All we, in the Christian world, know about voodoo is what Hollywood has sensationalized. While exploring the roots and current practice of this ancient belief, one can find some surprising truths behind the hype. Vodun is an primeval religion practiced by some 30 million people in the West African nations of Benin, Togo and Ghana. With its countless deities, animal sacrifice and spirit possession, voodoo (as it's known to the rest of the world) is one of the most misunderstood religions on the globe. Voodoo comes from the word in the Fon language for spirit, and focuses on spirits which exist in all things. These spirits can be used for good or bad purposes by the Voodoo priests. Voodoo followers worship spirits, or fetishes, to guide them in their lives. The religion started about 400 years ago and was brought to the Caribbean, particularly Haiti, during the slave trade. Approximately 60 percent of this West African nation's people follow voodoo, which originated in the region, but the Marxist regime that came to power in 1972 discouraged its practice.
Benin has declared Jan. 10 a National, paid holiday to celebrate voodoo and the country's other traditional faiths, saying they deserved the same recognition as Christian and Muslim events. Ouidah, a town 25 miles to the west of Cotonou, is considered the center of Benin's voodoo culture. With pounding drums and pulsating rhythms, Benin celebrates the rebirth of voodoo as an officially recognized religion since 1996.
West Africa was once known as the Slave Coast, because it was at the center of the transatlantic slave trade for centuries. African slaves brought voodoo with them to plantations in Brazil, Haiti, Cuba and Louisiana. But 400 years later, the religion still remains a central part of spiritual life for millions living in West Africa. "Voodoo is older than the world," says Janvier, a tour guide in Benin and a lifelong voodoo practitioner. "They say that voodoo is like the marks or the lines which are in our hands -- we born with them. Voodoo are in the leaves, in the earth. Voodoo is everywhere."
The individual deities of voodoo have all the character of the gods of ancient Greece; some whimsical, some seductive, some full of rage. In Cotonou, the voodoo followers gather to dance and thank the god Sakpata, a powerful divinity of the Earth, for recent rains. Women dancers sway in bright dresses with a mottled pattern imitating the scars of smallpox. Sakpata can bring life-giving rain, but the god is responsible for the dreaded disease, too. Adherents to Voodoo are called upon to follow a strict set of rules. A person who breaks the rules of Voodoo annoys the spirits and the person who breaks their laws might become very ill or even end up dead.
The rituals of voodoo are as elaborate as those for any Western church -- learning secret, sacred languages, dances and diets are part of the initiation for voodoo priests. Central to the belief is offerings to the gods, in the form of animal sacrifices. (Human sacrifices in West Africa ended more than a century ago.) Another key element of the religion is veneration of the spirits of ancestors. Among voodoo worshippers, the dead are thought to walk among the living during the dance of hooded Egunguns, who spin through the village in elaborate costumes. Touching the dancer during the trance, it is believed, could kill you, such is the power of the dead brought to life again.
In the open-air markets, merchants sell the basics of life, and that includes voodoo talismans known as "fetishes." They could be elaborate statues representing voodoo gods, or even dried animal heads and other animal parts, sold for medicine and their spiritual power. There is a dark side to voodoo. Sorcerers called botono can be summoned to put a hex on an adversary using the malevolent power of a voodoo spirit. The "dark side" of voodoo is similar to the concept of heaven and hell in Western religious tradition. The whole point is to make manifest the darkness, so that the goodness can overwhelm it.
In one sense, voodoo is no different from other religions – followers appeal to divine powers to assure their success in life. Many followers of voodoo convert to Christianity and leave the cult. But over time, they return to the animal sacrifices, the veneration of fetishes, the dances with the spirits. The pull of voodoo is so powerful, it seems embedded in the earth of West Africa. The most powerful person in a district is the minister of the local king and is referred to as the “Chief De Terre.” The Chief De Terre knows the secrets of the fetishes which gives him power that state administrators might find hard to compete with.
Voodoo rituals have long been inaccessible to anyone except disciples and priests. Even though certain practices like scarification carry a high risk of HIV infection, outsiders to the voodoo community have largely been unable to penetrate the secrecy that health officials say can be deadly to its followers. More than half of Benin’s 7.5 million population identifies itself as practitioners of voodoo. We are talking about a high risk group that carries out unsafe practices, there is scarification [skin cuts], female cutting and male circumcision, and several people are using the same instruments. Another voodoo rite that leaves followers open to HIV infection is when a follower comes into contact with blood during public ceremonies, either through touch or drinking it. Benin’s national HIV infection rate is two percent as of 2007, but in high-risk groups like sex workers for which the government has data, the rate goes up to 25 percent, according to the government’s National HIV and AIDS Control Program.
(This blog was composed to cover the exterior of many Voodoo related topics. If you have unambiguous questions about certain topics, please feel free to email me and I will do my best to answer your specific questions in more depth.)
1 comment:
Very interesting! Thanks for all of the great info!
xoxoxo
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