and then to neatly label Toussaint as a French General. Hoffmannn underestimated the people's recollection of such a momentous event, however, and Rachel Beauvoir-Dominique's experiment in local history in the Morne Rouge area proves how strong that memory remains within the Vodou tradition.
The more one thinks about it, the clearer it becomes that Hoffmannn proved nothing if not his own bias. Someone with a copy ought to create an electronic version of the chapter on Bois Caiman.
Dumesle published a rendition of Boukman's prayer at Bois Caiman that Hoffmannn derides because it is written in verse. Hoffmannn rejects the verses as an outright impossibility. Yet, if Boukman was literate as so many people claim, is it not conceivable that he could have rehearsed his incantation ahead of time? Also, given the fact of what is known about him, is it not equally conceivable that Bookman was a Marabout, i. Indeed, if Boukman had been a 29 year-old orthodox Jew killed in Brooklyn in , he would have been hailed universally as a scholar!
Some people object as proof that Boukman was not a Muslim or that the Bois Caiman ceremony was a myth that Boukman as a Muslim cleric could not have sacrificed a pig. But the legend only says that he presided at the ceremony; a Manbo, or Vodou priestess presumably carried out the sacrifice of the pig. Corbett replies to Simidor: Early on in Leon-Francois Hoffmannn's essay on Bois Caiman he states his thesis in unmistakenable language: " research on the Bois Caiman ceremony leads to the almost certain conclusion that we are dealing here not with a historical event but with a legend, who origins can be traced to the malevolent imagination of a French planter.
Hoffmannn makes case that there was likely to be an ulterior motive in Dalmas' version and thus distrusts it: "Of all the authors who have written on the Bois Caiman ceremony he alone was in the area when the revolt broke out, and his testimony would therefore seem trustworthy. It is, in point of fact, highly questionable: a White sic settler would obviously not have been invited or permitted to attend a conspiratorial meeting. Dalmas does not in fact claim to have been an eyewitness, but asserts that his information comes from the interrogation of prisoners conducted a few days later.
It is not surprising that our early historians completely emasculated our heroes, and trivialized their exploits. Let us not forget that our first history books were written either by the French or by people who had no trouble repeating after them.
This world which proclaims itself enamored of freedom and justice, should celebrate each year with us this courageous gathering which was a declaration of love for universal freedom, that of every human being. Even today, as our country staggers dangerously on the verge of chaos, the great nan 'Bwa kay Imam' gathering offers us a vibrant example of understanding between men and women who, with their backs to the wall, made human dignity triumph.
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