Wade Davis - The Serpent and the Rainbow

“No, a council. Someone gets the feast organized—the rice, beans, colas, rum, and so on—and then the major members of the Bizango move apart. The groupe d’état-majeur—president, ministers, the queens. We pass the person. Once we agree that, say, so and so should die January 15, then we go to the emperor, in this region myself, and if the emperor agrees we mark the paper and the person dies. But if anyone disagrees, the case may drag on. Every three months or so we will convene a séance to discuss the case. If we reach an impasse we form a group of thirteen members, and the majority will rule. This is how the Shanpwel works. But a society cannot judge someone who hasn’t directly affected a member. You can’t just work against anyone.”

“Is this what it means to sell someone to the society?”

“Only in that there is a justice. There is always a justice. But selling is different in that it is an action that starts from the people, not the leadership of the society. Selling is a means for each member of the society to seek his own justice. If you have a dispute, you make a small deposit of money and give your name and a description of the problem to the emperor, and if it is conscientious the society will pass both you and the offending party through a judgment.”

“But does the body of the person appear before the society?”

“A stupid question. I tell you again and again, but you don’t listen. I say it is a justice. Of course the accused appears. The emperor dispatches the chasseur, the hunter. That is his task. What kind of justice would judge a man from afar?” Leophin shifted in his chair impatiently. “But naturally these affairs may become complicated. Sometimes the one who has been sold may remain ill for as long as three years while the judgment is pending. In that case, since everyone knows that the sick one is on the list, the family may hire a diviner to go out and find out what happened. Once he does so, the family has one chance to make retribution. Word goes out and the society to whom the person was sold gathers. The family must pay each of the four leaders of the society.”

“So the punished one may be bought back?”

“Under certain circumstances.”

“Such as?”

“Look, I tell you it is a judgment, so the circumstances will vary.”

“But what if I just want to get rid of someone?”

“You will be judged, for it will be you who breaks the code of the society.”

“What code?”

“The seven actions.” Without our asking, like a master of jurisprudence, Jean-Jacques Leophin enumerated the seven transgressions for which one could be sold to a society. These were, in order:

1. Ambition—excessive material advancement at the obvious expense of family and dependents.

2. Displaying lack of respect for one’s fellows.

3. Denigrating the Bizango society.

4. Stealing another man’s woman.

5. Spreading loose talk that slanders and affects the well-being of others.

6. Harming members of one’s family.

7. Land issues—any action that unjustly keeps another from working the land.

The list read like a character profile of Clairvius Narcisse, and listening to it sent me whirling back to his case.

Clairvius fought often with various members of his own family. He sired numerous children whom he didn’t support. By neglecting these and other community obligations, he managed to save enough money so that his house was the first in the lakou to have the thatch roof replaced by tin. But although his profligate existence certainly offended his extended family, the dispute with his brother was basically a question of access to land, and a dispute as serious as that between the Narcisse brothers would likely have involved arbitration by the Bizango society. Herard Simon had told me that it had been an uncle of Clairvius who had actually requested that the tribunal be convened. We can only surmise what might have occurred at that judgment, but there are several points to consider. The father of the two brothers was still alive at the time, and Clairvius Narcisse did not have any children recognized by the community. Now in Haiti it is customary that family land-holdings not be divided up “among the first generation of heirs, since younger brothers would not take it upon themselves to imply such disrespect of the senior ones as to demand that their tracts be split off.” What’s more, if heirs “insist on a formal division before the death of their elders, tradition brands them disrespectful and impertinent.” One of the brothers was clearly wrong in terms of the proper code of conduct of the Haitian peasant society. The most important obligation of a patriarch in Haiti is to keep “family resources intact in order to provide a start in life for children.” This explicit emphasis on posterity would have placed the childless, wifeless Narcisse in a less favorable position compared to the brother who had a large family to support at the time. Furthermore, if Narcisse had, in fact, been in the right and had been zombified by the guilty brother, it is difficult to imagine that the secret society would have permitted that brother to live on in peace in the village for close to twenty years. Given the current chilly relationship between Narcisse and his family, it seems more likely that Clairvius was the guilty party, a conviction held by the majority of my informants in Haiti and reinforced by an extraordinary statement made by Jean-Jacques Leophin the moment I mentioned Narcisse’s name.

“Narcisse’s brother sold him to a society of Caho. It was the seventh condition. It was the parent’s land. He tried to take it by force.” He paused, then added emphatically, “But this doesn’t mean that the society is an evil thing. If someone on the inside of your house betrays you, they deserve death. But that doesn’t make your house a bad place.”

“So the people who took Narcisse were not from his village?”

“This happens. For example, I’m here at Fresineau. Everyone knows that Leophin is the master of the area. I have my limits from Gros Morne up to Montrouis. That’s my quarter. Another society can’t leave Archaie to catch someone in my territory unless he comes to me first. He’ll explain the problem, and if it seems reasonable, I’ll call a séance to discuss giving away the guilty one. If my people object, or if the accusation is unjust, I place him under my protection, and he won’t be harmed. All the emperors communicate between each other, sometimes in person, sometimes by means of the superviseur, the messenger.”

“The Bizango reaches into every corner of the land,” Rachel said in honest amazement.

“It doesn’t reach,” Leophin corrected her. “It is already there . You see, we are stars. We work at night but we touch everything. If you are poor, I will call an assembly to cover your needs. If you are hungry, I will give you food. If you need work, the society will give you enough to start a trade. That is the Bizango. It is hand in hand.

“There is only one thing that the society refuses to get involved in. You can do almost anything, and the society may let you off, but if you stick your mouth in government talk, you can forget it. The society says you must respect the grade of the chief of the law. You can’t just seize any office, you must deserve it. Go through elections and hear the voice of the people.”

“But what if, for example, there is a policeman, abusing a member of the society,” I asked.

“If you like the government, then you’d best remember that all the king’s dogs are kings, even those doing evil. On the other hand, if the policeman is a real bother, one day his chief will call him in and tell him that he’s been transferred. We don’t want to harm him, but we too have our limits of tolerance.”