The Multiple Faces of A Goddess

Erzulie (Ezili)
Representing love, beauty, purity, the ideal female, and the moon, Erzulie is the most beloved of the loa and the wife of Ogoun, Legba, and Agoué. She can influence romance and marriage, good fortune, and artistic creation. Her symbol is the heart, her colors are pink and blue, and she is also represented by a model boat hanging from the ceiling of the peristyle. Her Catholic equivalent is the Virgin Mary. As offerings, she is given desserts, sweet drinks, champagne, perfumes, flowers, candles, and white doves. Devotees possessed by Erzulie wear feminine clothes, dance, and flirt conquettishly, but this behavior is always
followed by weeping for lost loves and unfulfilled dreams before Erzulie leaves the material plane.

Erzulie Dantor
The Petro aspect of Erzulie represents jealousy, vengeance, and discord, and she is often cruel toward women's desires. Her symbol is a heart pierced by a dagger, her colors are red and black, and her sacrifice is a black pig. Possession by the Petro Erzulies is marked by uncontrollable tantrums.

Erzulie Fréda Dahomey
An aspect of Erzulie as a white woman who lives in luxurious surroundings.

Her story in Depth

Ezili Danto is a darkskinned, hardworking country woman who dresses in blue, red, or multicolored fabrics. She has no husband, but is fiercely devoted to Anais, her daughter. She is associated with black pigs; black madonnas such as Mater Salvatoris; or other madonnas with children, such as Our Lady of Mount Carmel. In these images, the child in the Virgin's arms or on her lap is understood as a daughter. The scratches on Danto's cheek are a reminder of her bitter rivalry with Freda, her city cousin. A knife is encoded in her sacred sign or cosmograph and that of her alter-ego, the angry Ezili 'Red Eyes.' Danto likes the scent of Florida Water, drinks raw rum, savors fried pork, and smokes unfiltered Camels.

Ezili in Haiti derives from diverse African ethnic religious traditions, the most of which are the Mami Water spirits found in various regions along the western coast of the continent. But most striking are the resemblances between the personage of Ezili in Haiti and those of Oshun in Nigeria and Ezili in Whydah, Benin. In comparing the personae of Oshun and Mary, one notes extraordinary similarities both in the symbols employed and in the significance of those symbols. These resemblances can be seen in the color blue and in the symbolic significance of jewelry-necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and crown-for both the Fon's Ezili and Yoruba's Oshun. The dagger, too, occurs in the depiction of both Oshun and Mary, although its symbolic significance differs. It is these similarities between the Catholic symbols connected with Mary and those of Oshun and Ezili that have caused Vodouisants to identify Mary with Ezili.

As with many Vodou spirits, Ezili is not limited to a single representation, but has numerous and varied manifestations. Some of these manifestations can appear quite the opposite of others. Métraux lists nine Ezilis all together, most of them are petro manifestations of minor importance in the Vodou pantheon. Primarily, the cult of Ezili is focused on just two of the lwas who bear her name: Ezili Freda-Dahomey, or Maitresse Ezili, and Ezili Danto, or Ezili Ze Rouj (Red Eyes). Ezili Freda "is a member of the rada pantheon. Most of these gods are racine or root loa; i.e., most of them can be easily traced to their African counterparts."

Freda, being the spirit of love, of lovers, and "the goddess of the sensuous", is one of the most popular lwas in Haitian Vodou. She is characterized as a wealthy mulatto woman of radiant beauty, superfluous flamboyance, and extravagant taste. Her devotees are often under considerable economic and spiritual pressure to secure and provide the gifts that Freda so taxingly demands: fine French perfumes and wines, expensive jewelry, satin, and lace.

A person who is possessed by Ezili has her (or his) body drenched in perfume, covered with powder, draped in satin and lace. Maitresse Ezili is as extravagant in passing out affection as she is in amassing finery. At a Vodou ceremony, the goddess goes about the temple kissing, greeting, touching, hugging, embracing, and generally reaching out to everyone in sight.... So, affection, love, and approval are the hungers inside Maitresse Erzulie and she searches endlessly for gratification.

Insatiable in her hunger for love and affection, Ezili's countless love affairs with a host of spirits and mortals are among the most colorful tales in Vodou mythology. The copiousness of her desire transcends the chasm between the world of spirits and the world of humans, which actually is a narrower rift in Vodou than in most religions. Many Ezilian devotees, be they married, plasay (common law partners), or single, male or female, enter into conjugal relationships with Ezili. Often this involves a wedding ceremony between devotee and spirit, complete with marriage contract and nuptial vows.