Saut-d’Eau (Haitian Creole: Sodo) is a commune in the Mirebalais Arrondissement, in the Centre department of Haiti. It has 34,885 inhabitants.
Its name is French for ‘waterfall’, named after a large waterfall called ‘Le Saut’. It is said that this waterfall was created in the massive earthquake on 7 May 1842.[2]:9 The waterfall is approximately 100 feet high and is the tallest in Haiti.[3]:204
The area holds cultural significance in Haiti, to both Catholic and Vodou practitioners. In the 19th century, it is believed that the Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (or the closely associated Vodou Lwa, Erzulie Dantor) appeared on a palm tree there. In some accounts, this appearance is said to have occurred during the 1860s.[3]:204 Another account states that there were two appearances of the Virgin in the 1840s and later in the 1880s.[4] :170-171[5] In Laguerre’s detailed account, an apparition of the Virgin Mary first reported in Saut d’Eau on July 16, 1849, by a man reportedly named Fortune Morose.[2]:10-11 In numerous oral accounts collected by Laguerre from local people, the young man went away in fear but returned shortly accompanied by a police officer. Together, they found a portrait of the apparition on the leaf of a nearby palm tree.
