Lecture, Session 22

Mama Lola and the three Ezilis

• The three eziliz represent mirrors--the three ways of being woman/mother in the world.
• Life a sea of turbulent crossroads.  Lwa show you different strategies to overcome.
• Haitians are not interested in a quest for their true identity or one true self.  Rather, they accept that each person is a multiple self.  The challenge in life is to seek out a balance among the many selves in the one.  They talk much of “balancing.”
• Women are offered at least 3 ways of being woman, ways of being feminine.  These are modeled in the different manifestations of the virgin.  This orientation toward different virigins is held in common with Latin Catholicism--particularly in Spain, Italy and Central America.  Consider, for example, the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico.

Ezili Dantò/Mater Salvatoris:

• The mother is "black, black, black."  The grandmother is the nurturer.  She fights for herself and for her children.  In addition, she is iconic (always represented with a child).  In this, the female's identity and worth come from protection of and responsibility for children.

• However, the infant in her arms is a girl child.  This is a model for the interdependent relationship between mother and daughter.  Consider when Maggie says, “We’re like Siamese twins” and “we’re wonder women.”  We see how the mother and daughter depend upon one another.  This kind of relationship is often suspect in the U.S.

• In their society, interdependence is of high value.  In our society, it is a question of either/or--dependence vs. independence; not both.  Their solution or mediation is interdependence.  This value of interdependence is linked to sense of strong self and being a strong woman.  We’re wonder women; we can do anything; we love men but we don’t depend upon them for our self-worth or identity--even if the price is poverty and struggle. 

Gender roles in peasant society:

• In the typical Haitian peasant household, the male is a farmer, and the female is the marketer.  Women are independent; they exercise authority over their own capital.  In this, the ideal feminine woman is an independent marketer who runs her own business. 
  
• In our own society, Afro-American women tend to be more independent, pragmatic, not hopelessly romantic.  This can be seen in the United States, too.  This changes with class, though:  female autonomy declines as one moves up in social hierarchy.  Lower class women are independent by necessity.  

Freda/Maria Dolorosa

• Major characteristics. coquettish, bourgeois, materialistic, a prostitute, white.
• Identity and worth come from relationships with men.  She represents the romantic escape--namely, that a man riding a white horse will whisk you off, and you will live happily every after.  In this, we see how women fantasize about romance as a solution to their problems.

Lasirenn/Nuestra Senora

• She is closer to Ginen and demonstrates spiritual knowledge/power. She is empowered and empowering.  She turns poor women into manbo-healers. 
  
• In addition, she demonstrates elements of both Dantò and Ezili.

Mother-Daughter Bond

• Danto or Mater Salvatoris is a model for the key bonds in this book: the mother-daughter bond.
• Sina is married to Alphonse Macena, who is an egotistical, arrogant, child-man, a sorcerer.  Sina has to leave the  family land to rid herself of him.  She makes this hard choice in the best interest of her children. 
  
• She takes with her the middle daughter, who can help with the komès.  The youngest, she "gives" to Philo's godparents.  Here, we see images of Philo (a lowly servant; notice lack of shoes) living a good life far from truth

Sina and Philomise

• Philomise (Philo) is haunted by the memory of her mother.  She is a rèstavèk for a well-off merchant family.  Here, we see how Godparenting is one of the societal links.  We see how Philo must abandon the exploitative situation and migrates to Dominican Republic.
• Her relationships with men tell much of her character and that of society.  Men provide material support to her and the children.  In fact, husbands see wives as children.  We see this in the arguments, which are often violent.  Males can be jealous, despite their own infidelity (one, for example, fathered a child with another woman). 
  
• Philo decides she doesn't need either of her papa pitit.  But, of course, life is very hard for single mothers.  Mothers encourage their daughters to stay with a husband who can provide and to look the other way from his infidelity.  That is why Philo was angry with Alourdes when she left her husband, whom she married, Antoinne Kowalski.  He was a good provider, but crazy with jealousy.  The mother also knows that she will have to take in her stray daughter if the marriage breaks up.  Take note of the scene where Philo tries to abort Alourdes.  She is prevented, punished, then redeemed by Ezilii Dantò.

Philomise and Alourdes

• Philo tries to abort her child.  She is stopped and punished.  She then decides to give it away: to a childless woman and her eldest son, Frank.  Yet, Philo is there when Alourdes needs her.  She takes her back after she left Antoinne Kowalski, who fostered Alourdes' children when Alourdes emigrated.
•  Recall Alourdes and Maggie saying: "We're like Siamese twins.”  They have fears of leaving one another.  Maggie doesn't initially want to follow in her mother's spiritual path and take a son, same as Alourdes with own mother.