physical body. He also treats people who are ailing and children who are not growing well due to persecution by evil spirits. Here, the medicine is of a more magical nature and designed to bring balance to the spirit and the emotions.
“There are specific, strong-smelling leaves, which help children who are under spiritual attack”, says Loulou. “I mix these leaves with special magical items which I have been shown by the lwa, and then I take some raw rum and sea water and I make a bath for the child. I soak some of the leaves in rum and set them on fire to heat the bath up. Before I bathe the child I pray, and I bless the leaves. Then, while I am bathing him, I sing songs for the lwa and the ancestors, and ask them to come and help this child.
“The rest of the bath that is left over, I put in a green calabash bowl or a bottle, and before the child goes to sleep, I have the parents rub his arms and legs with it. When that is done, no one can curse that child or do evil magic to them”.
JUDGEMENTS AND JEALOUSY
How this ‘evil magic’ comes to infect the child bears similarities to the almost universal belief in mal d’ojo, the evil eye. The magic comes through the judgements of others and through jealousy.
As an example of this, Loulou was once asked to perform magical work for a woman who had four children, two of whom had already died through the actions of evil spirits who would come to her house at night and frighten the children, sucking the energy out of them. The woman concerned was a market trader who had been able to amass a little money (a rare commodity in Haiti), and her neighbours were jealous of her.
“One of these