The Catholic hour.
Every ceremony opens with the rosary, the litany of saints and French prayers before a word of Kreyòl liturgy is said. Outsiders keep trying to peel this off as a colonial residue. Practitioners do not experience it as separable, and a service that skipped it would be regarded as improperly begun.
The Catholic component is structurally integral rather than decorative. Every ceremony opens with the Priyè Ginen, whose first and longer portion is Catholic: prayers in French and Latin, the rosary, the Apostles' Creed, the litany of the saints, hymns, frequently led by a pè savann — a bush priest, a layman who has learned the Catholic liturgy specifically for this office. Only then does the Kreyòl material begin. Saints' images stand on altars, feast days govern the calendar, and practitioners are baptised. The persistent outside instinct is to treat the Catholic layer as a colonial imposition to be stripped away in order to reach the real African religion underneath. Practitioners do not experience two religions in sequence, and a service that omitted the Catholic hour would be understood as improperly opened. The synthesis is what the religion is, rather than a coating on it.
The same ground, other faiths
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