Missing Witches - April 11, 2021


Cecile Fatiman and The Haitian Revolution - The Leavening Of Our Liberation

Topics
Haitian Revolution and Vodou diaspora protests witches
WF Starr Goode - We Are Waking Up...Popping The Bubble of Patriarchy's Spell WF Dr Marina Magloire - Oh My Body, Make Of Me Always A Woman Who Listens

Episode Stats


Length

49 minutes

Words per minute

140.44

Word count

6,988

Sentence count

162

Harmful content

Misogyny

63

sentences flagged

Toxicity

25

sentences flagged

Hate speech

92

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
00:00:00.000 coven if you find you want more missing witches and this strange magic in your life get our book
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00:00:20.120 missing witches thanks love you bye you aren't being a proper woman therefore you must be a witch 1.00
00:00:25.940 You must be a witch. 1.00
00:00:32.920 At the heart of a revolution unlike any other the world has ever seen, 0.77
00:00:38.480 there is a story that became a seed at the heart of a national identity.
00:00:45.480 A story of a secret ritual and a priestess of the Loire.
00:00:49.940 There is a night meeting of enslaved people
00:00:52.180 and people who have escaped slavery in the woods called Bois Cayman.
00:00:57.120 And the colonizers' own words of revolution are pulsing in the air.
00:01:01.400 Egalité. Fraternité. Liberté.
00:01:05.720 Freedom and equality and a universal family,
00:01:08.720 not just for workers in Paris beheading their nobility,
00:01:12.120 but for the people the empire has stolen, them too,
00:01:16.000 into the circle of dreams that night and drums
00:01:19.140 in a land sealing with violence and heartbreak.
00:01:22.180 and trauma and flickering red and blue with dense potential and beauty there steps a black woman
00:01:29.840 in white she calls forth an almost unbelievable possibility she is and she symbolizes power beyond
00:01:40.300 the colonizer's wildest most greedy dreams that moment at Boisquemin is a layered and debated
00:01:47.260 history and it is a spell all its own. A story from which spirit emerges. Amma Mazama writes
00:01:56.100 according to some accounts during the ceremony a great storm rose over those gathered and a mambo
00:02:05.540 or priestess appeared and danced with a blade held high above her head. In this rendition of
00:02:12.500 the ritual, it is she who actually slaughtered the pig for sacrifice. Blood from the animal,
00:02:18.880 and some say from humans as well, was given in a drink to the attendees to seal their fates
00:02:23.880 and loyalty to the cause of liberation of Saint-Domingue. The mambo responsible for this 0.99
00:02:29.980 vital element of the ritual is said to have been CĂ©cile Fatimane, the wife of Jean-Louis Pierrot,
00:02:36.800 a man who would eventually become the president of the small island nation from 1845 to 1846.
00:02:44.260 Whoever the Mambo present actually was, 0.99
00:02:46.360 she was elevated after her death to the status of loi, or voodoo deity, 0.98
00:02:51.140 and was given the name Marinette Boisjech. 0.88
00:02:55.000 As a member of the Haitian voodoo Petro Pantheon,
00:02:58.420 Marinette is an incredibly powerful deity whose colors are black and blood-red. 1.00
00:03:03.640 Known to ride those she possesses rather violently,
00:03:06.800 She is feared, but also highly respected for her role in the fight for Haitian independence.
00:03:13.820 Reminiscent of her role in the Bois-Quemans ceremony, 0.85
00:03:17.080 this law is often offered black pigs during contemporary voodoo rituals.
00:03:22.580 The woman in the moonlight could have been a 16-year-old, or she was ancient.
00:03:27.180 Certainly it was hard to see her clearly in the smoky night
00:03:29.900 and with the light of spirit on her and the wind and the rain.
00:03:32.980 And whoever was there that night
00:03:35.700 Marinette is with us still 0.96
00:03:37.800 She stands for generations of women ancestors who led 0.86
00:03:42.460 Vodou priestesses, Mambo's servants of the Loire 0.99
00:03:47.560 Were leaders for enslaved people 1.00
00:03:49.760 And for the Maroon communities in the mountains of Haiti
00:03:52.560 They worked and sang and organized
00:03:55.820 For a freedom of the soul through faith
00:03:57.900 And freedom of the body through resistance and revolution
00:04:01.300 Mazama continues 0.63
00:04:04.200 African religion in general
00:04:05.940 and Vodou in particular 0.99
00:04:07.140 seems to be the only religion
00:04:09.000 that allows women to reach 1.00
00:04:10.260 the highest positions of authority 0.99
00:04:11.880 and where our written history
00:04:15.100 deeply slanted by settler colonizer
00:04:17.480 desires and distortions
00:04:18.980 has erased their names
00:04:20.240 Marinette remembers
00:04:22.260 we know a little about CĂ©cile Fatiman
00:04:25.420 we know she was the daughter
00:04:27.300 of an African woman
00:04:28.340 and Corsican prince 0.98
00:04:29.520 and we know that sex and an extreme power imbalance like this is rape 0.98
00:04:33.760 so let's call it that
00:04:35.040 especially when the children are sold into slavery after their birth
00:04:39.020 as she was, as her brothers were
00:04:41.480 and then they disappeared
00:04:43.140 we can't know
00:04:46.100 but we can imagine her fury at the loss and injustice of this whole life
00:04:51.100 we can imagine how it fueled her
00:04:54.360 we can't come close to knowing her
00:04:57.640 enslaved people were violently prohibited from learning to read or to write
00:05:02.020 and so they only entered the archives before revolution on the slaveholders terms 0.98
00:05:06.380 but we can imagine imagining cecile with an open heart and open palms and mind
00:05:13.340 imagining the power of her mind and hands and belief and her life and her anger and her calm
00:05:19.980 and her joy and her magic conjuring her memory with us here to honor her alongside
00:05:26.880 the other women of that great and unending revolution.
00:05:31.900 Imagining these people we've been missing
00:05:34.000 is an act of imagination that is an act of resistance
00:05:37.440 in a war that still continues for our minds and for what's possible.
00:05:43.100 In our episode on Diane de Prima, I got stuck on her line,
00:05:47.400 the war is the war for the human imagination,
00:05:49.780 and it echoes in my ears still.
00:05:52.740 We still fight the stifling hegemony
00:05:54.960 of white supremacist late-stage capital
00:05:57.220 to make space in our brains and lives 0.92
00:06:00.720 to truly imagine CĂ©cile's life
00:06:02.860 and to learn from her and from priestesses
00:06:05.340 who still lead and protect their communities today. 0.99
00:06:09.100 Marinette kind of has a reputation for violence now, 1.00
00:06:12.820 a loi who can be brutal in her possession. 1.00
00:06:16.100 As Judica Illes writes, 0.87
00:06:20.220 she is a bitter spirit who prefers to be alone, 0.81
00:06:23.160 people disappointed her 0.88
00:06:25.360 rather than being celebrated as a heroine
00:06:28.880 she was first aggressively pursued by French colonial forces
00:06:32.460 then denied glory when Haitian revolutionary leader
00:06:35.940 Toussaint Verteur banned women from battle front lines
00:06:39.700 and even now she's frequently dismissed as an evil spirit
00:06:43.100 while her male contemporaries are lionized
00:06:46.020 she is a spirit of rage and frustration 0.95
00:06:50.040 but also in her way
00:06:52.420 a spirit of justice
00:06:54.420 spirit of justice
00:06:59.220 we owe you so much
00:07:00.780 and we need you so much now
00:07:03.300 Marinette emerges from Cicel Fatiman
00:07:08.400 out of the labor and pain
00:07:10.920 of the Haitian revolution
00:07:12.080 at this moment when the imagination of freedom
00:07:15.700 is gleaming across continents and borderlines
00:07:18.420 and washing up on beaches
00:07:19.700 cracked with slave ships 0.99
00:07:21.240 people across the island hear it and say yes fucking exactly the hypocrisy is too much and 0.98
00:07:27.740 the time has come for the people of Saint-Domingue who after this moment of ritual at Bois-Quiman 0.97
00:07:32.460 after the possession and transformation and electrification of the forest
00:07:37.140 after revolution claim their independence and become the still rising people of Haiti
00:07:42.340 this spirit calling in the alligator woods by a young old priestess
00:07:49.420 is a ritual that ties the people to each other
00:07:53.160 and to their ownership of the land they are on
00:07:56.920 and to their ownership, crucially, of themselves.
00:08:00.940 It ties directly back to the places and people
00:08:03.700 and knowledge across the ocean where the people had come from. 0.98
00:08:08.320 Practicing voodoo in this enslaved revolutionary context 0.81
00:08:11.920 is an act of love for both past and future, 0.92
00:08:16.400 a flame here in the present,
00:08:17.740 even when the flame is a small match in a storm.
00:08:23.480 In the ritual at Bois-Quemain that lights the night and the people up
00:08:27.340 the priestess, CĂ©cile Fatiman, transacts in some way
00:08:31.840 with the spirit of the place
00:08:34.000 and invites all who gather to
00:08:37.440 cast aside the image of the god of the oppressors.
00:08:44.220 Claudine Michel and Patrick Belgarde-Smith write
00:08:47.140 Vodou developed in the crucible of colonial life
00:08:52.140 Haitian Vodou is a neo-African spiritual system 0.66
00:08:55.540 philosophical construct and religion
00:08:57.700 whose core resides largely in Dahomey
00:09:00.780 presently Benin
00:09:01.980 and in Yoruba Land in western Nigeria
00:09:04.660 the term Vodou derives from the fond word for God or spirit
00:09:09.340 it also signifies in a larger sense
00:09:13.220 in the company of the spirits
00:09:14.860 or belonging to the family
00:09:16.960 of the spirits. Another common interpretation is introspection into the unknown. There are
00:09:24.960 other meanings. In Gano, for example, spirits are called Vodus. Haitians call the deities Loa
00:09:31.000 and Amiste. What is distinctive about Haitian Vodu additionally is that it incorporated the
00:09:38.140 powerful systems of the Bacongo peoples in Central Africa, creating a synthesis that did not occur
00:09:44.700 elsewhere in the Caribbean or in Latin America. Also, earlier influences were found extant
00:09:51.120 from Islamicized enslaved Africans. Fodu has been a powerful ideological force in waging the wars
00:09:59.520 of liberation in Haiti, in forging the revolutionary moments that led to the dismantling of slavery
00:10:05.940 and independence. It is certain that Haitian leaders and the mass of insurgents were well
00:10:11.800 versed in these African and Neo-African traditions, especially since as many as two-thirds of the
00:10:17.940 population had been born in West and Central Africa and not in the colony of Saint-Domingue.
00:10:23.520 Bodu in Haiti seems to have been a deliberate amalgam of various African traditions,
00:10:29.160 cobbled together from similar systems in an effort to unify Africans from various parts of the
00:10:34.200 continent and speaking different African languages well into the first two decades of the 19th
00:10:39.620 century after independence was proclaimed. Vodou also incorporated some aspects of the
00:10:45.520 religion of the Arawaks, Freemasonry, and of course, Catholicism. From the latter, it 0.99
00:10:51.820 integrated more than juxtaposed the dates of celebrations for the saints now associated
00:10:56.840 with the Vodoulois, the Catholic iconography and the prayers that many still use to open
00:11:02.400 Vodou ceremonies. Vodou, together with the Creole language, which evolved from a similar
00:11:09.260 base served as a unifier. Haitian Vodou is illuminated by the pantheon and philosophy
00:11:15.660 of the African kingdom of Dahomey that existed from about 1600 until 1904. And so Marinette
00:11:23.480 is connected to all the female warriors of Dahomey, who white writers would call the Amazonians
00:11:29.420 and who their people called the Mino, the mothers. And she is connected to goddesses
00:11:35.680 and grandmothers so far away
00:11:37.380 it hurts to remember them
00:11:38.760 this loa that emerges 0.99
00:11:41.680 from Seseo Fatiman and the women
00:11:43.580 of the revolution is a memory
00:11:45.040 alive and expansive
00:11:46.540 and in her power in ritual
00:11:49.380 and in the lifeblood that is imagination
00:11:51.560 a seed in amber
00:11:53.260 is carrying selves
00:11:55.440 within selves through trauma
00:11:57.280 the priestess in the woods draws on knowledge
00:12:01.240 and spirit of the assembled people
00:12:03.160 from Dahomi but also
00:12:04.720 Yoruba land and the Bacongo peoples
00:12:07.020 Islamic enslaved peoples 0.98
00:12:08.740 the Arawak religion 0.95
00:12:10.040 Freemasonry, useful pieces
00:12:13.060 from Christianity and something
00:12:14.980 else as well
00:12:15.860 something that emerges when these forces are combined
00:12:18.820 under incredible pressure
00:12:20.100 and people take what they need from each other
00:12:23.080 to fuel their survival
00:12:24.520 and their resistance
00:12:26.400 The priestess that night in the woods
00:12:31.000 and in the Boa Cayman woods of cultural
00:12:32.980 memory that becomes the storied birthplace of Haiti is in the company of many spirits and many
00:12:39.220 ancestors. She considers the unknown and becomes one with it. For a few moments she is lit from
00:12:46.660 within. She is the loi. She is an emergent energy. Her life is a sacred communion with all the people 0.99
00:12:54.100 who need her michelle and belgaard smith continue during ceremonies lois mount their
00:13:02.060 their horses joining in the life of the living to deal with health and family crises and spiritual
00:13:07.840 imbalance to allow energy to flow better and to advise chastise guide and restore balance and
00:13:14.560 harmony continuously opening the channels of communication between spirits and humans
00:13:20.460 the priestess is holding the mane of wild horses and she is ridden by something enormous
00:13:25.980 she can gather the life force around her and in the offerings and sacrifices and send it
00:13:31.900 swooning out into all who are present to become a force in the great wave of an uprising that 0.92
00:13:37.040 will stand alone in the history of the oppressed hades is the only uprising by enslaved people
00:13:42.420 to result in regime change and a democracy led by the enslaved people the first and only slave 0.88
00:13:49.840 uprising that led to the establishment of a free state without slavery, ruled by non-whites
00:13:55.580 and former slaves. 0.92
00:13:58.740 So Haiti's history as an independent nation begins with black people overthrowing their
00:14:03.540 murderous oppressors and declaring that their lives matter.
00:14:08.200 They found strength while in degrading and brutal conditions to launch into the world
00:14:12.940 the somehow still radical idea 0.61
00:14:15.220 that black lives matter
00:14:17.840 and that liberty, equality, and kinship
00:14:20.680 are the rights of each living person
00:14:23.200 to be seen as family, to be free and equal
00:14:27.100 we are still grappling to imagine systems
00:14:31.520 that would enact that promise
00:14:33.140 and that would cherish the mothers 0.63
00:14:35.600 and the generations of mothers left behind
00:14:38.560 the Haitian people
00:14:40.600 with their voodoo now a sacred and nationally
00:14:42.900 recognized religion
00:14:44.080 deserve to be honored for the wisdom that led to
00:14:46.840 this triumph, this lesson sketched
00:14:49.120 in dance and song and blood
00:14:50.800 and tears
00:14:51.440 this ongoing, unfolding, revolutionary
00:14:54.900 act of hopefulness and courage
00:14:57.140 and of imagination
00:14:58.880 and I hope you
00:15:00.920 will accept this bit of
00:15:02.800 writing and research in that spirit
00:15:05.020 an offering from
00:15:06.860 a distant supplicant
00:15:08.060 who's just honored and awed to get to spend any time with this story 0.51
00:15:12.900 just hoping to learn from it and soak it in and not fuck it up too much
00:15:18.640 which is we're back to talk about foxglove farm we love these subscription boxes subscription
00:15:28.260 boxes subscription boxes and how full of magic they are yeah recently you spoke once or twice
00:15:37.000 saw a million times about um us being so lucky having found like soulmate collaborators in each
00:15:41.940 other soulmate editors and i think i would like to add fox love farm to that list of soulmates
00:15:47.760 a soulmate sponsor who really is just like it's hard to be anti-capitalist and still like eat food
00:15:54.780 as we all know yeah so it was really important for us to find a sponsor that was like ethically
00:16:00.260 sound or at least like in line with our values and sammy is like that and beyond
00:16:04.700 yeah plus the boxes are so cute and they support so many witches and so many artists it's just like
00:16:12.540 a wonderful little bit of self-care that is community care that you can do to go get yourself
00:16:17.580 one of these subscription boxes and you're sponsoring and supporting missing witches when
00:16:22.100 you do it so get yourself yeah get yourself a monthly present and don't forget to use that
00:16:27.640 offer code missingwitches when you shop at foxglovefarm.com. Jane Boivar summarizes this
00:16:35.000 moment and the Mambos who fired and birthed it. By the end of the 18th century, several conditions 1.00
00:16:41.480 came together which would change predominantly covert resistance to slavery into outright
00:16:46.720 revolt. First, in terms of demographics, slaves had become an overwhelming presence in the colony.
00:16:53.380 Maronnage had brought the slaves together, and Vodou had given them strength.
00:16:57.680 Priests and priestesses were in place to serve as their leaders and organizers.
00:17:02.860 Bookman Deddy, one of the great Vodou priests, encouraged slaves to organize themselves and
00:17:07.720 to rebel against their owners.
00:17:09.960 This Jamaican-born slave was a driver, then coachman, at the Clement Plantation. 0.76
00:17:15.280 Bookman went on to preside at the famous organizational meeting held outside of Morin Rouge. 0.95
00:17:20.680 Immediately following a Vodou ceremony in the Boa Quayman,
00:17:24.040 Bugman extorted his followers to carry out the first successful slave revolt of the Haitian Revolution.
00:17:30.460 This ceremony at Boa Quayman is considered the founding gesture of the Haitian nation.
00:17:36.560 Many great Vodou priestesses had an important role and gave superhuman courage to insurgents.
00:17:42.560 An important mambo of this period was Sissel Fatiman. 0.96
00:17:46.060 She is described as a green-eyed mulatto 0.95
00:17:50.840 Sometimes an old woman with bristly hair or with long silk and black hair 0.97
00:17:56.040 This priestess played a major role in the Boisquemin ceremony
00:17:59.720 Over 100 plantations were represented at this meeting in the North Province
00:18:05.160 A J.C. d'Orsanville described Fatiman's role that night, August 14, 1791
00:18:11.520 Where, in the midst of a violent thunderstorm
00:18:14.280 Participants see an old negro woman stand up
00:18:17.940 Her body is shaken by prolonged trembling 0.94
00:18:20.500 She sings pirouettes and twists a large kitchen knife over her head
00:18:25.240 Then they bring in a black pig whose grunts are lost in the roar of the storm 0.98
00:18:29.520 With a quick gesture, the inspired priestess plunges the knife into the animal's throat
00:18:36.200 Blood flows and the steaming liquid is collected and distributed all around to the slaves who drink some of it
00:18:41.960 After the sacrifice, Fatima began to invoke the deities
00:18:47.320 Buchman rose to deliver an impassioned oration to the assembled slaves
00:18:52.420 It was, in essence, a call to arms
00:18:55.140 A few nights later, the Haitian Revolution was to begin
00:18:58.640 The night of the 21st of August, the insurgents set fire to many plantations
00:19:04.060 200 shubu refineries were burned, as well as 1,800 coffee plantations
00:19:09.820 1,000 whites, masters, wives, and children had their throats cut
00:19:14.460 The stories of how violence begets violence are old and exhausting
00:19:18.900 The history of Haiti, of how the people of Haiti were violated, stolen, betrayed, battered over and over
00:19:27.580 by colonialism, neocolonialism, corruption, fascism, weather, and disease
00:19:33.200 sometimes in terrifying combination
00:19:35.100 like after the devastating earthquake in 2010 when cholera infected waste from a united nations
00:19:40.700 peacekeeping station contaminated the country's main river causing an outbreak that would last
00:19:45.840 nine years and claim over 10 000 lives and then again how they survive and rise and are betrayed
00:19:55.100 come together to heal and commune again and again there's violence and murderers rapists
00:20:01.480 from within and without again and again
00:20:04.920 is an infuriating spiral of heartbreak
00:20:07.760 and I don't want to crumple down
00:20:09.860 into a story of loss and anger here
00:20:12.060 I want instead to cherish those seeds
00:20:15.820 to celebrate the people 0.72
00:20:17.760 and especially the mamas, the mambos, the priestesses
00:20:21.100 the women and their magic
00:20:23.480 in crick-crack, incredible Haitian author
00:20:27.120 Edward Judandicat writes
00:20:28.460 the women in your family have never lost touch with one another
00:20:32.280 death is a path we take to meet on the other side
00:20:35.920 and amidst so much loss there are
00:20:39.780 and always have been paths towards each other
00:20:42.320 women who did not get to own their lives 0.97
00:20:46.100 become ancestors 0.81
00:20:47.260 reaching out to inflame and comfort and haunt and uplift
00:20:52.220 from the other side
00:20:53.360 even without knowing their names or stories
00:20:57.740 you can feel their hands on your shoulders
00:21:02.840 you can honor them with your life
00:21:06.800 elsewhere in that spectacular novel
00:21:11.040 Dandy Cat writes
00:21:12.000 pretend that this is a time of miracles
00:21:14.740 and we believe in them
00:21:16.240 pretend that this is a time of miracles
00:21:20.700 and we believe in them
00:21:22.400 with this one line
00:21:24.900 and she both uplifts me and breaks my heart.
00:21:27.960 But I think we can give ourselves some hope here with this,
00:21:32.020 about the power of what that pretending does.
00:21:35.840 That imagination can give us miracles,
00:21:38.940 and also that hopeful, fake it till we make it belief
00:21:43.040 that lets us have those miracles as our own.
00:21:48.640 Dr. Marina Magloa, who studies the role of Haitian spirituality
00:21:52.280 and black American women writers and black feminism
00:21:55.120 and Afro-diasporic religions and who we get to talk to 0.99
00:21:58.260 for a Witch's Found episode coming up this week.
00:22:02.260 And her writing describes a moment when two protests met
00:22:05.080 on a Miami street in 2020.
00:22:08.760 And I want to add it to our circle here
00:22:10.900 because I think it's useful and magical for us
00:22:14.180 as we imagine the real, thrumming, electric legacy
00:22:18.100 of that night in the woods with the priestess,
00:22:20.800 CĂ©cile Fatiman in Bois Cayman
00:22:23.760 Marina walked with the Haitian Americans
00:22:27.940 protesting the violent assault by police of François-Alexandre
00:22:31.480 and she was there as they met and joined
00:22:34.340 with a black trans lives matter protest
00:22:36.540 we moved north
00:22:39.360 through the ravages of unchecked gentrification in Wynwood
00:22:42.700 through residential neighborhoods 0.97
00:22:44.860 where grannies in house dresses came out on their porches 0.97
00:22:47.600 to shake their hips and raise their fists
00:22:49.780 somewhere around 36th street and northwest second avenue something miraculous happened
00:22:55.860 we passed under the i-195 and the rah-rah band exploded in a burst of energy
00:23:02.360 all of a sudden the disparate protests seemed to be of one purpose the chant of black lives
00:23:08.620 matter fell in time with the drums and unified voices were amplified in an echo chamber of 0.78
00:23:13.400 concrete a young queer man began twerking on a pole we blocked a major intersection in a vortex 0.83
00:23:19.040 of chanting and dancing, and I thought of the drumming and dancing 0.86
00:23:22.960 at Bois-Quimain in 1791, a voodoo ceremony
00:23:27.200 that purportedly began the Haitian Revolution.
00:23:31.000 There is a possibility of common purpose, listeners,
00:23:35.240 witches. A moment when the rivers of our pain and anger
00:23:38.860 and activism can run together to uplift and not subsume us.
00:23:43.840 A moment when we echo in the concrete, a common purpose
00:23:46.980 offering what we have to the dance of imagining freedom together
00:23:50.180 of actually hearing each other so we can pick up the rhythm
00:23:53.620 under the right conditions and a rah-rah band certainly helps
00:23:58.340 the possibility of truly finally collectively becoming alive to each other
00:24:03.780 and awakening from the lull and terror of capitalism's insidious
00:24:09.860 and racist hallucination can emerge
00:24:13.320 Roxane Gay, another writer of Haitian descent who lights up my life
00:24:18.140 writes in her first book, IET
00:24:19.640 things Americans do not know about zombies
00:24:22.540 they are not dead, they are near death
00:24:25.960 there's a difference
00:24:27.160 they are not imaginary
00:24:29.060 they do not eat human flesh
00:24:31.780 they cannot eat salt
00:24:33.760 they do not walk around with their arms and legs locked stiffly
00:24:37.960 they can be saved
00:24:40.600 they can be saved
00:24:45.480 and if some part of you feels like capitalism, injustice, violence
00:24:51.760 has made you zombie-like, stuck repeating patterns
00:24:55.900 bitter and dry and not fully tasting life
00:24:59.720 maybe there's some hope for us here
00:25:02.260 in this memory of Cicel Fatima and in the spirit of Marinette
00:25:06.220 and in learning from a post-colonial spiritual philosophy
00:25:09.760 that knows what it is to make a person into a zombie
00:25:12.320 and knows how to save them.
00:25:16.840 Roxane Gay also wrote,
00:25:18.720 I didn't believe in magic and I don't now,
00:25:21.600 but I believe in the power of believing in magic.
00:25:25.480 I believed that a girl could switch paths,
00:25:28.300 could make trouble instead of find it, 0.99
00:25:30.720 if she only had the right set of spells to cast. 1.00
00:25:34.540 Witches are, with few exceptions, the bad girls. 1.00
00:25:37.560 They are closely associated with evil. 0.85
00:25:39.760 with Satanism, though if you talk to any practicing Wiccan concerned with positive magic, herbs, 0.74
00:25:45.400 and healing, they will of course tell you this is slander and dangerous nonsense.
00:25:51.080 And witches, when accused throughout Western history or depicted on television or in films,
00:25:56.180 are often either very young or very old. They are either bursting with hormones and new sexuality,
00:26:02.080 a great temptation to men, or they are dried up, no longer fertile and useless and terrifying to 0.96
00:26:09.240 men but real witches of course are the kind of women who can make their own fate they do not 0.96
00:26:17.220 need men and they are wild with new feelings and ideas and spells they may or may not have real 1.00
00:26:24.460 magic but they are the kind of women who can howl at the moon maybe gay rights the best spell of 0.97
00:26:32.140 protection was me. 0.82
00:26:37.400 Coven,
00:26:38.380 listeners, witches, 0.73
00:26:40.580 there is power in believing
00:26:42.300 in your own magic
00:26:43.680 and in believing this is a time of magic.
00:26:47.900 There is power in being a spell 0.98
00:26:50.200 of protection for your own damned 0.97
00:26:52.060 and blessed self. 1.00
00:26:54.640 Like witches and priestesses 1.00
00:26:56.320 of other cultures, enslaved women 1.00
00:26:58.140 of Haiti who were Voodoo practitioners 0.97
00:27:00.360 had knowledge that was useful for their protection 1.00
00:27:03.580 and dangerous to their tormentors.
00:27:08.240 Under the extreme violence and defilement of slavery, 1.00
00:27:12.520 women circulated knowledge of ways of ending pregnancies, 0.98
00:27:16.200 conceived in rape, 0.99
00:27:17.980 and even of painless ways to escape life entirely.
00:27:22.960 And then, as the word revolution came through the night, 0.99
00:27:27.240 and as their fury fucking mounted, 0.99
00:27:29.240 they'd turn that knowledge against their oppressors, 1.00
00:27:32.580 switched paths, made trouble.
00:27:36.560 Medicines for escaping from the tortured body
00:27:38.960 became medicines for actual living freedom
00:27:41.540 and upheaval and revenge. 0.93
00:27:45.680 Under the leadership of lodu priestesses and priests,
00:27:48.860 these poisonings evolved into organized revolts,
00:27:52.760 sending slave owners into a panic.
00:27:55.820 It also came to be known among colonists 0.96
00:27:57.900 that midwives were using abortion as a means of resistance. 1.00
00:28:02.120 Women sought to help end pregnancies resulting from rape 0.98
00:28:05.080 and to keep their children from an enslaved life 0.90
00:28:07.540 and in doing so, to save their own strength,
00:28:11.720 to protect what in them was like a weapon and a tool against oppression,
00:28:16.200 to give them back their ability to run and fight
00:28:19.900 and increase their own chances of survival. 0.98
00:28:24.120 The ability to safely end a pregnancy 1.00
00:28:26.380 let more women escape to join the maroons in the woods 0.99
00:28:29.240 to add their skill and knowledge to the growing communities there 0.92
00:28:33.740 to become tactical and spiritual leaders and organizers
00:28:37.400 to tip the scales and turn the tide
00:28:39.980 for their knowledge and ability to give women choices 1.00
00:28:43.840 along the roads to life and death 1.00
00:28:45.960 colonists became terrified of midwifery by slave women 0.95
00:28:50.200 and made their labor illegal 0.50
00:28:52.180 as the clock ticked closer to revolution
00:28:55.160 by the end of summer 1791 0.85
00:28:59.000 the first slave armies were gathering
00:29:01.080 in northern Haiti under the leadership of Toussaint Lovatzer
00:29:04.840 inspired by Bucman, Fatiman
00:29:07.000 and that night in the Bois Cayman
00:29:09.520 and by the blessings of the Loire
00:29:11.680 and by the rhythm that rode out on wild horses
00:29:14.700 from that ritual in the woods all across the countryside
00:29:18.100 soon a full-blown slave rebellion had broken out
00:29:21.820 across the entire colony
00:29:23.440 Garvey F. Lundy writes
00:29:26.260 During the Boakeman ceremony, Cicel Fatiman was the officiating Mamba who invoked the Vodou deity, or Loa, as Zinidanto.
00:29:35.780 It is reported that a black pig was sacrificed, thus marking the ceremony as a Petwo Rite of Vodou.
00:29:41.760 The Petwo Rite, or Nakbon, is believed to be a uniquely Haitian manifestation of the Vodou religion.
00:29:49.380 For example, relatively to the Rada, or Jinen Nakbon,
00:29:53.440 The Petro-Nantron cannot trace its origins solely to Dahomey.
00:29:58.920 Its origins are rather in the African struggle against slavery,
00:30:03.420 and it is closely associated with the Haitian Revolution,
00:30:06.900 as well as other Haitian uprisings against oppression,
00:30:09.860 such as the Kakos in 1915,
00:30:12.960 or the overthrow of Baby Doc in 1986.
00:30:18.380 According to Moreau de Semeris, 0.92
00:30:20.640 The Petwo Nantron was introduced in 1768 by a powerful hungan
00:30:28.620 by the name of Don Petro in Petit Goave. 0.59
00:30:32.620 He introduced a dance called the Dance Ă  Don Petre,
00:30:36.000 whose rhythm was so powerful and electrifying that it was forbidden.
00:30:40.640 Spend even a little time doing this kind of reading that we do for Missing Witches,
00:30:44.980 and you realize the history of people colonized
00:30:48.500 is often a history of dances outlawed.
00:30:52.920 And I think there's a small clue here
00:30:55.160 for those of us interested in making magic and good trouble.
00:30:59.700 There's something about moving our bodies
00:31:02.000 alone and especially together.
00:31:05.580 Truly owning our bodies.
00:31:08.320 Owning how and when we choose to use and synchronize them
00:31:11.960 is a revolutionary act.
00:31:14.980 Dance is a revolutionary act somehow, sometimes,
00:31:19.560 a powerful, magical act of energy and connection and manifestation.
00:31:27.620 Haitian Vodou tradition calls on its followers to come together
00:31:31.000 around a physical symbol of connection between above and below,
00:31:35.480 to enter a sacred and cleansed space of rooted power, and to dance.
00:31:41.440 Belgarde Smith, Claudine Michel, and Gerdes Florent
00:31:46.640 in Vaudun Music and Society in Haiti, Affirmation and Identity, write
00:31:51.100 most ceremonies take place in the peristyle
00:31:54.240 whose patometan, center post, is believed to incarnate
00:31:58.380 ancestral and spiritual forces of family and community.
00:32:02.900 The people dance around the patometan
00:32:05.060 which is the point of genesis, of essential segments of the ritual process.
00:32:11.440 The religion consists of many rites or styles of worship, such as rada, congo, nago, petwo, ibo, and makanda, or bizango, but in actual practice Haitian vodun is divided into two major rites, the rada, whose music and structure are retained quite faithfully from the faun ewe and the yoruba of Dahomea, Nigeria,
00:32:34.520 and the Petwo, which might be called Congo-Petwo
00:32:38.740 for it retains syncretic elements from the Congo-Angola region
00:32:42.120 that were redefined in the crucible of the colonial plantation system of Saint-Domingue,
00:32:47.960 presently Haiti.
00:32:50.480 Contrary to what was believed in the past,
00:32:52.500 the division between Rada and Congo-Petwo is not so rigid,
00:32:56.620 for Vaudun results from the fusion of cultural practices
00:32:59.760 of what Haitians call the 21 or 101 nations.
00:33:04.520 or African ethnic groups.
00:33:08.400 Many Loa, known as Andezo, or in two substances,
00:33:14.940 are worshipped in both the Rada and the Congo Petro cults.
00:33:18.860 According to Vodun beliefs, Bondye, called Maulisa among the faun, 0.74
00:33:23.760 or Olurun among the Yoruba, created the universe, the Loa,
00:33:28.760 human beings, and the animal, vegetal, and mineral worlds. 0.98
00:33:32.680 After creating the world, Bondi retired far into the sky
00:33:38.000 and left the management of all earthly matters to the Loire
00:33:41.480 who have dominion over natural elements such as fire, water, wind, trees, plants 0.86
00:33:48.140 including the secrets of the medicinal properties of these elements
00:33:51.940 and illnesses and their cures
00:33:53.720 In sum, all actions, sentiments and virtues
00:33:58.280 in the Vodun belief system
00:34:01.640 one finds a series of spiritual entities
00:34:03.800 who are often synchronized with Roman Catholic saints
00:34:06.640 in their various specializations
00:34:08.520 that enhance human existence
00:34:10.420 for example Legba, the opener of the cosmic gate
00:34:13.960 must be invoked at the beginning of all undertakings
00:34:17.260 Azaka rules over agriculture
00:34:20.640 Arzuli's domain is love 0.97
00:34:23.040 and Ogu, the entity of defense
00:34:26.680 stands on guard
00:34:27.680 this knowledge and its teachings are preserved
00:34:31.680 in songs and dances that are also reminders
00:34:34.960 of the attributes of the loa
00:34:36.780 the knowledge of dominion over natural elements
00:34:40.940 of medicine and healing, life and death
00:34:44.000 and sentiments and virtues is preserved
00:34:46.320 in song and dance
00:34:48.760 and so something of the divine emerges
00:34:51.880 when together we get the rhythm right
00:34:53.960 Vaudun is itself an emergent and unifying rhythm
00:34:59.120 a coming together of slaves and escaped slaves 0.97
00:35:02.700 called maroons who had found a little peace
00:35:05.420 on small farms in the dense woods
00:35:07.360 and who still decided to face the terror of the cities
00:35:10.220 to come back, to come together
00:35:13.060 to resist
00:35:15.040 Jane Boivard in Colonial Hell and Female Slave Resistance 0.74
00:35:20.620 in Saint-Domingue writes 0.88
00:35:21.840 maronnage was a crucial step in unifying the slaves and in turning the tide to more overt
00:35:27.080 forms of resistance a process of deculturation had accompanied the physical torture and other
00:35:32.860 abuses of slavery under the guise of catholic baptism white owners routinely stripped enslaved
00:35:39.120 blacks of their names but away from the watchful eye of their masters slaves were able to consolidate
00:35:46.080 themselves, often in large groups, preserve their own culture and make plans in secret.
00:35:53.540 All the formerly divided slaves, bosses, field workers and domestics, as well as both Salas 0.77
00:36:00.220 and Creoles, came to be united as Maroons. 0.77
00:36:04.600 Many diverse groups of people came together to form enclaves, sometimes according to ethnic
00:36:09.820 solidarity, but also at times because of work group solidarity.
00:36:16.080 In their refuges, Maroons continued to practice Vodou,
00:36:19.900 an amalgam of their various African religions
00:36:22.280 which had taken on rites and images of the Catholic faith.
00:36:26.860 Vodou had always served as a means of protection for the slaves,
00:36:30.680 a sanctuary to escape the brutality of slavery.
00:36:34.060 But as Nichols tells us, religion is not always a sedative,
00:36:38.380 but may become a source of inspiration and a prelude to action.
00:36:41.860 Vodou served exactly those purposes for the slaves of Saint-Domingue.
00:36:48.420 Their new world religion brought the diverse elements of their African heritage together
00:36:53.140 and gave them a bond and a new identity,
00:36:55.940 a way of joining together in order to survive the domination of white culture. 0.78
00:37:00.380 The idea of returning after death to Guinea,
00:37:03.520 a term used to indicate the whole of West Africa which came to stand for a mythical paradise in Vodou, 0.99
00:37:08.780 gave maroons additional strength to progress
00:37:11.780 to a new phase of resistance. 0.99
00:37:14.740 In their dwellings on the plantations
00:37:16.740 and especially under the secret cover of the maroons, 0.99
00:37:20.300 voodoo developed into the leavening agent
00:37:22.820 for their liberation from chains.
00:37:27.900 Our rituals, our magic, our heritage
00:37:31.400 can be a leavening agent for our liberation.
00:37:35.680 a source of inspiration and a prelude to action
00:37:40.180 I love this
00:37:43.760 that religion doesn't have to be a prison of doctrine
00:37:47.220 a means of enculturation and control
00:37:51.580 something about owning it and creating it together
00:37:55.720 can mean that our words, our spells, our gathering together
00:37:58.840 even at a distance
00:37:59.960 can make the ingredients of ourselves and the moments we are in
00:38:04.540 transform and rise and change the world this insight from Haitian history is alchemical and
00:38:13.360 speaks to why so many of us go seeking for spiritual philosophies that connect us to our
00:38:18.500 own ancestors and specifically to ideologies that explode our loneliness that connect us to others
00:38:25.460 spirits humans animals trees who see us as a part of the wholeness that is out there and also in
00:38:34.300 here, coming to overcome the false brokenness and exhaustion of a whole entire social-political
00:38:42.800 system founded on slavery.
00:38:50.900 Marlene Racine-Toussin, Belgarde Smith, and Michel in From the Horses' Mouths, Women's
00:38:56.720 Words and Women's World, write, 0.76
00:38:58.940 Eslie Danto is a deity whose divine principle represents maternal love. 0.95
00:39:04.300 She is the mother of several children and takes care of those, her sister Eslie Frida, who pretends not to have any. 0.56
00:39:12.120 With Ogu Ferre, the deity of warfare and iron, she participated in the Haitian War of Independence. 0.85
00:39:20.240 For her troubles, her tongue was cut off by the French colonial authorities.
00:39:25.100 She cannot speak, but she is heard clearly.
00:39:27.560 She is also, in the words of Audre Lorde and other black feminists 0.54
00:39:32.580 A woman-identified woman, a lesbian 1.00
00:39:35.880 She is black
00:39:38.020 This well-known song, sung in ceremonies in honor of Danto
00:39:43.040 Reveals a free flow between me and us
00:39:45.640 Between the singular and the collective
00:39:48.380 One seldom notices the change, if one ever did
00:39:52.660 If you see me fall in the waters, it means that we are drowning
00:39:57.260 if this heritage is available to you
00:40:02.100 if it's yours 0.99
00:40:03.180 then the protection of Ezili Danto is for you
00:40:06.320 and the protection of these powerful priestesses
00:40:09.640 can be for you too
00:40:10.700 if you see me fall, then we are drowning
00:40:14.100 if you see me rise, we rise
00:40:17.820 the role of the mambo as one who serves these deities
00:40:21.920 is enormous in its responsibility
00:40:23.920 a priestess isn't just a figurehead
00:40:26.940 if she rises we rise
00:40:30.340 and her role goes beyond the bond to the spiritual world
00:40:33.440 she is also a mother and a provider and a leader
00:40:37.320 Mazama writes
00:40:39.460 to become a mambo means that one agrees to act as an intermediary
00:40:43.320 between the loa and the people
00:40:44.860 in actuality being a mambo equates with being both a servant of the loa
00:40:50.220 and a servant of the people
00:40:51.580 one of the functions of a mambo is to perform divination 0.83
00:40:56.100 this allows the living to find out what may be going on or going wrong in their lives
00:41:01.380 it also allows the loa to inform the living of what they need to do to restore harmony and peace
00:41:07.000 in their lives if necessary it is the mambo's responsibility to assist the living in following
00:41:13.320 the loa's recommendations thus they must be willing to organize and lead whatever formal
00:41:20.240 ritual may be required in return for their loyalty the mambo must act as a counselor and
00:41:25.620 protector and is ultimately responsible for their needs. If necessary, she must feed them and help 0.99
00:41:32.120 pay their hospital bill or children's school tuition. In other words, the mambo is at the 1.00
00:41:37.260 center of a network providing spiritual, social, psychological comfort and support to all attach
00:41:43.440 to it. Indeed, the mambo, with the assistance of the loa whom she serves diligently, is ultimately
00:41:50.640 responsible for the welfare of the members of her society. A mambo must organize and lead whatever 0.99
00:41:56.540 ritual is required, even when that ritual is a revolution. She must communicate with the spirit 0.99
00:42:03.620 of the world and transmit that knowledge in ways others can understand. She is ultimately responsible
00:42:09.780 for the welfare of people. CĂ©cile Fatiman married Louis Michel Pierrot, who led a black battalion 1.00
00:42:18.180 at Vertiare, the site of the final and decisive battle of the Haitian Revolution.
00:42:24.300 At the Battle of Vertiare on the 18th of November in 1803, Haiti officially became the first
00:42:30.500 nation to successfully gain independence through a slave revolt.
00:42:35.700 After Vertiare, France withdrew its remaining 7,000 troops from the island, and Napoleon
00:42:41.200 gave up his idea of re-establishing a North American empire.
00:42:44.280 as part of his departure Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States
00:42:49.680 in the Louisiana Purchase
00:42:51.180 and Haitians became arguably the most successful military strategists
00:42:55.960 in the struggle against Napoleonic France
00:42:58.860 CĂ©cile died in 1887
00:43:02.900 at the age of 112
00:43:04.860 reportedly still in full total possession of her mind
00:43:09.560 112
00:43:12.120 she lived through an incredibly turbulent period in Haitian history
00:43:16.920 the abolition of slavery, the first empire
00:43:19.820 the splitting of the nation into kingdom and republic
00:43:21.980 the crippling insane debt imposed by the French as a requirement for freedom
00:43:27.100 brutal devastating wars with the Dominican Republic
00:43:30.800 repeated coup d'Ă©tat and of course endlessly more
00:43:34.580 it doesn't make the summaries
00:43:36.040 as the people worked to find a life
00:43:39.440 and to craft a new nation out of hope and fragments.
00:43:43.700 Like many witches and priestesses and women we have seen, 0.90
00:43:47.220 the story of the Mambo at Boa Cayman is picked up and used
00:43:50.760 by different people for different purposes
00:43:53.420 many times after this revolutionary spark.
00:43:57.580 Topping into a flicker of power,
00:43:59.220 this moment becomes a useful scaremonger for some,
00:44:01.740 would-be rulers and dictators. 1.00
00:44:05.400 But the real women and their real knowledge and spirit 1.00
00:44:08.760 remain 1.00
00:44:09.500 and they remain uncontained
00:44:12.860 in Haiti and in the diaspora
00:44:16.240 they are and have been there
00:44:18.400 caring for and weaving together
00:44:21.260 families and communities
00:44:22.660 at the center of networks
00:44:25.160 providing comfort and support
00:44:27.420 and carrying the imagination
00:44:29.660 of a better world forward
00:44:31.660 seeds in amber
00:44:33.260 remember Dr. Magloire
00:44:36.580 and that 2020 protest
00:44:37.920 with its rah-rah band and twerking and echoes of Bois Cayman.
00:44:42.280 She writes,
00:44:43.940 Like us, the participants of the Haitian Revolution
00:44:46.780 were black people and a few allies
00:44:49.120 of different cultures, languages, and religions.
00:44:53.220 Like us, they danced their community into being.
00:44:57.400 Black populations in America
00:44:59.180 have so much to learn from each other.
00:45:01.840 To miss this opportunity,
00:45:03.420 especially in the multi-ethnic but divided city of Miami, 1.00
00:45:06.220 would be just another way that, in the words of Adria Lord, we rob ourselves of ourselves 0.51
00:45:12.580 and each other. She continues, I am reminded of a Vodou ritual song describing the spirit
00:45:21.040 loco as the wind and the worshippers as butterflies who bear tidings to the sea spirit Ague.
00:45:28.360 Ague is a solemn, mixed-race spirit, a ship captain who transports the souls of black people
00:45:35.120 across the diaspora, back to Africa when they die.
00:45:40.400 This is what diaspora is, butterflies whispering across the ocean. 0.90
00:45:46.540 The possibilities of diaspora are fractured, fragile, and infinite.
00:45:53.420 In Creole, the word for protest is manifestacion,
00:45:57.580 a false cognate with the English word manifestation.
00:46:00.000 let us dwell in the mistranslation
00:46:03.500 to imagine how protest can be manifested across diaspora
00:46:08.840 witches, listeners
00:46:12.560 let's let this question from Dr. Magloire echo 0.94
00:46:17.280 with the sounds of the drums from that day in Miami
00:46:20.920 and that more distant day in the Bois Cayman
00:46:24.600 and drumming ask inside each of us
00:46:28.100 how can we light up and lift and amplify our protests
00:46:32.540 so that they may make themselves manifest
00:46:35.660 across space and time and diaspora
00:46:38.680 how can we call down the lines to each other
00:46:42.460 to dance the community we envision and demand
00:46:46.060 and deserve together into being
00:46:48.580 when we protest we make manifest
00:46:51.580 our protests might gather together on busy roads
00:46:55.880 to force people to stop and look us in the eye
00:46:58.200 while we dance our agony
00:46:59.460 and call out to our raging loving goddesses
00:47:02.380 and mothers and mambos 0.71
00:47:03.840 and all the individual souls 0.85
00:47:05.440 who have been lost and brutalized
00:47:07.480 by the machineries of racism
00:47:09.720 misogyny, queer and transphobia
00:47:12.360 and ableism
00:47:13.300 or our manifestas 0.85
00:47:16.580 you might be solitary weirdos
00:47:18.320 writing
00:47:18.720 sending it out into the connected webs
00:47:21.900 weeping and yelling
00:47:23.900 and singing our way out to you
00:47:25.520 from the woods under the melting snow.
00:47:29.400 Our protests might be the tactical changes
00:47:32.040 we are bringing into our work
00:47:33.620 in legal systems, health care, systems of control
00:47:38.280 that we will and do bend with our mighty collective will
00:47:42.520 into systems of care.
00:47:45.420 Or it might be in the changes we agitate and advocate for
00:47:49.280 in our familial, social, spiritual, and political communities.
00:47:52.960 but this we know, our protests gather and grow
00:47:56.820 and call a new world into being
00:47:59.640 we birth a new life for ourselves and our past and future ancestors
00:48:05.540 our practice, our craft
00:48:09.080 is a leavening, a rising agent in us
00:48:12.820 calling out and within to conjure more caring
00:48:16.920 and equitable lives, making good on the promise and blood
00:48:21.160 and tears and magic of people like CĂ©cile Fatsumann
00:48:25.540 and all the women, all the marginalized and brutalized
00:48:30.460 and powerful people in our densely interconnected histories 0.77
00:48:33.520 who have been standing on the margins of written history
00:48:36.520 but at the center of their own world,
00:48:39.780 changing circles in the woods,
00:48:42.940 calling liberty, equality, and a true universal family
00:48:46.700 into hearts and minds when it was even harder to imagine
00:48:50.480 than it is now
00:48:51.400 the act of imagining
00:48:54.500 is our inheritance
00:48:55.760 picking it up and holding it high
00:48:58.860 is our debt to them
00:48:59.980 it is our leavening
00:49:01.940 it is how we rise
00:49:04.620 and it is our path together
00:49:06.820 to the true liberation
00:49:08.480 from chains 1.00
00:49:09.520 you must be a witch
00:49:15.240 hey friends if after listening you find you want a little coven loving in your life check out our
00:49:22.780 sponsor foxglove farm use offer code missing witches to get some of that handmade ethical
00:49:28.020 awesome witchy goodness in your life send us your reviews on whatever podcast service you use
00:49:34.060 um and if you want to read the book gosh we'd love to send it to you so find it tell us what
00:49:38.420 you think um and share your thoughts on amazon or goodreads and and yeah see you out there we
00:49:43.360 love you. Be safe. Blessed if I can be.