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Rara has its centers at Du Fort (Carrefour Bambou) on the South, between Léogane and Grand Goâve and at Ponsondé, north of St. Marc.  However, there are also Rara activities in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere.  Like Carnival, Rara has bands, with owners and special dances, but no costumes.  The bands practice during Lent, a period when no vodou ceremonies are held.  Bands have complex structures with kings, queens, ministers, etc.  Particularly in rural areas, they engage in fights, some physical but mostly magical, including the throwing of itching powders, made from a tropical vine (tragia volubilis L), called locally pwa grate, (Engl.:  Fireman, Noseburn, Nosebleed).  These vines are irritating to the skin, producing rashes and blisters.  Scratching may lead to infections, potentially deadly.  Powders made from the vines are believed to be potentially deadly when they have been “baptized,” i.e., when they are magically treated to attack specific persons.  The bands are received by richer men in the rural communities, e.g., during the pre-Easter period in 1948, in Brache, in the sugar area near Léogane, one of the local “big” men, killed an ox for the Rara.

In Port-au-Prince, Rara takes different forms in public places.  There is a “ribbon weaving” (Fr. tresser ruban) band carrying a maypole with streamers.  The European meaning of the maypole and its link to the cult of the Virgin Mary is generally unknown.  When they stop, the women who hold the streamers weave elaborate patterns around the pole, then undo the patterns and move on.  The bands stop at stores and cafés collecting money.

At Furcy, a young man, Luc, (PH464, 466–7) thought that Rara was carried on to produce rain:  “Sometimes,” he said, “if it doesn’t rain, they make it twice.”  He was particularly impressed by the various tricks:  the man who can lift a table with his teeth, or the one who has snakes and has them eat rats.  (There seemed to be some confusion between Mardi Gras and Carnival.)

 

 


Continued

Table of Contents, Collection B | Table of Contents, Collection C

Page last revised: July 31, 2007

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