Vaudougane: Between the Loas and Men

In Thiotte, in the mountains of south-east Haiti, a child is born on an evening of drums. Before the whole gathered community, her father, a high priest, declares that she will be a manbo - and that she will never belong to any man.Eighteen years later, Vaudougane goes down to Jacmel to study. There she meets Dyawo, the son of a house where they pray otherwise, and the prohibition begins to weigh with a weight no one had foreseen - not even the spirits.When love becomes a fault, there is always someone to correct it. A man will believe he is doing right. A coffin will go down into the earth of Thiotte. And it will take an elderly priestess, a healer uncle and nine months of patience to discover what the earth, sometimes, consents to give back.The Loas are not masters. They are laws. And they are in the service of the living.Between the Loas and Men