Jeudi: Root Work

I know it's only October but the holidays will be here sooner than we think and that usually means just one thing for root workers and wise women: requests for love potions. No one wants to feel like Evangeline up there during the darkest months of the year. Although I tend to counsel people against too much manipulation, the reality is that a little insurance for a good relationship (not one that's on the fence and especially not one that's abusive) never hurts.

The term "love potion number nine" is thrown around a lot in our culture. There's even a song about it, I think. This fabled drink may actually have originated in hoodoo. Different root workers have different recipes for the love potion, which actually amounts to a simple tea made from nine different ingredients. The caveat with most of these mixtures is that rose petals, catnip and cinnamon must be used in the mixture.

Fresh or dried herbs work equally well so it is entirely up to the person making the tea which way they want to go. The idea of the tea is to draw love or, if it is shared with the loved one, strengthen the bond. Whether the loved one knows what the maker of the tea is up to is entirely open for discussion.

Here's my recipe for the fabled love potion:

A small piece of apple
A small piece of ginger
One rose petal and a pinch each of:
Catnip
Cinnamon
Dill
Rue
Sugar

Wrap all of these ingredients in a square of muslin and tie it up with a long piece of twine to form a teabag. Place your teabag in a cup and pour hot water over it. Add a drop of vanilla or whiskey (your choice, but not both). While you pray/infuse the tea with your intention, allow the mixture to steep for nine minutes.

Remove the teabag and drink the cup down, preferable in nine sips. You should continue to focus on your wish for love while you drink. Dispose of your teabag as you will need to make a new one the next day.

Repeat this ritual nine days/nights in a row, if possible at around the same time each day. Toujours l'amour ~

Header: Evangeline by Christian Schussele via American Gallery

Jeudi: Great Spirits

The water spirit who has taken on the collective, and perhaps unfortunately generic, moniker of Mami Wata is far more than the sum of her parts. A spirit venerated as far afield as the entire Atlantic coast of Africa, most of South America, Central America, the Caribbean and in the Cuban and Haitian diasporas, one is hard pressed to find a more frequently worshiped form of water deity than she.

In my personal frame of reference, Mami Wata most resembles the Voudon lwa known as La Siren/La Balen. La Siren is the light-skinned, either blond or brown-haired mermaid who imparts wealth and beauty upon those who are devoted to her. La Balen, her Petwo personification, is the whale who may appear at first as a beautiful woman, but has come only to lure those who have offended her to a cold, dark death in deep water.

Mami Wata in all her transmogrifications has a similar light and dark aspect. Stories are told of her appearing near the ocean, usually in the guise of a beautiful woman and usually - but not always - to a handsome young man. She is combing her hair with a silver comb, or admiring herself in an expensive mirror, or adorning herself with pearls when the human comes upon her. Startled, she slips into the water and disappears leaving her treasures behind. The young man may gather up these costly treasures but he is warned to return them immediately when he again, invariably, encounters the beautiful mermaid. Failure to do so will bring untold misfortunes and sometimes even a withering, miserable death.

In other stories, which show a similarity to the Voudon lwa Erzulie Freda Dahomey, Mami Wata demands sexual fidelity from the young men she encounters. They must join with her and shun human women. Failure to do so will mean the worst possible luck for not only the young man, but his family as well. Agreeing to the mermaid's terms, however, ensures health, wealth and happiness. One also assumes a continuing conjugal relationship with Mami Wata as well.

Like a third Voudon lwa, Grande Erzulie, Mami Wata is designated as the protectress of prostitutes in some of the cultures that worship her. In this aspect, and in her aspect as a bringer of fertility to both the land and its people, her symbol is a snake. This aspect also bares a striking resemblance to Ix Chel, the Mayan protectress of women and she who bestows them with fertility.

The names given to Mami Wata are as numerous as the forms she takes. Her African names, such as Watramama, have a similar ring to Mami Wata; that name is also sometimes found in Africa. In Brazil she is syncratized with the Orisha of the oceans, Yemaya; this is also the case in Cuba and the Cuban diaspora. On previously French-speaking Caribbean islands such as Guadalupe, Martinique and Trinidad and Tobago, she is Maman de l'Eau or simply Maman Dlo. In Haiti, of course, as in New Orleans, she is La Siren.

Her various aspects are so numerous, and her worship so far-flung, that she is a testimate to the enduring power of the water goddess all over the world. Even the Catholic Church gave in when it came to Mami Wata and assigned a particular aspect of the Virgin Mary to look after the oceans. Known as Stella Maris - Star of the Sea - her picture is often used to represent any of Mami Wata's many faces.

That's a back-handed complement from a patriarchal religion many a modern theorist would opine. Be that as it may, those of us who straddle that fence, as our ancestors have done for centuries, will take it where we can get it.

Header: Mami Wata of Trinidad and Tobago by Zofia Bogusz via American Gallery

Samedi: The Lady Bath

I've spoken of Milo Rigaud and his 1953 publication Secrets of Voodoo here at HQ before.  I’ve also mentioned the Voudon ritual known as a Lady bath.  Both converge in the book where Rigaud, a native Haitian and a student of law, ethnology, psychology and theology, discusses the ritual and the hymn to Erzulie Freda that can accompany it.  Per Rigaud:

The “Lady” bath is the bath taken under the magic auspices of Erzulie.  Generally speaking, it is desirable to summon the mystère Erzulie to come in person and administer the bath…  The bath Erzulie used to be much in vogue, but it is no longer as popular as it once was.  Nowadays initiates are content to take a substitute Erzulie bath by rubbing themselves with water in which Erzulie, while possessing somebody, has herself bathed.  The bath water used in this fashion is thought to produce good fortune and cure illness.

Rigaud gives the ingredients of the Lady bath as follows:

… three bunches of basilica leaves, seven sweet peppers, a measure of zo-douvant (Eugenia crenulata Wild) powder, baume du commandeur, tincture of benzoin and Florida Water.  Perfume may be added in any desired quantity, perfume being the most important element in Maitresse Erzulie’s toilette.

This bath is generally taken no more than once a year and this hymn to Erzulie may accompany it:

Ce chance oh! O, ce chance oh!

Ce pas wanga ou gangnin;

Ce chance oh!

Grande Erzulie Freda

Ce chance ou gangnin,

Ce pas wanga ou gangnin;

Ce chance, O Maitresse.

It’s luck, oh! O, it’s luck, oh!

It’s not a magic charm that you have;

It’s luck, oh!

Grande Erzulie Freda

It’s luck that you have,

It’s not a magic charm that you have;

It’s luck, O Mistress.

The emphasis on luck in this chant delineates the intention of the Lady bath.  The voudonist is not looking for Erzulie’s assistance in love or good looks, but specifically for her favor.  Everyone in Haiti knows that those who are favored by the beautiful Maitresse are the luckiest of all.

Header: Marilyn Monroe photograph via Mid-Century; my Erzulie is very fond of having pictures of MM used to represent her and I cannot but comply

Samedi: The Family Erzulie

In Haitian Voudon, a group of female lwa stands out as a particularly dysfunctional sisterhood.  These are the Erzulies or Ezilis as they are known in Creole. 

There is Erzulie Freda Dahomey, the gorgeous and luxurious.  She is the queen of all things beautiful, sensuous and graceful.  Erzulie Freda is envisioned as a light skinned woman with light eyes; she speaks only French and is the dream of every mortal man.  She is herself a sensual animal who takes lovers from among the lwa and her human worshipers.  Maryaj lwa with Erzulie, though not necessarily common, is one of the most likely such entanglements with the lwa for a man to find himself in.  Erzulie Freda is said to be the “consort” of three male lwa: Danbala, Ogou and Agwe.  All of these gentlemen are married to others.

Erzulie Freda’s sister, or perhaps her other half, is La Siren.  She is the blond haired, white skinned mermaid who is lwa of the deep blue sea.    Mermaids are extremely common in Afro-Caribbean and African American stories.  The tales generally tell of a beautiful, fish-tailed woman who lures an adult or sometimes a child down to her watery domain where they live for what seems like a year, but is in fact decades or even centuries.  La Siren follows this pattern as well.  Though generally benevolent, she can turn violent just as the sea does in a storm.  In this guise she is known as La Balien – the whale – and she can be deadly.  She is married to the sea lwa and admiral, Agwe.

The third sister is Erzulie Danto, the mother lwa of the Petwo nachon whose tongue was cut out by Haitian revolutionaries so that she would not tell their secrets.  She is a fierce mother and warrior, dark skinned and ample in form who has a scar on her cheek.  This wound was inflicted when she fought with Erzulie Freda, and the two have detested each other ever since.  Their enmity is only increased by the fact that Erzulie Danto is married to the warrior lwa Ogou.  Erzulie Danto can wreak havoc against human women in fits of rage and jealousy, but she is also known to take women in maryaj lwa and is thought to be the patron of lesbians.

The three sisters’ grandmother also goes by their name.  She is known as Grande Erzulie (or Grann Ezili) and in some sociétés she is the patron of prostitutes (in others, this task falls to Maman Brigitte).   She is also the lwa of regret, weeping over lost love, beauty and opportunity.  Grande Erzulie is envisioned as impossibly ancient and crippled by rheumatoid arthritis.  For this reason, she is the patron of people of any age who suffer from this crippling autoimmune disease.  My daughter, who has the juvenile form of arthritis, is beginning to cultivate a relationship with Grande Erzulie.

All four of the Erzulies can be of great benefit to their devoted worshipers.  But as always, know your lwa and respect them fully.  The opposite of benefit is not always simple hindrance.  Bonne chance ~

Header: Mater Dolorosa de Monte Cavario, the Catholic aspect of Erzulie Freda