Submited by: Max Beauvoir - The Temple of Yehwe
Ayizan Velekete, as it was said earlier, is the wife of Atibon Legba.
Just like this old Divinity of the Dahomeans, Her name comes from the Fon people of Benin for whom "Ayi" means the earth, or the land.
In that same language, "zan" means sacred, Ayizan meaning then "The sacred Earth or the sacred Land, Mother Earth or the Generous Provider."
This name is in a way doubled because Velekete is an expression utilized by the Mina people of Benin for whom "Vele", like the Ayi of the Fon, means the Land, and "Kete" signifies sacred.
Furthermore, "Kete" or "Kèt!" in Creole always carries with it a very high intensity of admiration.
By doubling then the expression, Ayizan Velekete, in the two different languages of the Fon and of the Mina, our forefathers most probably wanted us to pay special attention to that Divinity who maintains the sense of Roots, of Tradition, Mother Earth, the One who feeds us therefore who maintains our vital energy all throughout our lifetime and who receives our bodies when we depart, the Mother of the World, the Ideal representation of Moral Force, of Rectitude and of Virtue.
These attributes, Force, Rectitude and Virtue, may be deducted from the symbolism of the royal palm tree usually placed at the center of the national emblem of Haiti and also utilized during the most sacred Vodou ceremony, the Initiation.
In these ceremonies, the Vodouist uses the frond, that leaf that has never been opened, henceforth, that has never known dirt as if to exemplify and even to emphasize the undiluted purity of Ayizan Velekete.
That tree never shows any curves along its stem, and for the Vodouist, that shows righteousness, rectitude and integrity, the most perfect signs of being erect and vertical, of nobility.
The hardness of the trunk projects the idea of Force.
The fact that it doesn't rot easily is one more reason that makes it well suited to make bridges to be laid over watercourses and, at the same time, to justify the veneration that one feels toward Ayizan Velekete, the bridge over generations, time and distances.
No wonder that after the thirteen long years that lasted the war of Independence against the French army of Napoleon, a war that should never be qualified as a revolution, la Revolution de St Domingue, as too many Historians have taken the habit of writing as if to minimize the impact of such an upheaval, but a real war of attrition that was won by true heroes, the fore parents of the Haitian people desirous to ostensibly designate to the entire world, the birth of a new Nation they founded in 1804 by a singular name, Ayiti.
They chose a word with the same root "Ayi" to clearly indicate: "from now on this Land is ours!" For us Vodouists, that is the accurate meaning of the word Haiti.
