What syncretism actually is is kind of sneaky. But if you have been kidnapped and you don’t want to get the stuffing beat out of you or get slave-auction sold down the river you will go to some convoluted lengths to keep your African Traditional Spiritual practices on the down-low.
“What’s that, Massa? Why it be jes a pictcha o’ Sain’ Hannah, Massa, an dat be good ol Michael evabody favrite archangel right thar by she.” Heh Heh, apologies to Harriet Beecher Stowe for the unflattering phonetic transliteration of stereotypical African American dialect. Oh, right, she invented degrading colloquial dialect as a literary device. Never mind.
What it actually is is the invocation of Anaisa Pye, a powerful and benign African Loa, or spiritual presence, as seen by the Voudon practitioners of Haiti and New Orleans and yours, thank you very much, truly. She is often paired with her pal Belie Belcan, a male Loa syncretistically represented by Michael the Archangel as she brings healing and clears difficulties and brings sisterly love and good cheer to the oppressed among us chicks.
I dunno so much about Belie Belcan, I don’t study “fe dat mon,” but this is my interpretation of how I want to invoke the healing of Anaisa Pye, and I am fresh out of icons of Saint Anne, who is said to have been the mother of Mary. Historically nobody knows very much about Christ's Grandma, so everybody claims something different, according to their own needs and cultural prism.
I'm not keeping this on the down-low. Nobody is going to sell me down the river. I be past my sell-by date...
No comments:
Post a Comment