This is the same anthropologist who, later on, in the movie would be rushed to the Tree of Souls and Mo'at, the Na'vi high priestess, for healing through the making of a sacred connection to nature's lifeforce to save her. The whole chanting ritual and raising up of sacred energies pretty much looked like Vodun (in Haiti, Vodun means lifting up "sacred energies".)
If James Cameron was indeed doing what he said he wanted to do and writing from the indigenous point of view, if I took him seriously, than I would not have to see how Grace, the white woman's life was made to be so important that in the middle to their grieving of all that they had lost from the shock and awe attack upon their village, that HER HEALING was the priority. She's so important to Jake, the whole village that's just lost its beloved king and perhaps thousands upon thousands of their people, take time to value THIS LIFE above all else and sit in unison to chants for her wellbeing! But alas, Dr. Grace dies. But wait, all is not lost. Her life is so unique and valuable, that her lifeforce gets to be DESERVING enough to join into the collective Navi's Goddess (Eywa) vibration.
This is such an obvious white fantasy in a long, long line of the noble white savior films. After the Sigourney Weaver character's Hollywood demonization of Haiti's sacred way, her demeaning "Pagan Vodun" comment, it would have been poetic justice if Cameron truly wanted to speak from "the others" point of view, if the good doctor's spirit had NOT gone directly into the blissful Navi Eywa collective soul but spent some time in some Christian purgatory or some such place!. For that privilege too reminded me of the foreign Vodun converts who come into Haitian culture and claim our ancestors, priesthood and to be Vodun spirit masters in just one generation of submission.
Ezili Dantà ² of HLLN
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Forwarded by Ezili's Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
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Ezili's HLLN on the Counter-Colonial Narrative on Deforestation
Ezili's Counter-Colonial Narrative on Vodun and Vodun Links and Bio of Ezili Dantà ²
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