Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [450]
FATRAS: litter, garbage.
FATRAS-BÂTON: thrashing stick. Toussaint bore this stable name in youth because of his skinniness.
FEMME DE CONFIANCE: a lady’s quasi-professional female companion. FEMME DE COULEUR: woman of mixed blood.
FERS: irons.
FILLE DE JOIE: prostitute.
FLEUR DE LYS: stylistically rendered flower and a royalist emblem in France. FLIBUSTIER: pirate evolved from the wartime practice of privateering.
GAMELLE: large wooden bowl.
GARDE-CORPS: charm, for bodily protection.
GENS DE COULEUR: people of color, a reasonably polite designation for persons of mixed blood in Saint Domingue.
GÉRANT: plantation manager or overseer.
GHEDE: One of the great loa, the principal Vodou god of the underworld and of the dead.
GILET: waistcoat.
GIROUMON (JOUMON): squash.
GOMMIER: gum tree.
GOVI: clay vessels which may contain the spirits of the dead.
GRAND BOIS: Vodou deity, aspect of Legba more closely associated with the world of the dead.
GRAND BLANC: member of Saint Domingue’s white landed gentry, who were owners of large plantations and large numbers of slaves. The grand blancs were politically conservative and apt to align with royalist counterrevolutionary movements.
GRAND’CASE: the “big house,” residence of white owners or overseers on a plantation; these houses were often rather primitive despite the grandiose title.
GRAND CHEMIN: the big road or main road; in Vodou the term refers to the pathway opened between the human world and the world of the loa.
GRANN: old woman, grandmother.
GRÂCE, LA MISÉRICORDE (GRÂS LAMISERIKÒD): the liturgical phrase Have grace, have mercy.
GRENOUILLE: frog.
GRIFFE: term for a particular combination of African and European blood; a griffe would result from the congress of a full-blood black with a mulâttresse or a marabou.
GRIFFONNE: female griffe.
GRIOT: fried pork.
GROS-BON-ANGE: literally, the “big good angel,” an aspect of the Vodou soul. The gros-bon-ange is “the life force that all sentient beings share; it inters the individual at conception and functions only to keep the body alive. At clinical death, it returns immediately to God and becomes part of the great reservoir of energy that supports all life.”6
GROSSESSE: pregnancy.
GUINÉE EN BAS DE L’EAU: “Africa beneath the waters,” the Vodou afterlife.
GUÉRIR-TROP-VITE: medicinal herb used in plasters to speed healing of wounds.
HABITANT: plantation owner.
HABITATION: plantation.
HATTE: terrain for raising horses and livestock, a ranch with a crude dwelling. HERBE À CORNETTE: medicinal herb used in mixtures for coughing.
HERBE À PIQUE: medicinal herb against fever.
HOMME DE COULEUR: man of mixed blood; see gens de couleur.
HÛNFOR: Vodou temple, often arranged in open air.
HÛNGAN: Vodou priest.
HÛNSI: Vodou acolytes.
INTENDANT: the highest civil authority in colonial Saint Domingue, as opposed to the Governor, who was the highest military authority. These conflicting and competing posts were deliberately arranged by the home government to make rebellion against the authority of the metropole less likely.
IBO: African tribal designation. Ibo slaves were thought to be especially prone to suicide, believing that through death they would return to Africa. Some masters discouraged this practice by lopping the ears and noses of slaves who had killed themselves, since presumably the suicides would not wish to be resurrected with these signs of dishonor.
JOUISSANCE: pleasure.
JOURNAL: newspaper.
KALFOU: crossroads.
KONESANS: spiritual knowledge.
L’AFFAIRE GALBAUD: armed conflict which occurred at the northern port Le Cap, in 1794, between French royalists and Republicans, as a result of which the royalist party, along with the remaining large property and slave owners, fled the colony.
LAMBI: conch shell, used as a horn among maroons and rebel slaves. Also, the meat of the conch, a popular dish.
LANCE À FEU: fire spear.
LA-PLACE: Vodou celebrant with specific ritual functions second to that of the hûngan.
LATANA: medicinal herb against colds.
LAVÉ TÊT: head-washing, initial step