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| ezilidanto@margueritelaurent.com | |
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Ezili Dantò Biography The Revolution which created the nation of Haiti was inspired by the divine decree of the warrior love goddess known as Ezili Dantò who danced in the head of the great Haitian priestess, Cecile Fatiman, on that famous Haitian night in 1791, on a red hilltop, at a forest thicket in Haiti called Bwa Kayiman. Led by the powerful warrior spirit of Ezili Dantò, Cecile Fatiman crowned the African warrior Boukmann with her royal red Petwo scepter, ushering in the Haitian war which forever slashed the chains of European slavery in Haiti to create Africa's sacred trust, Manman Ayiti - the first Black nation in the Western Hemisphere. Ezili Dantò is the symbol of the irreducible essence of that ancient Black mother, mother of all the races, who holds Haiti's umbilical chord back to Africa, back to Anba Dlo*. Calling on her essence, breath, vision and cosmic power brought forth Haiti's release from 300-hundred years of brutal European enslavement. Ezili Dantò is the spiritual mother of Haiti and the preeminent cosmic symbol of Black independence, unity, self-determination, justice, equality and freedom.
There was a time when women were the primary religious figures on this planet. A pre-historical time, long ago. Haiti, the first Black nation in the Western Hemisphere, is the pioneer in ushering back the reign of the goddess and of women as religious figures equal with men in performing religious ceremonies. On August 14, 1791 Haitians remembered their dark, African mothers and honored Her culture. August 14, 1791 Boukmann remembered Mother Africa. Cecil Fatiman remembered Mother Africa. All the "Feys" - leafs - at Bwa Kayiman remembered Mother Africa. Then, the amalgamated African tribes, in Haiti, found and took hold of Ezili Dantò who said, "Kanga Mundele" - Kill the stranger amongst us, meaning both the brutal enslavers as well as mental colonization. Over two hundred delegations of Blacks from various plantations throughout the North of Haiti where present. The Haitians had stretched their heart, nerve and sinew way back to call on this authentic pagan (or the pre-Judeo-Christian, pre-Muslim described) spirits of ancient and pre-colonial Africa - they called on - Ezili Dantò (along with Danbala, Atibon Legba, Ogou Feray, Manman Lasirene, ect). But Ezili Dantò appeared first at that Petwo ceremony on August 14, 1791 day on that red clay hilltop in Haiti. All the Africans at Bwa Kayiman, all, be they Muslim or Christians converts, went HOME that day, back to Vodun and, that, has been the road less traveled by any African nation to date. That Movement has made ALL the difference to Africans in the New World and around the world, globally, for it initiated and propelled forward universal human rights as well as initiating the first sparks for Pan-Americanism and Pan-Africanism in modern world history. For, the Haitian people were the first Blacks and enslaved workers taken in shackles out of Africa to the "New World", the first treated as savages and as subhumans and the first to respond to this treatment definitively and forever, by validating themselves as human beings entitled to equality, self-defense and entitled to their own African religious beliefs. For those days, as well as for today, that was REVOLUTIONARY. (See Video excerpt of Bwa Kayiman play and the Bwa Kayiman performance texts). But a Black nation inspired by an African goddess/liberator was a bad omen for the white European settlers who claimed themselves superior to Blacks and certainly to free Black women. Yet, the Haitian people, without arms, allies or financial resources where so inspired by their Vodun gods and goddesses and the powers of their ancestors that, that led by the warrior goddess, Ezili Dantò, and after 300-years of Christian-based enslavement in the Americas and over one thousand years of Islamic conquest and enslavement incursions all over Africa, they decided to "live free or die" - liberte ou lamo! and set themselves free in Haiti, defeating all the mighty European powers of that time - France, Spanish, British in combat. Today, Haitian women and men follow the long legacy of the warriors of Haitian independence. They are tireless fighters, beholden to no-one - heroic leaders on the cutting edge of the human rights struggle. **********************************************
The Haitian struggle - the greatest David vs. Goliath battle being played out on this plane *********************** *Anba Dlo literally means "beneath the ocean, the waters." It is that primordial, cosmic space where all potentiality lives. It's the mythological "Haitian Heaven" (to use a non-African point of reference). It's where all that ever lived, will live and is living will end up. It is, to the African warriors who founded Haiti, the road back to Manman "Africa" - Nan Guinen, that cosmic space where the world began with "Lè Marasa, lè Mò e lè Mistè." Anba Dlo to the Haitian is where the great African Ancestors', where our sacred energies, our strengths and force - the "Lwa yo," - those sacred irreducible essences of the Haitian/African/Black soul - reside. Anba Dlo is the sacred stillness, cosmic place, where life sources issue from and return to. *********************** *Performance poet, Marguerite
Laurent (in RBM) onstage as Ezili Dantò performs
Anba
Dlo, Nan Guinen (See
also
Bwa Kayiman (texts)
and PhotoGallery) ************
Bwa
Kayiman, 2008: Reclaiming the Haitian People's Vodun Narrative at Bwa
Kayiman The Haitian struggle - the greatest David vs. Goliath battle being played out on this plane Vodun means sacred energies in the Fon language. Vodun is the spiritual imperative and way of life of Haitians. It's psychology, cosmology, phylosophy, art, and a healing way of life.
This Bwa Kayiman Vodun call/invocation,
along with Boukman's
Prayer, started the Haitian revolution on August 14, 1791
(For Ezili Dantò's translation, go to:
Bwa Kayiman, 2008: Reclaiming the Haitian People's
Vodun Narrative at Bwa Kayiman ).
existence evidence how Africans are
used to studying one great sun/lunar cycle of 28 or so thousand years
know the Ancestors line goes too far back to eternity to erase. Ginen
poze. Death doesn't scare the African, only how one lives and the energies
(values/principles/ archetypes) one allows to mount and be extended.
Haitians are an ancient people as old as Vodun. This generation of Haitians
are in the process of reclaiming the Haitian narrative. (Go to Lasou
O M Pwale - Going Back to the Source, the Root; HLLN's
counter-colonial narrative on deforestation;
Ezili's
counter-colonial narrative on Vodun,
and Background
- Vodun Links). ************************************** Vodun Links: Learn more about Vodun and Haitian culture, go to: l. Lasous O M Pwale - Going Back to Source 2. Bwa Kayiman, 2008: Reclaiming the Haitian People's Vodun Narrative at Bwa Kayiman 3. Bwa Kayiman play and performance texts 4. Performance text - Anba Dlo, Nan Guinen and Intro to Anba Dlo, Lan Ginen 5.
Boukmann's
Righteous Prayer – Lapriyè Boukman 7. HLLN's counter-colonial narrative on deforestation 8. Ezili Dantò live in Miami with Sanba Yatande, Ti Rouj & Manno 9. The
Haitian struggle - the greatest David vs. Goliath battle being played
out on this planet 11. Petwo - Kongo Vodun 12. Journey
of the Serpent and the Moon by Marguerite Laurent 14. Black Women: Mother of All the Races- HOW THAT BLACK WOMAN CAME TO BE 16. The complete "Lapriyè
Ginen" as edited by Max G. Beauvoir is available by ordering. Send
an email. 18. See also, Performance poet, Marguerite Laurent (in RBM) onstage as Ezili Dantò:
19.
Divine Haiti: Portraits of the Lwa at the UCSB Center for Black Studies
(An Exhibit of the Haitian gods and goddessesof Haiti) by
artist, Hersza Barjon 22. The
Descent of the Lwa, Journey Through Haitian Mythology: The Works of ********************************************** ********************
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