Respè!
Welcome family, join me as I recount the story of the Hummingbird in our culture, and its relevance to this website.
My mom always says, “Everyone has their Haitian history”. Now, many of you may laugh at this ridiculous sentence, some of you may think it’s only a matter of perspective, and in truth, it’s that and a little more: everyone has their story to tell, and each story is told differently depending on the observer. Wanganègès is the Haitian Kreyol name of the Hummingbird. A tiny specimen that can be found in many lands around the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. As you may have understood, each of these territories has a story concerning this tiny but magical bird.
Our story this time will focus on the retelling of the Arawak/Taino story, since that is the tribe that lived on our island, Ayiti and our sister island of Borinquen known today as Puerto Rico, where the tribe resided. With that preamble out of the way, let’s regale this story.
On the island of Borinquen resided Alida, the daughter of a tribal chief. She used to refresh herself in a lake between the mountains of Cidras and Cayey, a location where few ventured and where she could find some respite. One day she was going about her routine, and she was noticed by a young man looking for fruits by the trees around the lake. Like any young person caught, she was startled by the new presence.
But let’s not make any assumptions about a potential pudic reaction, as some of you may know, many of those tribes were comfortable in their nudity. Her reaction was most likely due to seeing someone she doesn’t know or, wasn’t accustomed to, popping out of nowhere…
Regardless, the two had seemingly forged an immediate connection and started to converse. Alida would come to the lake more often, talking to her friend. With time, she learned his name was Taroo, a name associated with the Karib tribe, a tribe reputed for attacking hers and the island on a regular basis. Taroo had been left behind in one of their last raids. Since they were not used to his company on the raids, he was forgotten on their departure, and he had been left stranded. Despite this revelation and the circumstances of his stay on the island, the two grew fonder of each other and developed sentiments greater than friendship for one another.
During that time, one of the local gossips discovered the relationship and decided to snitch on the couple to Alida’s father. Alida’s father was not pleased to know his daughter was seeing someone from the enemy tribe. He promptly decided to marry her to someone of his choosing, and to ensure she would not escape, he held her captive in the village.
With the despair of betraying her love growing bigger, Alida had decided to pray to their guardian deity Yukiyù: “O Yukiyù, please take heed to my prayers. Take my life or take me away, but do not let me betray my love with this union”. Feeling sorry for Alida, Yukiyù had decided to transform her into a red flower.
Days had gone by, and Taroo was waiting for his love by the lake, but she never came. The moon having witnessed that scene for days, decided to talk to the young boy: “My little Taroo, your Alida won’t be showing up again. Her father had heard of your relationship and in his anger, decided to force her into another union. To avoid this fate, she prayed to Yukiyù, and to help her, he transformed her into a red flower.”
“O mother”, replied Taroo, “into what flower was she transformed?”; “alas child, that is a question only Yukiyù can answer”.
Taroo turned his prayers to Alida’s guardian deity to beg: “O great Yukiyù, please heed my prayers as you did Alida’s and help me rejoin with my love once more!”
The god took pity on the young man and transformed him into a beautiful but tiny bird whose plumage, black in appearance, reflected a shimmering green in the light and whose flight made a beautiful hum. He said: “Fly Kolibri, go find the one you love. She is among the red flowers in the village”.
At once, the tiny bird went into the village buzzing from one red flower to another, in search of his love.
Now some of you may be familiar with the name Kolibri and are wondering, where did the Zoes come up with this Wanganègès mess? Well, some have hypothesized that this comes from the combination of two words: wanga (charm) and nègès (a black woman in Kreyol). The two words combine to say the charm of a black woman, an apt description, due to the charm of the bird whose plumage looks black until light reflects upon it.
Where I grew up, we had many Hibiscus (choublak) trees, and the sight of a hummingbird was so common that, I had not (back then) realized how amazing that was. As such, when creating Bò Lakay, I wanted to make it feel like home. So, images I landed on were the hummingbird and the hibiscus flower. Hence now, Bò Lakay’s logo is exactly that: a representation of where I come from.
With that, I thank you for your time and attention. Until next time.
Manno.
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