The current issue of the New Yorker includes Part II of an animated roundtable discussion on Haitian music that offers great insights into the development and significance of music in Haiti from the pre-revolutionary plantation era to the present. Organized by Sasha Frere-Jones, who got the idea for the conversation from a post Madison Smart Bell wrote for the New York Times Paper Cuts blog, the discussion includes Bell, Laurent Dubois, author of Avengers of the World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution, Elizabeth McAlister, author of Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora and producer of the Smithsonian Folkways CD Rhythms of Rapture: Sacred Music of Haitian Vodou, Ned Sublette, author of Cuba and Its Music, Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat, and Garnette Cadogan, who is working on a book about Bob Marley.
Here is Edwidge Danticat on Rara rites at Easter:
I was in Haiti with my family for Easter, in the middle of rara season, and we spent a week in Jacmel with friends. A few observations, then, that might echo some of what’s already been said:
It seems there is a lot more effort being made now to “organize” the rara in some way. For example, in Leogane, a rara stronghold, there were banners for a rara competition/parade—a defile (as in “narrow passage requiring a single-file march”) of rara, as it was advertised. This seemed like an attempt to bring the rara a bit more prestige, as some locals said, like the carnival. Rara, like revolution, can be so deceiving, in that it might sometimes seem rather disorganized, but is highly organized—rara mimicking, as some have said, a military structure that might have served quite well in revolutionary battles.
When I was a kid, it struck me that the rara was always demanding respect, both with its loudness and active recruitment as it went along. Sometimes the rara would stop in front of churches and try to drown out the sounds of the church service, leading many churches to organize retreats out of large cities during that time. Driving through raras, you realize that there is some teasing. You often pay, or at least play nice, to get through. A friend who was traveling through Leogane with her daughter was finally allowed to go through the rara when she rolled down the window and said hello to the head of the rara
and allowed him to stroke her hair. (This does seriously frighten some people, I must admit.) In Jacmel, we were always hearing friends say, I have to go home because I received word that such and such a rara is coming by. Having the rara stop by is an honor, and to turn it away is an insult.
On Good Friday, one friend received two raras with rum and a little money. He brought out two chairs for the drummers, and the core of the raras both performed a dans baton—a dance with sticks that you often see performed more elaborately in the Artibonite Valley. The rara’s visit bestows respect on the person visited—who it is assumed is an important person—and the way it is received brings honor to the rara. Most striking was how old some of the dancers were. One rara had four generations of women from the same lakou, the oldest a very lithe ninety-plus-year-old woman. A lot of this can be found in Liza’s book, but it was wonderful to be reminded that while Haitian music, including rara, can be used in revolution and protest, it can also be used in community building.
You can access the piece (and a link to the first installment) at http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2009/07/haitian-music-part-2-what-does-revolution-sound-like.html
