Vodou

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"Voodoo" redirects here. For , see .

A large sequined Voodoo "drapo" or flag by the artist George Valris

The term Vodou (Vodu or Vudu in Benin and Togo; also Vodon, Vodoun, Voudou, or other phonetically equivalent spellings. In Haiti; Vudu (an Ewe word, also used in the Dominican Republic) is by some individuals applied to the branches of a West African ancestral religious tradition. It is important to note that the word Voodoo is the most common and known usage in American and popular culture, and is viewed as a pejorative by the Afro-Diaspora practicing communities. However, the different spellings of this term can be explained as follows:

The word Voodoo is used to describe the Afro-creole tradition of New Orleans, Vodou is used to describe the Haitian Vodou Tradition, while Vudon and Vodun and Vodoun are used to describe the deities honoured in the Brazilian Jeje (Ewe) nation of Candomble as well as West African Vodoun, and in the African diaspora. Voodoo or Hoodoo also refer to African-American folk spirituality of the Southeastern USA, with roots in West African traditional or "folk" spirituality. When the word Vodou/Vodoun is capitalized, it denotes the Religion proper. When the word is used in small caps, it denotes folk spirituality, or the actual deities honored in each respective tradition.

Its roots are varied and include the Fon, Mina, Kabye, Ewe, and Yoruba peoples of West Africa, from western Nigeria to eastern Ghana. In Benin, Vodun is the national religion, followed by around 80 percent of the population, or some 4.5 million people.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]} The word Vodún (Vodoun Vudu) is the Fon-Ewe word for spirit. Vodou in Haiti is highly influenced by Central African traditions. The Kongo rites, also known in the north of Haiti as Lemba (originally practiced among the Bakongo) and is as widespread as the West African elements. The Vodoun religion was suppressed during slavery and Reconstruction in the United States, but maintained most of its West African elements.

Until recently, many assumed that the mixture of such traditions with Catholicism occurred in the New World. There is significant evidence that the model for such syncretism can be found in the religious practices of the Kongo Empire.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

The Fon tradition in Cuba is known as La Regla Arará.

African origins

The cultural area of the Fon, Gun, Mina and Ewe peoples share common metaphysical conceptions around a dual cosmological divine principle: Nana Buluku, the God-Creator, and the God-Actor(s) or Vodun(s), daughters and sons of the Creator's twin children Mawu (goddess of the moon) and Lisa (sun god). The God-Creator is the cosmogonical principle, who does not trifle with the mundane, and the Vodun(s) are the God-Actor(s) who actually govern on earthly issues.

The [[wiktionary:Pantheon|Pantheon]] of Voduns, though not complete, is quite large and complex. In one version, there are seven direct sons of Mawu, interethnic and related to natural phenomena or historical or mythical individuals, and dozens of ethnic Voduns, defenders of a certain clan or tribe.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

West African Vodou, just as all indigenous African Religions, has its primary emphasis on the ancestors, with each family of spirits having its own specialized priest and priestesshood who are often hereditary. In many African clans, deities might include Mami Wata, who are god(desse)s of the waters; Legba, who in some clans is virile and young in contrast to the old man form he takes in Haiti and in many parts of Togo; Gu, ruling iron and smithcraft; Sakpata, who rules diseases; and many other spirits distinct in their own way to West Africa.

European colonialism, followed by totalitarian regimes in West Africa, tried to suppress Vodun as well as other forms of the religion.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]} However, because the Vodou deities are born to each African clan-group, and its clergy is central to maintaining the moral, social, and political order and ancestral foundation of its villagers, it was near to impossible to eradicate the tradition.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]} Today in West Africa, the Vodou religion is estimated to be practised by over 30 million people.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

New World traditions

Haitian Vodou

Haitian Vodou practiced by less than 1% of African-Americans is the most widely known and written New World Vodou religion. The major portion of this article will cover Haitian Vodou. While maintaining the fact that other forms of West African Vodoun, i.e., Mami Wata, Mama Tchamba is the ancestral religion of the Africans enslaved in the United States is now re-emerging.

In Haitian Voodu or Sèvis Gine or “African Service” in Haiti, a Creolized form of Vodou, Haitian Vodou also has strong elements from the Bakongo of Central Africa and the Igbo and Yoruba of Nigeria, although many different people or nations of Africa have representation in the liturgy of the Sèvis Gine. Among these other nations are the Taíno and Arawak Indians, venerated as the indigenous population (and hence, a form of ancestors) of the island now known as Hispaniola. A large and significant portion of Haitian Vodou most often overlooked by scholars, especially English-speaking ones, until recently is the Kongo component. The entire Northern area of Haiti is especially influenced by Kongo practice. In the North, it is more often called Kongo Rite or Lemba, from the Lemba cult of the Loango area and Mayombe. In the south, Kongo influence is called Petro. Many loas or lwas (also a Kikongo term) are of Kongo origin such as Basimbi, Lemba, etc.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

Haitian Creole forms of Vodou exist in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, parts of Cuba, the United States, and other places that Haitian immigrants dispersed to over the years. However, it is important to note that the Vodoun religion existed in the United States, having been brought over by West Africans enslaved in America, specifically from the Ewe, Fon, Mina, And Kabaye, and Nago groups. Some of its more enduring forms still exist in the Gullah Islands. There is a re-emergence of these Vodoun traditions in America, which maintains the same linealritual and cosmological elements as is practiced in West Africa.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]} These and other African-diasporic religions such as Lukumi or Regla de Ocha (also known as Santería) in Cuba, Candomblé and Umbanda in Brazil, all religions that evolved among descendants of transplanted Africans in the Americas.

History

Most experts speculate that this was done in an attempt to hide their “pagan” religion from their masters who had forbidden them to practice it. To say that Haitian Vodou is simply a mix of West African religions with a veneer of Roman Catholicism would not be entirely correct. This would be ignoring numerous influences from the native Taíno Indians, as well as the evolutionary process that Vodou has undergone shaped by the volatile ferment of Haitian history. However, without the Vodou deities, and their corresponding ritual element the religion known as Vodou could not exist.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

Vodou as it is known in Haiti and the Haitian diaspora is the result of the pressures of many different cultures and ethnicities of people being uprooted from Africa and imported to Hispaniola during the African slave trade. Under slavery, African culture and religion was suppressed, lineages were fragmented, and people pooled their religious knowledge an from this fragmentation became culturally unified. In addition to combining the spirits of many different African and Indian nations, Vodou has incorporated pieces of Roman Catholic liturgy to replace lost prayers or elements. Images of Catholic saints are used to represent various spirits or mistè (“mysteries,” actually the preferred term in Haiti), and many saints themselves are honored in Vodou in their own right. This syncretism allows Vodou to encompass the African, the Indian, and the European ancestors in a whole and complete way. It is truly a Kreyòl religion.

The most historically important Vodou ceremony^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]} in Haitian history was the Bwa Kayiman or Bois Caïman ceremony of August 1791 that began the Haitian Revolution, in which the spirit Ezili Dantor possessed a priestess and received a black pig as an offering, and all those present pledged themselves to the fight for freedom. This ceremony ultimately resulted in the liberation of the Haitian people from French colonial rule in 1804 and the establishment of the first Black people's republic in the history of the world and the second independent nation in the Americas.

Haitian Vodou grew in the United States to a significant degree beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the waves of Haitian immigrants fleeing the Duvalier regime, taking root in Miami, New York City, Chicago, and other major cities.

Beliefs

In Haitian Vodou, spirits are divided according to their nature in roughly two categories, whether they are hot or cool. Cool spirits fall under the Rada category, and hot spirits fall under the Petwo category. Rada spirits are familial and congenial, while Petwo spirits are more combative and restless. Both can be dangerous if angry or upset, and despite claims to the contrary, neither is good or evil in relation to the other.

Everyone is said to have spirits, and each person is considered to have a special relationship with one particular spirit who is said to own their head, however each person may have many lwa, and the one that owns their head, or the met tet, may or may not be the most active spirit in a person's life in Haitian belief.

In serving the spirits, the Vodouisant seeks to achieve harmony with his/her own individual nature and the world around them, manifested as personal power and resourcefulness in dealing with life. Part of this harmony is membership in and maintaining relationships within the context of family and community. A Vodou house or society is organized on the metaphor of an extended family, and initiates are the children of their initiators, with the sense of hierarchy and mutual obligation that implies.

Most Vodouisants are not initiated, referred to as being bosal; it is not a requirement to be an initiate in order to serve one's spirits. There are clergy in Haitian Vodou whose responsibility it is to preserve the rituals and songs and maintain the relationship between the spirits and the community as a whole (though some of this is the responsibility of the whole community as well). They are entrusted with leading the service of all of the spirits of their lineage. Priests are referred to as houngans and priestesses as manbos. Below the houngans and manbos are the hounsis, who are initiates who act as assistants during ceremonies and who are dedicated to their own personal mysteries. One does not serve just any lwa but only the ones they have according to one's destiny or nature. Which spirits a person has may be revealed at a ceremony, in a reading, or in a dream. However, all Vodouisants also serve the spirits of their own blood ancestors, and this important aspect of Vodou practice is often glossed over or minimized in importance by commentators who do not understand the significance of it. The ancestor cult is in fact the basis of Vodou religion, and many lwa like Agasou (formerly a king of Dahomey) for example are in fact ancestors who are said to have been raised up to divinity.

Possession in Haitian vodou is described as god seizing a horse (the human being) who is ridden, sometimes to exhaustion or death.

Liturgy and practice

On the individual's household level, a Vodouisant or sèvitè/serviteur may have one or more tables set out for their ancestors and the spirit or spirits that they serve with pictures or statues of the spirits, perfumes, foods, and other things favored by their spirits. The most basic set up is just a white candle, a clear glass of water, and, perhaps, flowers. On a particular spirit’s day, one lights a candle and says an Our Father and Hail Mary, salutes Papa Legba and asks him to open the gate, and then one salutes and speaks to the particular spirit like an elder family member. Ancestors are approached directly, without the mediating of Papa Legba, since they are said to be in the blood.

Values and ethics

In the view of some the Haitian Vodou religion is an ecstatic rather than a fertility based tradition and because of this some do not have prohibitions against gay men and lesbian women. Although it is rare, there are hounfos or temples in Haiti whose clergy are entirely gay males or lesbians, etc.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

Orthodoxy and diversity

While the overall tendency in Vodou is very conservative in accord with its African roots, there is no singular, definitive form, only what is right in a particular house or lineage. Small details of service and the spirits served will vary from house to house, and information in books or on the internet therefore may seem contradictory. There is no central authority or "pope" in Haitian Vodou since “every manbo and houngan is the head of their own house,” as a popular saying in Haiti goes. Another consideration in terms of Haitian diversity are the many sects besides the Sèvi Gine in Haiti such as the Makaya, Rara, and other secret societies, each of which has its own distinct pantheon of spirits.

Survival in the Southern US

In the United States, there is strong prejudice against folk spirituality. That is, spiritual systems that predate monotheism and formal religions, or that are not formally incorporated into a formal religion (as pagan holidays are co-opted into Christianity) are socially discouraged. Folk spirituality is freely demeaned with pejoprative labels such as "magic" or "superstition". Ironically, most people who promote prejudice against Voodoo or other folk "pagan" systems, unwittingly keep pagan practices faithfully. For example, the custom of referring to "mother nature" is a habitual invocation...by our collective "cultural unconscious"...of the goddess. Likweise, wishing someone "good luck" is a habitual, unquestioned invocation of spiritual power quite distinct from wishing "God bless you". Perhaps the most striking example of contemporary voodoo is the sale of lottery candles and aerosol money sprays in many mainstream supermarkets.

Isolation Enabled Voodoo

Considering these and other paganisms being comfortable parts of mainstream USAmerican culture today, it may have been fairly easy for Voodoo lore to survive when communities were more isolated and communication was slow. African American subcultures and Euro-American mainstream culture(s) were more segregated in some ways. In fact segregation minimized the number of bi-lingual African Americans (those who spoke basilect and fluent acrolect), and at the same time minimized the number of Whites weho could translate basilect well enouigh to discover Voodoo in the spoken, sung, or written words of middle class, working class or working-poor African Americans.

Religion Enabled Voodoo

The versions of Voodoo which survivied in the Southeastern USA, were connected with Christian mysticism in the minds of rural African Americans. In isolated African American communities, such as the Georgia Sea Islands or in the Mississippi Delta, Voodoo lore could be freely referenced and parctices, at least the more subtle ones, were more public. In fact many popular songs of the Delta Blues tradition (circa 1900 to 1941) refrenced voodoo explicitly. Robert Johnson sang of "hot foot powder sprinkled all round my door" and Muddy Water(s) referenced "the gypsy woman", "seventh son", and the "mojo hand". Today thewre are African Americans in integrated Christian concgreagtions who can recall their parent or Gran pointing out the feared Jack o' Lantern off in the nighttime woods, and they will insist that's just what they'd seen.

Scholars debate the variations of Voodoo, how they have survived, how much they have changed, and to what extent Christianity in general or Catholicism in particular were used as covers to enable the survival of Voodoo. A common saying is that Haiti is 80% Roman Catholic, 20% Protestant, and 100% Vodou. Thus the Catholic contribution to Haitian Vodou is quite noticeable.

What Roots Survive?

However, in the United States the story may be a little different, depending upon which scholarship you read. Some scholars believe confusion about Voodoo in the USA arises because there's widespread system of African American folk belief and practice known as Hudu or more popularly as hoodoo. The similarity of the words hoodoo and Voodoo notwithstanding, hoodoo may have tenouos connections to organized religion like Vudou, but hoodoo may be an integral part of the Vodoun religion in West Africa and arguably througout all of Africa. Some aspects of hoodoo may be derived primarily from Congo and Angolan practices of Central Africa, and may retain elements of the traditions and practices that arose among Bantu language speakers. However, there are serious practitioners who have travelled and studied Hudu in West Africa, who conclude that this ancient, magio-botanical practice is indigenous and essential to the majority of native West African religious systems, having only minute variations.

Today, due to the suppression of the Voodoo and Hoodoo traditions and Vodoun religion in USAmerica, most hoodooists are now members of African American Protestant churches, such as the various Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal (AME), Pentecostal, and Holiness denominations , but when hoodoo is compared to some of the African religions in the diaspora, the closest parallel is Cuban Palo, a survival of Congo religious beliefs melded with some Catholic forms of worship.

Survivals of Haitian and West African-influenced Vodou religion in the southern US are claimed by some to be found within the African-American Spiritual Churches of New Orleans, a city with a large Catholic population. This is a fallacious assumption.

The Spiritual Churches of New Orleans are a Christian sect founded by Wisconsin-born Mother Leafy Anderson in the early 20th century. These churches incorporate Catholic iconography, ecstatic worship derived from African American Protestant Pentecostal sources, and a large dose of Spiritualism, but a closer examination shows that the hallmark of the New Orleans Spiritual Churches is the honoring of the Native American spirit named Black Hawk, who lived in Illinois and Wisconsin (Anderson's home state), not in Africa, or Haiti. Furthermore, the names of some individual churches in the denomination—such as Divine Israel—bring to mind typical Black Baptist church names more than Catholic ones.

In sum, Haitian Vudou is derived from West African religious traditions and was retained in modified form by enslaved Africans living in the Caribbean who were held captive by Catholics. However, in the USA the Vodoun religion is derived from largely the Ewe and other West and central African groups.

Myths and misconceptions

Public relations-wise, Vodou has come to be associated in the popular mind with such phenomena as zombies and voodoo dolls. While there is ethnobotanical evidence relating to zombie creation, it is a minor phenomenon within rural Haitian culture and not a part of the Vodou religion as such. Such things fall under the auspices of the bokor or sorcerer rather than the priest of the Lwa Gine.

The practice of sticking pins in voodoo dolls has history in healing teachings as identifying pressure points. How it became known as a method of cursing an individual by some followers of what has come to be called New Orleans Voodoo, which is a local variant of hoodoo, is a mystery. Some speculate that it was one of many ways of self defense by instilling fear in slave owners. This practice is not unique to New Orleans voodoo, however, and has as much basis in European-based magical devices such as the poppet and the nkisi or bocio of West and Central Africa. They are in fact power objects, what in Haiti would be referred to as pwen, rather than magical surrogates for an intended target of sorcery whether for boon or for bane. Such voodoo dolls are not a feature of Haitian religion, although dolls intended for tourists may be found in the Iron Market in Port au Prince. The practice became closely associated with the Vodou religions in the public mind through the vehicle of horror movies. In fact, voodoo always gets a bad rap in movies with possibly the only exception being the film London Voodoo where voodoo is shown as a force for good.

There is a practice in Haiti of nailing crude poppets with a discarded shoe on trees near the cemetery to act as messengers to the otherworld, which is very different in function from how poppets are portrayed as being used by voodoo worshippers in popular media and imagination, ie. for purposes of sympathetic magic towards another person. Another use of dolls in authentic Vodou practice is the incorporation of plastic doll babies in altars and objects used to represent or honor the spirits, or in pwen, which recalls the aforementioned use of bocio and nkisi figures in Africa. One Haitian artist particularly known for his unusual sacred constructions using doll parts is Pierrot Barra of Port au Prince.

The popular association of Voodoo with Satanism is a powerful myth, but the fallacy is amusing. Ironically, Satan is a Christian belief. Satan is not part of Voodoo tradition. When Mississippi Delta folksogs mix references to Voodoo and to Satan, what is being expressed is social pain such as from racism, which is couched in Christian terms and blamed on the devil. Those who practice voodoo do not worship or invoke the blessings of a devil.

Trivia

In November 1998, Florida Republican Senator Alberto Gutman charged his opponent with using voodoo against him in an election [link]. He lost.

Demographics

About 80% of the population of Benin, about 4½ million people, practice Vodun. (This does not count other ancestral religions in Benin.) In addition, many of the 20% of the population that call themselves Christian practice a syncretism of Christianity and Vodun not dissimilar from Haitian Vodou. In Togo about half the population practices indigenous religions, of which Vodun is by far the largest, with approximately 2½ million followers; there may be perhaps another million among the Anlo-Ewe of Ghana (13% Anlo-Ewe and 38% indigenous beliefs overall out of a population of 20 million.)

Haitian Vodou is practiced alongside Christianity by about half the population, or some 4 million people, and this has been carried abroad with Haitian emigration.

See also

• Haitian mythology

External links

• [An Ancestral Religion Resurrected in America: Interview of American Vodoun Priestess]
• [Vodun (and related religions: Candomble, Lucumi, Macumba, Voodoo, Vodoun and Yoruba)] at [religioustolerance.org]
• [West African & Diaspora Vodoun]
• [Ewe Slaves in "Voodoo": Uncovering America's Hidden Heritage]
• [The Religion of U.S. Slaves By Prof. Terry Matthews]
• [Haitian Vodou: Serving the Spirits] by Mike Rock
• [The Religious Practices of Southern Slaves in America]
• [TVodou.org]
• [Vodoun Culture]
• [The Royal Mama Tchamba Slave Ancestors of the Diaspora Return in the U.S.]
• [Traditional Religion in Africa:The Vodun Phenomenon in Benin]
• [Animisme au Bénin]
• [Haitian Voodoo and Medieval Jews: A Historical Comparison]
• [The White Darkness]
• [Interview with a voodoo priest]
• [- House of Voodoo, New Orleans, Louisiana]
• [Caribbean Guide to Creole Religions (including Voodoo)]
• [DMOZ Open

References

1. Ajayi, Ade, J.F. & Espie , Ian, A Thousand Years of West African History, Great Britain, University of Ibadan, 1967.

2. Alapini Julien, Le Petit Dahomeen, Grammaire. Vocabulaire, Lexique En Langue Du Dahomey, Avignon, Les Presses Universelles, 1955.

3. Argyle, W.J., The Fon of Dahomey: A History and Ethnography of the Old Kingdom, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1966.

4. Chesi, Gert, Voodoo: Africa's Secret Power, Austria, Perliner, 1980.

5. Decalo, Samuel, Historical Dictionary of Dahomey, (People's Republic of Benin), N.J., The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1976.

6. Ellis, A.B., The Ewe Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa, Chicago, Benin Press Ldt, 1965.

7. Le Herisee, A. & Rivet, P., The Royanume d'Ardra et son evangelisation au XVIIIe siecle, Travaux et Memories de "'Institut d'Enthnologie, no. 7, Paris, 1929.

8. Rosenthal, Judy, Possession Ecstasy and Law in Ewe Voodoo, Virgina, University Press of Virginia, 1998.

9. Warren, Dennis, D., The Akan of Ghana, Accra, Pointer Limited, 1973. 9.

10.Pierre Fátúmbí Verger,Dieux d'Afrique: Culte des Orishas et Vodouns à l’ancienne Côte des Esclaves en Afrique et à Bahia, la Baie de Tous Les Saints au Brésil. 1954.

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