Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [399]
GLOSSARY
À LA CHINOISE: in the Chinese manner
ABOLITION DU FOUET: abolition of the use of whips on field slaves; a negotiating point before and during the rebellion
ABUELITA: grandmother
ACAJOU: mahogany
AFFRANCHI: a person of color whose freedom was officially recognized. Most affranchis were of mixed blood but some were full-blood Africans.
AGOUTI: groundhog-sized animal, edible
AJOUPA: a temporary hut made of sticks and leaves
ALLÉE: a lane or drive lined with trees
LES AMIS DES NOIRS: an abolitionist society in France, interested in improving the conditions and ultimately in liberating the slaves of the French colonies
ANCIEN RÉGIME: old order of pre-revolutionary France
ANBA DLO: beneath the waters—the Vodou afterworld
ARISTOCRATES DE LA PEAU: aristocrats of the skin. Many of Sonthonax’s policies and proclamations were founded on the argument that white supremacy in Saint Domingue was analogous to the tyranny of the hereditary French nobility and must therefore be overthrown in its turn by revolution.
ARMOIRE: medicinal herb for fever
ASSON: a rattle made from a gourd, an instrument in Vodou ceremonies, and the hûngan’s badge of authority
ATELIER: idiomatically used to mean work gangs or the whole body of slaves on a given plantation
AU GRAND SEIGNEUR: in a proprietary manner
BAGASSE: remnants of sugarcane whose juice has been extracted in the mill—a dry, fast-burning fuel
BAGUETTE: bread loaf
BAMBOCHE: celebratory dance party
BANZA: African instrument with strings stretched over a skinhead; forerunner of the banjo
BARON SAMEDI: Vodou deity closely associated with Ghede and the dead, sometimes considered an aspect of Ghede
BATON: stick, rod. A martial art called l’art du baton, combining elements of African stick-fighting with elements of European swordsmanship, persists in Haiti to this day.
BATTERIE: drum orchestra
BEAU-PÈRE: father-in-law
BÊTE DE CORNES: domestic animal with horns
BIENFAISANCE: philosophical proposition that all things work together for good
BITASYON: small settlement
BLANC: white man
BLANCHE: white woman
BOIS BANDER: tree whose bark was thought to be an aphrodisiac
BOIS CHANDEL: candle wood—a pitchy wood suitable for torches
BOKOR: Vodou magician of evil intent
BOSSALE: a newly imported slave, fresh off the boat, ignorant of the plantation ways and of the Creole dialect
BOUCANIERS: piratical drifters who settled Tortuga and parts of Haiti as Spanish rule there weakened. They derived their name from the word boucan —their manner of barbecuing hog meat.
BOUNDA: rectum
BOURG: town
BOURIK: donkey
BWA DLO: flowering aquatic plant
BWA FOUYÉ: dugout canoe
CACHOT: dungeon cell
CACIQUES: Amerindian chieftains of precolonial Haiti
CALENDA: a slave celebration distinguished by dancing. Calendas frequently had covert Vodou significance, but white masters who permitted them managed to regard them as secular.
CANAILLE: mob, rabble
CARMAGNOLES: derogatory expression of the English military for the French revolutionaries
CARRÉ: square, unit of measurement for cane fields and city blocks
CASERNES: barracks
CASQUES: feral dogs
CAY (CASE): rudimentary one-room house
LES CITOYENS DE QUATRE AVRIL: denoting persons of color awarded full political rights by the April Fourth decree, this phrase was either a legal formalism or a sneering euphemism, depending on the speaker
CLAIRIN: cane rum
COCOTTE: girlfriend, but one in a subordinate role
COLON: colonist
COMMANDEUR: overseer or work-gang leader on a plantation, usually himself a slave
COMMERÇANT: businessman
CONCITOYEN: fellow citizen
CONGÉ: time off work
CONGO: African tribal designation. Thought to adapt well to many functions of slavery and more common than others in Saint Domingue.
CORDON DE L’EST: eastern cordon, a fortified line in the mountains organized by whites to prevent the northern insurrection from breaking through to other departments of the colony.
CORDON DE L’OUEST: western cordon, as above
CORPS-CADAVRE: in Vodou, the physical body, the flesh
COUP POUDRÉ: a Vodou attack requiring