This does not mean that all Haitians are Vodou followers.
The Bois-Caïman ceremony being considered the founding myth of the Republic of Haiti, it would be impossible to talk about Haiti without mentioning Vodou. I dare say that Vodou is revealed through all components of Haitian society. It’s like the tree that cannot be uprooted from the collective Haitian imagination. However, this does not mean that all Haitians are followers of Vodou. I am writing this article neither as a former practitioner nor as a current practitioner. For my part, I am Catholic and deeply rooted in my Catholic beliefs.
It is enough to venture into the international world to have a vision of Haitian Vodou, particularly from the world of cinematography (Hollywood with its zombie films), and even within Haiti (such as the anti-superstition campaign of 1939), to understand that Vodou is often misunderstood. In the scholarly and artistic world (with a few exceptions for the scholarly movement initiated by Jean Price Mars), vodou is represented in the Christian or anti-vodou sphere, in the vast majority of cases by unhealthy paintings on which are represented bloody scenes, fires and a whole riot of images. The most ridiculous image is the similarity drawn between vodou and the devil. In other words, Vodou is closely related to magic, orgy, witchcraft, charlatanism or fetishism.
Vodou is often misunderstood.
In Christian public spaces (apart from a few exceptions), talking about Vodou is taboo. Any attempt to reveal another way of perceiving Vodou is a strong indication of approval of evil. Vodou represents a dilemma! Nothing is more important than hearing certain “Christians” affirm that vodou is at the origin of all the evils that befall Haiti, as if by its very essence, vodou constituted a stumbling block, a disadvantage for the development and progress of Haiti.
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Religiously, Haiti is divided into two main groups. This includes civilized Christians on the one hand and barbaric Vodou practitioners on the other. In other words, the camp of those who claim to be servants of God and the camp of those who are damned because of their practice of Vodou. The question then arises: is it possible to achieve social cohesion in such a divided nation? Hearing about Vodou in the Haitian context, one can easily get the impression of an underlined history of serious misunderstandings between pro- and anti-Vodou. In view of this situation, this religious conflict is largely at the heart of the problems affecting the Haitian collective being. How to reconcile the “barbarian and the civilized”?
Furthermore, behind this dichotomy lies a rejection of African cultural heritage, the shame of a consciousness overwhelmed by representations of unhealthy images of Vodou or quite simply a mechanism of exploitation which tends to thwart reality. Indeed, there are many Haitians who are still entrenched in their mental chains. How can we understand Vodou, beyond any ideological category, as a liberating movement against all forms of oppression and exploitation in the construction of a strong, but above all free, nation?
In Christian public spaces (apart from a few exceptions), talking about Vodou is taboo.
We must approach Haitian Vodou not as a religious doctrine or practice, but as a gathering of men and women conscious of their condition, where Haitian Vodou is a catalyst for the liberation of an oppressed race. My approach is intended to be objective in order to extract all the elements necessary for a better understanding of the spirit of Vodou anchored in the context of Bois Caïman. Social balance and appeasement cannot be found in the Haitian context by elucidating, in the light of reason, this religious struggle which undermines the social ethos.
The origin of vodou
The island of Hispaniola is located on the Caribbean Sea. Until the end of the 15th century, it was only inhabited by natives. Its population was estimated at several hundred thousand indigenous Arawak/Taïnos. However, the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492 will be a major turning point in the history of this island. Restriction of two freedoms would become the order of the day (starting with indigenous peoples and later with enslaved Africans). This unexpected arrival is at the origin of the partition of the island into two republics: the Dominican Republic and the Republic of Haiti.
When Christopher Columbus arrived, if we can believe it, it is said that he had received orders from the Queen of Spain, in his mission of conquest, not to exterminate the indigenous peoples, but rather to teach them the true religion: Christianity. R. Murray Thomas, professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara, states that: “Queen Isabella of Spain… gave orders to erect a church in each community to convert the inhabitants to Catholicism, and to build a school where the priest would teach Indian children to read, write and recite simple Christian prayers. Unfortunately, driven by unbridled greed, Christopher Columbus and his associates favored the extermination of the Indians in less than a quarter of a century.
When Christopher Columbus arrived, if we can believe it, it is said that he had received orders from the Queen of Spain, in his mission of conquest, not to exterminate the indigenous peoples, but rather to teach them the true religion: Christianity.
It is at the heart of this apocalyptic event, says Jean Kerboull, member of the congregation of the Fathers of Saint-Jacques and professor of philosophy, that:
“A voice was raised: that of a Dominican monk, Bartolomé de Las Casas. This priest, a former “descobridor” who had joined the order, vehemently refuted Indian slavery. He particularly criticized the “encomienda”, that is to say the illegal redistribution of land taken from indigenous peoples. Carried away by his enthusiasm, he took the unfortunate initiative of proposing to call on black Africans in order to relieve the Indians.
Unfortunately for the Africans, the Spanish Crown, for this substitution of labor, took it seriously. It is within the framework of this substitution that the “triangular trade” was inaugurated. This is essentially based on one category of people: black people. How many Africans have been brutally torn from their country? We can say that tens of thousands of blacks replaced a few thousand natives in slavery.
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Kerboull reports that: “Slave traders mainly charged blacks along the Gulf of Guinea: fishing was carried out along the West African coast, from Senegal to the Congo and Angola. It is worth emphasizing that the Slave Coast, in the Gulf of Benin, was by far the most active trading posts, as well as in Lagos and especially in Ouidah, in the kingdom of Judah. Thomas argues that: “The African sources of Haiti’s slaves were primarily territories in west-central Africa, where the nations of Togo, Benin and Nigeria now lie – an area known as the Slave Coast , populated by more than 40 ethnic groups speaking around 250 dialects. The crossing of ethnic groups takes place in the crucible of the colony.
Slaves from different tribes were grouped together based on their linguistic differences to avoid any plot against the slave master, and to prevent them from understanding each other or being understood. They were subjected to mechanisms of acculturation and deculturation: their birth names were stripped and replaced by those of their slave masters or saints, and their beliefs by Christianity.
They were subjected to mechanisms of acculturation and deculturation.
Each tribe had its own deity. Among the multiple divinities, there was “the list of loas – divinity of Vodou – the trace of around fifteen of them: from Arada to Fon, from Bissagots, from Canga, from Caplaou to Congos, from Hausa to Ibos, through the Mandingos, the Mines, the Mondongues, the Nago, the Popo, the Soussou and the Senegalese. » In this configuration, as Joseph and Cléohat point out, “Haiti has developed a unique culture which is neither African nor European […] but an adulterated syncretic mixture of African and European civilizations. » It is from this crossbreeding that a common denominator was born, where the different components met, not without clashes, on the religious level, the strong point of their cultures: Vodou.
Vodou was supposed to allow slaves to strengthen their spirituality and their feeling of belonging to a common cause. As sociologist Gabriel Dorino, a Haitian Jesuit, says, “Haitian Vodou essentially expresses the demand for a community of meaning between the exploited and those excluded from the slave system. » However, European missionaries did not see in vodou a salutary reaction to denial, but a palpable manifestation of the devil. It is Vodou as a liberating force which will be the subject of the following point. What is Haitian Vodou?
Haitian Vodou
Public opinion has repugnant ideas about Vodou. There is a long set of terms to talk about Haitian Vodou. For example, to designate Vodou, we use terms such as: animism, fetishism, paganism, primitive, black magic, superstition, witchcraft, sorcerer. I have chosen not to address these caricatured images, not because it is not important, but to answer the question: What is Haitian Vodou?
Haitian Vodou has its roots in African culture but with a predominance of Beninese Vodou. Referring to a Beninese Jesuit, Barnabé Houguevou, I can say that “the word Vodun comes from “Vo” which means “apart” and from “Dun” which means far beyond, something that cannot be mastered or controlled. because it is very far away. »
Haitian Vodou would be the adaptation of the Fon language spoken in Benin and a Yoruba word (language spoken in certain regions of Benin, Nigeria, Togo or Ghana) meaning “god”. Haitian Vodou has not remained the same as it was in Africa; it could not be, given the context of slavery and the mixing of ethnic groups from the holds of slave ships.
Haitian Vodou has its roots in African culture but with a predominance of Beninese Vodou.
According to Harold Courlander, “Vodou is an integrated system of concepts concerning human conduct, governing humanity’s relationships with those who once lived and with the natural and supernatural forces of the universe. » Vodou can be understood as a complex and mystical worldview in which man, nature and the invisible are intimately linked and in which the sacred and the temporal, the material and the spiritual are one. Wade Davis goes further than Courlander by saying: “Vodou not only contains spiritual concepts, it prescribes a way of life, a philosophy and a code of ethics that regulate social behavior.”
By extension, vodou can be defined as the set of gods or invisible forces whose power or benevolence men attempt to reconcile. This is the matter mation of a supernatural world, but also all the procedures for relating to it. Vodou is a cult of the spirit of the invisible world which is under the influence of something. These definitions allow me to locate the momentum of Haitian Vodou during a particular event: the Bois-Caïman ceremony.
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On the night of August 14, 1791, under the spiritual guidance of a high Vodou priest known as Boukman, a large number of slaves gathered in a clearing in Bois-Caïman. The objective was to remove all hesitations by obtaining absolute dedication in order to break the yoke of slaves. To do this, Boukman had adopted a globalizing discourse which carried not only the suffering of the slaves, but also their aspirations and their dreams of replacing the dominant discourse of the slaveholders, which was based on one of the most remarkable syntheses of Saint Paul of the Christian faith in the early Church: “Let each one remain in the condition in which he was when he was called. Were you a slave… Make good use of your condition as a slave…” (1 Cor 7:20). Thus, the masters saw in religious education the only outlet capable of containing the slaves’ desire for emancipation. To counter this education, Boukman formulated the following speech:
“The Good God who created the sun who gives us light from above, who raises the sea and makes the thunder rumble – listen carefully, all of you – this god, hidden in the clouds, looks at us. He sees everything white people do. The god of white people demands crimes from them; Our God requires good deeds. But this good god demands revenge! He will direct our hands; He will help us. Reject the image of the white god who thirsts for our tears, and listen to the voice of freedom that speaks in the hearts of each of us.”
The masters saw religious education as the only outlet capable of containing the slaves’ desire for emancipation.
Through this act, Boukman succeeded in making the slaves understand that the message preached by the prelates and the slave owners was only addressed to whites and free men. Heaven was for the rich, both on earth and in heaven. And the poor slaves could reach heaven through their soul after death, if and only if this soul had been well dominated by inhuman work and a catechism of absolute submission.
Boukman denounces this ideologizing catechism by proposing a combative and warlike discourse which opposes a symbolically egalitarian community to a hierarchical and discriminatory Church and society. In this sense, the Bois-Caïman Ceremony symbolizes the momentum of awareness that it is time to take ourselves seriously and that Vodou is the catalyst and the breath of life, a saving energy against the slave system. . Bois-Caïman becomes the starting point for Haitian Vodou.
Indeed, the birth of Haitian Vodou and the development of its “theology” throughout the history of Haiti are none other than the stories which unmask the biased discourse of the so-called civilized and Christian slave-holding settlers and which, at the same time , pushed African slaves, the outcasts of society, to seek another discourse and a spirituality that better reflected their aspirations, their joys, their sorrows and their dreams. The historian Thomas Madiou recognizes that Vodou had greatly contributed to the success of slaves raised by over-excitement of their fanaticism to the highest degree. God told them that if they died in battle, they would return to Africa, free and happy. Thus, their flesh blunted the iron of the whites.
Boukman succeeded in making the slaves understand that the message preached by the prelates and the slave owners was only addressed to whites and free men.
After independence in 1804, the struggle for recognition of Haiti focused on the Christianization of the country. This is why the first state to recognize Haiti, 60 years after its independence, as a free country was the Vatican State. Missionaries began to arrive in Haiti, and it was in this context that missionaries began to characterize Vodou as evil. The missionary clergy used the pretext that Vodou is an African tradition, a cult in honor of the devil. They launched campaigns of persecution against its followers for its immediate and complete eradication. Through the veils of their bias, the missionaries managed to maintain Vodou as a deadly threat aimed at their destruction and created a troubling environment for Vodou practitioners.
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Since then, the rites associated with Vodou have been described as undignified chanting. At this time, under the orders of Christians, gigantic fires erased the Vodou symbols which represented black resistance. The eradication of the Vodou cult had taken an official turn. However, the African beliefs buried deep in the popular soul resisted while the superficial Catholic dye, kicked to the base of the sacrum since slavery, flaked away.
A successive major campaign against Vodou has been waged with the aim of not only tarnishing its image by portraying it as an evil leech, but also striving to eradicate it completely. For example, the American occupation of Haiti in 1915 favored the demonization of Vodou, because the occupiers were aware of the revolutionary character and emancipatory power of Vodou. Two leading figures of Vodou priests were killed, as well as Boukman.
During the first American occupation of Haiti, certain emissaries took care to spread the image of Haiti as a country under the influence of Vodou, teeming with sorcerers, cannibals and zombies. Obliging Sténio Vincent (the president of Haiti at the time: 1930-41) to promulgate a decree excluding vodou as a superstitious practice to be destroyed and he again legalized an official campaign.
A successive major campaign against Vodou has been waged with the aim of not only tarnishing its image by portraying it as an evil leech, but also striving to eradicate it completely.
At that time, any object suspected of being used for magical practices was seized. The vodou service has been destroyed. Among these objects, we can cite: conical drums, “assons”, ritual flags, lightning stones, “potomitan”, images, jugs, bottles, crosses, costumes, necklaces, hats , mirrors. Sacred trees such as the legendary Mapou (universal symbols of life in perpetual evolution and regeneration, resting places of the Loa), have been cut down. Alfred Métraux offers the same testimony:
… The remaining trees, numerous around the “humfò”, were exorcised and felled amidst songs and prayers. All the witnesses to these scenes were struck by the behavior of those who had been the agents of the persecution. They attacked the Vodou emblems as if they were dangerous enemies that they wanted to trample and exterminate. While the priest was busy exorcising the trees, fanatics threw stones at them, insulted them and blamed them for the money they had spent in vain on offerings and sacrifices, and this rage betrayed their conviction that these trees were truly inhabited by spirits. As for the Vodou practitioners who were forced to witness these sacrilegious scenes and deliver with their hands talismans that would guarantee their safety, they were so deeply upset that they burst into tears and showed signs of agitation. the most extreme.
The anti-superstition campaign used fear and terror as a weapon to encourage repression against “vodou practitioners thrown into the categories of “public sinners, idolaters, notorious magicians”, sanctioned by canon law, punished with excommunication, severe penance, refusal of a Catholic funeral, refusal of access to the sacrament. »
At that time, any object suspected of being used for magical practices was seized.
All this has contributed to tearing the social fabric. More cracks in a unit to build! Laënnec Hurbon, Haitian sociologist, emphasizes that “… although vodou is practiced in all social strata, it is detached and pinned down as a “defect” which must be used to account for the “misfortunes” of the working classes. »
In the light of anti-superstitious campaigns, vodou has become evil, witchcraft and an idolatrous cult. The Christian is presented as the prototype of the human who lives in a mental world with a high ceiling in the sky, supported by columns of clear and unequivocal affirmations, under the gaze of a God who leaves him totally free by inviting him to grow, unlike vodou practitioners who live in a low-ceilinged universe, without high ideals, populated by vengeful, resentful, hateful and morbidly possessive loas.
Unfortunately, it is this false narrative of vodou that is being conveyed. In the context of Haiti’s suffering, I believe that it would be good to reconstruct the history of Vodou, not to gain new followers or reject Christianity but to give it back its liberating dimension by having a different look at people. who practice Vodou and creating a climate of tolerance where diversity can have its place.
The importance of taking another look at vodou and its followers in the Haitian context
No figures are given on the approximate number of Vodou practitioners in Haiti. However, it is well known that every Haitian is directly or indirectly influenced by Vodou culture. It is enough to hear Haitian music and see the manifestation of popular beliefs to feel the presence of the practice of Vodou in its primary philosophy having its roots in the Bois-Caïman ceremony.
As I explained in the second part of this article, Vodou, the religion of the oppressed, was a form of self-protection for slaves, in reference to their African origins, but also as their deepest cultural expression resistance over time. Given the anchoring of Vodou in the Haitian sphere, we can understand that it is not only a religious fact but that it is associated with the historical and cultural identity of Haiti.
No figures are given on the approximate number of Vodou practitioners in Haiti. However, it is well known that every Haitian is directly or indirectly influenced by Vodou culture.
It is practiced but often disavowed by local elites and demonized by ordinary people. It is stigmatized as a cause of underdevelopment and an obscurantist, even satanic, vestige. This stigmatization is responsible, in part, for certain social fractures which plunge Haiti into recurring crises.
The behavior of the Haitian intellectual elite towards Vodou (the fruit of collected education) forms a class division. The model of the relationship between the intellectual, always perceived as civilized, and the vodou, mainly peasant and illiterate, takes up the model of the slave system which was based on a double class distinction in which the weakest were always eliminated.
This distinction acts like the wind with multiple forces that constantly threaten the cohesion of Haitian society. This is why it is important to present a true history of vodou Haitian so that it can once again be not only a cement for social cohesion but also a voice that has a say in the construction of a better society.
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Vodou must be placed in the context of the history of the Haitian people so that those who practice it can accept themselves and feel accepted. This requires everyone’s collaboration. It is necessary, for example, to give courses in schools to make the true meaning of Vodou known. The Christian must not despise Vodou and the Vodou practitioner must not be ashamed to present himself as such.
Deeply rooted in the Haitian soul, the practice of Vodou in Haiti finds its origins in Africa, being a synopsis of traditional African religious components which gradually merged with the cult of saints in the Catholic religion. This was and still is a crucial question for the survival of former descendants of slaves and their beliefs. Beliefs banned and severely repressed by the colonizers, violation of which resulted in the death penalty.
The fair assessment of Haitian Vodou should be a quest for every Haitian concerned with recovering fractured human dignity to wisely face the reality at hand and to at the same time create an environment of tolerance and respect.
Par Levelt Michaud, Theologian, Philosopher, Ethicist and Poet
French translation by Sarah Jean.
Cover image: A vodou practitioner during a ceremony. | © Photo: Pierre Michel Jean/Visit Haiti.
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