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 In essence every Vnrodoo ceremony is the worship of
 one of many of these ancestral spirits. It is the feast of
 song and dance until the ancestral spirit is please:l and
 possesses the body of the worshipper who is translated into
 a hevecnly world of ecstatic splendour as he is sprinkled
 with the blood of a sacrificed chicken.


 If there is one thing that will come out of CARIFESTA
 is the fact that people will become more aware of the cultures
 of the many people of the Caribbean and Latin America.


 For one thin- mn,any people will now get a better idea
 of the culture of the Haitian people. More people will under-
 stand for o.np.le the reason why the Haitian people speak
 with great reverence of D_-nibrlln. leol,'. This god to them comes
 as a snake slippery and swift, plunging at once into the
 sacred waters prepared for him and then writhes, dripi.inr and
 inarticulate, upon the ground or mounts a tree where he lirs
 in the hi7h branches as a primordial source of all life and
 wisdom nakinr his signs and gestures of benediction; when
 he speaks it is barely intelli-i'ble hissing.


 To the people Dr,.ballc Je'J and his mate Ayida are
 patrons of the waters of the heavens and represents sexual
 totality. Dariballa enconI:asses the cosmos as a serpent coiled

 around the world.


 The oc': the world o,. is the special symbol for
 the Damballa tworshipper ... and the egg is the particular
 offering to Danballa. Millions have been offered to him. He
 drinks them all crushing the shell with his teeth ... so the
 people say.


 Along with Damballa there are Badessy the wind;
Sobo and Ar.-arou Tonerire the thunder; all deities of the
elements brinCin, back strong connotations of another time
now fcry,-,tten when the gods ruled the elements. And by
invoking these goEds today the Haitian V.-od.,-A worshippers
virtually stretch their hands back across time to gather
up all of their history in a solid ecnteiporary ground
beneath their feet.


All of ....4/