Lecture, Session 21

Ritual Song

Ritual song texts, intoned in solo-chorus antiphony at all rituals, represent the spirited discussions which take place in the above-mentioned settings.  Song texts capture these strained interactions both intratextually, in a series of mutually contradictory song texts, or within a single song text.  During a ritual performance, a praise song might well be followed by a song featuring an enfeebled lwa warning of his or her imminent demise and then another featuring excerpts from a tense conversation between an indignant lwa, threatening revenge, and an overly contrite heir vowing to settle the "debt" with the requisite ritual offering. 

The sacred texts, which typically present the lwa singing in the first person or engaged in negotiation with people who serve him/her, are, in balance, a whiny and anguished repertoire.  As the invocations progress through the ranks of the spirits, each lwa receives an opportunity to vent his or her anxiety about being consigned to oblivion and forced to starve.  To take only two examples from an immense repertoire, in the first, the lwa Ogoun complains that his "children" dutifully invoke him to traverse the vast ocean separating Guinea from the ritual space in Haiti because they think they should rather than because they genuinely want to commune with him.  He pleads with the heirs to pay attention to him once he arrives and to accept him for what he is.  In the second song, the lwa, Danbala Wedo, protests being used, addressed by such obsequious titles as Grandfather or Divine Serpent and then discarded.

Haitian family

The typical Haitian family is a family struggling to survive.  Kinship is an adaptation to poverty.  As we have seen before, this institution of Kinship defines all types of relationships (ritual, economic, and social).  There is a strong age hierarchy.  Elders--including the deceased--have authority that cannot be questioned.

The definition of father and mother are more complicated in the Black Caribbean.  Their link is both physical and spiritual.  For example, fathers experience sympathetic pregnancy, including nausea.  There is more emphasis on what the father does for the fetus.  Intercourse during pregnancy is important.  Also, a father contributes to feeding mother and infant.  It is understood that the father's actions during pregnancy and neo-natality can affect the fetus: jerking movements in labor and sexual relations with another woman can adversely affect the baby (p.100-102).

In Haiti, "family" is not equal to "household".  In the U.S. our ideal kinship unit is the nuclear one where the "family" means "household."  Our nuclear family is our sentimental family.  That is what mainstream culture ("The Waltons," "Leave it to Beaver," etc.) values but is able less and less to achieve.  However, there is no reason to assume that this arrangement is any better than any other.  In fact, most of world does something else.

The three-house man: a case-study

Consider a man who sleeps in one place, eats in another (and sleeps there once in a while), and contributes income to a third (and the first two).

• To which household does he belong?
• What is the composition of each household?
• Which family does he belong to?

This situation is not atypical for cultures that have known migration.  Often, residence is fluid. 

This creates the idea of a fluid residence.  Here, the household forms and reforms to keep kinship ties intact.  The inner core is tied through a woman’s kin network: her siblings and children.  Siblings are very important.  Therefore, women act as redistributors, ensuring that everyone has "generalized reciprocity.”  The domain of a woman generally includes: her sons and daughters (as well as any men and women she fostered as children), her grandchildren, current spouses of her daughters and sons, and her own current spouse, unless she is widowed or separated/divorced.  It may also include various other relatives who are under her care.  The sizes of these family units range in sizes, from a half dozen to fifty, from a single house with its own yard to a compound with several houses and a common yard.

Meaning of children

Value in maternity and paternity is based upon reproductive success. Children are valued as resources and do work from the time they are quite young.  There is a stressed importance of leaving children behind to take care of you when you grow old and to reproduce you in the world of the dead.

• Recall: lineal systems, matri-, patri-, bi-, lineages as corporate groups with shared rights over property and people.

The co-parent bond is more important and durable than the romantic one, which is brittle. Being parents is a reason for a tie between two people.  They often use the terminology "father of my child," "mother of my child."  (Also, “my mother,” when siblings are talking to one another).

Marriage

The ideal form of marriage is polygamy.  Men can have more than one wife simultaneously (if they can afford it).  Sometimes, they have co-residents in a compound.  Here, each wife has her own hut.  There is cooperation as well as competition between co-wives.

Women often participate in serial monogamy; they often have more than one husband over time, but not at the same time.