Baron, with his wife Maman Brigitte, is also responsible for reclaiming
                        the souls of the dead (see Part 1) and transforming them into lwa
                        Ghede. Baron may be invoked for cases of infertility, and he is the
                        divine judge to which people may bring their appeals, singing:

                        (Haitian Creole)
                        O kwa, o jibile (repeat)
                        Ou pa we m inosan?

                        (English)
                        Oh, cross! Oh, jubilee!
                        Don't you see I'm innocent?

                        The grave of the first man buried in any cemetery in Haiti,
whether the person in life participated in the Vodou religion or not, is dedicated to Baron
(not Ghede), and a ceremonial cross is erected on the spot. In family compounds in the
countryside, a family may erect a cross to Baron for their own lineage, and no peristyle is
complete without the cross of Baron somewhere on the grounds.

Baron may be invoked at any time, and he can appear without being called, so powerful is he. He
drinks rum in which twenty-one hot peppers have been steeped, and which no mere mortal could
swallow! His ceremonial foods are black coffee, grilled peanuts, and bread. He dances the
remarkably improvisational banda with great skill, and sometimes puts his walking stick between
his legs to represent a phallus. Baron is a very masculine lwa.

One day, I saw a Baron possess a homosexual Houngan (see Homosexuality in Vodou). A passing
woman teased Baron that he was a "masisi" (faggot, disrespectful term for a homosexual man.)
Baron reared up and roared at the woman, "I am Baron! This Houngan, my Houngan, he is a
faggot, yes, but I, Baron, I'm no faggot, I f*ck the beautiful woman Maman Brigitte!" And he
stalked off in high dudgeon, swinging his baton most threateningly.

The Feast of the Ancestors, Fet Ghede, is considered the end of the old year and the
beginning of the new, much as in the European Wiccan tradition. Any debts to
Baron, Maman Brigitte, or Ghede must be paid at this time. Baron Kriminel sings to
his debtors:

(Haitian Creole)
Bawon Kriminel, map travay pou ve de te yo, m pa bezwenn lajan (repeat),
Bawon Kriminel, O! Lane a bout o, map paret tan yo.

(English)
Baron Criminel, I'm working for the worms of the earth (lowly, poor people),
I don't need money (repeat),
Baron Criminel, oh! The year has ended, oh, I'll appear, to wait for them (to pay me).

_________________
MAMAN BRIGITTE

      Maman Brigitte, surprisingly enough for a Vodou lwa, is British in origin, descended from
      Brigid/St. Brigit, the Celtic "triple goddess" of poetry, smithcraft, and healing. She must
      have come to Haiti in the hearts of deported Scottish and Irish indentured servants. There is
even a song we sing in ceremonies which goes Maman Brijit, li soti nan anglete, Maman Brigitte,
she comes from England..." (I think that Brigid was more Scottish than English, but in Haiti
perhaps at one time the word anglete represented all the British Isles.)

Nowadays, Maman Brigitte is considered to be the wife of Baron, Master of the Cemetery and
chief of all the departed ancestors, known as lwa Ghede. The grave of the first woman buried in
any cemetery in Haiti is consecrated to Maman Brigitte, and it is there that her ceremonial cross is
erected. She, as well as Baron, is invoked to "raise the dead", meaning to cure and save those who
are on the point of death from illness caused by magic. Here is a very famous song about Maman
Brigitte sung in Vodou ceremonies:

(Haitian Creole)
Mesye la kwa avanse pou l we yo!
Maman Brigitte malad, li kouche sou do,
Pawol anpil pa leve le mo (les morts, Fr.)
Mare tet ou, mare vant ou, mare ren ou,
Yo prale we ki jan yap met a jenou.

(English)
Gentlemen of the cross (deceased ancestors) advance for her to see them!
Maman Brigitte is sick, she lies down on her back,
A lot of talk won't raise the dead,
Tie up your head, tie up your belly, tie up your kidneys,
They will see how they will get down on their knees.
(Meaning, tie up your belly, 'gird up your loins' to prepare for the strain of work, we will make the
people who did this evil spell get down on their
knees to beg pardon and receive their punishment.)

            Maman Brigitte, like the rest of the Baron/Ghede constellation, is a
            tough-talking lwa who uses a lot of obscenities. She drinks rum laced with hot
            pepper, so hot that a person not possessed by a lwa could never drink it. She
           also is known to pass hot Haitian peppers on the skin of her genitals, and this is the
            test to which women are subjected when they are suspected of "faking" possession.
            She dances the sexually suggestive and remarkably artistic banda, and the virtuosity
            of her dancing is legendary.

            Maman Brigitte and Baron are the mother and father who reclaim the souls of the
dead and transform them into lwa Ghede, removing them from the mystic waters where they were
without cognizance of their own identity and naming them.

There is a plaintive song about the condition of souls in the mystic waters, which is also sung when
an initiate is being prepared for the period of seclusion, ritual death, and rebirth of the initiation
cycle:

(Haitian Creole)
Dlo kwala manyan, nan peyi sa maman pa konn petit li,
Nan peyi sa, fre pa konn se li, dlo kwala manyan.

(English)
Water kwala manyan (not Creole words), in that country a mother does not
know her child,
In that country a brother does not know his sister, water kwala manyan.
__________________

THE LWA GHEDE

      The lwa Ghede are an enormous family of lwa, as many and varied as were the souls from
      which they originated. Since they are all members of the same family, spiritual children of
      Baron and Maman Brigitte, they all have the same last name - La Croix, the cross. No
matter what other name they bear, their signature is always La Croix.

Some Ghede's names include: Ghede Arapice la Croix, Brav
Ghede de la Croix, Ghede Secretaire de la Croix, Ghede
Ti-Charles la Croix, Makaya Moscosso de la Croix; and such
sad and degraded sounding names as Ghede Ti-Mopyon Deye
la Croix (Ghede Little Crab Louse Behind the Cross), Ghede
Fatra de la Croix (Garbage Ghede of the Cross), Ghede Gwo
Zozo nan Crek Tone de la Croix (Ghede Big Cock in Pussy by
Thunder of the Cross) and so on. There is a reason for these
odd names, which will become clear as we go along.

The vast majority of Ghedes are male, but there is at least one
female Ghede which I have seen, called "Ghedelia". Her name
is also emblazoned on a few buses in Port-au-Prince, but I have
not determined whether she is a well known Ghede who may
appear in almost any peristyle, or whether she is a unique
"family" Ghede.

      Ghede may possess anyone, anytime, even Protestants
      (to their enormous embarassment and displeasure.) I
      have a woman friend in Haiti who one day was observing
a group of women possessed by Ghede, cavorting and dancing the banda. She said something like,
"Look at those disgusting whores, they have no respect for themselves." On the spot, a Ghede
possessed my friend, threw her to the ground, and declared from her prostrate body that he would
take her to join her ancestors forthwith! Pleading and intercessions from her family members
finally pacified the Ghede, who promised to relent - on the condition that the woman become a
Mambo! Mambo Delireuse now practices in a rural area near Petite Riviere de l'Artibonite, in
central Haiti!

The Ghedes are very much transitional figures, standing as they do between the living and the
finality of death, between the ancestors in Guinea and the living men and women of Haiti. Perhaps
this is why the Ghede are honored midway through the full orthodox Vodou ceremony, after the
Rada (primarily Dahomean and Yoruban) and before the Petro (primarily Western Hemisphere).

The Ghedes dress much like their father Baron - black or purple clothes, elaborate hats, dark
glasses, sometimes missing a lens, a walking stick or baton. They also dance the banda, but they
retain more of the individual personality of the person from whom they originated. For example,
the Spanish-speaking Ghede I have already discussed turns his baton around and holds it like a
guitar. He pretends to strum as he sings love songs to una mujer. This is a bit atypical, but many
Ghedes proclaim their geographic origins - "I come from Thomazeau", "I'm a Port-au-Prince
guy".

The Ghede family, including their father and mother, Baron and Maman Brigitte, are
absolutely notorious for their use of profanity and sexual terms. There is a reason for this -
the Ghede are dead, beyond all punishment. Nothing further can be done to them, so the
use of profanity among the normally somewhat formal Haitians is a way of saying, "I don't care!
I've passed beyond all suffering, I can't be hurt." In a country where disrespect for authority
figures was until recently punished by torture or death, this is a powerful message.

However, this profanity is never used in a vicious or abusive fashion, to "curse someone out". It is
always humorous, even when there is a pointed message involved.

There are some very stately and dignified songs sung for Ghede, particularly the older, racine or
root aspects such as Brav Ghede. Nowadays however, the accent is on the sexual and obscene
humor the Ghede lwa provide. Here is a popular song sung for Ghede in public celebrations and
Vodou peristyles:

(Haitian Creole)
Si koko te gen dan li tap manje mayi griye,
Se paske li pa gen dan ki fe l manje zozo kale!

(English - hold on to your socks, folks!) -
If vagina had teeth, it would eat roast corn,
It's because it has no teeth, why it eats peeled penis!

      In the same vein, Ghede is said to be a thief. It is true that he appropriates what he likes
      from streetside vendors, but once the seller accedes to Ghede's demands his pilfering is
      usually limited to a few scraps of coconut meat or a bit of roast corn. At Fet Ghede, most
peristyles cook food especially for the hundreds of Ghedes which appear and wander through the
streets. Here is a song that a crowd of Ghedes sang as they went to the house of a well know and
particularly generous Mambo in the Carrefour area of Port-au-Prince, named Lamesi (from the
French La Merci, the thanks).

(Haitian Creole)
Ting ting ting ting kay Lamesi,
Whoi mama,
Kay la Mesi gen yon kochon griye,
Whoi mama!

(English)
Ting ting ting ting Lamesi's house
Whoi mama,
Lamesi's house has a whole roast pig,
Whoi mama!