#lakou

[iwillfightformydream]

Little Maomao & Lahan: we’re back from the store!

Lakou & Lahan’s older brother: Hi welcome back, did you get potatoes like we asked at the store?

Little Maomao & Lahan: Nope, we got herbs, a counting board(abacus), and new scissors.

Lakou: . . . . What . . .

Lahan’s older brother: . . . . Why

Little Maomao & Lahan: :D

Lakan who witnessed their entire interaction “Crackling”: Hehehaha

Luomen who also witnessed their interaction: Welp, those 2 are definitely my grandchildren 

[utoshi-san]

Купила сет ночных масок с АлиЭкспресс и готова написать отзывы на них. Правда не могу прочитать, что именно они обещают.

🌸 Маска с сакурой, питательная с ароматом парфюма с нотками цветов. Держала её около часа, потом смыла. Маска убирает шелушения и покраснения. Увлажняет средне, но эффект не плохой. Саше хватает на один раз.

6 из 10

🍵 Маска с матчей была также похожа на предыдущую, такая же плотная и жирная, но у неё был травянистый аромат (но точно не матчи). Маска питает, но через время появляется жирный блеск на коже.

5 из 10

🪴 Маска с водорослями мне не понравилась. У неё был противный запах чем-то напоминающий мокрую землю, очень резкий и не приятный. С маской не смогла ходить дольше 15 минут, смыла. В принципе за это время использования не увидела никаких изменений.

0 из 10

🐌 Маска с улиткой была относительно нормальная, жирненькая, запах нейтральный. Наносила перед сном на 40 минут,она практически впиталась. Саше хватает на один раз. Увлажнила кожу средне, зато сделала её гладкой и мягкой.

5 из 10

🌜 ночная маска (не знаю с чем, но явно не с экстрактом коалы) пахнет приятно, чем-то парфюмным. Увлажняет, питает и есть легкий эффект отбеливания. Эта маска мне понравилась больше всех остальных из набора.

6 из 10

[deadassdiaspore]

[thesearenotphotographs]

Michael Brun Presents BAYO at BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! at Lena Horne Bandshell

On Saturday, June 15, 2024, Celebrate Brooklyn! held a benefit concert of their 46th season with Michael Brun Presents: BAYO at Lena Horne Bandshell in Prospect Park. The outdoor featured DJ sets from Kolo and Brun himself. There were live performances by Haitian artists along with others from the diaspora such as Paul Beaubrun, Sarina, Anie Alerte, Danola, Pierre Jean, Troubleboy Hitmaker, Oxlade (who came to Brooklyn from Nigeria for the event), AndyBeatz, J Perry, J Balvin, Maxwell, Colmix & Tonymix, Lakou Muzik, and Tabou Combo. Tabou Combo were given a proclamation from New York City to help close the special event.

I captured the event as a house photographer for Celebrate Brooklyn! and some images can be found in the gallery here. I’ll be at the park throughout this season and again later today for Juneteenth UNITYFEST.

[lescientifique]

Haïti : 57e meilleure cuisine du monde grâce à un restaurant de Milot !

Haïti : 57e meilleure cuisine du monde grâce à un restaurant de Milot !

[haitilegends]

Sanba Zao | Duke Forum for Scholars and Publics

[irenelichtensteinblog]

Chantal Regnault, "Haiti on my mind", Lakou Soukri, 1999

[rockofeye]

This is Not Okay.

(I see your asks and I am working through them, promise)

In the last few years, I have generally kept quiet on the amount of unpleasantness that has come bearing the title of Haitian Vodou. I am not the Vodou Police and people have a right to be wrong and make (sometimes terrible) mistakes. Additionally, people genuinely do not want advice or feedback when their mind is made up and they have found what they think is the real deal for them, and that's okay. I don't need or even want to get involved since folks are presumably adults making adult decisions, and I don't need to invite myself to any/every fight where my name is not invoked...or even when it is!

And yet.

Sometimes, it's too much to stay quiet because silence can get people really hurt, or worse. While folks are entitled to their mistakes and entitled not to educate themselves or do due diligence on the people they are granting access to their heads, there's just something that doesn't sit right with me when it's egregious. Long time followers know I have only spoken directly once or twice.

This is egregious, and it's going to get someone killed:

I have received this at least 5 different times today and have had folks genuinely seeking the lwa ask if this is a solid option. I do not know the person behind this and I would hope this is some sort of massive misunderstanding on their part. However, even so, this is awful.

Let's break this down a bit.

Advertising an initiation right off the bat with how many spots you have available says that you are not concerned with who comes in the door or why they are there. Advertising initiation as something to buy is weird even without the bargain basement 'FIVE SPOTS AVAILABLE'. Sosyetes do not need to advertise and recruit; folks come by reputation and general attraction to what the sosyete does.

The fact that there is no information about what sosyete is mounting this is a red flag. No one can undertake initiation alone. It's impossible because the very mechanics of initiation require folks from outside your lineage to come and verify that the work is being done completely and in accordance with the general principles of the religion.

Trying to cast doubt on other places as a way to build credibility is gross, and it is super ironic that they are advertising this as an answer to scams and people who do gross things. Do those things happen? Absolutely. Is this the way to solve it? No. Grift cannot neutralize grift. This is grift.

The big blinking neon red flag sign is the kwakwa/asogwe hybrid initiation. This is not possible and communicates several things, the largest of which is that this person has not received appropriate guidance in either rite because even the most barebones education tells you that this is not possible and could never be done.

Further, this communicates a lack of respect for both rites. The balls it takes to decide that you are going to take it upon yourself to change a religious practice and throw a bunch of stuff in a blender to come up with something new is WILD. This is outright spiritual arrogance that ignores the place of elders, culture, history, and the actual revolution that birthed these things.

Claiming that a person will receive everything they need in one step is lacking in clarity and breaking from the culture of Haitian Vodou, tchatcha and asogwe lineages alike. That is not how initiation works; the process of initiation unfolds over days and weeks and the process of becoming a competent manbo or houngan unfolds over years and even a lifetime. No initiation is a drive through endeavor and should not be treated as such.

'Without the worries of ties to a spiritual house' tells me this person lacks rootedness and perhaps ties to a spiritual house of their own, which is sad. It is not possible to be a manbo or a houngan in any lineage without ties to a specific lineage/spiritual house. It's not possible. Every lineage of Haitian Vodou is based on the lakou, or the compound or yard that a family and community is built around.

What lakou we are associated with tells our stories and gives us our roots, whether we are Haitian or not, or related to our lineage head or not. These stories are vitally important, we cannot function without them and we cannot take Haitian Vodou out of the context that it exists in. We are collectively built from the story that our spiritual ancestors told themselves when they dreamed of liberation and undertook the truly revolutionary action of revolt against French colonizers.

Trying to undo that to package initiation as something unrooted and without community is a slap in the ancestral face and is impossible. It's not Haitian Vodou. We do not stand alone. If you have no community, who will endorse you as a houngan or manbo? How will anyone know you actually are one? I can give you the names of a dozen priests who were active participants in my initiation and can confirm that I have the right to hold the asson. If you have no spiritual community, you do not have that...and you do not have the right to hold the asson.

Learning is different in Haitian Vodou; we learn as we develop and there is no initiation that grants you the immediate access to the inside of your initiator's head. Info farming is not a thing. We learn as we develop, which is why relationships and community are so important. Going through an initiation doesn't give you all the knowledge. Initiation doesn't even teach you things, you learn after because during the process you do not have the right yet to know. Framing all of this as withholding information shows a lack of cultural fluency. Do people withhold in ways that can be harmful? Sure, because there is fault everywhere....but this is not how you solve that, at all.

Most asogwe receive their po tèt; some take it home and some choose to keep it in the temple they were initiated in. Some houses have specific regleman around that, and there are individual circumstances that would keep someone from having theirs but those are instances that people would work out ahead of time. Further, if someone is not comfy with what the lineage they are initiating into does with po tèts, that it something to work out before they initiate, which is why discernment is so, so important.

There are not multiple kolyes given during initiation. In an asogwe lineage, a kolye is made during the initiation process for you specifically and it is large and worn on the body in most places. We do not receive kolye for individual lwa nor are they consecrated in separate ceremonies; this is directly taken from Orisha traditions.

A kwa kwa and a bell are not an asson, and genuinely only a fool would try to bring that to Loko, the progenitor of all asogweman. You cannot mash things together and say they are an asson because you want them to be, or that Loko will give it. I can't even be charitable about this, it's straight up wrong and completely unethical. No one does this. No one.

'Head seals' is wild and someone is going to get hurt. The job of protecting the head is with the lwa, not in the hands of someone doing work. Further, a correct and complete initiation precludes the possibility of problematic possession because the lwa are there to sort that out. Additionally, taking it upon yourself to 'seal' the head a child of Ginen in the name of Ginen is awfully arrogant...are you really going to say you can overstep the lwa and/or do a better job than them?

The work of initiation is incredibly delicate because you literally have someone's head in your hands. People can die when things are done incorrectly, either in the moment or in a long and winding road of calamity. Every single manbo and houngan I know has a story about this. We know what happens when things like this are undertaken because we've either watched the fallout or had people come to our doors in deep suffering because incorrect and inadvisable things have been done to them.

Paying for any initiation through Etsy should speak for itself. That is not how houngans and manbos do business.

What is unsaid in this blurb is that this is undoubtedly happening in the US, because it would never be allowed to happen in Haiti. This says a lot and it's a giant can of worms to open, but when have I avoided that? Initiation does not happen in the US for a lot of reasons. Some folks want to say it can, but it really can't. This is not the post to get into why and I can write more on that later, but that's the long and short of it.

Perhaps finally, my friend Sankofa made a really astute point in another forum: beware anyone in any African Traditional or African Descended religion trying to sell you something ceremonially unique. Our ceremonies are largely the same for big reasons, and an individual saying they are doing something new, like mixing tchatcha and asson or initiating you to your dead ancestors and putting ancestors on your head, is a massive red flag. This is not how culture and traditional religion function. This is not what the ancestors built for us, and this is not what we pass down.

Please, please be careful with your heads. I meant it when I said that people will die because of stuff like this. Please be discerning about who you trust with your head and your life. Take your time and see lots of ceremonies. Pray. Listen for the voice of the lwa which can sound a lot like your intuition. And, for the love of Ogou and Metrès Danto, don't buy initiations on Etsy.

I hope the person behind this post can reflect on what they are doing and re-evaluate their choices. In a perfect world, they would consult with their elders and their mama/papa kanzo for guidance and really, really listen. If they don't have elders and/or an initiator, they should refrain from offering things like this until they do. Different choices can always be made, but spiritual work done out of ignorance, malice, or greed that harms someone can never be taken back.

[aki16oficialll]

I dare you to fight me.

Hakai smiles at Aki, holding nothing on her hands.

...okay-.?

*suddenly Lakou ( @a-g-i-w-a ) appears*

O-O! I WANNA FIGHT TOO!

~ L.u

[firstdivisiongirl]

Hey Vivi it’s me again I have a fic request . Could you write a fic with ace x f reader where she was living in a very complex village with there own language and everything like outfits to ( she lives on a deserted island ) but like where ace just happened to find her

BYEEEE 🧡💛🧡💛💛💛🧡🧡🧡

Hi @hobiefan. Thank you for another request. This was an interesting one for me to write, if I'm being honest. I really don't know another language, so it was a challenge. In the end, I decided to use Hawaiian as the language and the actual look of the village to be similar to were Tama lived on Wano. It's one of the languages I have wanted to learn. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it!

Portgas D Ace x Fem Reader: New Favorite Place

Ace had only been a captain for about a year now when he found your island. They might have crashed it...again. But while a few of the crew members fixed the ship, he and Deuce decided to explore the island. It was clearly deserted, as once they left the soft sandy beach, there were only trees. At least until they saw a small little village of some sort. There were neatly made wood huts. They didn't see any people, which was unusual. Just as the two were about to get up, a blunt object made impact with the back of their heads. The two pirates blacked out.

The two men woke up in a daze. They noticed they were in the little village now. Ace went to stretch, but his body was bound to a large poll, and he was sitting down. An older man, dressed in a red shirt with intricate gold white and plain matching pants walked up to the boys. He spoke in a very deep and stern voice, "ʻO wai kou inoa?" Ace looked at Deuce.

"Huh?," Ace asked, looking at the man puzzled. Soon after, a small girl, about his age, dressed in a plain light blue shift dress with a short bob and a hibiscus flower in her hair walked up to the man. She said something to the man, before looking at Ace. "My father asked you what your name is," she said, crouching down to be at his level. "I'm sorry about our chief, we have a different language here. I speak our language and yours. I can translate. What is your name any why are you here?"

"Portgas D Ace. I'm a pirate, but my boat crashed here."

She looked at her father before speaking again, "ʻO Ace kona inoa a he poʻe pōā ʻo ia. Aole lakou maanei e aihue."

Her father yelled something and a few large men dressed like the chief came and cut the rope off of Ace. "I'm sorry about that. We need to fix our ship. Some of my crew are gathering supplies. I promise not to bother you all."

***

But, Ace bothered you all anyways. He was at your village everyday. He learned so much about your culture and even tried learning the language. Let's just say. He wasn't very good at it. It was the last day on the island. As his crew packed up to go, he ran back to your village to find you. He found you watering the flowers outside your home. He ran up to you out of breath, "Hi! So, we're leaving today and I wanted to tell you something. I know it's only been a week, but I like you. Not as a friend..." He was about to continue with a beautiful long speech, but you interrupted him by smashing your lips onto his. Your lips were sweet, like strawberries and he really enjoyed it. You broke away from him and said, "Aloha Au Ia ʻOe. It means I love you."

He looked at you and wrapped his arms around your smaller frame, "Aloha Au Ia ʻOe."

About an hour later, the Spade Pirates left your island. Everyone in the village waved goodbye to their new friends. That day, your island became his new favorite place Not because it was territory of the Spade Pirates, but because that was where you were.

Please do not copy, modify, translate, or repost my writing on other platforms. Comments, reblogs or likes are highly appreciated!

[iwillfightformydream]

Every member of the La clan has autism.

 Examples:

Lakou:While he may be considered one of the less exceptional individuals within the La clan, he still possesses a penchant for scheming. His expertise lies in agriculture, with a particular fondness for sweet potatoes.

Lakan:He is notoriously eccentric, excelling as a brilliant tactician with expertise in Go and shogi. However, he struggles in almost every other aspect, including face recognition, except for his 'Lover' and daughter.

Luomen: He thinks it's better not to talk about stuff if there's no proof for it.

Lahan: He is extremely good with numbers and finances, and he actually good at social cues.

Maomao:Her passion for poisons and herbs drives her to conduct experiments on her own body, finding great pleasure in consuming these substances.



[caribbeanart]

What I'm reading

Edwidge Danticat on finding hope and the importance of art in instilling dreams for future generations of Haitians. "Art is how we bring our best face to the world. Art is how we dream."

On the role of ancestral memory

"As more and more of the capital’s residents are forced to return to homesteads and ancestral villages, the moun andeyò have much to teach other Haitians [...] Rural Haitians, who have lived for generations without the support of the state, have had no choice but to rely on one another in close and extended family structures called lakou."

[mentaltimetraveller]

Andy Robert Lakou: One Two Five Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles December 15, 2017 – February 28, 2018

[happy-lemon]

URL SONG GAME

I was tagged by @onsweetpeahill. Thank you!! I've done it before but I felt like doing it again, so let's see if we can find some different songs!

H - human - the killers

A - anna begins - counting crows

P - plain sailing weather - frank turner (fun fact: one of my son's best friends did the art for the album this song came from)

P - pran ka mwen - lakou mizik

Y - your house - steel pulse

L - lover you should've come over - jeff buckley

E - everything crash - the ethiopians

M - mattersville - NOFX

O - old soul - stephen marley

N - nothing to say - bedouin soundclash

I'm tagging anyone who wants to do this, even if you've already done it. Please tag me so I can see your music and maybe find something new!

[afrotumble]

Lakou Nou – Haiti Cultural Exchange