Voodoo, or Vodou, the religion of 30 million people in West Africa, and several million more in the Caribbean and some South and North American countries, has suffered much from the portrayal that the Hollywood movie-making machine has given it.
Certainly, most people associate voodoo with devil-worship, zombies and pin-sticking dolls, but voodoo is not about that.
Want to know more? Read on. Here are the most important facts about voodoo.
Born in the Motherland
Vodou, also known as Voodoo, Voudoun, and Vodun, was born in West Africa, specifically in Benin, between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, and is still practiced there and in Ghana, Togo, Nigeria.
Voodoo, Vodou spread across the Atlantic to the Americas through the slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Once there, Vodou diverged and sprouted new but related branches of Vodou in different countries.
From the shores of West Africa to the Americas, Vodou whispers tales of resilience and reinvention.
For instance, in Brazil, it is known as Candomble, while in Jamaica and Trinidad-Tobago it is called Obeah and Santería (also called Regla de Ocha, Lukumi, or La Regla Lucumi) in Cuba and other Caribbean islands, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico, where the loa are called Orisha, and Dahomean in Africa.
Another branch of Vodou, Louisiana Voodoo, practiced in the state of Louisiana and the southeastern United States, has been heavily influenced by the practices of Spanish and French settlers, as well as the Creole population.
Haitian Vodou has been largely shaped by its French influence as well as Christianity.
A Flexible Faith
“Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”
Rabindranath Tagore
Slave owners in the Caribbean and Latin America were Roman Catholics and forcibly converted their slaves to the European religion.
In order to keep their traditions, the African slaves shrewdly took to disguising their faith as reverence for the Christian saints based on the similarities between them and the Vodou loa or spirits: the serpent Damballah is represented by the iconography of St Patrick; the loa associated with water and love, Erzulie, is represented by the iconography of the Virgin Mary; the trickster Legba, who holds the keys to the gate between the spiritual and material worlds is represented by the iconography of St Peter, and so on.
This syncretism served well for survival, but Vodou easily blends with other religions too.
Even seemingly disparate religions can find common ground, as evidenced by the harmonious coexistence of Vodou and Christianity
There are many parallels between Christianity and Vodou and both religions coexist peacefully in places like Haiti and Africa.
In fact, Pope John Paul II spoke at length about the respect he had for practitioners of Vodou, acknowledging the “fundamental goodness” inherent in their practices, teachings, and beliefs.
He even attended a Vodou ceremony in 1993, helping to cement the amiable coexistence of these two seemingly opposite religions.
Playing with Dolls
Part of African Vodou requires the use of ritual carvings of a loa, which the slaves in the colonies were forbidden to won or make.
However, Europeans had a counterpart to the carvings called poppets (the old word for puppet), which the practitioners of Vodou acquired and incorporated into their rituals without fear of being discovered.
The “dolls” used in Vodou are more complicated than they’re usually portrayed.
Beyond the pins and fabric, the Vodou doll stands as a testament to spiritual depth or perhaps, a misunderstood relic?
Firstly, they do not symbolize a person so that anything done to the doll happens to the person represented, but is only associated with a person by attaching a picture of the person, or something that was in intimate contact with them, such as a lock of hair (attaching this personification is actually the purpose of the voodoo straight pin usually seen in a Vodou doll, which is commonly believed to be an instrument of pain).
Other things added to the doll serve as an appeal to the spirits to open themselves to the doll and the wishes of those involved.
The Vodou doll has mostly benevolent uses but can be used for ill-intent depending on who uses it.
Curing
Far from the Hollywood stereotype of an evil practice, Vodou centers around healing and herbalism.
Spirits are summoned specifically for aid in healing the sick and the injured. Healing is a spiritual idea as well as a physical one, with priests (Houngans) and priestesses (Mambos) appealing to the loas to heal broken hearts or improve a person’s luck, as well as healing the body.
Vodou emphasizes holistic wellness, seamlessly weaving spiritual and physical healing, challenging mainstream misconceptions.
Vodou houngans and mambos are aware of their limits when it comes to diagnosing and healing, however, and often recommend modern treatments when they cannot help.
Serpents
Damballah is the serpent god and the oldest in the Vodou pantheon. He is the creator of the world, making water from his shed skin and the stars out of his coils.
He and his wife, Ayida Wedo, the rainbow, embrace and represent the balance between male and female in eternal love.
When hissing replaces words, do we truly comprehend the depths of wisdom and protection the serpent embodies?
He is the symbol of wisdom and the mind, and is associated with the color white, eggs, bones, and ivory.
The protector of the helpless and young children as well as the handicapped and the deformed, he is said to transport the souls of the dead to the afterlife.
Houngans and Mambos hiss when they are possessed by the spirit of Damballah.
Sacrifices
“A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves.”
Mother Teresa
Vodou rituals also include animal sacrifices that are offered to the loas to combine the life force of the animal and the life force of the loa to rejuvenate the spirits.
The consumption of the sacrificed animal emphasizes the communal aspect of these rituals, where no life is taken in vain.
The meat and blood of the animal is often cooked and consumed as part of the ceremony, and some spirits have animals associated to them in sacrifice; chickens, for example, are often offered to the Damballah.
Zombies
It is impossible to discuss Vodou without discussing zombies. The zombie is, according to the Vodou worldview, a person whose soul has been fractured and part of it stolen.
The soul is made up of the common elements of all sentient beings and is constantly recycled; it allows the body to stay alive, and is where the personality and spirit dwell.
Zombies, deeply rooted in Vodou traditions, debunk the western pop-culture depictions, portraying a spiritual and complex perspective.
In Vodou, a zombie has had this latter part of the soul removed by a malfacteur, a practitioner untrained as a priest but who still uses Vodou to cause harm.
Malfacteurs, it is believed, use herbs and poisons and dried parts of the blowfish to induce temporary paralysis followed by brain damage that would render a person useless and without a will of their own.
However, there are very few documented cases of zombification.
From Bondeye to Revolution
The Supreme Being for practitioners of Vodou is Bondeye, the vulgarization of Bon Dieu, or Good God, the benevolent but indifferent creator of all who allows the spirits (the loa) to interact with humans in a capacity similar to angels or saints in Christian beliefs.
The loa are divided into the older ones from Africa (the Rada), others from the New World (the Petro) and others of more uncertain origin, but it is the loa who communicate with humans through Vodou’s characteristic trances accomplished through chanting and dancing to the complex rhythms of the accompanying drums.
Could Vodou's mystical trance be the very spark that ignited the flames of rebellion and change?
Each person has a met tet (‘master of the head’), a loa who acts as a patron saint.
Adherents of Vodou gather on a regular basis to praise Papa Bon Dieu and the loa, and to make offerings, pray, and sing and dance in their honor.
From Bondeye to independence from France, the Haitian Hangoun, François Mackandal, led the slave uprising against the colonial masters beginning at a Vodou ceremony in 1791 known as the Bois Caiman and from there, independence.
Beyond stereotypes, Vodou’s profound cultural spirituality shines
In wrapping up, it’s evident that Vodou is a religion steeped in complexity and has been largely misinterpreted, being more intricate and meaningful than the ominous and exaggerated depictions in Hollywood.
It represents a rich amalgamation of beliefs and customs, tracing back to ancient civilizations, and has intertwined with various cultures and religions over time.
Vodou stands as a cohesive amalgamation of spiritual components, providing insight, healing, and respect, despite the interspersed elements of zombification and sacrifices.
Therefore, when reflecting on Vodou, it’s crucial to see past the Hollywood caricatures and appreciate it as a diverse kaleidoscope of enduring beliefs, cultural fortitude, and varied spiritual manifestations!
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