Erzulie

The family of lwa of love and motherhood: Erzulie Freda and Erzulie Dantò.

Erzulie, also written Ezili, is in Haitian Vodou a family of female lwa connected with love, beauty and motherhood. The two best known are Erzulie Freda and Erzulie Dantò, and they are very different.

Erzulie Freda is the lwa of love, beauty, desire and luxury. She loves pink and white, perfume, jewellery, flowers and sweet things. She is often connected with the Mater Dolorosa, the sorrowing Mary. A well-known image is that Freda weeps at the end of a ceremony, because there is never enough love: she longs for a perfect love the world cannot give.

Erzulie Dantò is her opposite: a fierce, protective mother, often depicted with scars on her cheek and a child in her arms. In Haiti she is connected with the Black Madonna of Częstochowa. Dantò protects women and children, and stands for a love that fights. In the stories around the Haitian Revolution she plays a role as a warrior.

According to practitioners the Erzulies are recognised in dreams by their signs. Pink, perfume, a beautiful woman, flowers or unexplained tears recall Freda, and such a dream can be about love, longing or the feeling that love falls short. A fierce woman with scars, a knife or a mother defending her child recalls Dantò, and such a dream can be about protection or about a struggle for those you love.

According to the stories Erzulie Freda wears three wedding rings, for Damballa, Agwe and Ogou, and is therefore also connected with marriage and commitment.

Dreamkin does not establish that a dream comes from an Erzulie, and does not prescribe offerings or ceremonies.