Agassou

Leopard, Dahomean memory, springs

Agassou is the lwa who guards ancestral traditions in Haitian Vodou. Served in the Rada rite, he is closely bound to Dahomey: the royal tradition of Abomey tells that Princess Aligbonon united with a leopard, and that Agassou was born of this union, founding ancestor of the dynasty. Carried to the Caribbean with the captives of the Bight of Benin, he became there the very memory of the origin, the one who makes sure the bond with the land of before is not broken. He is associated with the leopard, with crabs and with freshwater springs, and he is said to dwell where water wells up from the ground. His servants recognise in him a particular demand: he asks that the rites be done properly, in the old way, and he is angered by shortcuts. In a cult born of deportation, this role is anything but minor: Agassou is the lwa who prevents forgetting, and serving him amounts to affirming that a lineage survived the crossing.