Rainbringer by Edward M. Erdelac

Author:Edward M. Erdelac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: African American, Lovecraft, Harlem Renaissance, Cthulhu, Horror
Publisher: Edward M. Erdelac
Published: 2021-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

1937

Gods Of The Grim Nation

East of Port-au-Prince in early November the night was moonless. The clouds of a budding storm doused the green land in darkness. Each of the adepts was a god bringing forth light by their ignition of the twenty white candles surrounding Papa Ghede’s cross in the yard of the silent Hounfort.

I was by now used to the joyous noise and magic heat of the Voodoo service, and this solemn ritual at first seemed comparatively incongruous. Voodoo to me was shining bodies cavorting about the gaily painted peristyle in the closeness of the Hounfort, hidden from the white man’s eyes; it was the thunder of drums, beating out a divine rhythm which the hearts of humans could only aspire to, like the pulses of giant hummingbirds; the heartbeats of the gods of Haiti which the devoted hounsi hoped to accommodate as long as his or her mortal frame could withstand them.

This preparation seemed more in line with the Catholic novenas I had seen in New Orleans, replete with flickering votive candles, a cross, and the pious, white face of haloed St. Martin De Porres peering out from the oval frame of his portrait at the intersection of the cross. The warm breeze stirred our white and purple garb, and hissed through the trees.

Papa Ghede, León assured me, was an informal god. He was the loa of the penniless, unobserved by the upper class mulattoes and revered by back country peasants. He was the only loa to have sprung from Haiti herself.

I was nearly two months in the Black Republic on my Guggenheim Fellowship under the direction of Doctors Herskovits and Boaz. After finding myself traveling in the wake of Herskovitz’s other field researcher Katie Dunham, I had decided to strike deeper into the mysteries of Voodoo than my predecessor, so as to better differentiate my own work.

You got to go there to know there, I always say.

Herskovits had recommended me to the esteemed Dr. Reser, who had put me in contact with a good looking young houngan named León from Mirebalais. León had brought me all the way out here to the Plain de Cul de Sac to attend the Fête Ghede, the All Souls ceremony dedicated to Papa Ghede.

“We must be wary of the police in this region,” León had informed me on the bumpy drive along the rutted inland roads in his open top car.

“Dr. Reser said there’ve been a number of ritual style killings in the countryside lately,” I said. “I had thought human sacrifice was a myth in Voodoo.”

“That doesn’t stop the guilty party from trying to put the blame on us,” said León. “Officially, Haiti is a Catholic country. The bishops tell the ti blancs in Port-au-Prince they should be embarrassed of Voodoo. The government is happy to give the police a reason to stop our ceremonies.”

They may as well try to stop the sun from coming up.

“But then who is responsible?”

“Miss Zora, have you heard of Le Secte Rogue?”

Dr. Reser had

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