Welcome to the Lakou

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Last Wednesday I set off on my most recent adventure of a lifetime. I traveled to Cap Haitian with my friend and co-worker Mawiyah. Our destination was a lakou that Mawiyah supports and visits every month located on the outskirts of the city. For the un-initiated (like me until last Wednesday), a lakou is a compound where several families live and share a common space. The tradition comes from the communities that maroons, or runaway slaves, created for survival during the French occupation and War of Independence. Once escaped, they fled to the mountains or remote areas and lived together with other slaves that were able to find their way to the hidden locations. Mawiyah’s lakou, called Lakou Jezu, has a long and storied tradition that is carried on by Mashoun, its current sèvitè (server of the spirits). Mashoun, who was born on June 13^th, 1911, follows her mother and grandfather as guardian of a lakou that dates back two centuries.

Traditional lakous revolve around a Vodou temple, and have a sèvitè that leads community celebrations and does other spiritual work (depending on the nature of the lakou’s spirits). In Haitian Vodou, spirits are individual and universal. The base names of various spirits are common but aspects and specific characteristics can run the spectrum within the same spirit family, as well as throughout each different family of spirits. For example, Papa Legba is worshipped throughout the country, but his personality, tastes, and powers vary from person to person. The most important distinction in Vodou is between left and right, good and bad, Fran Ginen and Djab. While some people serve spirits with benevolence, in order to pray, to heal, and to please, others do so with malevolence, with the intent to do harm. People who do both are said to “work with both hands.”

Lakou Jezuis just a 15-minute walk from Bois Caiman, where a meeting led by an enslaved African named Boukman began the movement that became the Haitian War of Independence. I was able to visit the spot, which is marked by the very tree that was the center of the Vodou ceremony back in 1791. As the birthplace of the Haitian Revolution, it can also be credited with contributing to the movement for liberation from colonialism throughout Latin American and the Caribbean.

Mashoun's specialty is healing, particularly with regard to fertility. People have come to the lakou from throughout Haiti and even from other countries to seek out her care. She does not reject Western medicine; she simply thinks that some things are better cured by the spirits. People like Mashoun, who dedicate themselves to serving other people through spiritual means, are rarely if ever reflected in popular representations of Vodou in the United States. There is nothing fearful or dangerous about her spiritual practices. Even if I don’t practice Vodou, I can see that Mashoun is a positive force in her community. A greater understanding of Vodou is essential to ending the negative representation of Haitian culture abroad, and Mashoun’s lakou is a great place to start. For more information, please visit Mawiyah’s website at http://www.haitianamermin.org/.