Wade Davis - The Serpent and the Rainbow

President Jean Baptiste, flanked by his two aides and speaking formally in French, officially brought the assembly to order.

“Before God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, I declare this séance open. Secretary, make your statement!”

Holding his machete in one hand and a worn notebook in the other, the secretary exclaimed, “Gonaives, twenty-four March nineteen eighty-four, Séance Ordinaire. By all the power of the Great God Jehovah and the Gods of the Earth, and by the power of the Diabolic, of Maître Sarazin, and by authority of all the imaginary lines, we declare that the flags are open! And now we have the privilege of passing the mallet to the president for the announcement of the opening of this celebration. Light the candles!”

One by one each member solemnly stepped out of line and in graceful gestures of obeisance paid homage to the coffin, leaving a small offering of money and taking a candle, which was passed before the flame burning at the base of the poteau mitan. A line of soft glowing light spread slowly down one side of the tonnelle, and the society members, their heads bowed and their hands clasping the candles to their chests, began to sing once more. Three songs, each an eloquent call for solidarity. The first posed a potent question:

President, they say you’re solid,

And in this lakou there is magic .

When they take the power to go and use it outside ,

When they take the power who will we call?

When we will be drowning, what branch will we hold onto?

The day we will be drowning, who will we call?

What branch will we hold onto?

Then, as if to answer this lament, the second song continued:

Nothing, nothing can affect us ,

Before our president ,

Nothing can hurt us ,

If we are hungry, we are hungry among ourselves ,

If we are naked, we are naked among ourselves .

Before our president nothing can harm us .

The final song was raised in defiant, raucous voices with the feet of all members stamping the dry earth, raising small clouds of dust:

I refuse to die for these people ,

This money is for the djab ,

Rather than die for people, I’d rather the djab eat me ,

This money is for the djab ,

I will not die for these people!

By now the tension in the rank had become palpable, and the president had to slap a machete against the concrete base of the poteau mitan to restore order. At his command a man later identified to us as the treasurer advanced with one other to count the money, and with an official air they announced, “Sixteen medalles—sixteen gourdes”—a sum of less than five dollars. The president stepped forward reciting a Catholic litany blessing the offering and seeking the protection of God for the actions of the society. As his final words expired, the drums exploded, breaking open the ranks at long last. Other songs rose in strange rhythms, with one of the four drums played lying on its side, giving the staccato sound of wood striking hollow wood. The drums ceased as suddenly as they began, and once again attention focused on the president, now standing alone by the poteau mitan, his hands cradling a weeping and terrified baby. His own voice, high and soft with reverence, was soon joined by all the others:

They throw a trap to catch the fish ,

What a tragedy! It is the little one who is caught in the trap!

The baby’s mother stood by the president’s side, and as the others sang tears came into her eyes and ran in rivulets down her cheeks. With gentle gestures Jean Baptiste led her and the baby around the poteau mitan, and then he lifted the child tenderly above his head to salute the four corners, the four faces of the world. As he turned slowly, the society members beseeched him:

Save this little one,

Oh! President of the Shanpwel!

Save the life of the child we are asking,

Oh! President of the Shanpwel!

Save the life of this child!

Yawé! Yawé!

The unbroken circle of the Shanpwel closed around the body of the president, and one by one they lifted the child from his arms and bathed it with a warm potion of herbs. Then, the treatment completed, the drums resounded once more, and the members of the Bizango danced long into the night.

Sunlight has a way of diffusing mysteries, and the next afternoon, as Rachel and I sat near the waterfront of Saint Marc waiting for Jean Baptiste, all we could think about was the heat and the surge of flies hovering about us. It was as if all the lurid tales of the Bizango had given way to this: a shoreline and the smell of fish, briny nets and cracked tar rising to mingle with the dust of the city. No babies had been slaughtered the night before, nobody had been transformed into a pig, least of all the two of us, who rather had been treated graciously as honored guests. Quite contrary to the image I had been given, the gathering of the Bizango had impressed me as a solemn, even pious, ceremony that revealed among other things a strict hierarchical organization modeled at least superficially on roles derived from French military and civil government. Whether this was a purely symbolic hierarchy or something more remained to be seen.

We had spent much of the morning trying to find out more about Jean Baptiste, speaking with Rachel’s uncle Robert Erié, at one time the prefect for Saint Marc. Mr. Erié is a kind, generous man, and though a large landowner and leader among the local bourgeoisie, he is clearly respected and liked by the entire community. Though unaware of Jean’s position as president, Robert Erié knew the man well. He had in fact employed Jean as a chauffeur for the entire time he had been prefect. A diligent and competent driver, Jean was remembered as being a good man, quiet and discreet, but not particularly influential in the traditional peasant society of Saint Marc. Although I said nothing about it, it had struck me as significant that the president of a secret society should be employed in such a capacity. During the colonial era many of the slaves who eventually became important leaders of the revolution had worked as coachmen, an ideal position from which they could spy on the ruling authorities.

Speaking with the former prefect had offered an unusual insight into how a prominent official appointed by the central government interacts with the traditional society. Despite his ignorance of Jean’s position, he knew about the activities of the Bizango in some detail. As prefect, he explained, it had been his responsibility to know what went on in the region under his jurisdiction. As an official he didn’t condemn or even judge what the societies did. They were his friends, and he moved freely among them, “drinking his drink,” as he put it, “without problems.” But they in turn had the responsibility of keeping him informed. No ceremony, for example, should be held without the prefect’s preknowledge. Erié considered this a matter of courtesy, not coercion, and stressed that during his entire time in office he had not once taken steps to interfere. Nor, he added, could he imagine a situation when this would be necessary. This easy relationship between the representative of the urban-based authorities on the one hand and the traditional leaders of the vodoun society on the other is no accident, I was to learn. On the contrary, it is mandated by the very nature of the contemporary government in Haiti.

The civil government of Haiti is divided into five départements , and each of these, in turn, is divided into a number of arrondissements , with each one headed by a prefect appointed directly by the president of the nation. Each arrondissement—there are twenty-seven in all—is composed of communes led by the equivalent of a mayor assisted by an administrative council that is based in a village. Beyond the edge of the village itself, the land of the commune is divided into a number of sections rurales .