Down by the muddy lake of Miragoâne lived an old man named Roi Wangol who one night married the moon. Together they had a son named Gede Nibo and a daughter named Gran Brigitte. Roi Wangol’s children were selfish, conniving little brats who were always trying to fill the bottomless pit of their anger and jealousy by feeding off the souls of humans caught up in the futility of the money chase. Brigitte’s and Nibo’s anger stemmed from the fact that they were both were born under the cold, cold sign of death, relegated to the flotsam and jetsam of graveyards, junk heaps and dunghills. They scratched and scraped for the beauty that forever escaped them. Every now and then, they put on a good show all masked in their opulent finery, but in the end, when it became too late for redemption, people discovered their tatters and the stench of their impossible greed.
Image source: lameca.org
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About Patti Harris
Patti Harris is an anthropologist who teaches at Miami Dade College where she is the chairperson of the Department of Social Sciences. A graduate of the University of Oklahoma, she has done extensive fieldwork in Haiti and will soon publish an ethno-biographical study based on her research.
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