Hare Krishna (Alice Coltrane)

The obsession with Alice Coltrane continues. We are exploring more of her later music which is often not jazz at all. But "Hare Krishna" has a hypnotic charm that seems to draw more from African American gospel elements than the lyrics suggest. With its lilting rhythms and what is a presumably (and largely) African American choir from Coltrane's Vedantic Center, one can see that Coltrane never fully left behind her roots. 

Monument Eternal

We were pleasantly surprised to find Alice Coltrane's writings about her spiritual awakening quite intriguing and tolerable. Unlike the Afrocentric homespun occultism and questionable word play of Sun Ra's screeds, Alice Coltrane's approach here is rather different. She outlines in a surprisingly few number of pages how she was spiritually awakened and experienced a number of revelatory and mystical experiences. As one might expect from someone interested in Hinduism, there are references to past lives, astral projections, use of religious vocabulary derived from Hindu religion and even some attempts at universalizing it via references to Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad. Overall, Coltrane's experiences and the way she writes about it seems like she was a true believer. It makes one wonder if John Coltrane had lived longer, would he have possibly ended up starting an ashram in California? Would he have left music largely behind to focus on religious and spiritual enlightenment? Either way, many album names and song titles in Alice Coltrane's discography make more sense. 

1691 Slave Conspiracy (Leogane)

 

Whilst checking Gallica for something unrelated to Saint Domingue, we came across more digitized items from the Collection Moreau de Saint-Méry. One document, entitled De l'introduction des nègres à Saint-Domingue de leurs révoltes, de leur traitement, etc., outlines the history of black people in Hispaniola from the early Spanish period to the early 1700s French colonial era. Reading through it, we were reminded of one conspiracy to revolt and kill the white planters in the Leogane region. Jean Fouchard has written briefly about this plot in his book on Haitian marronage, but it seems to not have been extensively documented despite allegedly including a plan for at least 200 slaves to rebel. Interestingly, around the same time, slaves in the Nord were also plotting a revolt...

Galaxy in Turiya

Although jazz with strings can go wrong so often, this is something of another nature or order of music. In anticipation of reading the new biography of Coltrane, our repetitive listening to her various albums reminded us of this gem from World Galaxy. 

Marie Pierre Haoussa and Louis Baronnet fils (1792)

IC=inconnu

One document we have been thinking about the last few days is a notarized contract from 1792. Establishing a société d'habitation de Marie Pierre Haoussa avec Louis Baronnet fils, the document is interesting for the surname of Marie Pierre: Haoussa. Although most documents in colonial Haiti spell "Hausa" as Aoussa, not Haoussa, we were nonetheless curious about Marie Pierre as a person of possible Hausa extraction. After all, colonial legislation did attempt to push free people to bear African names. Furthermore, people of African origin were sometimes known by a first name and their alleged "nation," too. 

In the case of Marie Pierre Haoussa, however, we could not trace her exact origins. It would appear that she was a free black woman owning land in Aquin, presumably i an area that may be today's la Colline à Mongons. When checking the parish registry, we did come across a Marie Pierre, black Creole, who married her "mulatto" master in 1781. But there is no indication of Marie Pierre's parents' origins in the parish books for Aquin. We were also wondering why she did not use her husband's surname, but he may not have been of legitimate birth either. Either way, Gabriel and this Marie Pierre had a number of children, he married her, and, from what we could gather, the Marie Pierre Haoussa named here could be the same woman.

In terms of her 1792 partnership with a man from Bainet, we were struck by the huge diversity in slaves both brought into their planned coffee farm. Marie Pierre was responsible for bringing 6 slaves, most apparently female. They consist of a mix of Arada, Mandingue, Thiamba, Ibo, Canga and one "nation" we could not decipher in the notary's handwriting (perhaps Aguiam?). Baronnet fils, on the other hand, was responsible for bringing in more slaves who were mostly male. Since the land was apparently held by Marie Pierre Haoussa, he may have been required to supply more of the forced labor. Either way, his enslaved workers were also very diverse in origins. One, whose "nation" looks like Guialuuka, is from a background we could not figure out. But others included Thiamba, Bibi (Ibibio), Biny (possibly Edo, for people from the kingdom of Benin), Congo, Creoles, Ibos, and a Mine. 

Naturally, we will have to conduct further searches in the notarized documents and parish registry to see if we can locate more records of Marie Pierre. But, the fact that she owned land and slaves is consistent with someone who was married to a free "mulatto" landowner for some time in the region. We suspect the "Haoussa" part of her name comes from an African-born father but have to dig deeper into the archives to prove it. 

Fletcher Henderson's Christopher Columbus

Whilst recently listening to more recent recordings of Sun Ra's Arkestra performing classics from the Swing Era, we were reminded of Fletcher Henderson's excellent version of the tune. Henderson's band is cookin' while the Benny Goodman recording is a little lifeless. Of course, Sun Ra playing these pieces for several minutes and turning it into a fun romp is the best.

Ayiti Toma

While perusing various readings pertinent to another project, we came across references to the land of Allada as Aizönu Tome or Aida Tome. Apparently, the tome part means something like "country of" or perhaps "land of." This, of course, reminded us of the phrase Ayiti Toma in Haitian Creole. I guess it's somewhat obvious and unsurprising, but this seems to be an example of the influence of Fongbe or related languages in Benin shaping Haitian Creole. But what explains the shift in Haitian Creole pronunciation of tome to toma? Another theory, included in J.B. Romain's Africanismes haitiens quotes an implausible notion that Ayiti Toma is derived from the Toma peoples of Guinea. This seems rather unlikely since it is unclear how many Toma ended up in Saint Domingue. Moreover, one would have to ask why a name for their particular ethnic group is attached to Ayiti. A link to the Fon language makes more sense given the evidence of that language on Haitian Creole and multiple aspects of Haitian culture.