Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [448]
When the time was right, I, Riau, I made the Weté Mò anba Dlo, and called the spirit of Toussaint to the canari where still it rests, at one with Attibon Legba, in the kay mystè high on our hill above Ennery. There was no one better than Riau to make that service. The sons of Toussaint’s wife never came out of France again, and Toussaint’s bones were scattered a long way off in the land of the blancs, but his spirit is still waiting here, amidst all sa nou pa wé yo. There is more of what we don’t see than what we do. Sometimes the spirit of Toussaint will walk a little way with one whose name Riau has written in the box, if it is one who has already died or one who has not yet been born.
Now my eyes don’t see the things of this world as clearly as they used to do. My eyes turn toward les Invisibles, les Morts et les Mystères. I see that day which is long ago now, when Riau called Toussaint’s spirit back from beneath the waters, to sigh in the jar where still it waits for a name strong enough to carry it all the way to the end of its road. There were no clouds and no wind on that day, and the air was so clear that one who stood with Riau on the hilltop could see beyond Ennery all the way to the coast. Away to the west the horizon curved up to meet the falling of the red sun, and the top of the ocean was like the skin of a drum stretched tight.
GLOSSARY
During the Haitian Revolution, Haitian Creole had no systematic orthography. The spellings of Creole words used in this book are modeled on those used by francophone writers of the period, and are not meant to be consistent with the orthography of Haitian Creole today.
À LA CHINOIS: 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.
LES AMIS DES NOIRS: an abolitionist society in France interested in improving the conditions and ultimately in liberating the slaves of the French colonies.
AJOUPA: a temporary hut made of sticks and leaves.
ALLÉE: a lane or drive lined with trees.
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.
ARMOISE: medicinal herb for fever.
ASOTO: large drum.
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.
BAGUETTE: bread loaf.
BAMBOCHE: celebratory dance party.
BANANE TI-MALICE: small sweet banana.
BANANE LOUP-GAROU: large plantain-like banana.
BANZA: African instrument with strings stretched over a skinhead; forerunner of the banjo.
BAGASSE: remnants of sugar cane whose juice has been extracted in the mill—a dry, fast-burning fuel.
BARON SAMEDI: Vodou deity closely associated with Ghede and the dead, sometimes considered an aspect of Ghede.
BARON CIMETIÈRE: Vodou deity associated with the dead, an aspect of Ghede.
BÂTON: stick, rod. A martial art called l’art du bâton, 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. BLANC: white man.
BLANCHE: white woman.
BOIS BANDER: tree whose bark was thought