What is Vodou?

Short answer: A religion of African origins that blended with Catholicism in Saint-Domingue and continues to thrive in Haiti. Long answer to follow.

Overview

In 1492 a European ship named La Santa María wrecked off the northwest coast of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, a lush and mountainous place known as Kiskeya to the hundreds of thousands of Native Americans living there. The natives would soon be decimated by ensuing waves of Spanish conquistadors, colonists, and foreign diseases like smallpox and syphilis.¹ Though the Spanish claimed Hispaniola and had designs on exploiting its natural resources to generate tremendous wealth, they never imported many African slaves over the course of the next two centuries, even ceding the island’s western third to the French in 1697. Over the next hundred years, though, the French would enslave over one million human beings from West and Central Africa to labor on plantations in their Caribbean colonies, the vast majority in Saint-Domingue, on Hispaniola, mostly to cultivate and process sugar.

La Santa María’s wreck was the first instance of Catholicism appearing on the island, albeit in broken form. In time, however, Spanish and then French Catholic missionaries would take part in the lucrative colonial enterprise and ensure the dominion of their faith over free people and slaves alike. Africans’ homeland religions, though prohibited in this so-called New World, would survive, blend, and thrive, with a healthy dose of Catholic symbols, prayers, and rituals incorporated into the mix. Thus was Vodou born, an extraordinary religion of artistry, healing, and communion with divinity and nature—and of resistance to oppression.²

Vodou is not, however, a centralized or doctrinal religion, nor can a founder or group of founders be identified. It has no scripture, but it possesses a richness of poetic orature, or teachings, myths, and beliefs that are embodied in stories and especially in music. Historically and presently, most practitioners of Vodou have been illiterate. Many of these stories are committed to memory and performed during lively communal rituals. Though clearly African in spirit and rhythm, they usually open with Catholic liturgical prayers, and spirits of African origin, called lwa in Haitian Vodou,³ are widely conflated with correlate Catholic saints. In light of this, let us introduce Vodou by employing three of Ninian Smart’s dimensions of religion: 1) Practical and Ritual – what people do in a religion, especially rituals, but also practices that are not necessarily ritualistic, like spontaneous and solitary prayer, yoga, and meditation, 2) Experiential and Emotional – one’s experience in a religion of the transcendent or of divinity, “the food on which all other dimensions of religion feed,” especially mysticism (the personal experience of the sacred) and collective rituals that stir deep emotions in one’s heart and soul, and 3) Material – the “social or institutional dimension of religion almost inevitably becomes incarnate in material form, as buildings, works of art, and other creations.”⁴ On a smaller but equally important scale, other material things, like water, bread, wood, and metal, are required for some of the holiest rituals of any number of religions.

But first an introduction to Haiti and a brief historical exploration of Haitian Vodou. Chapter Seven will subsequently be devoted to death, dying, and the soul in Vodou, the deepest wellsprings of the zombie. In this chapter, we will begin by exploring Vodou’s roots.

A Brief History of Haitian Vodou

A caveat from two of the most erudite scholars of the Caribbean: “To document the history of Vodou is to define as much as to explain it,” Sidney Mintz and Michel-Rolph Trouillot point out. “Yet because that history is murky – shrouded not only in myth but also in a million printed pages written by non-practitioners, both infatuated and violently hostile – a comprehensive picture is elusive.”⁵ But we have to try to paint one here, and we will begin to do so with etymology.

The first known appearance of the word vaudoux in print is found in Méderic Louis Elie Moreau de Saint-Mercy’s two-volume tome Description topographique, physique, civile, politique, et historique de la partie française de l’isle Saint-Domingue, which is the single most important general source of information about Saint-Domingue (colonial Haiti). Published in 1797–1799, though completed ten years earlier, Description contains the word Vaudoux in reference to an ensemble of ritual practices that were “accompanied by such circumstances that placed it on the level of those institutions made up in large part by superstition and bizarre practices.” This is the first of the “million printed pages” to which Mintz and Trouillot refer. Moreau correctly ascribes the religion’s origins in Saint-Domingue to “Arada blacks, who are the true sectarians of le Vaudoux in the colony, and who oversee its principles and rules.” Furthermore, by 1788 Vodou had “been known for a long time, especially in the Western part” of Saint-Domingue. The cultic focus of “the Vaudoux sect” was a serpent in a box on an altar, which served, in effect, as an oracle and “signified an all-powerful, supernatural being upon whom depended all the events in the entire world.” It is noteworthy that Moreau does not ascribe deific status to the nonvenomous serpent, as God is not present in the rituals that he describes but is channeled through the mediumistic reptile: “Knowledge of the past, science of the present, prophecy of the future—all belonged to this snake.” A priest and a priestess, who carried the titles of king and queen and “claimed to be inspired by God,” conducted these rituals, of Arada origin, and served as the gatekeepers for what was essentially a secret society.⁶

Colonial map of the island of Hispaniola, the western third of which was the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which in 1804 would become the independent Republic of Haiti. | Carte de l’isle de Saint-Domingue avec partie des isles voisines, 1730 by Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville, Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix is in the public domain.

The word vodou derives from the West African language of Fongbe and originally meant “spiritual being” or “spiritual thing,” which in some parts of the world, like Benin, Brazil, and Cuba, in certain religious communities, it still does (spelled variously as vodun, vodú, or vodum).⁷ In Benin, historically there has been an actual divinity or spirit named Vodun, but, as far as I know, there is no lwa by that name in Haitian Vodou (though there might once have been).⁸ Only recently has the word come to designate an entire diverse and complex religion, whether in the Caribbean or in West Africa—or in New Orleans, where it is called Voodoo. Haitian Vodou is a deeply spiritual tradition of reciprocal service among humans and spirits and the living dead, so practitioners think of it in these terms rather than as a religion that they practice. As Ira Lowenthal puts it, “When asked about their religion, then, Haitian rural dwellers will not respond by saying that they are ‘voodooists,’ or that they practice ‘voodoo.’ A more likely response would be . . . ‘I am Catholic and I serve the lwa . . . or ‘I am a servant of the spirits.’”⁹

Who are these spirits? They are mostly from West Africa and are generally connected to nature, like Danbala, a serpent spirit associated with rainbows and waterfalls. Èzili, the most popular female spirit in Vodou, is associated with sexuality and motherhood, as well as knives and tobacco. Ogou rules all things metal, like swords, guns, and cars. Simbi spirits are from the Kongo, and they inhabit fresh waters in nature, like rivers, swamps, lagoons, and springs. Called lwa, the spirits in Haitian Vodou are mercurial and imperfect, much like us, and they serve us and walk with or under or behind us in life.

The lwa first arrived in Saint-Domingue in the hearts, minds, and souls of enslaved Africans, beginning in the early sixteenth century. Hispaniola would be split into Spanish and French colonies in 1697, at the Treaty of Ryswick, after which the French would import hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans to Saint-Domingue, the western third of the island. At the time this was the most lucrative colony in the world, producer of massive amounts of sugar and other cash crops. The cultivation and milling of sugar were then very labor-intensive processes, and the French literally worked their African slaves to death, finding it cheaper to import replacements than to care for them or invest too much in keeping them alive. It was cruelty of the most unspeakable kind, as reflected in the following observation by a Swiss visitor to Saint-Domingue in the late eighteenth century:

There were about one hundred men and women of various ages, all of them busily digging ditches in a cane field, most of them naked or covered in rags. The sun beat down directly on their heads: sweat flowing through their bodies, their limbs weighted down by their heavy tools. . . . A deafening silence reigned among them; the suffering etched on their faces . . . . The merciless eyes of the slave driver watched over the workforce, and several foremen with long whips stationed among the slaves meted out severe lashes on those who looked too tired to keep up pace or who had to slow down, men and women, young and old alike.¹⁰

Victims of such brutality mobilized spiritual resources to survive and sometimes to resist their oppressors. By the time the Haitian Revolution broke out in 1791, Saint-Domingue counted over half a million slaves, as well as roughly 30,000 white people and 30,000 free people of color. Roughly two-thirds of the slaves in Saint-Domingue were Africans, half of whom had arrived in the colony within the previous five years.¹¹ Saint-Domingue had thus become home to a large and diverse population of African peoples, and it was there, among them and among Creole (Caribbean-born) slaves, that Vodou took shape, despite prohibitions against African religions in the 1685 royal decree the Code Noir. The Code was largely ineffective, and the nascent religion thus richly derived important elements from West African and West Central African traditions, blended with Catholicism, and has flourished in Haiti ever since.

Understanding the genesis of Haitian Vodou, of course, requires careful attention to the ethnic groups from Africa who laid the cornerstones of the religion in Saint-Domingue. Spanish importations of enslaved Africans to Hispaniola were relatively few, especially when compared to the ensuing waves of slave ships hoisting French flags and first carrying mostly West Africans, then mostly Central Africans.¹² The main West African religious foundation of Haitian Vodou would thus be Arada: “From 1669 until 1750, a West African, especially an Arada, baseline was established. This included ritual forms such as divination, rainmaking, amulets, healing, drumming and dance, and spirit possession, with the cult of Danbala likely predominating.”¹³

Danbala remains one of the most important lwa in Haitian Vodou and yet is one of the rare spirits who is not anthropomorphic, unlike Èzili, the most important female divinity in the religion; Ogou, the divinity of iron and metals and all things associated therewith, like warfare; and Gede, ruler of death, dying, and the dead. Karen McCarthy Brown writes that these and other spirits “are not models of the well-lived life; rather, they mirror the full range of possibilities inherent in the particular slice of life over which they preside.” Furthermore, the lwa “are larger than life but not other than life. Virtue for both the lwa and those who serve them is less an inherent character trait than a dynamic state of being that demands ongoing attention and care.”¹⁴

A West African, Arada tradition received an infusion of Central African religious forms, especially from the Kongo people as Vodou crystalized. Kongolese religion differed from Arada religion insofar as the spirits in Central Africa were tied to local topographical/natural features, like groves, trees, and hills, and not to universal natural forces like wind and leaves, unlike the spirits of West Africa.¹⁵ Hence they generally did not accompany Africans through the harrowing Middle Passage to the plantations of Saint-Domingue, Brazil, or South Carolina. One significant but often overlooked historical fact is that many Kongolese slaves were also Catholic, as Catholicism had been implanted in their Central African homeland by the late fifteenth century. As such, it was not only French missionaries who brought Catholic saints to Haiti, but Africans themselves and, over the course of the eighteenth century, enslaved Africans blended indigenous African and Catholic traditions to produce Haitian Vodou, a process that anthropologists and historians of religion refer to as religious syncretism.

Vodou is widely, and somewhat mythically, credited for having sparked the Haitian Revolution and for having inspired the founding of the world’s first independent Black republic in 1804: Haiti. Central to this narrative is a story of a supposed Vodou priest named Boukman Dutty. Along with an enslaved West African woman named Cécille Fatima (given her name, surely a Muslim), on the evening of August 14–15, 1791, Dutty summoned hundreds of slaves from surrounding plantations at a place in the woods called Bwa Kayiman. There, they sacrificed a black pig and fueled an insurrection. The uprising was to start the following day, sparking the overthrow of French rule in Saint-Domingue and liberating the oppressed masses of Africans and Creoles. The veracity of this story is debated among historians, but it has held an important place in Haiti’s national imagination and reflects the power of Vodou to uplift and inspire.

Battle during the Haitian Revolution. Auguste Raffet, 1802. | Haitian Revolution by Auguste Raffet is in the public domain.

As the smoke from the Haitian Revolution cleared in 1804, no foreign nation would recognize the Republic of Haiti’s sovereignty, and the Vatican withdrew Catholic priests and refused to replace them for the next fifty-four years (1804–1860). This period is referred to as the Great Schism. Notwithstanding the absence of orthodoxy, Catholicism as a popular religion thrived. This was a continuation of a process from the colonial era when, per Alfred Métraux, “so many Catholic elements were greedily adopted” by Vodouists. Furthermore, because of the Catholic hierarchy’s absence, “the entrenchment of Voodoo in Haiti” was secured,¹⁶ and it remains the religion of the majority of Haitians today, most of whom are also Catholic. The lwa, moreover, are mostly Catholic and sometimes instruct their sevitè (servants; e.g., devotees) to go to Mass or even bring them along to receive Communion, so intertwined are the religions.

Following a Concordat signed between the Vatican and the Haitian state in 1860, the return of the Roman Catholic hierarchy changed religious matters in the Caribbean nation dramatically. The Catholic Church enjoyed state support and soon dominated education in Haiti, and in due course its hierarchy would develop campaigns to combat “superstition,” or “antisuperstitious campaigns,” presenting a formidable and sometimes violent challenge to Haitian Vodou. As Kate Ramsey explains, “Between 1835 and 1987 many popular ritual practices were officially prohibited, first as sortilèges (spells) and later as pratiques superstitieuses (superstitious practices).” With the Catholic hierarchy re-entrenched, these prohibitions would intensify toward the end of the nineteenth century:

Given that it was politically impossible for any Haitian government to sustain such an offensive, it is unsurprising that three out of four of the campaigns against le vaudoux or “voodoo” . . . were instigated by foreigners in Haiti, namely, the French-dominated Roman Catholic Church hierarchy in the late 1890s and early 1940s and the U.S. military during its occupation of Haiti between 1915 and 1934.¹⁷

Three of these campaigns were especially harmful, if not devastating, for practitioners of Haitian Vodou and the remarkable and artistic culture they had created to practice their religion: those of 1898, 1913, and 1941–1942. With state and military support, “in its schools, as from its pulpits, l’Eglise [the Church] taught that Vodou amounted to ‘devil worship,’ a shameful cult of primitive people, a collection of archaic African superstitions to be uprooted from among the Haitian masses.”¹⁸

Happily, things would improve in this regard following World War II, though Vodou would soon face ascendant challenges from an influx of Protestant missionaries. Today, Haiti is roughly one-third Protestant, though “the mixture of Protestantism and sèvis lwa is rare,”¹⁹ as evangelicals especially tend to demonize the lwa.

Another period of difficulty and persecution for Vodouists emerged upon the death of the ruthless despot and “president for life” François Duvalier (1907–1971), a.k.a. “Papa Doc.” Duvalier was a physician who treated peasants in the countryside and thus got to know their culture, including Vodou, very well, transforming himself into an ethnographer and eventually a dictator—one of the most notorious in the Americas in the twentieth century. Vodou played a key role in Duvalier’s reign, as he fashioned himself to resemble Gede—the lwa of all things related to death, dying, and the dead—dressing and speaking like him. This performance was, in effect, “a bridge that linked representations of religious power and national authoritarian power.”²⁰

During his reign, from 1957 until his death in 1971, Papa Doc further tightened his grip on power by forming a paramilitary death squad called the Tonton Makout. Many peasants became Makouts largely “to shelter themselves from state predation and repression,”²¹ and among them were numerous Vodou priests. In Haitian Creole, tonton means “uncle,” while a makout is a straw sack that one sees hanging on trees throughout rural Haiti, and they contain offerings for Loko, who is the lwa of trees. Taken together, the terms are rooted in Haitian folk culture; it is the name of a fearsome anthropomorphic being who roams the countryside to steal young children and take them away in his makout. The Tonton Makout dressed in blue denim uniforms, reminiscent of the garb of the Vodou spirit Azaka. They also “managed to increase fear not only by brutal terror like murder and rape,” as Bettina Schmidt explains, “but by deliberately staging certain aspects of Vodou (e.g., zombification).”²²

Papa Doc’s only son, Jean-Claude Duvalier (1951–2014), a.k.a. “Baby Doc,” succeeded his father as Haiti’s “president for life” after François Duvalier died in 1971. The repression of political opponents persisted, and the Tonton Makouts continued to be the strong arm for Baby Doc. But they largely disbanded when popular uprisings ousted Baby Doc from power in 1986. He fled to exile in France with hundreds of millions of dollars from state coffers. Because of the role of Vodou and Vodou priests in the brutal militia, “after the end of the Duvalier regime, several Vodou priests were killed by angry Haitians seeking revenge for the terror by the Tonton Macoutes.”²³

Vodou was finally recognized by the Haitian state as an official religion in 2003, with its baptismal, nuptial, and funerary records thenceforth legally recognized. This was a time when a former Catholic priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide (b. 1953), who was widely believed to himself practice Vodou, served as president. Despite this important step toward religious tolerance, the devastating 2010 earthquake, which killed over a quarter million people in a matter of minutes, inspired widespread evangelical denunciation of Vodou for having supposedly caused God to punish Haiti for its sins. The chief sin in this narrative: having sold Haiti’s soul to Satan in exchange for independence during the Haitian Revolution, at Bwa Kayiman.²⁴ Some influential Catholic clerics also seized upon the tragedy to blame Vodou for Haiti’s myriad material woes. This left Vodou on rather shaky ground and charting historically familiar waters of persecution.²⁵ But if Haitian Vodou had a middle name, it would be spirit, and one should expect the religion to persevere spiritedly and perhaps even thrive in the future, despite all the formidable obstacles that have been placed in its way for over four hundred years.

Practical and Ritual Dimensions of Haitian Vodou

“Vodou is a religion of survival, and it counsels what it must to ensure survival,” writes Brown.²⁶ What is more practical than that? But in coining his term “practical” for this dimension of religion, Ninian Smart meant the ways in which any given religion is practiced more than any religious practicality per se. There are many forms of religious practice in Haitian Vodou, a constellation of rituals that range in form from lively communal drumming ceremonies to divination performed for individuals, pilgrimages, and funerary rites. Except for funerary rites, which are discussed at some length in the following chapter, these now attract our attention.

Vodou is a religion of “diffused monotheism,” a term coined by Bolaji Idowu in a treatise on Yoruba theology, the religious thought of the largest ethnic group in West Africa.²⁷ By this is meant that there is one Creator God in Yoruba traditional religion, Olodumare, whose presence and energies are diffused throughout creation by a pantheon of spirits, called orishas, many of whom are known in Vodou as certain lwa. Likewise, in Haitian Vodou there is one supreme God, Bondye, who is rather distant from humanity but who channels his energies through the lwa.²⁸ Though Bondye, who is also often called Gran Mèt (Great Master) in Haitian Vodou, is not directly involved in human affairs, He is acknowledged in most ceremonies. For a more direct connection to Bondye, Vodouists often turn to the Catholic Church. As Laënnec Hurbon puts it, the lwa “all act as links between the visible and the invisible. They explain the origin of the world, representing its hidden side, shadowed and deep: the very essence of life.”²⁹ Bondye is the source of that essence, and the lwa enable us to know and tap into this, thereby being spiritually energized.

We have already introduced a few lwa and list some of the most important of them later in the chapter, but two things should be noted first:

1. The lwa are almost innumerable,³⁰ as many of them take multiple forms and have many names.
2. Although they are the focus of most Vodouist practice, there are other mistè (mysteries) who attract the devotional attention of the faithful. These include saints (sen), angels (zanj), the dead (lemò) or the ancestors (zansèt), and devils (dyab). The word sen is often used interchangeably with the word lwa or as a diptych noun for both the Catholic saints and the lwa, who are widely conflated in Haitian Vodou. Zanj can refer specifically to notions of angels rooted in Catholicism, but more often refers to the lwa themselves “or the spirit of a dead person.”³¹ Lemò are the departed ancestors, either in Africa (Ginen) or under the water (anba dlo), who are venerated in Haitian Vodou as much as the lwa. (See the following chapter for details.). Though literally translating as “devil,” dyab is another term that is usually used interchangeably with lwa, or “sometimes a reference to malicious, mean, difficult, or mischievous Vodou lwa.”³²

As such, the lwa are imperfect, mercurial divinities. Though conflated with Catholic saints, they are generally not thought of in the same way as those rare former human beings who lived such holy lives that they were canonized by the Catholic Church as role models for the faithful. Their conflation with the lwa is rooted in Saint-Domingue, where Africans reinterpreted Catholic teachings about the saints to inscribe their own homeland spirits with new representations, symbols, energies, rituals, and names. Later in Haitian history, as colorful lithographs of the saints appeared and proliferated, such assimilation between saints and lwa deepened, and virtually every Vodou temple (ounfò; perstil) is adorned with them. While scholars debate the reasons for this assimilation,³³ what is perhaps most important is that both the lwa and the saints are to be venerated and served, and in both Catholicism and Vodou, practitioners believe that in return they may receive either the grace of God or blessings and gifts from the lwa and/or the saints.

The vèvè of Danbala, a serpent spirit, and his wife, Wèdo, two of the most important lwa in Haitian Vodou, and the first to have been created by God; associated with rainbows, serpents, creation, and regeneration. | Vèvè Danbala by chris 論 is in the public domain.

Serving the Spirits

Among the most prominent spirits in Vodou are the following:

• Agwe: King of the seas. Assimilated with St. Ulrich.
• Aida-Wèdo: A snake divinity who is associated with rainbows and is the wife of Danbala; sometimes assimilated with Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.
• Ayizan: “The Vodou lwa of temples, public gates, doors, gates, and roads.”³⁴ Generally associated with St. Claire.
• Azaka (also called Zaka): The lwa of all things related to agriculture. Assimilated with St. Charles Borromeo.
• Bawon Samdi: The lwa who rules over cemeteries; a manifestation of Gede. More closely identified with the Christian cross than with any Catholic saint.
• Bosou Twa Kòn: A lwa visualized as a bull with three horns (or three testicles) and associated with wisdom and justice. Assimilated with St. Nicholas and sometimes with Jesus Christ.
• Danbala: A serpent lwa associated with rainbows, waterfalls, and the cycle of life; husband of Aida-Wèdo. Assimilated with St. Patrick.
• Èzili: The most popular female lwa in Vodou; associated with love, sexuality, motherhood, and fresh waters. Assimilated with the Virgin Mary.
• Gede: The lwa of all things related to death and dying, and to rebirth. Assimilated with St. Gerard.
• Gran Bwa: The lwa of leaves and of forests. Assimilated with St. Sebastian.
• Lasirenn: The mermaid lwa, sometimes seen as a whale or with a whale. Associated with the sea and is the wife of Agwe. Assimilated with St. Philomena.³⁵
• Legba: A lwa associated with crossroads and gates, and the enabler of all Vodou ceremonies. Assimilated with St. Peter.
• Loko: The lwa of trees. Associated with St. Joseph, for his love of children.
• Marasa: Twins. The lwa of twins. Assimilated with Sts. Cosmas and Damian, who were twins, hence…
• Ogou: The lwa of metals and all things related thereto, like warfare, guns, and swords. Thus, assimilated with St. James the Greater (as Matamoros) and sometimes with St. George.
• Simbi: Lwa of Central African origin associated with springs and lagoons. Assimilated with St. Christopher and sometimes with Moses.³⁶

The lwa are members of diverse rites, or pantheons, in Haitian Vodou, the most important of which are the Rada and the Petwo, whose respective lwa are sometimes referred to as “Zanj Lan Bwa (Angels in the Woods) and Zanj Lan Dlo (Angels in the Water).”³⁷ As Brown explains, “Rada spirits are sweet-tempered and dependable; their power resides in their wisdom. . . . The Petwo spirits, in contrast, are hot-tempered and volatile.”³⁸ Although Rada spirits generally reflect West African origins, while Petwo spirits generally reflect Central African origins, many lwa have manifestations in both rites. For example, Èzili has more than twenty different manifestations, so one thinks here of a family of lwa rather than of a single divinity.³⁹ In Haitian Vodou, Èzili’s most popular Rada manifestation is Èzili Freda, while her most popular Petwo manifestation is Èzili Dantò. Freda is a promiscuous divinity who enjoys fine wines, perfumes, and lace, while Dantò is a feisty divinity with one child who enjoys knives and smoking.

Serving the lwa takes many forms, even marriage. They love to dance, and the most common Vodou ceremony is a festive communal gathering often referred to as fèt Vodou, a term that can be translated as either “Vodou feast” or “Vodou party.” At times such a gathering is simply called a dans, dance. Drums (tanbou, a term also used in Haiti for such ceremonies) are of central importance, as they infuse the faithful with divine energy and they call the lwa to join the gathering. The ounfò, the temple, normally features a center pole called a poto mitan, down which the lwa descend and around which their devotees or servants (sevitè) process and dance.

Like us, and like the dead, the lwa must be fed, and two of the most important communal ceremonies in Haitian Vodou reflect this: Manje lwa (Food for the Spirits) and Manje mò, or Manjè lemò (Food for the Dead). We describe the latter in the following chapter; let us briefly consider the former. This ritual can be individual or communal; that is, one may leave offerings of food for “the lwa in return for protection, healing, soothsaying, and other benefits.”⁴⁰ This can happen on an altar in one’s home or at a Catholic church, but usually it is performed in Vodou temples. There are also annual manje lwa ceremonies, often for spirits that reside in one’s family, which invariably “are intended to pay homage to the lwa and to obtain a contact with them, or to appease their anger,” as Hurbon explains:

In most ceremonies, the offering of food is given a central place. The manje loa consists in giving food to the loa, who, when satisfied, can communicate their strength to the faithful. When the offering has become the property of the lwa, the participants can become closer to them by eating the food . . . . Drumming, dancing, and songs continue at an ever more accelerated rhythm. As the lwa eat, they become happy and can express themselves freely, make announcements about the future, avert accidents and diseases, and offer recipes for healing illnesses. The essence of the ceremony of the manje loa is to nourish the spirits.⁴¹

Priests and priestesses (oungan and manbo) orchestrate manje lwa and other communal rituals in Haitian Vodou, often assisted by their apprentices, ounsi. Rituals often open with Catholic prayers led by a “bush priest” (pret savann). Papa Legba is the first lwa to be addressed at such ceremonies, as he is the gatekeeper, keeper of the keys, who opens the barriers between the sacred and the profane. Communal rites in Haitian Vodou usually also involve animal sacrifice, and the meat of the sacrificial victims is eaten by the spirits and the participants. Most commonly chickens and goats are sacrificed, though sometimes bulls, pigs, or dogs, depending on the occasion. While many readers might find animal sacrifice unsavory and unnecessary, it is important to think of this contextually. Most religions, at times, call for some form of animal sacrifice, while the world’s largest religion, Christianity, would make no sense to any of its believers—indeed, it would not exist at all—were it not for the sacrifice of a human being, the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

The most important communal—in fact national—ritual in Haitian Vodou, Fèt Gede (the Feast of Gede), is discussed at length in the following chapter. Another of great national and cultural importance in Haiti is the religion’s extraordinary Lenten tradition called Rara. Vodou is a religion that is very attentive to birth, life, death, and rebirth, as reflected in notions of the zombie and, more fully, in the Rara celebrations. They occur throughout the country each spring, starting “on the eve of Lent,” as Elizabeth McAlister writes: Musical “processions walk for miles through local territory, attracting fans and singing old and new songs. Bands stop traffic for hours and perform rituals for Afro-Haitian deities at crossroads, bridges, and cemeteries.”⁴² Furthermore, “Rara is about play, religion, and politics and also about a bloody history and persevering in its face . . . a ritual enactment of life itself and an affirmation of life’s difficulties.”⁴³

Preparation for, understanding of, and assistance with life’s difficulties—and historically for most Haitians such difficulties have often been dire—are also affirmed and addressed in individual ritual practices in Haitian Vodou. One inherits a lwa rasin, a protective root spirit, at birth and over time, if living space permits, they keep an altar in their home for this divinity’s veneration. Again, Haitian Vodou is a religion of reciprocal service, and nowhere is this more intimate than in one’s personal devotion to the lwa rasin. Often, this spirit is so close as to be understood to live in one’s very soul, a notion explored in Chapter Seven. For many, such personal devotion “takes place at a prayer altar, a little table covered by a sheet upon which are placed bouquets of flowers and the symbol of the lwa or its image in color, usually the image of a Catholic saint corresponding to this lwa.”⁴⁴

Communicating with the lwa and with lemò often relies on divination, or the ritual reading of the unseen world. (Think Ouija boards, crystal balls, tarot cards, etc.) In Africa, such practices have a long and rich tradition. They are quite complex, as in the Yoruba practice of Ifa, in which shells or chains are dropped and read in reference to the oracle, otherwise unseen knowledge, to receive insight from the spirits.⁴⁵ These practices and repositories of spiritual knowledge were inherited and adapted in Haitian Vodou, in which divination is often done with a deck of playing cards. Dreams are also an important source of communication with the mistè. As Adam McGee writes: “Through divination, perspicacity, and the persistence of the spirits, priests and priestesses must be able to interpret the dreams that others report to them”⁴⁶ and be able to interpret the cards. With my wife and another relative in Port-au-Prince, on a balcony, I once sat with a Vodou priest for a divination ceremony. There was rum, marijuana, cigarettes, and a deck of cards. There were also bees. The oungan began reading the cards, and a swarm of bees covered him from head to toe. He spoke—actually, the spirits and the ancestors spoke through him—and that “consultation” has guided my life ever since. The main message that I took from that experience is to be grateful to those who sacrificed for us, whether it be Jesus Christ or your grandmother. Or the lwa.

Back to the community: Most communal Vodou ceremonies involve drumming. The drum is sacred in Haitian Vodou, and it is consecrated, as are the hands that beat it. Tanbou infuse the faithful with divine force and call the lwa to join them, to dance with them, to speak with them. The lwa join the gathering by invisibly climbing or sliding down the poto mitan in the temple and then possessing one of the dancers, mounting the horse (chwal) as its rider, galloping in our midst, sharing secrets of the unseen world, chastising, beckoning, calming, and dancing. These experiences are often highly dramatic and quite exhausting, but they also animate and orient humans in the deepest fashion possible—morally, musically, spiritually—and they reassure us that the lwa are with us, that they walk with us, that we are not alone. Diffused monotheism—it is through the lwa, with the lwa, that we find God, that God finds us, that we imbibe the divine energies of life and death and know ourselves as we are, as immersed in and infused with divinity.

Experiential and Emotional Dimensions of Haitian Vodou

To practice Haitian Vodou is to walk with the lwa, to serve and feed them and the dead, and to find divine energy infused in all of nature, to find God, Bondye. However distant God may be, however uninvolved in human affairs, he is still acknowledged in Vodou as the source of all, the Creator, and is considered to be good, Bondye bon. Bondye’s energies are channeled through the lwa. The lwa take many forms and often walk together, or behind or under one another, enhancing their power and rendering themselves present in our lives along multiple paths of energy and spirit. Not everyone gets possessed by the lwa, but we are all touched by them and, when others are possessed, we commune with the lwa. Spirit possession is one of the most intense experiences in Vodou, or in any religion, and it usually occurs in a temple, when the lwa descends the poto mitan and enters the body of a dancer. It should not be confused with demonic possession of the kind that Jesus exorcised in the Bible, like in the Gospel of Mark (1:21–28). In Vodou one wants the spirits to join the gathering, whereas in the Bible, at least in the New Testament accounts, demonic possessing agents “are understood as thoroughly negative beings intent on harming human beings by seizing control of their bodies.”⁴⁷ Brown’s reflections on the role of spirit possession in Haitian Vodou tell quite a different story: “These possession performances, which blend pro forma actions and attitudes with those responsive to the immediate situation, are the heart of a Vodou ceremony. The spirits talk with the faithful, hold them, feed them, chastise them. Strife is healed and misunderstanding rectified.”⁴⁸

Spirit possession is a form of what psychiatry calls a “dissociative state,” an experience in which an individual’s personality and awareness are displaced and their body becomes a receptacle for a spirit, a mouthpiece and a dancing vessel. This is part of a broader collective phenomenon in Africana religion that I refer to as envesselment, a term intended to help us appreciate the ways in which “just as bottles, gourds, graves, trees, temples, churches, and amulets serve as vessels for the containment of supernatural power, so, too, do human bodies.”⁴⁹ Some people are more inclined to be possessed than others, but they generally do not have any recollection of the experience once they reemerge into a normal waking state of consciousness, usually quite exhausted. In a classic comparative study of spirit possession, I. M. Lewis suggests that women are more often possessed by spirits than men, which, in his view, has much to do with gender-based oppression.⁵⁰ It would take a major research effort to verify or refute Lewis’s claim, but from my own experience in Central Africa and in the Caribbean, I can say anecdotally that most occasions of spirit possession have involved women, or sometimes gay men, more often than straight men.

Vodouist dancing before a vèvè in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 1976. Photo by Fritz Rudolf Loewa. | Woman in Transe by Nlecoro is used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 License.

Providing offerings for the lwa is another important religious experience in Haitian Vodou, whether on one’s home altar, by a tree, or at a temple. Like the dead, and like us, they must be fed, so routinely rum is poured on the ground for the mistè and meals are prepared for them. Danbala, the serpent spirit of fertility and regeneration, usually only accepts offerings of the color white. Èzili Freda, the goddess of love and fertility, is fond of fine French wines, perfumes, and linen and lace. Honey is relatively expensive in Haiti and not widely consumed as a foodstuff among the poor. But because of how wildly popular it is among their spirits, Vodouists will go out of their way to obtain some of the sweet liquid to offer to the lwa, especially Granbwa, spirit of the forest. Honey is also uniquely versatile and can be offered across the two main rites of the Vodou pantheon. Most spirits have a “cool” manifestation in the Rada rite (or “nation,” nanchon) and a “hot” manifestation in the Petwo nation, and “unrefined honey, being darker and heavier, is ‘hot,’ while refined honey is ‘cold,’” as Bryan Freeman explains.⁵¹ In New Orleans, honey also features prominently in the American version of the religion, as reflected in Zora Neale Hurston’s description of her initiation into Vodou (Voodoo) there:

On Thursday morning at eleven I was at the shuttered door of the ancient house. He [the priest] let me in cheerfully and led me straight to the altar. There were new candles unlit. He signaled me to help. We dressed the candles and lit them and set three upon tumblers filled with honey, three filled with syrup, and three with holy water, and set them in a semi-circle upon the altar.

She also saw on an altar a piece of “honeyed St. Joseph’s bread.”⁵² Usually, initiation kouche (kanzo) into Vodou requires a period of seven days enclosed in a small room or chamber called a djevo, a feature of many temples in Haiti or sometimes in the homes of oungan and manbo, though I have never heard of the use of honey for such a purpose there.

It is also common in Haiti for folk healers, most of them Vodouists, to prescribe honey for a wide range of ailments, especially stomach and throat conditions, and honey is elemental to a widely used homemade cough syrup.⁵³ Not surprisingly, reflecting European contributions to the religion, it is also a key ingredient in a wide range of love potions, teas, baths, and candles. Considering that in Haitian culture, as in most Africana cultures, healing and religion are largely synonymous, honey, along with water, herbs, and blood, is one of the most important material elements of Vodou.⁵⁴ It heals, and healing is at the heart of Haitian Vodou.

To heal, one must first know what is wrong, what needs to be cured, and Vodou priests and priestesses usually employ divination to make such determinations. A malady could have any number of causes, after all, whether biophysical or spiritual. Disgruntled lwa or ancestors can harm human beings, as can a bòkò (sorcerer), so one must consult the mistè by way of divination. In Haitian Vodou, the most common form of divination is using a deck of playing cards, which are usually placed in four rows of four and consulted by a manbo or oungan. This can require the healer and/or the client to enter a trance, followed by a dialogue between the diviner and the person seeking a consultation. At times other means are employed, like palm reading, candle reading, or reference to scripture. “Once the diagnosis has been made and the treatment has been negotiated,” explains Nicolas Vonarx, “the first stage of treatment is organized in the badji,”⁵⁵ or the inner sanctuary of a Vodou temple or a shed in a temple yard that contains an altar, symbols of the lwa, and human bones representing the ancestors.⁵⁶ Because of the spiritual significance of crossroads— where many lwa reside, especially Legba—and of the presence of the dead in cemeteries, healing rituals are also held in these places. Usually prescribed cures include herbs. As such, herbalism is a rich tradition in Haitian Vodou. While manbo and oungan possess ample knowledge of this tradition, there is also a class of ritual specialists who work exclusively with leaves and other natural elements to heal, called medsin fèy (lit: “leaf doctor”). Dozens of different plants or roots are sometimes used in a single cure or prophylactic intervention, like the following that I witnessed in Haiti in 2001.

A Vodou priestess named Marie-Carmel was working on a love potion. Her client was about to propose to a woman and wanted to ensure the proposal’s success. The maji, as Marie-Carmel called it—literally, the magic—took two days to prepare in the yard of her temple and home in Léogâne, a city about ten miles from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. She orchestrated this before a large white cross made of cinder blocks and cement. An iron cauldron was placed over a low charcoal fire, into which no fewer than twelve herbs were added, meticulously, along with oils and rum, and this maji was stirred slowly. By the end, Marie-Carmel, a highly respected manbo in a lineage of powerful priestesses, was totally exhausted. She had produced for her client a sizzling potion in a Gerber’s baby food jar. “This is what it is going to do to her heart,” she said, “make it burn for you.” It worked! “They are now happily married with two children.”⁵⁷

I will conclude this section with a word on emotions: To fall in love, to have and raise a child, to grieve, to pine, to lack, to be lonely, to be ecstatic, to be forlorn, to be adrift, to be utterly tranquil, and such, are deeply emotional experiences. So is being possessed by a lwa, or simply knowing that a lwa walks with you, under you, or behind you, and that the ancestors need you, just as they gave you life. Hopefully this brief discussion has provided a respectful sense of that. I grew up Catholic in the United States and always found Mass to be so boring, but Vodou is anything but that. The liveliness is literally intoxicating. Spirits dance, we dance, we sing, we pray, the rum flows, and at times cards explain our way to healing and a prescription comes in a small, sizzling baby food jar. Let us now talk further about playing cards and baby food jars as we explore the material dimension of Haitian Vodou. We explore the soul in the next chapter, and then the zombies will come out in full force.

Material Dimensions of Haitian Vodou

Only recently have scholars begun to pay careful attention to the material dimensions of religion. Long captivated by the heady realms of theology, spirits, souls, and scripture, they largely ignored the tactile, the somatic, and the stuff—like the dirt, the walls, the smoke, and the icons—that often captivate the faithful more than does the transcendent. It was only in 2005, for instance, that an entire journal, Material Religion, was launched “to explore how religion happens in material culture – images, devotional objects, architecture and sacred space, works of art and mass-produced artifacts.”⁵⁸ For the sake of structuring this last section of our chapter on Haitian Vodou, let us follow that list of material religious things, beginning with:

Images

Images abound in Haitian Vodou. Temples are adorned with them, as are the small buses, called tap-taps, that carry people to work or pilgrims to pray. The most common images are colorful lithographs of Catholic saints, a wide range of them—from the Virgin Mary (in many forms) and St. Philomena to Saints Peter and the twins Cosmas and Damien. The hagiography of Catholic saints lent itself quite fluidly to their assimilation with African spirits and ancestors, whether in Kongo during the introduction and adoption of Catholicism there, or in Saint-Domingue—or Cuba, or Brazil, for that matter. Icons of saints in churches resonated with Africans in all these places. As Melville J. Herskovits puts it in a classic article, Africans “succeeded in achieving, at least in their religious life, a synthesis between aboriginal African patterns and the European traditions to which they have been exposed.”⁵⁹ This is nowhere more clearly reflected than in the multitude of lithographs of Catholic saints that embellish Vodou temples. Evidently, these first began to appear in Haiti in the early twentieth century and were inexpensive and already “widely distributed” by the time that Herskovits did his pioneering research in the 1930s.⁶⁰

Sacred rattle and emblem of the priesthood in Haitian Vodou. | Asson by DKDHoungan is used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 License.

Flags (drapo) also adorn Vodou temples, usually on the exterior of the ounfo, on poles, or hanging over a wall surrounding the temple yard. These are banners, often resplendently decorated with sequins and, like the lithographs, very colorful. They are “used for rituals and ceremonies” and “may be displayed in a temple in honor of a lwa or of the temple itself.”⁶¹ Usually drapo depict Catholic saints in detail, though sometimes they center upon vèvè, often cruciform or geometrical symbols that represent the lwa. They are traced on the ground of a temple in chalk, corn meal, ashes, brick dust, pulverized tree bark, or flour at the beginning of a communal ceremony, only to be danced into the ground by the feet of the faithful. Vèvè take a more permanent form on the drapo, but not in communal rituals. Here is Métraux’s marvelous description from the 1950s:

The procedure is as follows: the officiant takes from a plate a pinch of powder or flour which he lets slip between his index finger and thumb in such a way to leave a thin regular line. Thus, he traces out the geographical motifs, objects or animals which may cover fairly large areas. Some vèvè, comprising the symbols of several gods, stretch from one end of the peristyle to the other . . . . Their function is to summon the loa.⁶²

Devotional Objects

Anthropologists sometimes refer to the material things that people use in their religious practice as ritual paraphernalia, and in Haitian Vodou there is a great deal of it. We have already mentioned several examples, like cornmeal for vèvè tracings, human skulls and bones for the badji, drums for infusing the congregation with divinity, and herbs and oils for healing. We briefly discuss a few others in this section, but, as with imagery, devotional objects in Haitian Vodou are so many and diverse that our summary will per force be greatly simplified. Let us look at a list of ritual items that I discussed in my last book, which focused on religion during the Haitian Revolution:⁶³

• Amulets (charms, fetishes)
• Birds (bird parts)
• Candles
• Chalices
• Ciboriums
• Crosses
• Eggs
• Flowers
• Holy oil
• Icons
• Incensories
• Medals
• Monstrances
• Osculatoriums
• Priestly robes
• Rocks
• Rosaries
• Tabernacles

That list is from a focused study of religion in Saint-Domingue from 1790 to 1803, which looked at only a few religious communities when Vodou was beginning to crystallize as a religion. One will notice that most of these terms are Catholic, which is indicative of the deep merger of African and European religious forms that was developing in the colony, a veritable cornerstone of Haitian Vodou.

Another form of African/Catholic grafting that has always been central to Vodou is the liturgical calendar of the feast days of saints. This is the basis of Haiti’s extraordinary pilgrimage culture, one that dates to 1701.⁶⁴ Two key devotional objects in Haitian Vodouist pilgrimages are the kòd (cord) and the rad penitans (penitential dress)^.65 The act of tying is sacred in Central Africa and has been perpetuated in Haitian Vodou in myriad ways. Amulets are tied, often as pakèt (packets, often small sacks containing herbs, powders, and other items) and pwen (points), which are mysterious and sometimes invisible charms widely used in the religion. As Karen Richman explains, “Pwen are ingenuously underdetermined modes of communication . . .. Pwen reveal bare truths about persons, situations, powers, and things.”⁶⁶ As for kòd, as Richman and I explain:

The practice of pilgrims wearing colorful ropes around their waists or heads while traveling to and entering sacred space is one of this tradition’s most original features. Ropes can be bought at most pilgrimage sites in Haiti, though they are most popular during Marian feast day celebrations, especially that of Our Lady of Mount Carmel – who is assimilated in Vodou with the religion’s leading feminine spirit Èzili Dantò and sometimes Èzili Freda – on July 16.

One Vodou priest explained it to us this way: “When you travel for Mary, she comes to meet you at the crossroads and fills your soul. The ropes . . . make it possible for you to truly hug her and keep her power inside of you.”⁶⁷ I have seen Haitian pilgrims use rosary beads, whether strung together to tie around one’s waist, worn around one’s neck, or wrapped around a wrist and hand, along with medals of Catholic saints, as “weapons.”⁶⁸ Weapons in the battle against evil, a motif that André Corten identifies as a central discourse in Haitian religion.⁶⁹

Divine power inside you: your body as a vessel. Divine power surrounding you, walking with you, in your head, beneath you, in your home, in your yard. Whether bequeathed to devotees by the lwa or by the dead or by God or sold to you by a merchant sitting on a cinder block somewhere in Port-au-Prince or Léogâne, this is the chief purpose of devotional objects in Haitian Vodou. And, just as the human body is a vessel for divine presence, so is the govi, a sacralized bottle, clay gourd, or “pitcher” found in most Vodou temples, sometimes in multitudes.⁷⁰ These harbor the power of the lwa or the dead, lemò, or serve as their symbols. Another important form of envesselment in Haitian Vodou is the rattle (asson) that priests and priestesses carry and employ in a range of ritual services. It is usually “made of calabash covered with a net in which are enmeshed beads or snake vertebrae,” as Métraux explains. “Spirits who have chosen a man [or a woman] as vessel for supernatural powers” are said in Haitian Vodou to have “‘taken the asson.’”⁷¹

In Haitian Vodou there are purveyors of destructive supernatural arts called bòkò, or sorcerers. Their work derives mostly from African memory, while at times drawing upon European traditions.⁷² It also incorporates local flora and fauna, as it is usually effectuated by using plants, herbs, or sometimes animal parts or fluids used as poisons. This tradition has deep roots in Africa and was a key element of African resistance to slavery and oppression, during the colonial era, in Saint-Domingue. The most feared, and successful, bòkò was Makandal. He was an African, likely from Congo, who led a community of maroon ex-slaves and terrorized whites with poisons and wanga, destructive amulets and curses, for nearly twenty years before his capture and execution. So powerful was Makandal’s work that, to this day, in Haitian Vodou his name is synonymous with poison.⁷³

Architecture and Sacred Space

We have mentioned Vodou temples, ounfò, also sometimes called tanp (temple). Along with cemeteries, they are the most important sacred spaces in the religion. They are also called perstil: “A covered area partially open at the sides where most Vodou drumming, dancing, chanting, and possession take place.”⁷⁴ Some rural Vodouist communities are centered on abitasyon (lit.: “habitat”), a parcel of land, a compound, that is home to the dead and the lwa and that houses a temple. On most abitasyons that I have visited, there are also sacred trees and locations in the earth where the lwa reside.

We have already mentioned the badji, an “inner sanctuary” in a Vodou temple that houses the dead and the lwa, as well as the lwa’s clothes and ritual items.⁷⁵ Another important, often temporary, space in a temple or in the home of a Vodou priestess or priest is the djevo, a chamber in which an initiand into the religion spends much of a week lying down, usually dressed entirely in white. Métraux offers the following description:

In honour of the loa the sanctuary flags are placed around the retreat room. The very ground is covered with every kind of receptacle all of the maît-tête loa’s [a devotee’s chief spirit] favorite dishes. The mats on which the initiates are to lie are placed on the vèvè of their representative loa protectors. For pillows, they are issued with large stones which have been taken into the hunfo at night in great secrecy. Small coins … are put under the stones or knotted into a corner of the cloth of each novice.⁷⁶

Many people who attend Vodou ceremonies and serve the lwa in Haiti cannot afford to be initiated in a djevo, as it is sometimes pricey, but they remain devoted to the mistè in meaningful ways, like going to Vodou ceremonies, Catholic Masses, or going on pilgrimage. Catholic churches in Haiti are also important sacred spaces in Haitian Vodou, as most Vodouists are also Catholic, as are most of the lwa. And many natural places on Earth, its seas, trees, groves, and hills, and especially its waterfalls, are sacred spaces in the religion.

For instance, waterfalls in Haiti are sacred repositories of rainbows, the miraculous presence of Danbala, among other lwa. So are natural springs, pools, lagoons, rivers, and the sea. Most pilgrimages draw the faithful to and around Catholic churches, but elements in nature combine with them in amazing ways. Haiti’s two most popular pilgrimages are those to Saut-d’Eau, a waterfall above the rural town of Ville-Bonheur, and Plaine-du-Nord, home to a sacred pool in the north. While Danbala resides in all waterfalls, the Saut-d’Eau pilgrimage is primarily about Èzili Dantò and occurs on and around July 15, the feast day of her most recognized Catholic counterpart, Our Lady of Mount Carmel.⁷⁷ The sacred pool at La Plaine-du-Nord is home to Ogou, the lwa of metals and all things associated therewith. This pilgrimage occurs on and around the Catholic feast day of St. James the Greater (July 25), for whom this rural town’s Catholic church is named. To exist at all, the pool, like all life, relies on rain. Donald Cosentino observes devotees ensuring that the pool is muddy for the Feast of St. James:

Sometimes during the summer rains these ruts fill in to become a kind of small pond called trou or basin. Should the rains fall, townspeople will come with pails of water to insure [sic] plenty of mud. For them, these are not potholes but St. James’s own pond, known as Trou Sen Jak. Its celestial sludge, along with the church, the cemetery, and surrounding countryside, mark the terrestrial emergence point for a saint who is generalissimo of a family of military spirits named Ogou.⁷⁸

Thousands of pilgrims flock to these sacred sites each summer, submerging themselves in the sacred, purifying water and mud, bringing offerings to the spirits and the saints, repenting, and finding renewal.

Works of Art and Mass-Produced Artifacts

Vodou has been a central inspiration of one of the world’s most extraordinary and celebrated national artistic cultures. Like Vodou itself, it is largely of African inspiration, for in colonial Saint-Domingue, “Africans reassembled the objets trouvés according to an aesthetic they carried in their heads, their hearts, their entire bodies. Out of torn lace, sequins, feathers and empty whiskey bottles they made working models of heaven.”⁷⁹ A Vodou priestess once told me, “You can do maji with anything,”⁸⁰ a belief that carries over into Haitian art. You can make art with anything, but, for the sake of brevity, let us just consider painting and metal work.

As I write this, I am surrounded by books and Haitian paintings and metal sculptures. Directly before me is a beautiful, colorful, intensely detailed painting of the Virgin Mary by Saincilus Ismael (1940–2000), a Vodou priest. The Madonna and Baby Jesus are Black and surrounded by blue sky and vegetation. In the infant God’s hand is an asson, the sacred rattle of the Vodou priesthood. On another of his paintings of the Virgin Mary—Ismael’s favorite subject —that is in my office at Temple University, the Madonna’s robe is decorated with a vèvè that represents Èzili Freda. These reflect the absorption of Catholicism into Haitian Vodou and the remarkable survival of African religion in the Caribbean—against all odds, a true testimony to the human spirit.

Another of Haiti’s most revered painters, André Pierre (1915–2005), also a Vodou priest, says:

For me, the mother of the terrestrial is the Virgin Mary. Honor the saints. Honor the relics of the saints. But honor the holy Virgin more than the angels and saints. The Virgin Mary is Èzili Dantò… for she is the mother of pain. . . All the saints are lwa. . . . I am married to Èzili Dantò. I sleep at her altar on Tuesdays.⁸¹

Much of Pierre’s work represents the lwa, and while painting he would often chant, sing, and, in effect, channel their energies and forms and colors and vèvè. Take, for instance, his masterpiece Annual Ceremony for Agoue and La Siren. Painted in oil on board, it features the king of the sea, Agwe, and his lover, the mermaid lwa Lasirenn. Too rich in detail to faithfully describe here, the painting depicts numerous vèvè, while the king holds an anchor and his lover holds a fish. There is a boat in the background, and on shore a Vodou priest holds an asson, while a priestess waves a flag and a child tows a goat soon to be sacrificed. Amazing. And currently it is for sale for $7500, in case you are in the market for a stunning piece of Haitian art.⁸²

Perhaps the most esteemed Haitian painter of all time is another Vodou priest named Hector Hyppolite (1894–1948). As Roberto Strongman explains, Hyppolite “produced an unbelievable amount of work. He left behind over three hundred paintings and fourteen vèvè drawings. . . . painting for Hyppolite was an act of religious possession.”⁸³ One of Hyppolite’s pieces, “an old piece of cardboard,” was sold for $75,000 in New York thirty years ago, then “a record price for any Haitian art.”⁸⁴ Among Hyppolite’s most treasured pieces are paintings of Èzili and the vision of Danbala pictured in this section. The artist is memorialized by a plaza named for him in Haiti, and his work has had an immeasurable influence not just in the realm of art but in the fascinating realm of French surrealist fiction and French art more generally. As Strongman adds, André Breton (1896–1926), one of the giants of French literary surrealism, “saw the literary movement of negritude and Haitian art as ways of reinvigorating European surrealism. . . . Moreover, Breton, after buying five of Hyppolite’s paintings in 1946, reportedly said. . . . ‘this should revolutionize French painting.… it needs a revolution.’”⁸⁵

Oil on board painting by celebrated Haitian master Hector Hyppolite of the Vodou serpent spirit Danbala, the lwa of waterfalls, rainbows, and regeneration. | Damballah the Torch by Hector Hyppolite is in the public domain.

Iron and other metals are very important in Haitian Vodou, the stuff of Ogou and the substance of the chains that African and Creole slaves broke during the Haitian Revolution. Metal drums are stripped apart and used by Haitian artists to create sculptures, in a process/genre called fer forgé. This is the most prominent of a range of creative forms that emerge out of “the use of recycled materials as an aspect of Haitian aesthetic, necessity, and ingenuity,”⁸⁶ like the sequins that adorn Vodou flags and the bottles that envessel zonbi (zombies), discussed in a later chapter. Speaking of zombies and metal, the great Georges Liautaud (1899–1991) once worked on the train tracks for the Haitian American Sugar Company, which was widely rumored to have employed the living dead, zonbi, in their fields and their refinery. Liautaud’s experience with the tracks’ iron enabled him to open his own forgery, from which he made remarkable metal sculptures, often out of discarded metal gas drums. Much of his work is inspired by Vodou, while Liautaud also was a prolific sculptor of crosses installed in Haitian cemeteries, some of which “refer to other worlds, other channels of communication – the same ones reached by the flour cosmographs, vèvè, made on the peristyle floor during a Vodou ceremony.”⁸⁷

Conclusion

We return to Haitian cemeteries in the next chapter and again in our discussion of the forms of zombies and zombification in Haiti. To equip us for that journey, we also turn our attention to Vodou pneumatology, Vodouist understandings of the human soul. The present chapter has intended to respectfully introduce Vodou, countering the racist stereotyping and othering that have been so harmful to the religion, issues we discuss in some detail later in the book. As Brown states, “Haitian Vodou is not only one of most misunderstood religions in the world; it is also one of the most maligned.”⁸⁸ It’s impossible to dispute that claim when the very name of this religion has become an adjective in English for all things diabolical, irrational, twisted, dark, dangerous, and weird.

On the contrary, Haitian Vodou is a religion of healing, community, and communion with divinity. The spirits, the ancestors, the angels, and the saints are all part of that community and of that communion, and they walk with us in life, and in death, and they are deeply a part of us, of our soul, our character, our sense of direction, our sexuality, the ways we love, the ways we grieve, the ways we heal. The ways we raise our children, the ways we dance, the ways we smile or frown, the ways we look at the sky, the sea, the trees. The ways we know God and find meaning, strength, and succor in life. And in death and beyond.

Notes

1. Noble David Cook, “Sickness, Starvation, and Death in Early Hispaniola,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 32, 3, 2002. ↵
2. Most scholars of Haitian Vodou today reject the English word voodoo because of the negative connotations that it carries. Vodou is the spelling in Haitian Creole. ↵
3. The etymology of the word lwa is unclear and debated among scholars; it is of either West African or French origin. On this, see Kate Ramsey, The Spirits and the Law: Vodou and Power in Haiti, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011, 19–20. ↵
4. Ninian Smart, The World’s Religions, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998 (1989), 14, 21. ↵
5. Sydney Mintz and Michel-Rolph Trouillot, “The Social History of Haitian Vodou,” in Donald J. Cosentino (ed.), Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum, 1995, 124. ↵
6. Méderic Louis Elie Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique, physique, civile, politique, et historique de la partie française de l’isle Saint-Domingue, Tome Premier, Paris: Société de l’Histoire des Colonies Françaises, 1958 (1797–1798), 64. ↵
7. On the complexity of Fongbe’s ethnic roots, see Chapter Five. It is more a cluster of the dialects of at least four related but culturally distinct peoples than a single language per se. ↵
8. “VODUN – “Déité de la religion traditionnelle au Sud du Bénin” (Vodun – A god in the traditional religion of southern Benin). Basiilo Segurola and Jean Rassinoux, Dictionnaire fon-français et Dictionnaire français-fon, Madrid: Editiones Selva y Saban/Société des Missions Africains, 2000 (1963), 469. ↵
9. Ira Paul Lowenthal, “Ritual Performance and Religious Experience: A Service for the Gods in Southern Haiti,” Journal of Anthropological Research 34, 3, 1978, 393. ↵
10. Justin Girod-Chantrans, Voyage d’un Suisse dans différents colonies, Neufchatel: Imprimerie de la Société Typographique, 1784, 137. ↵
11. James H. Sweet, “New Perspectives on Kongo in Haiti,” The Americas 74, 1, 2017, 85. ↵
12. David Geggus, “The French Slave Trade: An Overview,” William and Mary Quarterly 58, 1, 2001, 119–138. ↵
13. Terry Rey, “Vodou Genesis: Africans and the Making of a National Religion in Haiti,” in Eric J. Montgomery, Timothy R. Landry, and Christian N. Vannier (eds.), Spirit Service: Vodún and Vodou in the Afro-Atlantic World, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2022, 35. ↵
14. Karen McCarthy Brown, Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991, 6. ↵
15. John K. Thornton, Africans and Africa in the Making of the Americas, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ↵
16. Alfred Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti, trans. Hugo Charteris, New York: Schocken Books, 1972 (1954), 34, 50. ↵
17. Ramsey, The Spirits and the Law, 1, 4. ↵
18. Terry Rey, “Catholicism and Human Rights in Haiti: Past, Present, Future,” Religion and Human Rights 1, 3, 2006, 235. ↵
19. Drexel G. Woodson and Mamadou A. Baro, “A Baseline Study of Livelihood Security in the Southern Peninsula of Haiti,” Report Submitted to Catholic Relief Services and USAID, 1996, 54. ↵
20. Paul Christopher Johnson, “Secretism and the Apotheosis of Duvalier,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 74, 2, 2006, 422. ↵
21. Marvin Chochotte, “Making Peasants Chèf: The Tonton Makout Militia and the Moral Politics of Terror in the Haitian Countryside during the Dictatorship of François Duvalier, 1957–1971,” Comparative Studies in History and Society 61, 4, 2019, 943. ↵
22. Bettina E. Schmidt, “Anthropological Reflections on Religion and Violence,” in Andrew R. Murphy (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence, Chichester, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2011, 66–67. ↵
23. Ibid., 65. ↵
24. Bertin M. Louis, Jr., “Haiti’s Pact with the Devil?: Bwa Kayiman, Haitian Protestant Views of Vodou, and the Future of Haiti,” Religions 10, 2019, 1–15; Elizabeth McAlister, “From Slave Revolt to Blood Pact with Satan: The Evangelical Rewriting of Haitian History,” Studies in Religion: Sciences Religieuses 41, 2, 187–215. ↵
25. Terry Rey, “Fear and Trembling in Haiti: A Charismatic Prophecy of the 2010 Earthquake,” in Stan Chu Ilo (ed.), Fire from Heaven: Pentecostalism, Catholicism, and the Spirit World, Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2019, 280–299. ↵
26. Brown, Mama Lola, 254. ↵
27. Bolaji E. Idowu, Olùdùmarè: God in Yoruba Belief, London: Longmans, 1962, 204. ↵
28. On God in Haitian Vodou, see Laënnec Hurbon, Dieu dans le vaudou haïtien, Paris: Payot, 1972. ↵
29. Laënnec Hurbon, Voodoo: Search for the Spirit, trans. Lori Frankel, New York: Abrams, 2005 (2003), 67–68. ↵
30. By one account, there are more than 1000 lwa, who are “grouped in seventeen pantheons.” Ama Mazama, “Lwa,” in Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama (eds.), Encyclopedia of African Religions, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2008, 392. By other accounts, there are 401 lwa in Haitian Vodou. Benjamin Hebblethwaite, A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou: Rasin Figuier, Rasin Bwa Kayiman, and the Rada and Gede Rites, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2021, 17. ↵
31. Benjamin Hebblethwaite, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012, 302. ↵
32. Ibid., 231. ↵
33. On this, see Leslie G. Desmangles, The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992; and Terry Rey, Our Lady of Class Struggle: The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Haiti, Trenton, NJ: African World Press, 1999. ↵
34. Hebblethwaite, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English, 212. ↵
35. On Lasirenn and St. Philomena in Haiti, see Deborah O’Neil and Terry Rey, “The Saint and Siren: Liberation Hagiography in a Haitian Village,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 41, 2, 2012, 166–186. ↵
36. Much of this list, along with this chapter’s glossary below, relies on Hebblethwaite, Vodou Songs in Haitian and Creole. See this book’s amazing glossary for further introduction to these and other lwa. ↵
37. Hebblethwaite, Voodoo Songs in English and Haitian Creole, 302. ↵
38. Brown, Mama Lola, 100–101. ↵
39. Hebblethwaite, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English, 233. ↵
40. Ibid., 263. ↵
41. Laënnec Hurbon, “Vodou: A Faith for Individual, Family, and Community,” Callaloo 15, 3, 1992, 791–792. ↵
42. Elizabeth McAlister, Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and its Diaspora, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, 3. ↵
43. Ibid., 23. ↵
44. Hurbon, “Vodou,” 787–788. ↵
45. On Yoruba divination, see William Bascom, Sixteen Cowries: Yoruba Divination from Africa to the New World, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980. ↵
46. Adam M. McGee, “Dreaming in Haitian Vodou: Vouchsafe, Guide, and Source of Liturgical Novelty,” Dreaming 22, 12, 2012, 92. ↵
47. Giovanni B. Bazzanna, Having the Spirit of Christ: Spirit Possession and Exorcism in the Early Christian Groups, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020. 25. ↵
48. Brown, Mama Lola, 5–6. ↵
49. Terry Rey, “Saut-d’Eau,” in David G. Bromley (ed.), World Religions and Spirituality Project, 2017, https://wrldrels.org/2017/10/24/saut-deau/, last accessed April 18, 2021. ↵
50. I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession, New York: Penguin, 1971, xx. ↵
51. Bryan S. Freeman, Third World Folk Beliefs: Haitian Medical Anthropology, Port-au-Prince: La Presse Évangelique, 2007, 64. ↵
52. Zora Neale Hurston, “Hoodoo in America,” The Journal of American Folklore 44, 174, 1931, 358. ↵
53. Jessie M. Colin and Ghislaine Paperwalla, “People of Haitian Heritage,” in Larry D. Purnell and Betty J. Paulanka (eds.), Transcultural Health Care: A Culturally Competent Approach, Philadelphia: Davis, 2003, 231–247. ↵
54. Karen McCarthy Brown, “Afro-Caribbean Spirituality: A Haitian Case Study,” in Lawrence Sullivan (ed.), Healing and Restoring: Medicine and Health in the World’s Religious Traditions New York: MacMillan, 1989, 255–285. ↵
55. Nicolas Vonarx, “Haitian Vodou as a Health Care System: Between Magic, Religion, and Medicine,” Alternative Therapies 15, 5, 2011, 47. ↵
56. Hebblethwaite, Voodoo Songs in Haitian Creole and English, 215. ↵
57. Terry Rey and Alex Stepick, Crossing the Water and Keeping the Faith: Haitian Religion in Miami, New York: New York University Press, 2013, 148. ↵
58. Material Religion, https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfmr20/current, last accessed March 31, 2021. ↵
59. Melville J. Herskovits, “African Gods and Catholic Saints in New World Negro Belief,” American Anthropologist 39, 4, 1939, 635–636. ↵
60. Ibid., 637. ↵
61. Hebblethwaite, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English, 231. ↵
62. Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti, 163–165. ↵
63. Terry Rey, The Priest and the Prophetess: Abbé Ouvière, Romaine Rivière, and the Revolutionary Atlantic World, New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, 326–327. ↵
64. Terry Rey, “Toward an Ethnohistory of Haitian Pilgrimage,” Journal de la Société des Américanistes 91, 1, 2005, 161–183. On pilgrimage in Haiti, see also Rey, “Saut-d’Eau.” ↵
65. “Penitence cloths; ritual clothes constructed by sewing strips of different-colored cloth together. Men make multicolored shirts, and women make dresses, The colors represent various lwa . . . worn to overcome a sin. . . . Abstinence is required for those wearing the attire.” Hebblethwaite, Voodoo Songs in Haitian Creole and English, 282. ↵
66. Karen Richman, Migration and Vodou, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005, 16. ↵
67. Terry Rey and Karen Richman, “The Somatics of Syncretism: Tying Body and Soul in Haitian Religion,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 39, 3, 2010, 388–389. ↵
68. Terry Rey, “Catholic Pentecostalism in Haiti: Spirit, Politics, and Gender,” Pneuma: Journal for the Society of Pentecostal Studies 32, 1, 2010, 86. ↵
69. André Corten, Misère, religion et politique en Haïti: Diabolisation et mal politique, Paris: KARTHALA, 2001. ↵
70. Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti, 375, 392. ↵
71. Ibid., 66. ↵
72. Pierre Pluchon, Vaudou, sorciers, empoisonneurs: De Saint-Dominuge à Haïti. Paris: KARTHALA, 1987, 220. ↵
73. Paul Farmer, AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992, 193–207. On wanga, see Karen McCarthy Brown, “Making Wanga: Reality Prescriptions and the Magical Manipulation of Power,” in Harry G. West and Todd Sanders (eds.), Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World Order, Durham: Duke University Press, 2003, 233–257. ↵
74. Hebblethwaite, Voodoo Songs in Haitian Creole and English, 278. ↵
75. Ibid., 215. ↵
76. Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti, 201. ↵
77. Rey, “Saut-d’Eau.” ↵
78. Donald J. Cosentino, “It’s All for You, Sen Jak,” in Donald J. Cosentino (ed.), Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum, 1995, 243. ↵
79. Donald J. Cosentino, “Introduction: Imagine Heaven,” in Donald J. Cosentino (ed.), Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum, 1995, 28. ↵
80. Rey and Stepick, Crossing the Water and Keeping the Faith, 146. ↵
81. André Pierre, with Donald J. Cosentino, “A World Created by Magic: Extracts from a Conversation with André Pierre,” in Donald J. Cosentino (ed.), Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum, 1995, xxiii. ↵
82. André Pierre, Artist, The Jamieson Collection, https://iartx.com/pierre-andre-2.html, last accessed April 12, 2021. ↵
83. Roberto Strongman, Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Transcorporeality in Candomblé, Santería, and Vodou, Durham: Duke University Press, 2019, 51. ↵
84. Alex Stepick, Pride against Prejudice: Haitians in the United States, Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1998, 96. It is worth noting here that Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988), the son of a Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother, had one of his paintings purchased for $110.5 million, then the most ever for a painting by an American artist, in 2017. ↵
85. Strongman, Queering Black Atlantic Religions, 52. ↵
86. Jennifer Maki, “Vodou Riche: Contemporary Haitian Art,” African Arts, Autumn 2008, 88. ↵
87. Randall Morris, “The Style of His Hands: The Iron Art of Georges Liautaud,” in Donald J. Cosentino, The Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum, 1995, 382. ↵
88. Brown, Mama Lola, xvii. ↵

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———. “It’s All for You, Sen Jak.” In Donald J. Cosentino (ed.), The Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum, 1995, 243–263.

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———. Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012.

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———. “Vodou: A Faith for Individual, Family, and Community.” Callaloo 15, 3, 1992, 787–796.

———. Voodoo: Search for the Spirit. Trans. Lori Frankel. New York: Abrams, 2005 (2003).

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Lowenthal, Ira Paul. “Ritual Performance and Religious Experience: A Service for the Gods in Southern Haiti.” Journal of Anthropological Research 34, 3, 1978, 392–414.

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Mazama, Ama. “Lwa.” In Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama (eds.), Encyclopedia of African Religions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2008.

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———. Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

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———. “Fear and Trembling in Haiti: A Charismatic Prophecy of the 2010 Earthquake.” In Stan Chu Ilo (ed.), Fire from Heaven: Pentecostalism, Catholicism, and the Spirit in the World. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2019, 280–299.

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———. The Priest and the Prophetess: Abbé Ouvière, Romaine Rivière, and the Revolutionary Atlantic World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

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Glossary

Abitasyon

A parcel of land, a compound, that is home to the dead and the lwa and houses a temple and/or shrine(s). Often also home to sacred trees and locations in the earth where the lwa sometimes reside, along with graves of the dead. ↵

Agwe

A lwa assimilated with St. Ulrich, the lwa who rules the seas and is married to Lasirenn, the mermaid lwa. ↵

Aida-Wèdo

A snake divinity who is associated with rainbows and is the wife of Danbala. ↵

Animal Sacrifice

Ritual performance in which animals are killed to appease or feed the lwa. In Vodou, this is usually done with chickens and goats. A practice found in many other religions. ↵

Antisuperstitious Campaigns

Efforts by the Catholic Church hierarchy in Haitian history, with state and sometimes military—and American—support, to suppress and ultimately eradicate Vodou from Haitian society, especially in 1898, 1913, and 1941–1942. ↵

Arada

A West African people whose traditional religion profoundly influenced the development of Haitian Vodou. ↵

Aristide, Jean-Bertrand (b. 1953)

Former Catholic priest who served as president of Haiti for nine months in 1991, 1994–1996, and from 2001–2004. Was instrumental in having Vodou recognized as an official religion in Haiti in 2003. ↵

Ayizan

A lwa associated with temples, pathways, entryways, and barriers. Generally associated with St. Claire. ↵

Azaka (also called Zaka)

The lwa of all things related to agriculture. Assimilated with St. Charles Bormeo. ↵

Badji

The inner sanctuary of a Vodou temple or a shed in a temple yard that contains an altar, symbols of the lwa, and human bones representing the ancestors. ↵

Bawon Samdi

The lwa who rules over cemeteries; a manifestation of Gede. Identified with the Christian cross rather than with any Catholic saint. ↵

Bòkò

A sorcerer, a ritual specialist who generally deals in destructive supernatural arts but can also effectuate healing; often the creator of zonbi in Haitian Vodou. ↵

Bondye

The Supreme God in Haitian Vodou; literally means “Good God” and largely based on Catholic theology, though God is more distant from humanity in Vodou than in Catholicism. ↵

Bosou Twa Kòn

A lwa visualized as a bull with three horns (and/or three testicles) and associated with wisdom and justice. Assimilated with St. Nicholas and sometimes with Jesus Christ. ↵

Bwa Kayiman

Forested location in central Haiti where, in 1791, Boukman Dutty and Cécille Fatima are believed to have orchestrated a Vodou ceremony to stir the enslaved masses around them to rise up and launch the Haitian Revolution. ↵

Chwal

Literally “horse” in Haitian Creole, a metaphoric term for someone who gets possessed by a spirit during a Vodou ceremony, hence “mounted” by their rider, the lwa. ↵

Code Noir

1685 proclamation by the French crown concerning the treatment of slaves in its Caribbean colonies, which stipulated that Catholicism was the only religion to be permitted and that slaves must be baptized Catholic and given days off to attend Mass on Sundays and to attend feast day services at churches and chapels. ↵

Concordat

Formal 1860 agreement between the Haitian state and the Vatican that led to the return of Catholic priests (mostly French) to Haiti after the church hierarchy had been absent since the end of the Haitian Revolution, in 1804, due to Vatican resistance to recognizing Haiti’s independence. ↵

Creole

A term with multiple meanings. In the Haitian context, it is the language of the people, while in the colonial context, in Saint-Domingue, it was a name for those slaves who had been born in Saint-Domingue rather than in Africa. ↵

Danbala

A serpent lwa associated with rainbows, waterfalls, and the cycle of life; husband of Ayida-Wèdo. Assimilated with St. Patrick. ↵

Diffused Monotheism

A form of religion, like Haitian Vodou, in which there is one Supreme Creator God whose energies and graces are diffused into the world through spirits, like the lwa. ↵

Divination

A ritual practice in which various material elements are employed by a priestess or priest to communicate with the spirits of the dead, predict the future, read the past, and provide counsel to the faithful. Usually in Vodou this involves playing cards, but one can also read palms, candles, and scripture. ↵

Djevo

A small room in a Vodou temple or the home of a priestess or priest that is occupied by a devotee for seven days as a central part of initiation into Haitian Vodou. ↵

Drapo

Literally “flag” in Haitian Creole, an important feature that often flies above and/or adorns Vodou temples, usually dedicated to and/or emblematic of distinct lwa. ↵

Dutty, Boukman

Enslaved African who is believed to, in 1791, with Cécille Fatima, have orchestrated a Vodou ceremony to stir the enslaved masses around them to rise up and launch the Haitian Revolution. ↵

Duvalier, François (1907–1971)

Former doctor and ethnographer who became “president for life” of Haiti in 1957 until his death in 1971. Ruled ruthlessly and exploited Vodou to legitimate his regime and instill fear in his opponents and potential detractors. ↵

Duvalier, Jean-Claude (1951–2014)

Son of François Duvalier and dictatorial president of Haiti from 1971, when his father died, until 1986, when he was ousted from power by a popular uprising. ↵

Dyab

In Haitian Creole literally “devil,” but the term is just as often used to refer to the lwa as to demons; one category of the mistè. ↵

Envesselment

The entry into, and containment therein, of supernatural powers, spirits, God, or human souls in a vessel, whether a human body, a church, a grave, a gourd, a clay pot, or a glass bottle, etc. ↵

Èzili

The most popular female lwa in Vodou; associated with love, motherhood, and fresh waters. Assimilated with the Virgin Mary. ↵

Èzili Dantò

A lwa; the main Petwo manifestation of Èzili in Haitian Vodou. ↵

Èzili Freda

A lwa; main Rada manifestation of Èzili in Haitian Vodou. ↵

Fatima, Cécille

Enslaved African who is believed, in 1791, with Boukman Dutty, to have orchestrated a Vodou ceremony to stir the enslaved masses around them to rise up and launch the Haitian Revolution. ↵

Fèt Gede

Major feast day celebration for the lwa who oversees all things related to death and dying, Gede, and for the veneration of all the ancestors. Takes places largely in public, whether in cemeteries or in the streets and marketplaces, on November 1 and November 2, which are All Saints Day and All Souls Day in the Catholic liturgical calendar. ↵

Fèt Vodou

Literally “Vodou Feast” or “Vodou Party” in Haitian Creole; designates a communal Vodou ritual. ↵

Fon

West African ethnic group, mostly from what is today Benin, and a language (Fongbe); major cornerstones of Haitian Vodou and Haitian culture.

Fongbe

Language of the Fon and the Gbe peoples of West Africa. Widely spoken among slaves in Saint-Domingue. ↵

Free People of Color

In colonial Saint-Domingue, an important community composed of people who had either been born free or manumitted, including Black people and those of mixed Black and white ancestry. Some were among the wealthiest in the colony, others poor. ↵

Gede

The chief lwa of all things related to death, dying, and rebirth. Assimilated with St. Gerard. ↵

Ginen

Africa, both the geographic location and the mythic home of the lwa and the dead, and eventually the destination of part of our own souls, once we pass on. ↵

Govi

A sacralized bottle, clay gourd, or “pitcher” found in most Vodou temples, sometimes in multitudes, that harbors the power of the lwa or of the dead, lemò, or that serve as their symbols. ↵

Gran Bwa

Literally “Great Woods.” The lwa of leaves and forests. Assimilated with St. Sebastian. ↵

Gran Mèt

Literally “Grand Master,” a name for the supreme God in Haitian Vodou. Probably derived from Freemasonry rather than Catholicism. See also Bondye. ↵

Great Schism

Period of Haitian history from 1804 to 1860 when the Vatican refused to recognize Haiti’s independence and thus did not send any priests to the nation, until the signing of the Concordat of 1860. ↵

Hagiography

Stories of saints and the elements that reflect their lives in icons or portraits of them. ↵

Hispaniola

Large island in the Caribbean that today is divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with Haiti occupying the mountainous western third, roughly the size of Maryland. The French plantation colony of Saint-Domingue occupied that same third from 1697 to 1804. ↵

Ifa

Massive oracle of Yoruba religion, which is committed to memory by diviners and consulted during divination sessions to provide individuals or communities with direction in life, to solve problems, and to foster and share insights from the spirit world and the world of the dead. ↵

Kòd

Literally “cord” in Haitian Creole; Vodou pilgrims often tie colorful ropes around their waists or dangle them around their necks while traveling to sacred sites, sometimes then tying them to statues or trees there. ↵

Kongo

The Kongo people of West Central Africa, thousands of whom were enslaved and brought to Saint-Domingue, and whose religious culture is a cornerstone of Haitian Vodou. Also a language widely spoken in the colony, today called Kikongo. ↵

Lasirenn

The mermaid lwa, sometimes seen as a whale or as swimming with a whale. Associated with the sea and is the wife of Agwe. Assimilated with St. Philomena. ↵

Legba

A lwa associated with crossroads and gates, and enabler of all Vodou ceremonies. Assimilated with St. Peter. ↵

Lemò

Literally in Haitian Creole “the dead,” the ancestors, who are venerated in the religion; central category of the mistè. ↵

Loko

The lwa of trees. Associated with St. Joseph, for his love of children. ↵

Lwa

A spirit in Haitian Vodou, usually anthropomorphic and often assimilated with a Catholic saint; along with the living dead, they are the chief foci of the religion. The word’s origins are disputed. ↵

Lwa Rasin

Protective “root spirit” that one receives at birth; over time, if living space permits, Vodouists keep an altar in their home for this divinity’s veneration. ↵

Maji

Literally “magic” in Haitian Creole; in Vodou, priestesses and priests make and employ a range of material items or elements of nature to effectuate and share supernatural powers, to help people gain luck in life, and/or to heal, among other things. ↵

Manbo

A Vodou priestess. ↵

Manje Lwa

Important ceremony in Haitian Vodou, literally “Food (for the) Spirits,” in which the lwa are fed and provided offerings. ↵

Manje Mò (Manje lemò)

Important ceremony in Haitian Vodou, literally “Food (for the) Dead,” in which the lemò are fed and provided offerings. ↵

Marasa

Twins. The lwa of twins. Assimilated with Sts. Cosmas and Damian, who were twins. ↵

Medsin Fèy (sometimes called doktè fèy)

Literally “leaf doctor,” a ritual specialist in Vodou who is an expert in herbs and herbal healing. ↵

Mistè

The entire collectivity of “mysteries,” or divinities, in Haitian Vodou; supernatural beings that include saints (sen), angels (zanj), the dead (lemò) or the ancestors (zansèt), and devils (dyab). ↵

Nanchon

Literally in Haitian Vodou “nation,” a term used for a particular rite or spirit pantheon in the religion, like the Rada and the Petwo. ↵

Ogou

The lwa of metals and all things related thereto, like warfare. Thus, assimilated with St. James the Greater and sometimes with St. George. ↵

Olodumare

Name of the Supreme and one Creator God in Yoruba religion. ↵

Orature

A repository of stories, hymns, myths, prayers, and oracles that is committed to memory and orally transmitted—oral scripture, in effect. ↵

Orisha

The spirits in Yoruba religion, who are also venerated in Cuban Santería and in Brazilian Candomblé; many are among the lwa in Haitian Vodou. ↵

Ounfò

A Vodou temple. ↵

Oungan

A Vodou priest. ↵

Ounsi

A Vodou novice; one who is initiated and on a path to the priesthood, and who assists priests and priestesses in all matters of religious practice. ↵

Pakèt

Literally “packet” in Haitian Creole, amulets and charms employed in Haitian Vodou, often a sack containing powders and herbs that effectuates healing, luck, and knowledge; also elemental to one’s relationship to and experience of the lwa. ↵

Perstil

Literally in Haitian Creole “peristyle,” a Vodou temple, where communal ceremonies take place, usually involving drumming and dancing. Often an open-air space covered by a roof next to or near an actual temple. ↵

Petwo

Kongo-based division (or rite or pantheon) of the lwa, said to be “hot”; most lwa have a Petwo manifestation. ↵

Pneumatology

The study of the soul and all things related thereto. ↵

Popular Religion

As opposed to “orthodoxy,” the true religion of the people, which often deviates from what is intended by, for example, the Catholic hierarchy and Church doctrine. ↵

Poto Mitan

Literally, in Haitian Creole, “Middle Pillar”; a wooden or cement pole in the center of a Vodou temple, which the faithful dance around and which the lwa are said to climb down to join communal ceremonies. ↵

Pret Savann

Literally, in Haitian Creole, “bush priest,” a ritual specialist who recites Catholic prayers and provides other Catholic liturgical elements during Vodou ceremonies. ↵

Pwen

Literally “point,” in Haitian Creole; amulets and charms employed in Haitian Vodou, sometimes nonmaterial, that effectuate healing, luck, and knowledge; also elemental in one’s relationship to and experience of the lwa. ↵

Rad Penitans

Literally, in Haitian Creole, “penitential clothes,” which pilgrims often wear as they travel to venerate the lwa at any number of sacred sites throughout the country. Pilgrims usually make such garb from torn parts of other garments. ↵

Rada

West African–based division of lwa, said to be “cool”; most lwa have a Rada manifestation. ↵

Rara

A Lenten tradition in Haitian Vodou during which troupes of musicians process noisily through the streets, roads, and paths throughout the country to celebrate life and to bolster the Vodouist faithful to manage the challenges that they face along life’s way. ↵

Religious Syncretism

When two or more different religions encounter one another, often they blend. All religions have syncretic histories, but the term is usually used to identify religions like Vodou that derive from disparate cultural traditions and encounters. ↵

Ritual Paraphernalia

Materials used in religious rituals, whether personal or collective; in the case of Vodou, holy water, shells, sequined flags, drums, etc. ↵

Saint-Domingue

French plantation colony that was founded by the French in 1697 and soon thereafter became the most lucrative colony in the world, due to the forced labor of hundreds of thousands of slaves and the aggressive cultivation of sugar. Saint-Domingue ended upon the success of the Haitian Revolution in 1804, giving birth to Haiti. ↵

Sen

Haitian Creole, literally “saint”; a term used for both Catholic saints in Vodou and the lwa with whom they “walk” or with whom they are assimilated. ↵

Sèvis (Sèvis Lwa)

Haitian Creole for “service to the lwa,” a term that has historically been used to refer to Haitian Vodou, reflecting the centrality of serving the spirits in the religion. ↵

Sevitè

Haitian Creole for “servant,” a term widely used in reference to practitioners of Haitian Vodou, for the religion is primarily about serving the lwa. ↵

Simbi

Lwa of Central African origin associated with springs and lagoons. Assimilated with St. Christopher and sometimes with Moses. ↵

Sortilège

French word meaning “spell”—as in a hex or curse—that was often used by French observers of African traditions in colonial Saint-Domingue to refer to Vodou and later during the Catholic hierarchy’s efforts to eradicate the religion from Haitian society. ↵

Spirit Possession

An experience in which a human being, often a woman, becomes the vessel and mouthpiece for a lwa, usually during lively communal drumming ceremonies in temples; often an effect of the dancing inspired by the tanbou. ↵

Tanbou

Sacred drums that are widely used in Vodou ceremonies to summon the lwa and to inspire the faithful to dance and find communion with them. Also a term for a communal drumming ceremony. ↵

Tap-Tap

Colorful covered pickup truck, van, or other reconfigured vehicle that is a common mode of public transportation in Haiti, especially in urban areas. Often adorned with images of Catholic saints. ↵

Tonton Makout

Brutal paramilitary force created and employed by François Duvalier (ruled 1957-1971) to terrorize his political opponents and to cement his dictatorial grip on power as “president for life.” ↵

Treaty of Ryswick

1697 treaty signed between Spain and France, in the Netherlands, that ceded the western third of the island of Hispaniola to the French, which would become Saint-Domingue and then, after the Haitian Revolution in 1804, Haiti. ↵

Vèvè

Symbols of the lwa, the product of a range of both African and European influences, which are traced on the ground of a temple in chalk, corn meal, ashes, brick dust, pulverized tree bark, or flour at the beginning of a communal ceremony, only to be danced into the ground by the faithful. ↵

Vodou

The African-derived religion of the majority of people in Haiti. In the West African language of Fongbe, the word vodun means spirit or sacred object, but historically it was also the name of a divinity in the pantheon of the Fon people. ↵

Wanga

Destructive amulets and charms that are usually employed only by sorcerers (bòkò) in Haitian Vodou. Capable of causing sickness, misfortune, and even death. At times, they also take the form of powders and can be used for protection or for healing. ↵

Yoruba

The largest ethnic group in West Africa, whose traditional religious pantheon shares much in common with Haitian Vodou, thanks to its historical influence. Most Yoruba today live in Nigeria. ↵

Zaka

The lwa of all things related to agriculture. Assimilated with St. Charles Borromeo. ↵

Zanj

Angels, as they are called in Haitian Creole. A countless cohort of spiritual beings who comprise part of the mistè, or “the mysteries.” The term often is used to refer to the lwa. ↵

Zanj Lan Bwa

Literally “angels in the woods,” a general reference to the Petwo manifestations of the lwa. ↵

Zanj Lan Dlo

Literally “angels in the water,” a general reference to the Rada manifestations of the lwa. ↵

Zansèt

Literally “the ancestors,” in Haitian Creole, who are widely venerated in Vodou. See also lemò. ↵

Zombification

A process by which a human being is transformed into a zombie. ↵

Zonbi

Haitian Creole for “zombie.” ↵