Saut d'Eau Pilgrimage

Arts and Entertainment, second prize stories

July 16, 2011

Saut d’Eau, Haiti. A man prays to Ezeli, the goddess of love and beauty. Every year from 14 to 16 July, pilgrims gather to beat drums, dance, invoke spirits, and wash themselves in the purifying waters of the Saut d’Eau sacred waterfall, in Mirebalais, Haiti. The religious festival combines both Christian and voodoo beliefs, and Saut d’Eau is one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in the country. It is said that the Virgin Mary appeared there on top of a palm tree in the mid-19th century, and also that the grove where the falls are situated is home to loa, deities of African origin. Christian and voodoo beliefs are often intertwined in Haiti.

Commissioned by: Contrasto

Location: Saut d’Eau, Haiti

Photo Credit: Emiliano Larizza

Emiliano Larizza was born in Rome, Italy, in 1978, and took up photography in 2001. Later, he studied graphics and screenplay writing. Larizza sees art as the support and stimulus of his continuous quest for the essence of photography, as a means of expressing one’s own creative ideas. After traveling in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, he settled in Dominican Republic in 2008. From January 2010, he started following the situation in Haiti, in the aftermath of the earthquake. Larizza’s work has appeared in such national and international publications as Internazionale, L’Espresso, Il Manifesto, Io Donna, Riders, Il Venerdi di Repubblica, The Guardian, The Independent, Het Financieele Dagblad, and Newsweek. Since 2010, he has been represented by the Italian agency Contrasto.