Video compiled by; Tannhaus. Granted permission for use.                                         Film footage from; Maya Deren, Video compiled by Tannhaus. Granted permission for use.

 

Vodou originates in the western nations of Africa, primarily from the ancient kingdom of Dahomey which is now present day Benin. It also came from the peoples of the Kongo as well as the Central African regions including; Bakongo, and the Yoruba of Nigeria and many other nations and traditions. A few of the other nations are the Taino and Arawak Indians whom are the indigenous peoples of Hispaniola (present day Haiti and Dominican Republic). Vodou is a word from the very old language known as Fon meaning "Spirit". Vodou, also known as Sevis Ginea (African Service) is a conglomeration of many different faiths and traditions brought to Haiti by the slaves that were captured by the French and Spanish during the transatlantic slave trades in the 1500's, yet dates back hundreds of thousands of years from its origins in Ginea.

Vodou is a tradition and culture whose practioners believe in a single creator; God who is known as Bondje (from the French Bon Dieu or Good God). Underneath God (our source of creation) are servants/worshippers of God that are lesser deities of the Father yet greater entities than ourselves here on the Terrestrial plane called Lwa (meaning mystery or law). The Lwa "reside" in the Celestial plane for the most part unless invoked through songs, dance and ritual drumming by the faithful in order for us to communicate and serve them or to have work done for the vodouisants which in return we give offerings to their liking for the duties they perform for us. Vodouisants believe that Bondje (God) is an ominent force, too remote to occupy Himself with the problems of mankind. As a result, we interact with the Lwa to feel and become God while they heal and protect the people. The power of the lwa is great, yet also finite. Only God is infinite, all powerful and all knowing. God is the reason for all and everything and that is all we need to concern ourselves with when asking "Who or what is God?"Many lwa are ancestors whom have passed on to the afterlife or to the other side and have been deified and become certain Lwa and belong to certain nations or rites.

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. 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 aspects of life, the Azaka govern agriculture, the Ghede govern the realm of death and fertility.There are literally hundreds of lwa. Well known individual lwa include Danbala Wedo, Papa Legba Atibon, and Agwe Tawoyo. 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. 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. Along with the houngans and manbos are 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 Agassou (formerly a king of Dahomey) for example are in fact ancestors who are said to have been deified. When a person becomes mounted, it is considered "being ridden". The individual becomes a horse for the Lwa. The initiates are trained to know what actions to take with whichever Lwa is mounting someone. Once the manifesting is over, the individual is perfectly fine and safe. They have no memory of the possesion what so ever.  Vodou is not just a religion, but a culture as well, a way of life. We speak of Vodou more as a culture than a religion.  It is an oriented tradition, a joyous occasion. Celebrations do not always have to take place in the peristyle, they can happen when you speak to the Lwa or your ancestors. Celebrations can occur simply when we communicate with other people and share the information that is in your heart. You are not a part of Vodou, it is in your heart!! (Mambo Marie Carmel; NYC)  Outsiders come to Vodou for all reasons and issues. Vodou heals; protects; solves problems, and brings people together in strong, healthy family units with those alive and dead. Vodou is a living tradition evolving to meet the needs of its faithful, practioners and followers that have survived the trials and tribulations mankind and society has placed upon us.

The following inormation is from the very well known as well as a great resource of knowledge on Haiti and her traditions, Robert Corbett. His site has a plethera of information and knowledge as he has studied the Vodou intensely. With his permission, we have added this insert from his website to assist in breaking down the Vodou terms, phrases and other bits of knowledge...Thank you Mr. Corbett.

First and foremost Voodoo is a religion. It is the dominant religion of Haiti. Many of the practices and descriptions of Voodoo belief may sound to us like rank superstition, but then, imagine the beliefs of Christianity to people who know nothing about it. Tell them about the trinity or the resurrection, or the presence of Jesus in the eucharist. Any of these practices which very intelligent Christians believe in the fullest would seem no less superstitious to someone unfamiliar with Christianity.

Thus I urge you to recognize that Voodoo is Haiti's religion, it is taken very seriously not merely by unlettered peasants, but many intelligent and learned members of the Haitian society believe as sincerely in Voodoo as do German theology professors in their Christianity. In no way do I expect you to believe in Voodoo; no more than I would expect you to convert to Islam if I taught a course on that religion. But, please do recognize that it is every bit as real a religion as the major religions of the world.

1. The most basic concepts of Voodoo.
   1. There is one God, Bondye. This God is very similar to the God of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. There is only one God.
   2. There are three important categories of other spiritual beings:
      1. lwa. These are the various spirits of family members; the spirits of the major forces of the universe--good, evil, reproduction, health, all aspects of daily life.
         1. lwa interact with the people of earth.
         2. They "mount" people now and again during religious ceremonies and they give messages, and even cause various good and bad things to happen to people.
      2. The twins. A curious and rather mysterious set of forces of contradictories: good and evil, happy and sad etc. If honored now and again in religious services they will tend to help you have the better side of life.
      3. The dead. Mainly the souls of one's own family members who have died but have not yet been "reclaimed" by the family. Ignored family dead are dangerous. Honored and cared for family dead are helpful.
   3. The central and key aspect of Voodoo is healing people from illness. Such healing activities probably constitute 60% of all Voodoo activity. Healers heal with herbs, faith healing (with the help of lwa and other spirits) and, today, even with western medicine!
   4. The priesthood of Voodoo contains both men (houngan) and women (mambo). Their functions are:
      1. healing.
      2. perform religious ceremonies to call or pacify the spirits.
      3. to hold initiations for new priests(tesses) (kanzo service and taking the ason).
      4. Telling the future and reading dreams.
      5. casting spells and creating protections.
      6. creating potions for various purposes. (From love spells to death spells.)

For any of these they may receive fees. But, they may not too. This differs from one houngan and mambo to another. (Note his is similar to fees paid to rabbis, mullahs, priests and ministers.)

5. Another central feature of Voodoo is the "service," the religious rites of the religion.
   1. These are usually held outside, under a rough roof and around the "poto mitan," the center pole. A houngan or mambo almost always directs these.
   2. Drums are used extensively to provide music and dancing is absolutely essential to the whole service.
   3. Services are fully participatory. Not only the houngan and mambo participate but nearly everyone present.
      1. A master of ceremonies (La Place) is often present.
      2. A hounganikon directs the music and motion.
      3. Hounsi (women only) are serving ladies, usually dressed in white.
      4. Those in attendance are nearly all participants and most can be "mounted" by lwa.
   4. In most services the lwa "mount" people. That is, they come and take over a person's body for a time. When the lwa come the person is gone. (It's not clear where the person goes.) The body is the body of the person, but it is really the lwa. If a male lwa mounts a female person, he is referred to as "he," not she, during the mounting.
   5. Nearly every Voodoo service has animal sacrifice. By killing the animal one releases life. The lwa are exhausted by the taxing task of running the universe. Thus they can receive this life sacrificed to them and are re-juvenated. They are usually quite happy about this.
   6. There are two primary sorts of Voodoo.
      1. Rada. This is a family spirit Voodoo and the Voodoo of the relatively peaceful and happy lwa.
      2. Petro. (In some areas called Congo.) This is a black magic Voodoo and the Voodoo of angry, mean and nasty lwa. Dangerous things happen in Petro including death curses, the making of zombi and wild sexual orgies SPECIAL NOTE By virtually all scholarly estimates one can find, Rada accounts for about 95% of Voodoo, if not more. Thus the spectacular tales of black magic, while very real, are extremely limited. Petro is not the typical Voodoo, but it does exist.
   7. The analysis of humans. Humans have two spirits and a body.
      1. ti-bon-ange (little good angel). This is similar to the conscience in the Western understanding of people.
      2. gros-bon-ange (big good angel). This is similar to the soul in Western theories of person, except the soul is much more separate from the person than is a western soul. For example, when the person goes before God for judgment it is the gros-bon-ange which presents "the person" to God and makes the person's case.
6. Key terms in Voodoo

a.       hounfo--the parish or region of a houngan or mambo's influence.

b.      govi--a small earthen bottle into which the gros-bon-ange of dead ancestors can "rescued." After a person dies the gros-bon-ange goes to the underwater place. A year and a day after he or she goes their the relatives can recall the gros-bon-ange. Unfortunately this is a very expensive service, requiring a significant animal sacrifice, often an ox. Thus it is often considerable time before the service can be done. If too much time passes the ancestor may get a bit restless and cause trouble-- illness etc.

c.       serviteurs--serious practitioners of Voodoo.

d.      ason--the magic rattle of the houngan or mambo.

e.       lave tet--(washing of the head) an initiation ceremony held for serviteurs after they have been mounted for the first time.

f.       kanzo--the initiation ceremonies for those moving into a very serious level of Voodoo practice.

g.      taking of the ason--the final initiation into being a houngan or mambo. NOTE: Both kanzo and the taking of the ason are very secret services. However, in Alfred Metraux's book (VOODOO IN HAITI), through observation and talking with people who were not too careful about the secrecy of kanzo, he has pieced together a detailed account of the ceremony.

h.      verve--ceremonial drawings done in flour, of the various lwa.

i.        peristyle--the Voodoo temple. A tiny tiny place.

j.        poto mitan--the center pole in a Voodoo peristyle. It represents the center of the universe and all dancing revolves around the poto mitan.

k.      Les Invisibles--all spirits.

l.        Les Mysteries--

                                                                                i.            the lwa themselves.

                                                                              ii.            sacred knowledge. Also called "konesans."

m.    The crossroads. A central image in Voodoo. This is the place where the two worlds (earth and spirit world) meet. Virtually all Voodoo acts, even healing, begin with the acknowledgment of the crossroads.

7. Some of the central lwa in the Voodoo pantheon.

 .        Legba. An old man who is the gatekeeper between the two worlds, world of earth and the world of the Invisibles. He is the origin of life. The sun is one of his symbols, but he is also the source of regeneration and uses the symbol of the phallus.

a.       Kalfu (crossroads) is the Petro counterpart to Legba. He is the spirit of the night, the origins of darkness. The moon is his symbol. He can be placated, but is a dangerous lwa.

b.      Papa Ghede. lwa of death and resurrection. A total clown. Very erotic and comic. He is the lord of eroticism.

c.       Dumballah. The father figure. He is the good snake. The source of peace and tranquillity. The egg is offered to him when he comes to mount a person. He is much loved and sought after. His wife Aida-wedo attends him.

d.      Agwe. The sovereign of the seas. Especially honored, as one might well expect, by people who live near the sea.

e.       Ogoun. The warrior. Today, too, the force of politics. Violent.

f.       Erzulie. The earth mother. Spirit of the goddess of love. The muse of beauty. (Strongly identified with the Virgin Mary.) Her appearance (when she mounts someone) is one of cleansing, dressing, delicate foods daintily eaten. She can read the future in dreams. A much loved lwa.

8. The FATALISM of Voodoo.

Voodoo is much criticized by foreigners in Haiti. Sometimes it is simply because they profess a competing religion and don't want the people to stay with Voodoo. At other times they charge that it is devil worship. This claim is sheer nonsense when speaking of Rada Voodoo, the numerically primary form. It is less clear how to describe Petro. There are no "devils" in Voodoo, but Petro cultivates the evil or at least angry spirits.

However, many of the non-religious aspects of Voodoo which people often criticize really seem to me to be more the result of Voodoo's overwhelming fatalism. The view is that to an astonishing degree the lwa determine out lives. The Haitian serviteur has little use for anything like the Western idea of free will and personal responsibility. Rather, whatever has happened it is the lwa who have caused it.

If one would like to change anything in one's life, from a current illness to the fundaments of the social system, one must ask the lwa. One does not ACT on one's own. This would be counter-productive since it is the lwa who decide these things anyway.

Further, the lwa are not very changeable. Things are the way they are because the lwa have decided it. This fatalism contributes significantly to the peasants' unwillingness to struggle for liberation.

However, one can must the hard question: Is it Voodoo that has caused Haitian fatalism, or is it the history of the African/Haitian experience that has created Voodoo's fatalism?

9. Voodoo's relationship to Christianity.

 .        The Catholic experience.

                                                                                 .            Under the French slaves were forbidden from practicing Voodoo. Nonetheless Voodoo survived. The colonists did allow occasional dances on the weekends. These dances were actually Voodoo services!

                                                                                i.            After the liberation of 1804 all white people were kicked out of Haiti and many were killed. This included Roman Catholic priests. Thus in 1804 the Vatican broke with Haiti and did not establish relations with her again until 1860.

                                                                              ii.            During this 56 year period houngans and mambos built up the public religion of Haiti, Voodoo, in a weird amalgamation of African spirit religion and Catholicism. Virtually all lwa became associated with Catholic saints (Dumballah the snake lwa is St. Patrick; Erzulie, the earth mother is the Virgin Mary). The most important consequence of this is that Haitians see nothing odd at all with practicing Voodoo and Catholicism side by side and are often very devout about each of them.

I can't explain this, I only describe it.

                                                                            iii.            From time to time from 1860 until the late 1940s the Catholic Church waged campaigns against Voodoo. They never came to anything.

                                                                            iv.            In 1941-42 some elements of the Catholic Church waged an all out physical, holy war against Voodoo. They burned peristyle, Voodoo shrines, beat (some say even killed) houngans and mambo, demanded their ostracism from society and shot things up. But, they lost. Voodoo went under-ground to some extent, but it grew in popularity, in large measure because of the oppression.

                                                                              v.            By the early 1950s the Catholic hierarchy halted this war, got rid of these priest warriors and made their peace with Voodoo. Voodoo drums and melodies were incorporated into Catholic church services. The Catholics took the position, if you can't defeat them, co-opt them. Relative peace has held between the Catholics and serviteurs ever since.

a.       The Protestants.

                                                                                 .            Until the 1970s Haiti was nearly 100% Catholic.

                                                                                i.            In the 1970s evangelical Protestantism came to Haiti. After Reagan came to power evangelization mushroomed.

                                                                              ii.            Evangelical Protestants are bitter enemies of Voodoo and denounce it all the time as devil worship. Many of these people claim that Haiti's misery is because she is being punished by God for the sins of her Voodoo serviteurs.

                                                                            iii.            Protestantism has come to Haiti as a serious business. Evangelical Protestants groups own 7 of Haiti's 11 radio stations and have made significant gains in conversions.

                                                                            iv.            Today most observers believe that at least 15% of the Christians in Haiti are Protestant evangelicals.