The Taíno were a
pantheistic nation with several female deities. In the 19th century the native
practice blended together with West African slave worship of female deities
Erzulie, Ayezan, Ayida. When Catholic
devotion to the Our Lady of Perpetual Help was introduced, the image of Our
Lady was conflated with one or more of these.
Erzulie is the goddess most commonly conflated with Mary in Haiti. Erzulie, also spelled Ezili, represents the spirit of motherhood,
single motherhood in particular. Today if you ask to see an image of Ezili in
Haiti, you will be presented with the image of Black Madonna of Częstochowa. The origin of this image in Haiti is believed
to be in copies of the icon of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa
brought to Haiti by Polish soldiers fighting on both sides of
the Haitian Revolution from 1802 onwards. Worship of Our Lady in Haiti is not devotion
in the European Catholic sense of that word.
Haitian devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help aka Ezili is associated with
the black creole pig of Haiti
which is said to be her favorite animal sacrifice. Other altar offerings include creme de cacao, rum, perfume
and strong unfiltered cigarettes.
Ezili became a mythic
figure of heroic proportions during the revolution of 1791. “The Revolution
which created the nation of Haiti was inspired by the divine decree of the
warrior love goddess known as Ezili Dantò who danced in the head of the great
Haitian priestess, Cecile Fatiman, on that famous Haitian night in 1791, on a
red hilltop, at a forest thicket in Haiti called Bwa Kayiman. Led by the
powerful warrior spirit of Ezili Dantò, Cecile Fatiman crowned the African
warrior Boukman with her royal red Petwo scepter, ushering in the Haitian war
which forever slashed the chains of European slavery in Haiti to create
Africa’s sacred trust, Manman Ayiti – the first Black nation in the Western
Hemisphere. Ezili Dantò is the symbol of the irreducible essence of that
ancient Black mother, mother of all the races, who holds Haiti’s umbilical cord
back to Africa."
