The History of Voodoo: With an Emphasis on Ritual

There are three types of divinity associated with Voodoo. Gran met, also known as Bondye, is the true deity and presides over the spirit world. This spirit is not directly worshipped. The Loas, also known as the mysteries, are central to the worship and are lesser divinities than Gran Met. The Dead, which includes ancestral spirits and the spirits of the saints, are ever present with the practitioner, even during prior initiation.

The religion breaks the Loas into three categories, also known as Nations. Rada, the first nation, are the original African Loas. They are gentle and beneficent. The Petro, or Petwo, are fiery, vengeful spirits. These are the patrons for the slave revolutions of Haiti. Ghede, also known as "Les Morts", are the spirits of the dead. The empires of Africa brought the Rada with them. These empires are Fula empire, Mandigo empire, Ashanti empire, Fanti empire, Danomean empire, Hausa empire, Benin empire, Yoruba empire, and Congo empire. These empires ranged from one to seven tribes.

The Loas are worshipped in ceremonial dances. Depending on the tradition, certain Loas may be invoked with drumming and singing. Veves, special symbols drawn in the group, can invoke the Loas if drawn in the church. Each chant, song, and drum rhythms are different for each Loas.

The Gods of Voodoo
The Loas may well be counted into the hundreds. Some of the more popular Loas are Damballah, a primordial deity in the form of a snake, who created the cosmos with the help of his companion, Aydia. Aydia is the consort to Damballah, and Aydia appears as a rainbow. Baron Samedi, the Loa of the Dead, is usually pictured as a grinning skeleton with a top hat. Ogoun, a warrior related to the Yoruban Orisha of the same name, and also to Shango. Erzuli is the embodiment of love and femininity and love. She could be seen as bipolar -- her darker aspect, called Dantor, is a protector of women and avenger of domestic violence. Agwe is the ruler of the ocean; it is part of the primordial sea. Legba, the guardian of the crossroads, is able to open up doors between worlds. Marassa and Mawu-Lisa are divine twins. They were the first male and female, and are also the first ancestors. They embody archetypal, polar forces. Ayizan was the first Mambo, also known as a priestess, who is still honored at every ritual.

The Rituals of Voodoo In general, Voodoo is practiced as a way to celebrate and show gratitude to the loas who possess and guide their people. While each ceremony has a different purpose, they generally have the same basic similarities: chanting, enthusiastic drumming, dancing, and gifts offered in honor of their gods. The greater the request or occasion celebrated, the better the food offering. If one is asking for blessing of an inanimate object, mange-sec is presented -- a mixture of grains, fruit, and vegetables left upon the altar, along with a bottle of palm wine. If the ceremony is to ask for a loa to intercede in a serious matter, or if the participant feels especially blessed, a live animal is sacrificed, typically a chicken, but sometimes a goat or other animal. Some loas will not accept anything less than a blood offering, and each has their favorite type of sacrificial creature. As part of the ritual, those in attendance usually eat the offerings left for the loas, but don't receive nourishment from the food. The loa, whose function is to direct the enormous primal mass of the material universe into patterns of intelligence and benevolence, are involved in a great and endless labor.¹ They require substantial offerings, which are taken in by the people for the spirits dwelling inside them, or for the particular loa being honored. The loa is the one who benefits from the consumption. Each ceremony also utilizes veves, ceremonial drawings of cornmeal, drawn by hand, with each ceremony requiring a different design, and each design being deity-specific. Only a houngan or mambo may undertake the highly artistic task. Beyond those points in common, each ritual differs, depending on the goal of the ceremony and which loa is being honored. While there are many ceremonies to honor the loas, or to ask for intercession, the following are most common: MarassaThe Marassa is used to honor the Divine Twins of Voodoo. The ceremony is most commonly called Marassa-Trois, because there are actually three spirits within the Marassa triad. In Voudoun [Voodoo], one and one make three; two and two make five; for the and of the equation is the third and fifth part, respectively, the relationship which makes all the parts meaningful.²Rituals of Death

There are three main rituals associated with death: dessounin, zombification, and Retirer D'en Bas de L'eau. Dessounin is a ritual used to separate the gros-bon-age (psychic inheritance from parents all beings share) from the body. A houngan is charged with this task and sending the essence back to join the cosmic life force from where it came. He or she must be careful not to also separate the ti-bon-ange (personal experiences of the descendant making up their personality), because once loosed, it might give in to evil tendencies by injuring or possessing others around it, or be used by a bokor (dark priest) to transform the dead person into a zombie.

Zombification is feared by practitioners of Voodoo and misrepresented to the general public by Hollywood and the horror genre. A zombie is nothing more than a body deprived of its conscious powers of cerebration; for the Haitian, there is no fate more terrible.³ In Voodoo, the zombie astral (ti-bon-ange) is seized by a bokor, forcing the body of the recently dead into his service. The zombie can refuse no task and is often used solely for physical labor, as a slave. Although portrayed as violent cannibals, if one were to encounter a zombie, they would find them to be vacant, pitiful creatures without the ability to harm anyone unless commanded to do so by their masters.

The creation of a zombie has two explanations. For believers, it is essentially this: Take a white pot, fill it with twenty-one seeds of pois congo and a length of string knotted twenty-one times, and slip it under his pillow. After his death, leave the pot in a dark room. The string will turn into the spider, and the spider is the zombi[e]. You must treat it carefully, feeding with just enough food and water, but no salt, and when you are in need of its services, you must practice another magic: you knock three times on the door and unlock it behind your back, to give the zombi[e] time to assume human form. As you enter the room, it will rise from its chair and bow. But speak harshly as you give your orders, and beat it to make it afraid, or it will harm you.⁴

For non-believers searching for a logical explanation, it can be discovered in the toxin tetrodotoxin, found in puffer fish. The consequences are unpredictable, either resulting in death or a deep death-like state. If death isn't immediate, one wishing to create a zombie next administers a paste made from plants containing atropine and scopalomine, both heavy hallucinogenics. As long as these are administered regularly, it renders the person controlled at the mercy of their master.

Retirer D'en Bas de L'eau , or the Rites of Reclamation, is the final ritual performed to ensure the dead rest in peace. Traditionally, one year and a day after death, the ti-bon-ange is summoned from the body and sent on its way to the land of the dead. Because the ritual is so expensive, many families instead choose to have one day per year set aside for Retirer D'en Bas de L'eau, sending the ti-bon-ange, which is now transformed to the esprit (spirit), of every person who died during the year on their way. This is accomplished by the houngan using a govi (sacred jar) of water to summon the trapped esprit. The esprit will either posses the houngan or a family member to impart any final words before setting off on its journey. After the esprit has departed, the houngan places the govi in his hounfort (temple), where the family may come to feed the spirit and will now treat it like a divine being. Someday, the person might become the loa of a descendent.
Conclusion
Westerners, or so-called logical people, might find the tenets of Voodoo strange. It seems to be an exotic creed full of spells, possessions, and nefarious rituals. In reality, it was a comfort to the slaves who were imported to Haiti long ago, giving them a common bond. It meshes surprisingly well with Catholicism, the official religion of Haiti, and is generally a belief meant to celebrate and honor, not control or destroy. With a supreme being, saint-like spirits, belief in the afterlife and invisible spirits, along with the protection of a met tat (similar to a patron saint), Voodoo isn't that much different from traditional religions.

Foot Notes1. Divine Horsemen, Maya Deren, pg. 209, copyright 1970, Chelsea House
2. Divine Horsemen, Maya Deren, pg. 41, copyright 1970, Chelsea House
3. Divine Horsemen, Maya Deren, pg. 43, copyright 1970, Chelsea House

4. The Invisibles, Francis Huxley, page 86, copyright 1966, MacGraw-Hill
Bibliography

Print books:

Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie, Wade Davis, copyright 1988, University of North Carolina Press

The Invisibles, Francis Huxley, copyright 1966, MacGraw-Hill

Divine Horsemen, Maya Deren, copyright 1970, Chelsea House

Divine Horsemen, Maya Deren, copyright 1953, Chelsea House

Web sites:

http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/v/vodoun_also_voodoo.html

http://www.easupernatural.com/voodoo.htm

http://www.folkart.com/voodooshop/faq-books.htm

http://www-hsc.usc.edu/~gallaher/hurston/hurston.html

http://www.pilotguides.com/destination_guide/africa/benin_burkina_faso_and_mali/voodoo.php

http://nutmeg.gen.nz/under-the-world/issue1/vodoun.html

http://altreligion.about.com/library/weekly/aa092402a.htm