Mama Lola: Three Ezilis

• Who are the Ezilis? • How do they correspond to the lives of

women and men in Haiti? What do they stand for?

• The mirror image of the people

• What have we learned?

Three Ezilis: female Lwas

• The female spirits are mostly independent: • 1.Ezili Dantò/Mater Salvatoris (solitary mother spirit), the petwo lwa, the

aggressive one. • 2. Ezili Freda/Maria Dolorosa (white woman, spirit of sensuality), the soft one, a

Rada lwa, sweet tempered ones ( Rada vs Petwo,p.101) • 3. Kaouzinn, Lasirenn/Nuestra Senora ( who serves her male counterpart)• She is a market woman. She is in charge of money in the family.

• Female spirits in Vodou: Azka ( the peasant farmer spirit) has a female counterpart named Kouzinn usually appears at the Azaka birthday parties.

• The three ezilis represent mirrors of the womanhood in the Caribbean--the three ways of being woman/mother in the world.

Ezilis Freda and danto

• E

Ezili Dantò/Mater Salvatoris: • The mother is "black, black, black." The grandmother is the nurturer. She

fights for herself and for her children. In addition, she is iconic (always represented with a child). In this, the female's identity and worth come from protection of and responsibility for children.

• Why did the girl never grow up? Why does she still need her mother? Interdependent relationship between mother and daughter. Examples?

• The relationship of Alourde with her mother Philo p. 293 (to understand and forgive) who appears in Alourde’s dream? P.294

• • Relationship with Maggie p. 295

Freda/Maria Dolorosa ( a white woman)

• married and wealthy p. 256 • * Major characteristics: coquettish, bourgeois, materialistic, a prostitute, white.

• * Identity and worth come from relationships with men. She represents the romantic escape--namely, that a man riding a white horse will whisk you off, and you will live happily every after. In this, we see how women fantasize about romance as a solution to their problems.

Lasirenn/Nuestra Senora ( half black and half white)

• * She is closer to Ginen and demonstrates spiritual knowledge/power. She is empowered and empowering. She turns poor women into manbo-healers.

• * In addition, she demonstrates elements of both Dantò and Ezili.

• Tension between Danto and Freda: they are not served together. p. 256 what does it speak? P. 256

• The tension between them speaks of tension in women’s lives. P.256

• Haitians explore questions of race as well as those of class and gender p.256

• Who does Alourdes represent? P.256• Mother-Daughter Bond• • Danto or Mater Salvatoris is a model for the key

bonds in this book: the mother-daughter bond.