In Her Own Image: Slave Women and the Re-imagining of the Polish Black Madonna as Ezili Dantò, the Fierce Female Lwa of Haitian Vodou

Abstract

This article negates the stereotypes of slave women in Haiti as weak, passive and compliant to colonialism and also challenges the archetype of hypersexualised bodies without minds. The Vodou Lwa Ezili Danto is discussed with the aim to reclaim a cogitating Black female subjectivity. We evince that slave women’s agency, their creativity and resistance to colonial paradigms were manifested in sacrality, as we explore how the Polish Black Madonna became Haitian Vodou spirit Ezili Danto. We uncover what female metaphysics reveal about the memories, complexities and identities of the women responsible for their engendering.