"Barbara Hambly - Benjamin January 3 - Graveyard Dust" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

Benjamin January
Book 3


Graveyard Dust


Barbara Hambly


For Mary Ann


Special thanks to those, in New Orleans and elsewhere, who have helped me with this book: to
Paul Nevski of Le Monde Creole; to the Staff of the Historic New Orleans Collection; to Tim
Trahan of Animal Arts in New Orleans; to Priestess Miriam of the Voodoo Spirit Temple; to
Greg Osborn of the New Orleans Public Library; to Adrian and Victoria; to Kate Miciak; to
Diana Paxson; and always, to George.
TERMINOLOGY OF VOODOO
Since voodoo terms were originally transliterated from various West African languages through
creolized French, spelling is a matter of guesswork. I have in most cases used the modern Haitian
spellings and names as found in Metraux's Voodoo in Haiti, the starting point of much of my
research.
The shape and structure of voodoo in Louisiana in the 1830s is something that can only be
guessed at. Refugees fleeing the uprisings in Sainte Domingue (the island now divided into Haiti
and Santo Domingo) brought extensive voodoo beliefs with them to a land that already had its
own variants of these same practices, and much depended on the religion's interaction with its
immediate surroundings. In Haiti, after the black revolution, voodoo became an accepted
religion; in Louisiana its evolution was marked by external pressures from the prevailing
Christianity and culture. In addition, the voodoo loa tends to proliferate: There are dozens of
variations of the spirit Ezili (or Erzuli), of Ogu (Ogou)-Ogu Feray, Ogu Badagri, Ogu Osanyl,
and Sen (or San) Jak, Maje and others-of Baron (or Bawon) Samedi or Cemetery, also known as
Baron La Croix. I have simplified as much as I can without doing violence to what I understand
to be the basic tenets of the religion.
Some loa:
Ogzc (or Ogou)-warrior spirit of justice, often depicted as a soldier; frequently identified with
Saint James the Greater Shango-blacksmith spirit, also warrior; a spirit of iron and fire
Ezili (or Erzuli)-spirit of womanhood, in various incarnations a mother and an Aphrodite flirt
Baron Samedi (or Baron Cemetery)-lord of the dead, often depicted as an obscene trickster, lord
of the Guédé
Guédé--family of dark and dangerous spirits, spirits of power and death
Papa Legba (or Limba)-ruler of the crossroads, of doorways and bridges, and of transition states;
he is the first loa petitioned in Haitian ritual, that he may open the doors for the other loa to pass
through
Damballah-Wedo--the sacred serpent, spirit of the rainbow and of water; called also the Zombi-
Damballah
Bosou-bull spirit of potency and strength

The loa may possess worshipers of either their own identified gender, or the opposite, and may
possess them to various degrees. Some "horses," as the possessed are called, do not remember