It’s so the stories go that the Ginen tell. If you find a beautiful fairmaid swimming in the river, her fish tail flashing; if you follow her down into her water home with her, she will make the water like air so you can breathe. But then she’ll ask you, playful, You eat salt, or you eat fresh? And if you say salt, she will let you go back home, but if you say fresh …“It’s my business,” he said. Pouted. Looked at the ground.If you only eat unsalted food, fresh food, we believe you make Lasirèn vexed, for salt is the creatures of the sea, and good for the Ginen to eat, but fresh—fresh is the flesh of Lasirèn, and if you eat that, it’s pride. You’re trying to make yourself as one of the lwas. Makandal never eats salt. He, a living man, giving himself powers like a lwa. That’s why he couldn’t hear the voice of the lwas.
Nalo Hopkinson
lwas, stories