Alphonse Macena Marie Noelsine, or Sina

1. Alphonse Macena Marie Noelsine, or Sina • Alourdes’s grandparents. • Lived in Jean Rabel first and later in Gros Morne.

2. Macena • Misunderstood the proper relationship one must have with the spirits, and did not like to feed them. • He thought that the spirits, like his wife, were there to serve him.

3. Chapter 4 • About one particular spirit that possesses Mama Lola most frequently. • The master of her head, or principal protective spirit, her mt tt. • Ogou = a proud and powerful warrior.

4. Power liberates, power betrays, power turns on those who exercise it. • Ogou the warrior condenses and represents the lessons of Haitian history.

5. Through Ogou possession-performances Haitians remember their complex and paradoxical military and political history. • They keep and study its lessons and apply them to the places in their own lives where power is an issue.

6. Ogou teaches rich and complex lessons about power and its uses and abuses.

7. To explore these complex issues of power, the figure of Ogou has subdivided.

8. Ogou teaches that to live one must fight.

9. Because the constructive and destructive parts of Ogou’s character are so close together, none of those differences defines Ogou completely. • He is never simply good or evil, right or wrong. Each of these characters embodies the paradoxes of a complex personality.

10. Vodou spirits are defined by contradiction. • They represent the powers at work in and on human life.

11. Pp. 98 • “The wholeness of the spirits – their ability to contain conflicting emotions and to model opposing ways of being in the world – gives Vodou its integrity as a religion.”

12. Ogou Badagri • Mama Lola’s husband. She sets aside one night a week for him, which she doesn’t share with any human lover. • Responsible for treating Mama Lola’s patients.

13. Read pp. 133 – 139 and write down your thoughts on the idea of the “anthropologist going native.” Turn to your neighbour and share your notes.