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Haitian Vodou

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See Vodou, also Voodoo (disambiguation).

Voodoo (Vodou, Vodoun, Vudu, or Vudun in Benin, Togo, southeastern Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Senegal; also Vodou in Haiti) is a name attributed to a traditionally unwritten West African spiritual system of faith and ritual practices. Like most faith systems, the core functions of Voodoo are to explain the forces of the universe, influence those forces, and influence human behavior. Voodoo's oral tradition of faith stories carries genealogy, history and fables to succeeding generations. Adherents honor deities and venerate ancient and recent ancestors. This faith system is widespread across groups in West Africa. Diaspora spread Voodoo to North and South America and the Caribbean.

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 Vodun(s) or God-Actor(s), daughters and sons of the Creator's twin children Mawu (goddess of the moon) and Lisa (god of the sun). The God-Creator is the cosmogonical principle and does not trifle with the mundane; the Vodun(s) are the God-Actor(s) who actually govern earthly issues.

The Pantheon of Voduns is quite large and complex, though not complete. In one version, there are seven twins female and male 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.[citation needed]

West African Vodou has its primary emphasis on the ancestors, with each family of spirits having its own specialized priest- and priestesshood which are often hereditary. In many African clans, deities might include Mami Wata, who are gods and goddesses 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, suppressed Vodun as well as other forms of the religion. 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 proved to be impossible to eradicate the religion. Though permitted by Haiti's 1987 constitution, which recognizes religious equality, many books and films have sensationalized voodoo as black magic based on animal and human sacrifices to summon zombies and evil spirits.

Today in West Africa, the Vodou religion is estimated to be practised by over 30 million people. Vodoun became the official religion of Benin in 1996.

Both American and Caribbean variations of the faith system center on ancestral spirits and two main pantheons of Lwas; tribal relationships are de-emphasized.

Origin and usage of the term

Voodoo (Vodun or Vudun in Benin and Togo; also Vodou in Haiti; Vodon, Voudoun, Voudou, or other phonetically equivalent spellings) has various roots. These include the Fon, Mina, Kabye, Ewe, and Yoruba peoples of West Africa, from western Nigeria to eastern Ghana.

The word Vodún (Vodoun Vudu) is the Fon-Ewe word for spirit. The word Voodoo is primarily 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 honored 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.

Although the word "Vudu" (Ewe) and "Vodou" (Fon) are ancient words still extant in West Africa, some western scholars have speculated that the word "voodoo" is a transliteration of the French words vous tous (pronounced voo-too), meaning 'you all'. The name vodu comes from the West African language, Fon meaning 'spirit' or 'deity'. In the text that accompanied the UCLA Fowler Museum's nationwide exhibition - Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou; editor and folklorist Donald Cosentino suggested that the word vodun first appeared in print during 1658 - written "by the Allada (Fon) ambassador to the court of Philip IV of Spain...in his Doctrina Christiana (Cosentino, 1995: 29).

Author Robert Tallant suggests that the spelling v-o-o-d-o-o first appeared in print within the Times-Picayune newspaper, in reference to the infamous gri-gri case of the late nineteenth century.[1]

Historically,from its inception, the word "voodoo" was deliberately employed to mock and denigrate what most American media, (Hollywood), and popular culture believed was an evil, superstitious, primitive African belief system. Also, it was typically the ceremonial aspects, particularly healing, and protection rituals which were known as "the work."

Folklorist Carolyn Morrow Long attests that:

Until the early twentieth century the name was spelled "Voudou" by most Louisiana writers. "Voodoo" is a Americanized spelling of the African word "Vodou," that began to appear during the occupation of Haiti by American Marines, and was applied to the practice in both Haiti and Louisiana. Some practitioners refer to themselves as "workers" (2001:37).

In her book The Mysterious Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau scholar Ina Fandrich concurs that "voodoo" is an "American spelling" (2003:257). She further stipulates that "the spelling of "Voodoo"..."for New Orleans American Voodoo...has become the most common"...over.."the last one hundred years" (2003:255). However, many in the Diaspora are opting to refer the their ancestral religion by its proper name, (Vodou) removing the negative stigma associated with the word "voodoo."

The majority of academic works published over the last five years have followed similar naming conventions. These academics speculate that "Vodu" and "Vodun" are used to describe the orthodox/ancestral and contemporary Vodun religion as practiced in West Africa and in the Afro-Diaspora. They have speculated that "Voudou" and "Voudoun" are connected specifically with Haiti, and "Voodoo", while historically rife with racists and culturally bias "scholarly" contention, is spoken of in a decidedly American context. (See: Anderson, 2006; Chireau, 2003; Fandrich, 2005; Kwosek, 2006; Long, 2001; Saint-Lot, 2003; Ward, 2004)

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.

The Fon tradition in Cuba is known La Regla Arará.

Survival in the Southern United States

The versions of Voodoo which survived in the Southeastern United States were connected with Christian mysticism[2] in the minds of rural African Americans. 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 who could translate basilect well enough to discover Voodoo in the spoken, sung, or written words of middle class, working class or working-poor 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 practices, at least the more subtle ones, were more public.

Many popular songs of the Delta Blues tradition (circa 1900 to 1941) referenced voodoo or its derivative Hoodoo 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".

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.

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 is a 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 tenuous connections to Vodou, but may be an integral part of the Vodoun religion in West Africa and arguably throughout 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.

Today, possibly due to the suppression of the Voodoo and Hoodoo traditions in the United States, most hoodoo 'rootworkers' are members of Christian churches, 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.

In summary, Haitian Vudou is derived from West African religious traditions and was retained in modified form by enslaved Africans in the Caribbean who were captive in a mostly Catholic population. 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 the lore about Satanism, zombies and "voodoo dolls." While there is evidence of zombie creation [citation needed], 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 Loa.

The practice of sticking pins in dolls has history in European folk magic, but its exact origins are unclear. 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 used as a means of self defense to intimidate superstitious slave owners[citation needed]. 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.

These 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 and popular novels.

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.

Although Voodoo is often associated with Satanism, Satan is primarily an Abrahamic figure and has not been incorporated in Voodoo tradition. When Mississippi Delta folksongs 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.

Further adding to the dark reputation of Voodoo was the 1954 thriller "Live and Let Die", part of Ian Fleming's widely successful James Bond series, which had been continually in print in both the English original and translations to numerous tongues. Fleming's depiction of the schemings of a fiendish Soviet agent using Voodoo to intimidate and control a vast network of submissive Black followers got an incomparably greater audience than any careful scholarly work on the subject of Voodoo. (See Mr. Big, Baron Samedi.)

Demographics

About 80% of the population of Benin, West Africa, 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.)

Notes

  1. ^ While New Orleans author Robert Tallant's writings have been criticized by scholars over the last decade, his early research is nonetheless important in the study of voodoo folklore (see: Long, 2001).
  2. ^ http://www.chrmysticaloutreach.com

References

  • Anderson, Jeffrey. 2005. Conjure In African American Society. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
  • Chireau, Yvonne. 2003. Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Hunter-Hindrew, V. 2005. Mami Wata: Africa's Ancient God/dess Unveiled. Reclaiming the Ancient Vodoun History & Hertiage of the Diaspora. MWHS.
  • Cosentino, Donald. 1995. "Imagine Heaven" in Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. Edited by Cosentino, Donald et al. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Fandrich, Ina. 2005. The Mysterious Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveaux: A Study of Powerful Female Leadership in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans. New York: Routledge.
  • Long, Carolyn. 2001. Spiritual Merchants: Magic, Religion and Commerce. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
  • Saint-Lot, Marie-José Alcide. 2003. Vodou: A Sacred Theatre. Coconut Grove: Educa Vision, Inc.
  • Tallant, Robert. "Reference materials on voodoo, folklore, spirituals, etc.

6-1 to 6-5 -Published references on folklore and spiritualism." The Robert Tallant Papers. New Orleans Public Library. fiche 7 and 8, grids 1-22. Accessed 5 May 2005.

  • Thornton, John K. 1988. "On the trail of Voodoo: African Christianity in Africa and the Americas" The Americas Vol: 44.3 Pp 261-278.
  • Vanhee, Hein. 2002. "Central African Popular Christianity and the Making of Haitian Vodou Religion." in Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora Edited by: L. M. Heywood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 243-64.
  • Ward, Martha. 2004. Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau Jackson: University of Mississippi Press.
  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. Warren, Dennis, D., The Akan of Ghana, Accra, Pointer Limited, 1973. 9.
  9. 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.

See also

Articles

Traditional African/Diaspora Vodou

Haitian/Diaspora Vodou

African/Diaspora Religious Organizations
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