Hi Alex, I would like to hear your thoughts on the lwa punishing people who are calling on them. I am sure you have heard about the white girl who invoked Papa Legba and then died in a car accident and what was said after that. Do you think that instance and other things like it are the lwa striking someone down?
This is a timely question; I imagine you are seeing some of the same social media posts I am.
I am increasingly uncomfortable around the narratives that go something lik 'X person called on Legba/Ogou/Bawon etc, listen to those saxophones getting louder' or, as in the example you posted, a young woman dying tragically after posting online about her 'invocation' of Legba. This is carefully disguised anti-Haitianismo that plays into racist ideas about Haitian Vodou and Haitians in general; so carefully disguised that I don't think the majority of people who post this stuff actually understand what they are implying.
The idea that the lwa will strike out at or even kill what amounts to a random passerby hits all of the tropes that White supremacist culture would have us believe about Vodou and Haiti: the lwa and Haitians are cruel, savage, and unevolved, that they exist off human sacrifice (white women being the real fulfillment of that trope), that it is an ultimately a demonic culture, and that any person who brushes up against that is at risk. A lot of these things are said about many/most African and African-Descended religions, but Haiti and Haitian Vodou really bear the brunt of it, partially as punishment for being the first free Black republic.
The other aspect of those kinds of statements is that they betray our feelings and opinions and orientations about what we feel is right and just in the world, versus what the lwa think. Folks may want vengeance for what they feel is the wrong person doing the wrong thing and there is nothing wrong with feeling that way. It comes from somewhere important and each person gets to feel their feelings and hold their own opinions. Things get complicated, however, when those feelings and opinions and orientations gets transferred on to the lwa, as if they embody our ethics and morals. They don't. They see much further and more completely than we can, and they do not hold to our expectations and feelings.
There are also the logical bits:
Legba, for example, sits at the gate. The gate is esoteric but, like all things in Vodou, is also a literal function; in Haiti, lakou are often surrounded by walls and there is a gate where anyone seeking business in the lakou enters. These gates are along the public roads. Legba's gate, in the esoteric sense, is on the public spiritual road. He is one of a handful of lwa that are outside the generally accepted boundaries of the 'lakou' of Haitian Vodou. He does many things, but one of his big functions is watching who comes and speaking to those who may inquire, regardless of who they are or where they come from.
Additionally, for example, Legba is an old man and, while he can get spicy like all grandpas can, the amount of mess you would have to make for Legba to pick himself up out of his chair and beat that ass (and beat it to DEATH) is massive....and that is for someone who is a known quantity, like a vodouizan who is consistently and purposefully choosing to do evil over and over and over again, for decades. For someone he doesn't know who is calling his name in a way he is not accustomed to? Legba will drink his coffee and watch the road?
The lwa in general operate under the maxim of 'not my people, not my problem'. If a random member of the public is tugging on their pant leg and the lwa are not interested, the most they will do is ignore. They don't interest themselves in what is happening outside of the spheres they oversee. They aren't interested because they have a whole lot to deal with in their children in Haiti and spread out through the world.
For their children, the lwa are also very patient. No one who is doing their best walks around frightened that they're going to be struck down, even if their best includes errors. The lwa are like the parent who was a child throwing themselves off the couch over and over. They will tell us 'don't do that' and pick us up and then next time say 'don't do that' before picking us up and on and on until it changes to 'don't do that because it's bad for you and I want you to stop'.
If we continue throwing ourselves off the couch despite their rescue and warnings, we will eventually get a tap on the butt (a shot across the spiritual bow) as a warning that if we keep throwing ourselves off the couch we are going to break our heads and they won't be able to stop us. When we throw ourselves off the couch and break our heads, it is not because the lwa have shoved but it's because we haven't listened and they have no longer been able to help us. When we do wrong knowing it is wrong, it is not that they strike out at us but that they remove their protections and influence and we experience life without their assistance. It can come at you really fast...and even then, there are often ways back from that, because the lwa see the best in us.
There's also history behind a lot of what the lwa will and won't do. Different places have different stories to tell, but many histories relate that part of the pact of Bwa Kayiman and the things that unfolded directly after was that the lwa would no longer take human sacrifice and that people would not give that. We sing songs that reference that particular lwa no longer eat people. The lwa are not going to break a centuries-old spiritual compact because a white person did something stupid on the internet.
So..there's that. Maybe more than you were asking, but I hope this was helpful.
