VODOU IN HAITI
Vodou designates the indigenous religion of
Haiti. Emerging out of the contact between
enslaved Africans and white planters during
Haiti’s colonial period (1492–1804), Vodou is
fundamentally an African religion, which, in
Haiti, given the peculiar historical circumstances,
combined in its theology some Roman Catholic
beliefs and practices.
Popular Western novels, films, and spurious
accounts by tourists have depicted Vodou (and its
derivative Voodoo) incorrectly as sorcery, ritual
zombification, and ritual cannibalism. Such depic-
tions are derisive or even racist because a close
examination of the religion’s rituals or practices
fails to find any evidence that would give credence
to these negative views. The wordVodouderives
from the Beninese (or Dahomean) Fon words
voduorvodun, meaning “deity” or “spirit.” The
word is used in Benin and Haiti to designate a
community of divine and ancestral spirits who are
identified with the natural forces of the universe
and who participate actively in the lives of their
devotees. Like other world religions, Vodou is a
system of beliefs that instills in its devotees a need
for solace and self-reflection; it is an expression of
a people’s longing for meaning and purpose.
Vodou provides an explanation for death, which
is envisaged as a spiritual transformation, a portal
to the sacred world beyond this life in which
morally upright individuals continue to influence
their progeny. By extension, Vodou includes a
whole assortment of artistic and cultural expres-
sions and the belief in the efficacy of an elaborate
system of traditional healing practices.
The wordbeliefin Haiti and in Benin has a dif-
ferent connotation than it does to Westerners.
Beliefin English suggests a cerebral process by
which one may or may not choose to identify with
a system of thought or, by extension, with a com-
munity that affirms such a system. To Vodouists,
spiritual reality cannot be the subject of casual
investigation by skeptics. In the Vodouists’ world-
view, skepticism is the outcome of an improper or
otherwise faulty apprehension of what to them is
patently apparent—that the world harbors power-
ful and mysterious entities that are the cause of all
events and ensure the mechanical operation of the
cosmos. Asked if they believe in the spirits,
Vodouists think of themselves as “obeying the
mysteries of the world” or “serving the lwas.”
Their statements reflect their outlook on the
nature of belief in general. In West African and
Haitian cultures, religion is a way of life, and
devotees do not merely think of their religion in
abstract, but in practical terms. The spirits are the
fount of wisdom and the source of all things, and
the devotees conceive of themselves as affecting
the will of these spirits by the living of life.
Hence, Vodou is an African-derived religion
that, through a complex system of myths and rit-
uals, relates the life of each devotee to incommen-
surable spirits called lwas (pronounced loas).
These lwas are thought to direct the affairs of
humankind by manifesting themselves in the bod-
ies of their devotees in spirit possessions—altered
states of consciousness during which the devotees’
souls are believed to be temporarily displaced by
that of a spirit. During spirit possession, a spirit is
believed to mount the body of the devotee like a
horse, and it is through this medium that it is
given voice with which to impart its wisdom to
the members of the community and, conversely,
ears to listen to its devotees’ concerns. In Vodou,
spirit possession is considered a quintessential
nonmaterial achievement, during which a believer
experiences a direct engagement with the spirit
world; it is also a public witness of one’s personal
commitment to a spirit and a belief in its author-
ity over the community.History
The theology of Vodou was transplanted from
Africa onto the sugar plantations of Saint
Domingue, as Haiti was called during the colo-
nial period. Few details survive about the com-
munities of enslaved Africans during that period,
and no one is sure how many Africans were
brought to the colony, but general estimates note
that there may have been nearly 1 million. A sig-
nificant number of them were brought to Haiti
from Dahomey (modern-day Benin), but others
came from Nigeria, Guinea, Kongo, and Angola,
as well as many other parts of West Africa.
Despite the hardships of enslaved labor, they
managed to preserve whole enclaves of West
African religious traditions. For instance, the mythsVodou in Haiti 695