The Freda Circle, about the construction of the creole women identity - Haiti

BARBARA PRÉZEAU-STEPHENSON | HAITI
1965, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Lives and works between France and Haiti

Without title, 2015, sound installation
Courtesy: the artist

Ethnic group: Originating from Haiti
Language: Haitian Creole
Speaker: Barbara Prézeau-Stephenson
Location: Haiti
Population: extinct
Level of extinction: total

Translation in Haitian creole of a Latin text which re-counts tales in Marcorix (a fusion between the Taino and Karib languages which were spoken on the island of Hispaniola).
The recorded text is a translation in Haitian Creole of an excerpt from “Ecrit de frère Romain Pane, des antiquités des indiens, qu’il a recueillies avec soin en homme qui sait leur langue, par ordre de l’Amiral”. This small work, published in Venice in 1571, is taken from the History of Christopher Columbus written by Don Fernando Colombo, his son.
Brother Romain Pane had studied the indigenous languages and reports the existence of a language spoken only by women which co-exists with a language which is practiced by men. The excerpt transcribes the mythical tales of the Taino and Karib religions which were practiced during the times of Columbus.