- The ceremony begins with a Roman Catholic prayer. Then
three drummers begin to play syncopated rhythms. The attendees begin to
dance around a tree in the center of the yard, moving faster and harder
with the rising pulse of the beat. The priest draws sacred symbols in the
dust with cornmeal, and rum is poured on the ground to honor the spirits.
-
- One woman falls to the ground, convulsing for a moment
before she is helped back to her feet. She resumes the dance, moving differently
now, and continues dancing for hours. It is perhaps no longer she who is
dancing: She is in a trance, apparently possessed by Erzuli, the great
mother spirit.
-
- It is an honor to be entered and "ridden" by
a Loa, or spirit. In Haiti these rituals are commonplace: Voodoo is the
dominant religion.
-
- "One common saying is that Haitians are 70 percent
Catholic, 30 percent Protestant, and 100 percent voodoo," said Lynne
Warberg, a photographer who has documented Haitian voodoo for over a decade.
-
- In April 2003 an executive decree by then president Jean-Bertrand
Aristide sanctioned voodoo as an officially recognized religion.
-
- "It is a religion in the same way Judaism or Christianity
is," said Bob Corbett, professor emeritus of philosophy at Webster
University in St. Louis, Missouri. "Voodoo doesn't have a sacred text,
a church, or a hierarchical structure of leaders, but it is very similar
culturally."
-
- Ancient Traditions
-
- Voodoo, meaning "spirit," may be one of the
world's oldest ancestral, nature-honoring traditions, according to Mamaissii
Vivian Dansi Hounon, a member of OATH, the Organization of African Traditional
Healers in Martinez, Georgia.
-
- Some anthropologists estimate that voodoo's roots in
Benin - formerly Dahomey - West Africa may go back 6,000 years. Today an
estimated 60 million people practice voodoo worldwide.
-
- At a voodoo ceremony, believers gather outdoors to make
contact with the Loa, any of a pantheon of spirits who have various functions
running the universe, much like Greek gods. There is also a responsibility
to care for beloved and deified family spirits and to honor a chief god,
Bondieu.
-
- Messages From the Spirits
-
- During the ceremony, the houngan or mambo - priest or
priestess - sacrifices a sanctified chicken or other animal to the Loa.
Participants then ask the spirits for advice or help with problems. More
than half the requests are for health.
-
- It is said that the Loa sometimes communicate prophecies,
advice, or warnings while the believer is possessed. Other messages are
sent through the priest or priestess, or sometimes come later in dreams.
-
- These disembodied spirits are believed to become tired
and worn down - and rely on humans to "feed" them in periodic
rituals, including sacrifices. "It's not the killing of the animals
that matters," Corbett said. "It's the transfer of life energy
back to the Loa."
-
- Each of the spirits has a distinct identity. Some are
loving and good, while others are capricious or demanding. Haitians believe
that the Loa most often express their displeasure by making people sick.
-
- Black Magic?
-
- In the West voodoo has been portrayed in zombie movies
and popular books as dark and evil, a cult of devil worship dominated by
black magic, human sacrifice, and pin-stuck voodoo dolls - none of which
exist in the voodoo practices that originated in Benin.
-
- In Haiti voodoo began as an underground activity. During
the 1700s thousands of West African slaves were shipped to Haiti to work
on French plantations.
-
- The slaves were baptized as Roman Catholics upon their
arrival in the West Indies. Their traditional African religious practices
were viewed as a threat to the colonial system and were forbidden. Practitioners
were imprisoned, whipped, or hung.
-
- But the slaves continued to practice in secret while
attending masses. What emerged was a religion that the colonialists thought
was Catholicism - but they were outfoxed.
-
- Hybrid Rituals
-
- It was easy to meld the two faiths, because there are
many similarities between Roman Catholicism and voodoo, Corbett said. Both
venerate a supreme being and believe in the existence of invisible evil
spirits or demons and in an afterlife.
-
- Each religion also focuses its ceremonies around a center
point - an altar in Catholicism, a pole or tree in voodoo. Their services
include symbolic or actual rituals of sacrifice and consumption of flesh
and blood, Corbett noted.
-
- Many of the Loa resemble Christian saints, endowed with
similar responsibilities or attributes. For example, Legba, an old man,
is said to open the gates between Earth and the world of the Loa, much
like St. Peter traditionally throws wide the gates to heaven.
-
- But there are differences. Westerners tend to believe
in free will and personal choice. Not so in voodoo.
-
- "The Haitian people have a view of the world that
is unimaginably different from ours," Corbett said. The Loa are believed
to determine our lives to an astonishing degree, he explains, and they
are always present in great numbers: There might be two people in a room,
but there are also 20 Loa.
-
- "Our view is dominated by physical, touchable reality.
In Haiti the spirits are as real as your wife or your dog," Corbett
said.
-
- Like any other religious practice, voodoo brings great
benefits, explains Warberg, the photographer. "Participation in voodoo
ritual reaffirms one's relationships with ancestors, personal history,
community relationships - and the cosmos. Voodoo is a way of life,"
she said.
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- © 2004 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0707_040707_tvtaboovoodoo.html
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