Hunger, like death, can be abstract for those of us who never experience it beyond a pang between lunch and dinner, or a slight discomfort if we wake up too late to eat before work. There are microwave meals in the freezer to come home to, or a taco truck to pull up to if we get peckish before we get there. Our food comes in the form of neatly stacked produce automatically spritzed with water at the local HEB, plastic-baggied tortillas complete with twist tie, and sanitary rectangles of ground red meat on styrofoam trays. We pay for it with another plastic rectangle, and go home and put it all into another large, cool rectangle. When that rectangle starts to look a little sparse, we repeat the process.
It can be easy to forget that, without the long chain of beings that caused that food to rise up out of the earth, travel to our favorite supermarket or eatery, and end up in our bellies, we would cease to exist. No farmers, no food. (Not to mention the beings that ARE the food.)
In many other parts of the world, and in Haiti in particular, daily meals are not a given. I won’t harp on this because I don’t want to strike that whole “Save The Children” chord and create a mindset of pity toward a nation that is incredibly rich in other resources. I DO want to bring to light the historical and very present-day significance of food sovereignty in relation to the powerful and beloved spirit I’m about to introduce to y’all.
When Haiti won its independence from France in 1804 and the former slaves were free to claim land as their own, subsistence farming became a point of great pride. Families moved up to the fertile mountains and experienced the satisfaction of growing what they needed to live, no longer being forced to produce a single cash crop of dubious nutritional value (sugar) for their colonial masters. Communities of maroons (escaped slaves and their families) in the mountains had already learned how to cultivate nutritious staples such as cassava and maize from the native Taino. Bananas, squash, greens, plantains, and even rice and coffee were also cultivated. By the time the freed Haitians joined them in the mountains, independent agriculture was well underway. The land was theirs, the food was theirs, and they were at last able to enjoy the fruits of their own labor.
On that land, generations of subsistence farmers lived, worked, and died. Extended families lived— and many still live— in compounds called lakou. The dead were buried on the same land they had worked during life, and over time, literally became part of the soil that raised the food that fed their descendants. Land, family, and spirits were inseparable. The oldest Vodou lineages and traditions are founded on this basis; before there were urban sosyete to join, before there were initiations and ranks for an outsider to attain, there were family lineages serving the specific spirits that had been passed on to them over generations, through the family elders.
This system is still very much alive. Just as without farmers we have no food, without this connection between land, family, and spirits, we have no Vodou.
However, urbanization, natural disaster, decades of foreign occupation, and a deliberate undermining of Haitian food sovereignty by world powers like the U.S have eroded this traditional way of living. Individuals have lost their land and been displaced to the city or emigrated to the diaspora in order to make enough money for their families to survive. The modern system of Vodou peristyles that can be joined through initiation— complete with houngans or manbos who play the role of patriarch or matriarch— in part exists to replace the blood and land ties that have been frayed and to create a sense of community in a new, at first foreign, urban environment.
But there is a Lwa that calls us back to this essential and direct relationship with the land! His birthday is May 1st, a special date he shares, not coincidentally, with both International Labor Day and the pagan festival of Beltane that heralds the peak fertility of the land.
As an aside, it’s also not coincidental that his birthday falls shortly after Easter, after the Lenten pause in both the Roman Catholic and Vodou liturgical calendars. Lent is a hungry time, in which, even if we are lucky enough to have food security, Catholics and Vodouisants alike fast and abstain as a reminder of our dependence on food— i.e. other beings— to live. Its timing corresponds with what in Europe would have been a natural time of dwindling resources, as the stores from the last agricultural season had diminished and people had to sweep the cupboards bare to survive. May 1st, then, is a celebration of the reawakening of the agricultural season, when those first spring greens are enjoyed, seeds are sown, and abundance is imminent.
This Lwa is known affectionately as Kouzen (cousin) or Kouzen Zaka. His official names are many, including Azaka, Azaka Mede, and Minis (Minister) Azaka (in his role as Minister of Agriculture.) But Kouzen sets him firmly among us, as it’s a term used across Caribbean to mean not necessarily a genetic relative, but a friend close enough to feel like family. Kouzen walks with the people.
Kouzen is a farmer. He is dressed in denim, carries a straw bag called a makout or djakout, smokes tobacco (that he probably grew himself) in a pipe, and wields a machete to clear land. His dance is called the djumba or djouba, and he loves a good bottle of white rum (or gin in my house.) When he comes down in possession, the community sets up a marketplace with fruits, vegetables, and other goods that Kouzen sets to work selling. He is a shrewd haggler who drives a hard bargain, particularly if he knows you have money to be parted with.
Kouzen is a hard worker, having experienced hunger himself and vowed to never experience it again. He makes his living directly off the land, working it to feed his family and bringing the rest to market so he can buy what he needs to help his farm flourish.
Kouzen is concerned with survival. He knows how to live on very little. He is a protector of those facing homelessness, poverty, hunger, and unemployment. He’s directly concerned with issues of food, business (particularly small independent business), employment, and, interestingly, immigration. He is a medsin fèy- leaf doctor- who provides healthcare to those who can’t access modern medicine. Thus, unlike some lwa who deal with more rarefied aspects of human existence, he sits at the root of life. He may not be glamorous, but he is essential.
Kouzen depends upon his wife Kouzin (the female version of cousin in Krèyol), as she’s the one who keeps the books for the business (he’s sometimes said to be illiterate). Although people don’t tend to connect him with love, Kouzen helps those who serve him to find practical, sustainable life partnerships like the one he shares with Kouzin. Again, this calls back the traditional view of domestic partnership as a matter of survival, not romantic attraction.
It’s said Azaka’s name comes from the Taino words “zada” for corn and “maza” for maize. There is even some speculation that Kouzen has his roots in Precolumbian corn deities. This points directly to his association with communities of Maroons and (long hidden and assumed to be extinct) Tainos who lived free and farmed together in the mountains of Haiti even during colonial times.
Kouzen is known for his suspicion of being cheated, since he has worked so hard for all he has. Upon coming down in possession, he checks his makout to make sure nothing has gone missing since last time, and scrupulously counts all change to be sure he’s been paid the correct amount. It’s even said that one needs to be very careful when preparing his favorite meal to offer him (a delicious corn and bean stew called tchaka), because tasting it for seasoning or even looking at it with a little too much relish will cause the whole batch to sour. He wants you to make it for him, not for yourself, to enjoy. After he's had his taste, you can eat heartily.
However, he is deeply kind and generous to those who are short on resources. He works on the sliding scale on which small village market economies are based, where everyone is aware of each others’ financial situation, and those who have are expected to pay twice as much to make up for those who have not.
The best way to earn Kouzen’s trust is to act in the same spirit of community. More than being lavished with gifts, he loves to see charity work that supports the unhoused, farmers, or migrants done in his name. Even more than monetary donations, he appreciates when hard work and time are donated to these causes.
As always, there is so much more I could say about Kouzen, but I’m out of time! Please feel free to post any questions in the comments and I will do my best to answer.
Alasso Kouzen!
References:
Rock of eye https://www.tumblr.com/rockofeye/650187682390097920/its-kouzen-season-more-about-kouzen-zaka-and-his
Manbo Mary https://manbomary.com/?p=80
Brown, Karen McCarthy. (1991, 2001). Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. University of California Press
