John Smart & John Stupid

Beyond many other great Ayitian traditions, telling nightly fairytales is among the most important ones. It is an ancestral heritage from Guinea (Heaven), from the depth of mother Africa. Ayiti, in the heart (middle) of the American continent, is Africa's first daughter. Hence, "Like mother like daughter," beyond Vodoun, Kreyòl, and land cultivation, telling stories is one of the most important parts of the Ayitian culture. I will use this occasion to pay tribute to all those who understood the need to reclaim what is most precious for our country. I am speaking of icons such as Christian Beaulieu, the first Ayitian, who, in 1939, saw the need for the Ayitian language (Kreyòl) to serve its speakers. Jacques Roumain, who in 1940, saved the Vodoun tradition from the witch hunt of the Catholic Church backed by the paranoiac government of Eli Lescot during the era labeled "The Rejete" (Rejection). I pay my greatest reverence to Alfred Métraux (a French intellectual) who was outraged by this exhibition of ignorance and urged Roumain to act. If it were not for Métraux, who knows what would have happened to the Ayitian people's most popular belief today? To Georges Sylvain, who, in 1901, wrote the first Ayitian folktale in the popular language, "Cric! Crac!1" I give honor to all those who followed the pioneer's positive steps in preserving our culture.