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 offensive 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. When the word "Vodou/Vodoun" is
capitalized, it denotes the Religion proper. When the word is used in small caps, it denotes
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% of the population, or some 4½ million people.[citation needed] The
word Vodún "Vodoun" "Vudu" is the Fon-Ewe word for spirit. Voodoo 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 admixture 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.
The Fon tradition in Cuba is known as La Regla Arará.
African origins
Vodun/Vodoun is a name attributed to an West African ancestral religious system of
worship and ritual practices, where specific deities are born and honored, along with the
veneration of ancient and recent ancestors who earlier served the same tutelary deities.
This system of worship is widespread in a multitude of African groups in West Africa and
throughout all of Africa.[citation needed] They are arguably some of the oldest religious
systems predating historical times.[citation needed]
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 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.[citation needed]
West African Vodu, 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/desses 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.[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.[citation needed] Today in West Africa, the Vodou
religion is estimated to be practised by over 30 million people.[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.[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.
[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
The majority of the Africans who were brought as slaves to Haiti were from the Guinea
Coast of West Africa, and their descendants are the primary practitioners of Vodou. The
Vodoun pracitioners brought over and enslaved in the United States primarily descend from
the Ewe, Anlo-Ewe,and other West African groups.[citation needed] The survival of the belief
systems in the New World is remarkable, although the traditions have changed with time.
One of the largest differences however between African and Haitian Vodou is that the
transplanted Africans of Haiti were obliged to disguise their lwa (sometimes spelled loa) or
spirits as Roman Catholic saints, a process called syncretism.
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.[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[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
Haitian Vodouisants believe, in accordance with widespread African tradition, that there is
one God who is the creator of all, referred to as "Bondyè" (from the French "Bon Dieu" or
"Good God"). Bondyè is distinguished from the God of "the whites" in a dramatic speech by
the houngan Boukman at Bwa Kayiman, but is often considered the same God of other
religions, such as Christianity and Islam. Bondyè is distant from his/her/its creation though,
and so it is the spirits or the "mysteries", "saints", or "angels" that the Vodouisant turns to for
help, as well as to the ancestors. The Vodouisant worships God, and serves the spirits,
who are treated with honor and respect as elder members of a household might be. There
are said to be twenty-one nations or "nanchons" of spirits, also sometimes called "lwa-yo".
Some of the more important nations of lwa are the Rada (corresponding to the Gbe-
speaking ethnic groups in the modern-day Republic of Benin, Nigeria, and Togo); the Nago
(synonymous with the Yoruba-speaking ethnicities in Nigeria, the Republic of Benin, and
Togo); and the numerous West-Central African ethnicities united under the ethnonym
Kongo. The spirits also come in "families" that all share a surname, like Ogou, or Ezili, or
Azaka or Ghede. For instance, "Ezili" is a family, Ezili Dantor and Ezili Freda are two
individual spirits in that family. The Ogou family are soldiers, the Ezili govern the feminine
spheres of life, the Azaka govern agriculture, the Ghede govern the sphere of death and
fertility. In Dominican Vodou, there is also an Agua Dulce or "Sweet Waters" family, which
encompasses all Amerindian spirits. There are literally hundreds of lwa. Well known
individual lwa include Danbala Wedo, Papa Legba Atibon, and Agwe Tawoyo.
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 their 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 dreams. 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
After a day or two of preparation setting up altars, ritually preparing and cooking fowl and
other foods, etc., a Haitian Vodou service begins with a series of Catholic prayers and
songs in French, then a litany in Kreyòl and African "langaj" that goes through all the
European and African saints and lwa honored by the house, and then a series of verses for
all the main spirits of the house. This is called the "Priyè Gine" or the African Prayer. After
more introductory songs, beginning with saluting the spirit of the drums named Hounto, the
songs for all the individual spirits are sung, starting with the Legba family through all the
Rada spirits, then there is a break and the Petwo part of the service begins, which ends
with the songs for the Gede family. As the songs are sung spirits will come to visit those
present by taking possession of individuals and speaking and acting through them. Each
spirit is saluted and greeted by the initiates present and will give readings, advice and
cures to those who approach them for help. Many hours later in the wee hours of the
morning, the last song is sung, guests leave, and all the exhausted hounsis and houngans
and manbos can go to sleep.
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 and 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
The cultural values that Vodou embraces center around ideas of honor and respect — to
God, to the spirits, to the family and society, and to oneself. There is also a notion of relative
propriety — and what is appropriate to someone with Dambala Wedo as their head may be
different from someone with Ogou Feray as their head. For example, one spirit is very cool
and the other is very hot. Coolness overall is valued, and so is the ability and inclination to
protect oneself and one's own if necessary. Love and support within the family of the Vodou
society seems to be the most important consideration. Generosity in giving to the
community and to the poor is also an important value. One's blessings come through the
community and there is the idea that one should be willing to give back to it in turn. Since
Vodou has such a community orientation, it is sometimes seen as an extension of the
beliefs in the old Soviet Union, and, since the dissolution of the USSR, has drawn many
Russian initiates. There are no "solitaries" in Vodou, only people separated geographically
from their elders and house. A person without a relationship of some kind with elders will
not be practicing Vodou as it is understood in Haiti and among Haitians.
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.[citation needed]
Orthodoxy and diversity
There is a diversity of practice in Vodou across the country of Haiti and the Haitian diaspora.
For instance in the north of Haiti the sèvis tèt ("head washing") or kanzwe may be the only
initiation, as it is in the Dominican Republic and Cuba, whereas in Port-au-Prince and the
south they practice the kanzo rites with three grades of initiation – kanzo senp, si pwen, and
asogwe – and the latter is the most familiar mode of practice outside of Haiti. Some
lineages combine both, as Manbo Katherine Dunham reports from her personal experience
in her book the Possessed Island.
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
A common saying is that Haiti is 80% Roman Catholic, 20% Protestant and 100% Vodou.
Thus the Catholic contribution to Haitian Voodoo is quite noticeable. However, in the United
States the story is different, despite claims to the contrary.
Confusion about Voodoo in the USA arises because there exists throughout the United
States a widespread system of African American folk magic belief and practice known as
Hudu or more popularly as hoodoo. The similarity of the words hoodoo and Voodoo
notwithstanding, hoodoo is not an organized religion like Voodoo, but is an integral part of
the Vodoun religion in West Africa and arguably througout all of Africa. Some aspects of
hoodoo is considered derived primarily from Congo and Angolan magical practices of
Central Africa and retains elements of the traditions and practices that arose among Bantu
language speakers. However, any serious practitioner who has travelled and studied Hudu
in West Africa, will readily 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 Vodoun religion in America, 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 Voodoo 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. In fact it has more basis in European traditions, as
the nkisi or bocio figures used in Africa 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.
Trivia
In November 1998, Florida Republican Senator Alberto Gutman charged his opponent with
using voodoo against him in an election. 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.
Vodou
