Voodoo Karen McCarthy Brown It is likely that no other topic in this book is as misunderstood as Voodoo. Movies, television, and novels have been merciless in delivering to the public a highly distorted picture of what is a legitimate religious practice of 80 to 90 percent of the people of Haiti In this article, Karen McCarthy Brown explains that Voodoo, or Vodou according to Haitian Creole orthography, is an African-based, Catholic-influenced religion. She also points out the differences between urban and rural Voodoo, and discusses African and Roman Catholic influence in the development of the religion. In addition, Brown discusses Voodoo spirits, Voodoo ceremonies, and the relationship of magic to Voodoo. The article concludes with some comments on the massive emigration of Haitians, mostly to Miami, New York, or Montreal, where Voodoo ceremonies are carried on in storefronts, rented rooms, and apartments. "Moodoo” by Karen McCarthy Brown. From The En- eyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade, Editor-in-Chiet. Volume 15, pp. 296-301. Copyright © 1987 by Mac- milan Publishing Company, a Division of Macmillan, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. (OLD ed Yoon00, OR VODOU {ACCORDING TO OFFICIAL HA tian Creole orthography), is a misleading but common term for the religious practices of 80 to 90 percent of the people of Haiti. A mountain- ous, poverty-stricken, largely agricultural coun- try of approximately six million people, Haiti has a land area of 10,700 square miles that covers the western third of the island of Hispaniola, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. The term voodoo (or hoodoo, a derivative) is also used, mostly in a derogatory sense, to refer to systems of sorcery and magic or to specific spells, or charms, emanating from such systems, which are for the most part practiced by the descend- ants of the African slaves brought to the West- en Hemisphere. Outsiders have given the name Voodoo to the traditional religious practices of Haiti; only re- cently, and still to a very limited extent, have Haitians come to use the term as others do. The word can be traced to vodu (“‘spirit” or “deity”) in the language of the Fon peoples of Dahomey (present-day Benin). In contemporary Haiti, vodou refers to one ritual style or dance among many in the traditional religious system. Hai- tians prefer a verb to identify their religion: they speak of “serving the spirits.” Sensationalized novels and films, as well as spurious travelers’ accounts, have painted a highly distorted picture of Haitian religion. It has been incorrectly depicted as magic and sorcery that involves uncontrolled orgiastic behavior and even cannibalism. These distortions are un- doubtedly attributable to racism and to the fear that the Haitian slave revolution sparked in pre- dominantly white nations. Haiti achieved inde- pendence in 1804, thus becoming a black republic in the Western Hemisphere at a time when the colonial economy was still heavily dependent on slave labor. Voodoo is an African-based, Catholic-influ- enced religion that serves three (not always dlearly distinguished) categories of spiritual be- a2 Oe322 | 8 + Giosts, SouLs, AND ANCESTORS: PowEk OF THE DEAD ——— ings: lemd, lemisté, and lemarasa (respectively, “the dead,” “the mysteries,” and “the sacred twins”) While certain Voodoo prayers and invocations pre- serve fragments of West African languages, Haitian Creole is the primary language of Voodoo. Creole (Kreyol in the orthographical system employed in this article) is the first and only language of 80 percent of contemporary Haitians; it has a gram- matical structure influenced by West African lan- guages and a largely French vocabulary. Although many individuals and families regu- larly serve the Voodoo spirits without recourse to religious professionals, Voodoo does have a loosely organized priesthood, open to both men and women. The male priest is called oungan and the female, manbo, There are many different types of Voodoo ritual, including individual acts of piety, such as the lighting of candles for particular spirits, and large feasts, sometimes of several days’ dura- tion, which include animal sacrifice as part of a meal offered to the spirits. Energetic drumming, singing, and dancing accompany the more elabo- rate rituals. In the countryside, rituals often take place outdoors on family land that has been set aside for the spirits. On this land there is often a small cult house, which houses the Voodoo altars. In the cities, most rituals occur in the ounfo (“temple”). Urban altars are maintained in jévo, small rooms usually off the peristil, which is the central dancing and ritualizing space of the temple. The goal of Voodoo drumming, singing, and dancing is to chofe, that is, to “heat up,” the situa- tion sufficiently to bring on possession by the spir- its. As a particular spirit is summoned, a devotee enters a trance and becomes that spirit’s chroal (“horse”), thus providing the means for direct com- munication between human beings and the spirits. The spirit is said to ride the chwal. Using that person’s body and voice, the spirit sings, dances, and eats with the people and offers them advice and chastisement. The people, in turn, offer the spirit a wide variety of gifts and acts of obeisance whose goal is to placate the spirit and ensure his or her continuing protection. There are marked differences in Voodoo as it is practiced throughout Haiti, but the single most important distinction is that between urban and rural Voodoo. The great majority of Haiti is agricul- tural, and the manner in which peasants serve the spirits is determined by questions of land tenure and ancestral inheritance. Urban Voodoo is not tied to the land, but the family connection persists in another form. Urban temple communities become substitutes for the extended families of the coun- tryside. The priests are called “papa” and “mama”; the initiates, who are called “children of the house,” refer to one another as “brother” and “sister.” In general, urban Voodoo is more institutionalized and more elaborate than its rural counterpart, African Influence Haiti's slave population was largely built up in the eighteenth century, a period in which Haiti sup- plied a large percentage of the sugar consumed in Wester Europe. Voodoo was born on the sugar plantations out of the interaction among slaves who brought with them a wide variety of African religious traditions. But, due to inadequate records, little is known about this formative period in Voodoo's history. There are, however, indica- tions that Voodoo played a key role in the organi- zation of the slave revolt (Leyburn, 1941), as it apparently did in the downfall of President Jean- Claude Duvalier in February 1986. Three African groups appear to have had the strongest influence on Voodoo: the Yoruba of present-day Nigeria, the Fon of Dahomey (present-day Benin), and the Kongo of what are now Zaire and Angola. Many of the names of Voodoo spirits are easily traceable to their African counterparts; however, in the context of Haiti's social and economic history, these spirits have undergone change. For example, Ogun among the Yoruba is a spirit of ironsmithing and other activi- ties associated with metal, such as hunting, war- fare, and modern technology. Neither hunting nor moder technology plays a significant role in the lives of Haitians. Haiti does, however, have a long and complex military history; thus the Haitian spirit Ogou is a soldier whose rituals, iconography, and possession-performance explore both the con structive and destructive uses of military power, a8 well as its analogues within human relations— anger, self-assertion, and willfulness. Africa itself is a powerful concept in Voodoo. Haitians speak of Gine (“Guinea”) both as their ancestral home, the continent of Africa, and as the watery subterranean home of the Voodoo spirits. Calling a spirit frangine (lit., “frank Guinea,” i.e.,—— truly African) is a way of indicating that the spirit is |, ancient, and proper. The manner in which gr individual or a group serves the spirits may also te called frangine, with similar connotations of ap- proval and propriety. Roman Catholic Influence ‘the French slaveholders were Catholic, and bap- tism was mandatory for slaves. Many have argued that slaves used a veneer of Catholicism to hide their traditional religious practices from the au- thorities. While Catholicism may well have func- tioned in this utilitarian way for slaves on the plantations, it is also true that the religions of West Africa, from which Voodoo was derived, have a Jong tradition of syncretism. Whatever else Cathol- jcism represented in the slave world, it was most likely also seen as a means to expand Voodoo's ritual vocabulary and iconography. Catholicism has had the greatest influence on the traditional reli- gion of Haiti at the level of rite and image, rather than theology. This influence works in two ways. First, those who serve the spirits call themselves Catholic, attend Mass, go to confession, and undergo baptism and first communion, and, be- cause these Catholic rituals are at times integral parts of certain larger Voodoo rites, they are often directed to follow them by the Voodoo spirits. Second, Catholic prayers, rites, images, and saints’ names are integrated into the ritualizing in Voodoo temples and cult houses. An active figure in Voodoo is the pretsavan (“bush priest”), who achieves his title by knowing the proper, often Latin, form of Catholic prayers. Though neither a Catholic nor a Voodoo priest, he is called into the Voodoo temple when the ritualizing has a signifi- cant Catholic dimension Over the years, a system of parallels has been developed between the Voodoo spirits and the Catholic saints. For example, Dambala, the ancient and venerable snake deity of the Fon peoples, is worshiped in Haiti both as Dambala and as Saint Patrick, who is pictured in the popular Catholic chromolithograph with snakes clustered around his feet. In addition, the Catholic liturgical calendar dominates in much Voodoo ritualizing. Thus the Voodoo spirit Ogou is honored on 25 July, the feast day of his Catholic counterpart, Saint James the Elder. Bondye, the “Good God,” is identified with the Christian God and is said to be the highest, indeed the only, god. The spirits are said to have been angels in Lucifer’s army whom God sent out of heaven and down to Gine. Although the spirits may exhibit capricious behavior, they are in no sense evil. Rather, they are seen as intermediaries between the people and the high god, a role identi- cal to the one played by the so-called lower deities in the religions of the Yoruba and Fon. Bondye is remote and unknowable. Although evoked daily in ordinary speech (almost all plans are made with the disclaimer “if God wills”), Bondye’s intervention is, not sought for most of life’s problems. That is the work of the spirits. ‘The Catholic church of Haiti has sometimes par- ticipated in the persecution of those who follow Voodoo. However, the last “antisuperstition cam- paign’” was in the 1940s, and currently there is an uneasy peace between Voodoo and the Catholic church, Until quite recently, the Catholic clergy routinely preached against serving the spirits, and those who served routinely remarked, “That is the way priests talk.” Most Catholic events have a simultaneous Voodoo dimension that tne Catholic church for the most part ignores. Since Catholicism is the official religion of Haiti and the church has been to some extent state-controlled, the degree to which Voodoo has been tolerated, or even encour- aged has been at least partly a function of politics. For instance, Haitian presidents Dumarsais Estime (1946-1950) and Francois Duvalier (1957-1971) were known for their sympathy with Voodoo. Voodoo Spirits The Voodoo spirits are known by various names: wa (from a Yoruba word for spirit” or “mystery”), sint (‘saints”), miste (“mysteries”), envizil (“invisi- bles”), and, more rarely, zanj (“angels”). In the countryside, the spirits are grouped into nanchon (‘nations’). Although no longer recognized as such by Haitians, the names of the Voodoo spirit rations almost all refer to places and peoples in Africa. For example, there are nanchon known as Rada (after the Dahomean principality Allada), ‘Wangol (Angola), Mondon (Mandingo, Ibo, Nago (the Dahomean name for the Ketu Yoruba and Kongo. In rural Voodoo, a person inherits respon- sibilities to one or more of these nanchon through ) eee eee ee eneeeee bien) hil). 077007 .00 324 | + Ghiosrs, Sous, ano ANcestoRS: Powen oF mie Dea --eeoooo maternal and paternal kin. Familial connections to the land, where the lua are said to reside in trees, springs and wells, also determine which spirits are served. In urban Voodoo, two nanchon, the Rada and the Petro, have emerged as dominant largely by ab- sorbing other nanchon. Rada and Petro spirits con- trast sharply in temperament and domain. The Rada spirits are dous (“sweet”) and known for their wisdom and benevolence. The Petro spirits were probably named for the Spanish Voodoo priest Dom Petro; they show a marked Kongo influence and are considered cho (“hot”), and their power is stressed. Each spirit group has drum rhythms, dances, and food preferences that correspond to its identifying characteristics. For example, Dambala, the gentle Rada snake spirit, is said to love orja, a syrup made from almonds and sugar. His worship- ers perform a sinuous spine-rippling dance called yanvalou. By contrast, the Petro rhythm, played for such rum-drinking spirits as Dom Petro and Tijan Petro, is energetic and pounding, and the accom- Panying dance is characterized by rapid shoulder movernents, The Voodoo View of the Person In Voodoo teachings the human being is composed of various parts: the body, that is, the gross physi- cal part of the person, which perishes after death, and from two to four souls, of which the most widely acknowledged are the gro bonanj and the fi bonanj. The gro bonanj ("big guardian angel”) is roughly equivalent to consciousness or personality When a person dies the gro bonanj survives, and immediately after death it is most vulnerable to capture and misuse by sorcerers. During posses- sion, it is the gro bonanj that is displaced by the spirit and sent to wander away from the body, as it does routinely during sleep. The ti bonanj (“little guardian angel”) may be thought of as the con- science or the spiritual energy reserve of a living person and, at times, as the ghost of a dead per- son. Each person is said to have one spirit who is the mét-tet ("master of the head”). The mét-tet is the major protector and central spirit served by that Person, and it is that spirit that corresponds to the gro bonanj. Because the gro bonanj is the soul that endures after death and because itis connected toa Particular ua, a person who venerates the ances- tors inherits the service of particular spirits, In addition to the master of the head, each person has a small number of other lea with whom there is a special protective connection. There is a rough par- allel between the characters of the spirits and those of the people who serve them. Thus the language of Voodoo is also a language for categorizing and analyzing the behavior of groups and individuals. For example, when an individual, family, or tem ple is described as worshiping in a mode that is Rada net, (“straight Rada”), a great deal is also be- ing said about how that person or group functions socially. Voodoo and the Dead In both urban and rural Haiti, cemeteries are major ritual centers. The first male buried in any cemetery is known as the Baron. Baron's wife is Gran Brijit, a name given to the first female buried in a cemetery. Every cemetery has a cross either in the center or at the gate. The cross is known as the kua Baron (“Baron’s cross”), and this is the ritualizing center of the cemetery. Lighted candles and food offerings are placed at the foot of Baron's cross. In addition, ‘many rituals for healing, love, or luck that are performed in the rural cult houses or the urban temples are not considered complete until the physical remnants of the “work” are deposited at crossroads or at Baron's cross, which is itself a kind of crossroads marking the intersection of the land of the living and the land of the dead. Haitians make a distinction between lemd ("the dead”) and lemisté (‘the mysteries”). Within Voodoo, there are rituals and offerings for particu- lar family dead; however, if these ancestral spirits ae seen as strong and effective, they can, with time, become misté. The group of spirits known as. the gédé are not ancestral spirits but misté, and their leader is the well-known Baron Samdi, or Baron Saturday. In and around Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti and its largest city, the gédé are the object of elaborate ritualizing in the cemeteries and Voodoo temples during the season of the Catholic Feast of All Souls, or Halloween. The gédé are not only spirits of death but also patrons of human sexuality, protectors of children, and irrepressible social satirists. Dances for gédé tend to be boisterous affairs, and new gid? spirits appear every year. The satirical, and often explicitlygerual, humor of the gd? levels social pretense. ing as auto mechanics, doctors, govern- F pent bureaucrats, Protestant missionaries, and so forth, the gédé use humor to deal with new social qoles and to question alienating social hierarchies. &>-yoodoo Ceremonies In rural Voodoo, the ideal is to serve the spirits as simply as possible because simplicity of ritual is fad to reflect real power and the true African way of doing things (Larose, 1977). In practice, rural tualizing tends to follow the fortunes of the ex- tended families. Bad times are said to be due to the displeasure of the family spirits. When it is thought to be no longer possible to satisfy the spirits with small conciliatory offerings, the family will hold a large drumming and dancing feast that includes animal sacrifice. z Urban Voodoo, by contrast, has a more routine ritualizing calendar, and events tend to be larger and more elaborate. Ceremonies in honor of major spirits take place annually on or around the feast days of their Catholic counterparts and usually include sacrifice of an appropriate animal—most frequently a chicken, a goat, or a cow. A wide variety of ceremonies meet specific individual and community needs: for example, healing rites, dedi- ‘ations of new temples and new ritual regalia, and spirit marriages in which a devotee “marries” a spirit of the opposite sex and pledges to exercise sexual restraint one night each week in order to receive that spirit in dreams. There is also a cycle of initiation rituals that has both public segments and segments reserved for initiates. The latter include the kanzo rituals, which mark the first stage of initiation, and those in which the adept takes the asson, the beaded gourd rattle that is the symbol of the Voodoo priesthood. Certain rituals performed during the initiation cycle, such as the brule zen (“burning of the pots”) and the chire ayzan (’‘shred- ding of the palm leaf”) may also be used in other ritual contexts. Death rituals include the desounen, in which the gro bonanj is removed from the corpse and sent under the waters, and the rele md nan dlo (‘calling the dead up from the waters”) a ritual that can occur any time after a period of a year and a day from the date of death. Good-luck baths are administered during the Christmas and New Year season. Many of the rituals of urban Voodoo are performed in rural Haiti as well. Annual pilgrimages draw thousands of urban and rural followers of Voodoo. The focal point of events, which are at once Catholic and Voodoo, is usually a Catholic church situated near some strik- ing feature of the natural landscape that is believed to be sacred to the Voodoo spirits. The two largest pilgrimages are one held for Ezili Dantd (Our Lady ‘of Mount Carmel) in mid-July in the little town of Saut d’Eau, named for its spectacular waterfall, and one held for Ogou (Saint James the Elder) in the latter part of July in the northern town of Plain du Nord, where a shallow pool adjacent to the Catholic church is sacred to Ogou. Voodoo and Magic Serge Larose (1977) has demonstrated that magic is not only a stereotypic label that outsiders have applied to Voodoo, but also a differential term internal to the religion. Thus an in-group among, the followers of Voodoo identifies its own ritualiz- ing as “African” while labeling the work of the out-group as maji (“magic”). Generally speaking, this perspective provides a helpful means of grasp- ing the concept of magic within Voodoo. There are, however, those individuals who, in their search for power and wealth, have self-consciously identified themselves with traditions of what Haitians would call the “work of the left hand.” This includes people who deal in pwen achte (“purchased points”), which means spirits or powers that have been bought rather than inherited, and people who deal in zombi. A zombi may be either the disem- bodied soul of a dead person whose powers are used for magical purposes, or a soulless body that has been raised from the grave to do drone labor in the fields. Also included in the category of the left hand are secret societies known by such names as Champwel, Zobop, and Bizango. These powerful groups use magic not for personal gain but to enforce social sanctions. Wade Davis (1985) claims that zombi laborers are created by judgments of tribunals of secret societies against virulently anti- social persons. The “work of the left hand” should not be con- fused with more ordinary Voodoo ritualizing that also has a magical flavor, such as divination, herbal healing, and the manufacture of charms for love or