MAYA DEREN

THE LIVING GODS OF HAITI

0-914232-63-0 $12.00

AW THORIZED EDITION

MayYA DEREN’S account of the Haitian deities,

practitioners, and rituals of Voudoun has long
been recognized as a classic of its type—an
anthropological investigation written with the
special insight of personal encounter. Joseph
Campbell, who contributed two forewords to
this new edition, has remarked that Divine
Horsemen “is still the best thing there is on
Haitian possession.” Ms. Deren was guided in
this work by Gregory Bateson, and undertook
the writing of the book after journeying to Haiti
to film ritual dances, unexpectedly becoming
accepted as a member of a Haitian village.
Famous for her ground-breaking experimental
films, Deren brought her entire aesthetic
sensibility to force in this profound study of
“the total integrity of cultural form.” The
panoply of goddesses and gods emerges in an
informed and eloquent evocation of “the facts
of the mind made manifest in a fiction of
matter.”

“Divine Horsemen is the result of vast

fieldwork and personal research in Haiti, and
its findings are well and systematically drawn
up at considerable length.”
—London Times Literary Supplement

“There are lessons to be learned from knowing

about Voodoo the way Maya Deren makes you
know about it.” —The Village Voice

Front cover: Ceremony for Agwe, sovereign of the seas.

Back cover: Maya Deren in her film, Meshes of the Afternoon.
Courtesy of Anthology Film Archives.
DIVINE HORSEMEN
The Living Gods of Haiti
 MAYA DEREN
a

DIVINE HORSEMEN
The Living Gods of Haiti

DOCUMENTEXT
MCPHERSON & COMPANY
 DIVINE HORSEMEN: THE LIVING GODS OF HAITI

Copyright 1953 by Maya Deren. All nghts reserved. Republished with permission
and authorization of the Estate of Maya Deren and the Estate of Teiji Ito:
Cheryl Ito, executrix.
Forewords copynght © 1953 and 1970 by Joseph Campbell.
Reprinted by permission of Joseph Campbell.
This Documentext edition is published by McPherson & Company
Post Office Box 1126, Kingston, New York 12401.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
579 10 8 6 1989 1990 1991

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Deren, Maya (1917-1961)

Divine Horsemen.

Reprint. Originally published: London; New York:

Thames and Hudson, c1953
“Documentext”
Bibliography: p.
Includes index
1. Voodooism—Haiti 2. Haiti—Religion. I. Title
BL2530.H3D47 = 1983 299.67 83-16228
ISBN 0-914232-64-9
ISBN 0-914232-63-0 (pbk.)
Great Gods cannot ride little borses
(HAITIAN PROVERB)
 CONTENTS

EDITORS FOREWORD x1

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

INTRODUCTORY NOTE 15

I. THE TRINITY: LES MORTS, LES MYSTERES, ET LES

MARASSA
I. The Point of Departure 2!
2. The Mortal Me: The Immortal Myself
3. The Birth of a Divinity 27
4. The Cosmic Mirror and the Corpse on the Cross
Roads 34
The Marassa—Two and Two Equals Five 38
The Rituals of Death
an

4!
. The Rites of Reclamation—The Ceremony of Retirer
‘en Bas de l’Eau 46
II. LES SERVITEURS
The Christian Influence 54
mo

The African Heritage $7

Wah Ww

The New World Answer to New World Needs 6I

w

Tradition as a Contemporary Function 71

The Serviteur as Contemporary Ciazen 78

Il. THE DIVINE HORSEMEN

The Nature of the Loa 86
. Legba—The Old Man at the Gate
... and Carrefour—The Young Man at the Cross-
Roads 100
. Ghede—Corpse and Phallus; King and Clown 102
. Damballah—The Good Serpent of the Sky. . . 114
... Simbi—The Snake in the River . . . 116
...and the Petro Riddle up a Tree 118
Agwé—Sovereign of the Seas 119
. Ogoun—Warrior Hero; Statesman and Diplomat;
Poliucian and Gangster; Magician 130
. Erzulie—Goddess; The Tragic Mistress 137
. Loco and Ayizan—The Priestly Parents 145
vin
Vill CONTENTS

IV. HOUNGAN, HIERARCHY AND HOUNFOR

. The Beginnings of a Houngan page ISt
The Levels of Hierarchy
e yn
1$4
The Houngan as Communal Father
Yay
158
The Houngan as Healer 161
In Balance Between Worlds I7I
The Hounfor 178
The Doors to the Divine World 185

Vv. THE RITES

. The Rites as Collective Discipline 188
. The Rites as Individual Development 197
YH

. The Initial Ritual Acts 202

. Feeding the Loa 209
. Transfusing Life to the Loa 213
NAWP

. Ceremonies for the Serviteur 216

Initiation: The Birth of a Man 220

VI. DRUMS AND DANCE

The Sacred Forms 225
The Collective as Creative Artist
Pees

228
The Divine Virtuosi 230
The Anonymous Inventors 231
The Sacred Oratory of the Drum 233
Dance as the Meditation of the Body
NAS

240
The Drummer as Mechanism 244

VII. THE WHITE DARKNESS 247

APPENDIX A 263
Notes on Two Marriages with Voudoun Loa
APPENDIX B 271
Some Elements of Arawakan, Carib and Other
Indian Cultures in Haitian Voudoun

NOTES 287

GLOSSARY OF CREOLE TERMS REFERRING TO

VOUDOUN 325
REFERENCES 339

INDEX 341
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Photogravure Plates

I. SOULS OF THE DEAD, LODGED IN WHITE-

WRAPPED GOVIS facing page 38
2. INITIATE, EMERGING AS NEW-BORN 39
3. NICHE FOR ERZULIE $4
4. INDIAN INFLUENCE $5
$ and 6. GOD OF THE DEAD AS GLUTTON 150
7- CEREMONY FOR AGWE, SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS Ig!

8. A CONTEMPORARY VOUDOUN PRIEST, HOUNGAN

ISNARD 166
9. MAMBO LEADING CEREMONIAL INVOCATION 167
10. CEREMONIAL PERISTYLE 167
II. BASSIN DAMBALLAH 182

12. BARQUE D’AGWE 182

13. PETRO DRUMS BEING COVERED 183

14. DANCE OF CELEBRATION 183
Ig. RITUAL PRAYERS 198

16. SACRIFICE OF A BULL 199

17. YANVALOU DOS/-BAS 230
18. CONGO DANCE 230
19. DRUMMERS AND CHORUS OF HOUNSIS 231
20 and 21. POSSESSION 246
22 and 23. GHEDE 247
x ILLUSTRATIONS

Line Drawings

THE CARDINAL POINTS AND POINTS BETWEEN page 19

VEVER FOR GHEDE 37

CROSS“ROADS AND CENTER-POST 53

AFRICAN TRIBAL ORIGINS $9

VEVER FOR PETRO 63

MAGIC PENTACLE 77

VEVER FOR LEGBA 97

VEVER FOR AZACCA 109

VEVER FOR AGWE 121

VEVER FOR OGOUN BADAGRIS 131

VEVER FOR AYIZAN 147

VEVER FOR AGASSOU 159

VEVER FOR OGOUN ST. JACQUES 185

VEVER DRAWING OF A BULL. 217

ANDROGYNOUS TOTALITY 224

VEVER FOR DRUMS AND OGAN 235

VEVER FOR ERZULIE 261

 EDITOR’S FOREWORD

Maya DEREN has performed the feat of delineating the Hai-

tian cult of Voudoun, not anthropologically—as a “relic of
primeval ignorance and archaic speculation” (S. Hartland)
—but as an experienced and comprehended initiation into
the mysteries of man’s harmony within himself and with the
cosmic process. To some it will be incredible that an illiterate
people should preserve in their traditions an arcanum lost to
popular Christianity (which 1s today largely dogmatic rather
than initiatory, moral rather than metaphysical), but no one
acquainted with the true character of any so-called primitive
religion will be surprised. “The content of folklore”, wrote
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy in one of his penetrating studies
of mythology, “is metaphysical. Our failure to recognize this
is primarily due to our own abysmal ignorance of meta-
physics and of its technical terms.... So long as the mater-
tal of folklore is transmitted, so long 1s the ground available on
which the superstructure of full initiatory understanding can be
built.”’* All mythology, whether of the folk or of the literati,
preserves the iconography of a spiritual adventure that men
have been accomplishing repeatedly for millennia, and
which, whenever it occurs, reveals such constant features
that the innumerable mythologies of the world resemble
each other as dialects of a single language. The peculiar
interest of Voudoun derives from the fact that a congeries of
displaced persons, ravished from various African home-
lands to the Caribbean hell of Hispaniola, where Spain had
already all but annihilated the native Indian population,
should have been competent to revivify, out of their own
spiritual realizations and with whatever guidance splintered
ancestral traditions can have afforded, those perennial sym-
bolic forms.

* Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Figures of Speech or Figures of Thought, luzac and

Co., London, 1946, pp. 216, 220. Italics, Dr. Coomaraswamy's.
xi
Xii Editor's Foreword

This achievement constitutes a chapter in the history of

the spirit of man in the New World that is certainly no less
notable, though indeed less advertised, than that of the
religious imperialism of the elegantly literate slavers. More-
over, in contrast to the ironic destiny of Christianity from
the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries—which was,
through its radical divorce of spirit from matter and its final
reference of all spiritual values back to events clothed in the
toga of Rome, to drive the entire modern world, pro-
gressively, into a frenzy of absolutely despiritualized
materialism—the function and actual effect of Voudoun
(despised, traduced, and persecuted) has been to invest the
most ravaged victims of the Christian debauch with the
living radiance of the timeless symbols, of which the Christ-
ian symbols themselves are but a local Near Eastern variant.
Whereas God would seem to have hidden his head from the
average churchgoer, to the average serviteur of the hounfor
he visibly sends, even today, his angels: the gods. And these
communicate the same message, which, in times of yore, was
communicated to the patriarchs and the seers; namely, that
divinity is here, now, and that by proper service and contem-
plation it may be made apparent even to the intelligence of
man. Man, thereby, is given a fifth dimension, which 1s
eternity —beyond the accidents of space and time; and man
made aware of this dimension is in the Earthly Paradise—
even where the tourist may see only a squalid heathen in a
shattered hut.
It is because Christians today recognize, painfully, the
limitations of our Western tradition and are seeking earn-
estly some enlarged base for the formulation of a unified and
unifying, yet adequately differentiated, understanding of
humanity, that, suddenly—as though promising a
revelation—mythology and folklore have acquired a new
interest. Few of the earlier studies of the materials can be of
direct service, however, since they are based on a concept of
the Occidental tradition as supreme (whether in its scrip-
 Editor's Foreword xi

tural or in its scientific stage), whereas we are now striving to

detect the tongue of the Spirit in the dialects of our
neighbors. The series Myth and Man has therefore been
conceived, as a conspectus composed by contemporary
experts endowed with ears to hear. Dr. C. Kerényi's The
Gods of the Greeks and Miss Deren’s Divine Horsemen: The
Living Gods of Haiti, published as the openers of the way,
reveal the vast scope of the subject, but equally its unity. For
the day-to-day epiphanies of Voudoun are experiences of a
crisis of becoming ev@eoc, “full of the god”, such as pre-
cipitated much of the mythology preserved in Greek and
Roman literary documents. We are not far from Hermes
when in the presence of Ghede; not far from Ares when in
that of Ogoun; and when with Erzulie, not far from the
foam-born Cyprian. The mythological archetypes live
on—within the heart of man; so that by knowing them in
their various inflections we know man too in his variety, and
equally in his glorious unity, discovering no need to unite
what is already unitary, but only to understand. From
mythology and folklore, therefore, there actually comes the
promised revelation, which the world, fatigued with
imperialism, requires: of man beyond, though among, the
accidents of history. In this apocaly pse enemies are brothers,
the poor in spirit know the kingdom of heaven, and the pure
in heart see God.
Joseph Campbell
New York, 1952

Maya DEREN’s definition of myth (p. 21) as “the facts of the

mind made manifest in a fiction of matter” is the key to both
the psychological interest and the moral relevance of her
richly informed anthropology. It was just after I had com-
pleted work on The Hero with a Thousand Faces that I met
Miss Deren, fresh back from her first season in Haiti; and it
was exactly her perception of the “facts of the mind”—
XiV Editor's Foreword

which are substratal to all productions of the human

imagination—in the colorful local “matter” of the “fictions”
of Haitian Voodoo that immediately struck me with won-
der and delight. I had, of course, already read a good deal
about Voodoo. The derivation of many of its fundamental
gods and rites from the Gold and Slave Coasts of West
Africa was already known to me; as was the importance of
possession in the context of the cult. But nothing I had read
had quite prepared me for the revelation of those “facts of
the mind” that opened as Maya Deren spoke of her own
experiences of possession, telling of the power of the drums
as they drove the god (the Joa, the mystére) into the body of
the devotee (the serviteur); also, as she described the pranks
and characteristics of the various mystéres when they had
“mounted” (monté), i.e., taken possession of, a worshiper.
Every loa had his own drum beat, his own manner of
behavior, his own costume (which was immediately
installed on the monté as soon as the Joa present was identi-
fied), and his own domain of spiritual revelation—through
all of which, as Maya talked, I could readily recognize the
motifs already familiar to me from the myths of the high
religions, not only of antiquity, but also of the modern East
and West. And it was then that I suggested to her that this
jewel of a book simply Aad to be written and that I wished it
to be the first of a series of volumes on the mythologies of
mankind that I had just been invited to edit.
“When the anthropologist arrives, the gods depart.” So
declares, I am told, a Haitian proverb. Maya Deren, on the
other hand, was an artist: therein, the secret of her ability to
recognize “facts of the mind” when presented through the
“fictions” of a mythology. Her avantgarde films, composed
before her first trip to Haiti—“Meshes of the Afternoon,”
“Ritual in Transhigured Time,” “Atland,’ and “Choreog-
raphy for the Camera”—had already testified to her under-
standing of the pictorial script of dream, vision, and halluci-
nation. As she describes in her preface (p. 5), she went first to
 Editor's Foreword xv

Haiti as an artist, thinking to make a film in which Haitian

dance should be a leading theme. But the manifestations of
rapture that there first fascinated and then seized her trans-
ported her beyond the bounds of any art she had ever
known. She was open, willingly and respectfully, to the
messages of that speechless deep, which is, indeed, the
wellspring of the mysteres. And so it was that when I first met
her, just following her plunge into what she has named, in
her last chapter, “The White Darkness,” she was in a state of
high exaltation—which even increased in force through the
following three years of her sobering toil in the shaping and
writing of this book.
There are a number of spheres of interest from which the
phenomenology of Haitian Voodoo can be regarded. The
first, I would say, is the historical. The marvel of its history
lies in the fact that a congeries of displaced persons, torn
from various African homelands and tossed together indis-
criminately in a totally new environment, should have been
able to reconstitute out of the fragments of their differing
tribal heritages a single religion, self-consistent and,
moreover, of a traditional type. In fact, as my learned Hai-
tian friend Milo Rigaud has demonstrated in his substantial
study La tradition voudoo haitien: son temple, ses mysteres, sa
magie (Paris: Editions Niclaus, 1953), it is even possible to
recognize the well-preserved lineaments in Haitian Voodoo
of an esoteric philosophy of the Gnostic-Hermetic-
Kabbalistic order.
According to Milo Rigaud, there must have been among
the Africans transported to the New World a number of
those who, in their villages, had been Aoungans (“spirit mas-
ters’); and it would have been these, then, who maintained
the continuity of the esoteric doctrine. The réle of the mys-
tere named Legba, for example, corresponds to that of
Hermes in the Hellenistic mysteries, so many of their sym-
bols being identical that the analogies cannot be dismissed,
either as incidental, or as a consequence of what anthro-
Xvi Editor’s Foreword

pologists term “convergence.” They comprise the total

image of the god and are, furthermore, symbolically consis-
tent, whether as rendered in the rites and myths, or as
interpreted by qualified houngans —with a sufficient number
of whom Milo Rigaud has been for years well acquainted on
the best of terms. In any case, no matter what the explana-
tion may be, the parallels between the myths and cults of
contemporary Haiti and those, not only of seventeenth-
century Africa, but also of antiquity, are undeniable and
abundant.
However, the fascination of the historical approach to the
mysteries of Voodoo is even surpassed by the psychological.
‘Some psychologists believe,’ Maya said to me one day,
“that possession is a kind of hypnosis. Do you think they
could be right?”
“IT have never been hypnotized,” I answered, “and have
never experienced possession. You have experienced posses-
sion, but have never been hypnotized. I think you owe it to
science, now, to be hypnotized.”
“You think so?”
“T do,” I said.
“Do you know a hypnotist?”
“I do.
Well, to make a long and amusing story very short, the
hypnotist (up to then, my friend) tried every art he knew,
without result, so that the question remains unanswered to
this hour. As does another: the question as to whether infor-
mation derived from any such indentification with an alien
culture as overcame Maya Deren can be accepted as
“scientific”; or, to phrase the problem in psychoanalytic
terms: can countertransference to a culture be employed as a
methodological tool? Can its “findings” amount to anything
more than a projection of personal fantasies?
My own reply to this objection would be that in the
science of anthropology the ideal of objectivity has never yet
been, and in the nature of things will never be, attained.
 Editor's Foreword XVII

Further, as anyone who has ever studied the book review

section of an anthropological journal must realize, no two
anthropological investigators of any culture whatsoever
have ever agreed in their findings, let alone evaluations.
Moreoever (and this, in fact, is the great professional secret
of the fraternity), there 1s no known method of checking, to
determine which (if either) of two radically differing “scientific”
interpretations of an investigated culture 1s correct. In short, as
every student of philosophy knows, the object of knowledge
is a function of the limitations of the subject; or, as in the
Indian Gandharva Tantra, “One should worship a divinity
by becoming oneselfa divinity. One who has not become a
divinity should not worship a divinity. Anyone worshiping a
divinity without becoming a divinity will not reap the fruits
of that worship.” Or again, to repeat the Haitian dictum,
“When the anthropologist arrives, the gods depart.”
Whose interpretation, then, of the sense and experience of
a religion is to be preferred in the name of science: that of the
one who has been touched and psychologically transformed
by the rites, or that of the one who has not? To whom, for
example, do we turn for the sense and experience of Christ-
ian worship: to a Dante Alighieri or to Max Weber? It has
always been my finding that the poet and the artist are better
qualified both by temperament and by training to intuit and
interpret the sense of a mythological figure than the
university-trained empiricist. And rereading today, after
twenty years, Maya Deren’s celebration of the gods by
whom her own life and personality were transformed, I am
reconfirmed in that finding; reconfirmed, also, in my long-
held belief that this little volume is the most illuminating
introduction that has yet been rendered to the whole marvel
of the Haitian mystéres as ‘facts of the mind.”
J.C.
New York, 1970
DIVINE HORSEMEN
The Living Gods of Haiti
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE

IN September 1947 I disembarked in Haiti, for an eight-

month stay, with eighteen motley pieces of luggage; seven of
these consisted of 16-millimetre motion-picture equipment
(three cameras, tripods, raw film stock, etc.), of which chree
were related to sound recording for a film, and three contained
equipment for sull photography. Among my papers I carried
a certificate of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for
“creative work in the field of motion pictures” (as distinguished
from documentary film projects), which was a reward for the
stubborn effort that had been involved in creating, producing
and successfully distributing four previous films with purely
private and limited means and in the face of a cinema tradition
completely dominated by the commercial film industry on the
one hand and the documentary film on the other. Also among
my papers was a carefully conceived plan for a film in which
Haitian dance, as purely a dance form, would be combined
(in montage principle) with various non-Haitian elements. I
recite all these facts because they are evidence of a concrete,
defined film project undertaken by one who was acknowledged
as a resolute and even stubbornly willful individual.
Today, in September 1951 (four years and three Haiuan
trips later), as I write these last few pages of the book, the filmed
footage (containing more ceremonies than dances) lies in
virtually its original condition in a fireproof box in the closet;
the recordings are still on their original wire spools; the stack
of still photographs is tucked away in a drawer labeled “To
BE PRINTED, and the elaborate design for the montaged film
1s somewhere in my files, I am not quite sure where. (That ts
unimportant, for a new plan of editing is necessary, and this
is my next immediate project.) This disposition of the objects
related to my original Haitian project—evidence that this book
was written not because I had so intended but in spite of my
5
6 Author's Preface
intentions—is, to me, the most eloquent tribute to the irrefutable
reality and impact of Voudoun mythology. I had begun as an
artist, as one who would manipulate the elements of a reality
into a work of art in the image of my creative integrity; I end
by recording, as humbly and accurately as I can, the logics of a
reality which had forced me to recognize its integrity, and to
abandon my manipulations.
It was only after I had completely conceded my defeat as an
artist—my inability to master the material in the image of my
own intention—that I became aware of the ambiguous con
sequences of that failure, for, in effect, the reasons for and the
nature of my defeat contained, simultaneously, the reasons for
and the nature of the victorious forces as well. I have come to
believe that if history were recorded by the vanquished rather
than by the victors, it would illuminate the real, rather than
the theoretical, means to power; for it is the defeated who know
best which of the opposing tactics were irresistible. The Russian
peasant has another way of saying this: “He who wears the
shoe knows best where it pinches.”
I feel that the fact that I was defeated in my original intention
assures, to a considerable degree, that what I have here recorded
reflects not my own integrity which, as an artist’s, had been
overcome, but that of the reality that mastered it. It is this which
encouraged me to undertake this book, for I was well aware of
the fact that it is unorthodox for a non-professional to speak
of matters that are normally the province of trained anthropolo-
gists. Since I assumed this responsibility two years ago, I have
returned twice to Haiti (bringing to a total of eighteen months
the time spent there) specifically to search out and ascertain
details which, during my first visit, I had not troubled to note
carefully; and during this same period I have also devoted
myself to a study of the works of those professionals who have
been concerned with Haitian culture: Herskovits, Courlander,
Simpson and others. In reading those works, however, I also
discovered that my background as an artist and the initial
approach to the culture which my film project induced, served
 Author's Preface 7
to illuminate areas of Voudoun mythology with which the
standard anthropological procedure had not concerned itself,
or, if so, from a different position entirely. It would seem
proper to elaborate upon what was unorthodox in my approach
to this subject, so that the reader may, if he wishes, proceed
with the appropriate reservations.
To begin with, since film is dependent upon visual impact,
I deliberately refrained, at first, from learning anything about
the underlying meaning of the dance movements, so that such
knowledge should not prejudice my evaluation of their purely
visual impact. Once my original premise was destroyed—
once I realized that the dance could not be considered indepen-
dently of the mythology—I had no other preparation or
motivation, no anthropological background (and anticipation)
from other ethnic cultures, no systematized approach to an
established methodology for collecting data, no plan of questions
to ask, which might have created a self-consciousness and
distorted the normal distribution of emphasis. But if my
specialized concern for film left me unprepared for the culture
as a whole, it created, also, a disinterested receptivity to it.
And if at first, and for quite a while, I merely retained an
amorphous, formless collection of memories which a pro-
fessional observer would have systematized as soon as possible,
I, having no such commitment, nor professional or intellectual
urgency, could permit the culture and the myth to emerge
gradually in its own terms and its own form.
I am not suggesting that my attitude was or could be one of
complete passivity. Rather, it was a deliberate discretion,
reflecting a strong distaste for aggressive inquiry, staring or
prying, and which both resulted from and was rewarded by a
sense of human bond which I did not fully understand until
my first return to the United States. At that moment I became
freshly aware of a situation to which I had grown inured
and oblivious: that in a modern industrial culture, the artists
constitute, in fact, an “ethnic group”, subject to the full
“native” treatment. We too are exhibited as touristic curiosities
 8 Author's Preface
on Monday, extolled as culture on Tuesday, denounced as
immoral and unsanitary on Wednesday, reinstated for scientific
study Thursday, feasted for some obscurely stylish reason
Friday, forgotten Saturday, revisited as picturesque Sunday.
We too are misrepresented by professional appreciators and
subjected to spiritual imperialism, our most sacred efforts are
plagiarized for yard goods, our histories are traced, our psyches
analysed, and when everyone has taken his pleasure of us in his
own fashion, we are driven from our native haunts, our modest
dwellings are condemned and replaced by a chromium sky-
scraper. Of all persons from a modern culture, it is the artist
who, looking at a native looking at a “white” man—whether
tourist, industrialist or anthropologist—would mutter the
heart-felt phrase: “Brother, I sure know what you're thinking
and you can think that thought again!”
My own ordeal as an “artist-native” in an industrial culture
made it impossible for me to be guilty of similar effronteries
towards the Haitian peasants. It is a sad commentary upon the
usual visitor to Haiti that this discretion seemed, to the
Haitians, so unique that they early formed the conviction that
I was not a foreigner at all, but a prodigal native daughter
finally returned. (This conviction was shared by much of the
Haitian bourgeoisie who felt that only an element of Negro
blood in me would account for the psychological affinity with
the peasants, since the city dwellers were only too proud to
protest for themselves a psychological alienation.) This
affinity—resulting from a situation peculiar to an artist as
citizen of an industrial culture—is a basis of communication
which is not comprehended in any catalogue of professional
field methods.
And if my background as an artist resulted in a discretion
which, while creating a general human affinity also closed off
avenues of interrogation and explanation, it provided an
alternative mode of communication and perception: the sub-
jective level which is the particular province of artistic state-
ment. I am referring to the communication of concepts and
 Author's Preface 9
ideas by means addressed to emotional and psychological
perceptions rather than in terms of a self-conscious articulation
or an address to intellectual analysis: for example, the idea of
power conveyed in posture rather than in the label of a name
or definition. Since, as an artist, it was my métier to deal in such
subjective communication, I might have expected it to be of
general assistance in any context. But I was not prepared for the
fact that such primitive rituals, which, in general, had been
represented as yielding their true meanings only to a scholarly
investigation of historical origins, would be so directly meaning-
ful to me. Indeed, my interpretations of the rituals, based on my
immediate experience and without the clues (and mis
guidances) of historical or esoteric research, proved so con-
sistently correct that the Haitians began to believe that I had
gone through varying degrees of initiation. And this means of
perception yielded, not some historical meaning, but the same
contemporary meaning which the ordinary serviteur experiences
and which motivates him to continue serving that religion.
(I believe that it is not altogether inappropriate to consider
that the peculiar and isolated position of the artist in Occidental
culture might arise from the fact that he, alone among pro-
fessionals, does not—by definition—accept certain beliefs which
have so long been the premises of Occidental thought. Is it not
worth considering that reverence for “detachment”—whether
scientific or scholarly—might be primarily a projection of the
notion of a dualism between spirit and matter, or the brain and
the body, the belief that physical, sensory—hence, sensual!—
experience is at least a lower form, if not a profane one, of
human activity and the moral judgement that the highest, most
reliable truths can be achieved only by means of a rigid
ascetism? Is it valid to use this means to truth in examining
Onental or African cultures which are not based on such a
dualism and are, on the contrary, predicated on the notion that
truth can be apprehended only when every cell of brain and body
—the totality of a human being—is engaged in that pursuit?)
It is probable that any sensitive layman would have had a
10 Author’s Preface
generalized emotional response to the rituals and the dances—
to their grace, excitement, tension or whatever. But my detailed
and precise interpretations were derived specifically from the
fact that, as an artist, my predominant professional concern was
with form. An artist usually recognizes the integrity of a form,
whether or not he agrees with it, if only because he would do
unto others as he would desperately hope to have them do unto
him. He would be the first to insist that what was important
about a Cézanne was not that it contained an apple and a
pear, but the form in which those were conceived and rendered,
and that this form was the significant distinction between
Cézanne’s still-life and one with similar fruit, painted, let us
say, by Paul Klee. He would not react to the apple or the pear
in terms of what these objects had come to mean to him
personally, in terms of his own background (as the layman ts
inclined to do), but he would be concerned first with the ideas
implicit in the form in which the objects were rendered—
whether analytic, naturalistic, lyric, whimsical, frivolous, etc.
—after which he might choose to agree or disagree with those
ideas. It is because of this acute sensitivity to form that artists
are so frequently involved in disagreements, for they deduce,
from formal details and nuances of which others are barely
aware, a whole logic of ramifications and connotations which
amount to an entire metaphysical system. It was this order of
awareness which made it impossible for me to execute the art
work I had intended. It became clear to me that Haitian
dancing was not, in itself, a dance-form, but part of a larger
form, the mythological ritual. And the respect for formal
integrity that makes it impossible for me to consider Cézanne’s
apple as an apple rather than as a Cézanne, made it equally
impossible, in Haiti, to ignore the total integrity of cultural
form, and to cut up the canvas into apples and pears to be
catalogued or compared with other apples and other pears.
It led me, further, to sense, for instance, that the Petro dance
and drumming were not merely another ritual—not merely a
more violent canvas by the same painter—but that they were of a
 Author's Preface 1!
different character—a canvas by another painter altogether. This
distinction arrested my attention and I began to observe the
difference in major forms, which eventually led me to look for
the possible interpolation of another culture, to investigate the
history of the Spanish and Indian period of the islands, and
finally, to the determination of the Indian influence as elaborated
in the Appendix to this book. What emerges from this
research is the fact that the African culture in Haiti was saved
by the Indian culture which, in the Petro cult, provided the
Negroes with divinities sufficiently aggressive (as was not true
of the divinities of the generally stabilized African kingdoms)
to be the moral force behind the revolution. In a sense, the
Indians took their revenge on the white man through the Negro.
In effect, sensitivity to form provides the artist with a vast
area of clues and data that might elude the professional anthro-
pologist whose training emphasizes, precisely, that “scientific”
detachment which may muffle even his normal sensitivity and
responsiveness to formal nuance and subtlety, so that he
becomes dependent upon the vagaries of informants’ memory,
intelligence and articulations. (Even in a verbal culture, such
as our own, self-conscious articulation is not recognized as a
completely reliable source of information; how, then, could it
be so in a culture where expository formulation is not habitual,
in a language which is largely imagistic, and in reference to a
religion which is completely couched in ritualistic action and
in which the “sermon” is unknown?) And it is this same order
of formal data that is also likely to elude the psycho-analyst
who, on the whole, suspects formal statement as being a mask
rather than a projection of meaning, and who would ignore
the fact that an African female figure is represented without
nostalgia and 1s therefore a statement of progressive generation
rather than an ethnic example of the regressive “mom-ism”
which has become so familiar to him as a prevalent contem-
porary disorder.
My intention is not to imply that this area of data—a sensi-
tivity to form and to the clues it provides for meaning and
12 Author’s Preface
research—has been entirely ignored by the anthropological
profession. It is in the form of the artifacts and acts of a culture
that the distinguishing ethos of a culture is stated, and a major
discussion of ethos, in relation to the anthropological analysis
of a culture, is contained in Naven, a study of the Iatmul tribes,
by Gregory Bateson.* Chronologically, it is to Mr. Bateson,
in fact, that my first acknowledgements are due. Before I went
to Haiti and before this book was ever contemplated, I had the
good fortune to have many extended conversations with him
concerning the nature of cultural organization particularly in
reference to Balinese, British and American culture. It was the
non-sectarian quality of his anthropological intelligence—his
readiness to engage every sensibility and every possible point of
view in the effort to illuminate the structure of society—that, in
my eyes, once more reaffirmed anthropology as the study of man,
restoring to both words their major meaning. And those con-
versations altogether represent an influence which I am sure
pervades this book, particularly in that it sharpened my obser-
vation of significant details and differences and my respect for
the particular ethos of Haitian culture. If Mr. Bateson’s
influence was to make me more sharply aware of what dis-
tinguishes culture from culture, and why, it is my subsequent
contact with Joseph Campbell, and my readings in his many
writings (particularly The Hero With A Thousand Faces**),
which sharpened my awareness of that which man has in
common, as expressed on the cosmic level of mythological
concepts; and it was his influence that inspired me to formu,
late, from the vast accumulation of my observations, the
meaningful, metaphysical structure of Haitian mythology.
Indeed, this book is dedicated not to the presentation of data,
but to the effort to perceive—both in the data of other scholars
and in those of my own observations—at once the major
human pattern, and the distinctive aspect which it manifests
in Haitian culture. Mr. Bateson and Mr. Campbell, then,
* Cambridge University Press, 1936.
** Pantheon Books, Inc., New York, 1949.
 Autbor’s Preface 13
represent, in a sense, harmonious polarities, and this book 1s an
effort to unite these points of view according to a third—that
of the artis—for which both gentlemen have shown a most
gratifying tolerance.
To Mr. Campbell, also, I am profoundly grateful in a more
personal context, for his untiring moral support at so many
moments when every circumstance seemed to conspire to make
this project, already overwhelming, an impossibly difficult
undertaking from every point of view. At such moments I was
also the beneficiary of assistances of all kinds from friends too
numerous to mention. Predominant among these, in Haiu,
was Odette Mennesson Rigaud, whose guidances and assis
tances, in respect both to my research and also to an infinite
variety of personal and practical problems, I could not begin
to enumerate; also, I am specifically indebted to her for the
notes on the sacred marriages that are appended to this book,
and which are a sample of her enormous annotation and
knowledge of Voudoun ritual. I should like also to acknow-
ledge my unfortunately brief but stimulating contact with Mr.
Milo Rigaud, who impressed me profoundly with the erudi-
tion of his esoteric study of those rituals. And I have a profound
debt to Charles Pressoir, who gave so unfailingly of his friend-
ship in so many difficult situations in Haiti, which I doubt
would have been favorably resolved without the presence of
his sensitive intelligence, moral support and practical assistance.
These trips to Haiti would have been impossible without,
at the same time, the contributing efforts of persons here. I am
grateful to Miss Anne Dubs, whose devoted attention to my
film distribution, apartment, belongings, business affairs and a
thousand other details made it possible for me to absent myself;
to Dr. Max Jacobson, for the creative medicine involved in
helping me accomplish an appallingly demanding program
of work; to my mother, Marie Deren, and my friends—James
Mernill, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Hammid, Miriam Arsham,
Leni Hoffman and others—who, each in his own way, helped
make it possible for me to write this book. There is, finally, my
14 Author’s Preface
inestimable debt to my father, and whatever is worthiest in this
book—whether the specific psychological insight learned from
the example he set as psychiatrist, or the more general intellectual
dynamic—is a tribute to his memory.
It is clear that, without the Haitian peasants and people who
serve Voudoun, this book would not exist. But I am grateful
to them not primarily for the existence of this book or for their
relationship to it or to me or even for those special kindnesses
and friendships which I enjoyed; I am grateful for their sheer
existence, and would be so even if it had in no way benefited
me personally. I am not sure to what or to whom or in which
direction to make such an acknowledgement, but I am sure
that—despite any faults that 11 may have—the fact that such a
culture exists is, in itself, a good. I am certain, also, that this
feeling would be shared by all those who believe that man
should exercise to the full the totality of those capacities which
make him human in the major sense, and that to be pre-
occupied with the achievement of this end, whether by art,
science or any other means, is to serve the greatest good.
At the time of my first trip to Haiti there was virtually no
precedent for the filming of ceremonies; photographing them
was altogether a delicate undertaking, for many reasons. When
the time came, I broached the subject to a Voudoun priest
whose ceremonies I had attended and who had come to
know me well. I spoke to him of my desire to capture the
beauty and the significance of the ceremonies, so that the rest
of the world might become aware. He understood virtually
nothing of cinema and I was uncertain of his reaction, since
his own standing in the community could be jeopardized by
such a permission. Besides, in his culture, the artist as a
singular individual did not exist. Could he possibly under-
stand and sympathize with my motivations? He hesitated but
a moment. Then, offering his hand as one would to a colleague
or collaborator, he said: “Each one serves in his own fashion.”
This book is dedicated to all those who serve, each in his
own fashion.
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Voupounis the religion, primarily African in origin, of the

vast majority of the inhabitants of the Republic of Haiu in the
West Indies. Most of these are also members of the Catholic
Church, which is the official state religion. In the larger cities,
and particularly in Port-au-Prince, the “middle” and “upper”
classes, influenced, no doubt, by conventional criteria of
“civilized” cultures, as well as by the pressure of the Catholic
Church, have altogether abandoned Voudoun in favor of
Christianity. The schism between these classes and the masses
of the people is so great that the former are largely ignorant of
Voudoun. It is therefore to be clearly understood that the term
“Haitian”, used in connection with Voudoun, does not include
the “middle” and “upper” class segment of the national
population.
It is, however, this very class of people which governs the
country, and represents it in all its economic, social and political
contacts with the world. In deference to its dislike of Voudoun,
to its efforts to detach itself publicly from any suggestion that it
may share these beliefs and even to deny their existence
altogether, it becomes imperative to emphasize that Voudoun Is
not the religion of the Haitians whom one is likely to en-
counter in social circumstances, either in Haiti or abroad. Ie
must also be clearly understood that this book does not share the
distaste of the “educated” Haitian (as this class has chosen to
designate itself) for Voudoun, but, on the contrary, was
inspired by the conviction that this ts a religion of major
stature, rare poetic vision and artistic expression, and that it
contains a pantheon of divinities which, in astronomical
terminology, could be called a constellation of first magnitude.
Like all religions, Voudoun is built on certain basic
premuses. Briefly, it proposes that man has a material body,
animated by an esprit or gros-bon-ange—the soul, spirit, psyche
15
16 Introductory Note
or self—which, being non-material, does not share the death
of the body. This soul may achieve (by stages elaborated in the
discussion immediately following) the status of a loa, a
divinity, and become the archetypal representative of some
natural or moral principle. As such, it has the power to dis-
place temporarily the gros-bon-ange of a living person and
become the animating force of his physical body. This psychic
phenomenon is known as “possession”. The actions and
utterances of the possessed person are not the expression of the
individual, but are the readily identifiable manifestations of the
particular loa or archetypal principle. Since it is by such
manifestations that the divinities of the pantheon make known
their instructions and desires and exercise their authority, this
phenomenon is basic to Voudoun, occurs frequently, and is
normal both to the religion and to the Haitians. In fact, the
Haitian would find it abnormal if it should suddenly cease
to occur.
To most readers, however, such religious possession is not
only unfamiliar, but carries exotic and sensational overtones.
Also, as the most spectacular phenomenon in a religion whose
ritual action is disciplinarian, reiterative and replete with detail
having no significance for the uninformed, it has frequently
inspired in observers an emphasis which isolated it from its
context and gave rise to interpretations which distorted its true
quality and function. The detailed elaboration and analysis of
possession has been reserved for the final chapter of this book,
in the hope that, by then, the structure and emotional logic of
that total context of which it is a part will have been amply
demonstrated and established. In describing Voudoun, how-
ever, it will be necessary to make repeated reference to possession.
For the purposes of such description the fact will be referred
to as precisely what it is sincerely understood and believed to
be by those who are involved in the context of the religion.
Thus, if a loa possesses a person, it will be assumed that, for
the duration of the possession, the actions and attitudes wit-
nessed and described are those of the loa spirit and not of the
 Introductory Note 17
person proper. If a male loa possesses a female devotee, the
name of the loa or the pronoun be will be used (as it always is
in Voudoun) when referring to the acting subject responsible
for all che events transpiring during that possession; and con-
versely, if a female loa possesses a male, the pronoun will be
she.
Similarly, in the interests of retaining and even emphasizing
other religious concepts as they are understood by the Haitians
themselves, it has been preferable to use the Voudoun
terminology frequently, even at the risk of an iniual awkward
ness for the reader. To render these terms in English, it would
be necessary to determine the closest equivalent in the Christian
religion, to use, for example, the word “priest” for boungan. But
the Christian terms derive their full meaning from the entire
context of Christian metaphysics and organizational practices.
They automatically evoke a mass of implications, connotations
and associations in terms of that context and the culture of
which it is a part, and all this, if carried over to the Haitian
concepts, would lead to a grave distortion and misunderstand-
ing of Voudoun belief. The fact that Haitian informants them-
selves transpose their concepts to Christian equivalents without
being aware of discrepancies between them accounts for a
good deal of the misinterpretation of those beliefs in the litera-
ture on Haiti. A houngan, for instance, is like a Catholic priest
in that he is responsible for the preservation and performance of
complex religious traditions and rituals. But Voudoun is not
a centralized church organization, and the houngan has no
organizational authority behind him, so that in this respect,
the less absolute, relatively informal character of his relationship
to the community would be much more accurately suggested
by the term “minister”. Yet neither of these terms includes
one of the houngan’s major activities, which is the herbalistic
treatment of disease, for which the word “doctor” would be
the only proper equivalent. In other words, the concept
“houngan” would only be seriously misrepresented by the use
of any one of the terms available in our culture. The exclusive
18 Introductory Note
use of the word “soul” (which has moral and mystic connota-
tions) would similarly misrepresent the sense of gros-bon-ange
or esprit, which is understood, in Voudoun, as the invisible,
non-material self or character of an individual, as distinguished
from his physical body: 1e., the person John, as a concept,
distinct from the physical body of John. As a matter of fact,
the word “psyche”, as it is used in modern psychology, conveys
some aspects of the Voudoun gros-bonvange much more
accurately than the word “soul”, which has been used in most
of the literature on Haiti because of its relevant religious associa-
tions; and the word “spirit” would approximate the Voudoun
esprit only if understood as a person’s “life principle”, his
“nature” or “character” (as we understand it in such phrases as
“the spirit of the times”) rather than in its exclusively mystic or
spiritual sense. For expediency, the initial use of such Voudoun
terms is immediately defined by the closest equivalent. But the
Haitian term itself is used generally, as a statement and reminder
of the distinctively Haitian concept which is implied, and its
full sense is elaborated in the course of the text.
Voudoun terminology, titles and ceremonies still make use
of the original African words and in this book they have been
spelled out according to usual English phonetics and so as to
render, as closely as possible, the Haitian pronunciation. Most
of the songs, sayings and even some of the religious terms,
however, are in Creole, which is primarily French in deriva
tion (although it also contains African, Spanish and Indian
words). Where the Creole word retains its French meaning, 1t
has been written out so as to indicate both the original French
word and the distinctive Creole pronunciation.
Finally, it must also be pointed out that since Voudoun 1s
not a centralized religion, ritualistic detail may differ enormously
from region to region. Rituals that are important in a certain
locality may be entirely unknown in other regions. Even
within a given locality, as within a thirty-mile radius of Port-
au-Prince (where most of the rituals cited in this book were
observed), details may differ from one hounfor (parish) to
 Introductory Note 19

THE CARDINAL POINTS AND POINTS BETWEEN

another. Any complete documentation of a ritual would there-

fore hold true only for that specific hounfor, and such docu-
mentation is not the purpose of this book. Nor is it to be
inferred that those rituals and details that are cited represent
universal practices. The ceremonies, incidents and interpreta
tions here included have been selected not because they indicate
universal practices but because they seem to be particularly
expressive of universal principles in Voudoun. Thus, a relatively
unusual detail may sometimes be cited (although the typical
detail is described for the most part) because it is an especially
forceful or illuminating expression of one of the general
principles.
The footnote arrangement (some being inserted at the bottom
of the page and others grouped at the back of the book) is
perhaps unorthodox and even, at first glance, confusing but it
has been arrived at in the effort to answer to the interests both
of the general lay reader and the professional scholar. The
footnotes which are readily accessible at the bottom of the page
consist of remarks and references which are relevant to the
information and interest of the general reader; the source
references, discussions of conflicting data and opinions, addi-
uonal details and specifications, etc., which are of interest
primarily to the student of anthropology, have been grouped
together at the end of the book.
20 Introductory Note
The factual data which are included are based on first-hand
observation and both conflicting and corroborative data from
other observers have been incorporated. But the purpose of this
book is not to assemble and present available data on Voudoun
practices; it is to delineate the metaphysical principles under-
lying those practices and to render them in terms of their
cultural context in such a way that they may become, for the
non-Haitian reader, as real and as reasonable as they are to the
Haitian worshipper.
 CHAPTER I

The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mysteres,

et les Marassa
I

THE POINT OF DEPARTURE

My TH is the twilight speech of an old man to a boy. All the

old men begin at the beginning. Their recitals always speak
first of the origin of life. They start by inventing this event
which no man witnessed, which still remains mystery. They
initiate the history of their race with a fiction. For, whether it
was first in the sense of time, Life is, for all men, first of miracles
in the sense of prime. This is a fact. Myth is the facts of the
mind made manifest in a fiction of matter.
The speech of an elder in the twilight of his life is not his
history but a legacy; he speaks not to describe matter but to
demonstrate meaning. He talks of his past for purposes of his
future. This purpose is the prejudice of his memory. He
remembers that which has been according to what could and
should be, and by this measure sifts the accumulation of his
memory: he rejects the irrelevant event, elaborates the significant
detail, combines separate incidents of similar principle. Out of
physical processes he creates a metaphysical processional. He
transposes the chronology of his knowledge into a hierarchy of
meanings. From the material circumstances of his experience
he plots, in retrospect, the adventure for the mind which is the
myth.
This adventure is composed, then, as all fictions are, from the
matter of memory at hand—from the specific physical con-
ditions which circumstance imposes and the particular pro-
cesses which time composes for each individual race. The
differences between the tales of the venerable ancients of the
2!iI
22 The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mystéres, et les Marassa
various nations are differences, then, between the matter of
them. But in all this cosmic variety, the constant is the mind of
man. Where it has least to describe outside itself and most to
invent out of itself, it displays this constancy most purely, as in
the fictions of origins. It is as if the mind, by-passing the parti-
cularities of circumstance, the limitations and imprecisions of
the senses, arrived, by paths of metaphysical reason, at some
common principled truth of the matter.
The fictions begin with a solemn fanfare, less for the Person
of the First Source, than for the moment of creation. The
metaphors of the diverse myths differ; the nature of the Cosmic
Catalyst is the same. It is an energy which, out of the anony-
mity of void, of chaos, of the wholeness of a Cosmic Egg,
crystallizes the major elements, precipitates the primary areas,
and finally differentiates the first androgynous life (as the
solitary Adam) into the twinned specializations: male and
female. This is the fiction of beginnings, couched in the past
tense. But the chants are not in memoriam. They may be heard
as a celebration of each contemporary recapitulation of that
first creation. The microcosmic egg rides the red tides of the
womb which, like the green tides, still rise and recede with the
moon; the latest life, like the first, hows with the seas’ chemistry,
is first anonymous, then androgynous, becomes differentiated,
is beached in a surf, its heart reverberates a life-time with the
pounding momentum of the primal sea pulse. The beginning,
which no man witnessed, is ever present, ever before us. When
we come to perceive the final fact of the matter, we find that it
was conceived by the mind in the first fiction of the myth.
But the accomplishment of matter is always as an overture
to the major movement of myth, the accomplishment of moral
man. Matter creates the matter of man. But this creature, who
may intermittently feel hunger and fatigue, would not under-
stand the intervals as time; it might sense itself at first weak, then
strong, then weak again, but would not comprehend this
change as age; it might come to perceive the logics of matter
and might observe, eventually, the reason for the succession of
 The Point of Departure 23
seasons, for natural sequences of natural events. But the
reasons in matter are still a property of matter; its meaning,
conceived in the marriage of matter and mind, 1s a property of
the human mind. As chaos contained the possibility of matter,
so this creature contains the possibility of a mind, like a fifth
limb latent in man, structured to make and manipulate mean-
ing as the fist is structured to grasp and finger matter.
The fictions of the old men are their final fecundity. As their
flesh once labored to bring forth flesh, so the minds of the elders
labor, with a like passion, to bring forth a mind. By rites of
initiation they would accomplish the metamorphosis of matter
into man, the evolution of a mind for meaning in the animal
which is the issue of their flesh. By this they would insure that
the race endure as a race of men. The rites of this second birth,
into the metaphysical cosmos, everywhere mime the conditions
of the first physical birth. The novice is purified of past, re-
lieved of possessions, made innocent, placed nascent in the
womb solitude of a dark room. The matter, which is himself,
and the myth of the race are joined. His solitary meditation ts a
gestation and, in the end, a man emerges by ordeal, to be
newly named, newly rejoiced in.
But who first informed the ancestral elders of the various
nations? What was the common inspiration of their common
fanfare for origins, their common fiction of iniuation, their
common metaphors of metamorphosis? No man has ever
witnessed the moment when life begins; it is in the moment of
its ending that the limits of life, hence life itself; are manifest.
Death, as the edge beyond which life does not extend, de-
lineates a first boundary of being. Thus the ending is, for man,
the beginning: the condition of his first consciousness of self
as living. Death is life’s first and final definition. The fanfare
for cosmic origins is followed by this major fugue: the iniual
figure is a lament of the living for the dead; and the voice which
first propounds the major themes of life, love and generation
is borne up from the abyss as the flesh was first, and is still,
born from the deep seas of chaos. The hero of man’s
24 The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mystéres, et les Marassa
metaphysical adventure—his healer, his redeemer, his guide
and guardian—is always a corpse. He is Osiris, or Adonis, or
Christ.
But death itself we recognize not so much by what it is as
by the fact that it is not life. As the land and the sea define
each other at the shore, so life and death define each other by
exclusion. These, which are the immediate neighbors in the
realm of matter, are separated by a difference which 1s as a vast
distance in the realm of meaning. Myth is the voyage of
exploration in this metaphysical space. The point of departure
is the first meeting between the quick and the dead.
To enter a new myth is a moment of initiation. One must
return to the moment before myth, anterior to all its inventions,
when the myth of any man might still become the myth of any
other. It is to enter, in one’s mind, the room which is both
tomb and womb, to become innocent of everything except the
motivation for myth, the natural passion of the mind for
meaning. It is to meditate upon the common human experience
which is the origin of the human effort to comprehend the
human condition.
2

THE MORTAL ME: THE IMMORTAL MYSELF

We look at the corpse and we know that it is dead because we

know and we remember what it is to be alive. A critical change
has occurred. Yet all that is visible is merely the evidence of this
event. The root of the difference is invisible. The stillness of the
corpse is, in itself, no different from the stillness of a sleeper.
We know that it is not sleep because we know that it is for-
ever; but this foreverness, this time, is itself invisible. The
stillness, even of the heart, is evidence of death but is not itself
death, just as movement—the mobility as of an object moved
—is not always evidence of life and is certainly not life itself.
So we are forced to conceive of life as an inner power, a force
which may be manifest in the movement of the matter which
 The Mortal Me: The Immortal Myself 25
contains it. The moment of death, then, is a separation,
forever, of this life force from the flesh, the matter. And this
invisible force is, in turn, more than the energy of matter as
manifest in movement; it is also an energy of mind, the capacity
for memory and meaning, for discrimination and invention.
Whether called intelligence, consciousness, spirit or soul, it is
the invisible action within man which morivates and molds his
visible acts and expressions.
The Haitian myth couches this primary contemplation in
its own language. It proposes as basic, a generic distinction
between visible matter and les Invisibles. By this term it de-
scribes a relationship relative to our senses; but the nature itself
of les Invisibles, the forces or spirits whose presence in matter
constituted a state of life and whose permanent withdrawal con-
stitutes a state of death, is known as esprit. For the Haitian, this
“spirit’ is not some vague, mystical evanescence. In colloquial
speech he says that a man has “pil esprit” (much spirit) and
means, by this, that the man has great intelligence. Esprit, chen
is a reference to the energy and action of the mind which, as a
state of consciousness and as a repository of material and moral
knowledge and experience, is the source and the act of judge-
ment, decision, desire and of all the motivation and the will
projected in a man’s visible action.
The energy of matter is common to all living matter. The
lament for the dead is not for this fractional diminution of
either the cosmic life force or the cosmic consciousness as a
vast anonymous generality. Intelligence which, with death,
ceases to be manifest, is at once common to all men and ts
parucular to each. It is the source and means of each man’s
singular identity. We mourn not man, but @¢ man; and we
lament not for his lot, but for our own. His death is as the
closing of a door upon that singular, particular self which,
projected through his flesh, nourished the world of substance
which we shared. We mourn this man because to us his spirit
was not like any other. The moment of death is as a separation
of a mold from the form to which it had transferred all che
26 The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mystéres, et les Marassa
particularities of its configuration. As the integrity of the mold’s
form is destroyed by the act of separation, so the flesh perishes.
But the form, the self which had been cast, is non-material,
hence is immortal—an identity, invisible but real, acknow-
ledged in common and known by a name.
This self, this form, the Haitian calls the gros-bon-ange.* It is
born of the body, and may be imagined as the shadow of a man
cast upon the invisible plane of a fourth dimension, or as his
reflection in a dark mirror. The gros-bon-ange is the meta-
physical double of the physical being, and, since it does not
exist in the world of matter, it is the immortal twin who sur-
vives the mortal man. It is these immortal twins, these gros-
bon-anges of the deceased, who are les Invisibles or les esprits.
The Haitian gros-bon-ange is similar to what we under-
stand by a man’s soul, if we think of the soul as duplicating the
man and not as a moral force of a “higher” nature. The
universal commitment towards good, the notion of truth as
desirable, all that conscience which, in our culture, 1s under-
stood as a function of the soul 1s, for the Haitian, the function
of a third element in man, the ti-bon-ange. It is the -bon-ange,
for example, that cannot lie. But the very impersonality of this
conscience, its detachment from the pressures of actuality, its
imperviousness both to development and corruption, its
changelessness inspires, in the Haitian, a somewhat reciprocal
detachment. He accepts the ti-bon-ange as one of the constants
of the cosmos. It is as if he said to himself: although all men
have a conscience, yet some men do good and some do bad.
Therefore, what he does depends on his gros-bonvange. It 1s
what a man does, and not whether he feels satisfaction or
remorse, which is important to other men. Of what conse-
quence is the private sentiment of a man if he has not the
necessary knowledge or experience or energy or power to act
* Gros-bon-ange is used when referring to the souls of living men; esprit may
mean “intelligence” in the living, but when used as “un esprit” or “les esprits”
it refers to the immortal souls of the dead, or what was known, during lifetime,
as the gros-bon-ange.
 The Birth of a Divinity 27
upon it? In a collective community, where men are inter-
dependent, the collective welfare cannot be entrusted either to
the vagaries of subjective conscience, or to the “free” or
“natural” development of the gros-bonvange. The entire
Haitian religion is, in fact, structured for the controlled develop-
ment of a man’s gros-bon-ange and the enforcement of a
collective morality in action.
So, for the Haiuan, the significant morality—that which 1s
manifest in actuality—is the product of the flesh and therefore
shares its nature. In Voudoun the cosmic drama of man con-
sists not of a dualism, a conflict of the irreconcilable down-pull
of flesh and the up-pull of spirit; it is, rather, an almost organic
dynamic, a process by which all that which characterizes
divinity—intelligence, power, energy, authority, wisdom—
evolves out of the Mesh itself. Instead of being eternally separated,
the substance and the spirit of a man are eternally and mutually
commutted: the flesh to the divinity within it and the divinity
to the flesh of its origin.
3
THE BIRTH OF A DIVINITY

The gros-bon-ange, as the repository of a man’s history, his

form and his force, the final resultant of his ability, intelligence
and experience, is a precious accumulation. If, after his death,
his descendants were able to provide this disembodied soul with
some other means of manifestation to substitute for the flesh
which perished, they could salvage this valuable legacy. One
of the major Voudoun rituals is the ceremony of retirer d’en bas
de l'eau, the reclamation of the soul of the deceased from the
waters of the abyss, the world of les Invisibles. This service for
the ancestral dead is not a nostalgia or sentimentality. The
poor, and those who live in difficult primitive circumstances,
cannot afford superfluous expenditures of either energy or
property. It is not a moment of return to the past; it is the pro-
cedure by which the race reincorporates the fruit of previous
28 The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mystéres, et les Marassa
life-processes into the contemporary moment, and so retains
the past as a ground gained, upon and from which it moves
forward to the future. The living do not serve the dead; it is the
dead who are made to serve the living.
The ceremony of reclamation is as the third and final birth
of a man. He emerged into the world, for the first time, as an
animal. Initiation was his second birth, as a proper man. And
this soul which, with death and the perishing of the flesh, was
lost to the visible world is brought back into it once more. The
clay jar, or govi, in which it 1s placed at this ceremony is a
substitute for the vessel of fesh which once contained it. Out
of the mouth of that jar issue the counsels and wisdoms by
which the deceased continues to aid and advance his
descendants.
An undistinguished member of the family may be neglected
and the costly ceremony of his reclamation repeatedly post-
poned, to be accomplished eventually, without much
enthusiasm, only because nothing of heredity’s accumulations
should be permitted to leak away, to be lost for ever. At the
Feast for the Dead, a sense of filial loyalty may induce the
immediate descendants to name such departed ones in-
dividually; or later, they may be so remembered because of some
intimate, personal sympathy. But such individual recognition
is rare, and these undistinguished dead become known as that
anonymous heritage, les Morts.! On the other hand, the person
who has been distinguished for his wisdom or power, love or
therapies, disciplines or skills—who has perhaps reached the
rank of boungan (priest), with all the accomplishments that such
a rank signified—is reclaimed with elaborate care, so that his
special virtues may not be lost.?
In due course of time, the parent in the govi becomes grand-
parent and the grandparent becomes ancestor. As his con-
temporaries die off, and with them all immediate first-hand
memories, the flesh of the original human personality withers
away, so that there is left within the govi only the distilled,
depersonalized, almost abstract essence of the principle that
 The Birth of a Divinity 29
especially characterized him. Thus, in ume, the person becomes
principle. And yet—what once was so real, so substantial,
cannot be permitted to end in such rarefaction, to vanish for-
ever into the far reaches of history. This abstraction, to function
in reality, must become reality; the principle must become person.
And so the process of abstraction, as though meeting, finally,
the limits of its own extension, curves back toward its origins:
those who cannot remember begin to create, building now from
the inside outward, as one might be guided by the clues and
logic of a skeleton to construct a figure. In time, the ancestor
becomes archetype. Where there was once a person, there is
Now a personage. Transposed to this dimension, the sum-
moned voice in the govi is no longer inumate, advisory; it 1s an
objective oracular authority that booms as if from the bowels
of the earth.4 What was once believed, is now believed in. He
who was once respected is now revered. Where once the parent
inspired filial devotion, the deity now exacts dedication. The
ancestor has been transfigured into a god.
Death had deprived the gros-bon-ange of its own living form;
the memory of the living had reclaimed it and given it voice.
Time was a distance separating it from its immediate descen-
dants, from the too-intimate prejudice of such proximity. In a
sense, it became purified of human ego. Only after such
purification could it achieve the powers of divinity. The special
power of the loa, or les Mysteres, as the Haitian calls those
esprits who have achieved some degree of divine elevation, is
that of becoming manifest in a living form. Under certain well-
defined and ritualistically determined conditions, the loa may
temporarily displace the gros-bon-ange of a living person and
become the animating force of that physical body. This we
know as “possession”. In the terminology of Voudoun, it is
said that the loa “mounts” a person, or that a person is
“mounted” by the loa. The metaphor is drawn from a horse
and his rider and the actions and events which result are the
expression of the will of the rider. Since the conscious self of
the possessed person is, meanwhile, absent, he cannot and does
30 The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mystéres, et les Marassa
not remember the events; he is not responsible, either for good
or for bad; and he cannot, as a person, himself benefit from that
possession. The function and purpose of such divine manifes-
tation is the reassurance and the instruction of the community.
The complete process can be understood as a closed chain
circling life and death.* The power of the loa to become
manifest in living matter marks their final mastery of matter.
The interlocking mechanism of the links is a system of partial
and progressive ambiguities, clearly apparent in the succession
of receptacles for the gros-bon-ange, which in part overlap and
yet are graduated. The gros-bonvange may be separated from
the body even during the lifetime, and stored in a bottle, as a
kind of isolation from malevolent forces. At the canzo cere-
mony—the ceremony of initiation or spiritual birth**—the
grosybonvange is placed in a canari (clay pot) or pot-de-téte
(receptacle for the “head”, soul or mind) and left in the care
of the houngan or some trustworthy person. At death this
pot-de-téte is broken, to release the gros-bon-ange to the waters
of the abyss; but one year later, this receptacle is replaced, at the
moment of reclamation, by the govi, in which the soul, now
referred to as an esprit, is lodged once more and which is as a
throat, making speech possible. Thus far the graduated pro-
gression of receptacles is evident, and each step is achieved with
ritual. But the decisive moment, when the ancestral soul, passed
down from generation to generation in the govi, emerges
finally from this clay shell as loa, is beyond the will of man and
the prejudicial power of their prayers. It is as an interlocking of
links that takes place beyond the scope of an immediately
cognized time and space, as if in the outer reaches of the cosmos.
There is no ritual either to make or even to mark this ultimate
transfiguration.® It is a moment as unknown, as unwitnessed
* Campbell’s (p. 29) discussion and elaboration of the circular life-death
concept in other mythologies and as a universal mythological concept,
illuminates the Haitian concept and it is apparent, once more, that, far from
being a collection of miscellaneous superstitions, Voudoun is a religion of
classic mythological character.
** This ceremony will be described infra, pp. 220-2.
 The Birth of a Divinity 31
as the very origin of the first physical life, and it results in
physical life. Unlike the mere ancestral spirit which must be
passed down in a govi, the loa are part of the very blood of the
race, and are inherited automatically. They can neither be
denied nor destroyed. They may also be lodged in a govi or in
stones, but these are as secondary residences. Just as a child’s
physical body inevitably is issue of the physical component of
his parents, so his loa are his psychic inheritance* and they
carry forward, into his contemporary gros-bon-ange, the moral
accumulation of the race.®
This automatic inheritance is not at all contradicted by the
apparent power of discrimination and selection implied in the
phrase “temperament mun, ce temperament loa/li” (the
character of a person is the character of his loa). If the original
families were each distinguished by certain of the major loa,
intermarriage has, by now, introduced all the major loa into all
the family lines and all major loa-principles are latent in every-
one. The reference to the sympathetic relationship between the
character of a person and that of his loa relates to the mait-téte,
the “master of the head”, or the loa which is dominant above
all others in the psyche of an individual. It may also refer to the
particular aspect of the loa (since these major principles may be
manifest in various aspects, i.e., Ogoun as the primal hero
archetype or as a more recent warrior, etc.) which 1s carried in
* When the Haitian says “inherits” he does not understand 1t (as we do in our
culture) to be an element distinct from and even opposed to environment. The
condiuons of family life in Haiti are such that in effect the two ideas are virtually
idenucal. As in all primiuve communities, the family is a ughtly knit, cohesive
and conunuous entity, and is the basic unit of the communal seructure, rather
than the individual. In sheer geographical terms, even the grandfather does not
become part of one’s past, since one rarely moves away. He 1s there today as
part of one’s present. Certainly this is true of one’s parents. The transmission of
principles, as loa, from parent and even grandparent to child, is not, then, so
very mystical as might be understood from the word “inherit”. To say that one
has inherited the father’s Ghede or the mother’s Erzulie is to say (if one were to
translate the concept into the logic of our culture) that the father has contributed
to one’s make-up a sense of and concern for the idea of death and resurrection
as contained in the Ghede complex, or that from one’s mother one has “learned”
the importance of love and the dream of beauty which is Erzulie.
32 The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mystéres, et les Marassa
the head of a person. In any case, the ambiguity of the phrase is
significant. It can imply, for example, that Ogoun, who is the
deity of power, confers the favor of his presence and guardian-
ship on a person whose temperament he has found sympathetic;
but it can also mean that a person selects, concentrates on,
becomes obsessed by and possessed by the deity who personifies
his own personal emphasis. Or, finally, it suggests that the two
processes may operate simultaneously. In any case, the fact
remains that a person who has been possessed by Ogoun is one
who emphasizes the principle of power or strength in his own
activities.
If this emphasis has been expressed in his life to a remarkable
degree, he will be remembered, after death, for this distin-
guishing characteristic. As time passes and he becomes, to the
living, that depersonalized abstraction which is an ancestor,
he may then be assimilated into the concept Ogoun, and so
lose his identity altogether in that of the great loa; or his name
may be incorporated in the invocation to Ogoun; or, again,
if his way of strength was a very distinctive variation on the
traditional pattern, he may even become a deity under his own
name, a deity understood to be one of the family of Ogouns.
By this process, a potentially infinite number of ancestral
spirits become condensed into a feasible number of variations
of the principled archetypes.
The immediate descendants of the deceased, who may be
subject to vanity or other selfishly personal motivations, can do
no more than lay the foundations of ultimate elevation into loa
by reclaiming the parental soul from the abyss. Time must pass,
the purification by time must take place, and the gradual
process of abstraction. There is no loa who can be remembered
as human being.’ Even the gros-bon-ange, or the esprit, as a
singular identity, must cease to be. In the final analysis it is not
the ancestor who is worshipped; and the final verdict, the last
transfiguration and resurrection, the ultimate elevation into
divinity, is in the hands of history and the collective.
Deification, therefore, does not consist in the spiritualization
 The Birth of a Divinity 33
of matter; on the contrary, the ceremony of retirer d’en bas de
Peau, which 1s itself the ritualistic reversal of the rites of death,
restores the disembodied soul to the physical, living universe
which was its origin and, in so doing, restores to it a major
portion of its original material attributes. The Haitian is an
eminently realistic, reasonable man. His loa must share the
needs as well as the privileges of life; to have great power is to
need great energy. And so the loa, like living, functioning mat-
ter, have an unrelenting need for sustenance if their Life
energies are to be maintained. The physical feasting of the loa
is at once the most common and the most important of the
obligations of a worshipper.
The enure chain of interlocking links—life, death, deifica-
uon, transfiguration, resurrecuon—churns without rest through
the hands of the devout. None of it is ever forgotten: that the
god was once human, that he was made god by humans, that
he is sustained by humans. Hence the Haitian loa, however
revered and honored, do not have that quality of absolutism
which, in another culture, might characterize the deity of
presumably supernatural origin.* The loa bow to the priest,
are hurt by disrespect, weep for neglect. And the worshipper is
devout but demanding; he both begs and bargains. If he
expects and accepts the constant intervention of the loa in the
daily affairs of his life, i is not because he has an easy belief in
miracle; it is because he does not regard such intervention as
miraculous. The undertone of his devotion is, rather, that it 1s
the duty of the loa to intervene; for the gros-bon-ange, from
which it derives, was itself created by life and was reincor-
porated into life at the ceremony of the retirer d'en bas de l'eau.

* Te is significant that the loa who were houngans or mambos during their
lifeume—in other words, the ancestral diviniues who derive from men—are
considered to be “stronger” than those which are cosmic forces, of cosmic origin.
34 The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mystéres, et les Marassa

4
THE COSMIC MIRROR AND THE CORPSE ON THE
CROSS¢ROADS

For the Haitian, the metaphysical world of les Invisibles is not

a vague, mystical notion; it is as a world within a cosmic
mirror, peopled by the immortal reflections of all those who
had ever confronted it. The mirror is the metaphor for the
cosmography of Haitian myth. The loa are addressed as mirror
images and summoned by references to a mirrored surface.
The song for the loa Legba says: O Creole, Sondé miroir, O Legha
(O Creole, fathom the mirror, O Legba). Sometimes they
sing that the mirror breaks through rocks,® for the mirror is as
an X-ray and its vision penetrates matter. The vevers—the
sacred symbols drawn during ceremonies—are frequently
designed in mirrored symmetry to both sides of an horizon. The
loa are invoked as Loco- Miroir (the mirror-Loco) and Loco-De
(Deux, or Loco-double) or Agassou-Dos-Miroir (Agassou of
the back of the mirror).9 They are served in inverted mirror
terms: “Papa Damballa, Mistress Erzulie, with Miss Aida, I
give you to eat with the left hand. It is with the left hand because
you are the Invisibles.”!° They are greeted in mirror terms: the
infant who is presented to them is carried on the left arm. They
are saluted in mirror terms: the houngan and the loa, face to
face, turning and curtseying in mirrored symmetry.!! They act
in mirror terms: when they possess a person they greet the
others present with a double handshake, at first with the right
hand, and then with the left, it being with the latter that the
psychic contact is established and that the spirit of the loa
is transmitted into the body of the other, to possess him also. Or
holding still the left hand, the loa may spin the person counter-
clockwise, a spiral journey which crosses the divide and almost
inevitably leads to possession. The ritual dance movements
likewise revolve counter-clockwise around the center-pole.
There are even ritual details in which inversion and reversal
 The Cosmic Mirror and the Corpse on the Cross-Roads 35
suggest a mirror held up to ume. When it ts ritualistically
necessary for the special guardian loa of a bounfor (parish) to be
present, and if that loa has not become manifest by possessing
some one, his presence may be represented ritually by the [a-
place, one of the high functionaries of the hounfor. To signify
this, the la-place emerges backwards through the door leading
from the sacred altar to the ceremonial area. It is like a motion-
picture projected in reverse, a diver shooting back up out of
the water on to the springboard. By this gesture of the la-place,
time itself is symbolically run backwards to a ume before the
death of the man whose gros-bon-ange eventually became this
loa. As long as a man lives, his gros-bon-ange is as a reflection
on the surface of that cosmic mirror, held to that surface by the
existence of the body which it mirrors. But with death, there
ceases to exist the flesh, the force which held it buoyant, and it
sinks into the depths of the mirror.
The metaphor for the mirror’s depth is the cross-roads; the
symbol is the cross. For the Haitian this figure is not only
symbolic of the totality of the earth’s surface as comprehended
in the extension of the cardinal points on a horizontal plane.
It is, above all, a figure for the intersection of the horizontal
plane, which is this mortal world, by the vertical plane, the
metaphysical axis, which plunges into the mirror. The cross-
roads, then, is the point of access to the world of les Invisibles,
which is the soul of the cosmos, the source of life force, the
cosmic memory, and the cosmic wisdom. As the daily life of
a man depends upon his constant communication with his
own gtos-bon-ange—his own memory, intelligence, imagina-
uon and invention—so the Haitian, individually and coilec-
uvely, would communicate and draw upon the world of les
Invisibles. For this reason, the cross-roads is the most important
of all ritual figures. Where other cultures might conceive of the
physical and the metaphysical as, at best, a parallelism, a
necessarily irreconcilable dualism, the Haitian peasant resolves
the relationship in the figure of right angles.
The foot of this vertical plane rests in the waters of the abyss,
36 The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mystéres, et les Marassa
the source of all life. Here is Guinée, Africa, the legendary place
of racial origin. Here, on the Island Below the Sea, the loa have
their permanent residence, their primal location. To it the souls
of the dead return, taking marine or insect forms until their
reclamation into the world,!* their rebirth, as if the ancient myth
had anticipated the statements of evolutionary science. To
address oneself to the earth, then, to rap upon it in ceremonies,
to pour libations upon it, to dig into it and there to deposit
offerings, to kneel and touch lips or forehead to it—these are
gestures addressed not to the earth itself, but to the cosmos
which is contained within it. Whether drawn in flour on
flat ground, or traced in the air, the sign of the cross-roads is
always the juncture of the horizontal with the vertical, where
the communication between worlds is established and the traffic
of energies and forces between them is set up. It is at this point
of intersection that the food for the loa is placed; and here also
that they emerge to act upon the material world.
Particularly are trees the great natural highway of such traffic.
And the leaves, properly plucked and treated, may therefore
carry divine and healing properties. The most ancient of loa
are known as loa racine (root loa); the songs tell of their “racine
sans but” (root without end). The master of the island below
the sea, Grand Bois D’Ilet, is often represented by a branch.
And if one or another tree is particularly consecrated to this loa
or that, it is not because the loa is the spirit of the tree, it is,
rather, in the sense of that tree as a preferred avenue of divine
approach. The stylized tree, its branches and roots symmetrically
extended to both sides of an horizon, is signaled, over and over,
in the vevers. As center-post—poteau-mitan—this same vertical
avenue, axis of the metaphysical cosmos, is built into the very
center of the peristyle,® the ceremonial enclosure. Around this
poteau-mitan revolve the ritual movements and the dance; at
its base the offerings are placed; and through it the loa enter the
peristyle.
Since this vertical dimension exists at any and all places,
one has but to signal intersection. The sign of the cross appears
 The Cosmic Mirror and the Corpse on the Cross-Roads 37

VEVER FOR GHEDE

everywhere, whenever communication or traffic between the

worlds is to be indicated. The vertical dimension comprehends
both the abyss below and the heavens above the earth, the
dimension of infinity; the horizontal comprehends all men, all
space and matter.*
All ceremonials begin with the salute to the guardian of the
crossroads, the loa principle of crossing, of communication
with the divine world. Yet the figure of cross-roads can be seen
from the perspective of either of the worlds which it straddles.
When approached as interlocutor with the loa, keeper of the
gate, whose permission gives access to the life source, he is
saluted as Legba, and his symbolic color is white. But that
world of the Invisibles is also the cosmic cemetery of the souls
of all the dead. Hence, if it 1s to deal with les Invisibles as the
residue of the dead, the figure is black, is Ghede, God of the
Dead. The rituals conclude with a salutation to him.
Ghede is the dark figure which attends the meeting of the
quick and the dead. This is the loa who, repository of all the
knowledges of the dead, is wise beyond all the others. And if
* For a more complete statement of this principle, see pp. 97-100, iifru.
38 The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mystéres, et les Marassa
the souls of the dead enter the depths by the passage of which
Ghede is guardian, the loa and the life forces emerge from that
same depth by the same road. Hence he is Lord of Life as well
as of Death. His dance is the dance of copulation; in the
chamber dedicated to his worship, the sculptured phallus may
lie side by side with the three grave-diggers’ tools. He is the
protector of children and the greatest of the divine healers. He
is the final appeal against death. He 1s the cosmic corpse which
informs man of life. The cross is his symbol, for he is the axis
both of the physical cycle of generation and the metaphysical
cycle of resurrection. He is the beginning and the end.16

5
THE MARASSA—TWO AND TWO EQUALS FIVE

Ghede, loa of life and death, is the corpse of the first man, who,
in his original twinned nature, can be thought of as a cosmic
totality segmented by the horizontal axis of the mirror divide
into identical twins. The worship of the Marassa, the Divine
Twins, 1s a celebration of man’s twinned nature: half matter,
half metaphysical; half mortal, half immortal; half human,
half divine. The concept of the Marassa contains, first, the
notion of the segmentation of some original cosmic totality.
In Voudoun songs, there still exist vestigial references to the
ancient African myths of origin. The word Silibo (and the
loa Gran’ Silibo) which is sometimes mentioned in songs, 1s
the African Dahomean word for a tohwiyo, a founder of an
ancient sib; the Dahomean tohwiyos are considered to be the
offspring of one human and one supernatural parent.!? Today
the Marassa are said to be the first children of God and their
feast has, in some cases, been assimilated to Christmas,!® itself
a celebration of a holy child, offspring of one human and one
supernatural parent. The sense of firstness, newness, beginning,
innocence—in sum, the sense of the childhood of the race, 1s
preserved in the fact that the Marassa are still conceived of as
1. SOULS OF THE DEAD, LODGED IN WHITE-WRAPPED GOVIS. The phoenix, painted on this
Voudoun altar, represents one of the patron deities of this hounfor.
TE, EMERGING AS NEW-BORN. Rituals of birth, initiation, death and reclamation a
involve white coverings. The protective, ritual mask is of palm fringe.
 The Marassa—Two and Two Equals Five 39
children, and when they possess a person, they play at marbles
and other children’s games. The food destined for them can
later be offered only to children.!®
‘Yet, if chey are the first humans, they are also the first, the
original Dead. The Dead and the Marassa are, indeed, cele-
brated on the same occasion, All Souls’ Night.* The first food
offered at death rituals, which are conducted under the loa
Ghede, is for Legba, guardian of the cross-roads, and for the
Marassa; the plate for the latter is then given to children, with
the ritual question: “Are you now satisfied?’° And if they
are the first dead, they are also, by logical extension, the first
ancestors, hence the first ancestral loa. As origin of all loa, the
Marassa are saluted first, in ceremonies, before the loa. In a
certain sense they are considered even stronger than the loa.
“Papa Marassa is the one who must be fed before all the gods.”
Nothing can be accomplished, particularly no magic, without
their proper and precedent salutation.?#
The metaphysical character of the Divine Twins is reflected
in the beliefs and practices relating to contemporary twins, who
are understood as two parts of a whole, hence sharing one soul
just as the plat-Marassa (the plate for the food offered to the
Divine Twins) consists of two clay bowls joined together.”
Since the twins are, essenually, one, that which affects one part
affects the other and whatever disease or accident may beset one
twin is understood to threaten the other; and their violent
separation may lead to disaster. Every effort is made to have all
their important activities, such as marriage, occur simultane-
ously. Moreover, the concept of the Divine Twins as straddling
the great divide, and thus being half in the metaphysical world,
is also carried over to contemporary twins, who are considered
to be endowed with powers of divination and magic.
But the Marassa, as the first cosmic totality, may also be
thought of as intersected on the vertical axis as well as the
horizontal one. The intersection on the vertical axis would
* Hallowe'en, in our culture, also relates children with the celebrauon of the
Dead.
40 The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mystéres, et les Marassa
yield two halves of which each rests partly in the physical and
partly in the metaphysical world. This is the segmentation of
the first androgynous cosmic whole which yielded the differen-
tiation: male and female.?® Thus the Marassa are the parents
of the race, and this progenitive function gives them, in fact,
their major importance. They are feasted at harvest time”
(which seems to be a more ancient placing than Christmas
tide) and the mangé Marassa, as their feast 1s called, is part of
a general fertility ritual. They are also especially invoked at
childbirth, to aid in making the delivery easy.”° At the canzo
ceremony, which marks the spiritual birth of the initiate, a
little boy and girl are called in to baptize and name the one
newly born, filling here the réle of the Marassa as parents.?6
The service of the Marassa does not necessarily refer to any
known twins in the history of the family, but as the source of
all mankind, they are the ancestors of every family line: “Papa
Marassa, who represents the four races.”?”
But the Haitian myth has gone beyond the concept of Marassa
of the same sex, as metaphysical reflection, and Marassa of
opposite sexes, as progenitive differentiation. The most common
ritual service is for the Marassa- Trois, a constellation of three,
invoked as Marassa-Dossu-Dossa. The vever for this service is
a figure of three, and the food plate consists of three small
earthen bowls joined to a single head. It is a figure which
yields, simultaneously, all possible metaphysical variations. It
may be seen as the affirmation of the cosmic totality, as the
statement that: whether segmented horizontally or vertically,
such segmentation does not liberate the parts from their
relationship as a totality. In this sense it is the affirmation of
cosmic unity as opposed to the dualism which results from
the effort to make of segmentation a total separation.”® But this
trinity may also be seen from the opposite direction, so that the
third element is understood as the issue of the twins, and in this
sense—male, female and issue—it is an affirmation of multi-
plicity.?® Here is the statement that generation is the result of
the relationship of the segments. Sometimes this figure of three
 The Rituals of Death 4!
is ritualistically elaborated in various senses simultaneously.
The apex of the triangle of the Marassa-Trois is a statement of
the androgynous, cosmic whole; the legs of the triangle signify
its vertical segmentation into male (Dossu) and female
(Dossa); and these legs are each, in turn, horizontally seg-
mented into the physical body and the metaphysical soul.*
For the Haitian, then, it is the relationship of segments which
is important. The Twins are not to be separated into competi
tive, conflicting dualism. In Voudoun one and one make three;
two and two make five; for the and of the equation 1s the third
and fifth part, respectively, the relauonship which makes all
the parts meaningful. The figure of five contains man’s entire
nature: his single origin and his multiple progeny, his mortal
matter and his immortal image, his humanity and his divinity.
The figure five is as the four of the cross-roads plus the swinging
of the door which is the pointe itself of crossing, the moment of
arrival and departure.
In the concept of the Cosmic Totality of the First, single
Source, in the Divine Trinity of les Morts, les Mystéres et les
Marassa, in the Caballa of the Quintessence* of man’s life,
the Haitian reaffirms the same principle as an indivisible,
prime number. It is the dynamic, the energy, the eternal
catalyst which first gave meaning and life to the separate
elements of the first chaos.
6

THE RITUALS OF DEATH

It is as if the life of a person were a period during which the

various universal elements contributed to and coalesced in that
singular, unique amalgam, a specific person, composed of a
body, a gros-bon-ange, understood as the spiritual double of
the body, and the ti-bon-ange or spirit.3! The rituals of death
are designed to restore each successively to its proper province.
* “Quintessence”: (1) the fifth or last and highest essence of power in a
natural body; (2) the essence of a ching in its most concentrated form.
42 The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mysteres, et les Marassa
If stones and govis serve as physical receptacles for loa, and if
the loa can even possess the living body of a man, it is because
the Haitian does not, and could not, believe in physical
resurrection. He is too close to the constant limitations of the
flesh, its fatigues and its weaknesses, its vulnerability to disease,
its insatiable, harassing need for food, its too frequent mortality.
Being so intimately aware of the cycles and processes of nature,
of vegetable growth and animal development, he would never
propose a special quality to human beings on a physical level.
The body is of the province of matter, and while it may be
animated by the soul, or possessed by a loa, it is, in itself; only
matter and, as such, must, upon death, be restored to matter.
The death rituals relating to the body are, in sum, directed
against physical resurrection—against, on the one hand, a false
death, and, on the other, a false life. The initial act of those
surviving is to determine that the death is real and not a false
death brought about by magic. For, if the regular rituals that
dissociate the soul from the body should be performed in
ignorance of the fact that the death is false, the body would
remain as a live but emptied vessel, subject to the direction of
any alien psychic force (usually the malevolent one which
engineered the magic precisely for such a purpose). The dread
zombie,** the major figure of terror, is precisely this: the body
without a soul, matter without morality.* To avoid this
* The popular notion—outside Haiti—pictures the zombie as an enormously
powerful giant who, being soulless and incapable of moral judgement, is
inaccessible to reason, entreaty or any other dissuasion if he is directed to a
malevolent purpose by his controlling force. This notion reflects a confusion
as to the function of a zombie. Actually, the very essence of magic is psychic
rather than physical force, and it is by such relatively subtle means that a
magician would attain his malevolent ends. The choice of physically powerful
individuals for zombies is precisely because their major function is not as
instruments of malevolence, but as a kind of uncomplaining slave-labor to be
used in the fields, the construction of houses, etc. While the Haitian does not
welcome any encounter with a zombie, his real dread is that of being made into
one himself. This is not because he fears hard work, for he is accustomed to
this; besides, the characteristic insensibility of the zombie precludes any pain
or suffering for him. The terror is of a moral nature, related to the deep-rooted
value which the Haiuan attaches to powers of consciousness and the attendant
 The Rituals of Death 43
development, all measures are taken to make certain that the
body is truly lifeless and therefore physically useless. It may
be killed again, with a knife through the heart; or its burial
may be accompanied by any number of ruses to circumvent a
possible resurrection. For example, a plant may be placed
in the coffin containing so many seeds that anyone coming to
raise the body, but being compelled to count the seeds first,
could never accomplish his task before daybreak.* Care is
taken, as well, that no parts rightfully belonging to the dead
matter should remain in circulation in the living world. Such
precautions against a false life, which might also be put to
magic and malevolent use, are numerous. The water in which
the corpse is bathed is carefully poured into a hole. The three
drops of fluid believed to be in a dead man’s mouth, under-
stood somehow as the final secretion, the residue of the body’s
life, must not spill out. The hair and nails are clipped and
buried, with special care, alongside the corpse. Together with
capacity for moral judgement, deliberation and self-control. In the daily life
of the Haitian, this value is reflected in his distaste for the confusions and the
lack of self&contol which may result from drunkenness, and it is extremely
rare to see a Haitian in even the least stage of inebriation. The same value is
reflected also in his preference for controlled, and even self-consciously formal
behaviour, and any departure from such codes of social conduct is censured by
the epithet: “Malelevé!” (Ill-mannered! Uncouth!). In the soulless zombie
the Haiuan sees the ulumate extension of that which he despises in any context:
the loss of one’s powers of perception, evaluation and self-control. Thus, the
Haiuan does not share the notion of the culuvated primitivist—that free,
naive and unselfconscious naturalness is a condiuon of essential goodness and
or that the exercise of the human intellect tends to run counter to the good
direction of the divine essence in man. On the conaary, the Haitian conceives
of goodness or morality as a function of man’s consciousness, experience,
informauon, understanding and discipline; and he conceives of ritual as being
a means by which men induce the essentially amoral forces of the universe
towards moral ends. In the final analysis human consciousness, with all its
attendant powers and potenuals, holds the highest posiuon in Voudoun
metaphysics. It is chis which the Haiuan understands by esprit and which he
separates from the matter of the body, rescues from the abyss, leaves as ancestral
legacy to his descendants, and upon which, eventually, he confers the status
of divinity. A zombie is nothing more than a body deprived of its conscious
powers of cerebration; for che Haitian, there is no fate more terrible.
* Magical logic requires the magician to count the seeds he finds.
44. The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mystéres, et les Marassa
these precautions go certain efforts to purify the matter before
its return to the earth. For the most part, these consist of rituals
of cleansing. In the case of persons dying of leprosy and other
such maladies, or from a stroke of lightning, however, a special
kind of “quarantine” is prescribed, as well as numerous other,
comparatively complicated ritualistic measures.
These rites for the body of the deceased are relatively in-
significant in comparison to the African traditions related to
the non-physical components of the person. Of these com-
ponents, the ti-bon-ange requires the least ritual labor. Indeed
it is characteristic of the almost anonymous, transcendent,
spiritual nature of the ti-bonvange that it is automatically
liberated at the moment of death and hovers over the body for
nine days before ascending to heaven. The ti-bon-ange is
understood partially as guardian: a Haitian who drinks much,
for example, but does not become drunk, 1s said to have a
“ti-bon-ange who drinks for him”. But it is also the objective
conscience: the ti-bonvange cannot lie, and, if questioned
through the sleep of a person, will always tell the truth. Apart
from this, it is not subject to manipulation, although a cere-
mony may be performed to fortify it if it is in a weakened
condition.** It is, in a sense, the objective, impersonal, spiritual
component of the individual. In the rites of the dead it plays
no role.
The major death ritual is the ceremony of dessounin, a ritual
of “degradation”, whose purpose is to detach from the body
both the gros-bonvange—the personal soul or self—and the loa
mait-téte—the divine loa which is the “master of the head”.
Of the various (and sometimes numerous) loa which a man
may inherit there is always one which is manifestly dominant.
This loa is usually the first to have poss<ssed him and through
out his life it is his most familiar and intimate divinity. It is the
mait-téte who is that man’s special patron, and who is most
concerned as his guardian; and, logically, it is this loa to which
he is most indebted, who has the most facile access to his head
and body, and who can be the most demanding and exacting.
 The Rituals of Death 45
The maic-téte is his special agent in the world of the Mysteres
and the other loa in his head are, in a sense, under the super-
vision of the mait-téte. It is understood that with the liberation
of the maictete, the liberation of the other loa is automatically
and simultaneously achieved.
In a certain sense, the maittéte is the divine parent of the
gros-bonvange, the psychic inheritance from the parents. The
ceremony of dessounin thus accomplishes two separate but related
actions: it severs the loa cord of the gros-bon-ange; and it
separates the gros-bon-ange from its physical parent—the now
defunct matter of the body—launching it as an independent
spiritual enuty into the spiritual universe, where it, in turn,
becomes either part of the general spiritual heritage of the
descendants of that person, or even, perhaps, the divine parent,
the loa maittéte of some subsequent gros-bon-ange.
The ceremony of dessounin is concerned, then, with ful-
filling the conditions necessary for a proper remission of the
divine heritage. It is felt that if it is neglected, the family would
suffer greatly and be plagued by the loa, and this emphasis
upon the need of liberating the soul has sometimes been under-
stood as an effort to send the soul to its heavenly abode so that
it might there “rest in peace”. But such an interpretation, in
terms of Christian concepts, could not logically hold for a
people whose major preoccupation is, precisely, to re-activate
the souls of the dead, to consult them for advice, and to demand
their constant intervention. On the contrary, if the separation
were not achieved, it is the corpse that would not rest in peace,
since it would conunue to be animated by psychic powers,
both the divine loa and the gros-bon-ange. And both of these
would certainly rage against the family who had failed to
liberate them from defunct matter, and, in so doing, also
broken the chain by which the divine heritage of the race is
extended forward.
Once liberated, the loa and the gros-bon-ange pursue their
separate courses. The loa may return to the abysmal waters,
since that ts the permanent home of the loa. And he may at any
46 The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mystéres, et les Marassa
time thereafter possess anyone else he chooses. Moreover, he has
been already inherited by the children. But the gros-bon-ange
in contrast, must, in a sense, share in the death of the body. If
during life it is placed in a receptacle, a canari, or pot-de-téte,
and if that receptacle then is stolen so that magic may be
exercised upon the body through the gros-bon-ange, the person
cannot die until the two are reunited.3¢ It descends to the
abysmal waters and is there confined—unlike the loa—for a
year and a day. This period in the abyss is not a purgatory: to
be cold and wet is, for the frequently exposed Haitian peasant,
a mild discomfort at most. It is a period, rather, of oblivion, a
token death from which it must be reclaimed, or reborn, if it
is to achieve any degree of immortality.

7
THE RITES OF RECLAMATION—
THE CEREMONY OF RETIRER D’EN BAS DE L’EAU

A year and a day following the death of a person, the family

undertakes to reclaim his soul from the waters of the abyss
below the earth and to lodge it in a govi where it may hence-
forth be invoked and consulted in the event of illness or other
difficulties and so may participate in all the decisions that
normally unite the members of the family in counsel. Thus the
aid of his knowledge, the disciplines of his moral authority,
and the inspirations of his intelligence are re-incorporated as a
functioning force in the reality of his family’s daily life.
For this ceremony, the family requires the services of a
houngan (or mambo—priestess), whose studies and ritual
ordeals have endowed him with the power to summon les
Invisibles* to manifest themselves in the material dimension of
* In some regions a mambo is considered of lower rank than a houngan but
when referred to in this book, it is as his equal. The word houngan is often used
alone, for convenience in referring to priestly activities, but it should be under-
stood that a mambo might also fulfill such ritual functions.
 The Rites of Reclamation 47
this world, whether as a voice or through a possession. Since
such a ceremony involves the services of the houngan’s enure
personnel, who must be brought together to assist him, as well
as the purchase of various offerings and other accoutrements,
it may be relatively costly for a single family. Consequently it
is frequently postponed unul a year’s interval has elapsed for
several bereaved families in the neighborhood.
On the appointed evening, the participants assemble
gradually in the houngan’s peristyle (a section of the place of
worship). Those who are not occupied with the preparations
in the adjacent hounfor (altar chamber) dance a few rounds
while the drummers warm up.* A small, tent-like structure
has been extemporized from a white sheet and set up a short
distance away in the large courtyard and since there is neither
pond nor stream here, a trough of water, through the surface
of which the reclaimed souls will emerge, has been placed
within. This trough is the local realization of the abyss.°’
A. stretch of straw mats is laid on the ground leading from
the door of the hounfor. Led by the houngan, the white-robed
bounsis** (initiates), carrying the govis, which have been con-
secrated and wrapped in white, emerge in a processional
toward the white tent. They take care that their bare feet do
not touch the ground, for les Invisibles could mount through
them and lodge themselves in the jars. As they progress, the
mats which insulate them against such contact are hurriedly
gathered from behind and laid out once more in front. Then a
path is extended through the sacred precinct, winding among
trees that are each sacred to some deity. At the entrance to the
* The peristyle is a roofed structure, open at the sides, in which most of the
ceremonials and dances take place. (See illustration 10, facing p. 167.) The
hounfor may mean all the physical area, ritual equipment and personnel under
the authority of a single priest; it may also mean specifically the small chamber
containing the altar of one or more loa. (See illustration 1, icing p. 38.) When
the term hounfor is used in apposition to peristyle, as in the paragraph here, 1
denotes the altar chamber. When used without any distinguishing concrast, it
refers to the totality.
** The hounsis are those who have passed through certain stages of iniuauon
and are therefore qualified to assist in various ntual acuvites.
48 The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mystéres, et les Marassa
tent, the hounsis stretch out upon the mats. The wide, round
mouths of the govis, still held on top of their heads, point
toward the entrance like so many empty, hungry skulls. White
sheets are spread over the bodies of the hounsis, covering them
completely. To one side the drummers and the boungenikon
(the official leader of the singing) are prepared to greet the souls
with the appropriate songs, while to the other side stands the
la-place (the master of ceremonies, major assistant to the
houngan), holding a whip with which to fend off any evil or
simply trespassing spirits who might invade the jars.
The shadow of the houngan, projected from within the tent
by the flickering of the candle, dances and glides over the folds
of the cloth as he completes his final preparations. Then the
candle is extinguished. But the moon is bright. It picks out,
with a sharp brilliance, the round mound of the tent, the
regular stretch of the limbs under the white sheets, the easy
vigilant stance of the la-place in white trousers and shirt, the
white dresses and white-kerchief bound heads of the partici-
pants.
And now begins the rhythmic beat and ring of the priest’s
asson,* the instrument of his power over the world of les
Invisibles. At times it sounds with a harsh, grating insistence,
and at times as a gentle, ringing murmur; but never does it for
a moment falter. It is as if this antenna of sound, projected into
the dark air, had to be uninterruptedly built up, lengthened,
spun and sent forward, until it should penetrate into the
deepest recesses of the dark regions of the abyss. Over and over,
past the patient silence of the seated figures, past the slight
stirrings of small animals in the underbrush, the distant howl
of a dog, the squeal of a pig somewhere embroiled in the rope
* The asson, or sacred rattle, can be owned and used only by one who has
passed through the ceremonies that elevate to the rank of priesthood. It is a
gourd with a handle-like formation on it and it rattles either by virtue of snake-
bones or other such objects inside, or because of a loose webbed beading woven
around the outside. This latter is exclusively a sacred rattle where a simple
gourd, filled with small objects, is commonly used as a musical instrument
not to be confounded with the sacred rattle.
 The Rites of Reclamation 49
that holds it, the cry of roosters beginning high in the moun-
tains and passing downward toward the sea, the small con-
versations of the night travelers carrying their high loads on
their heads along the nearby road to the city market, over and
over, this rhythmic sound insists like a cosmic signal calling
toward the space of another universe.
And over its grating and ringing, the voice of the houngan
adds the first persuasions of his own invocations. His voice is
low with inumacy, conversational in its cadence, the phrasing
at umes urgent, at times invocative. He is addressing les
Invisibles. To those outside, who merely overhear, the words
are, for the most part, unintelligible. But it is known that the
prayers include those addressed to Legba, loa of the cross
roads, and Baron Samedi, or Ghede, loa of the dead.
The white sheet which in this ceremony of the recall of the
dead is stretched over the bodies of the hounsis is as the winding
sheet that covered the corpse. It is simultaneously the swaddling
clothes of the new-born infant—who, shortly following its
birth, is carried to the sacred trees of the familial courtyard and
there introduced to the familial deities. This sheet is also the
white envelope that encloses the initiate during his ordeal by
fire; and it is the white canopy that covers him the following
morning, when he emerges for his second, his spiritual birth,
to be led, like the infant, to the sacred trees.* It is the envelope
of the womb; and now, at this moment of the retirer d’en bas
de l'eau, the houngan, functioning as midwife, assists the third
birth, the rebirth of the soul from the abysmal waters.*8
The tone of his voice changes from that of prayer and invoca-
tion to a quality of patient yet persistent urging as the houngan
strains to draw the dead from the land below. He in turn
protests, persuades, verges on exasperation, returns to a tone
of cajoling, or, once more, to a patient effort to persuade.
Occasionally the name of the first person summoned can be
heard.
He calls for Papa Telemach. Faintly, at first, and then
* See illustration 2, facing p. 39.
$0 The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mystéres, et les Marassa
rapidly growing stronger, a whining quaver is heard by those
outside the tent. Telemach is an old, old man. He begins by:
complaining that his family has left him in the cold and wet
too long. The houngan interrupts to excuse the delay: the
family is poor, and, as the old man knows, the ceremony is
costly. But Telemach, in the fashion of old men, seems either
not to hear or not to wish to listen. There is much discussion.
The low, recognizable voice of the houngan breaks in upon
the complaints of the high, half-broken voice. At times the
two seem to be insisting on their separate points simultaneously.
At other times a sound of gurgling water eclipses the old man’s
protestations and some moments elapse before the conversation
is resumed. One is listening to an old man, who has had too
much time to brood upon an imagined neglect, being reasoned
with by a friend of the family, who would be a mediator. The
old fellow demands to know, finally, who, of the family, has
undertaken to reclaim him. The houngan restates this question
in a louder voice. From somewhere in the darkness, a girl calls,
“It is I, Lamerci, papa.” This affords the old man an oppor-
tunity to recapitulate his complaints, and to make reference
to some intimate family disputes and incidents. The daughter
apologizes, giggles, is overcome by embarrassment at this
public airing of private family affairs. Telemach finally asks
concerning the welfare of those who are not present and
Lamerci reports that the brother 1s ill. There is a long exchange,
a consultation over the symptoms and as to whether the brother
has done this or that. The houngan, feeling that too much time
is being spent on this individual, tactfully tries to interrupt, but
the old man stubbornly continues until, presently, he prescribes
a complex herbal treatment. Again the houngan suggests that
it is time, now, for him to enter the govi, but the old soul refuses
to surrender his moment of glory. He retorts that, having been
kept waiting so long, he will not be rushed. General laughter
breaks out and both the priest and the daughter plead with
him to be reasonable. He renews his original complaints. He
will not be readily consoled. But at last, and reluctantly, he
 The Rites of Reclamation $I
prepares to surrender. He asks for a song of salutation to his
guardian loa, his mait-téte. The houngenikon thereupon starts
off the song, the drums and the chorus join in and when it 1s
ended the houngan inquires: “Are you satisfied?” The old man
agrees. There is a pause in the conversation. The body of one
of the hounsis under the white sheet stiffens, contracts, her
limbs jerk as if from inner shock. It is understood that the soul
has entered the govi on her head.*
During all this time the rattle and bell have not ceased
sounding for a moment, and now that communication with
the abysmal regions has been established, the other souls follow
more readily. One even has the impression that they are crowd-
ing in a line at the far end, that they jostle each other and com-
pete to emerge from the cold, wet regions. Sometimes the
houngan seems to argue with two of them at the same time; he
pleads for patience, insists on one’s seniority over the other,
asks their names, labors to expedite the entire procedure as
fairly as possible. A girl begins weeping for joy when she
hears her mother’s voice. Another one excitedly recognizes her
father.
And then a certain voice rises higher, more plainuvely than
the others. This is a man, weeping. The houngan asks for an
identification. The answer is unclear. He asks again, but does
not recognize the name. Finally he calls out to the assemblage:
“Does any one know this man?” There is no answer. “Where
are you from?” “Jacmel.” It is a town on the opposite end of the
island. Someone wisecracks: “Father, you certainly lost your
way”, and the whole crowd laughs. The voice explodes into a
fit of rage. “It is all very well for you to laugh now, but wait
unul it is your turn, and your good-for-nothing family doesn’t
trouble to bring you up.” Then, just as suddenly, the voice
breaks down into a fit of sobbing. His anger and his sorrow
have sobered the crowd, and compassion moves them. The
* The exact means by which this transference is achieved 1s one of the secret
knowledges of the priesthood, as is the means by which the voices of the
reclaimed souls emerge, apparently from the ough of water.
$2. The Trinity: Les Morts, Les Mysteres, et les Marassa
voice of the houngan, gentle and sad, explains that unfortu-
nately all the govis are already reserved for certain dead.*® It is
impossible for anyone to receive him now. Perhaps his family
has had some financial reverses and surely, any day now, they
will make the ceremony. Gently, tactfully, the houngan asks
the soul to withdraw, to go back down, to permit the others to
emerge. The sobbing begins to grow fainter, more distant,
finally fades away. In the darkness someone murmurs, “poor
vagabond”, and the others nod in compassionate agreement.
Someone begins telling of a similar incident and a general
babble sets up in the court. Angrily the voice of the houngan
shouts out to them. How can he be expected to hear the voices
of the dead when the living are making such a confounded
racket. The chastened crowd falls immediately silent. There is
no sound but the grating and ringing of the asson for several
moments. Then a woman’s voice, its timbre somehow charac-
teristic of a market-place vendor, can be heard clearly.
“Business must be pretty good”, she says to the houngan, “if
the family can manage to pay your fees.” The crowd bursts out
laughing, and the houngan’s angry retort is lost in the noise.
“Or perhaps’, she says, “Little Cocotte, there, has developed a
side line.” The niece who has been referred to, turns and flees
while the crowd laughs louder than ever. “It’s Marie, all right”,
one person says to the other. “It’s certainly her’, they repeat.
The spectators are very alert, ready for the good show that Marie
would always put on with her off-color comments. “You ought
not to say that”, the houngan says. “Cocotte is a good girl, you
know that”, and he begins talking rapidly, to avoid any further
embarrassing comments.
Some of the souls arrive in anger and are difficult for the
houngan to handle. One, apparently very powerful, gives him
great trouble, and at a certain moment the houngan’s voice
seems to be choked off, as though the spirit were threatening to
possess him. He calls for his la-place to assist him. There is a
confusion within the tent, and it is as though the soul has had
to be forced into the govi, for the hounsi whose jar receives him
 The Rites of Reclamation $3

CROSS-ROADS AND CENTER/POST

jumps up violently, as if struck. The la-place and the houn-

genikon rush to her assistance, forcing her to lie down again,
and replace the white shroud, which she has disarranged, as
rapidly as possible.
Finally the task is completed. It has taken several hours, but
the seven souls have all been reclaimed. The sound of the asson
stops. The communication is broken. The hounsis rise to carry
the govis back to the hounfor, but their walk is now uncertain,
as if they were bearing great weights on their heads. Some of the
souls are not resting easily, as yet, and their bearers totter from
side to side. Within the hounfor the govis are arranged upon
the altar, and are left in the custody of the houngan.*
In the adjoining peristyle the drums have begun for the
danse de rejuissance, the dance of rejoicing, but the work has been
long and everyone is tired. The ceremony of bruler-zin, a
vivifying ritual, which had been scheduled for this evening to
“warm” the spirits, 1s postponed until the following evening.
The houngan seems extremely fatigued and withdraws
immediately. After a few rounds of drumming the gathering
disperses.
* See illustrauon 1, facing p. 38.
 CHAPTER II

Les Serviteurs
I

THE CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE

THE divine heritage to which the serviteur Titon was born

was not only rich numerically in the number of its gods, but
testified to the fact that the family lines on both his father’s and
his mother’s side had served their deities with such consistency
and fullness that they had maintained the great ancient
racine loa in a condition of effective vigor. Some time after
his father had died, his mother had contracted an eye disease,
and she had subsequently been converted to Protestantism on
the grounds that her affliction was punishment by the Christian
God for serving Voudoun loa. The fact that the disease did not
diminish was interpreted as an inducement for her to convert
her children, similarly, and this she had succeeded in doing
with her four daughters. Titon alone had refused to abandon
the ancestral loa, although, like all other Voudoun serviteurs,
he sincerely insisted that he believed in the Christian God and
in Jesus, and always made ritual obeisance to these before
passing on to the Voudoun service. As a matter of fact, he
knew the Catholic litanies so well that he was often called upon
to assist the houngan by standing in as the prét-savanne, or
bush priest, whose function it is to invoke the benediction of the
Christian deity upon the Voudoun ceremony to follow.1
Yet it was the African tradition which, in a sense, had
prepared this serviteur to acknowledge God as “le gran’
maitre”. In the South Rhodesian myth of origin there is a first
god, called Maori, who created the first man, Mwuetsi, and his
two wives, Massassi (who bore the entire vegetable kingdom
of the earth) and Morongo (who brought forth animals and
men).” The Ewe-speaking people of Dahomey likewise have a
54
3. NICHE FOR ERZULIE. Voudoun has assimilated compatible objects from non- African cul-
tures, such as the Catholic images and French-inspired embroidery above.
 Pe, Pal

4. INDIAN INFLUENCE. The striped motif of the center-post, the sacred vever drawings, and the
three-horned deity are among the many indications of Indian influence.
 The Christian Influence $5
legend of a first deity, Nanan-bouclou, who was both male and
female, and who created the twin children, Mawu-Lisa, from
whom sprang all the deities.2 Throughout Africa this first
deity, the source of the universe, was considered too greatly
elevated to be concerned with the petty affairs of human beings,®
and consequently was rarely worshipped. When Christianity
taught that such a primal figure was concerned with human
affairs, and was to be personally and intimately addressed, this
was accepted as a welcome modification of the African tradi-
uon. If religious belief can be understood to range from an
almost abstract divinity at one pole to the manipulations of
magic at the other, then the Christian deity—who was subject
to persuasion by prayer, and who might intervene as a super-
natural force—was much easier and more comfortable than the
usual High God of Africa, whose absolute objectivity placed
him beyond the pale of human reference.®
Such a comparison reverses the orthodox evaluation of
“primitive mentality”, which has been characterized as in-
capable of abstract concepts, bound to material specifics (as in
animism), and tending to personalize in precise and immediate
terms the general forces of nature. “Primitive mentality”, on the
contrary, conceives in hierarchical terms. Almost inevitably it
proposes a myth of the world’s origin from an abstracted source
which is not worshipped, just as the scienufic mind amply
recognizes a first source and evolutionary principle and con-
cerns itself primarily with modifications of the subsequent issue.
The “primitive” then places, on a second level, the first creation
of God, the original man and woman, who partake of the
divine nature in its loftiest sense but are human. The deities
governing the affairs of men are then on a third level. These
can modify but they cannot create. They can help a garden
grow and can bring rain, but they did not create either the
seed or the water. In effect, the deiues to which the “primitive”
addresses himself, for all such modifications, are analogous tothe
Catholic saints.
Like the saints, the loa are considered to be on a level far
$6 Les Serviteurs
below God. According to the Haitian peasant, Agaou (the
loa of thunder) says, “If God is willing.”® Like the saints, the
loa were once human and are the immediate guardians of the
people. Like the saints, they have special provinces of action.
Is it so strange, then, that, failing other images, the Voudoun
serviteur today covers his altars with the Catholic pictures of the
saints, which he understands as representations of the loa? St.
Patrick, in the act of sending the serpents into the sea, 1s
Damballah, the great serpent deity—since there are serpents in
the picture. The chromo of Lazarus, in which he is an old
man with a staff and attended by dogs, represents old Legba,
guardian of the crossroads, to whom dogs were sacred in
Dahomey. St. Ulrique is Agwé, god of the waters, since he
holds a fish. St. Isidore, dressed in humble garb and kneeling
in the fields, is Azacca, god of agriculture. Nothing could
please the serviteur more than the fact that there are, indeed,
such inexpensive and colorful ready-made representations of
his loa.’
Voudoun would not have come into existence, nor would
it still be Hourishing so vigorously, if it had been governed by
men rigidly dedicated to superficial sectarian distinctions. It is,
in fact, a monumental testament to the extremely sophisticated
ability of the West African to recognize a conceptual principle
common to ostensibly disparate practices and to fuse African,
American Indian, European and Christian elements dynami-
cally into an integrated working structure.* Where, at first
glance, it might seem that Christianity had triumphed over
Voudoun, it becomes clear, on closer study, that Voudoun
has merely been receptive to compatible elements from a sister
faith and has integrated these into its basic structure, subtly
transfiguring and adjusting their meaning, where necessary, to
the African tradition.** The cross, for example, has been
assimilated to the crossroads. Baptism was already a Negro
* See illustration 3, facing p. 54, and 4, facing p. $5.
** The carnivals on Mardi Gras and especially on Good Friday (the “Rara”
Festival, as it is called) scarcely reflect, in tone, the Christian events which they
ostensibly celebrate.
 The African Heritage $7
tradition. The triple Libation for “les Mystéres, les Morts et les
Marassa” is applied to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. And
the concept of trinity has blended well, on many grounds
(Marassa- Trois, and three as a magical number), with African
belief. The hierarchical and pantheistic system as a whole is
receptive to additional deities, and even to the prét-savanne as
a kind of colleague of the houngan, being able to assimilate
them all in its own terms.® Against the serviteur who sin-
cerely insists that he believes in the trinity, who bapuzes his
children and his drums, places the saints on his private altar,
and makes lavish use of the sign of the cross, the Catholic
Church has been, in a sense, helpless. It is in the peculiar
position of trying to convert the already converted. A religious
system that opposed Catholicism would have been overcome.
But in the face of such tolerance, the violent efforts to eradicate
Voudoun have remained relatively ineffective.
Protestantism, on the other hand, has been able to insist,
more clearly, upon its incompatibility with Voudoun. Indeed,
to the Voudoun serviteurs, there is a far greater incompatibility
between the two branches of Christianity than there is between
the Catholics and themselves.
The Haitian can even pray thus:
“In the name of God the Father, of the spirits, and of
my Mystéres .. . I, the only living child of my family, I
haven't given up Voudoun [an allusion to the anu-
Voudoun campaign]. I am asking the Saints, the Dead,
the Marassa, you who are my only defense before God,
you who are placed for my defense against the infernal
enemy, do not stop helping me during my life. . . ."®

THE AFRICAN HERITAGE

Whether the converted members of Titon’s family had dis-

missed their loa ritualistically,'° or merely abandoned them,
58 Les Serviteurs
and whether the familial govis and pierre-loa were still in
existence somewhere or had been destroyed, is not quite clear.
Neither is it all-important, for such objects, which serve to
focus or localize the manifestations of the loa, do not confine
them. The deities did not belong to Titon’s parents, as a
property; they infused the parents. And in the very same
sense in which the son was the physical issue of his parents, so
also, was he their spiritual issue.* His inheritance of his
parents’ loa, therefore, was automatic."
History had made, of that heritage, a complex affair. The
original Negroes had been imported from many African
states, predominantly Yoruba, Dahomey, Loango, Ashanti,
and Mandingo.!* They included the Senegalese, who,
according to reports of early colonial writers, were “easily dis-
ciplined”; the Bambaras, considered “insolent and thieves”;
the Aradas, who were “good at agriculture but very proud”;
the Congos, who were “prone to desert their masters’; the
Mondongos, who were “cannibalistic and cruel’; the Mines,
who were “capricious, and despaired of themselves”; the Ibos,
who depended much on each other and committed suicide so
readily that they became knownas “those who hang themselves”;
the Loangos, the Mahis, the Fons, the Fulas, and dozens of
other tribes.1? All brought with them their particular traditions,
their language, their gods, their rituals, their dances, their drum
beats, the memory of their homelands and the names of their
towns and rivers.
Inevitably, and even deliberately (for the colonists were con-
cerned to minimize the strength of a people who outnumbered
them), the tribes were broken up and scattered throughout the
island of Haiti. Yet all these West Africans had certain basic
beliefs in common: ancestor worship; the use of song, drums
and dancing in the religious rituals; the possession of the wor-
shipper by the god. Encouraged by the communal need of
unity on the economic and political level, and by personal
requirements of intermarriage, they integrated, around this core
* For a discussion of loa inheritance, see pp. 31-3 ff, supra.
 The African Heritage 59

FUL A EMPIRE
MANOINEGO EMPRE -
ASHANTI
SENEGALESE EMPIRE '
YOLOFFES - fanri OA MOME AN
FOVLES ’ EMMRE EMmPin—e '
848 ARRAS
MANOINGUES ARAOAS
$OSOSAROS: AGOQUAS
ARAOAS (?) | "Lomas!
COTOCOLIS WAUSA EMPIRE
POUL
QuUIAMBARAS KANGAS( rj CAPL AOUS POPOS ! BENIN EMPIRE

MISERAGLES MINES \ A0saS

, igBas (?) socos FONS
MMS (MANS)
. AOUSSAS
Sif A « aos
LEOWE or NAGOS
ew °
° i sop0s =
T\\ t
ona BOLO a
COAST ‘VvOAY COAST °
CcoasTr SLA
coas
GUINEA °
a
SY

condo SMPRE
a
MAYOMBES
MOUS OMBE S
MOUNDONGUES
TANGOS
OY OUMBAS (BOMBA)
AFRICAN TRIBAL ORIGINS RIVE (EMBA (61M BA)
ANGOLA
These are the African mbes which are congos
recorded as having been brought to Haiu. a
Their placement on the map indicates their ow
approximate geographical area.

of what they had in common, the great diversity of their tribal

systems. Obviously, since each people had a complete religious
system with its own set of major deities, there was much over-
lapping to be resolved. In some cases, the deity of the numeri-
cally dominant group absorbed the similar deities of the others;
or the emphatic character of one tribe, such as the warlike
quality of the Nagos, gave their deity of war, Ogoun, pre-
eminence over all other representatives of that principle. And
yet, because Voudoun was a collective creation, it did not exact
the abandonment of one tribal deity in favor of another. On
the contrary, it seemed rather to delight in as generous an
inclusion as possible. With a conscious tact that seems unique
60 Les Serviteurs
in religious history, the original identifications were even
retained. Hence, today, Woudoun (which is the Fons word
for god) includes the loa (the Congo word for the spirits) of
many nations; and they are invoked as stemming from their
various homes.14
The majority of the deities are Dahomean and the rites of
these are called Rada, from the town Allada. Yet everyone
dances Yanvalou, which means “supplication” in the speech
of the Whydah, the people of the Dahomean seaport of that
name. And they also dance the Nago of the Yoruban people
of western Nigeria, for the god of war Shango, or, as the Daho-
means would have it, for Ogoun Shango. There is an Ogoun
Badagry, named for a sea-coast town in western Nigeria; and
an Ogoun Balindjo, after the god of the Ogoun River in
western Nigeria.1° The separate figures have been integrated
around a principle, as its modifications, variations, or multiple
aspects, just as individual ancestral loa, who share a similar
character, become grouped together as personal variations on a
principal theme. They are said to “marcher ensemble”, to “walk
together”.16 The African place-names, tribal indications, or
family lineage names have come to serve, meanwhile, not so
much as geographical identifications—which could hardly
have much meaning for the contemporary serviteur—but as a
means for adjectival characterization. When a deity carries,
as a sort of second name, the word “Wedo” or “Oueddo’”, this
serves not to inform us of his having been brought to Haiti by
the Whydah-speaking people, but to indicate a special quality
of benevolence, respected authority, and prestige.*
For it was the Dahomean culture that became dominant,
and around which a major portion of the other African deities
was integrated. The Rada rites stand, in a sense, therefore, for
the basic African tradition. They reflect, furthermore, the
emotional tone of their place of origin. For Dahomey was an
absolute and well-organized monarchy, based on agriculture,
* At the conclusion of this chapter 1s a chart that attempts to organize some
of the loa according to cosmic principle, tribal origin and emotional tone.
 The New World Answer to New World Needs 61
with the development of co-operative work systems. It was a
well-stabilized, hierarchical nation and, within it, the deities
played a protective role. They were the guardians of chat
integration, that stability, against whatever might threaten it,
and so were essentially benevolent, paternal and passive, unless
a need arose to defend the moral principles that they represented.
But the conditions of the new world were not those of
Dahomey. The stability, the integration, the traditional,
established patterns were disrupted, diffused, broken and
violated, often brutally. The traditional defensive, protective
attitude could not suffice where there was no longer anything
organized or solid to defend. It was a moment of specific and
urgent need: the need for action. In the new world there arose
a new nation of loa, the loa of the Caribbean: the Petro nation.

3
THE NEW WORLD ANSWER TO NEW WORLD NEEDS

The difference between Rada and Petro is not to be under-

stood on a moral plane, as an opposition between good and
evil, although its violence and its closeness to magic has given
Petro a reputation for malevolence. The Rada deities may
punish severely those who fail in their obligations toward them;
and the Petro loa, if properly propitiated, will “behave”.!” As
the Haitians put it, the Petro are “plus raide”: more hard, more
tough, more stern; less tolerant and forgiving, more practical
and demanding. If the Rada loa represent the protective,
guardian powers, the Petro loa are the patrons of aggressive
action.
This is apparent in the nervous tension that is the emotional
“color” of the Petro rites. Whereas most of the Rada drumming
and dancing is on the beat, the Petro drumming and dancing
is off-beat. Sometimes the distinction is revealed with great
subtlety as when the crossroads vever for Rada-Legba
emphasizes the cardinal points while that for Petro-Kalfu or
62 Les Serviteurs

Carrefour (his Petro counterpart), emphasizes the points

between.!8 Sometimes the distinction is made manifest with
overwhelming psychological insight. For example, whereas
Erzulie, the Rada Goddess of Love, who is the epitome of the
feminine principle, is concerned with love, beauty, Aowers,
jewelry, femininities and coquetries, liking to dance and to be
dressed in fine clothes, weeping in a most feminine fashion for
not being loved enough, the figure of Erzulie Ge-Rouge, on the
Petro side, is awesome in her poignancy. When she possesses
a person, her entire body contracts into the terrible paralysis of
frustration; every muscle is tense, the knees are drawn up, the
fists are clenched so tightly that the fingernails draw blood
from the palms. The neck is rigid and the tears stream from the
tightly shut eyes, while through the locked jaw and the grinding
teeth there issues a sound that is half groan, half scream, the
inarticulate song of in-turned cosmic rage.
Petro was born out of this rage. It is not evil; it is the rage
against the evil fate which the African suffered, the brutality of
his displacement and his enslavement. It is the violence that
rose out of that rage, to protest against it.* It is the crack of the
slave-whip sounding constantly, a never-to-be-forgotten ghost,!®
in the Petro rites. It is the raging revolt of the slaves
against the Napoleonic forces. And it is the delirium of their
triumph. For it was the Petro cult, born in the hills, nurtured
in secret, which gave both the moral force and the actual
organization to the escaped slaves who plotted and trained,
swooped down upon the plantations and led the rest of the
slaves in the revolt that, by 1804, had made of Haiti the second
free colony in the western hemisphere, following the United
States.** Even today the songs of revolt, of “Vive la liberté”,
occur in Petro ritual as a dominant theme.”°
* Te is still wue, and extremely significant, that wherever Voudoun has been
especially suppressed (at the insistence of the Catholic Church) it is the Petro
rites that become dominant. Suppression always destroys first what is gentle
and benevolent; it inspires rage and reaction, encourages malevolence and
magic, and so creates the very thing which, theoretically, it would destroy.
** Historians of Haiti agree on fixing the beginning of the revolution ona cult
 The New World Answer to New World Needs 63

VEVER FOR PETRO

ceremony held on August 14, 1791. They also agree on the details, namely,
that it was a ceremony conducted by a houngan named Boukman (he is some-
umes called a bocor) who had been born in Jamaica. It seems that, in the middle
of the ceremony, a great storm arose, and there suddenly appeared an old
Negress whose body was trembling violently and who danced a “wild” dance,
holding a large knife over her head. As a climax of the dance she sacrificed a
black pig. All the participants drank of the blood of the pig, and swore to
follow Boukman. A week later the revolution was in swing. This event is cited
by Verschueren (Vol. 2, p. 26) and Simpson (II) among others. The descrip-
uon of the ceremony makes 1t clear that it was a Petro ceremony, since those are
disunguished by pig sacrifices. It is quite possible that the woman was the
original Marinette, or was possessed by Marinette, the major and violent female
of the Petro nation. Simpson also points out that one of the inducements to revole
was the concept, proposed by several of the Petro houngans, that the souls of the
dead would return to Africa. He also says that “meetings of slaves were dan-
gerous to colonials because of the possibilities they offered for plots and revolts”.
Most historians do agree that Voudoun was responsible for the unity that made
the revoluuon possible. Simpson also says that Woudoun took form between
1750 and 1790, but ceremonials must have been occurring since the arrival of
the slaves from Africa, otherwise the African forms could not have been pre-
served. His daung does, however, link the revolution to a “preparatory” period
in the development of Voudoun.
64 Les Serviteurs
For this kind of action the Dahomean traditions had not
prepared them; nor were the Rada gods the kind of deities who
could inspire an enslaved people to revolt. Whence, then, did
the African Negroes draw the inspiration? Where did they
discover the technique that resulted in their triumph?
The first slave-trade shipment to Haiti was in 1510. The
first slave revolt recorded was in 1522, a mere twelve years later.
The type of protest known in French as “marronage’’, running
away into the hills, must have begun as early, if not even before.
Haiti came under French rule in 1677, but this did not diminish
the “marronage’”’. It is recorded that in 1720 alone, a thousand
Negroes gained their freedom in this manner; while by 1751
the number had grown to 3,500.7! Stress has been laid on the
fact that, in these circumstances, it was logical that escaped
Negroes should fortify their morale by a continuation and
growing emphasis upon religious practices. But almost no
attention has been paid to the fact that, in those hills, they
must, during the Spanish period, have encountered the Indians,
who, being on home ground, would, no less than the Negroes,
have had recourse to such escape from the brutal massacres
that characterized the Spanish colonization.* Wherever and
* The emphasis upon the Indian influence, which I have undertaken here,
has not been shared, to my knowledge, by other writers on Haiti, who, except
for Maximilien, have been content to deal with Petro by briefly indicating that
it was of new-world origin. However, I was struck by the great difference
between the ethos of the Rada and that of the Petro rites. (Ethos, according to
Webster’s Dictionary, is the “characteristic spirit, prevalent tone or sentiment of a
people or community; the ‘genius’ of an institution or system”.) Gradually I
began to suspect that this striking difference in ethos indicated the interpolation
of Indian culture and its moral techniques. If this was true, then such an inter-
polation, even more than the assimilation of Christian elements, was the
monumental testament to the dynamic ability of Voudoun to keep pace with
the current needs of the serviteur. It would also throw a new light upon the
apparent polarity of Rada and Petro, for a comparison of the two did not really
lend itself comfortably to the “good-evil” duality. For this reason I undertook to
investigate whether, indeed, the Indian culture did play such a réle. While the
investigation does not presume to be definitive, it yielded such logical answers
to several important problems that I have felt justified in at least a tentative
assurance that such an assumption would be, in general, correct; and I have in-
cluded this material and analysis as a separate Appendix (pp. 271-86, infra).
 The New World Answer to New World Needs 65
whenever the African and the Indian met in the hills they had
two major bases for a common cause: they shared, as human
beings, a hatred of the white man, who had dislocated both
races and from whose brutality both were fugitives; and they
had in common the so-called “primitive mentality”, with
religious traditions strikingly similar, toward which they both
looked for their reply to this catastrophe.
Ie is doubtful whether any other two peoples, of different
racial and continental origins, could have discovered such an
astonishing coincidence of religious beliefs, not only in basic
pattern but in basic ritualistic and even accessory detail. Both
religious traditions had in common a creator deity as first
source; myths of the first human pair, or twins; a concept of
the abysmal waters as the life source; a pantheon of divinities
of the elements, or natural forces; a serpent deity of prime
importance; the worship of ancestral spirits; a metaphysical
concept of the cardinal directions, of cross-roads, and of trees;
a belief in the manifestation of psychic or cosmic forces in the
physical world by possession; a belief in the manipulation and
control of these forces by human beings who functioned
simultaneously on religious (priest), social (king) and physical
(doctor) levels. In both systems, the manipulations, on a
magical level, involved fetishes that brought to focus meta-
physical forces and referred either to ancestral spirits or to
elemental forces (such as rain and fertility). The relationship
between humans and nature was expressed in a concept of
metamorphic power, the ability to change into an animal, for
instance. Moreover, the worship of the metaphysical forces was
ritualistic, rather than meditative, and involved, for both
peoples, the idea that the energy of the metaphysical forces had
to be sustained by feeding, or sacrifice, and their benediction
maintained by propitiation. Ritualistically, the major faith
ordeal of both systems was related to fire; and the service of
supplication involved drumming and collective dancing
(rather than performances by the specially chosen, as in Bali).
Ritualistic accessories included rattles, in both cases. And
66 Les Serviteurs

finally, both religious traditions, being polytheistic, were

mutually tolerant rather than absolutistic and exclusive. The
overwhelming similarity of these two systems of belief not only
precluded any antagonism but must have been a strong incen-
tive to amalgamation, mutual assimilation and confusion. If
one were to consider the material facts alone, ignoring the
different emotional colorings of the two systems of rituals, the
differing tensions in the attitudes of the body in the dancing
and all those other nuances in which ethos is manifest, one
could confound them entirely. The historical situation of the
African Negro, however, made him welcome precisely the
difference, and the moral, intellectual and magical techniques
that reflected it.
As we have said, the African tradition, particularly of
Dahomey, had developed a centralized state; but the more
primitive decentralized, shamanistic stage of the Caribbean
Indians was eminently suited to the new situation, and could
serve as a methodological guide to reorganization on a de-
centralized, democratized basis. Inevitably, such decentraliza-
tion would lead to an emphasis on magical rather than on
divine and royal authority,* and this stress would involve
cabbala-like elements already present in the Indian system. The
emphasis of Indian religious practice was aggressive, imperialis-
tic and active, assertively dynamic, which met the new-world
need of the Negro in a way that his own Dahomean religion—
almost settled and passive with security—could not match.
And finally, the American pattern was strongly colored by the
severity of the divinities: propitiation had the violent bloody
character typical of the Aztecan, Mayan and Incan cultures.
Indeed, it is only logical to serve violently those divinities of
whom one requires aggressive action. As an outlet for the new-
world rage of the African, the violent or tense ritual was
certainly psychologically most valid. For when divine power
is to be put into action by human beings it becomes magic.
Whereas the divine principle in itself is primarily natural and
* For further comparisons of divine and magical powers, see pp. 76-7, infra.
 The New World Answer to New World Needs 67
moral, and acts “in general’, the magical principle® which
brings it to focus and directs it to a desired end is deliberate,
amoral and specific.
In the hills, then, their common place of refuge, the fugitive
slaves of the two races must have met and joined in their
common rage. For we find in the Petro—the violent, aggressive,
“plus raide” side of Haitian Voudoun—an extremely powerful
contribution from the Indian. Indeed, one may say that in
contrast to the Rada, which ts Africa or Dahomey, Petro 1s
America. The two worlds are joined in Voudoun, yet retain
their distinctions to this day: the traditional cults of the old,
monarchic homeland, and the revolutionary cults of the new
and terrible slaveland. Moreover, just as the broken and various
African elements were combined and fused into a new, self-
consistent system, so were those of the uprooted Indians—
multitudes of whom were carried in slave-ships to Haiu
(Hispaniola) from every shore and atoll of the Caribbean.*
One might have imagined that Ogoun, the great warrior
and ironsmith on the Rada side, could have represented
aggressive action; today he is the divinity most favored as
guardian of a hounfor. But Ogoun is, in a sense, the honest,
the chivalrous warrior; whereas the situation called less for a
heroic champion than for a wily and ruthless one. There were,
of course, benevolent, medicinal, therapeutic divinities among
the Indians. These were retained in the Petro category—which
again indicates that Petro is not so much a polar opposite, an
evil cult as opposed to the good Rada, but a total cultural
interpolation, with an ethos of a different tone. This fact is
again indicated in the manner in which Petro was integrated
into the total religious structure. The Haitian, manifesting a
keen sensitivity for ethos, and an infallible sense of diplomacy,
incorporated the American divinities as a “nation” of loa, a
cultural rather than a moral category, just as the various African
* Spanish law permitted enslavement in the new world only of cannibals,
others became serfs on their own land—Caribs (cannibals) were shipped about,
carried by the thousand to Hispaniola.
68 Les Serviteurs

tribal divinities had been related, in Voudoun, as a congress of

divine nations.
The skull of this arrangement (if the word skill can be applied
to what actually constituted a collective phenomenon) is made
evident by the fact that no conflict was set up between the old
world traditions and the new world techniques. Most houn-
gans and mambos very openly “serve with both hands”;?* it is
considered the sensible thing to do. At ceremonies, the Rada
loa are served first; they govern initiation and all hierarchical
elevation and are still the guardians of the morals and the
principles; but a service for Petro often follows, since evil might
result if the Petro deities were not served. The Petro are
invoked particularly if there is any need for aggressive action.
Moreover, the two cults are never confused. Today the cultural
distinction is still preserved for Petro, even more scrupulously
than for the various nations from Africa. The loa Petro are
virtually never worshipped in the same peristyle with the loa
Rada, unless economic circumstances absolutely prohibit the
construction of a second peristyle. Petro rites are never beaten
on Rada drums, whereas under certain circumstances the
Congo and Ibo (the other two major nations that have best
retained their identity), which properly have their own drums,
are sometimes beaten on either Rada or Petro drums.*
Petro seems to: have assimilated to a major extent the ritual
and deities of the Congos (who had a special reputation for
“marronage”) as well as certain deities of other nations (Bomba,
Limba) whose character was compatible with the Petro ethos;
just as Rada had absorbed the Nago’s Ogoun, and the loa of
other compatible nations. Yet certain Congo divinities remain
separate (the African Congo Franc being distinguished from
the Congo Mazonne”) pointing again to the separateness of
Petro as a nation, while Ibo has tended to remain entirely
individual.
At the same time even the Rada nation, as if with an eye
* Courlander has an excellent discussion of the various drums of the nations
and the differences between them.
 The New World Answer to New World Needs 69
to the efficacy of its methods, learned from Petro in at least three
major ways. Its structure was similarly democratized, so that,
whereas in Dahomey the sacred rattle could be conferred only
by the king, the apprenticeship, ordeal and ritual resulting in
the achievement of this mark of priesthood could now be under-
taken in the hounfor of any established houngan. It borrowed
various elements of magical and esoteric manipulation or gave
greater emphasis to like elements in its own system. The cule
of the twins, which in Africa seems to have had a magical
position somewhat apart from the religious structure of
divinities, was elevated to the primary réle which it commands
in Indian mythology. The fetish stones which, in Africa, were
primarily related to thunderbolt deities,> now came to incor
porate, as the Caribbean Indian Zemi did, any cosmic or
ancestral spirit. The vever, as a cabbalalike method of in-
voking the gods, was included as a primary ceremonial device
in Rada. The sacred langage, by which the priest com-
municates with the deities, began to include Indian words.
And finally, the Rada deities took over some of the accoutre-
ments of equivalent deities on the Petro side. Damballah, the
serpent, is sometimes conceived as the Plumed Serpent of
Indian myth. And Azacca, agrarian deity whose name
derives from the maize culture of the Indians, has almost
completely displaced Dadal, the African deity of vegetables.
At the same time, the Rada serviteurs who began to attend
Petro service, carried certain of their divinities with them, and
there, those divinities were transfigured. Ogoun Ge-Rouge
came into being as a Petro aspect of the warrior. The gentle,
feminine Erzulie, became in the Petro context the corn
goddess whose propitiatory service in the Indian culture had
been extremely violent and bloody.
Above all, America contributed the complex divinity Baron
Samedi, at once Lord of the Cemetery, of the cross-roads (as
brother to Mait’ Carrefour, the Petro equivalent of Legba) and
of the magic related to both the Dead and the cross-roads,
whose major, or at least, best-known expression is the zombie.
70 Les Serviteurs

Both the word zombie and Samedi are from the Indian Zemi
which connotes both the spirit of the dead, the soulless living,
and the fetish stone by which magic is accomplished. Ghede,
who is a Lord of the Dead of apparently African origin, has
been identified with the Baron Samedi complex, although
sometimes he is considered a Rada deity, and would seem to
be the gentler manifestation of death. Baron Samedi, however,
is usually understood as Petro. In any case, the ceremony for
the Ghede-Samedi complex is performed after the Rada
rituals (being considered almost as a separate rite), and when
Ghede is concerned, is separate from the Petro as well.*
From the Indian Zemi, the magic-working fetish, comes also
another of the major figures of the Voudoun structure, Simbi,
patron of the rains (in the maize culture context) and, above
all, patron of magicians. Although Damballah and other Rada
deities are related to rain, it is Simbi who is considered most
powerful in this connection. His magic, therefore, has strong
elements of benevolence, as well as of aggression. He is referred
to as “straddling” Rada and Petro, for like the Samedi-Ghede
complex, Simbi contains elements of each nation in almost
equal measure and so stands apart from both.
And so there sprang up a new growth of loa, born in and
of the new world and because of the very nature of that new
world. A very few, such as Azacca of the maize culture, were
incorporated into the African ceremonials, the Rada rites.
Some of the new deities, as Ogoun Ge-Rouge, were created by
the transfiguration of an African principle into a new-world
manifestation. Some, like Samedi, emerged as independent,
separate figures born of the almost equal fusion of the two
cultures (and it is significant that these are now regarded as
perhaps the “strongest”). And some, like Dan Petro himself,
retained their new-world identity completely. To his already
substantial African heritage, then, the Haitian added these.
History shapes men, and men become ancestors, and when
* This extremely complex divinity is discussed more fully in the pantheon
chapter that follows, and in the Appendix dealing with Indian influences.
 Tradition as a Contemporary Function 71
ancestors become loa the history of the race runs in the blood of
the race as part of the psychic heritage which is passed on from
generation to generation.”?

4
TRADITION AS A CONTEMPORARY FUNCTION

It is clear that Titon’s heritage could not possibly have con-

tained all of his individual ancestors, on both sides of the family;
for the obligations toward such a multitude would have been
an intolerable burden for a single individual.28 The structure
of Voudoun provides several means by which such a number,
though continually increasing, is, simultaneously, continually
subject to condensation. The major “device” is that of historical
selectivity: the loa who are to be served individually, as prin-
ciples, are distinguished from the mere Dead, who are served
as a collective total. A second device is the assimilation of
individual ancestral loa into the figures of whatever major and
precedent loa seem to exemplify the same character. And
finally, since the children of a single family are inevitably
different in their development, the family deities are, as it were,
divided up between them. One child will be claimed by the
mother's Erzulie, another by the father’s Ogoun. But the
psychic inheritance of the child is a latent religious force. While
his physical heritage may show resemblance to one parent or
the other, in infancy, his deities, including the mait-téte, become
manifest only with maturity and establish their special position.*
* Ieas clear chat the Haitian relates general maturity and adulthood to psychic
development. Thus, if a child (even past the age of puberty) should become
possessed, that is not understood as a good omen or blessing; on the contrary, 1
is regarded with consternation and disfavor and every effort is made to avoid
the recurrence of such an event. The feeling is that a child is not yet equipped or
prepared, as a human being, for relationship with divinity, that he cannot yet
“endure” a loa, nor “control” him, and there is even the danger that the loa may
harm him by overwhelming him. This reflects, again, the high regard in which
the Haitian holds his own individual psychic power, for he does not think in
terms of being the helpless subject of his loa, but of a relationship of mutual
service and respect.
72 Les Serviteurs
It was this last process of selectivity which, through the
default of Titon’s brothers and sisters by conversion, had been
denied him. The consequent congruence of deities in his head
had created for him not only a numerical complication but
certain characterological conflicts that would not have
normally occurred. He had become the carrier of deities who
would otherwise have lived through other children and were
incompatible with his personality. Yet this very diversity gave
a scope to his heritage that was impressive, and, to some extent,
rare.
Titon had come to number his loa as 21, but it is unlikely
that the number was precise. Counting all of the individual
ancestral deities, it would easily have numbered more. On the
other hand, with all the deities properly grouped under
dominant principle loa, it would probably have numbered
less. It may be that 7, as a magic number of reasonable ampli-
tude, had been taken as representing the major categories, and
that this then had been multiplied by three as a means, again
magical, of indicating the variant manifestation of these basic
loa. The number 21, therefore, was probably Titon’s statement
of the degree and intensity of the psychic force with which he
was infused.
For the Haitian, it is his heritage that is the source of his life
force, it is his history that equips him for his immediate
activities, and it is from his ancestral loa that he derives the
psychic energy and intelligence upon which he relies to
empower and instruct him in his daily life.* It is not difficult,
then, to understand why his major preoccupation is with the
means by which he may achieve contact with that world of
* In this connection, the following statement by Malinowski (pp. 91-2), is
very relevant. “Myth, as a statement of primaeval reality which sull lives in
present-day life and as a justification by precedent, supplies a retrospective
pattern of moral values, sociological order and magical belief. . . . It fulfills a
function sui generis closely connected with the nature of tradition, with the con-
tinuity of culture, with the relation between age and youth, and with the human
attitude towards the past... . Myth is . . . an indispensable ingredient of all
culture.”
 Tradition as a Contemporary Function 73
les Invisibles where the Life force upon which he is dependent is
generated.” For the serviteur the cross-roads is more than a
metaphysical principle, or one operating only at birth and
death. It is at chis point of intersection that the abstract and
ancestral principles which are the loa—whose location 1s in an
absolute time and an absolute space—become a living organism
of this immediate moment and this particular place. As the
principle enters reality it not only acts upon that reality but is,
of necessity, defined, shaped and modified by it. It is at such
intersection that tradition meets contemporary need and faith
becomes the act of ritual service and divine response. At this
intersection the idea lives as action.
In Haiti the idea, the principle, must live, must function, for
the conditions of Haitian life are indeed difficult to endure. The
morning greeting is: “Et la nuit?” (And how was your night?)
and the conventional answer is: “Pas plus mal, merci” (No
worse, thank you). Even among the bourgeoisie the answer is:
“On se mainuent” (One gets along). These are not the theatrical
exaggerations of a nation given to complaint. On the contrary,
the Haitian has a fine comic sense, and welcomes the oppor-
tunity to laugh. These colloquial statements of rock-bottom
endurance are merely realistically accurate expressions of things
as they are.
The man of such a culture must be, necessarily, a pragmatist.
His immediate needs are too insistent, too pressing and too
critical, to permit the luxury of idealism or mysticism, and they
must be answered rather than escaped from. He has neither
ume, energy nor means for inconsequential activity. Huis
religious system must do more than give him moral sustenance;
it must do more than rationalize his instinct for survival when
survival is no longer a “reasonable” activity. It must do more
than provide a reason for living; it must provide the means for
living. It must serve the organism as well as the psyche. It
must serve as a practical methodology not as an irrational hope.
In consequence, the Haitian thinks of his religion in working
terms. To ask him whether he “believes” in Voudoun is to
74 Les Serviteurs
pose a meaningless, irrelevant question.* He answers: “I serve
the loa”, and, more than likely, he will say, “I serve so-and-so”,
giving even to general divine power a specialized focus. He
speaks of “la science des Mystéres” (the science of the Mystéres);
he respects the degree of connaissance (knowledge) in a houngan,
and his consequent ability to regler (govern, control) the loa.
And he demands action of his loa. They are required to pre-
scribe treatment for illness, to advise on planting and marriage,
and on affairs in general.
But needs change and those who serve loa largely because loa
serve them well transfigure those divinities according to those
needs. Ogoun, ancient loa of thunderbolts, ironsmiths and
warriors was, and is still, the principle of power. But, as the
Haitian has learned so well, power is political. Thus, in the
new world, a new aspect of Ogoun appeared: St. Jacques,
whose symbol is the national flag, who is greeted by the national
anthem, and is regarded as we might regard an influential man
in power politics and economic affairs. No one denies that
Ogoun is the greater figure—that beside his noble grandeur
St. Jacques seems merely pretentious, almost ridiculous. The
serviteurs are awed by the moral stature of the divine hero, and
they worship him; but they know that St. Jacques is more
useful, and they serve him well. The very nature of “functional”
loa is that they are more susceptible than the great loa to the
* The Haitian must be, and is, a very realistic person. His idea of the
universe is built upon observations and evidence; and he is also reasonable
enough to understand that reality extends beyond his immediate capacity and
opportunity to experience and observe it. He judges such unseen realities by a
pragmatic test: certain observable results indicate the reality of unobservable
forces and facts. But these are understood as realities, not as ir-real ideas or
“beliefs”. It is significant that, in Creole, the word “believe” is never used in
our sense of “a belief”, but only in the sense of an opinion as in “I believe that
he will come before nightfall”. A Haitian does not think of himself as “be-
lieving in” something; he thinks that it is so. If someone disputes with him
about anything in Voudoun, he considers this as he might any dispute about
reality, and conflicts about the loa, as conflicts about anything else, are under-
stood to result not from any ambivalence in the fact or event itself; but from
improper or insufficient observation, understanding, or from some selfish
motive for prevarication.
 Tradition as a Contemporary Function 75
flattery of ceremony and more inclined to barter their services.
Thus it may frequently occur, for instance, that a houngan will
serve several major loa (such as Damballah, Legba, Agwé
and Erzulie) during a single day’s ceremony, while, out of
concern for his large farm acreage, he will devote an entire day
to Azacca, loa of agriculture and a relatively lesser deity in the
hierarchy.% There is, as a matter of fact, an entire category of
loa travail (work loa) whose importance lies enurely in their
usefulness and their capacity for work. In these umes their
number and their ritual service seems to be increasing, although
there is never any question as to their minor stature relative to
the great loa.
For those men who are extremely ambitious, and willing to
risk dangerous bargains, there is even a category of deities who
can be “bought”. These appear to be related not to any cosmic
principles but to magical manipulation, and they usually
belong to the Petro nation. Such spirits (and they can hardly
be called loa) are even further removed from the divine loa
than the work deities. As a matter of fact, the real loa may
refuse to associate with the bought deities, and may abandon
the houngan or serviteur who deals with these latter.* It 1s this
threat of abandonment which has restricted the widespread
growth of such otherwise perhaps profitable arrangements.
Certainly the great loa will have nothing to do with the bocor,
the professional magician, who deals in zombies and in baka
(malevolent spirits contained in the form of various animals).
Thus, in their fashion, the great loa still serve men well, for if
the serviteur, grown either desperate with need or anxious with
ambituon, should pursue the logic of ritual service and divine
reward to the point where he comes to exploit divine power for
personal ends, the loa themselves create a crisis of alternatives.
In the final analysis, religion and magic stand as opposites.
* Another dangerous risk is also involved, namely, that such bought loa
may be inherited by the descendants, and, being malevolent in nature, cause
them much double. It is even possible that an elaborate ceremony might have
to be performed in order to restrain them. Herskovits (p. 222) speaks of this
possible development, and also of the withdrawal of the familial gods in anger.
76 Les Serviteurs
Religion presumes that the major forces of the universe (which,
after all, created life), are essentially benevolent in nature.* But,
like all organic powers, they have various requirements. Their
energy, which is constantly expended in the very act of being,
must be constantly replenished, and this is one of the obligations
of the serviteur. These huge forces are also a little “vague”, and
may sometimes go awry all of themselves, and so the serviteur,
through prayer and proper devotion, endeavors to assure their
benevolent disposition and to activate this positively. From
time to time, some intimately personal favor may be asked and
granted. But the overwhelming emphasis of religious service 1s
directed toward the improvement of the universal condition,
which will in turn accrue to the benefit of the individuals
within it. Religion, being a collective enterprise, is concerned
with directing the cosmic forces toward a collective public
good.
The secrecy which characterizes magic, on the other hand,
is a clue to its character. Magic is an individual action, under-
taken because the cosmos is not believed to be benevolent by
nature, or, at least, not benevolent enough to that person.
Magic is not based, then, on a confidence in the character of
cosmic forces, nor is it concerned with improving their con-
dition in any respect. On the contrary, it is dedicated to the
means by which some portion of those forces may be “tapped”,
channeled and focused to some personal end. The magician,
or the one having recourse to magic, sees himself as separate
from, in competition with, or even bitterly opposed to the
collective and the cosmic good. Where the religious man would
pray for rain—knowing it will fall upon his neighbor’s field
as well as his own—the magician is jubilant and triumphant if
he succeeds in controlling and focusing the shower precisely
within the limits of his own fence.**
If today, in Haiti, the contemporary serviteur tends to give
ceremonial emphasis to the loa whose favor is immediately and
* The Haitian saying is: “God is good.”
** For further comparison of religion with magic, see pp. 200-1, infra.
 Tradition as a Contemporary Function 77

MAGIC PENTACLE

materially useful; if many houngans are proud of “work loa”

and some even unashamed to have “bought” a loa; if magic (it
is still protective rather than aggressive for the most part)* is
becoming widely accepted as a necessary complement to
religious activities—these developments are evidence of the fact
that the Haitian is less certain than he was that the cosmos is
essentially benevolent; and they reflect, moreover, his feeling
that the society in which he lives has lost most of that integra-
uion, cohesion and homogeneity which marks a collective
culture. The Haitian approaches the moment when, as in so
many of our “civilized” cultures, man will come to feel himself
singular, alone and pitted against a hostile universe.
Meanwhile the great loa fight to arrest this development.
They rage against the deterioration of ritual disciplines; they
complain of insufficient service, attention, food; they strike at
the neglectful serviteur; they repeat their ultimate threat—that
they will withdraw. And, indeed, very gradually, their
* One of the functions of the houngan is to protect his people from the
malevolent machinations of the bocor. This means that he too must perform
magic, and must answer the evil wanga (charm) with the protective garde
(talisman). This has contributed to the great confusion between Voudoun, as a
religious pracuce, and the magical practices, which are actually completely
separate and outside the religious system. A man may be strong and powerful
because the loa have made him so; but it is the man who makes magic, not the
loa. Herskovits (p. 220) emphasizes this distinction, as do other observers.
78 Les Serviteurs
appearances have begun to become rarer, while the minor
deities now come often and with great aplomb. The Haitians
are not unaware of this. They say: “Little horses cannot carry
great riders.”

5
THE SERVITEUR AS CONTEMPORARY CITIZEN

One of Titon’s distinctions was that the great loa which

were his psychic heritage still came frequently. He was proud
of this, and cognizant of his responsibility. He took care not
to bring them into hounfors where they might either be
humiliated by lack of proper reception or possibly exploited by
unscrupulous persons. But this heritage had become, in recent
times, a mixed blessing. The twenty-one loa were not only a
positive power, but one which had to be ritually controlled so
that its energies should not spend themselves anarchically.
Moreover, the heritage involved proportionate obligations, and
demands, which Titon could not always fulfill, and so he was
in continual danger of arousing a divine rage.
It is undoubtedly for this reason that Titon had begun, at
an early age, to train himself in those knowledges and practices
that were designed to control the loa. It was logical that his
degree of control should be matched by a degree of service.
Consequently, as his mastery increased, the loa increasingly
demanded that Titon should dedicate himself completely and
become a houngan. Under normal conditions this would have
been the natural course for him. For, both in his divine
heritage and in his personal talents, he was equipped much
better for the priesthood than most houngans. But the con-
temporary state of affairs in Haiti, and his own situation in
particular, had, so far, prevented him from achieving that
degree of elevation.
The vocation of the houngan is usually hereditary. Along
with the profession itself, the heritage normally includes the
 The Serviteur as Contemporary Citizen 79
parental hounfor, peristyle, drums and other accoutrements of
service. In Titon’s case, however, the dislocation of his family
to the city, when they had given up or sold their land, had left
him without even a piece of ground upon which to begin
building. Moreover, his family’s conversion to Protestantism,
and their opposition to Voudoun, had so dislocated Titon
himself that he had no place in which to store his pot-de-téte,
the canari containing his gros-bon-ange. He had placed it
first in one hounfor, then in another, and finally, since he had
come to feel that the houngans involved were untrustworthy,
he had removed it from their protection altogether. It was at
once comical and tragic that he should have had no place
worthy of his pot-de-téte, the most intimate of sacred objects,
and that he finally should have ended by depositing it in the
home of an ethnologist whose disinterested sympathy could be
relied on.
With all his talents, it would seem that it should have been
possible for Titon to find jobs and to earn the money (a modest
sum even by middle-class Haitian standards) to buy the small
piece of land, and to build his hounfor, purchase the drums,
and pay for the ceremony of his elevation to houngan. Yet,
just because these talents were related to his religion, the most
obvious opportunities were eliminated. During the period of
the Haitian International Exposition, an effort was made to
present Voudoun as a folklore attraction for tourists: to stage
dances and rituals, and even to simulate possession by the
deities. Titon’s ability as a dancer and singer made him an
obvious choice for this entertainment. Yet from the beginning,
his Ghede opposed his participation. Titon himself could not
understand the opposition, and in a desperate desire to earn
the needed money, accepted the employment. But he appeared
for only one performance. From the first moment of his
appearance on the stage, his left eye began to close, by the will
of Ghede. By the time the evening was over the eye was
entirely closed and Titon was negotiating his withdrawal from
the “folklorique troop”.
 80 Les Serviteurs

In our terms, it may appear obvious that this was a psycho-

somatic phenomenon. Yet it is typical of the means by which
the Voudoun deities operate, enforcing moral principles even
when these are not consciously comprehended. Titon himself
had neither the sophistication nor the experience to evaluate the
presentation precisely. It was true that it enjoyed official
sponsorship, and indicated the ostensibly complimentary
popular interest in the religion; and it is true that the costumes
were more costly than those that a simple houngan could
proffer for the celebration of the loa and that the audience was
larger than any that had ever attended a regular ceremony;
nevertheless such exploitation as folklore attraction constituted
a degradation of the religion. It was the ancient loa who, with
divine accuracy, understood this and perceived also the
falsification and corruption implicit in the fact that the songs
would be sung, the dances danced, and the rituals performed
not in the service of the loa, nor in the exercise of obeisance and
discipline, but for the purpose of self-exhibition and self-
agerandizement. It was the ancient Ghede whose “roots are
without end”—who had been passed down in the family line
through countless generations—whose ancient hand reached
from the infinitely distant past, to act with such immaculate
contemporary judgement.
Titon had hoped, when he had contemplated the employ-
ment, to earn at least the money necessary to have a houngan
perform the ceremony of “taking the asson”, the ceremony of
priestly investiture. Now, however, and by the act of his own
mait-téte, this way had been closed to him. Meanwhile he
was acutely aware of the fact that he was more capable and
worthy than many houngans who had had the good fortune
to inherit not only their profession, but the material means with
which to implement it. And particularly when he had been
witness to the relative inadequacy of such priests, he would
defiantly, and in desperation, proclaim that there was no
houngan great enough to give him the asson. It would be the
loa themselves who would confer upon him this sacred
 The Serviteur as Contemporary Citizen 81
instrument of divine power, as soon as he had managed to get
the money together to build the hounfor and the peristyle.
To call upon his loa, thus, at this critical moment, was to
call upon everything of which he was, himself, the final issue
—to call not only upon the generality, the principles of his
patrimony, but, beginning with the Marassa, the first men,
upon the roll of that ancestral progression which had successively
borne that complex forward: the African tribes, the Indian
allies, the chousands of individuals whose blood had nourished
it and whose diverse personal genius had swelled and elaborated
its manifold and various aspects. His invocation was the
genealogy of his own divinity, and, condensed into the short-
hand of this nomenclature, contained the record of the race,
of all that which, flowing like a river forward in time, was to
be funneled now into this single individual so that, in his own
person, the accumulated force of moral history would be
pitted against contemporary circumstance.
 Classification of Voudoun Loa according

RADA RITES
(Initiatory, Benevolent Divinities)

NANCHONS: Nago Jaba

(Nations, Tribes) Dahomey (Nigeria) Ghede | Martinique

FAMILY LINES: Wedo | Dwarf Boar !

PRINCIPLES Legba-Sé Alovi Obatala

CROSSROADS . Attibon- Ogoun Panama '
Phallic princes fertility; | Legba Kadja- (hat)
childbirth, sun-fire, andro- | Avradra Bossu
geneity, omniscience. Ogoun Bayé
Characteristics: tree, cane, Agao’ Loco ,
t. aye

CHTHONIC, UNDERWORLD Alovi- Ogoun- Ghede- |

Death; phallic principle; Ghede Badagris Nimbo |
fertility; childbirth; night;
moon; androgeneity; omni- Bossu- Brav Ghede {
science; cemeteries; magic; Core.
trickery and jokes; island ™”. \
below the sea. (?) !

TTELLURIC, EARTH Agao-Wedo (Ogoun- , Ghede- Azacca-Medé

ioe vegetables, fer . Dadal adagris Mazacca | ~Cousin- —

Zaka

URANIC, HEAVENS
Sky; rainbow; life-principle; Damballah and Ogoun Shango
cosmic egg; serpent; rivers Ayida Wedo O
Se SD goun Batala
and springs, Sobo Ghede
Also: thunder, wind, light- L’Oraille
ning. Badé, Badessy Ghede
Z’Eclai
Agarou-
Tonerre

SEA Agwé Arroyo Agwé (?) Immamou

Wind; thunder, cannon-
fire.
Also: boats, sea-shells.
Also: male consort of female
principle.

FIRE Bossu- | Ogoun Ferei

. . _ oy Trois- ~
weesaae Tron-forging; Comes Ogoun Fai
Red color. St. Jacques

FEMALE Erzulie Freda Brigitte

Seduction, feminity; Dahomey
fertility. La Siréne
Pp La Balianne
rotectress. Gran Erzulie

ANCESTRAL N boucl ; Loco-Roi-

Racial origins; androgeneity; anan-bouciou Akadja ago
priesthood; trees; healing (androgynous) Adja Nago Pi
powers; guardian of tradi. (androgynous?) Kadja- ago Fiman
tions; parental disciplines. Loco-Attiso (male) Bossu
Agassou (male)
Ayizan (female)
lo Principle, Origin, and Character

EINDEPEN- AMBIVA- PETRO RITES

DANT LENT (Magical, Malevolent, Deemons)

beend Quisea Cenge Petre

Miscel- 7
Kanga Sianld inacous

(African (Amertran (African (American La Flam- Ge-Rouge Crab

origin) origin) (origin) besu
Ousange (?) | Ow!

lenman-Ibo | Simbi-en- Legbe-Congo | Carrefour Amine-Gati- Bambearre-| Sousou

~ deux-csux (Kalfu) Ls Taibe Pannen
Legbe-Petro Moundon-

Gee |r ™
Limbe Zeo
Legbe-Ibo
Pimbe

Ibo- General- Beron Samedi Ghede Crimineile

Lazile Bris¢
Baron La Croix
Baron Cimi-
tiére
Baron Piquant Azagon La
Croix
Matt-Grand-
Bois-D’ Let

Congo Zandor | Marinette

Congo Savanne| = —

Dembailah Congo Zandor | Dan Petro Damballah | Damballah | Simbi

Ossange Cas Seen TO La Flam- Ge-Rouge
Simbi beau
Ti-Jean Petro
Saint-Blanc

Ge-
Fee Simbi “frase

Cango Zandor | Petro rites in | Ogoun-Le- Ogoun Ge- Ogoun

Simbi Congo Sevann general related | Flambeau ouge emsen
to
Nanchou

Mai- Ti-Quits Marinette- Erzulie Ge- Brzulie

Louise Congo Bres Chéche “Rouge Lembe
Pied Chéche a
Erzulie
Mapionne

Ibo-Lele Gran-Simbs

Tbo- Loco
 Note on Classification of Voudoun Loa

The origin of a number of these loa is somewhat obscure; moreover,

observers differ as to whether others should be classified as Rada or
Petro. This chart, therefore, cannot be considered definitive. Nevertheless,
It serves to illuminate the manner in which the various tribes, family lines
and American-Indian divinities have been organized together into a
single, compatible system. A complete ceremonial service would include
the major principles (Cross-roads, etc.), as expressed in each major
category: Rada, Ibo, Quitta, Congo, Petro. As an example of such a
ceremony, the loa which might be invoked have been underlined. In a
sense, the nanchons, or nations, have come to represent various aspects of
those principles, differing according to moral or magical emphasis and
parucular ethos, so that a principle can be followed through its mani-
festations in the benevolent Rada line, to the ambivalent Simbi (who is
understood to straddle the Rada-Petro division) to the dangerous and
even malevolent Petro. Each of these nanchons include, in addition, a
differentiation in family lines which have, in some cases, retained their
identity by place-name (Wedo) or ancestral totemic symbol (dwarf,
boar, owl, or crab).
It is also clear that each of the eight principles contains elements of all
the others: the crossroads can be understood to include the entire cosmos,
below and above earth; the sky, or life-principle, represented by the
serpent rainbow reflected in—hence encompassing—the waters, thus
comprehends the abyss as well as the sky; the abyss, or underworld, is the
actual domicile of the ancestors, etc. The distinction between these major
principles is, then, primarily one of emphasis, and these distinctions are
not equally marked in all the nanchon lines. Simbi, for example, stands
almost as a single figure covering the entire cosmic range, in contrast to
the differentiations in the Dahomean line. The absence of any important
chthonic or telluric figure in the Dahomean line would indicate that the
African Legba, as a crossroads loa, may have comprehended those
provinces; and that Ghede and Azacca, both of whom have strong
American elements, were interpolated into the Rada rites in Haiti. On
the other hand it is interesting to note that although in the Rada rites,
the Nago Ogoun is primarily the warrior, or power principle, there still
exist Ogouns who represent all the major differentiated principles, and
thus make up a complete Nago cosmic system. The Ghede and the Ibo
84
 Note on Classification of Voudoun Loa 85
lines, judging by available data, are less differentiated; in che Ghede line
the crossroads principle would seem to be the position from which the
cosmic whole is comprehended, while in the Ibo line, the ancestral
principle is the point of cosmic departure. The Congo line has been
largely assimilated into the Petro, and this later American nanchon is as
strong and full as the African Rada. The text of the Pantheon Chapter
which follows and the footnote references contain the data upon which
this chart arrangement was based.
Ic is interesting to note that the ancestral principle, as an educational,
initiatory force, is strong on the Rada side and weak in Petro where the
underworld, as the basis of magical manipulation, is notably emphasized.
Petro also contains the strongest agrarian figure, in Marinette, and is
characterized by an emphasis on fire and earth and by an absence of a
water loa of any stature unless Simbi is included in the Petro category.
 CHAPTER III

The Divine Horsemen

THE NATURE OF THE LOA

JusT as the physical body of a man is a meaningless, material

substance, devoid of judgement, will and morality, unless a
soul infuses and animates it, so the universe would be but an
amoral mass of organic matter, inevitably evolving on the
initial momentum of original creation, were it not for the loa
who direct it in paths of order, intelligence and benevolence.
The loa are the souls of the cosmos.*
A religion so based on the belief that matter is animated
by a non-material “spirit” would ordinarily be classified as
animistic. Such religions are said to be characterized by gods
of the natural elements and by the belief that trees, stones and
other such material objects are rendered animate by spirits. By
these standards, Voudoun would seem, at first glance, to be an
animistic religion. However, any effort to systematize the
Voudoun pantheon in terms of the major elements—earth, air,
fire and water—becomes a Procrustean operation which
amputates such major divinities as Legba, God of the Cross-
roads, Ghede, God of the Dead, Erzulie, Goddess of Love,
and makes of Ogoun a loa of fire (which is actually but his
characterological symbol) instead of the God of War. More-
over, although the loa may reside in trees (and, as a matter of
fact, in stones, streams, etc.), these serve merely as physical
vessels for them; and just as the loa in a govi could not at all be
properly called the loa of the govi, so the loa cannot be under-
stood as the spirits of the trees or of any physical vessel in which
they may be lodged. It becomes apparent, then, that the
* The loa did not create the cosmos; that was the function of the initial
creator divinity. For a discussion of the réle of this first source in Voudoun and
the position of the loa relative to it, see pp. 54-6.
86
 The Nature of the Loa 87
metaphysical system of Voudoun does not lend itself to the
orthodox arrangements of the animustic classification.*
It is also customary to assume that a man of “primitive”
culture, lacking an advanced scientific understanding of the
physical universe, and lacking actual technological facilities,
seeks to control it by devotional appeal to, and magical mani-
pulation of these “mystical” spirits to whose activities he
attributes all phenomena.** But the fact is that within the limits
of their equipment and needs, the men of such primitive
cultures do have an excellent pragmatic control of their im-
mediate environment. Explorers have long ago learned to
be guided by native techniques (when limited to native
* For a critical discussion of anthropological misinterpretations of the so-
called primitive mentality, see Notes III, 1-4, pp. 296-8.
** In the usual course of events, a primitive culcure 1s first invaded by another
culture, so that a series of new problems is abruptly posed. The invaders are
usually aggressively bent on exploiting this culture, and, to facilitate chis, set out
deliberately to destroy its integration. The religion of those invaded—being both
unprepared for and disarmed by the new circumstances—is understandably
ineffectual and is consequently judged to be a “mystique” divorced from reality.
But this was not true of its relationship to the realities of the indigenous context
in which it was evolved, and for which it had represented a very satisfactory
adjustment. Moreover, in Haiu, for instance, practices which may initially seem
to be superstitious often prove, upon greater familiarity with the situation, to be
eminently practical in that particular context. The fact that such habits persist
even when the individual is removed to a context where they are no longer
valid—as with peasants moved to the city—and that they are then observed
within this new context, has created a distorted and exaggerated notion of the
manner in which a primitive undertakes to cope with reality. As a matter of fact,
apart from the very universal tendency of habits to persist, they may serve an
important psychological function in such a situation, as a familiar and stabilizing
pattern, a comforting echo of the known past in an otherwise confusing and
frightening new world.
It is rue that occasionally a “taboo” may prevent the most complete adjust-
ment to immediate reality, but this may have been initially reasonable (as was
the Jewish prohibition of pork) and such taboos are, in any case, very specialized
in application.
As indication of the unfortunate substitution of superstition or magic for
science, the examples cited most frequently refer to the treatment of disease.
Even here any final conclusion warrants careful consideration. For a discussion
of the herbal knowledge of houngans and the prevalence of psychosomatic
disturbance for which ritual provides effective therapy, see pp. 162-71.
88 The Divine Horsemen
equipment) for exploiting the available resources; they have
been struck by the practical ingenuity demonstrated in the
accomplishment of apparently impossible feats; and they have
testified to a native familiarity with natural cycles and symptoms
which amounts, in effect, to an astonishing ability to predict
natural phenomena with great accuracy and to use or avoid
them as the case may require.
Instead of regarding primitive religion as a falsification of
the true nature of matter, as compensation for and even as
antagonistic to a true understanding of the physical universe,
it might be useful to assume, as a hypothesis at least, that such
religious systems propose ideas which are essentially correct
and in harmony with the true nature of the physical universe.
Thus, one might reconstruct the origin of Voudoun as follows:
that the Haitian—or, more properly, his African ancestor—
observed the universe, both nature and man as part of nature,
and, in its operation, discerned certain major and recurrent
principles; that he distinguished between the principle of the
thing and the thing itself and remarked that the material objects
or phenomena are transitory or destructible and singular,
whereas the principles themselves are persistent and pervasive,
or immortal and universal; that he consequently estimated these
latter as of an order superior to matter; and, finally, that it is this
superior order—these principles to which he himself is subject
—which he conceives of as divinity. In a sense, then, he did
not so much ascribe divinity to matter as deduce the spirit of
matter from its manifestations. Moreover, these principles which
have been abstracted from the phenomena in which they are
manifest are not less real than the phenomena, but merely non-
physical and invisible; and this fact may illuminate the Vou-
doun concept of les Invisibles as real.? The loa are supernatural
in the same sense that a principle is super-natural or abstract.
However, since the forces in question—whether understood
as principles or as les Invisibles—can be perceived only when
manifest in matter, the serviteur addresses himself to material
objects and phenomena, particularly in ritual, whose purpose
 The Nature of the Loa 89
is at least partially instructive; and in this context such material
manifestations may be said to serve as exemplary demonstra,
uons.* Moreover, there are certain physical phenomena in
which the principle is so dramatically manifest that there has
been almost no dissociation between the divinity and the
physical manifestation. This is the case with major elemental
forces such as the sea, which alone, as a physical phenomenon,
adequately expresses its own complex and primordial principle.
Yet the distinction remains explicit in Voudoun: it is not the
sea that is sacred; it is Agwé, the spirit of the sea, who is
divine. To worsbip the loa is to celebrate the principle, not the matter
in which it may be momentarily or permanently manifest.
If divinity is understood as a reference to principle (whether
of life, death, love or affinity, war or conflict, etc.), the insis-
tence of the primitive that all physical phenomena are animated
by divinity, his refusal to conceive of accidental—i.e. un-
principled—phenomena, and his conviction that even the most
minor detail is an expression of a major force—these beliefs
are consistent extensions of the conviction that the universe is
completely integrated and entirely logical, however devious or
obscure that logic may sometimes seem. The Voudoun loa do
not have a supernatural prerogative of arbitrary decision. An
event which, to the serviteur, does not seem logical is not
accepted with good grace as the “will of God”; on the con-
trary, the serviteur is aggressive in calling the loa to account and
in exacting the explanation to which he feels entitled and which
would indicate the corrective procedure he should follow. This
belief that all phenomena must contain some logical principle,
this concept of a pervasive logical causation is, as a matter of
fact, identical with the premise underlying scientific in-
vestigation.®
* For a discussion of ritual as a means of disciplinary training and as a
palpable demonstrauon of abstract principles for educational purposes see pp.
194, 198. In effect, this use of ricual constitutes the primitive version of the new
theories underlying audio~isual instructional aids and the contemporary appre-
ciation of the efficacy of movies and television as means of concretely conveying
the operation of scientific principles and theories.
90 The Divine Horsemen
However, the perception of principle—the organization of
experience into a meaningful pattern—is a function of the mind
of man; the Voudoun expression is precisely “to have loa in
the head”.* Moreover, while Voudoun recognizes, for example,
that both the sea and Agwé, the principle of the sea, are
objective realities, it specifies that Agwé—as a figure separate
from the actual sea—comes to one’s head not from the sea but
from one’s parents. The inheritance of loa, then, refers to the
transmission of ideas or principles, or what is, in effect,
education. Furthermore, these principles are handed down in
the very blood that links one generation to another. Just as
blood itself is constantly subject to glandular and dietary
variations, so the psychic chemistry of these individual
carriers, itself affected both by internal conditions and by
external circumstances, in turn affects the principles which 1t
nourishes. The loa, then, partakes of the nature of the bead that bears
it. The principle is modified by person.**
This would seem to leave the way open for such limitless
variations upon the theme, as it were, that the identity and
* For a discussion of the human mind as a source of divinity see note
infra.
** For a discussion of “inheritance” as parental influence during the formative
years, see pp. 149-50. As the parents play the decisive rdle in a person’s psychic
development, it is that particular aspect of the loa which has characterized the
family line that is inherited. Moreover, it is recognized that the inheritor will,
in turn, further modulate (to a very minor degree) that loa in reference to his
own character. (See discussion re “baptism” of a new loa, p. 219.)
It should also be noted that the fact that the major principle is modified,
modulated and particularized into an aspect by individuals may appear—to
those accustomed to the untouchable, abstract absolutism of divinity in non-
ancestral religious systems—to affect a reduction in the stature and scope of the
original “racine” loa. This impression is encouraged by the frequent smallness
of the contemporary “horse”, who is consequently mounted by minor aspects
of the loa. However, the same process may and does enlarge the scope of the loa
and add significant potency to his activities, since they come to encompass
contemporary concepts, as was the case when Titon’s Ghede acted so strongly
in reference to the Folklorique troupe. (See p. 79.) In any case it is a system
which democratizes the divinity, and accepts the consequent results, for better
or for worse. Certainly such a system is less mystic than those religions which
detach divinity from man, and, in so doing, imply that divinity is an attribute
per se of the cosmos.
 The Nature of the Loa 91
continuity of the principle would be almost obliterated by
individual particularizations. But in a relatively homogeneous
culture too great a diversity of individual attitudes would noe
occur. Moreover, the attenuated process by which a parent
becomes ancestor, and the ancestor in turn becomes archetype,
serves to filter out the merely decorative elaboration, the purely
subjective modulations of that first principle. Only that variant
endures which can remain as significant to a distant descendant
as it first appeared to the immediate family. In the course of the
evolution into loa there emerges, from the singular person, the
general principle which characterized him. Thus, just as
principles may be deduced from the objective phenomena in
which they are manifest, so they may be discerned in the
subjective attitudes of persons. Religion includes an analysis of
the physical universe but its function is to propose moral
values; it is not concerned exclusively with matter, but equally,
even predominantly, with man. The optimistic man perceives
reality as a benevolence; the unfortunate man knows intimately
its violent faces. A loa contains both subject and object, both the seer
and the thing seen. In Voudoun neither man nor matter is divine. A loa
is an intelligence, a relationship of man to matter.4
Such a degree of philosophical and psychological awareness
—containing, as it does, such strong similarities with modern
relativism—is admittedly unexpected of a so-called primitive
culture. Yet it is the only interpretative reconstruction of the
Voudoun metaphysical logic which is confirmed by the actual
structures, beliefs and practices and in terms of which both the
major assertions and the ritual details emerge in meaningful
relationship.* It reveals the precedence of the Marassa over the

* A religion such as Voudoun, whose function 1s to impart to the individuals

of the community a system of mental and emotional convictions upon which
the very survival of the community is dependent, does not, and could not require
of them that they perceive and understand its principles on an abstract, meta-
physical level in order that they be inspired to participate in it. On the con-
trary, every possible physical technique—particularly drumming and dancing
—is used to involve the individuals in acaviaes in which those metaphysical
and moral principles are structurally implicit, so chat these are, in a sense,
 92 The Divine Horsemen
loa as a statement that men perceive and hence, in a sense,
precede principles; it clarifies the function of loa-inheritance as
the transmission of values; it explains why maturity is a con-
dition for the manifestation of the loa mait-téte, and why this
loa dominates the other loa of the person’s heritage; it illuminates
the apparently ambivalent relationship of a man to his loa as a
delicate and dynamic balance between devotion to and mastery
of one’s principles; possession can be understood, in this light,
as a transitory period of exalted and exclusive obsession with
a principle; finally it provides a guide for the organization
of the loa into the pattern of a meaningful and consistent
pantheon.*
unconsciously absorbed by the participant. This is no more, but certainly no
less, than a highly developed form of the “learn by doing” educational method,
and the techniques employed in Voudoun are further elaborated in the
discussion on the function of ritual, in Chapter V. Indeed, it is precisely
because these concepts have been unconsciously absorbed and have become
the very premises of their subsequent thought-patterns, that the individuals
are least aware of them as explicit concepts. When a serviteur speaks of Vou-
doun, he speaks, as it were, “after the fact”, from a point of view already
determined by his participation and one so deeply “natural” to him that he is
not aware of it as a particular point of view. If this point of view were to be
repeatedly challenged, he might arrive at an articulation of his premises in the
course of being obliged to justify them to some opposing point of view. (The
most articulated metaphysics belong to those mythologies whose history has
exposed them to opposition and the consequent need for exposition and justifi-
cation). But Voudoun has tended to adjust and assimilate other ideologies to
itself rather than be challenged by them and has not arrived at such self-
articulation. It has been, and is still, satisfied to fill its primary function: the
creation of serviteurs who live in terms of its metaphysical and moral structure.
The metaphysic of Voudoun is not, then, to be arrived at by questioning a
series of informants who, baffled by an approach on unfamiliar, abstract
grounds, embarrassed by a sense of personal inadequacy and humiliated by the
implication that they lack in an understanding of their own practices, would
improvise answers according to their respective powers of invention. However,
the inadequacy of such confused and conflicting articulations is precisely an
inadequacy of articulation and not of the metaphysic itself; and just as the
Bible serves as a more reliable source for the Christian metaphysic than the
fumbling answers of some chance pedestrian, so it is the ritualistic structure
itself of Voudoun which has here served as the source for a study of the meta-
physics implicit within it.
* The efforts to systematize the presentation of the pantheon seem consis-
tently to have been based on a rejection of the possibility that it expressed a
 The Nature of the Loa 93
An arrangement of the Voudoun pantheon which would be
accurate in terms of the metaphysical system of which it is a
part, must indicate simultaneously, both the cosmic and the
human principles of which a loa is compounded; it must, in a
sense, locate each loa as point of intersection between the
objective and the subjective realities. This is the method which
governs both the accompanying chart (pp. 82-5) and the
discussion which follows. The cosmic principles are distin,
guished in one direction, so to speak;* and ar right angles to
this plane are the major nanchons (nations or tribes) and
family lines. The purpose of the tribal identification is not
primarily to indicate historical origin, but to designate an
metaphysical logic of even minimal caliber. The loa have been listed in order of
ceremonial invocation (Maximilien), without any interpretation of the logic
of that order. They have been listed in the order in which they occurred to the
mind of informants. (Herskovits has so listed them. He elsewhere remarks that
the loa may be divided into categories such as the “great” loa, the ancestral, the
personal, etc., but does not arrange the known loa in such categories.) They
have been Jisted alphabetically. (Simpson (II) lists 152 loa in this manner.)
They have been classified according to the animistic system (Denis). Mose
frequently they have been arranged in terms of cribal or national origin. (Cour-
lander has devoted great care to such an arrangement, but within the cibal
group the loa have, again, been listed alphabetically instead of in order of
importance or logical precedence.) Such an arrangement does not account for
the link between tribes, does not illuminate what they hold in common and
even conveys the impression of presenting a comparative study of separate
culeures instead of clarifying the principle by which the various tribes could
amalgamate into a single religious system and showing in what manner such an
amalgamauon affected the original and separate pantheons.
* The order in which these are presented is not the ritualistic order. Legba,
who is normally first, being guardian of the gates, is here followed by Ghede,
who is usually saluted separately, ac the very end of the Rada nite. However,
Ghede seems to have absorbed so many of Legba’s original functions that it
has seemed meaningful, in presenting the pantheon, to place these two loa
in immediate proximity and so reveal Ghede as principled complement to
Legba. Loco and Ayizan, as patrons of the hounfor and the priesthood,
normally follow Legba, since they are understood as the agents of communica,
aon with the loa. While this is ritualistically logical, I have preferred to retain
the continuity between all the elemental loa, and to put the priesthood principle
at the end, since it is essentially a different order of principle and leads one back
to the human world after the divine tour. These are the major departures from
che conventional ritualistic order.
94 The Divine Horsemen
identifiably characteristic attitude or ethos, which is the mean-
ing such identifications have come to have for the contemporary
serviteur. When a Haitian says “Nago”, for instance, he may
or may not be aware of the original geographical location and
the history of the Nago tribes. But he is certain that a Nago
loa is characteristically more militant than Rada, although
perhaps less cosmic in the primordial sense; more established
and powerful than Petro, but less immediately aggressive and
forceful; more generally respected than the Ibos, but less
intimately authoritative for Ibo families. In short, he intends
an identification which contains, for the informed serviteur, a
complex characterization relative to the other nations. Within
such major tribal designations, he may also make reference to
family lineage, either as an indication of personality (as a minor
variant of the major character or aspect) or because such desig,
nation serves the personal psychological function of proclaim
ing his own intimate and physical relationship to the divinity.®
In a sense, he thus describes the family tree from the original
racine or root principle, up through the major divisions, to his
own family branch.
Where there had previously appeared to be a mass and maze
of assorted loa, such an arrangement suddenly reveals a galaxy
of unanticipated integrity and dimension. The enormous range
of the aspects illuminates the scope and grandeur of the
principle; and the principle, in turn, gives meaning and stature
to the manifold variations. Indeed, it reveals the truly cosmic
nature of the major loa, for each of them contains elements of
all the others. Each incorporates, in one way or another, and to
varying degrees, life force or fecundity; the protective or paternal;
some aspect of both the over, and the under-world or death;
some degree of both the positive and the negative aspects of the
dominant principle represented; and some measure of both
abstraction and magical immediacy. The loa are distinguished,
one from the other, not by their limitations, but by their differing
emphases, and the emphasis colors the elements which they
share. In a sense, each loa is but an aspect of one central cosmic
 The Nature of the Loa 95
principle differentiated by the empbases which that central principle
manifests according to the varying contexts in which it operates.
Such an arrangement of the pantheon reveals, as well, a
significant facet of the Haitian serviteur. For the characterolo-
gical details and accessories by which the various manifestations
of his loa are identified are not decorative, whimsical accoutre-
ments; they are evidence of his genius for creating a concrete
physical expression, not only of the general ideological sense
of each loa, but of the subtle emphasis and even nuance by
which each aspect is distinguished. As Rada Goddess of Love,
Erzulie speaks in diminutive, soprano accents; in her Petro
aspect her voice has a primordial, almost beast-like growl.*
Such characterological delineation in living actuality stands, in
Voudoun, in the place of the literature and art in which most
other mythologies portray their divinities.
The intimate relation between loa and serviteur, the depen-
dence, as it were, of the loa upon the very blood of the serviteur
for existence and transmission, has been the guarantee of the
loa’s life. Today the gods complain more and more frequently
that they are not served well enough, nor feasted adequately.
And, indeed, if their energies are not restored, they may, for
want of proper devotion, in turn soon grow too weak to
support the devotee. Meanwhile the serviteur, throwing up his
hands in an ambivalent gesture at once of helplessness and
defiance, says: “Let them do what they wish with me. I can’t
do any more.” Displacement, poverty, instability are effecting
a gradual but certain demoralization. The psychic blood of the
people is growing thinner; the great gods appear less frequently.
The serviteur says, with a nostalgic resignation: “Big loa cannot
ride little horses.”
When they do appear, many of the major loa weep. Various
* Almost every detail is specified for the aspects of the loa, and these serve
both to idenufy him and to guide his ritual service. Postures, voice level,
atutudes, epithets, expressions, etc., are formalized for each aspect; and each has
specific colors, days of the week, trees, beverages, diets, etc., sacred to him.
Such informauon is given throughout the works of writers on Haiu, and
Rigaud has been especially systematic in recording such detail.
96 The Divine Horsemen
explanations are given for this. But the loa presumably have
vision and the power of prophecy, and it is possible that, with
such divine insight, they sense, already, the first encroaching
chill of their own twilight. It is not surprising that this should
come. It is more surprising that it has not, already, long since
passed into night. Yet the gods have known other twilights,
and the long nights, and then the distant but recurrent dawn.
And it may be that they weep not for themselves, but for the
men who served and will soon cease to serve them.
When this occurs, this pantheon which has been manifest
only as living form, will leave behind it little of written record,
save what may be subsequently recorded in the light of another
world, another era. In this suspended, composed twilight,
which neither distorts by dazzling nor yet destroys with dark-
ness, the loa seem to linger a moment, as one might pause on the
threshold of departure, to remember, and to be remembered,
and to be perhaps recorded in this luminous light.

LEGBA--THE OLD MAN AT THE GATE

The myths of all men agree that, first, there was light: the
birth of the world and the birth of the sun are one. In Dahomey,
this fire of life in which divine creative power was first made
manifest, was Legba; and today, in Haiti, the ritual bonfires
burn for him.® As the sun, then, he was the medium through
which that primal energy was funneled to the world, the cord
which connects the universe eternally with its divine origin.
Thus, of all earth’s procreation, Legba is both the parent and
the patron.
As principle of life, as the initial procreative whole, Legba
was both man and woman and his vever still bears the sign of
this totality.” As navel of the world, or as its womb, Legba is
addressed in prayers at childbirth with the phrase which
signals him: “Open the road for me . . . do not let any evil
 Legba—The Old Man at the Gate 97

VEVER FOR LEGBA

spirits bar my path.’’8 But Dahomeans knew him mainly as the

cosmic phallus, and the statue of Legba, squatting, staring at
his own enormous symbol and source of generation, was every
where: in the market-place, the common square and, above all,
at the cross-roads, where its blessing of ferulity fell upon all
those who passed, as the sun shines in all directions and is
itself central to all of them.®
Whether as cord or phallus, Legba—life—is the link
between the visible, mortal world and the invisible, immortal
realms. He is the means and avenue of communication between
them, the vertical axis of the universe which stretches between
the sun door and the tree root. Since he is god of the poles of
the axis, of the axis itself, he 1s God of the Cross-roads,* of
the vital intersection between the two worlds. The poteau-
mitan, the center-post of the peristyle, through which the loa
arrive at the ceremony, 1s also called the poteau-Legba;!° and
whatever other sacred tree may be missing, there can be no
* The significance of the crossroads in Voudoun metaphysics has been
discussed on pp. 36-7 and pp. 72-3, supra. Courlander (pp. 22, 25 and 35)
elaborates on other aspects of Legba as cross-oads loa.
98 The Divine Horsemen
hounfor without Legba’s tree at the gate (there are usually two);
for it is not only itself an avenue for Legba, it is the symbol of
all avenues as well.*
Since he stands at the cross-roads, he has access to the worlds
on either side, as if he were on both sides of the mirror surface
which separates them. Therefore it is of Legba that one may
inquire: “Papa Legba, we ask you, What do you see there?”
“O Creole, learn the secrets, O Legba.”"! And at the same time,
“Alegba watches me. We do not see him, he sees us. All those
who say the truth, He is there, he hears. All those who speak
evil, He is there, he listens. . . .”1 Indeed, his knowledge com-
prehends the whole universe, and because he knows, also, the
sacred language of Mawu-Lisa,!* the language of the highest
god and the loa, it is through Legba that all prayers and
supplications must pass.
Legba, then, is guardian of the sacred gateway, of the Grand
Chemin, the great road leading from the mortal to the divine
world. It is he who grants contact with the loa, and he who
must be first saluted if this is to be achieved. “Papa Legba, open
the gate, Attibon Legba, open the gates so that we may pass
through, Papa; When I will have passed, I will thank the
loa... .” “Legba, who sits on the gate, Give us the right to
pass.15 Indeed, in Haiti it is now Legba’s major function to
guard the gates.
As origin of life, the sun was origin of time, too, and of
history, and, as origin it contains, as well, conclusions. In
Dahomey Legba was called Fa (Destiny),1® for, once initiated,
nature and time pursue their logic and follow their inevitable
course. The Grand Chemin is the celestial arc of the sun’s path.
Legba, who knows the divine language and through whom
one might seek recourse from destiny, is himself the destined
answer to the riddle of the Sphinx: he was once the new-born
* Offerings to the loa are usually made at the center-post in the peristyle,
although they are sometimes made at the trees sacred to the loa. Offerings to
Legba are made, usually, at his tree, however, and a macoutte (straw sack)
filled with food is kept hanging in it for him. Various songs make reference to
this macoutte.
 Legba— The Old Man at the Gate 99
infant sun, lived through the fertile prime of his noon, and
is now the old sun, walking with a cane—the “third leg”
—in the afternoon of life.* The serviteur sings tenderly of this
venerable ancient, who was a good man. “Legba, limping
along. It is a long time since we have seen you”;!? “Old bones,
oh old bones. . . . O Papa Legba, O can’t you see I have no
bones!"28 And they would help him, for he is their past: “I
will carry Legba’s macoutte [straw sack]; Put it on my back.”?®
And when he can no longer even walk, they will carry him and
his burden: “Try to walk, now, Alegba; We will carry
Atubon Legba; We will carry his poteau-mitan. . . . When
we're ured we'll set it down. This post we carry on our back.”
Indeed, the Haitians do not know him as the beautiful young
man of Dahomey, the patron of sexual urges. They say that he
is an old peasant who has worked his fields hard all his life and
is now at the end of his powers. When he possesses a person,
the limbs are crippled and twisted and terrible to see.?!
Legba, who was life and its destiny, who was the Sun,
itself destined to descend from the noon of each year, from the
zenith of its ardent fire, has become an old tattered man shuffling
down the road, with his crude twisted cane or crutch, a small
fire in his pipe, a little food in his macoutte, and sores on his
body, as if the maggots had begun their work already. It is as
if in coming westwards, the Africans had left behind the
morning and noon of their own destiny, the promise and power
of their own history. The God of the Cross-roads himself
approaches the Cross-roads,™ and already in the dark mirror
of the nether regions appear the first dim outlines of his inverted
reflection, as the sun, setting into dark waters, might there
appear as a new darkly rising moon. Already Legba, who 1s
the tree stretching skywards, carries also the name Grand Bois,
* The walking-stick upon which the sun leans as it grows old and weak is
a classic and universal accoutrement of the sun deity. It is che “third leg in the
afternoon” of che Sphinx’s riddle, and was especially marked by the Egypuans
in a celebration rite for the “nativity of the sun’s walking-stick” (Frazer, p. 78).
In Haia the twisted, gnarled cane is known as the baton-Legba (Courlander,
p. 109).
 100 The Divine Horsemen
master of the island below the waters, of its submerged forests.
Already his omniscience, which was the result of his central,
supreme position in the center, from which all could be seen,
becomes the omniscience of one who, being below earth, is of
all parts of it.2° Already he is linked to Carrefour,?® whose
other hand holds firmly that of Ghede, Lord of the Under-
world, God of the Dead.*

- AND CARREFOUR—THE YOUNG MAN AT THE

CROSSROADS

Yet destiny has an immediate as well as cosmic aspect; the

daily death of the sun forebodes the year’s end. Legba, Sun-
Lord of the Crossroads, of the meeting point of opposites, is
twinned by his own opposite. Across from him, on the same
gate, sits the Petro Mait’ Carrefour (also called Kalfu)?’ and
he too commands the traffic through it. If there were no gate,
the world would be much less divine; but it would also be
* Basing himself altogether on other mythologies, Campbell has related the
sun to the Tree of Life, hence the Sun Door as Navel of the Universe (pp.
41-46), where the opposities which guard it are transcended (p. 89) and which
may also be considered the universal Cross-roads “through which man ascends
and God descends” (p. 260). This same concept is represented in the figure of
the Yoruban Edshu, trickster deity of the cross-roads, who is characterized by a
hat of several colors (one for each direction) and who is beautiful on one side
and tattered on the other, as well as by the African Chiriwi, who is a half-man
at the cross-roads (p. 72). Both of these figures represent Death as well. And
the same metaphysical cross-roads is personified in the androgynous creator
deity as well as in the Chinese Tao; this latter is defined as “road” or “way”, as
the course of nature, destiny, cosmic order, the source of law of being, and iS
composed of Yang, the light, active, masculine principle, and Yin, the dark,
passive, feminine principle, which are represented enclosed in a circle, divided
by a serpentine line into black and white (p. 152). Finally, Campbell relates
the cross-roads with these other elements into a concept of crucifixion as a
coincidence of opposites. What is both significant and astonishing is that all
of these various elements, culled from various mythologies, are contained in the
figure of Legba and precisely in the metaphysical relationship in which Camp-
bell has perceived them. In Legba, however, many of the elements had already
been lost, or were preserved only in cryptic, vestigial details. (The Sun motif,
for example, has almost vanished.)
 ..and Carrefour—The Young Man at the Cross-Roads 101
more reasonable and more just. For it is Carrefour who may
loose upon the world the daemons of ill chance, misfortune and
deliberate, unjust destruction. No man, however carefully he
may have built up a logical structure of proper and good
destiny, is wholly safe from such disruption.
Legba is the divinity of the cardinal points; Carrefour is the
master of the points between.* If Legba commands the
divinities of the day, Carrefour commands the daemons of the
night. The divinities of the day are fundamentally just, and if
they cause a man misfortune, it is for just cause, a punishment
that disciplines the recalcitrant serviteur. But the daemons of
the night are dangerous, for they can be put to work by the
arbitrary will of men and by the manipulations of magicians.”
Yet it is Carrefour himself who can protect against these very
daemons, and it is in his name that the garde against such
harm is fashioned. Thus, he is not, himself, more evil or
malevolent than Legba.* If the Haitian has come to serve
Carrefour and invoke his protection almost as often as he
supplicates Legba, we must infer that he finds the daemons of
misfortune active and widespread. His evaluation of the
world in which he finds himself is precisely rendered in the
figure that Carrefour presents when he manifests himself
through the body of a serviteur. This is no ancient, feeble man;
Carrefour is huge and straight and vigorous, a man in the
prime of his life. His arms are raised strongly in the configura-
uon of a cross. Every muscle of the shoulders and back
bulges with strength. No one whispers or smiles in his
presence.®!
Thus, as the cosmic year of the race wanes, and Legba, the sun,
droops toward the cosmic horizon which divides the upper
regions from the underworld, so even in the daily, immediate
round of day and night it is Carrefour, the moon, who has the
greater immediate power. Daily, at the hour of midnight, his
noon, he is at the zenith of his vigor, and forms, with Grand
* This again reflects the concept that, while loa make men powerful, it is
the men who make magic, not the loa.
 102 The Divine Horsemen
Bois—master of the night earth and night forests—and with
Baron Cuimitiére—sovereign of the cemeteries—the patron
trinity of the magicians.**

GHEDE—CORPSE AND PHALLUS;

KING AND CLOWN

If Legba was the sun, at first young, then growing old, Ghede
is the master of that abyss into which the sun descends. If Legba
was time, then Ghede is that eternal figure in black, posted at
the timeless cross-roads at which all men and even the sun one
day arrive. The cross upon a tomb is his symbol. But the sun
is each year reborn. If Carrefour is the night death which
attends each day, then Ghede ts the night sun, the life which
is eternally present, even in darkness. The cosmic abyss is both
tomb and womb. In a sense, Ghede is the Legba who has
crossed the cosmic threshold to the underworld, for Ghede is
now everything that Legba once was in the promise and the
prime of his life.?* Indeed, it is to Ghede Nimbo that they now
sing: “After God we are in your hands, Ghede Nimbo”,* as
if he were the first and most immediate expression of original
creation; they also call him “Rising Sun”.*> Ghede is, today,
the phallic deity, also. If Legba was once Lord of Life, Ghede
is now Lord of Resurrection;®® and the difference between them
is Death, which is Ghede. It is the knowledge of death that
has transfigured Legba, and has given to all that they have in
common the particular color and accent which is Ghede.
Life for Ghede is not the exalted creation of primal ardor;
it is a destiny—the inevitable and eternal erotic in men. He is
lord of that eroticism which, being inevitable, is therefore
beyond good and evil and is beyond the elations and despairs
of love. Of this he is neither proud nor ashamed; if anything,
he is amused by the eternal persistence of the erotic and by
man’s eternally persistent pretense that it is something else.
 Ghede— Corpse and Phallus; King and Clown 103
He may gently ridicule the sentimental, by singing in childish
syllables: “I love, you love, he loves, she loves, What does
that make?” (Chorus, drawn out) “L’AMouR. He may mimic
the passionate. Or, again, he may invent variations on the
theme of provocation, ranging from suggestive mischief to
lascivious aggression. His greatest delight is to discover some
one who pretends to piously heroic or refined immunity. He
will confront such a one and expose him savagely, imposing
upon him the most lascivious gestures and the most extreme
obscenities. Thus he introduces men to their own devil, for
whoever would consider sex as a sin creates and confronts, in
Ghede, his own guilt.* Such incidents amuse him, but they
represent no real challenge, for he knows that no one can elude
him, who is master of both life and death.
As Death, he is the keeper of the cemetery, guardian of the
past, of the history and heritage of the race. The cross of Baron
Samedi (as Ghede is sometimes called) is in every cemetery;
and the graves that are under the special protection of his
female counterpart, Maman Brigitte, are marked by a mound
of stones.*? Just as one must first address Legba for divine
counsel, so whoever would seek ancestral counsel or support
must first address Ghede: “Ghede Nimbo, behind the cross,
Ghede; Before Baron, Ghede; . . . Today I am troubled;
Gedevi, call Ghede, . . . I am troubled. . . . Cease to sweep,
sprinkle, hoe; I am troubled, Baron Samedi. . . .” 38 He 1s
officially noufied of marriages, births, quarrels, troubles, all
major projects, for the future stems from the past, and if a man
would deny him as his past, Ghede will remind him that he is
also his future. Perhaps he will sing him the song of the grave-
digger, a jerky, blood-chilling, hypnotic melody. No one who
has ever seen Ghede in that death’s-head aspect, and heard that
* Ghede’s unfailing discernment of atutudes toward sexuality accounts, |
believe, for the sexual emphasis which visitors have found in Voudoun, for
nothing will more quickly provoke Ghede’s appearance and his defiant, overt
obsceniues than the presence of white visitors, particularly those of Puritan
tradition. Sexual obscenity and the breaking of taboos is characteristic of the
death figure in many mythologies, including that of the American Indians.
104 The Divine Horsemen
hysterical “ke ke ke ke ke” of the grave-digger, could ever
forget 1t.°9
As Lord of Eroticism, he embarrasses men with his
lascivious sensual gestures; but as God of the Grave he terrifies
them with the evidence of the absolutely insensate: he will not
blink even when the most fiery liquid is sprayed into his eyes,
and only Ghede can swallow his own drink—a crude rum
steeped in twenty-one of the hottest spices known.* Thus he may
alternately remind men that he is their past, their present and
their future, that he is master of their compulsive drive to life
and of the inevitability of their death; that he is, in fact, their
total lord. So accustomed 1s he to this complete power over
men that he does not belabor it as a power, a triumph or a
threat. In fact, he prefers not to be bothered with the grimmest
of his manifestations. Instead, he achieves the ultimate in dis-
dain by his ostensible negligence of that very power which is of
such ultimate importance to men. All men will one day be
“swallowed by the grave’; perversely, Ghede poses most fre-
quently as a poor wandering beggar, famished of course, but
content with the crudest of food, which he consumes
ravenously. His omnipresence, too, he translates into a mockery,
as if it were mere chance, or at worst an indiscretion, that he
should always show up at the wrong moment.” Even the
houngans cannot discipline him. He will frequently arrive,
unbidden, at a ceremony for another loa, to “spoil” it, as the
houngan would say, and he doubles this impertinence with his
wandering beggar pose.
One day, for example, a strong houngan was conducting
an important ceremony for the loa. Both Damballah and
Ogoun had already come in full force. This was cause for
rejoicing and everyone was occupied with these deities and the
rituals attendant to their presence: the sacrifice of the chickens,
* Since it is possible that an insincere serviteur might wish to take erotic
advantage by pretending to be mounted by Ghede, any suspect possession is
subjected to these two tests. Obviously, only a really possessed person could
stand them.
 Ghede— Corpse and Phallus; King and Clown 105
the drawing of vevers at the foot of the trees that Damballah
had climbed, the bringing of the saber to Ogoun, and the ritual
salutations to both, with the ceremonial flags. Into the midst
of this pious activity, dressed in a motley assortment of bits and
pieces of garments, one worn over the other, and proudly
sporting a peculiar multicolored lictle cap, strolled a benign
and plump Brav Ghede.* At first the houngan was distressed
and asked him to leave, since, as he could see, this was not yet
the moment for his presence, which would be enthusiastically
invoked a little later. Ghede listened with a sympathetic,
understanding air. “Oh, I just dropped in’, he said, making a
self-effacing gesture, “to look around a bit. Don’t bother with
me. Go right ahead with your ceremony. I'll just stroll around
and look things over.” The houngan, relieved that Ghede was
in such a reasonable mood, thanked him, and turned to attend
to his ceremonial. “Oh, by the way,” said Ghede, touching his
shoulder, “I’m just starved! I’m sure you can spare a couple of
cassavas [flat breads] for me to munch on .. . say about nine of
them.” The houngan sull was getting off easily, for these
cassava breads only cost a penny apiece, and if that would
pacify Brav Ghede, it was well worth it. So he brought nine
cassavas from a little wayside booth, presented them to Ghede,
and went off about his pressing business.
Ghede immediately started eating two cassavas at a time, one
from each hand. With the others tucked under his elbow, he
modestly took his place among the spectators at the ceremony,
standing there as if he were just “one of the folks” watching the
great loa Ogoun and Damballah. Then he put his seven
cassavas down on the ground, and, after a bit, wandered off.
The Ogouns and the Damballahs were extremely active that
day, and everyone’s attention was concentrated on their
activiues. At the moment of Ghede’s departure, all were
clustered around another tree, in which Damballah seemed to
be on the point of deserting the man whom he had possessed,
leaving him his merely human powers to climb down again.
* Referred to usually as “Brav”, this is one of the “racine” aspects of Ghede.
106 The Divine Horsemen
Since this would be dangerous for the man, the houngan was
pleading with Damballah to bring the man down before he
left his head, and everyone was concerned with the outcome of
the incident. Suddenly a great howl came from Ghede, who
was now standing at the first tree.
“There are thieves! .. . thieves! . . . thieves!” he was shouting.
“Someone stole my seven cassavas! I left them here, I went off
to look over the place, to ‘surveille’ [to supervise things] and
they were stolen! Who is the thief?” On and on he went,
causing such a disturbance that everyone moved over to him to
try to pacify him. He questioned one after another, he screamed,
fussed, made a great circle with his arms to indicate the size of a
cassava more enormous than any that had ever been baked, and
said that his cassavas had been of that girth; then he caught
hold of the poor distracted houngan and repeated the story over
and over, stamping his foot, shrieking, weeping, protesting
against this terrible treatment. The whole place was in an up-
roar. Damballah and Ogoun were being neglected. There was
nothing for it but to purchase Brav a whole new batch of
cassavas, and some biscuits as well this time, to appease him for
this great effrontery and hurt which he had suffered.
As he accepted the new offering his face flooded with a
smile of such sly triumph that the entire incident, which had
been suspect all along, was clarified. As a matter of fact, one
young woman who had been sent to fetch something from the
hounfor had all along protested that she had observed Ghede
surreptitiously taking away one of his original cassavas. But
Ghede had quite out-screamed her. Now, as the loa turned to
walk off with his new food, the houngan, smiling, said to him:
“Are you sure that it wasn’t a man in a little multicolored cap
who stole those cassavas?”” Ghede wheeled with enormous eyes
of innocence. “A little cap? What man in a little cap?” And
as the houngan turned to attend to his other duties and Ghede
again started off, presumably to eat in peace this time, someone
else called out: “Are you sure that you don’t know who stole
your cassavas?” Whereupon, looking at us out of the corner of
 Ghede— Corpse and Phallus; King and Clown 107
his eye with a delightful and endearing mischievous expres
sion, Ghede winked once, slowly, and walked away.*
What testifies most to Ghede’s importance, however, is the
fact that he can function in a somewhat similar manner even
outside the religious context. It seems that some years ago, under
the régime of President Borno, there suddenly appeared in the
streets of Port-au-Prince a crowd of Ghedes (all of them
houngans possessed by Ghede) wearing the “formal” costume
of the lord: the tall top-hats, long black tail-coats,*! smoked
glasses, cigarettes or cigars, and canes. An enormous crowd
naturally collected about them, and joined them in their march
to the National Palace. They all took the guards by surprise,
and, singing, swerved through the gates and up the drive and
to the door itself, where they demanded money of the President.
President Borno, who is reputed to have been sympathetic to
Voudoun ritual (secretly so) and yet feared bourgeois opinion,
was in a great dilemma. He finally gave in, ostensibly merely to
quiet the mob, and the Ghedes with their supporters left the
grounds. But Ghede had made his point. Death, who has
consumed so many heroes, bows before no man and will
remind even the most illustrious that one day he too will be
consumed. So Ghede had gotten his money and went off to
gorge himself, singing the song which commemorates the
occasion and which is today one of the most popular songs of
Hai:
Papa Ghede bel garcon, [he is a handsome fellow]
Ghede Nimbo is a handsome fellow,
He is dressed up all in black,
He 1s going to go up to the palace!**
Indeed, wherever and whenever men assemble he may
* In this episode the similarity between Edshu, the African crossroads deity,
and Ghede is striking, not only in cickster personality, but particularly in
regard to the motley cap. Ghede is frequently concerned with hats, and usually
wears a black top-hat.
** This account, which is common knowledge, is purported to be a historical
occurrence and is related by Courlander (p. 86).
 108 The Divine Horsemen
choose to appear among them with his nasal voice, his black or
purple color, his smoked glasses and his perpetual hunger.”
As Death consumes the world, so Ghede is the archetypal
glutton.* Even in his most elegant manifestations, he eats
ravenously, stuffing the food into his mouth with both hands.
There is a special Creole word for the way he eats: “baffler”. He
washes the meals down with his fiery drink, and when his
stomach cannot hold any more, puts a cigarette or cigar in his
mouth. There are even certain malevolent aspects of Ghede
where his need to consume turns in upon itself. As Criminelle,
a Petro manifestation, he sinks his teeth into his own arm, and
the friends who would protect the man possessed by Criminelle
from this voraciousness must work hard and frantically to
unclamp the jaws before the flesh is torn.
One time, when Brav seemed in a genial, informative mood,
we asked him why he liked to wear smoked sun-glasses. “Well,”
he explained, “I spend so much time in the dark underground
that it makes my eyes sensitive to the sun.” “Why”, we asked
then, “do you remove the right lens so often?” “Well, my
dear,” he answered, “it’s this way: with my left eye, I watch
over the whole universe. As for the right, I keep that eye on my
food, so that no thief will get it.”** And indeed, Ghede does
not miss any opportunity to fix his worldly eye on food even
when it is not, strictly speaking, within his dominion. As Lord
of the Dead, he is, theoretically, concerned with men’s souls;
his physical gluttony is, presumably, symbolic. As Lord of the
Underworld, he should not (theoretically) be concerned with
the earth’s agrarian surface, except perhaps to participate
(symbolically) in fertility rites. But Ghede, who respects no
prohibitions at all, is not inclined to recognize the fine dis-
tinction between the telluric and the chthonic zone, which 1s
properly his. In his most casually arrogant manner, he has
completely invaded the province of Azacca, loa of agriculture,
who becomes, in such competitive comparison, a very minor
* See illustration 5, facing p. 150.
** This one-eyed effect suggests Wotan, one-eyed God of the Dead.
 Ghede—Corpse and Phallus; King and Clown 109

VEVER FOR AZACCA

figure. Ghede does not even consider it an impertinence to

attend a ceremony for Azacca; he assumes that he is also
expected. This is explained by the comment that Ghede and
Azacca are brothers.* While Ghede does, in fact, have an
indulgent, protective attitude towards him, it is not entrely
disinterested, and the privileges of such “brotherhood” are not
at all mutual, for Azacca would rarely presume to appear at a
ceremony given specifically for Ghede, and their happy
relationship is undoubtedly due to the fact that Azacca never
tries to use it to his individual advantage and knows his own
place.
In some ways Azacca’s personality would seem to be
modeled after Ghede, as a younger brother might slavishly
imutate the elder, but since he is a mere peasant, his efforts fall
short constantly. Like Ghede, Azacca has a ravenous appetite;
unlike Ghede, however, he is very insecure and when he gets
* Tc should also be noted that there is a Ghede Mazacca, an obvious statement
of relauonship between the two loa, and Herskovits (p. 280) idenufies Azacca
Médé with the River God of the Dahomean Styx.
IIO The Divine Horsemen
his food he runs off with it into a dark corner like an animal
hiding in its lair. The greedy, slobbering manner in which he
consumes that food is a reflection of crude ignorance; he has
no notion of the arrogance which Ghede intends by his de-
liberate vulgarity. The exaggerated sexuality which, in Ghede,
reflects his sophisticated defiance is nothing but simple, direct
animalism in Azacca. Whereas Ghede speaks in a nasal voice
because a properly buried corpse would sound that way, and
because, incidentally, it projects perfectly his cynicism,
A zacca’s vocal stylization consists of the almost unintelligible
sounds of a goat. All in all, this inarticulate, gauche peasant
Pan* is the sort of person whom the sophisticated, dexterous
Ghede would normally ridicule to distraction. However, there
1s a certain sympathy between Ghede’s knowing perceptiveness
and Azacca’s peasant shrewdness. Moreover, Azacca is a very
hard worker, and appreciation of that is shown in the relative
frequency with which he is ritually feasted by the grateful
farmers. Ghede, in fact, knows a good meal-ticket when he
sees it, and he is not above taking advantage of it; or, to put it
otherwise, he is above any concern with the appearance of
dignity.
Perhaps his indulgent kindness, even gentleness, is inspired
* In addition to his “hick” peasant aspect, Azacca also appears (more sarely)
as a young peasant boy, with all the shy and innocent charm that is part of such
a personality. On other occasions he is “Ministre Azacca”, Minister of Agri-
culture, with all the pompous postures of authoritarianism. One of the striking
things about the Voudoun pantheon is the lack of an agricultural deity of first
magnitude. In the interests of “rounding out” this pantheon, one is tempted to
place Azacca Médé in this position. But he is very close to being a work loa,
in spite of the fact that he is well served and does have a greater depth and range
of personality than most other work loa. However, the idea of fecundity in
general is implicit in most of the major loa. Ritualistically, agrarian fertility is
covered in the African ceremony-yam (pp. 210-12, infra) which is still of major
importance in Haiti and is not, significantly, under Azacca’s patronage.
Azacca seems to be an interpolation in Rada ritual from the Indian maize
culture and it is in the Petro rites of that culture, that the propitiatory ceremonies
which would normally mark a major agrarian deity, take place. (See Appendix
B.) Thus Azacca is a minor expression, in Rada ritual, of the principle
which is mainly carried by the Petro cult.
 Ghede—Corpse and Phallus; King and Clown II
by something else as well. For Azacca’s simple, honest affection,
his natural, even admiring acceptance of this brother, must be
a welcome change from the anxiety, fear and ultimate with-
drawal which Ghede senses in all men and which all his
clowning and all their laughter can never quite obscure. In-
deed, this ruler of men is, of all loa, probably the most lonely;
he is never so touched as by the least sign of genuine affection
and to Azacca he must be grateful for the one thing he cannot
command. Perhaps it is because of this need that, of all loa,
he is the most interested in the trifling, intimate details of men’s
daily life. With his keen worldly eye he learns all the secrets
of the neighborhood: who flirted with whom, and what that
brother called his sister. But his need could not go so far as to
make him sentimental or respectful, and he will tell all the
juiciest morsels in public to the embarrassment and amusement
of everyone. Sometimes his omniscience takes the form of a
knowingness that makes him at once the most modern and
sophisticated of the divinities. For this modulation, his mani-
festation as Mr. Entretoute is the supreme example. If Brav
Ghede is a broad trickster, Mr. Entretoute is a subtle wit.
Where Ghede would be obscene, Mr. Entretoute is slyly erotic.
Whereas Ghede’s dance is broadly sexual, Mr. Entretoute
moves with an intimate, suggestive subtlety. Whereas Brav
is the beggar, wandering afoot, Mr. Entretoute complains
about the upkeep of his “Dynaflow”. This Mr. Entretoute is
the somewhat special Ghede who is in Titon’s head, and Titon,
be it observed, has never been outside of Haiu. Through Titon’s
head, nevertheless, Ghede, the cosmic God of the Dead, has
become Mr. Entretoute, cosmopolitan par excellence. The
cosmic eye and the worldly one feed into the same brain.
Although Ghede’s vast range of power and information
never confuses him, he may delight in using it to confound
others. He is both tattered and beautiful. He confounds sex
with sex, dressing women as men and men as women.* He is
* Though it is rarely explicit, there is frequently a suggestion of Ghede as
a hermaphroditic deity, like Legba.
I12 The Divine Horsemen
both sensual and insensate. He even confounds life with death.
One day, as Mr. Entretoute, he told a hilarious story of how he
had gone to a doctor because of pains in his heart. The doctor
discovered that he had heart murmurs—“battiment de coeur”
—and decided to operate in order to remove the murmurs. But
according to this poor Mr. Entretoute, the doctor had made a
terrible mistake. He had removed the heart and left the mur-
murs, from which Mr. Entretoute still suffers.
While he would seem to prefer the réle of the witty clown,
Ghede will also use his wisdom in a more serious manner.
Since he contains the knowledge of the dead whom he has
consumed, it is from him that one may learn whether one’s
father thinks it best to plant a field with cane or corn, or what
mother’s prescription is for a nagging headache; or which of
two suitors is the more reliable; or whether this woman would
make a good wife. And Ghede is generous with his wisdom.
He may be playing the clown, but if you will call him aside
and humbly ask him, in all seriousness, an important question,
he will generally answer you thoughtfully and carefully, and it
will usually be the best possible advice. Clown though he be,
and trickster, he is also history—the experience from which the
living learn—and in this réle is as deeply responsible and
trustworthy as he is bizarre in his other aspects.**
Straddling the great divide between the living and the dead,
Ghede is, naturally, not only the lord of both, but the lord of
their interaction. Therefore, if anyone would make magic,
would set invisible forces to work in the visible world, it can
be only with Ghede’s permission. Whether as Baron Samedi,
as Baron Piquant, or as Baron Cimitiére,* it is he (with
Carrefour, often Grand Bois, and also, often, Simbi) who
governs the indispensable, invisible forces of magicians. It 1s
through him that the zombies are brought up from the grave,
* Again, it is men who make magic, not the loa. There is much disagree-
ment among authorities as to which Ghede is Rada and which is Petro. Actu-
ally, the Ghedes, as Maximilien suggests, are separate and independent of both,
and their rite usually comes after the Rada and before the Petro ceremonies.
 Ghede—Corpse and Phallus; King and Clown 113
and there is even a song in which those who are digging up a
corpse ask Baron Samedi to “. . . hold that man. Don’t let him
go, heavenly judge, hold that man. . ."“ so that the body will
not escape. Here, in this dark phase of his powers, the trickster
becomes transformer. Under his sign the malevolent bocor
may take the shape of an animal, and men may be transformed
into terrible bakas.* But it is Ghede, also, who can protect
against such magic. The paquets Congo or Petro—the gardes
against illness and evil—are bound under his auspices (with
Carrefour and Simbi).“
Finally, Ghede, who is death and has the power to animate
the dead as zombies, to change a man into a beast, is also the
greatest of the healers, the last recourse against death. When a
houngan conducts a ceremony for Ghede, he brings out the
gravely ill who are under his care and commends them
especially to Ghede’s attention. For Ghede is just, and if it is
not yet time for a man to die, and if that man humbly asks him
as a defense, he will refuse to dig his grave no matter how much
the magicians under Baron Samedi, may insist on it.“ Thus
Ghede is the last recourse, the final judge of a man’s life and of
the worth of his soul in death.
Particularly, Ghede is known asthe guardian of children.**
If he has consumed life, he will also give of it when necessary.
In one case, the godchild of a mambo was gravely ill. The
little girl had been taken to doctors in town, had received
injections and treatments, both medical, herbal and ritual, yet
continued to waste away and it was clear that she was on the
point of death. Consequently, as a last recourse, the mambo
undertook a strong ceremony for Ghede. It took place at the
replica tomb which was erected in Ghede’s honor in the court
of her hounfor,*** and was attended not only by her own
hounsis, but by several mambos, friends of hers, who had
* See Chapter II, p. 75, supra.
** It is interesting that Hallowe'en, “All Souls’ Night”, which falls on the
same date as the Haitian annual Feast of the Dead for Ghede, is celebrated here
primarily by children.
*** See illustration 6, facing p. 150.
114 The Divine Horsemen
come to lend their own strength as well. The songs for Ghede
were most fervently sung. Several black chickens were given
him, and then the large black goat, an exceptionally strong
offering, was killed.
With this evidence of devotion, Ghede agreed to intervene.
He possessed one of the mambos, and asked that the child be
brought out and placed on the tomb. He took the blood of the
goat and, undressing the child, anointed her with it. Then,
singing fervently, he reached down between his legs and
brought forth, in his cupped palm, a handful of Auid with
which he washed the child. It was not urine. And though it
would seem impossible that this should be so, since it was a
female body which he had possessed, it was a seminal
ejaculation. Again and again he gave of that life fluid, and
bathed the child with it, while the mambos and hounsis sang
and wept with gratitude for this ultimate gesture. Of the life
which he had in the past consumed, he now gave forth in full
measure.* And though there is no reasonable way to account
for this, the child lived.48

3
DAMBALLAH—THE GOOD SERPENT OF THE SKY...

Damballah Wedo isthe ancient, the venerable father; so ancient,

so venerable, as of a world before the troubles began; and his
children would keep him so: image of the benevolent, paternal
* No similar episode has been cited in the literature on Voudoun, possibly
because of a sense of discretion on the part of the writers. I have included it
here as a definitive example of the life-making aspect of Ghede, an aspect which
is often lost sight of inasmuch as his sexuality usually has an emphasis upon
obscenity. At dances, indeed, he usually appears in his clown or vulgar aspect.
It is only in the important ceremonies that his life-giving and healing attributes
have a sober aspect. This particular ceremony was witnessed in the fall of 1948,
in the plains about fifteen miles outside of Port-au-Prince. Taken all together,
Ghede’s character and activities are a perfect realization of the metaphysical
principle which he represents—the corpse which informs man of life—as
elaborated earlier, pp. 23 and 37.
 Damballab—
The Good Serpent of the Sky... 115
innocence, the great father of whom one asks nothing save his
blessing.* He comes as a snake, plunging at once into the
bassin*® of water which is buile for him,** and then writhes,
dripping and inarticulate, upon the ground, or mounts a tree,
where he lies in the high branches, the primordial source of all
life wisdom. He makes his signs, his gestures of benediction;
when he speaks, it is a barely intelligible hissing.5° There is
almost no precise communication with him, as if his wisdom
were of such major cosmic scope and of such grand innocence
that it could not perceive the minor anxieties of his human
progeny, nor be transmuted to the petty precisions of human
speech.
Yet it is this very detachment which comforts, and which is
evidence, once more, of some original and primal vigor that
has somehow remained inaccessible to whatever history, what-
ever immediacy might diminish it. Damballah’s very presence,
like the simple, even absent-minded caress of a father’s hand,
brings peace. As Da, origin and essence of life,®! of the
dynamic movement of which his own movement is such a
graphic demonstration, Damballah is himself unchanged by
life, and so is at once the ancient past and the assurance of the
fucure.
He is shown as a snake, arched in the path that the sun
travels across the sky;5* sometimes half the arch is composed of
his female counterpart, Ayida, the rainbow.® He is patron of
the waters of the heaven which he dominates, and of the springs
and rivers which the heavenly waters nourish and upon which
the race for ever nurses. As it plunges into the sea, the cosmic
waters, the rainbow is reflected (or, in the bassin, is painted

* Although the familiar relauonship between divinity and devotee is one of

the most important and touching aspects of Voudoun, and has been strongly
manifest in atutudes toward Legba and Ghede, the serviteur has a rather
special, respectful reserve toward Damballah. This is reflected in the songs,
which rarely cite incidents but are mainly in general praise of him, saluung him
as the great serpent and referring to his affinity with water. Courlander (p. 93)
quotes a song in which he is compared to a stone wall for his strength.
** See illustration 11, facing p. 182.
116 The Divine Horsemen
as reflection).* Damballah and Ayida, who together represent
the sexual totality, encompass the cosmos as a serpent coiled
about the world. The egg, the world egg™ is the special symbol
for them; and an egg is the particular offering to Damballah.
He drinks it, crushing the shell with his teeth.*°
When, in the course of ceremony, the houngenikon opens
with the words: “O Wedo, calling Wedo, O Wedo there, it
is Damballah Wedo”, the drums and the chorus surge forward
with such solid sound, such deep fullness, as rarely marks the
invocation to any other deity. It expresses a special profound
reverence, impressive beyond whatever degree of love or
intensity, excitement or tenderness might mark their other
invocations. For Damballah is the major benevolence, the
mighty protection, the lofty evidence of a just and eternal good.
Associated with Damballah, as members of the Sky
Pantheon, are Badessy, the wind, Sobo and Agarou Tonerre,
the thunder.5? It is possible that there was a time when such
natural elements were very important in men’s lives, and
although these divinities still hold their important position in
the ritual order, they do not frequently possess the serviteur.
They seem to belong to another period of history. Yet, precisely
because these divinities are, to a certain extent, vestigial, they
give, like Damballah’s detachment, a sense of historical
extension, of the ancient origin of the race. To invoke them
today is to stretch one’s hand back to that time and to gather up
all history into a solid, contemporary ground beneath one’s
feet.°8
--- SIMBI—THE SNAKE IN THE RIVER...

Since, by his very nature, Damballah is a positive force, and

encircles the universe, he has no contrasting equivalent, either
in the underworld or in the negative, malevolent sense. He does
have, however, an equivalent on a plane of more immediate
* Marcelin (p. 56) cites a song which says, “I say: Sky, salute the earth!”
an exceptionally poetic reference to the serpent, sun or rainbow bending towards
the earth.
 .. « Simbi— The Snake in the River... 117
action. Simbi, who occupies a rather remarkable position in
the pantheon (see chart), shares characteristics and functions not
only with Damballah but with all the major deities on both the
Rada and Petro sides. In a certain sense, he contains, in his
own person, all che primary principles of an entire religion, and
in very explicit fashion. He is definitely a cross-roads loa, and
his symbol, or vever, is a snake in a field of crosses.5® In this he
is related to Legba, on the one hand, and to Carrefour, Ghede,
Baron Cimiuére and Baron Samedi, on the other, depending
upon whether he is called on the “point” of Rada or of Petro.
In Simbi’s case, the cross-roads principle is extended to the
concept of straddling the Rada-Petro division in one direction
(it is said that, while Simbi is primarily Rada, a “hungry”
Simbi would be invoked through Petro)® while in the other
direction, he 1s known as Simbi-en-deux-eaux and straddles
the waters above and the waters below the earth, which are
understood either as the heavenly and the abysmal waters, or as
the sweet and salt waters. His primary Rada function is as
patron of springs and rains, and in this, as well as in the snake
symbol, he is related to Damballah, and to the other “white”
deities who are guardians of springs. As patron of rains he is
understood to be even stronger than these others. This strength
is partially due to his other major function, that of patron of
the magicians, and it is in this connection that Simbi is most
often called.6! Certainly it is a réle for which his pivotal
position in the cosmos and in the pantheon equips him
admirably, for he radiates in every direction from this central
location. (He is the only loa, for instance, who overlaps into
Agwe’s dominion.) All magic is performed under his patron’
age, whether it be the medicinal, protective paquet, or the less
benevolent wanga. Yet, for all his activity, his personality is
more obscure than that of many other loa. Songs refer repeatedly
to his reluctance to enter the hounfor gate, his loitering outside,
like a sociable neighbor newly come to the district, who 1s still
a little shy for all his knowledge and power.”
 118 The Divine Horsemen

. AND THE PETRO RIDDLE UP A TREE

In some regions Simbi is predominantly associated with Petro,

in reference not only to Carrefour and Baron Cimitiére, but
also to Dan Petro, the father of the Petro tribe of loa.®* As such,
Simbi is the link between Damballah and the major Petro
deities who, while they could not be considered as “Petro
aspects of Damballah” (in the sense that Legba and Carrefour
are twinned opposites), do command an equivalent position
in their respective hierarchy and also share other characteristics
with Damballah. As a matter of fact, there is a Damballah
La Flambeau (the torch) who is understood as a Petro Dam-
ballah and La Flambeau is, in turn, understood as synonymous
with Saint Blanc or Petro Blanc.®* Of this latter it has been
said: “He is a great chieftain who commands his servants, and
these are often evil.” In a sense, then, even Dan Petro or Congo
Zandor, as he ts also known, is not himself malevolent.
The linkage with Damballah is further suggested in the
figure of Ti-Jean Petro, son of Dan Petro, who is characterized
as having only one foot, or perhaps no feet at all, and, simul-
taneously, as being extremely agile in climbing trees, which he
almost always does as soon as he appears.* If one were to pose
a riddle, asking what creature has no feet yet always climbs
trees, there could only be one answer: a snake. Such a cryptic
formulation is in character with the cabbala-like magic which
typifies Petro. It is even possible that Dan, in Dan Petro, does
not stand for the Spanish word “Don” but for the snake
principle.
Thus the major Petro divinities—Dan and Ti-Jean Petro,
Congo Savanne and Congo Zandor—function, like Dam-
ballah, as the ancestral reference of the cult, as its life source,
guardians, and water patrons. In a sense Damballah, Simbi
and Petro are not opposites at all, but are rather like three
* For a comparison of Ti-Jean Petro with the one-legged Aztec God of the
Underworld, also patron of cross-roads and magicians, and related to the night
sun or moon, see the Appendix on Indian influence.
 Agwé—Sovereign of the Seas 119
concentric snake circles encompassing the world. The outer-
most, Damballah, is at once the most abstract, ancient and
benevolent; Simbi has both the power and the ambivalence of
his middle position; while the Petros are at once the most
stern, hard-headed and forceful. Moreover, they add an element
which is lacking in the other two; they are the closest to the
earth, and the most concerned with it, the entire Petro cult
showing a strong agrarian emphasis.

4
AGWE—SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS

On the day of the ceremony for Agwé,* God of the Sea, the
large court of Mambo E—— churned with activity. In one spot
hounsis were washing the sacrificial chickens; in another they
were ironing their white ceremonial dresses. In addition to the
regular outdoor kitchen, charcoal grates had been set up here
and there throughout, to accommodate the vast amount of
cooking. People arrived constantly with their personal offerings
of cake, bottles of créme de menthe and other liqueurs, even
champagne. The peristyle was being sprinkled and swept, and
some of the torn paper decorations were being prepared. In the
shade of a large tree, the drummer, surrounded by curious
children, was replacing the worn ropes which held ght the
drum head. But the two exceptional objects which caught the
eye were the sacrificial ram and the barque d’ Agwé.**
The ram had been thoroughly bathed, as was customary
with all sacrificial animals, in water steeped with certain
purifying leaves. What was extraordinary was his bright blue
color, the result of massive amounts of indigo. It was not quite
clear whether this was due to an over-zealous miscalculation
of the amount of bluing necessary to make him a brilliant
* Although it is sometimes written as Agoué or Aguet, the spelling Agwé
has been used to make clear thar this loa’s name is not of Latin derivation.
** See illustration 12, facing p. 182.
120 The Divine Horsemen
white; or whether it was intentional, since blue, as well as
white, is a color sacred to Agwé. His electric color, the royal
composure with which he permitted the attentions of the three
young women who curried and combed him, the graceful
postures of their bodies, all these composed into a scene of
strangely archaic import, as if one had stumbled upon the
fragment of an ancient urn, and was shocked into a sudden
understanding of the sacred sacrificial beast.
In the shade of one of the adjacent peristyles, surrounded by
those who were momentarily unoccupied with ceremonial
preparations, the painter was putting the last touches to the
large, square barque which was to hold the offerings. It was
made of wood, and was over a foot deep and about six feet
square. Extending inward from the rim was a narrow shelf,
with round holes cut out at intervals. Into these the bottled
offerings would be inserted, and held upright throughout the
long rough journey to and on the sea, so that the arrangement
would be beautifully intact when the banquet table was set
before Agwé.
The barque was blue, and the painter was now completing
the symbols and decorations around the outer edge. His
technique was naive, and full of delight in color. Yet the
brightness seemed internally weighted with sobriety, so that one
felt, without knowing precisely why, that even the most
frivolous flower, set, as it was, in a constellation of three, or
five, was portentous. Clearly, the planning and painting of this
had taken days of labor.
To judge by the symbols, it was Agwé’s banquet, with
other major divinities of the pantheon as guests, as it were.
Agwé, represented by a large sailboat (with the word IMMA-
MOU upon it), and his wife, La Siréne (the seavaspect of the
Goddess of Love, Erzulie), shown as a mermaid to Agwé’s left,
sat together at the head of the table. Beside her was a white
pigeon, or dove, a bird sacred to the major “white” deities and
particularly associated with the Goddess.
Along the side to Agwé’s right were the Wedos, Damballah
 Agwé—Sovereign of the Seas 121

VEVER FOR AGWE

and Ayida, supreme family of the pantheon. Their two

serpentine forms wove through a field of nine five-pointed
stars, to confront each other across a central altar which sup-
ported their particular symbol, the world egg. The side to the
left of Agwé and La Siréne had, at its center, the checkered
heart which was the major symbol of the Goddess. It repre-
sented Erzulie (as “land”-Goddess of Love), whose constant
gentleman companion was known to be Ogoun, the hero God
of War, recently turned diplomat and politician. Ogoun,
himself, had been placed (according to the crossed flags and
saber which were his symbols) to her right, that is, at the im-
mediate left of the head of the table. He was deity of fire; and
legend had it that there was a constant feud between Ogoun
and Agwé, based not only on the antagonistic elements which
they each represented, but upon their competiuve relation to
Erzulie, who, both in her own person and as Siréne, was
acknowledged as consort of Agwé even while, simultaneously,
being chronically “en affaire” with Ogoun. To have trusungly
122 The Divine Horsemen
placed Ogoun between La Siréne and La Maitresse, with the
gentle white pigeon or dove of love and peace in immediate
proximity, was a conciliatory gesture of generosity, as well as of
subtle diplomacy on Agwe’s part. To the left of Erzulie, the
heart motif was repeated, enclosing, this time, the initial M.
This letter, by a most fortunate coincidence, stood both for
“Maitresse”, the familiar form of address to Erzulie, and for
Mary, with whom she was identified, because they were both
the major female divinities in their respective provinces, and
shared certain feminine refinements. The inclusion of the M
heart balanced, if it did not entirely correct, Erzulie’s legendary
promiscuity. (It is said that even the venerable Damballah, as
well as others, had at times succumbed to her charm.) At the
foot of the table, there were a fish and a crab, with the inscrip-
tion “Master of Z’ile Minfort”, the island below the surface of
the water to which the barque was to be delivered. The crab
represented an ancestral houngan, Agassou, who was Agwé’s
lieutenant, and the fish represented St. Ulrique, who had been
identified with Agwé by virtue of the fish he holds in the
Catholic chromos. When one compared the sides of the table
carefully, one remarked that the side dedicated to Agwé’s
aides, in the Voudoun and Christian churches, was just a
little more modestly set, having only three flowers as a decorative
garnish. And this discretion was a most subtle deference to
the other more illustrious guests, the Wedos, Ogoun and
Erzulie.
The ceremony itself was in honor of Agwé, specifically. But
the Lord of the Sea is a man of royal habits, and it was pro-
bably felt that he would prefer to be gracious host at a cele-
bration, rather than to receive, simply, a vast amount of food to
be consumed in submarine solitude. To serve a deity well is to
make him happy; and reverence lies in a sensitivity for the
particular personality of each loa, his attitudes and his tastes.
The preparations continued throughout the afternoon. The
coming and going involved an amazing number of people,
who, to judge by their expressions, were each of them charged
 Agwé— Sovereign of the Seas 123
with a responsibility of major importance. And if it could be
observed that ten women seemed to be occupied with a task
which, with any degree of efficiency, could have been accom,
plished by any two of them, one had also to recall that any one
of them habitually accomplished, in her daily life, a succession
of chores and arrangements which would have seemed to
require at least three active people.
The sea ceremony for Agwé is, for an inland mambo (or
houngan), perhaps one of the most elaborate of all ritual
undertakings. She must accumulate the offerings: vegetables,
cakes, maize, bananas, pigeons, rams, chickens, etc., etc. She
must assemble all the extra equipment, borrow cooking-pots,
purchase and properly consecrate the new vessels in which the
feast would be served to the deities, arrange for the construction
of the barque. She must convene her société (or parish),
delegate and supervise responsibilities, provide food and lodging
for all her helpers and guests, arrange for a truck to transport
everything and everybody, rent the sailboat which would carry
them all out on to the sea, and remember a million other
secular details. Apart from this, the actual organization of the
ritual details of the service was itself an enormous respon-
sibility. Because it was both costly and difficult, many houn-
gans and mambos never undertook it at all. The others did so
at increasingly rare intervals, during which the promises made
to Agwé accumulated substanually. The ceremony thus
became a very special occasion and in the end the real problem
of the mambo was not how to inspire interest and devotion,
but how, diplomatically, to keep the number of eager partuci-
pants within manageable limits.
By twilight the major tasks had been accomplished and
everyone had convened in the large peristyle for the preliminary
service. The vevers were traced, the libations poured, and, in
their proper order, the invocations followed: to Legba, that he
should open the gates; to the Christian Trinity and saints, that
they should bless the undertaking; to les Morts, les Mystéres,
and les Marassa; to the important deities and those which were
124 The Divine Horsemen
guardians to the mambo; and finally, and above all, to Agwé
and his consort, to “signalé” (inform) him that all this was to
be for him, and to ask him to accept it. The day had been
building up to this moment, and in these songs the drums and
the voices were deeply fervent. And over and above the singing,
carrying far into the space of the night, sounded the clarion call
of trumpet and conch shell (used as a horn), the particular call
for Agwé.
It was close to eleven o'clock, and since everyone had to be
up at four o'clock the next morning, there was no dancing
following the ceremony. Each one went off to the sleeping-mat
in the corner which had been allotted. Excitement had made
me sleepless, and I wandered down the road to walk it off.
When I returned, a single oil lamp burned in the rafters of the
large peristyle, and I was curious to see what might still be
going on. I realized then that the ceremony had not, after all,
been yet completed. At one end of the peristyle a table had been
set up as an altar, covered with a white embroidered table-
cloth which reached to the ground. Branches of palm had been
bent and bound together to make high, parallel arches, and
over these had been stretched another large, white cloth,
embroidered and lace-edged, to form a high arched canopy
over the table. Ropes of a brilliant pink Howering vine out,
lined the arches along with bouquets of fragrant laurel. Two
large chromos of St. Ulrique and the Virgin were pinned to
the inside of the canopy, and on the table had been placed a
sampling of the finest of the offerings, including a bottle of
champagne, another of perfume, and again, a vase of
flowers.*
On the ground immediately in front of this altar, a huge
double bed had been extemporized from layers of thick straw
sleeping-mats. It was made up with immaculate linens, and
two pillows in embroidered, lace-edged cases, had been placed
close together at the head. One corner of the white cover was
neatly and properly turned down. And a little below the
* See illustration 3, facing p. $4.
 Agwé— Sovereign of the Seas 125
pillows, where, I imagine, the hearts of the bodies would be,
there lay an exquisite bouquet of roses, and close beside it, a
conch shell of the most perfect shape and color. Never had a
bed been more tenderly and lovingly prepared. And never,
certainly, had it been destined for lovers such as these. Divinity
is cosmic in scope; and the cosmic implies real stature. The bed
measured at least twelve feet in length and eight in width, and
it seemed even more grand than that. It was the nuptial bed
of Agwé and Erzulie.
A candle burned at the foot of the center-post, and to one
side, seated in a rocker, the mambo was keeping vigil. She
had dozed off for a moment, and held her sacred rattle loosely
in her lap. Some small night sound must have awakened her.
Without opening her eyes, she shook the rattle gently several
umes and began rocking slowly back and forth, her lips
beginning the small movements of silent prayer.
I think that in the heart of most mambos, and of most
women serviteurs, Agwé holds a special place, and that who-
ever may be their mait-téte (and this might often be one of the
male divinities), as women they identify with Erzulie. Though
her relationship with Damballah was important, and that with
Ogoun most exciting (because of his contemporary power as
hero politician, and his fiery aggressive personality), it is Agwé
who is, in a sense, the ideal husband and lover, being, as the
sea is, both immediate and enduring, both a ready strength and
a deep peace.
The first sounds of preparation began at three in the morning.
The offerings and all the enormous quanuty of paraphernalia
were packed in baskets of every shape and size. At four the two
large open trucks, of the kind used for carting gravel, arrived,
and benches were lined up in them. Then the loading began:
the drums and the ram and the barque d’Agwé and a huge
seveniered white wedding-cake, and the chickens and the
pigeons and the baskets of food and the ceremonial flags and
much more; and finally, after chat, the people, who seemed, by
then, to number several hundred, but probably added up to
126 The Divine Horsemen
about fifty. Then, with the more agile hanging on to the frame-
work, the trucks lumbered off down the road.
The drums set up the initial beats, and the blowers of the
trumpet and the conch shell, who were perched on the roof of
the cab, picked it up, and the voices lifted into the cold dawn.
In every small community clustered along the road, the people
ran out and cheered us on. Eventually the trucks left the high-
way and turned down a tiny, rutted, mud road which cut
directly toward the sea. It was obvious, soon, that the mud
would make it impossible to reach the shore by truck. We
pulled to a stop and unloaded at a point which turned out to
be a good two miles from our destination. The barque, the
baskets of food, everything was hoisted up on the heads, and,
in single file, safari fashion, we started out for the sea on foot.
The sun was rapidly growing hotter, while the mud gave way
to a gray, oozing clay in which one sank deeper and deeper
with each step. When it no longer seemed humanly possible to
go any farther, the screen of trees which we had been ap-
proaching thinned out, and there, anchored a good distance
from shore (for the ocean floor sloped gradually here), was the
sailboat which awaited us, its bright trimmings dancing in the
wind. On the shore we gathered once more for ritual, vevers,
salutations, songs. And again everything was hoisted to the
heads of the people, even the ram had to be carried this time,
and the safari waded into the water.*
It was over five feet deep at the boat, but, as they said, the
gods were with us, for nothing was lost and everyone managed
to clamber in and set about arranging things in the impossibly
small space. It was already ten o’clock, and, there being no
shade from the sun, the heat was soon unendurable. Those
who had no hats wrapped handkerchiefs around their heads,
moistening them from time to time. The clothes, initially wet
from the wading, were kept wet now by the perspiration
which poured from everyone. Those who were responsible for
arranging the barque were particularly unfortunate, since they
* See illustration 7, facing p. 151.
 Agwé— Sovereign of the Seas 127
worked in the deep open hold of the ship, into which no
breeze penetrated.
In the flurry of ritual preparation no one had thought to
bring fresh drinking water, and within a short ume every face
seemed rigid with the effort of endurance. Lips were painfully
parched. There was practically no conversation. Those who
were concerned with the final arrangement of the barque com-
municated by gestures. Grouped together, silently passing the
things from hand to hand, or indicating placement to one
another, they seemed to be dancing a strange, cryptic ballet in
slow motion, seen through the shimmering veil of rising heat.
But they sang, and the drums beat and the trumpet and
conch shell called, over and over. Inthe intervals between songs,
the grating and ringing of the mambo’s rattle and bell was the
only sound. She stood near the mast, apparently oblivious of
everything, sounding her rattle and from time to time she lifted
the cwo white chickens which she held in one hand, toward
the cardinal points, signaling Agwé. They made no protest,
and the ram, too, had been stunned into silence by the heat.
Again they chanted—songs on behalf of sailors, and in
praise of La Siréne, and, for Agassou, and, above all, in praise
of Agwé and the mighty thunder of his cannon, the flash of his
lightning strokes. But especially they repeated, several times, the
most haunting song of all, a calling kind of melody, which
rose and fell in a minor key, and seemed to be borne so swiftly
away on the wind that the mind’s eye saw, in swift kaleidoscope,
the waters of the brilliant Mediterranean, the grey Arctic, the
South Pacific, and the never-seen, unknown seas everywhere,
wherever they might be—with these voices, borne by this
melody, ruffling the waves of each of them, calling the god
everywhere, over the vast reaches of his domain.
Cina, Cina, Cina,
Dogwé sang, cina lo-gé
Agwé Arroyo, protect your children,
Seashell in hand, care for your little ones,
128 The Divine Horsemen
Cina, Cina,
Cina dogwé sang
Cina lo-gé.

And if one watched the sea, or closed one’s eyes against the
heat, one might imagine the singers of these divine songs as
themselves of divine, ecstatic aspect. But the sounds rose from
creatures disheveled with effort, almost “decomposed”, as they
said, with the heat, the faces grim with endurance, even ugly
with irritabilicy. What, in such a context, did it mean when,
somewhere, someone would state that belief was comfort, that
ritual “released” the “inhibitions”? Here the serviteur was a
worker and his every movement, his every aspect, workman-
like.
Apparently we were nearing, now, the island beneath the
water, although I was never to discover exactly how this was
determined. Suddenly a certain haste was made to complete
the preparations. The barque was now piled high with every
conceivable food and delicacy, arranged to make the finest
possible display, and topped with the huge white wedding,
cake. The houngan who was assisting her took the chickens
from the mambo, killed them with a deft movement, and laid
them also on the barque.
At this first offering, two women were almost simultaneously
possessed by Agwé. The initial convulsive movement occurred
so suddenly that almost no one had remarked it, and now their
faces, which had been normally feminine, planed off, im-
perceptibly, into a masculine nobility. Water was drawn up
from the sea in a pail and poured over them, since normally
Agwé, being a water divinity, would have immediately
immersed himself in the bassin. Those who were near saluted the
arrival of the divinity, and, through each of the women, Agwé
spoke a few words of greeting in a voice which gurgled as if
with rising air bubbles, and seemed truly to come from the
waters. His mood was not displeased, but it was sober. The
houngan, conscience-stricken, began to explain that he, too,
 Agwé— Sovereign of the Seas 129
would soon make a ceremony. The two Agwés listened to him,
their eyes at once forgiving and somehow detached. One
thought: perhaps they forgive because they are detached. And,
with the same air of noble, gentle sadness, they looked slowly
from person to person, from the barque of food, to the mambo.
There was something in their regard which stilled everyone.
One had seen it in the faces of those who prepare to leave and
wish to remember that to which they will no longer return.
They met each other's eyes, and as a way was cleared for them,
approached each other, and crouched down in an embrace of
mutual consolation, their arms about each other’s shoulders,
their foreheads lowered, each on the other’s shoulder. So
mirrored, they wept.
It is said that the gods of the Sky Pantheon all weep. Some
say it is because they first came from the waters below the
earth and are still, in a sense, wet. Others say that the rains
which fall are the tears of the gods; so it is because the gods
weep for man out of compassion that life can go on. But I had
seen Ogoun weeping also, and neither of these legends would
explain his tears.
The people in the boat were accustomed, now, to the fact
that their great gods wept, and they accepted it, sometimes
saying to them, as one would to a child, that they mustn't
weep. Yet, after all, one could not hope to understand all the
moods of the gods, and there was work to be done, and the
ceremony to be continued. The houngenikon began a song,
the drums, trumpet and shell joined in, and the chorus. The
preparations gathered speed, and, with everyone moving deftly
so as not to disturb or intrude upon the Agwés, the ram was
passed forward. One hardly had time to observe it before the
animal was lifted to the rail, where it balanced for a moment,
and then plunged into the water.
Apparently we were now directly over the sacted “zilet”’ for
the last ritual consecration of the barque was accomplished with
almost frantic speed. It was so heavily laden that six men were
required to lift it to the rail. A cry of “Attention!” went up, the
130 The Divine Horsemen
boom swung widely in the opposite direction, the boat swerved
and tilted sharply on its side. In that split second, when the
water lay almost level with the rail, the men slid the barque
on to the surface of the sea. Our boat lurched and righted itself
and there, below us, and already behind, the barque was
drifting swiftly away in our backwash. It looked incredibly
lovely, the high-piled offerings, crowned with the sparkling
white cake, drifting in the deep blue of the sea. As we all
watched it silently, it seemed to hesitate to a stop, and then, as
if a great hand had reached up from below and grasped it,
it disappeared abruptly into the quiet water.
The houngenikon, the drums, the chorus burst forth all at
once, into a vivid song of “rejouissance”. It was the first song of
joyous nature since the beginning of the trip. Beside me stood
the painter, his eyes fixed on the spot where his barque had
disappeared. He was singing joyously. Everyone had worked
hard, and had given, each in his own fashion; but for the
painter there must have existed an image of special pride in his
mind’s eye, as he saw the fabulous submarine palace where the
great Papa Agwé, pleased with his servant’s labor, was already
motioning his illustrious guests toward this banquet table.
I turned from him to the glad faces of the others, and turned
away to the sea and wept. It was at this moment that I under-
stood why the gods, who loved these men, would weep.®

5
OGOUN—WARRIOR HERO; STATESMAN AND
DIPLOMAT; POLITICIAN AND GANGSTER;
MAGICIAN

The Nigerian Ogoun who crossed the ocean from Africa was
a figure in the same classic tradition as the Greek Zeus. He was
a sky divinity, Lord of the Thunderbolt,® of fire and of might.®
By logical extension he was patron of warriors and of the iron-
smiths, forgers of war-weapons. But the Ogoun whom the
 Ogoun— Warrior Hero 131

VEVER FOR OGOUN BADAGRIS

houngans so often choose as the guardian deity of their houn-

fors today is not altogether this original figure. Ogoun is might,
power, authority, triumph; and the means by which these are
achieved vary with historical circumstance. Today power is
political; and Ogoun is, in fact, often a political figure.
If one were to assemble the various manifestations of Ogoun
and parade them in order, one would have, in fact, a
procession of the hero-types of history. The most poignantly
noble would probably be that of the mortally wounded
warrior, whose opening song, sung haltingly and in obvious
pain, announces: “I am wounded, oh, I am wounded.” The
wound seems to be in his heart, and, since he is dying and
unable to keep on his feet, he is held upright by someone on
either side. His arms are thrown loosely over the shoulders of
his supporters and the tears begin to roll down his cheeks as he
is half-dragged, half-carried to a chair. In this moment—with
132 The Divine Horsemen
the side-stretched arms, the drooping head, the profoundly
noble expression of the face, the attenuated, fallen posture of
the body, and the tenderness of his two supporters, whose
bodies are slightly bowed beneath his weight—he becomes the
uncannily precise image of Christ being taken down from the
cross.* (It is improbable that these people have anywhere seen
that Christian image. Yet even if they had, and if this were an
unconscious re-creation of it, 1t would be the ultimate testi-
monial to their profound perception of the meaning of Christ.
And if the image is not derived, but original to Voudoun, that
also testifies, in another way, to an equal profundity.)
Although this may, in a certain sense, be the most impressive
manifestation, there are many other important Ogouns, just as
there are many ways of power, and each Ogoun can strengthen
the devotee in his special fashion. As Balindjo or Batala,
Ogoun is known as a healer. In this aspect he often shows
particular concern for children, and will spend a long time
preparing some herbal remedy. As Ogoun Feraille,** he will
impart strength to a serviteur by slapping him firmly on the
arms, the thighs and the back, as if to infuse that body with a
portion of his own power. As Ogoun Badagris (who, like
Ghede, is related to fertility, wisdom or prophecy, and magic)®
he may lift a person into the air and carry him about the peri-
style, an indication of his special patronage of that individual.
There is even an Ogoun Bayé (barrier, gateway) and an
Ogoun Panama (straw hat), who as gate-guardians, recall
Legba. Whatever his aspect, an Ogoun always bears that
special Nago mark, of power and militancy.®
The idea of force, conflict, and power is almost inevitably
linked to fire and heat. Ogoun is deity of fire, and red is the
color sacred to him. Moreover, he must not be saluted with the
usual libation of water. Instead, rum is poured on the ground,
* This manifestation occurred in precisely the same way several umes, over
a five-month period, and was accepted without surprise, as if those present were
familiar with it, although it does not seem to be a very common aspect.
** Frequently spelt “Ferei”.
 Ogoun— Warrior Hero 133
and a match is set to it, and he is brought in on that fire. As the
flame moves toward its destination, led by a houngan trickling
the rum before it, one senses keenly the arrival of a dynamic
force. When Ogoun himself is present, he may pour rum on
the ground and light it, and the warm aroma which rises and
pervades the peristyle seems to be the very breath of power and
strength. Those who are present gather the fragrant fumes in
their cupped hands, as if ic were a liquid, and wash their
bodies with it.
Power resides, too, in the saber or machete which ts sacred
to Ogoun. To indicate that he is its master, he will press the
very sharp edge into his arm or his thigh and then reveal that
the flesh has not been pierced by it. Sometimes he will go to the
extreme of planting the hilt of the saber in the ground, so that
the blade is vertical. Then, with his diaphragm resting upon
the point, he will slowly lift his feet from the ground, unul his
body is spread-eagled and its full weight balanced entirely upon
the point of the saber. Although the shirt is pierced, Ogoun’s
flesh is not.*
Another characteristic manner is manifest in St. Jacques, the
loa named after the saint with whom Ogoun Feraille has been
idenufied. He is the national hero, the general who is greeted
with a military salute and the national anthem, an impressive
figure. Obviously authoritarian, a disciplinarian, he paces
rapidly back and forth, every gesture and expression conveying
a sense of crisis, of urgency, the pressure of battle or of conflict.
Intense, ready to fly into a rage, he periodically shouts: “Foutre
tonerre!” (By thunder!) which is his special epithet, or
announces: “Grains moin fret!” (My testicles are cold)—his
particular way of demanding a drink of rum. Often he will
spurt this rum through his teeth in a fine spray, a gesture special
to the Ogouns.”
It 1s this same revolutionary hero who 1s representative, too,
of the political Ogoun, for a political figure does not lend itself
* I witnessed ewo Ogouns in this incredible posture simultaneously, at a
hounfor near Carrefour (just south of Port-au-Prince) in September 1949.
134 The Divine Horsemen
to an archetypal statement in the grand style. The politician’s
craft is primarily verbal in its overt expressions. Moreover, as
the Haitian well understands, it is not even this overt verbalism
which 1s the real source of expression of a politician’s power.
The actual battle is conducted in secrecy and intrigue, and
these are not the materials out of which a grand figure can be
externalized as personality. Therefore Ogoun continues to
appear as the military general which he became during the
struggle for independence. Nevertheless, if a man is influential,
politically or economically, if he can ease the way for the
required permit to conduct a ceremony, if he can “arrange”
for a cheaper price for the new tin roof, if he seems prosperous
or prospering, if he moves in official or authoritative circles,
then it is almost assumed that Ogoun is his patron, perhaps
even his mait-téte, although the man may have nothing of
martial mien about him.
Sometimes, in minor aspects of Ogoun, the politician will
emerge more clearly. There is a deity Jaco (derived from St.
Jacques) who is definitely of the Petro cult and whose charac-
teristic activity is the sly creation of disorder, ill-temper and
misunderstandings between people. Unless he is rapidly con-
trolled or sent away, the ceremonial or dance soon dis-
integrates,’
It is also significant that most of the houngans who claim
the patronage of Ogoun belong to the Masonic Order.” It is
a logical association. As ironsmith, upon whose craftsman
ship much depends, as moral authority, as the respected
“influential” citizen much involved in civic affairs and welfare,
as a natural leader and organizer of men, and certainly as a
believer in ritual, initiations, hierarchy, etc., Ogoun might
very well have been a leading member of a local Masonic lodge.
Moreover, since Voudoun is not a centralized religion, the
Masonic order has come to serve, curiously enough, as a kind
of unifying meeting ground for the houngans, even to the point
where the Masonic handshake has become a standard part of
the ritual Voudoun salutation between houngans. It is possible
 Ogoun— Warnor Hero 135
that other Masonic symbols have been introduced into Vou-
doun ceremonial, but it would require an advanced member of
the Order to recognize the actual degree to which this 1s so.
It might be expected that the warrior divinity would be
strongly represented 1 in the Petro ritual, but Ogoun’s essential
nature, in spite of all the modifications which history has
imposed upon it, is an honest heroism, at variance with the
spirit of Petro. Neither the African Ogoun, nor St. Jacques,
the military general, could have initiated the revolution of
independence. It was not a movement of massed troops led by
a hero on a white horse; it was, at least in its beginning, a
conflict of another kind, in which secret plotting, sudden raids
and guerrilla tactics were in order. And so the Petro cult, with
its “guerrilla” organization, its individualistic emotional
intensiues, its emphasis on magical means, supplanted Ogoun
in the réle that, theoretically, he might have played. Moreover,
since the Petro loa altogether are stern, violent, or even
malevolent, and work with fire, a Petro Ogoun would simply
duplicate functions already fulfilled. Ogoun Yemsen and
Ogoun Ge-Rouge,” who are among the few Petro Ogouns,
are not as important as are Dan Petro, Ti-Jean Petro, and
Congo Zandor, of the Rada side.
Although Ogoun, as a divine warrior, has largely given way
to the figure of authoritarian force, and this, in turn, 1s be-
ginning to give way to the even lesser figure of political skill,
the original hero, in all his divine dignity, has not been enurely
consumed by history. He still exists, and has even been given
a more profound dimension in the Christ-like image of the
martyred hero. If this great figure is finally eclipsed, it may not
be by the soldier, or the guerrilla, or even by the politician
ward-healer; it would probably be by the figure of some
Haiuan equivalent of our “Captain of Industry”, or, what 1s
worse, an archetypal opportunist or carccrist.
Atthe moment, Mounanchou” is admittedly a minor deity,
a work deity of a mambo, and for the moment he would seem
to represent nothing more ominous than the principle by which
136 The Divine Horsemen
an individual might function well—a sense for organization,
for the executive attitude, for the creation of an air of respecta-
bility. When he possesses the mambo who ts his special devotee,
(and who devotes a full day to his service), he keeps people
waiting a long time while he prepares for his appearance.
Then, dressed in a good business suit, he arrives with a pro-
cessional pomp greater than that of any other loa. He may be
angry if things are not done well; he has been very much
annoyed when his “reception” banquet table did not seem
ostentatious and elaborate enough. Apart from this, his overt
actions reveal nothing of a malevolent character.
Yet, if one begins to track down certain details in his ritual,
one discovers that Mounanchou has some very strange and
suspect connections in the criminal underworld of the
Mystéres. For example, the vever which is his symbol, is a man
with three horns.* This immediately and unmistakably relates
him to Bossu of the Three Horns. The Bossu family is quite
large and presumably contains some good Bossus. Yet its
malevolent Petro emphasis is unmistakable. Bossu is referred
to as a “diobolo”,”® a “soldier of Mait’ Carrefour”’,’® and is
altogether related to malevolent magic and the fearful bakas
(malevolent spirits who frequently take animal form). Thus,
underlying the apparent innocence, and even, in certain
respects, pompous absurdity of Mounanchou, there exists an
entire network of underworld connections. This leads, in the
end, to a story which is both instructive, and, in its way,
ominous; for Bossu appears to be related to Kadja Bossu, and
* Rites relating to loa whose function is primarily magical are far less “open”
than other rites. Preparatory details are accomplished in secrecy, the public rite
is often performed with a haste which prevents careful observation, there is an
absence of the customary casual, knowing remarks which might be informative,
and the attitude of the officiants prohibits the kind of inquiry which is normally
welcomed. It is even probable that some of the public details serve, deliberately,
to dissemble and conceal the important and significant actions, so that no
observer could learn the magic formula. Since all this was characteristic of the
rites relating to Mounanchou, it was impossible to definitely ascertain his réle
and relationship to Bossu, and this relationship is suggested here as a strong
probability, based on a series of significant details.
 Erzulie—Goddess; The Tragic Mistress 137
thus, perhaps, to Akadja, who—legend has it—was an ancient
king of Dahomey. “In his kingdom there was no Vodu;
women bore goats and goats gave birth to men, and everywhere
could be seen men coupling with she-goats and he-goats with
women. A woman... came from Adja... and was very
bewildered by the sights she saw (and she explained to the
king that in her country) the women bore human children and
goats bore kids . . . because they had Vodu there. Akadja
requested her to bring the Vodu from Adja. . . .”” It would
seem, however, that although Voudoun was brought to that
kingdom, there still exists, ready to be regenerated at the
ambitious and propitious moment, the animal-men from the
umes before the loa were introduced, and the archetypal
careerists then will defeat the divine hero.

6
ERZULIE—GODDESS; THE TRAGIC MISTRESS

It is typical of the naturalistic, almost scientific metaphysic of

Voudoun that it relates fecundity to such essentially andro-
gynous figures as Legba and Ghede, to coupled totalities such
as the Marassa and Damballah-Ayida, and (although fecun-
dity is not regarded as one of the major meanings of the sea)
even provides La Siréne’® as female counterpart to Agwé. The
female principle thus participates in all of the major cosmic
forces (with the exception of the distinctly masculine forces
personified in Ogoun) and Voudoun does not idealize woman,
per se, as the principle of fecundity. Neither does it give pre-
ferential emphasis to the maternal womb over the phallic
principle, either as cosmic origin, or in the prevalent psychology
as reflected in ritual. Because of this explicit insistence that
generation is the responsibility of male and female equally, the
female principle enjoys less singular and specific importance
here than in several other major mythologics.*
* In European and other mythologies, the female fecundity principle appears
as the agrarian principle, and, as Frazer makes clear throughout The Golden
138 The Divine Horsemen
But if Voudoun denies woman this distinctive réle as a
separate cosmic element, it proposes an alternative one which
shem ight well find even preferable; for while the elemental
cosmic principles which are personified in the other loa apply
equally to all levels and forms of life, Voudoun has given
woman, in the figure of Erzulie, exclusive title to that which
distinguishes humans from all other forms: their capacity to
conceive beyond reality, to desire beyond adequacy, to create
beyond need. In Erzulie, Voudoun salutes woman as the
divinity of the dream, the Goddess of Love, the muse of beauty.
It has denied her emphasis as mother of life and of men in order
to regard her (like Mary, with whom Erzulie is identified)”® as
mother of man’s myth of life—its meaning. In a sense, she 1s
that very principle by which man conceives and creates
divinity. Thus, to man himself, she is as mistress.
It is significant that, to the Haitian, she is as important as the
loa of the elemental cosmic forces and even more beloved. For
the Haitian is not at all a simple, elemental man. Even though
(or perhaps precisely because) it is so difficult for him to acquire
even those things which are requisite for daily life, he is almost
obsessed with the vision of a life which would transcend these,
a dream of luxury in which even the essentials of life are
refined to appear as indulgences. The lady of that sublime
luxury is Erzulie. In her character is reflected all the élan, all
the excessive pitch with which the dreams of men soar, when,
momentarily, they can shake loose the flat weight, the dreary,
reiterative demands of necessity; and the details with which
the serviteur has surrounded her image reflect the poignant,
fantastic misconceptions of luxury which a man who has only
known poverty would cherish.
Bough, is the corn mother, the wheat mother, or, as we know her, mother earth.
This aspect is incorporated in the Petro rites as Marinette, wife to Ti-Jean Petro,
and these rites reflect the American Indian maize culture, as well as the charac-
teristic elements of Indian propitiatory rites—violence, fire and bloody sacrifice.
Ceremonies for Marinette have been described by Denis-Rigaud and by
Maximilien, while Courlander (pp. 42 and 44) lists a number of Marinettes,
such as Bras Chéche, Pied Chéche and Marinette Congo.
 Erzulie --Goddess; The Tragic Mistress 139
He conceives of Erzulie as fabulously rich, and he neither
inquires into nor explains the sources of this limitless wealth,
as if by such disinterest he becomes himself freed from concern
with sources and means. He shares her impatience with
economies, with calculation, even with careful evaluation.
Erzulie moves in an atmosphere of infinite luxury, a perfume
of refinement, which, from the first moment of her arrival,
pervades the very air of the peristyle, and becomes a general
expansiveness in which all anxieties, all urgencies vanish. The
tempo of movements becomes more leisurely, tensions dis
solve and the voices soften, losing whatever aggressive or
strident tones they may have had. One has the impression that
a fresh, cooling breeze has sprung up somewhere and that the
heat has become less intense, less oppressive.
Her first act is to perform an elaborate toilette®! for which the
equipment is always kept in readiness in the hounfor or the
private chapel; and it is always the very best that the houngan
or serviteur can afford. The enamel basin in which she washes
is neither chipped nor discolored; the soap is new, sull in its
wrapper; there are several towels, probably embroidered; and
a special comb, mirror and even tooth-brush have been con-
secrated to her. She is provided with a fresh white or rose silk
handkerchief which she arranges carefully around her hair.
Perfume is imperative, and there may be powder as well. A
white or rose dress of delicate cloth, with lace or embroidery,
has been kept in readiness for her. And, finally, she is brought
not one necklace, but several, of gold and pearls, along with
ear-rings and bracelets and her three wedding-bands.
It is the elaborate formalism of her every gesture which
transforms this toilette from a simple functional activity to a
ritual statement. The cleansing with which it begins (and
which, as such, would hardly be necessary for the serviteur
already at his best for a ceremony) is a ritual of purification.*
* Basil leaves, which are understood as a purifying agent, are especially
associated with Erzulie and are steeped or rubbed in the water for her bath.
Her demand for absolute cleanliness is another of her special traits.
140 The Divine Horsemen
The careful, unhurried accumulation of costume is an act
which, step by step, rejects the primitive, the “natural con-
dition”, and, step by careful step, instructs the fortunate
attendants in the idea of beauty, the sense of form, and,
above all, the cumulative painstaking process by which
a work of man—be it art or myth—tis created. The
Goddess examines each article minutely; where alternative
choice exists, her considered selection, her indecision are
very pointed; each effect is critically scrutinized, often rejected
and rearranged. The very process of this creative trans-
formation becomes so significant that whether it is a large
audience or a small family who await her, or how long
they may have to wait, ceases to be of any consequence.
What is of consequence is the act itself, and the demonstration
of the fact that such an act can transfigure the female into
the feminine.
Thus attired, powdered and perfumed, she goes out into the
peristyle escorted by several of the more handsome men, her
favorites. There she may make the rounds, greeting the men
guests effusively, but extending only the little fingers of each
hand to those women who are not special devotees.®* Her voice
is a delicate soprano; her every gesture, movement of eyes, and
smile, 1s a masterpiece of beguiling coquetry; with her, human
relationship becomes itself significant rather than merely a
means to an end.® She may visit her altar chamber and be
pleased that the Aowers are fresh, for flowers are her passion.
She may ask for a favorite song, for she loves to dance
and is the most graceful of all loa; or she may simply
give audience to her admirers, and by her postures and
attitudes transform the crude chair in which she sits into a
throne. If she is being feasted that day, she eats delicately,
of a cuisine that is more exacting than that of any other
loa—a just-so blending of seasonings and sauces. Above
all, she favors desserts, decorated cakes and confections of
all kinds. Or, if she has arrived on an impromptu visit,
she may be content with a sip of the créme de menthe or the
 Erzulie—Goddess; The Tragic Mistress 141
champagne which, theoretically, should always be ready for
her appearance.*
Admittedly, requirements such as champagne seem an
exaggeration in the face of the general poverty. She has even
been known to say—when there was no water to sprinkle on
the earthern floor to settle the dust and cool the room—
“Sprinkle perfume instead!’®> And if one indulges even such
exaggerations, it is, in part, because of the overwhelming
innocence with which she proposes them. She is not so much
indifferent to the difficulties her requests create for the serviteur,
as ignorant of the existence of difficulties; for there are none for
her, and she is herselfas bounteous as demanding. As Lady
of Luxury, she gives gifts constantly:& her own perfume, the
handkerchief she wears, the food and money which she con-
scripts from the houngan and distributes generously. She
particularly rewards those who are handsome, or who dance
well, or whose personality pleases her. She never neglects one
who is devoted to her.
As Lady of Luxury she is, above all, Goddess of Love, that
human luxury of the heart which is not essenual to the purely
physical generation of the body. She is as lavish with that love
as she is generous with her gifts. She treats men with such over-
flowing, such demonstrative affection that it might seem, at
umes, embarrassing. She will embrace them, and kiss them,
caress them, sit with an arm around those to both sides of her.
Nothing is meted out or budgeted, there is more than enough;
this is her way of loving, this is the divine fecundity of the
heart. A heart is, indeed, her symbol, most often the pierced
heart identified with Mary.®?
It is a fecundity which minor men would call promiscuity.
But her several lovers among the loa, who are major men, and
the serviteurs, who have learned to see her through their eyes,
* Her sense of form extends to a rather strict sense of decorum. She will not
countenance any boisterousness or disorder. She punishes those whom she
finds unkempt. She will not tolerate the drinking of hard liquor in her presence,
and her special devotees respect this prohibition on the days sacred to her,
whether she is present or not.
142 The Divine Horsemen
have never called it that. Her past includes them all—Dam-
ballah, Agwé and Ogoun. It is for these three that she wears
three wedding-bands simultaneously. There has been, also, a
Airtation with the lesser Azacca; a dismissal of the love-struck
Ghede because he was too coarse; and any devotee who might
especially please her may be taken for her lover.®8 Yet it has
never been suggested that she betrays any of them, nor are the
loa exasperated with what might seem frivolous indecision.
Ogoun may battle with Agwé for her,®® but in a curious way
this battle seems of purely masculine significance, a pattern
which the male ego must follow; and one senses that each of
them seeks rather to retain her favor than to exclude the other.
Indeed, it is as if; from the limitless wealth of her heart, she
could love many, and each in ample and full measure. Her
generosity is so natural that one is caught up in her exuberant
innocence, believing, with her, that all is good, is simple, is
full-blown. It is in order to feel this that the serviteur indulges
her extravagant demands, for if what is so difficult for him is
so normal for her, that very fact confirms the existence of a
world in which his difficulties do not occur.
Yet this moment, the achievement of which has strained his
every resource, is, for her, a mere beginning, the promise of a
possible perfection; no sooner is she pleased with such promise
than she moves toward that perfection. In the midst of the
gaiety she will inexplicably recall, as women sometimes do, some
old, minor disappointment. She will remark the one inade-
quate detail here among the dozen major achievements. Sud-
denly it is apparent that imperceptibly she has crossed an
invisible threshold where even the most willing reason and the
most ready reality cannot follow; and, in another moment, she,
who seemed so very close, so real, so warm, is suddenly of
another world, beyond this reality, this reason. It is as if below
the gaiety a pool had been lying, silently swelling, since the
very first moment; and now its dark despair surfaces and engulfs
her beyond succor. She who has been loved by all the major
loa (and it is not they who were promiscuous) is convinced,
 Erzulie—Goddess; The Tragic Mistress 143
by some curious inversion, that they have each betrayed
her. She reiterates this complaint, even against the reminder that
Ogoun still presses his court and that Agwé still takes care of
her in her illnesses. She, who is the wealthiest of the loa, the most
frequently gifted with luxurious accoutrement, suffers for not
being “served” enough. She, who is the most complimented,
most beloved, most often wedded in the sacred marriage of
devotee and divinity*°—she who is Goddess of Love—protests
that she is not loved enough.®!
Inevitably then—and this is a classic stage of Erzulie’s
possession—she begins to weep. Tenderly they would comfort
her, bringing forward sull another cake, another jewel,
pledging still another promise. But it would seem that nothing
in this world would ever, could ever, answer those tears. It is
because of these tears that the women, who might otherwise
resent her, are so gentle. In their real, reasonable world there is
no grief like this.
There are times when this sense of all things gone wrong is
projected in that combined rage and despair which ts Erzulie
Ge-Rouge.™ With her knees drawn up, the fists clenched, the
jaw rigid and the tears streaming from her tight-shut eyes, she
is the cosmic tantrum—the tantrum not of a spoiled child, but
of some cosmic innocence which cannot understand—and
will not understand—why accident should ever befall what is
cherished, or why death should ever come to the beloved. But
whether the raging tears of Erzulie Ge-Rouge, or the despairing
sobs of Erzulie Maitresse, this weeping is so inaccessible to
reason that one thinks, inevitably, of a child’s innocence of
reason. It is this sense of innocence which emanates from her
that makes her identification with the Virgin Mary somehow
seem truer than her promiscuity, than even the fact that che
devotion of prostitutes makes of her almost their patron saint.
It is possible, even, that there is no conflict between these
several truths, for the concept of Erzulie as virgin is not intended
as a physical analysis. To call her virgin is to say that she is of
another world, another reality, and chat her heart, like the
144 The Divine Horsemen
secret insulated heart of Mary Magdalene, is innocent of the
flesh, is inaccessible to its delights and its corruptions.* To say
she is virgin is to say that she is Goddess of the Heart, not of
the body: the loa of things as they could be, not as they are, or
even as they normally should be. She is the divinity of the
dream, and it is in the very nature of dream to begin where
reality ends and to spin it and to send it forward in space, as the
spider spins and sends forward its own thread. For the loa of
cosmic forces, there is an end to labor in the achievement of
some natural cosmic balance. But the labor of Erzulie is as
endless as the capacity of man to dream and, in the very act of
accomplishing that dream, to have already dreamed again. It
is upon this diminutive feminine figure that man has placed the
burden of the most divine paradox. He has conceived her
without satisfactions, without balance, to insure an over-
whelming balance against his own satisfactions. This is the
meaning of the merciless muse, the most unhappy Medusa.
Erzulie is the loa of the impossible perfection which must
remain unattainable. Man demands that she demand of him
beyond his capacity. The condition of her divinity is his failure;
he crowns her with his own betrayals. Hence she must weep;
it could not be otherwise.
So, Maitresse Erzulie, weeping, comes to that moment which
has been called her paralysis. Just as the hurt of a child mounts
and transcends both its own cause and solution, reaching a
plateau where it exists as a pure pain, so her articulate com-
plaints cease, even the sobbing; and the body, as if no longer
able to endure, abandons the heart to its own infinite grief.
Her limbs, her neck, her back go limp. Her arms, stretching
across the shoulders of the men who support her on either side,
her head tilting, the cheeks wet from tears, the lids closing over
eyes turned inward toward some infinite darkness, she presents,
as Ogoun did, the precise attitude of the Crucifixion. So she
is carried from the stilled, saddened public to some adjacent
* Tt is this which places her love affairs at the extreme opposite end of the
emotional scale from the sexuality and obscenity of Ghede.
 Loco and Ayizan— The Priestly Parents 145
private chamber. Stretched on the bed, her arms still outflung,
she falls asleep as a child might, exhausted by too great a grief.
Those who brought her in, and others, who, unreasonably,
would sull wish to do something for her, stand about quietly,
speaking in whispers. They are glad to see that sleep has come,
and with it, respite; for they sense that her pain is not only great
but perhaps even eternal. The wound of Ogoun was a defeat
which might, perhaps, not have occurred or might, conceiv-
ably, be healed. The wound of Erzulie is perpetual: she is the
dream impaled eternally upon the cosmic crossroads where
the world of men and the world of divinity meet, and it is
through her pierced heart that “man ascends and the gods
descend”.*

7
LOCO AND AYIZAN-—THE PRIESTLY PARENTS

Physically, man is a descendant of the sea, and in his blood

he sull carries its chemistry; psychically, he is descended from
the divine essence beyond the sun-door; and just as the sea
had to be concentrated into his veins by gradual stages, so that
divine essence is funneled by stages into the microcosm of his
individual consciousness. Through the sun-door it was first
introduced into the general world and the major forces
distinguished by elemental function; but these forces, as such,
are not the loa which have just been described. To speak of loa
Is to recognize a second door, a second gateway, through which
* The possession described here is that of Erzulie Freda Dahomey (also
known as Maitresse), recognized as the major Erzulie and consistently
characterized by her “tristesse”. La Siréne resembles this Erzulie in most of the
feminine details, except that blue is her color and her voice contains a hiss, as
though the sea were in it. Gran Erzulie also makes relatively frequent appear-
ances. She is very old, and so crippled with arthritis that she cannot walk, but
goes along on her knees and with a cane. (Herskovits also has made note of this
[p. 174]). Although, as grandmother, she is the most maternal and protective
of the Exzulies, she retains essentially the same character as the young one, even
to greeting women only with the Lite fingers of her hands.
146 The Divine Horsemen
the forces have once more been funneled, specifically to the race
of man, here becoming divinity—a relationship of man’s
consciousness to cosmic force. In line with Legba, as if on a
place concentric to him, stand Loco and Ayizan, the first
priest and the first priestess, who are pre-eminent among the
ancestral loa.°° In them the major themes of Legba are restated
as if in a minor key, changed in emphasis by their closer
position to man.
In Loco, who is known as “chief of Legba’s escort’’,®® the
theme of the sun returns again, in songs, in the walking-stick®”
which he carries, and in the often reiterated title of King. In
songs he is called “Sun” Dahomey, or King, or Nago King,®®
and like the Dahomean king (and Damballah as well), he
must not be seen eating, lest his sacred soul escape from his
mouth or lest an evil spirit seize the opportunity to enter.*?
Ayizan too is related to Legba. She salutes him in song, as a
mambo would greet a loa; and sometimes she is referred to as
his wife.1® Here, in Ayizan, are the last echoes of the andro-
gynous divinity. In some regions she is referred to as “he’’;!
and in songs she is related to the ancient androgynous founders
of the race: Silibo-Gweto and Nanan-vbouclou, said to have
preceded even Mawu-Lisa,* from whom the deities
originated 1°
But Loco and Ayizan are much closer to the human race
than Legba, and this is apparent in their heterosexual division
of labor. The functions of the phallus and of the womb or
umbilical cord are not blended as in Legba, nor is the dis-
tinction minimized, as in the other cosmic male-female couples.
Legba’s major symbol, the tree, is recapitulated by Loco
Attiso, “he of the trees”,!° and as houngan, Loco also
controls Legba’s center-post, the poteauymitan. Thus Loco
governs the major highways of the loa; as houngan, he is, so to
speak, in charge of the divine traffic. Again, like Legba, he ts
understood to have access to both sides of the mirror and hence
* In this connection, it is significant to recall the androgynous aspect of the
Marassa and the fact that these preceded man.
 Loco and Ayizan— The Priestly Parents 147

VEVER FOR AYIZAN

to be capable of cosmic knowledge and prophecy.!™* And

just as Legba was the means by which Life and time began in
the world, so Loco, as the first priest, must have given the first
ritual recognition to death. There is a song which commemor-
ates the first retirer den bas de l'eau, and the first spirit so reclaimed
was Ghede himself.!© If one would invoke the loa, then, it is
imperative to have the accord of Loco, no less than that of Legba.
In the heterosexual, human world, the concept of the
vertical axis of the universe—the tree or center-post which
serves as channel for the divine life forces and is governed by
Loco—is differenuated from the point where it intersects the
plane of this world and, it may be said, the channel empues
itself; the public square and the market-place (which the
African Legba included in his dominion along with the road
itself and the sun-door as source and origin) is here under the
protection of Ayizan, Loco’s spouse and female counter-
part.!8 Moreover, she is patron, as well, of the ritual stages of
iniuation which culminate, finally, in the canzo ceremony of
spiritual birth. Ite is her palm leaf which purifies and protects
when shredded into a fringe; it is worn as a sort of mask by the
148 The Divine Horsemen
initiate on the occasion of his first emergence into the world.*
Thus she is the loa of the psychic womb of the race and she is
guardian of the place of spiritual birth, the hounfor. In the
absence of the houngan or mambo, the sacred objects and
drums are consigned to her, as well as to Loco, for protection.!
But just as Loco is more than gate-guardian, so Ayizan 1s
more than womb. These are the moral parents of the race, not
only in the sense of source or origin, but even more emphati-
cally, in the sense of guardians, In them the réle of the priest is
defined, for unlike the cosmic loa, they neither represent the
cosmic forces nor create them; rather, they represent the
ultimate in awareness of those principles, and their function and
responsibility as priests, and as parents, is to intervene on behalf
of their parish or progeny. In Voudoun the priest serves the loa
in order to serve man. It is upon the priest that man depends for
the means of controlling these cosmic forces, of correcting their
errors and failures. Loco and Ayizan, accordingly, are the
major healers of the pantheon. The invisible forces which come
by way of the trees may bring either good fortune or bad.
Significantly, it was Loco who discovered how to draw their
properties from the trees and to make the best herbal charms
against disease;!°8 and while Loco thus functions as the doctor
who heals and repairs the body in an almost scientific sense,
Ayizan protects against malevolent magic, and is the psychic
security which is power and health.1°® To cure and to protect
against magic, both imply the dual function of the houngan or
mambo: on the one hand such work restores, to its sound and
natural state of health, the cosmic body, and on the other hand,
it restores the human being as well. It is a réle which proposes
neither the superiority of the divinity nor that of the human
being, but is concerned with the adjustment between them.
Loco and Ayizan, then, are not mere interlocutors between the
loa and the serviteur, they are mediators, and their prejudice is
on behalf of the welfare of man.1°
None of the other cosmic loa are much concerned with
* See illustration 2, facing p. 39.
 Loco and Ayizan—The Priestly Parents 149
instruction; but Loco and Ayizan, who have known mortality,
know that the future of the race depends upon imparting to
their progeny the connaissances, the knowledges, by which
such control and such adjustment are achieved. They know
that their protective power, their control of the cosmic forces,
derives from those knowledges and from themselves as dis-
ciplined, self-controlled beings. It is this control, in turn,
which they would convey to their progeny and apprentices.
They not only heal, but they teach the curative prescription;
they watch over the ritual discipline, lose temper with and
punish the negligent houngan.* The gradual elevation of the
serviteur marks his growing knowledge of the nature of the loa,
the cosmic principles, and signifies his increasing mastery of
those principles. It is often pointed out that the loa who were
once houngans are stronger than the others, for those who
control the cosmic forces are, in a sense, stronger than those
forces. Loco and Ayizan represent the belief that such control
is the function and privilege of spiritual maturity. Whoever
understands the sun-door and the underworld, the life forces of
sky and sea, the powers of war and of love, can control them,
and so can himself become the moral spirit, the soul of his
cosmos. The labor of the priest is concerned with men, with
the transmission and the development of divinity in man. To
salute Loco and Ayizan after Legba but before the other loa is
to salute first the divine miracle which is life as a physical force
and then to salute the divine miracle which is man as a psychic
force; it is to say that when Loco first reclaimed Ghede from
the waters of the abyss, that was the first mecting of the quick
and the dead which was the point of departure for man’s
consciousness of life, his myth and his metaphysics; and it 1s to
say also that the dark room of the neophyte’s solitary meditation
is the soul-bearing womb of Ayizan. To salute Loco and

* Loco is known for the violence of his anger whenever he finds that ritual
disciplines are breaking down. He tends to break things and strike out in fury.
Simpson (II) describes Linglessou (a loa known to cat glass) in terms which
would seem to suggest that he is a Petro aspect of Loco.
I§0 The Divine Horsemen
Ayizan as guardians of the priesthood and the rites is to salute
that in man which knows and serves divinity; it is to say that
if a man should ever deny this in himself, neglect its develop-
ment, corrupt or suspend its activity in the service of the loa,
then there would be no loa, his cosmos would be without
soul, man would cease to be man and, only as an animal,
along with the other merely animal forms of life, would be-
come once more part of an amoral mass of organic matter, part
of the purposeless inevitabilities moving on the purposeless
momentum of original creation.
5 and 6. GOD OF THE DEAD AS GLUTTON. Since death constantly consumes the universe,
Ghede is known to be always hungry. Above: having “mounted” one of his devotees, Ghede
eats sugar cane and keeps a covetous eye on his ritual feast. Below: Ghede's symbol, a square
cross on a tomb, and a black goat, destied as offering to him.
7. CEREMONY FOR AGWE, SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS.
 CHAPTER IV

Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor

I

THE BEGINNINGS OF A HOUNGAN

ISNARD'S father had been a houngan. In the later years of his

life, however, he had devoted himself more to the cultivation
of his lands, which were considerable, and less to the practice
of priesthood, although personally he remained very devout.
Isnard himself had been sent to stay with relatives in Port-au-
Prince so that he might attend school, and, as he put it later,
he considered himself a resident of the city. Even when his
father died and he theoretically inherited the hounganship from
him, he regarded the country property as farm land, and pro-
posed to remain in the city as a shopkeeper or small-business
man. Of course he retained his ancestral loa; but he never
intended to carry out his heritage as houngan, and, as he says,
he even felt a certain detachment from the enure religious
structure. From time to ume, however, the loa began to declare,
either in his own dreams or through possessing another person,
that his abandonment of the inherited profession was wrong.
At first he ignored them, but their insistence became more
stubborn. They began to inflict punishment upon him: he
would become ill, or various of his undertakings would begin
to turn out badly. The pressure increased and accumulated.
One day, he says, he knew that the loa’s claim upon him was so
imperative that he could not deny it. Brusquely he wound up
everything in the city and returned to the country. He had been
unable to evade his heritage.*
* Ic is possible to summarize the Haitian concept of heredity, as follows.
There has been no need for the Haitian to distinguish between the heredity and
the environment of a child, since in a primuuve culture the child is consistently
subject to the parents’ influence. The character of the parents—cher value
structure, emotional emphasis, ideology—does, in fact, become transferred to che
151
1$2 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
Being claimed, selected, or called by the loa is, in fact, the
decisive moment.! Even if Isnard had never left his father’s side,
and, as the eldest son, had expected to follow in his footsteps,
the loa would have had to confirm (or perhaps not confirm)
his inheritance of the profession upon his father’s death. For the
Haitian, inheritance does not exist unless it is manifest. The
soul of the deceased, for instance, must be heard as a voice in a
govi, and the govi in which the voice sounds is passed down
from generation to generation. Likewise, the elevation of this
soul to the rank of loa, while it takes place invisibly, is recog’
nized as having occurred only at the moment when (having
become a principled archetype) it possesses a serviteur. Even
the inheritance of the established parental loa is merely an
invisible potential until, with maturity, the mait-téte and the
other loa indicate their real, active existence in the living
individual.* So also here, the inheritance of the priesthood
could be ignored until, in the individual himself, that
principle proved to be a dominant, dynamic and compelling
force.
Inheritance, then, is a potential which may or may not be
realized in the course of a person’s development to a stage of
decisive maturity. While it is not an autocratic imposition
upon the individual, neither is it a system of autocratic
children as much as their physical characteristics. The break-up of the family
unit has not required a revision of this concept for reasons, which, in fact, would
be best advanced by scientific psychology: namely, that the definitive period of
character formation is in very early infancy. Consequently, even an early separa-
tion—as in Isnard’s case—would not undo the initial influence of the parents.
As a matter of fact, psychoanalysis seems to place that formative period so far
back in infancy that even in our own culture the distinction between heredity
and environment is rapidly becoming as irrelevant to an analysis of psychological
sources as it is alien to a Haitian’s concept of psychic formation. It is significant,
for instance, that in addition to inheriting loa from one’s real parents, one may
have a loa placed in one’s head by a houngan, a spiritual parent with no
physical affinity. Maximilien (p. 267) refers to the inheritance of the profession
of houngan.
* The phrase: “The character of a person is the character of his loa”, implies
the mature development of human character as a condition for determining
which loa infuse him.
 The Beginnings of a Houngan 153
exclusion. The loa had claimed Titon for houngan,* although
his father had not been one, and he had been prevented from
becoming one by purely secular circumstances. If the inheri-
tance of loa refers to the transmission of principles, che inheri-
tance of priesthood can be understood as the transmission of
professional responsibility and devotion to those principles.
These qualities, in the final analysis, must be manifest as active
principles in the individual's own character; they could not be
imposed simply by the circumstances of birth.
This inheritance, moreover, had not only to be confirmed by
the son's characterological development; it had also to be
implemented by his own efforts. Although Isnard was rela-
tively fortunate in having inherited the basic physical accoutre-
ments of priestcraft—the land and buildings which would serve
as his hounfor—he had neither learned priestcraft from his father
nor passed through even the initial stages of such elevation.
Like Titon, therefore, he had to begin at the beginning by
attaching himself to some houngan of his choice and there
serving his apprenticeship. He had, in a sense, to find a further
parent, one who would father him as a spiritual being.
In calling both the priest and the loa “papa” (or “maman”),
as is the common practice, the serviteur simultaneously
indicates two basic concepts: first, that he expects of both the
divinity and the priest the protective prejudice which a child
assumes of its parent; and second, that the parent commands
an authority and respect similar to that which 1s accorded the
priest and the loa. When the loa are worshipped in private
family ceremonies it is, indeed, the father who plays the role
of priest, and it is perhaps the father’s or mother's great-grand-
father who is manifest as loa. This interchangeable relationship
reflects the universal tendency of children to regard their parents
as gods and priests. In accepting this rdle, the Haitian parent
does not simply take advantage of a human need, nor does the
priest automatically benefit from childlike trust. The parent
accepts the responsibility of bringing divine power to his
* cf. supra, pp. 78-9.
1$4 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
protective function,* and the priest accepts the responsibility
of living up to that trust in the services he renders his “children”.
For the priest, who does not have the benefit of his “children’s”
sentimental prejudice (as does the parent), the preparation for
such a réle is arduous.
2

THE LEVELS OF HIERARCHY

As spiritual parent, who would instruct him and guide him

in such preparation, Isnard chose Houngan Joe, a strong and
renowned houngan who had been a close friend to his father.
In so doing, he began by becoming a member of the société,**
the communal group which at once serves and is served by its
houngan—a relationship similar to that of family and father—
and his initial rank in the société was as a bossale, which
means wild or untaught, and applies to one who has minimal
control over his loa.” The hounsi bossale and the hounsi canzo
together act as chorus and do most of the dancing in the
ceremonies, but otherwise the distance between them is
* Tn the interests of preventing a child’s fixation upon the parent, the prevalent
practice in our culture is to minimize the authority and stature of the parent;
but it is a question as to whether this does not rather benefit the parent, who is
thereby absolved of the responsibilities of godhead—absolute justice, rightness,
control, etc.—while it denies the child a model image which might serve as
incentive for emulation. A Haitian child is rarely made weak and dependent
by the dominant authority of his parents; on the contrary, it seems very eager to
develop to the point of parenthood and mature stature and authority itself.
** This term refers to all the people connected with a specific hounfor and
defines them as a communal enuty. While the hounfor itself is referred to in the
name of the houngan, it is understood as being under the sponsorship of the
société, which has a separate name. The société may even include members who
live in town and attend only the most important ceremonies, but upon whose
assistance the priest can rely should he need to raise money for an expensive
ceremony, to atrange transportation, to be advised on building, etc. As a
collective unit at the basis of the religious structure, the société is represented by
two heavily embroidered ceremonial flags. Carried by two flag bearers, these
banners are used to salute the loa and as a mark of respect to any distinguished
guest at ceremonies. When one arrives at a ceremony, the accepted greeting is:
“Bonjour, la société.”
 The Levels of Hierarchy 1$$
considerable.* The hounsi canzo is one who has gone
through the education for and the trial by fire, and conse-
quently is understood to have relative mastery over the loa. In
view of their long apprenticeship, the canzos are also familiar
with much of the ceremonial organization and detail. While
the hounsis bossales are charged with largely menial tasks, the
hounsis canzos can be entrusted—in both a practical and a
moral sense—with many of the more important duties. AJ-
though Isnard could not have been called a hounsi (by
definition a woman) his apprenticeship included sharing their
activities, at lease sufficiently for him to be able one day to
direct the work of the hounsis of his own hounfor. And he
must have served also as houngenikon, at least when the
* The hounsis, both bossale and canzo, are usually women. As a mater of
fact, che word means “serviteur-wife” (Courlander p. 9), and, in terms of the
family structure of which the religious organization is an extension, the hounsis
are, theoretically, as wives to the houngan (which means “chief of spirits”). The
original reference, undoubtedly, in a polygamous culture, was to the several
wives of the chief who was usually both priest and king. Today the relationship
berween the hounsis (they may sometimes number fifty in a hounfor) and the
houngan is, at its most intimate, rather that of father and daughters. Most of
these women, who are usually living in common-law marriage with other men,
come to the hounfor only when their services are explicitly required for cere-
monies, and they call che houngan “Papa”. According to Courlander (p. 10)
“placage” bears a relasonship to the hounsi status. “Placage” is a term designat-
ing a recognized form of relationship between a man and a woman. Simpson
(IV) has listed four such recognized forms of relasonship: “femme caille”, or the
woman of the house (which would be a commorlaw wife); “mamans petits”,
who, as mother of a man’s children outside his home, has certain nghts and
privileges; “femme placée”, a woman who is taken to live with a man but is not
the mother of his children; and “bien avec”, who might be a man’s mistress. The
formal recognition of relationships other than those of civil, church, or common,
law marriage should nox be interpreted as promiscuity, with the derogatory moral
connotation which it has in our culture. The willingness and even eagerness of
Haitian women to bear children, and the fact that no effort is made to conceal
an “illegitimate” child, merely results in evidence of relauonships which birth
control conceals in other cultures. Separaion between man and commor-law
wife does not occur more frequently there than divorce does here and infidelity
even less so, since the accessible privacy of cities provides condiuions more
favorable for promiscuity than does a small community, where all are con
stantly aware of one’s comings and goings and a jealous woman would
scream out the story kom the crossroads for all to hear.
156 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
woman who held this position for many years needed relief
from her arduous task. In due course of time, he had become
the la-place.
The houngenikon and the la-place are the immediate
assistants to the priest. They have both passed through the
canzo initiation and are usually preparing to “take the asson”,
as the ceremony of priesthood is called. In general, the duties
of the houngenikon are to launch the songs in the proper
hierarchical order; to recognize the arrival of a loa and to
initiate the song of salutation to him; to judge approximately
how long one song should be continued, and, conversely, to
exercise the discretion of terminating it if a loa threatens to
arrive at an inopportune moment for the officiating houngan.
In the absence of the houngan and the la-place, it is the houn-
genikon who 1s primarily responsible for the ceremony. The
la-place is, in a sense, master of ceremonies for the houngan.
While the houngan may be occupied with leading the prayers,
it will be the la-place who prepares the sacrificial goat, checks
to see whether the offerings have been assembled and brought
to the center-post, notes whether the dish of food for the loa
contains the proper ingredients, and adds chairs to accommo-
date the late arrivals. It is often the la-place who draws the vever,
sets up any improvised outdoor shrine or altar, and kills the
sacrificial animal, unless a loa or a houngan himself has
particular reason to do so. Should the houngan be mounted
by a loa, as is often the case, the smooth conduct of the cere-
mony and even the withdrawal of the loa from the houngan’s
head fall to the la-place.®
The special position of authority which both the houn-
genikon and the la-place occupy cannot be an expression of
some favoritism on the houngan’s part. It is dependent upon,
and presumes an advanced degree of connaissance, a cone
siderable knowledge of “la science des Mysteres”. The entire
hierarchy, in fact, is no more than a statement of the gradations
of that knowledge. The ceremonies of elevation are like the
final tests and recognition of a graduation from level to level of
 The Levels of Hierarchy 1$7
connaissance. In a sense, this formal religious elevation is an
extension of the spiritual education which begins in the family;
or, to put it another way, it is concerned with teaching the
child (and even an adule is a spiritual child until he knows
enough) the means by which he may master and implement the
heritage which infuses him; and he must be taught an under-
standing of those forces if he is to control them rather than be
victimized by them.* The training one receives in the hounfor
Is more stringent than that which the individual may have
experienced in the intimate family context, and it does, in fact,
create a spiritually stronger individual. Such mastery consists
not only of a knowledge of ritual procedures and of their
meaning, but includes a training in discipline per se.
Within this context obedience serves several purposes. First
of all, it is a means of character training. But itis also a reference
to the development of the individual relative to the connais-
sances. The Haitian does not believe that any man of any age
can understand all things. He believes that our ability to
understand increases with our experience and maturity. If the
houngan seems sometimes reluctant to explain something, yet
insists that it is to be done as an act of obedience, this is not
necessarily because he wishes to conceal the reason as a personal
power secret. It is rather because he questions the neophyte’s
ability to understand the explanation even if given. As a matter
of fact, the major portions of many rituals are visible to the
public gaze; neither the ritual nor the meaning of it is kept
secret. However, the true significance of what occurs can be
comprehended only by those who have gone through the
training and ordeals and have reached the necessary degree of
connaissance which clarifies it. The hounsi bossale and the
houngan both Participate in the same ritual and in many of
the same activities in respect to it. The difference is not in what
they do or see but in how much they understand of what both
* I¢ must be emphasized that neither mastery nor congol implies a simply
Degative action, in the sense of restraint. Both mean an ability to channel and
focus the loa-energy to the best possible end.
158 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
of them do and see. This is why it would be absolutely useless
for a neophyte to memorize and imitate the gestures of the
priest, and why the sacred rattle, however powerful in a
houngan’s hands, becomes powerless in any other's. It 1s in
this respect, also, that religion differs sharply from magic, for
the sorcerer’s apprentice has only to learn the proper words and
their proper order to achieve the desired result. The magic
ritual is made mysterious because the magician conceals his
means from the eyes of the observers; the religious ritual seems
mysterious because the observer cannot yet grasp the meaning
of what he sees. In a sense, religious training develops the
psychic perception and power of the individual; magic
apprenticeship provides informations as to the means of mani
pulating the world.*4
In sum, then, the hierarchy is a recognition of the degrees
of understanding achieved with spiritual maturity, and an
individual who has passed through all the ordeals and stages
of elevation and has become houngan has undergone a personal
characterological development of considerable scope; he 1s
consequently a distinguished figure in the community.

3
THE HOUNGAN AS COMMUNAL FATHER

The “strong” houngan enjoys a quality and degree of respect

which the Haitian extends to no one else. This is not only a
tribute to his religious authority; it is a recognition of the fact
that the problems which confront a houngan are far more
complex than those which other men face. One who succeeds
in resolving them deserves that respect.
One inherits one’s loa, and their divine authority is auto-
matic. One “inherits” and is dependent upon one’s parents,
and their immediate authority is consequently also relatively
* For a discussion of other aspects of the secrecy of magic, see pp. 76-7,
supra.
 The Houngan as Communal Father 159

VEVER FOR AGASSOU

automauc. By due process of law and force, one becomes

subject to a civil authority. But one neither inherits a specific
houngan, nor is dependent upon him, nor does there exist any
centralized religious authority which might designate him as
local authority, to be automatically accepted by the community.
It is the individual members of that community, acting upon
their free initiative, who may adopt a man as father, priest and
“king”,® and this adoption is neither absolute nor permanent.
If he should fail to fulfill his manifold responsibiliues, he can
be abandoned. He retains his sacred rattle; bute no one comes.
To be a father, he must be wise. He must show, both in the
management of his own personal affairs and inthe advice which
he gives others, that he “knows” about life. And chis know-
ledge covers all provinces of the secular and includes the
economic and political spheres. The houngan is expected to
know how to do things, many things, all the things, in fact,
which a full life experience would have taught a father: how the
gate should be repaired; where the bridge should cross the river
if it is buile; which cow is likely to give good milk; why it 1s
best to plant peanuts this season (because there will be a
160 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
shortage and the price will rise); what percentage of real cement
should be mixed with the sand so that a wall will not soon
crumble; where to buy what, and least expensively; how to
write (for his largely illiterate parish). And he must know these
things not only for his own purposes, but because his parish
turns to him for such advice and assistance, assuming, as they
would of a parent, both the rightness of his knowledge and
their right to it.
His political knowledge and prestige are also of enormous
importance. For one thing, he cannot hold ceremonies without
permission from the police. He must, therefore, be on cordial
terms with such officials. It is preferable that he be also on good
terms with politically influential persons who will “facilitate”
matters.* This means that he must know certain sophisticated
proprieties and manners: how to organize an “ovation” when
the cortege of the president passes through his district; how to
receive visitors; how to serve them refreshments; how to con-
duct himself in town. He must know, in a sense, the ways of a
world from which the peasant is distant.
Part of his civic-political rdle is to intercede on behalf of
any member of his parish, perhaps for a job on the new road
being built through the area. If a young priest whom he has
just launched after apprenticeship should have difficulty
getting permission for ceremonies, he should be able to exert
influence on his behalf. If someone is in legal trouble, or has
been accused of stealing, the houngan will often be called
upon, informally, to clarify relationships, to comment upon
his character in general, to indicate whether he is, on the whole,
honest, or whether there have been “incidents”, so that the
* The hounfor is the only organized center outside of the large cities. For the
peasant it serves not only as a religious center, but also as social center. This
fact, plus the prestige of the houngan, makes it a center, as well, of political
dissemination, and though the peasant vote rarely plays an important part in
the country’s politics, it is, nevertheless, a potential power. For this reason, even
though Voudoun is outlawed, it is still in the interest of politicians to “facili
tate” matters for the houngans, and to insure themselves of their support. Such
favors seem even more valuable and heroic for being “extra-legal”.
 The Houngan as Healer 161
community has come to suspect that person. Often he must
play the role of a Solomon in the disputes between his own
parishioners, between husbands and wives. Informally, he
raises the prestige of a person he favors, or inflicts social “punish-
ment” by neglecting and ignoring someone who is chronically
disagreeable. In any case, his position requires of him that he
be extremely perceptive in his relationships, sensitive to
psychological subtlety, and that he develop a degree of social
grace and personal charm.
It goes without saying that his knowledge of the mass of
complex ritual detail is thorough; but as among several houn-
gans whose knowledge is equal, special respect will be shown
to that one whose execution of ritual is marked by personal
excellencies. This may include a kind of artistry, a feeling for
arrangement, a love of the decorative celebration of ritual acts.
The very appearance of the hounfor, for instance, may reveal
that he has trained himself in the service of Erzulie, because of
the particular attention paid to the arrangement of flowers, the
disposition of objects on an altar, the play of colors, the drawing
of vevers, and the preparation of food “fit for the gods”. His
special quality may be a power of personal projection, or
magnetism, so that, under his direction, the chorus will answer
with more meticulous timing, the drummers function at a level
higher than adequacy, and, altogether, the ceremony move with
dispatch and intensity, perhaps even with an element of
personal style.
4
THE HOUNGAN AS HEALER

But the houngan’s major réle is medical. It is a réle which

has been exceedingly misunderstood and much maligned. He
has been considered as the primary antagonist to modern
medicine. This is not, in fact, so. A person who becomes ill
begins, as is normal, by attempting to treat himself. In primi-
tive communities this is often as valid as in the modern culture
162 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
of patented medicines, for the race could not have survived
without a widespread knowledge of herbalism. It is true that
that knowledge may have been arrived at by trial and error;
and it is true that the form in which the drug is administered
—most frequently the brewing of a tea from leaves or roots—
is relatively crude. But it is also true that the average Haitian
peasant knows which leaves to brew for indigestion, which
for a headache, which for a cold. If he wakes up without a
voice, he chews on a strong parsley root and this restores it
rapidly. If someone is suffering from shock, the Haitians soak
coarse salt in a small jigger of rum and let the person drink it.
If someone is bleeding badly, they apply a spider’s web to the
wound and the blood coagulates immediately. If a certain
parasite enters under the skin, they know exactly where to
insert a pin point and draw it out whole. If a wound is
infected, they rub it with garlic, and the sulphur is an effective
antiseptic. The peasant midwife is extremely efficient, especially
if one considers the very primitive conditions in which she
must often function. Basil-leaf water soothes and cools; pepper
mint leaves are steeped for nausea, etc. They are proud of such
knowledges and the remedies are passed down in the family.
If the illness or discomfort does not pass, they consult a
houngan. And his first task is to decide whether it is a really
physical disease or one of “supernatural” origin. If it is physical,
he may attempt to treat it with the more extended knowledge of
herbalism to which he has access by summoning his loa in the
govi.® Like the simpler remedies of the peasants themselves,
the houngan’s treatment is often chemically sound, though
crude. But if he sees that the illness is beyond his resources, he
will himself recommend that the person get professional
medical attention, for it would never be to his credit to fail ina
cure. He will even lend the bus fare money for the visit to the
dentist or doctor. He himself gets professional medical and
dental treatment.
Some of the ailments, such as skin disorders, are the result
of malnutrition. If he undertakes merely to relieve these, it 1s
 The Houngan as Healer 163
because he knows (as unfortunately many of the health planners
do not) that the primary need of the Haitian peasant (parti
cularly in districts such as the vicinity of Port-au-Prince, where
the land is drained to feed the city) is more and better food.
It is also true that the Haitian peasant is reluctant to get
professional medical attention. But it is not the priest who is the
greedy antagonist. The resistance of the Haitian peasant is less
against the medicines, which he accepts readily from the
houngan or from known friends, than it is against the doctor,
as a total stranger. The Haitians prefer their houngan because
they trust him. And they trust him not only for religious reasons,
but as a human being whom they have known all their lives,
whom they have observed under all sorts of conditions, whose
personality and character is hence familiar and predictable.
They know the percentage of success and failure in his cures.
Above all, he lives in their community and is subject to their
control: to their approving patronage or the censure of their
withdrawal.
But the professional doctor in the city (and their experiences
with the city have not always been pleasant) is a man whom
the peasants do not know very well. His dress, his speech, his
every gesture emphasizes the distance between their world and
his. His professional objectivity contributes to their impression
of his human detachment, and they see in this a potenual
irresponsibility toward them. Small wonder that they are
reluctant to surrender themselves to his ministrations.
The free clinic is not as psychologically persuasive as might
be imagined. The hard life of the peasant community does not
prepare a man for the idea of getting something for nothing.
His relationship with his neighbors is based on mutual support
and assistance, an exchange of favors. When he pays the
houngan, he not only gives money, but also buys a control, a
right to demand and expect that he will “get his money's
worth”. With the free clinic there is no “fair exchange”, eather
social, religious, or financial. He feels he has no control over
the doctor, no power to demand results. Conversely, he does
164 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
not really expect responsibility and efficacy. He does not trust
the doctor as a human being, nor does he believe him bound
to a fair exchange of responsibility. These attitudes are not
metaphysical; they are profoundly logical from the normally
human point of view. And no modern doctor would dispute
the real importance of a patient’s trust.
If the medical profession is to accomplish anything in Haiti,
it must begin by abandoning the ancient prejudice against the
houngan and relinquishing the melodramatic images of
“witch doctors”. For one thing, since the recommendations of
the houngan are so readily accepted by the people, it might be
possible to use him as intermediary for the dispensation of
medications. But it is even more important to re-examine his
methods and really to understand exactly how he functions
within the context with which he is so much more familiar than
persons who received their training in the peaceful marble
halls of distant universities. It is necessary to remember that his
clientele is extremely demanding of actual results and not
inclined to grant that professional immunity from the implica-
tion of error and failure which is the peculiar code and privilege
of doctors in more “sophisticated cultures”. And it is especially
important to appreciate the real sense of the houngan’s dis-
tinction between “natural” and “unnatural” disease. One has
simply to read “psychosomatic” for the latter term.
No one who has lived long among the peasants could have
failed to remark their peculiar conviction of their own frailty.
They regard themselves as particularly susceptible to “grippe”
and “fievre”, and they are especially convinced that if a twilight
dew which they call “la siréne” moistens their head, it will
certainly cause at least the “grippe’’ if not some more disastrous
ailment. I myself have never been able to remark any percep-
tible amount of dew at that moment of the day. Yet it is not
uncommon for even the strongest men, the same who might
beat drums all night, to cover the tops of their heads with a
ridiculous little handkerchief against this dampness. One never
encounters anything like the contempt for caution which one
 The Houngan as Healer 165
associates with persons who assume good health as a natural
condiuon. The Haitians seem, on the contrary, to accept the
idea that they may easily fall ill, and they are constantly con-
cerned with a variety of precautions. This constant fear is not
at all justified by the physical circumstances to which they
relate it. And the precautions are such that they could hardly
suffice if that threat were really as grave as they say. Actually, it
is no more than a projection, on to the physical plane, of the
profound insecurity and despair with which they live from
childhood unul death.
For real reasons, which are too numerous to elaborate here,
the material situation of most Haitian peasants is, indeed,
hopeless. For the time being, at least, the majority of them are
doomed to a life without one moment’s relief from the most
desperate, nerve-racking struggle to eke out daily sustenance.
So rarely does an individual achieve some measure of economic
gain that the concealment and disguise of such good fortune is
the general practice.
Coyote and La Merci, who had for many years been together
as common-law man and wife, had long dreamed of being
able to afford a regular marriage ceremony, a church ceremony,
to be followed by the Little “reception”, as they called it, for
their friends. They had served me loyally and well as domestics,
and I had become very fond of them as people. Shortly before
I was to leave, I proposed to them that I should pay for such a
ceremony, for the new suit and dress, and the recepuon, as a
farewell gift. They were ecstatic. But several days later they
approached me shyly, uncertain whether they could make
themselves clear. There was nothing they would rather have,
they said. But, on the other hand, after my departure, they
would return to the country to live in their neighborhood,
which, as I knew, was extremely poor. They were afraid, they
said, that their neighbors would too much envy their good
fortune. And they would overestimate it, thinking that any
such advancement actually meant unlimited resources. Things
would be stolen from them, because people would feel that they
166 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
had ample funds to replace such articles. They would be
plagued for loans of money, and their refusals would be greatly
resented. Prices of food would be raised for them specifically,
they insisted, because everyone would think they could afford
it. They would become altogether suspect. And so, they said,
they felt that, in the end, it would give them more trouble than
pleasure.
I asked them, then, whether I should use this money to set
them up in a little business, to stock a little country store from
which they could get started. This, they said, would have
similar disadvantages. But cash, I pointed out, would just get
used up without anything really to show for it. They nodded
and went away. Two days later they appeared with the solution.
If I would buy them a cow they said, they could leave it with
Coyote’s brother, who lived quite far away in another
direction. His brother’s neighbors would know it did not
belong to his brother. And Coyote’s neighbors would not
know that he had one. And that was, according to them, the
real answer.
If the Haitian peasant has some good luck he permits himself
only a minimal display, until he is in a position to move up a
whole step in the economic scale. Sometimes this concept and
practice 1s even carried to the extent of deliberately scarring a
child so that it should not, by its beauty, inspire the evil eye
of envy.’
The concept of frailty which the Haitian expresses in so
many different ways is only his manner of recognizing that his
life is spent in a state of precarious balance on the edge of an
abyss of despair. (The common “fever” is perhaps ten per cent
recurrent malaria. For the rest it might be more properly called
the fever of despair.) Consequently, even the most minor shock
or threat immediately sets in motion a system of defenses which,
in a more stable and secure people, would be reserved for only
the most critical challenges.
Coyote was a drummer whom I had come to know well
from the ceremonies in the Plains district, where he was much
8 A CONTEMPORARY VOUDOUN PRIEST, HOUNGAN ISNARD.
9. MAMBO LEADING CEREMONIAL INVOCATION. The ritual dress of a Voudoun priestess 1s
frequently of satin, or may be elaborately embroidered.

10. CEREMONIAL PERISTYLE. On the back wall are painted the ‘‘coats of arms” of the powers
which support the hounfor: the patron deity, the société, and the houngan.
 The Houngan as Healer 167
in demand. When I returned for a second visit to Haia, |
found a small house in the hills north of Petionville, and pro-
posed to Coyote that he come to “take charge” of my house. I
asked him, also, whether he knew of a woman who could do
the cooking, and learned, then, for the first ume, that he was
“married” to La Merci. (The Haitian is so extremely discreet
or undemonstrative in public chat it would be impossible to
guess, at a ceremony, which man was related to which woman.)
As drummer, Coyote had “been around”, in the general
neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. But for La Merci this
employment represented her first real dislocation, as I later
found out. In the first days everything seemed to be going very
well, and both of them began to make friends in the new
neighborhood.
About a week later I noticed that Coyote often brought the
coffee, or laid the table (a task usually filled by the woman) and
that there seemed to be a good deal of brewing of leafteas going
on in the Little back court. La Merci, it seemed, was not feeling
well. She was having pains in her abdomen. But that would
shortly be straightened out with these teas. Two days later La
Merci was virtually unable to carry out her duues. I suggested
consulting a doctor, but this was refused. Instead, an old
woman of the neighborhood, who was renowned for her
medications, appeared with a bundle of herbs and roots and
set about mixing her remedies. These seemed to give La Merci
some relief, but it proved to be temporary. That night I heard
in their little hut, such moaning and weeping, that I deter-
mined to intervene, for the Haitians do not easily express
physical hurt. She was in extreme pain and it seemed to me
precisely localized at the appendix. On my own iniuative |
immediately called a physician who arrived and diagnosed it
as an acute appendicitis. She was to leave immediately for the
hospital, as soon as she had been dressed (for even in her pain
she insisted that she wear her very best dress), and the doctor
left to prepare for the operation.
In spite of the urgency, La Merci’s preparations took a long
168 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
time, and I could hear a good deal of discussion in the little
hut. Finally she emerged, completely dressed, even to her hat,
but with the announcement that she would not go to the
hospital. “Those who go to the hospital die”, she announced.
(As a matter of fact, statistically she was correct, since by the
time the peasants finally decide to go to the hospital their
condition is such that little can be done to save them.) “Be-
sides”, she said, “it was a loa who ‘cambv-li’ [had grabbed
her].® It is not for the hospital.” Convinced that this was a case
where primitive superstition would result in death, I pleaded
with her, cajoled, threatened, discharged her, promised rewards,
all to no avail. Feeling, finally, that all this excitement would
even accelerate the disaster, I permitted her to withdraw to her
hut, and I was fully prepared to be summoned to her deathbed
during the night.
The next morning she was still alive, and even, it would
seem, a little better. I was resigned to my helplessness and let
the matter take its course. That evening, while Coyote and I
were discussing the situation, the child from next door inter-
rupted to tell us that a loa had mounted the head of his grand-
mother, and had a special message for Coyote regarding La
Merci. We both went next door immediately and saluted the
loa. It was an Ogoun. La Merci was not, he said, “naturally”
sick. The loa had gripped her because she had not properly
carried out her last obeisances, upon leaving her ancestral land,
where the cailles Mystéres of her family stood. Specifically, she
had thrown water and “signaled” in only two directions, and
the loa were extremely angry over this negligent leave-taking.
La Merci, Ogoun said, must return and must ask forgiveness
and must propitiate the deities by offering them a chicken.
Ogoun then concerned himself with matters pertaining to the
other family, and Coyote and I left.
Coyote had been essentially in agreement with me as to the
physical nature of the illness. But, as he pointed out, it was
impossible to convince La Merci of this, and so it might be well
to do as the loa suggested. The loa, he said, would probably
 The Houngan as Healer 169
accept a cheap chicken this ume, if they were promised a better
feast upon her final homecoming.
Accordingly, the following morning, La Merci, looking
much better already, was given the money for the fare, and for
the chicken, along with an extra amount, so that she might
bring some small gifts to her neighbors. It was a long trip.
When she returned the following afternoon she was in high
spirits, full of energy, and the stomach-ache was completely
gone. She had reaffirmed her ties with her ancestral loa; she did
not feel lost any more. And her relationship with everyone
was no longer marked by the subtle anxiety which had at first
been present.
If a loa had not intervened as diagnostician, a case of such
severity would probably have involved the consultation of a
houngan, who would have called up his own loa in the govi,
and discussed the case with him.® Having ascertained the
reason for her loa’s anger, he would also have been instructed
about (or would have decided for himself) the curative
measures. In cases where the psychosomatic projection may
have been carried to the point of organic disturbance, he might
have simultaneously given the patient both a herbal treatment,
to relieve these effects, and a ritual treatment, to make peace
with the loa. It is, in fact, because he often combines the two
elements that his treatments have been so misunderstood, for the
ritualistic measures are interpreted as directed at the physical
ailment, or as an unnecessary embellishment of the herbal cure.
Our general tendency is to regard the psychosomatic act of
transferring a difficulty from the psychic to the physical system
as “bad”. This evaluation reflects, more than would be admitted,
a moral dislike of “dishonesty” and a scienufic rejection of
“untruth”. But an organism cares little for such abstract criteria.
It is concerned with self-preservation. When a man ts threatened
by a blow, his instinctive gesture is to raise his arm over his
head and face, to protect the most fragile portion of his anatomy,
the brain. To receive the blows “honestly” on the head, would
soon make him punch-drunk. When a situation is temporarily
170 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
or permanently and irremediably brutal, the organism behaves
like a clever boxer: it shields the mind from the blows which
would only destroy it, and absorbs the shock in the muscular
and durable flesh. If the Haitian peasant were forced to “face”
his hopeless situation, it would be moral suicide for him.* What
possible moral justification can there be for making a man
stare into the jaws of his own death? And where is the medical
wisdom of telling a patient that his indigestion, or worse, is due
to his own insecurity, or the world situation, and thus brutally
destroying the flimsy veil of tolerable discomfort by which the
man sought to conceal from himself his intolerable despair?
The methods of the houngan not only respect the essential
wisdom of the psychosomatic mechanism, but—and this is the
most remarkable feature—use it therapeutically. The diagnosis
of “unnatural” or “unphysical” illness is not simply a negative
judgement, as it seems to those who conceive only in terms of
physical causes. On the contrary, the houngan’s main job is
to discover the non-physical or unnatural cause. This may be
either an act of aggressive evil magic against the person or a
punishment for his failure to serve his loa properly. In either
* Obviously, there has been some disagreement as to whether or not the
situation is hopeless. Simpson (II) implies that it is not hopeless, since he
speaks of Voudoun as releasing aggressive impulses and deduces that this release
prevents the peasant “from utilizing other types of action to solve problems”.
He says, further: “Voudoun ceremonies and magical acts perform a mental
hygiene function for the individual and thereby contribute to preserving the
status quo.” It is impossible to define objectively a degree of hopelessness, and,
indeed, a stranger would be inclined, at first glance, to think that much could
be done by the people to ameliorate their condition. Gradually, however, as
one becomes more familiar with the hidden complexity of the political system
—both on an international scale (the lack of Haitian capital forces a dependence
upon American capital, which is not above exploiting the situation) and on a
national scale (the entrenched, traditional methods of politics, the illiteracy of
the majority of the population and their ignorance, almost deliberately created,
of political manoeuvres, the education by the French clergy, which exchanges
its support for that of whichever government insures its standing, the shrewd
technique of “buying out” any incipient peasant leader)—all of these accumulate
into a complexity which should not be righteously minimized. Moreover,
Voudoun is most often opposed and suppressed by the government as a threat
to the status quo.
 In Balance between Worlds 171
case there exists the possibility of a resolution through action
of some sort. Instead of the hopeless finality of absolute, abstract
despair, the man is immediately involved in the idea of promis,
ing action. The very fact that an answering action is inherently
indicated, is the first therapeutic device which is set into
mouon. Thus psychosomatic projection serves not as an
evasion but as a means of making the moral problem accessible
on a level of real action. And it is an accepted fact that activity,
hopeful activity, is the only thing which can prevent demorali-
zation and can rehabilitate after shock.
The second therapeutic manipulation consists in the
requirement that the action shall not be executed by the priest
but must be carried out, in major portion, by the patient himself, under
guidance of the priest. The patient must himself straighten out
his difficulties with the loa. In other words, the patient treats
himself, and this is another boost to his morale.*
Finally, the nature of the action is almost inevitably
disciplinarian. It exercises the will, tightens one’s forces,
focuses the personality into an integration. The salutary effect
of the exercise of self-discipline is admittedly remarkable.
Instead of accepting an objective destiny with indulgent despair,
the Haitian assumes a subjective failure which is accessible
to correction. Thus, in the final analysis, the loa and the
houngan treat psychic shock through the physical channel
and propose the only moral therapy which exists: action and
discipline.!°

5
IN BALANCE BETWEEN WORLDS

Medical treatment is only one of the ways in which the

houngan may mediate between the loa and the people. He is
expected to represent the people, as well as the loa. If, in the
* Almost inevitably, no matter how ill the person is, he must ake part in
the rituals relating to his treatment.
172 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
course of a ceremony, the loa should make an unreasonable
demand for someone’s shirt, or ring, or money, the houngan
will intercede on behalf of the person. If the loa is so violent that
his “horse” might be injured, or the clothes torn, the priest will
work hard to pacify the loa or send him away altogether.
At one ceremony Ghede had the unusual luck of having
been given a dollar bill. He immediately made for the little
food-stand to buy something to eat. But the seller had no
change. At the same time, she was a very poor woman and
could not afford to make Ghede a gift of any of her breads.
Ghede became enraged at being unable to buy something to
eat. Moreover, he interpreted it as a lack of respect, and
threatened her with various misfortunes. In desperation, the
seller called upon the houngan. He pulled Ghede aside, and
talking quietly, as if man to man, explained the situation to
him. In the end he contributed five cents so that Ghede was
able to eat, the woman was paid, and the entire incident was
smoothly resolved. On another occasion, when Loco arrived
and was particularly violent and destructive, it was pointed out
that if the houngan had been called immediately (he was else-
where, attending to details of the ceremony) he would have
brought Loco under control.!!
Just as the father is physically closest to the ancestor, so the
houngan, as spiritual father, is closest to the loa. The houngan is
reverent and respectful toward his loa; but he also knows how
to “restrain” them in the knot of a handkerchief and how to
bury a troublesome loa.!2 The loa is dependent upon the
houngan both for his energy—for the houngan feeds him—
and for his opportunity to “live” in the world. Thus the relation-
ship between houngan and loa is an interdependence which
fluctuates in its nuance. The houngan is the means by which
the great cosmic forces are made manifest. And when the loa
comes, his first act is to salute the priest.
It is significant that La Merci’s treatment took place within
the family circle, without the intervention of a houngan,
although if Ogoun had not mounted the head of the old
 In Balance between Worlds 173
neighbor, a houngan might have been eventually consulted.
It 1s difficult to say what proportion of the people serve their
loa within the private family context, with the father com-
manding the position of houngan. Such family services may
range from the fairly elaborate, in cases where there is even a
caille Mystéres, of which the hounfor is essentially a develop-
ment, to extremely simple services conducted in the one-room
hut which is the family dwelling.
One such service was conducted by an old woman on behalf
of her son and it was directed primarily toward Ogoun and
Ghede. The small hut could not have measured more than ten
feet square and the bed, which served as the sole seating facility,
had been pushed against one wall. A little table, covered with
a white cloth, served as an altar upon which the offerings were
placed, and a candle burned on the dirt floor at its base, where
the vevers were drawn. A relative, who apparently had the
best mastery of the songs, served as houngenikon, and the
mother (the father was dead) conducted the ritual in the
capacity of mambo.
For the greater part of the time she was mounted, first by
Ogoun, and then by Ghede, and although her loa carried out
the major tasks of the ritual, such as sacrificing the chicken,
her brother concerned himself with such details as contributed
to the smooth running of the ceremony. A neighbor, who was
known to have a strong Ghede in her head, had been parti-
cularly urged to participate and to lend her divine “charge”
to reinforce the ceremony. In every respect the service was
extremely modest, for the woman could not afford anything
elaborate. There were no drums, but it is not certain whether
this was due to her inability to get drums and pay the drummers
the customary fee, or whether it was because the loa, in setting
a date for the ceremony, had specified one which came during
the course of the week, rather than on the Saturday and Sunday
upon which ceremonies were permitted. It was probably
the latter reason, since all the activity was confined to the
interior.
 174 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
The singing was spirited, and the loa came in gratifying
numbers to the heads of the participants. As the noise within
the hut increased, the “petit jazz’, the little three-piece orchestra
stationed just outside the door, played and sang its meringues*
and rhumbas louder and louder to cover and disguise the
sounds of the ceremony within. The door had to be left open
to provide some ventilation, and sitting at the entrance, one was
aware of a fugue in which the suggestive, frivolous, sometimes
vulgar rhumbas which were officially approved made astonish-
ing counterpoint to the splendid songs and the divine invoca-
tions which were “illegal”.
For all its modesty, this service had an intensity comparable
to the most elaborate services of a houngan. Intimacy even lent
it a quality of more genuine profundity. As the Haitians put
it, these persons and these loa were all in the family, and really
concerned with each other. There was no showing-off. Above
all, since the woman, in the capacity of mambo, was also the
same who paid for the ceremony, there could not be, as might
be the case with a houngan, any overcharging.
There are many Haitians who serve the loa entirely within
their family. They point out that a real father is more trust-
worthy than a houngan. They tell of an ambitious houngan
who bought a Bossu, and how his own family deities, the
good racine ones, deserted him in protest. They told of another
who charged fees which went as much for decorating his
hounfor and making elegant display as for the real task at
hand.**
* The popular “ballroom” dance of Haiti.
** Such hounfors, criticized for placing too muchemphasis upon “gangance”,
are none the less to be completely distinguished from those few hounfors in
Port-au-Prince that put on ceremonies for tourists, and these, in turn, are distinct
from “dances” in honor of a loa which a houngan may give when provided
with the money to do so. Since ceremonies are a costly affair, a houngan may
solicit a contribution for a real ceremony which he “owes” to some loa, from
someone who has been a frequent visitor to his hounfor and who has enjoyed
the houngan’s hospitality in matters of food, drink and general comfort. The
same holds good for less costly dances, which, none the less, require a certain
minimum expenditure; this is more or less comparable to giving a party for the
 In Balance between Worlds 17
There were other hounfors where no sensible man would leave
his pot-deéte, for the houngan might try to reinforce his own
powers by stealing the gros-bon-ange. The woman with a
strong Ghede in her head insisted that she would never bring
her loa into a hounfor where a houngan could exploit his
power.
Yet, in the very act of stating these criticisms, they were also
enumerating the very restraints which would make it impossible
for a houngan to carry any villainy very far, for he is aware
that he is in “competition” with this recourse which all people
have to private worship. If he is to build up his clientele, he
must “prove” himself, in the most pragmatic way. He must win
the respect which is automatically accorded the father or
mother. And if the parent is, in a sense, god to the child, the
houngan must demonstrate that he has even greater access to
divine power. And even if it is granted that the houngan is
hounfor, on the basis of friendship for the houngan and the société. Both such
Cases are enurely acceptable and are to be distinguished from false “ceremonies”
—deliberately incorrect in detail and in general—whose main purpose is to
make money from the tourist. It is curious that travelers who, in their own
county, are extremely meticulous about “returning” dinner and party invita
uons, Christmas gifts and New Year's cards, who would be embarrassed to
make a poor showing in the collection plate, and whose conmibutions maintain
the elaborate organization of the Catholic Church, are often disoriented in a
counuy such as Haiti, and the anticipation of reciprocity there is condescend-
ingly regarded as a kind of commercialism, particularly suspect when it 1s
related to Voudoun as a religion. Actually, it is most unreasonable to imagine
that a houngan, whose parishioners are virtually penniless, has any less need
for coneributions than the minister or priest of any American community.
Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the hounfor is the private property of
the houngan, that the ceremonies and dances are the private funcuons of the
société, and that a visitor, arrived either by chance or invitauon, is in every
sense a privileged guest. A failure to reciprocate appropriately is not only bad
manners, but a humiliating effrontery to the Haiuans as people and to their
religion. It is, however, an equal effrontery to reward the houngan elaborately
and overtly, as if he were a night-club master of ceremonies who had success
fully assembled a good show for his patrons. The conditions of communal life
make actual privacy virtually impossible, in lieu of this, the Haitian has
developed a high degree of formalism and discretion, and he is jusufiably
contemptuous of the frequent lack of these social sophisucauons in visitors
who presume to represent “advanced” cultures.
176 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
generally stronger, in this sense, than the father, there is no
imposed hierarchy among houngans. Each one is, in a sense,
in competition with all the others.!4
His every failure to cure or to resolve the difficulties of his
parishioners either with their loa or in their daily affairs, reflects
upon the houngan’s degree of control, his “standing” with the
divine powers. If such incidents accumulate, his parish turns to
someone else. The personal sacred object, which the individual
has left in his trust, may be removed. Religious commitments
may be revoked. And should the houngan want to punish a
deserter by sending after him the curse of illness or misfortune,
the serviteur would rely upon his new and stronger houngan to
protect him and to invalidate the curse.*
The houngan, then, is the pivotal figure in a hierarchical
structure, yet is subject to democratic controls. He is dependent
upon the continuity of a circular, or rather spiral process, by
which his control over the loa gives him access to greater divine
power; this he must in turn properly serve in order to control
it, and he must constantly demonstrate his achievement.!® If
his major advantage over the father as “houngan’” is his
greater connaissance and control, gained by his apprenticeship
and the ritual ordeals which mark his gradual elevation in the
hierarchy, he never enjoys the father’s absolute security in the
personal loyalty of his “family”, which would at once make
them more tolerant of the parent’s failures and place him above
competitive comparison.
The houngan is a man on a tightrope. This is reflected even
in the way he walks, with a certain awareness of the act of
balance. He is intelligent, perceptive and efficient beyond the
average man, for the requirements of his position are such that
the natural process of selection eliminates the merely average.
He lives in a state of tension, which gives his personality a
curious ambivalence. At times, he is peculiarly distant and
* There have even been cases where a young houngan abandoned his spiritual
father—that is, the houngan who trained him for the priesthood and gave him
his asson; but such cases are quite rare.
 In Balance between Worlds 177
detached, and, at others, most keenly alert. He may be alter-
nately generous and expansive, or “touchy” and overly
sensitive. On some occasions he displays his superior position
in a pose of almost aristocratic indolence; at others one has a
sudden glimpse of the nature of his hard apprenticeship and
training, as when he executes the most menial neualistic tasks
with great skill and dispatch.
And his position is finally complicated by the fact that
although he can never enjoy the absolute security of a father—
in the heart and loyalty of his children—his entire hounfor 1s
structured around the family principle of the education of the
young. It is he who instructs his sons and daughters and ele-
vates them, eventually, to a spiritual adulthood, to the priest
hood, where they stand in equal and competitive relation to
himself.
The delicate balance of the houngan is most explicitly
symbolized in a certain ritual detail which occurs in the early
part of virtually every ceremony. The la-place, representing (as
distinguished from being possessed by) the loa who 1s master
of that hounfor, comes out carrying a sword and flanked by
two hounsis carrying the ceremonial flags representing the
société. The three of them salute first the four cardinal points,
then the poteau-mitan, then the drums, and finally the houngan.
This last salute frequently involves a dramatic elaboration. For
the houngan, holding his asson, and the la-place, holding his
sword and flanked by the flags, seem to engage in some strange,
mock battle. While they do not make actual contact, the
sword causes the asson to retreat, and then is suddenly pressed
into retreat itself. Back and forth they go, the sword threatening
and shaking and the asson rattling and ringing. There is no
question but that it is a competition, re-enacted, to be sure,
between the power of the loa and the société, together, against
that of the houngan. The resolution of chis battle 1s most
illuminating. The la-place, or the loa which he represents, along
with the two flag bearers, representing the soci¢et¢, bows and
kisses the earth at the houngan’s feet as a mark of respect. But
178 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
the houngan, simultaneously, kisses the hilt of the sword
and the top of the two flags. Thus, although the control
of the houngan over the loa and the people is acknow-
ledged, he is, in turn, held responsible to them, to the principle
of the société or community as well as to the principle of
divinity.16

THE HOUNFOR

Hounfor is a term which designates the sacred precincts in

which all the religious activities take place, and comprehends
the sacred trees, the various structures—individual altar
chambers, peristyle, small huts for accommodating those being
treated for illness—all of the sacred and ritual objects, equip-
ment and accessories as well as all the parish and personnel.
However, it may also designate, specifically and exclusively,
the small chamber (also called ghuevo) which contains an altar
(called a pé and sometimes a sobagui) to a loa.” In such usage
it distinguishes that chamber from the adjoining peristyle and
from the rest of the precincts. The altar room is devoted
exclusively to religious acts and objects whereas secular life
and activities inevitably take place throughout the entire court,
including the peristyle, when there is no ceremony in progress.
In order to avoid confusion, the simple term hounfor, in these
pages, will refer to the precincts, their sacred contents and the
personnel; when the reference is to an altar room, that will be
indicated by specifying the name of the loa to which the room
is sacred, e.g. Damballah’s hounfor.*
* Tt must be remembered that, in translating Voudoun terms into English
terms which are, in turn, associated with the objects and practices of Christian
religions, there occurs an inevitable distortion of meaning. The word sobagui,
for instance, is the name of an object or structure which is only generally
comparable to what we know as an altar but has an appearance and a function
specifically related to Voudoun and these, in many respects, are entirely
unrelated to those of an altar.
 The Hounfor 179
The physical aspect of a hounfor varies enormously from
city to country, and from district to district. In the city there
may be virtually no courtyard at all, but simply a small struc-
ture divided into one, two, or three altar chambers, and,
adjoining it, a peristyle for ceremonial action and dance. The
walls of the peristyle may be relatively high, for purposes of
privacy, or they may even entirely enclose the area, so that it
becomes a large hall. In the country the hounfor of a relatively
successful houngan may be laid out somewhat in the manner
of an estate, with many structures, and even several peristyles,
devoted to the Rada, Petro, Ibo and Congo cults respectively.
In some districts a hounfor is immediately recognizable, not
only by the planning and placement of the structures, but by a
high degree of decorative and symbolic embellishment. In
other districts, any such visible arrangement or display is com-
pletely lacking. Even the altar room may be extremely and
deceptively plain, small in size, with unpainted walls and
containing only a crude, waist-high cement block which
serves as altar. It would be almost impossible to identify such
simple rooms as sacred hounfors.
The difference between such extremes is only partially
explained by differences in wealth, decorative taste, and local or
family traditions. It would seem to reflect, primarily, the
varying status of the religion in diverse districts. The legal
status of Voudoun is extremely ambiguous, and, in the final
analysis, is really determined by the personal prejudice of the
particular chief of police of the district. In the region of Jeremie
for instance, the official opposition to Voudoun is so absolute
that one may spend months in the region without hearing a
single drum beat. Ceremonies and dances do take place, of
course, but in remote corners of the valleys and under conditions
of extreme secrecy. The natives are even afraid to acknowledge
a recognition of the mere word “Voudoun” when spoken by a
stranger, and it would seem that they had been forbidden,
under threat of some extreme penalty, to permit any visitor
even to suspect the existence of such religious rituals. In view
180 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
of such rigid intolerance on the part of the Jeremian police and
church, it was indeed instructive to be invited to accompany a
medical doctor on a professional visit which involved a three-
hour muleback trip into the deep recesses of the mountains,
here to discover that he had been summoned by an old houn-
gan who was suffering from some kidney disturbance and
wished to have the advantage of the most modern medication.
The houngan’s attitude toward the doctor was both respectful
and dignified and he obviously understood that the medical
code protected him from betrayal, just as his own code would
have prevented his betraying any of his parish to the police.
It is obvious that in such districts every effort would be made
to conceal the practice of Voudoun and to avoid the easily
identifiable and conspicuous structure or object. In such
regions, then, hounfors are virtually non-existent in the sense of
physical structures and equipments. Ceremonial ritual,
drumming and dancing are also on a lower plane of formal
realization and expertness than elsewhere, since there is rela-
tively little opportunity for the people to practice and develop
these forms, or even to preserve the most basic ones.*
In the region of Port-au-Prince, for political reasons too
complex to elaborate here, the practice of Voudoun is more or
less accepted, within limits. In this relative security the religion
has been able to create and evolve its logical extensions into
physical expression in its architecture and ritual equipment.
The hounfors here are not typical of Haiti; they are, in fact,
typical in the degree of their elaboration. But they are perhaps
atypical, in general, of what a hounfor would be under
normally accommodating circumstances.
* Among those observers whose personal cultural traditions involve a
religion of abstract and ascetic inclination—such as Protestantism—there has
been a tendency to imply to such forcedly “ascetic” regions of Voudoun some
specially pure, profound or genuine quality, and to regard as a little suspect and
frivolous those hounfors, in other districts, where a delight in decorative
elaboration is proudly displayed. Yet the notion that beauty and sensory pleasure
are sinful is peculiarly Puritan; in Voudoun, as in most religious traditions,
these qualities are among the special delights of divinity.
 The Hounfor 181
The first impression of a hounfor is of grounds well planned
and expertly maintained. It definitely conveys the sense of a
formal architectural and landscaped unit, an integrity brought
into focus by a distinct entrance to the grounds. Such an
entrance has a formal significance which is not in the lease
diminished by the fact that the grounds are not fenced in, or
are marked by a token fence at most, and that therefore one may
come and go by many paths apart from the main entrance.
Immediately inside the formal entrance there are usually two
trees sacred to Legba, as patron of gates, entrances and cross
roads, and trees sacred to one or another divinity are profusely
scattered throughout the grounds. Such trees, since they are
sacred, have escaped the fate of being cut down for firewood
(a need which has resulted in the critical deforestation of large
parts of Haiti), and they give a hounfor a distinctively cool,
shaded and pleasant quality. The bases of these sacred trees—
called reposoirs—are usually encircled by clay or cement
blocks or troughs. The grounds are inevitably well-swept
and often have flower-beds in informal but colorful arrange-
ment.
Another delightful aspect is the profusion of white doves,
pigeons, chickens, beautifully marked guinea-hens, and other
fowl, which roam the grounds and rise to roost in the trees at
twilight. Since the hounfor is usually part of the houngan’s
plantation, it is often “walled in” by groves of banana-trees,
whose gigantic leaves throw an almost total shade and create
perspectives of deep green corridors, while their slow move-
ments increase the cool sense of a submarine vista. Almost all
the structures are brilliantly whitewashed, unless, in honor of a
certain loa, his special hounfor has been painted a pale pink
or blue; and these structures are almost all thatched, alchough
this extremely cool roofing is being somewhat snobbishly
replaced by corrugated tin roofs, which, on the contrary, absorb
the heat of the sun and project it into the interior of the peri-
style.
There may be several peristyles, but the one dedicated to the
182 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
Rada deities is visibly larger and more elaborate than the rest.*
It is enclosed by a wall approximately three feet high, with an
entrance on each of the three sides. Where the lines from these
entrances would intersect (not necessarily at the exact center of
the rectangular peristyle) there is the poteau-mitan, which is the
dominant architectural and ceremonial element of the peristyle.
It is usually brightly painted in a spiral movement, and the
smaller posts around the edge of the peristyle are also decorated.
Around the foot of this poteau-mitan there is a circular cement
step, about a foot high, which serves as an altar and upon
which offerings are placed during the course of the ceremony.
Along one end of the peristyle is a structure which may con
sist of a single, long room but is usually divided into three
chambers, and these are consecrated to specific divinities. They
open out into the peristyle, and in addition to the doors (which
are sometimes left open during ceremonies), they may have
door-curtains of colored bamboo sections strung on cord, in the
manner of beaded curtains. These permit the free passage of
air into the chamber, while veiling its interior and lending a
bright note of color to the whitewashed walls. This same
major wall may be decorated with the “nom vaillant” (battle,
name)!® of the houngan, with the symbol of the loa which is
master of that hounfor, and with the coat of arms of the
société.
Within the individual altar chambers the arrangement of
both the altar and the objects is determined by the loa to whom
that particular chamber 1s dedicated. Thus, in the one for
Damballah (which is shared by Ayida, and usually by Agwé
and La Siréne) there is the bassin of water!® with the repre-
sentation of these loa painted mural fashion on the walls over
it and the altar. Upon this latter are arranged various objects,
the pierre-loa,?° the Catholic chromos of the saints which are
identified with these loa, as well as offerings consecrated to them,
* See illustration 10, facing p. 167. I should like to stress that the description
that follows is based on observations in the district of Port-au-Prince, Leogone,
and Jeremie, but is not intended as typical of all hounfors.
11. BASSIN DAMBALLAH. When filled, this pool will be used by Damballah and Agwé (rep-
resented by the fish and boat) when they possess a devotee.

12. BARQUE D'AGWE. This elaborately decorated raft is loaded with offerings and put adrift to
sink and carry the feast to Agwé, god of the seas.
 13. PETRO DRUMS BEING COVERED. Goat-hide is used for these hand-beaten drums.

14, DANCE OF CELEBRATION. In addition to ceremonies, most houngans occasionally sponsor

religious dances which abide by ritual traditions but are primarily festive.
 The Hounfor 183
and any accoutrements such as handkerchiefs,* walking-
sticks, sabers and other objects which are used by these loa when
they manifest themselves. A dish, containing a burning wick
floating in oil, usually stands in the center. In a hounfor of any
size, a special chamber is generally consecrated to Erzulie and
is notable for the glamour and luxury of its appurtenances.
There lie her jewelry, mirror, comb and brush, a cake of soap,
several bottles of cologne and perfume, perhaps the dress con-
secrated to her; and the whole is decorated with such a pro-
fusion of painted, artificial and real Aowers that the total effect
is incomparably feminine.
A special chamber is usually dedicated to the loa master of
the hounfor. If it is Ogoun, it is dominated by the saber whichis
thrust into the earth, directly in front of the altar. The flags of
the société would be in this chamber, and the govi in which
the houngan would summon him, as well as the pots-de-téte
of those who have been initiated under his patronage (on his
“point’). It is probably here that the houngan would keep his
asson, and if it were his custom to retain custody of the cere-
monial beads of the initiates, these too might be found in this
chamber.** The pictures of St. Jacques and other saints identi
fied with one or another aspect of Ogoun would be pasted to
the wall and on the altar there would be several red handker-
chiefs and bottles of rum awaiting his arrival.
If a deity such as Azacca had particular importance for the
houngan, he might also be given a chamber. Here there would
be the large peasant straw hats and several of the large knapsack-
like straw bags which peasants habitually carry. In some of these
there would be a little food and a bit of clairin for Azacca.
* Each loa has such handkerchiefs, according to the color sacred to him, and
these are used during ceremonies both for decorauon and by the loa himself
for wiping the perspiration which inevitably appears during ceremonies and
dances.
** These beads consist of two long strands, a single “male” strand and a
double “female” strand, whose double rows are joined together into every
seventh bead. The beads are worn so as to cross over the chest, and the two
strands are tied together where they cross in back and in front. (Note these beads
on the Iniuate in illustrauon 2, facing p. 39).
184 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
Undoubtedly there would also be the yoked peasant blouse of
denim, with its elaborate embroidery of white stitching, and
Azacca would be dressed in this the moment he arrived.
Occasionally, but quite rarely, there may be a chamber for
Ghede, containing a fascinating assortment of objects. There
would be a balancing scale for weighing the soul, three picks,
three shovels, and three hoes; various kinds of skulls; one or
several phallic objects; and a tabour maringué which is his
special and favorite instrument.* Every hounfor, however, has
the regular symbol of Ghede in some corner of its grounds.
This is generally a tomb-like mound of earth, or it may be
a cement tomb, or a tombstone surmounted by a cross.
Here and there about the grounds there may be other sacred
objects and structures: a large cross for Simbi; a huge outdoor
pool for Damballah, Ayida and Agwé;** the traditional
whip hanging in the Petro peristyle and other such ritual
objects.
The drums usually hang from a rafter in the peristyle. A
hounfor which has separate peristyles for Rada, Petro and
Congo rites will also have an appropriate set of drums hanging
in each one. Of all the sacred equipment of a hounfor, the
drums—the Rada drums particularly—are perhaps the most
important. Certainly they are the objects to which the greatest
degree of independent divine power is attributed. The asson,
for example, is useless in strange hands; the houngan, on the
other hand, is not powerless without it, but merely seriously
hampered. But the drummer has no position whatsoever in the
religious hierarchy; it is the drums themselves which are the
sacred voice of address to the loa and they are, at the same time,
the voice of the loa as well. The ceremonial order of salutation
places the drums following the cardinal points and the center-
post, but preceding the houngan.***
* This drum is also known as a children’s toy.
** See illustration 11, facing p. 182.
*** Drums are fully discussed in Chapter VI, which deals specifically with
music and dance.
 The Doors to the Divine World 185

‘,

VEVER FOR OGOUN ST. JACQUES

7
THE DOORS TO THE DIVINE WORLD

None of all this vast and complex equipment would have the
least religious value if it were not all properly consecrated. The
loa must have been “introduced” into the precincts as a whole,
and again must have been specifically “introduced” into the
peristyle, and finally, ritually installed in the individual
chambers. All of the objects related to any part of the ritual
must be properly baptized. The major objects, such as the
drums, are individually bapuzed in the name of the loa to
which they are especially dedicated. Miscellaneous equipment
may be collectively baptized under the name of the master of
the hounfor, or under all the major diviniues of che pantheon
together. It is hardly surprising, then, that baptism should be
the ceremony which occurs most frequently. Its funcuon is to
infuse the object with divine essence, and the ritual is more or
less elaborate according to the importance of the objec. For
the bapusm of handkerchiefs and other minor objects, only a
token offering is made to the loa. The baptism of the drums or
186 Houngan, Hierarchy and Hounfor
the asson, on the other hand, is often part of a larger ceremony
in which a substantial amount of food has been given the loa,
in order to encourage their good will and power. It may some-
times happen that the loa themselves will come to baptize the
object personally, and this is the “strongest” baptism possible.
Once an object has been baptized, its use is specifically
limited to sacred purposes. To make other use of it is a pro-
fanation which the loa may punish severely. For example, a
girl who had a handkerchief which had been consecrated to
Ghede “borrowed” it from him one day to carry into town,
since she had no other. The following morning she had a very
severe headache, which persisted for several days, until finally
Ghede was invoked and explained the reason for his dis-
pleasure and punishment. The distinction between the things
which belong to oneself, personally, and those which belong
to one’s loa, is very clearly observed. This does not mean, how-
ever, that the sacred object is completely detached from its
human owner. The accidental loss of the same sacred handker-
chief, whose secular use resulted in rather severe punishment,
would not bring commensurate power (or any power at all)
into the hands of the finder. Moreover, it is a very simple
matter for the owner to remove the divine spirit from an object.
Even the drums may be so “degraded”, for one has but to light
a candle and simply announce to the spirits in the drums that
one wishes to remove them—in order to sell the drums, or for
whatever reason one might have. Thus, while baptism is
essential to all ritual endeavor, it is also the most simple of
ceremonies in itself.
If one pieces together all these separate details regarding the
baptism of objects, it becomes apparent that baptism does not
so much confer divinity upon the object per se as it makes of
that object a “door” by which divine energy may be drawn
into this world by those who possess the key, which is the
name to be called.* The owner of the object, then, possesses an
* It has been pointed out earlier (Chapter II, p. 56) that Voudoun baptism
is not a borrowing from Christianity but a simple continuation of ancient
 The Doors to the Divine World 187
access to divine power, but he does not possess the divine
power itself, nor does he have absolute control over that energy
in action. To think of the baptized object as a “door” illumi-
nates, also, the fact that this object is not sacred in itself but
only when it functions as an access to divine power, and it is
this latter which is sacred. Thus the baptized object is sacred
only in action; and since an act is transitory in time, Voudoun
has, indeed, a quality which can only be described as a con-
stant “disappearingness”; for when its function is fulfilled, the
object ceases to be sacred.
The peristyle, which, during the evening’s ceremony, was a
holy temple place—vibrant with a sense of divine power—
becomes, the morning afterward, once more a meaningless area
in which chickens and dogs wander about, women sit
gossiping, and children sleep. The vever which was drawn
with such elaborate care is destroyed by the offerings placed
upon it, by the dancing feet, and is finally swept away with the
debris of the ceremony. The loa, whose every demand was
fearfully or eagerly met, leaves the head of a man to whom one
may then casually refuse even a cigarette or a piece of bread.
Nothing is accomplished for ever; it must always be done
again. Moreover, an invocation to Legba, sung by a radio per-
former, is simply a song. On the other hand, the hounsis of the
chorus command no particular respect or recognition. Neither
the song nor the singer is sacred; the sacred moment is the sing-
ing of the song for the sacred purpose of summoning Legba.
Divinity is an energy, an act. The serviteur does not say, “I
believe.” He says: “I serve.” And it is the act of service—the
ritual—which infuses both man and matter with divine power.
African traditions. The concept that the name is virtually the same thing as the
identity to which it refers, and that therefore a knowledge of the name and sts
proper pronunciation gives the power to invoke the spirit so idenafied, appears
in some form in virtually all religions, mythologies and folklore. One of the
most obvious examples is the “Open Sesame” story; but the widespread
practice of naming war aircraft after some “goddess” of stage or screen (with
the implied intenton of so invoking her protecuve patronage) 1s also a varia-
won—however diluted and imprecise—of this same universally persisent
practice.
 CHAPTER V

The Rites
I

THE RITES AS COLLECTIVE DISCIPLINE

WHENEVER modern industrial techniques are introduced

into a primitive culture, the ritualistic practices rapidly decline
and disappear. It has therefore been deduced that the purpose
of ritual is the magical control of environmental forces, a
function more effectively fulfilled by modern techniques, which
it is argued, have therefore come to replace the rituals. How-
ever, only a small percentage of religious ritual (as distinct from
magic rites) is concerned with such material phenomena. And
on the other hand, machines have not so much given man
control over natural disasters such as drought, flood and
epidemic disease, as made possible compensatory, remedial and
rescue measures. Moreover, the machine and the culture it has
produced make for disasters unknown to primitive man:
automobile, train and airplane accidents, nervous disorders,
sexual crimes, and the unprecedented enormity of war's
destruction. Certainly it cannot be claimed, therefore, that
ritualistic appeal against catastrophe can have been eliminated
because modern industrial man is more secure physically or
morally than man in a primitive culture. If one were to com
pare such cultures in terms of the proportion of negative to
positive factors within their respective contexts, it is extremely
doubtful whether, relatively, the modern culture would show
the greater positive weight.
At the same time, the dazzling nature of modern technology
has so obscured the very existence of primitive technology
(which, in its context, is skilled enough to maintain a positive
balance of forces) that ritual and technology have been prev
sumed to stand in principled and mutual antagonism.
188
 The Rites as Collective Discipline 189
Nevertheless, in Haiti it is precisely the loa and the ancestors
who are consulted for technical and practical advice in reference
to planting, buildings and, certainly, medicinal remedies. All
mythology contains legends in which divinity instructs man in
some practical technique for survival; God's directives to Noah
concerning the ark constitute a perfect example of such an
occasion. And just as such instruction signified Noah’s
favored position in the eyes of God, so a man of primitive
culture is inclined to interpret any special technical or practical
“know-how”, not as the beginning of a separation from, or an
opposition to divinity, but as an indication of divine benevo-
lence and favor. Moreover, if technological advance does not
provide greater cosmic control than ritual appeal, nor stand in
Opposition to rites as a means of adjustment to the immediate
environment, neither does the new mass of creature comforts
and the dime-store jewelry which it brings with it serve as a
simple alternative seduction away from ritual. The concept of
comfort is, in primitive cultures, often associated with divinity,
and, in the hieratic royal courts, may attain even to luxurious
realization. In Haiti, Ghede has adopted modern sun-glasses
and Erzulie delights in modern jewelry and sanitation. The
loa are not at all opposed to modern improvements on the
material level.
In the final analysis, modern technological and primitive
ritual are not competitive in terms of man’s relationship to the
cosmos or to matter; their apparent opposition stems from the
fact that they have to do with different orders of the relationship
of man to man. A tractor, which does not replace the need for
water or good soil, does replace the ten neighbors upon whom a
farmer once relied in times of planting, plague and harvest.
Running water in the house brings to an end the groups of
women who gathered at the stream to do their laundry, and who,
together, agreed not to pollute its source and to parcel out and
share its meagre trickle in times of dryness. The importation of
ready-made cloth replaces no ritual; but it does eliminate the
complex system of intimately personal relauonships which
190 The Rites
were involved in the barter of raw materials, dyes, looms, etc.
In effect, the machine creates a society in which men are no
longer dependent upon men, but, instead, upon machines and
upon the anonymous, unknown, distant creatures behind the
machines, who, like the machines, are impersonally regarded
as productive forces. Just as the machine has neither beliefs,
convictions nor morals, so it has become a matter of principle
to consider the religious, social and political convictions of the
operator of the machine, as equally irrelevant. The relationship
and interdependence between men shifts from an intimate,
moral basis to impersonal, material grounds; all human diver-
sity is reconciled in the spoon, the dress, the refrigerator. Indeed,
the measure of such a machine culture is the degree of tolerance
it has for individual heterogeneity, diversity and disagreement.
Socially, this principle is expressed in the high value placed
upon individual privacy, the opportunity to withdraw or
isolate oneself from potential and actual disagreements with
other men rather than be forced to resolve them. Economically,
men are shifted from a co-operative to a competitive relation-
ship. And politically, a system is created in which the public
policy is the statistical sum of private opinions; the singular,
subjective persuasions and prejudices of individuals become by
quantitative accumulation, the plurality, the objective reality
of communal order.
Only the legal system reflects the existence of a man’s public
self, that is, his person as part of a collective whole, and the
consideration that the interests of this public self may be
different from and even in conflict with the interests of his
private self. The minimum limit of the collective’s tolerance for
individual variation and aggression is known as the public
welfare, and is legally defined in predominantly negative
terms: protective limitations such as food and drug acts, the
restriction of criminal aggression, the control of public noise
and nuisance, etc. The law, which might be said to codify
collective morality in the public context, is actually not so
much concerned with exacting a positive contribution from the
 The Rites as Collective Discipline 191
individual on behalf of the common good (taxation and mili,
tary service are the only exactments of this kind) as it is with
preventing any infringements upon individual welfare.
It is significant that, just as in most primitive cultures, the
roles of king and priest were originally combined, so the pro-
tection and preservation of the collective welfare—which, in an
industrial culture, 1s the specialized concern of the legal code—
is, in a primitive community, the primary function of the
religion. In effect, it could not be otherwise, for here a man is
so much more continuously and organically involved with the
rest of the community in interdependent relationship that it
would be impossible to codify legally all the occasions and
circumstances in which he must respect the collective welfare.
In such a community it becomes imperative that the individual
be imbued with the principle of collective action and that this
serve not only to restrain him from anu-social actions, but also
to induce him toward positive contribution. Since the very life
of the tribe stands or falls according to the degree to which this
principle pervades the individuals, the collective rituals—
whose function is to reaffirm this principle constantly and to
integrate the morality—play a dominant réle.* As modern
individualistic independence replaces collective interdepen-
dence, this communal religion of collective public rituals is
* This accounts for the formality that is markedly noticeable in all but the
most intimate relauonships. Yet it does not subjugate the individual as a
personality in nonitual contexts. On the contary, since one’s public behavior
is virtually guaranteed and prescribed, one’s individual idiosyncracies of
personality as a private individual are not understood to threaten the public
welfare. There is, in fact, virtually no social inhibition upon private personality
and, as a consequence, a group of Haiuans is far more “colorful” and diverse
than an equivalent group of individuals in our culture; for, among us, personal
persuasion is directly projected as public policy—there is no distinction between
the self in private context and the self in public context, and the integrity of the
culture therefore becomes dependent upon a certain standardization on the
personal and private level. In a democratic culture there is a tendency to believe
that if someone dresses in a non-conservative style of clothes, he may also be a
threat to the institutions of society; in a culture in which the personal and the
public contexts are recognized as being quite distinct, on the other hand, the
individual is actually freer in the personal context, since there is no feeling chat
this idiosyncracy may be read over into public contexs.
192 The Rites
replaced, on the one hand, by the legal system, which governs
the public self of a man, and on the other, by a religion of
private contemplation, where the subjective conscience
(reflecting the individual background and the personal powers,
whether crude or developed, for the perception of truth and
good) is a man’s final moral authority in his largely private
life.
The public rituals of the hounfor are, in a sense, an extension
of the principles which govern a family, where the co-operative
participation of all the members—including the children—is
necessary for survival. Here, for example, it would not be
reasonable if the sheer statistical majority of children gave them
authority over the parents in determining the rules governing the
labors of the farm and household, or behavior in general. Nor
would it be feasible to depend upon the child’s ability to
understand analytically the reasons why certain things should
be done, and how. Similarly, it is obvious that all individuals
are not capable of equal perception and moral intensity; that
even a single individual may be more acute in one context than
in another, may “feel” more conscientious one day and less
another. And just as the legal code recognizes that the collective
welfare cannot be dependent upon such variability, so the
religion imposes torms of conduct (understood as traditions)
which guarantee that the collective level shall transcend such
individual variability. The individual is obliged to respect the
loa in a defined fashion, to celebrate them by joining in the
dancing and the singing, to observe obeisances and altogether
to participate in the collective confirmation of those principles
and disciplines which are essential to the collective welfare.
In maintaining this collective level, religion, like the legal code,
is first concerned with men’s acts, not with their feelings. The
use of the phrase “I serve”, rather than “I believe”, reflects this
emphasis upon the objective fact of function rather than the
subjective condition.*
* This disciplinary function of ritual is contrary to the notions held by two
apparently opposite schools of thought: the primitivists, who understand ritual
 The Rites as Collective Discipline 193
Ic is crue that in time, and under certain circumstances, such
an authoritarian religion, with its secondary regard for indivi-
dual desires, may develop into an autocracy; that is, the
authorities (priests, kings, etc.) may become primarily con-
cerned with the personal benefits of their position and may
attempt to preserve such traditions even when these cease to
serve the collective welfare, or even begin to conflict with it.
But in Hau, a serviteur 1s sull the final judge of the houngan’s
efficacy and honesty. He has recourse to other houngans, and
even has final recourse to worship within the family group.
Moreover, while a legal code is supported by civil punitive
powers, and a punitive power also supports, to some degree,
the parental disciplines, the religion cannot resort to such
enforcements directly. In the very act of proposing a certain
tradition, and exacting obedience by such moral pressures as
are at its disposal, it must simultaneously convince the serviteur
that the principles which it proposes are good and proper, just
and dance as the spontaneous expression of unfettered spirits; and the psycho-
analysts, who regard these as release valves, permitting a socially accepted form
for the realization of repressed desires and the resolution of private tauma. The
primiuvist ignores the fact that a primiuve community must require con-
formism of its individuals when they function in a collective context and that
if public rituals served as an arena for the public display of individual impulses,
this would exactly contradict the purpose of those rituals, which is to reaffirm
the unity of che community. The psychoanalyst, on the other hand, bases
himself entirely upon a society in which the whole—whether political, social
or economic—is understood as the sum, the plurality of its individual parts, so
that there exists no differenuation between a man as a public unit and a man
as a private individual. For the individuals in such a society, public disciplines
are confounded with and become private inhibiuons, and compulsions of
private and personal origin are expressed and resolved in public and social
activities. The man of a primitive, collecuve community, however, disunguishes
sharply between these two areas. He regards the collecuve disciplines as obyecuve
realities and accepts (or occasionally rebels against) them on that level. Having
committed himself to the public conduct required by the collective as such, he
proceeds to deal with his personal life in his private terms. This private life, in
so far as it is private, is thus free of those inhibiuons which, in our culture,
originate in social and public attitudes and requirements. For this reason, and
also because the religious ritual is part of the public context and is performed
by the “public self” of the man, so to speak, it is incorrect to conceive of them
as the arena of individual, private expression.
194 The Rites
as good parents are primarily concerned with educating their
children toward their own adulthood, and reserve their
punitive power as a last recourse. The religious rituals, in the
very act of proposing formal disciplines, serve, simultaneously,
as exemplary demonstrations of the reasons for these forms. If
the serviteur does not show the resistances and defiances which
might be expected as a reaction to discipline, it is not because
he is docile by nature; it is because he has begun, already, to
agree rather than merely to obey. And this early understanding
is possible because the means by which he is instructed, or is
made to understand, are not an abstract process of analysis,
requiring intellectual maturity, but a system of graphic
demonstrations. The serviteur learns love and beauty in the
presence and person of Erzulie, experiences the ways of power
in the diverse aspects of Ogoun, becomes familiar with the
implications of death in the attitudes of Ghede. He sings in the
chorus, and feels in his own person that surge of security which
is harmonious collective action. He witnesses the wisdom of
ancestral and divine counsel, and learns the advantages of
accepting such counsel, with its history and experience, for his
own guidance in action. In effect, he understands the principles
because he sees them function.
This major educational service of rituals would be vitiated
if they were symbolic in nature. In effect, nothing is more
meaningless or perplexing to the Haitian than to be asked what
some ritual action “represents”, “stands for”, or “symbolizes”.
When food is put down for the loa, the Haitian understands
precisely that fact: the loa are being given food; and all ritual
action 1s understood with the same immediacy. The real,
visible action of a ritual is not the symbolic statement of some
idea; on the contrary, it would be the verbal statement, the
metaphysical concept, or the abstract idea which would be
understood as a symbol, at one remove from the reality of the
act or fact.* Moreover, if the act were symbolic—if its meaning
* The current insistence upon understanding all activity as representative of
another activity, the refusal to recognize the directness of the statement, may lead
 The Rites as Collective Discipline 195
and value were dependent upon historical or metaphysical
reference—it would have become, long ago, the religion of an
intellectual élite, both able and willing to devote themselves to
the necessary research; and it would be dependent upon an
accuracy which had no tolerance for the diversity and fallibility
of human intellect. Furthermore, if the particular action stood
in a precisely symbolic relationship to the principle, it could not
change to become a statement in contemporary terms. For
instance, today, the regular ceremonial costume for the Rada
rites consists of a white handkerchief bound around the head,
and a white dress; for the men, white trousers and shirt. Every-
one is barefooted. Long sleeves are expected, unless extreme
poverty prohibits this, as well as a high-closed neck, and a
skirt as long and full as can be made from the amount of
material that the person has been able to buy. This is certainly
not the African costume, which must have included many
immediately symbolic and local references. But just as that was
the “best” dress, so this is, now, in the contemporary context,
the “best” dress, and it is this fact which is evidence of religious
to certain absurdities. Even Maximilien, who in general is exceedingly percep-
ave about Voudoun, writes: “She also passes them [the chickens] over the
bodies of che hounsis, which is called ‘ventailler’, a symbolic way of establishing
the contact between the humans and the animals” (p. 107). But as he himself
describes the action, it is an actual contact which is being effected, not a symbol of a
Contact.
As a matter of fact, the effort co make an action or an image a specific symbol
of something may deprive it of the very richness of connotauons and ramifica-
dons which make it meaningful. Damballah, as serpent, is cosmic precisely
because of the richness of the ramifications. His sinuosity connotes the dynamic
of life; his water habits relate him to water, which is a source of life in several
senses. But the sun also is a source of life, and so Damballah 1s represented as a
serpent stretched across the sky in the arc of the sun’s path (which is also as a
rainbow), and this arc, reflected in the sea, describes a circle which embraces the
Cosmos, or is comparable to an egg containing the cosmos; and indeed the snake
does lay eggs. Moreover, trees, rising from below, with their roots in water, cut
through the earth, toward the sun, and so move as an avenue of divine inter-
section, which, as a matter of fact, the snake—as aree-climber—travels. Thus the
serpent, when taken as a connotative image, comprehends a whole complex of
cosmic principles and this richness would be lost if it were taken as a symbol of
any one specific and precise idea.
196 The Rites
dedication. The material detail has changed in order that the moral
principle may remain constant.
This constant principled function transcends not only
historical changes, but all the local variations in ritual due to
the special history of the community, practical expediency, or
stylistic development. At the same time, these variations con-
tain, each in its own fashion, an affirmation of the major
concepts of the religion. Such variations have sometimes been
construed as evidence that the religion has degenerated from
some pinnacle of archaic purity; but it would seem, on the
contrary, that when a principle can be proposed in terms that
vary over time and according to place, this testifies to its truly
universal scope. In fact, the meaning of various ritualistic
activities may seem secretive or obscure precisely because there
is a certain tendency, on the part of the interpreter, to seek out
some original symbology which might, in the final analysis,
be irrelevant, while the principled and generalized function is
ignored. For example, one of the elements of ritual is langage, a
kind of sacred language, which is understood to be the means
of direct communication with the loa and more persuasive to
them than address in Creole. Langage seems to be the vestige of
African speech,*! and if this is so, then it was originally used to
address the loa in words understood by everyone as being such
an address. Today, it is doubtful if even the houngan knows
what the words mean, any more than the hounsis who sing
the songs in which they occur. Yet, today, the sense of direct
address to the loa is even intensified, for now only the loa are
assumed to understand this language, and it is thus even more
pointedly an exclusive, sacred language, accessible only to the
most spiritually developed, than it was when it was the common
speech. This sense and function of langage would not be in
the least illuminated by an exhaustive tracing of the words
themselves.
* This theory has been discussed supra, p. 69.
 The Rites as Individual Development 197

THE RITES AS INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT

The principle of participation, which is at the very core of

collective religions, does more than insure that everyone shall
witness such exemplary demonstrations of moral principle in
acuon. The rites not only educate from the outside, as it were,
bur, even more importantly, function in a manner of which the
participant may not be consciously aware and which certainly
is imperceptible to the detached observer. A devout serviteur,
such as Titon, would never neglect to make the Libation of
water, coffee or rum as a salute to les Morts, les Marassa, et les
Mystéres before himself drinking. At times he would walk to
the threshold of the house and pour the libation directly upon
the earth. At other times, however, he would merely dribble it
on the cement floor, where it would lie in a pool, be walked
in, and eventually dry up. In ceremonies, and on important
occasions, he would carry out the ritual in the way that con-
formed to its original intention, which was that the liquid
should penetrate the earth; yet the abbreviated gesture which
he made at other times was not, in a real sense, a complete
corruption or deterioration of the original. If Titon had been
chastised, he would have smiled, and, as if politely obliging a
sense of form, would have gone to the door to spill a second
offering on the earth. But in either case the obeisance that he
made served its larger function: while this Libation to the Dead,
the Divine Twins and the loa might or might not influence
them, it certainly affirmed in Titon’s mind a sense of the history
of which he was the issue and an awareness of his relation-
ship to a collective. It was one of those rites—and these are
dominant in the religion—whose function is not immediate.
Designed as a form of discipline, frequently exacting and
tedious, these rites do not necessarily yield to the devotee
any personal, self-expressive pleasure. Nor do they function
directly toward the desired end. If one were to ask, “Does his
198 The Rites
ritual cause that thing to happen?” the answer would be in
the affirmative. But causation, in religious terms, is not
causation as defined in scientific terms. The world of a
religious man is governed by moral reason, not by material
reason. The Haitian does not mean, for example, that health
will result from a certain ritual action; he means that health will
be a reward for his performance of it. And if one were to
press him to examine the implications of this idea more pro-
foundly, one would discover that the value of the ritual would
not be negated by some error of ignorance of ritual detail; on
the contrary, the serviteur would be rewarded for the devout
intention of his effort. In other words, he would be morally
correct even though technically wrong, and this fact is the
religious reality; the material errors are relatively unimportant.
The central link of such a causal chain is, then, an invisible
rewarding force, which the serviteur understands as super-
natural intervention. But if one substitutes, in this position,
the psyche of the serviteur himself, it becomes clear why such
rituals do, actually, work so often, for the primary effect of such
ritual action is upon the doer. That action reaffirms first
principles—destiny, strength, love, life, death; it recapitulates a
man’s relationship to his ancestors, his history, as well as his
relationship to the contemporary community; it exercises and
formalizes his own integrity and personality, tightens his dis-
ciplines, confirms his morale. In sum, he emerges with a
strengthened and refreshed sense of his relationship to cosmic,
social and personal elements. A man so integrated 1s likely to
function more effectively than one whose adjustment has begun
to disintegrate, and this will be reflected in the relative success
of his undertakings. The miracle is, in a sense, interior. It is the
doer who is changed by the ritual, and for him, therefore, the world
changes accordingly.
It is this subjective function of ritual which is perhaps even
more important than its objective functions: the disciplines
which it imposes by virtue of certain moral threats, and the
demonstration of principle by which it supports those
15. RITUAL PRAYERS. A major portion of ceremonials is devoted to solemn prayer. The heavily
spangled flags in the foreground represent the sociéte.
16. SACRIFICE OF A BULL. Note the vever drawing of a bull and, in the background, the
sacrificial bull, draped in a colorful cloth.
 The Rites es Individual Development 199
disciplines.* For in the final analysis, what is important is not
only whar the serviteur does (which might conceivably be the
right thing for the wrong reasons) nor what he consciously
understands (which would vary according to his intellectual
capacity) but what be bas become as a result of his participation in
those ceremonials. The intensive and extended rituals of
* This is precisely contrary to the orthodox psychoanalytcal interpretation of
the function of ritual activity, that is, the release of inhibitions, the realizauon
of repressed desires, and the resolution of private trauma. It is necessary to stress
chat in a primitive culture there is virtually no privacy, and hence the primary
condition for the creation of a trauma or a neurosis does not exist. If an aceident
has occurred, which might conceivably have become a trauma, the person of
such a society does not need a specialist to make him remember, nor a ritual to
sublimate, for all the people in the community will readily volunteer his “history”.
They will say, and repeatedly, that his mother used to bear him, and that she
did so because his father left her; or they will say: “Are you going to fall down
every time you see a dog, just because you did the first ume?” The communal
memory is complete, and even if one’s inumate friends would censor some
unpleasant memory, there are always enemies who will recall it. In a sense, the
man of a primitive community has a relauvely meager unconscious, in che sense
of secreted traumas which are to be searched out as mouvations for behavior.
Neither can the person of such a society harbor an unresolved relasonship—
as in our culrure—which some professional psychoanalyst must then make him
confront; for it would be only very rarely that he could escape it geographically,
since no such ready separation of children and parents takes place as in our
culrure. And if he does not escape it, bur is forced to confront it daily, he mus
resolve it, or at least find some viable adjustment.
Psychoanalysis has based itself on cultures in which concealments, self-
censorship, and the Christian idea of original sin (which, it must be remenv
bered, is noc shared by most primitive cultures) obtain, and is inclined to suspect
human behavior as a mask for some reality which the individual feels conv
pelled to conceal. It has, accordingly, set up a system of symbolic interpretauon,
in terms designed to illuminate a diseased organism, but which would noc be
valid for one that was healthy. Even where the symbolic interpretauon would be
Correct, as in certain cases of sexual symbolism, the symbols would hardly have
the same emotional value or “charge” for a nauve who felt no guilt of inhibsuons
about sexual acuvity, as for the ciuzen of a Chrisuan culture in which sexual
activity is regarded in a vastly different and more complex light. The images of
primitive myth, and of most myths, are images of resolution, not of disease. Even in our
culture, sexual symbolism may occur in art and various other expressions, not
because the arust unconsciously intends any personal sexual reference but
because he has consciously chosen, as a means of analogous communicauon,
the one experience which he could safely insist was common to all human
beings.
200 The Rites
initiatory gradation are devoted entirely to such a creation and
development of a “soul”.
In this respect the critical distinction between magic and
religion becomes evident, for there are no such rites, designed
to develop the person, in magic. A magician’s apprenticeship
consists of exchanging his services for secreted, concealed
information, whereas the religious neophyte, by virtue of
experience and ordeals, matures spiritually to an understanding
of things which have been frankly evident in public ritual all
along. Magic refers to power, which is amoral in nature; the
primary emphasis of religion is moral discipline and develop-
ment. Magic rituals are performed with the intention of pro-
ducing a direct result upon the world and their ritual details
are immediately linked to the object; in religious ritual the
physical act is frequently quite disconnected from the desired
reward. In effect, in religion the serviteur is changed; in magic the
world is changed.
It is of major importance, also, that the principles governing
this subjective development in religion derive from the collective
context. The individual who functions in interdependent
terms with the community cannot forge ahead too far, since
this would alienate him from the very forces upon which he is
dependent. The impulse and incentive behind the magician,
on the other hand, has always been an individualistic triumph,
whether for good or for evil. Yet he too has been restrained
somewhat by his dependence upon the collective community.
Indeed, the best condition for magical action is not the primi-
tive community with its collective emphasis, but the modern
community, with its individualistic emphasis, and it is here
that one may experience the pre-eminent spectacle of the
magician at work. He conceives his plans in almost solitary
secrecy, or with a few cohorts; he is feverishly protective of the
exclusive right to exploit the power of his discovery or invention;
he is frequently concerned with an almost occult effort to
divine that special twist of public taste which makes for a hit
or a best-seller; he is devoted to the idea of a magic combination
 The Rites as Individual Development 201
of words in a certain just-so order, which is a catchy slogan;
he labors to create a skillfully obsessive image of material or
sexual seduction, and is not above accomplishing this with a
maximum of artifice and connotative sleight of hand; he is
involved in a complex and formal series of cabbalalike
manipulations involving “contacts”, publicity incantations, and
even what might be accurately termed the cocktail Libation.
Moreover, this is all pursued in the interests of his own personal
aggrandizement and enurely irrespective, in a profound sense,
of the public welfare. The hexes, elixirs and fetishes of primitive
magicians are paltry achievements compared to the vast powers
of such modern magicians.*
Magic on such a scale could not, in fact, exist in an inter-
dependent culture in which, on the one hand, projects of any
scope could not be undertaken without the knowledge of
others, and on the other hand, the collective could not and
would not tolerate such an individualistic offensive upon its
integrity. So firmly imbued is che man of such a culture with
the collective principle, that he assumes any technique to be
public property, available for the use of the collective. The
innocent, unabashed readiness of “natives” to imitate or adopt
some new aspect of dress or manner or method which may
strike their fancy is but one manifestation of their complete
ignorance of the nouon of originality in the possessive, “copy-
right” sense. In his mind any technique, and especially any
improved technique, is a dispensation of divinity and therefore
comprehends the moral purpose of collective benefit. It is this
idea that made primitive cultures such easy prey to invaders with
superior mechanical equipment. The history of the Spanish
conquest of the Americas begins, in each isolated district, not
with native resistance but with native welcome. They wel-
comed the superior “things” which, they assumed, would, like
all other techniques, accrue to the improved welfare of their
community; and they welcomed the men who brought them,
* For other discussions of the contrast berween religion and magic, see pp.
65-6, 75-7, supra.
202 The Rites
as beings upon whom the gods had chosen to confer such
exceptional talent and power. By the time the native priests
grasped the immoral function of the equipment of their
guests, it was too late to marshal their amazed and demoralized
forces effectively. The failure of the priests was a failure to
recognize the new face of their most ancient antagonist, the
magician. But even if they had recognized it, or could have
recognized it today, their battle would nevertheless have been
lost. For an industrial culture, while liberating individuals
from the interdependence which requires and guarantees a
homogeneous morality, is also characterized by an emphasis
upon technological achievement per se: the invention of
means and the development of methods. Such separation of
means from ends, of techniques from morals, marks the era of
the magician. Against an entire era, the priests of collective
ritual religions, proposing their metaphysic of collective
morality, are virtually helpless.

3
THE INITIAL RITUAL ACTS

The initial ritual movements of any ceremony are an effort to

establish contact with the loa, with the universal, cosmic forces.
When everyone has assembled in the peristyle,* the houngan
* The fact that many of the ceremonies and almost all the dances take place at
night has been given a sensational and romantic interpretation by many
visitors. The reasons are very practical. For one thing, the personnel of the
hounfor is usually busy with various labors and chores during the day. For
another thing, the heat of a tropical climate between the hours of eleven and
five in the afternoon is almost unbearable. The daytime is usually spent in
preparations: cooking, decorating, etc. The actual ceremony, and certainly the
dancing, is postponed unul late afternoon or the coolness of the evening. It
should also be pointed out that whereas the visitor may find the night an
unfamiliar and mysterious landscape, most of those who participate in the
ceremonies are not accustomed to electrical illumination and have long ago
become adjusted to the dark. Moreover, they have come to know every last
corner of their community so well that they could easily find their way about
blindfolded. The night is not mysterious for them and holds nothing of the
atmospheric excitement which it does for the visitor.
 The Initial Ritual Acts 203
(or the person on whose behalf the ceremony is being con-
ducted) takes a jug of water, and, lifting it successively toward
the four cardinal points, signals the Mysteres. He may address
an audible plea to them; sometimes it is a cursory signal, an
almost familiar gesture; at other times, as he is poised there, with
the jug of water lifted overhead and his eyes fixed into that
space, one has a sense, suddenly, that the distant air is peopled
with invisible hosts whose attention he would command, and
whose presences he would draw from all corners of the universe
to this particular moment and this particular place. Thus the
very opening gesture of the ritual immediately gives it vast and
cosmic scope.”
This initial salutation is, in a sense, comprehensive. It
includes Legba, without whose permission no contact could be
made with any of the Invisibles. It is also addressed to the
two trinities: the Christian Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and
the Voudoun Mystéres, Morts and Marassa. The salutation
may include, in addition, any particular deity with whom the
houngan or serviteur may be especially concerned, such as his
maitéte or the mait-hounfor, or the loa on whose behalf this
parucular ceremony is being conducted.
Having so signaled them, he pours three libations at the
entrance to the peristyle. This is a mark of respect, a first
offering; it is also a gesture of the hand, inviting the gods:
“Here, if you please.” Often, beginning at the entrance, he
tickles a thin line of water across the peristyle to the potcau-
mitan. Then he draws another line of water (for the loa are led
in on water) from the second and third entrances, and so
creates three rivers which converge at the poteau-mitan, making
it the cosmic axis of the world.*
In proper hierarchical order, the jug is passed on to the
distinguished visitors and members of the société, who repeat
the libations (although, for expediency, and because the
houngan’s invitation was the major statement, they do not
necessarily draw the line of water). Throughout the ceremony
many of the ritual acts are thus repeated, in less elaborate form,
204 The Rites
by the participants. The sense is not so much that their actions
add any real persuasion, but rather that they can thereby share
the relationship with the loa which the houngan has initiated.
It is also a matter of pride to the houngan when distinguished
visitors participate in such salutations to the loa of his hounfor.
In the meantime, the houngan or the la-place has lita candle and
prepared to draw the first vevers. The plate of four or ashes
(the material used depends upon which vevers are to be
drawn) is oriented, as was the water. (Almost everything used
during a ceremony, and all the offerings, are first signaled
toward the cardinal points.) The chorus might have begun to
sing the song: “Fait un vever pou moin” (“Draw a vever for
me’), and if it is not Saturday or Sunday, when drumming is
permitted, they will be clapping time with their hands.
The drawing of vevers requires real technical skill. A small
amount of flour is picked up between the thumb and fore-
finger and let sift on to the ground while the hand moves in
the line of the form which the vever is to take. The first thing
drawn is a circle around the base of the poteau-mitan.* From
this center the vevers radiate. Sometimes, when the service is for
a specific loa, the vever may be drawn at the entrance to his
particular chamber. When the service is being conducted at
his sacred tree in the court, it is drawn there. Each loa has his
special symbol, or vever. The basic form, and certain details,
are traditionally fixed. The cross-roads is the sign for Legba;
the heart is for Erzulie: a boat represents Agwé; serpents are for
Damballah and Ayida, etc. But even with these fixed forms,
there is great scope for personal variations of style.
The vever consecrates to the loa which it represents the area
which it covers. Sometimes it is an elaborate, painstaking
tracery, made even more lace-like by the granular ruffling of the
lines, and even more fragile by the impression that the slightest
breeze would blow away the light ridge of four. But this
fragile aspect is, at the same time, balanced by the strong
contrast of the white lines against the very dark ground, so that
it seems a coat of arms, an emblazoned shield. When especially
 The Initial Ritual Acts 205
elaborate, it projects the sense of a celebration of its loa, a public
feat displayed in his honor. In such cases, however, the com-
pliment to the loa would seem to rest chiefly in the labor of
the making and the disciplinary ordeal of dedication; for all
this elaborate design is bit by bit destroyed by the grains of
maize, peanuts and other food placed upon it, smudged by
the death throes of the sacrificed chicken laid upon it, and, in
the end, the god having eaten, and the vever’s function being
thus fulfilled, it 1s walked on, danced on, and finally its
remnants are swept away. At other hounfors the vevers may
consist of no more than a few strokes, accomplished with that
sense of intimate ease which comes from assurance and cer-
tainty. Here one feels that the houngan long ago successfully
completed his “courtship” of the loa and that it remains for
him, now, simply to signal his presence—as a long-married
man might simply rap on the door of his wife’s chamber, as a
mere gesture, and enter without even waiting for her response.
At other umes, some quality of the vever’s very form will
suddenly illuminate the fact that it does, indeed, create a door
in the earth, which leads to the loa living in the abysmal waters
below; so that whatever is placed upon it does not rest on the
surface but seeps down an invisible funnel.®
If the ceremony is one in which several loa are to be fed
together, in the beginning, thus requiring the drawing of
several vevers around the poteau-mitan, these may have been
made even before the official opening of the ceremony. In any
case, after the first libations, the two hounsis, carrying the
ceremonial flags representing the société, and the la-place, carry-
ing the saber and representing the loa mait-hounfor, emerge
ritualistically from the chamber of the mait-hounfor. They
come out backward and revolve in one direction, then in
reverse, until they attain the center of the peristyle. Thereupon,
they proceed, successively, in the directions of the four cardinal
points and at each edge of the peristyle perform the ritual
salutation: a full turn to the right, then to the left, chen to the
right again, each turn punctuated by a sort of curtsey, and the
206 The Rites
whole concluded by kneeling, and kissing the ground three
times. They then perform the same salutation before the poteau-
mitan, and, if the drums are being used, next address this salute
to the drums. The formation now salutes the houngan, with
that mock competition between asson and saber which has
been already described.® And after the houngan they salute any
visiting houngans or mambos in the same manner, the older
and “stronger” houngans having precedence. Also they salute
the houngenikon, and, finally, any distinguished visitors. These
salutations, which are meticulously repeated, detail for detail,
in reference to a large number of people, may sometimes take a
long while to complete, and foreign visitors, anticipating ritual
as an intense, dramatic experience, find this portion (and other
similar portions) most tedious. Even the members of the société
are merely patient. Yet in what better manner could all these
single individuals be deliberately and personally involved and
integrated into the ceremony from the very beginning? To be
approached and confronted by this trio—delegatés of the loa
and the sociéte—to be obliged to rise, move in formation with
them, give attention to the proper order of movements and
gestures, signal in the cardinal directions—to do all this is to
become irrevocably involved and committed to the ritual. One
arrived in the peristyle as a secular individual; after such
salutations the person who resumes his seat is no longer that at
all. From this moment on, his gestures, movements, attitudes
take on metaphysical reference. To wander away, to neglect
the ritual obligations, would now be a deliberate blasphemy;
to participate properly is to engage divine benevolence.
In the meantime, the houngan of the hounfor and the visiting
houngans and mambos will have been exchanging their formal
salutations, and the manner in which these are carried out
constitutes a statement of relative authority. If, for example,
the houngan’s “father” is present, he does not execute the
turns: the younger houngan turns in front of him, although the
two curtsey together at the conclusion of each turn: and the
“father” remains standing while the younger man kisses the
 The Initial Ritual Acts 207
ground at his feet. Then, taking his hand, he raises the younger
houngan, who repeats the three turns. Their hands are joined
and held high during the entire salute, which is concluded by
a double handshake. A stronger houngan may, however,
“raise” the standing of someone who salutes him by preventing
him from kissing the ground at his feet, and by going directly
into the second phase, the salutation with the hands joined.
This mark of respect is usually conferred upon visitors who do
not hold a rank in the hierarchy and also are not subject to
the honoring houngan’s authority; that is to say, are not of his
hounfor personnel. When two houngans of equal standing
salute each other, they mirror each other and neither of chem
kisses the ground; they perform the second phase of the salute
with hands joined and turning together. Two houngenikons
salute each other as equals, but kiss the ground together.’
There are many subtle gradations of salutation and these
indicate the relative authority of the persons involved.
This pattern of graduated salutations reflects the effort to
resolve the circumstance that a single community may have
several “competing” hounfors. Just as the father of a family
remains the highest authority in any situation which involves
even a full-grown son, so the spiritual father of a houngan
remains the major authority even in the hounfor of his son; and
just as, in communal life, the children of one family have
deference for the heads of other families, and these relate to each
other in terms of equality or of recognized communal prestige,
so the same general principles hold for the religious communal
adjustment. This prevents an atmosphere of anarchic com-
petitiveness and resentment from developing between the
hounfors, and stabilizes a situation which might otherwise
have destroyed the religion altogether by splitting the com-
munity into warring loyalties. In other words, the salutations
serve to intervadjust and integrate the collective.
When all the relationships of the participants have been
established, and their salutations made to the loa of the houn-
for and to the flags of the société, the acts of mutual respect
208 The Rites
having been accomplished, there follow the action de grace and
the Catholic litanies. These vary in elaborateness. In a ten-
day ceremony-caille, an entire afternoon may be dedicated to
the action de grace.® In a briefer ceremony this may be limited
to one or two litanies, three Paters and three Aves, and followed
by the priére Guinée. This prayer is almost entirely in langage;
almost all the loa are called by name, including not only the
major loa of the pantheon but all the personal ancestral loa as
well. The order of this invocation is determined by various
elements. Although such a loa as Legba always retains his
first position, the mait-hounfor and various personal loa may
take precedence even over such great loa as Ogoun.?®
The priére Guinée is perhaps the most impressively sober and
devout portion of the entire ceremony. The heat of the late
afternoon muffles the peristyle and seems almost to be the weight
which bows all the white-bound heads in prayer and stills every-
one to motionlessness. The hounsis are seated along benches
and in the clear center area, near the poteau-mitan, the houngan
(perhaps with several of the visiting mambos and houngans)
sits on the small chair which permits him easily to touch the
earth and lift his hand to his lips in a token kissing of the
ground, or to press a pinch of earth to his chest, at the mention
of those loa for whom he would show particular respect. On
such occasions he will also shake his rattle in special salutation.
From time to time one hounsi or another will drop to the
ground to kiss it, signifying a loa of markedly personal
importance to her. But apart from such small movements, there
is so little overt emotion that the endless incantation, the regular
alternation between the voice of the priest, whose bent head
sends the words inward upon himself, and the answering
chorus, in the oppressive heat, gives to the whole a sense of
endurance rather than of celebration or even invocation. It
becomes an ordeal of discipline, not an offering of ecstasy but
the more demanding offering of almost unbearable ennui.
Finally, with a prolonged sounding of the asson the priere Guinée
is concluded. Then, together, the drums, the hounsis clapping
 Feeding the Loa 209
their hands, and the assons striking the ground or close to it—
all in unison—begin the battérie maconnique. Their rhythm is
onetworhree pause, onetwothree pause: an unhurried,
deliberate beating, a pounding on the door of the loa world.
Fourteen umes this triple beat is repeated and then the phrase
is ended, to be punctuated, however, by a sustained beating—
almost, one might imagine, a rattling of the knob; whereupon,
again, the deliberate battérie is resumed. The number of times
is a matter of ritualistic decision; but the impact of this code
beaten upon the door is overwhelming.’® It is impossible to
conceive how this culminating collective effort to establish
contact with the world of les Invisibles could possibly fail.

4
FEEDING THE LOal!!

The loa, whose function is to direct che enormous primal mass

of the material universe into patterns of intelligence and
benevolence, are involved in a great and endless labor. It is their
moral energy which animates this huge hulk of matter, and so,
since that energy is constantly expended, it must be constantly
replenished. And this is man’s duty: to feed the loa, to insure
the constant flow of the psychic energy, to assure the moral
movement of the universe. Thus, the feasting of the loa is the
ceremonial most frequently performed in Haiu. In addiuon to
the general drain on the loa’s energy, it is also tapped by the
specific, individual demands of men. Thus there are general
feasts, for all the pantheon; special feasts for loa of whom one
has asked a great deal; annual feasts for the Marassa and the
Dead; and certainly, any ceremony whose purpose is to ask
something of the loa, begins with an offering of food.
Since the essence of the food is consumed by the loa, it may
be scattered for them in all directions, or buried for them, or
left standing at the crossroads. It may also be consumed by
them directly, when they possess a person; for although the
 210 The Rites
food enters the body of the person, it is the loa who are
nourished by its essence: this is made evident by the fact that
after the period of possession, when the person is himself again,
he will not feel that he has eaten and may be ravenously hungry.
When food is left overnight at the altar, again it is the essence
which is consumed by the loa; for although the material sub-
stance, which remains, will subsequently be divided among
the participants, the people have no sense of being greatly
nourished by it. In fact, it is never the people who feast at a
feast for the loa.!®
The kind of food, its preparation, the manner of serving it
and the selection and quantity of the portions, depend upon
which loa is being fed, and vary according to the particular
occasion, the local traditions, and factors of immediate
expediency. A poor man, for example, may apologetically
request of three loa that they share a single chicken. A sense of
ritual precision governs all offerings; such precision is equally
characteristic of the simple mangé sec (the offering of grains,
fruits and vegetables which precede a very minor ceremony
such as the baptism of minor ritual objects) and of the elaborate
feasts which a houngan may sponsor annually on behalf of his
hounfor—involving the sacrifice of many chickens, several
goats, even a bull, and pigs (for the Petro), which may take
up to ten days to accomplish completely.
Such an elaborate ceremony, if it happens to be performed in
the general period of the harvest, may begin with a ceremony-
yam. Theoretically, this ceremony, which is the only im-
portant agrarian ritual among the Rada rites, is an offering of
the first fruits of the field to the loa, so that they may again bless
the earth in the coming season.!4 After the vevers for the major
deities (including Azacca, loa of agriculture) have been traced,
the litanies and the prayers are recited. Then the hounsis,
carrying on their heads baskets piled high with yams and dried
fish, form a processional which winds many times around the
center-post before the offering is deposited at its base. There
the yams and fish are consecrated and the houngan, holding a
 Feeding the Loa 2u1
candle in one hand, points the saber, which he holds in the
other, toward the cardinal points. He then kneels and chops
one yam in half, and passes the knife, or machete, to the next
person in hierarchical order, who does the same with another
yam. One by one every participant at the ceremony slices a
yam, and when this has been accomplished, all the pieces
are gathered once more into the baskets, covered with leaves of
mombin, consecrated with the sign of the cross, and carried in
processional to the major Rada altar, where they are coucher
(laid away), as it is called, for the night.
The overnight coucher or sleep, whether of yams, or, on
occasion, of drums, or of the initiate, is a rite at once of purifi-
cation and of strengthening. Perhaps because of the word
coucber, or because of the blanket of leaves spread as care-
fully as a coverlet, or because of the complete silence of the
windowless altar chamber with its thick clay walls and the
single, small illumination of the sacred light—a wick floating
in a bowl of oil—or perhaps because of all of these together, the
scene is one of profound repose, which is in contrasting yet
harmonious counterpoint to the lively dance of celebration
which is usually taking place that very evening in the adjoining
peristyle. To pass from one to the other is to experience, within
the single moment, the entire range of Voudoun: the meditative,
introverted sobriety which characterizes the prayers and the
solitary withdrawal of the initiate ordeal, the impressive
dynamism of ceremonials in which drums, song, dance-ritual
movements, sacred invocation, the designs of vevers, the play
of colors sacred to the loa, the decorative genius manifest on the
walls of hounfors, the lace of shrines, and the arrangements of
objects on the altars all play their part—fuse to create an over-
whelming brilliance in which every sense participates in the
celebration of the divine powers. On the morning following
the coucher, the yams are brought out into the peristyle for
the ceremony proper. They are once more placed at the altar
base of the poteau-mitan. Prayers are said; the yams and fish
are blessed and consecrated, and since this is an important
212 The Rites
ceremony, a goat may be sacrificed, and some of its blood
sprinkled upon the yams. Finally they are cooked, and a portion
scattered in all directions. A certain amount may be ritually
buried for the loa, and the remainder is shared by the parti-
cipants.!°
In many cases the mangé yam is the first meal, so to speak,
in a feasting of the gods which may last eight to ten days, and
which a houngan undertakes every year, or every two years, to
propitiate the loa and to invoke their good will toward his
hounfor for the coming period. In such a case the ceremonial
organization might be as follows: Sunday: Adction de Grace;
Monday: Service for les Marassa and les Morts; in the even-
ing, the coucher yam; Tuesday: morning, ceremony-yam, late
afternoon and evening, feasting of Legba, Loco, Ayizan, Dam-
ballah, Ayida, Erzulie and Agwé and their escorts (these loa
are considered to be on very close terms and amenable to being
served together); Wednesday: Ogoun, with a dance in the
evening in his honor; Thursday: Azacca, or Erzulie, or perhaps
one of the other loa especially important to the hounfor;
Friday: Ghede; Saturday, the Petro loa; Sunday: often a
baptéme, followed by a reception; Monday: a personal loa,
perhaps a work loa such as Mounanchou. If possible each loa
is served on the day of the week sacred to him. The procedure
is, usually, to perform the individual ceremony either in the
mid-morning or in the late afternoon, while the rest of the day
is devoted to the preparation of food, and other details; and in
the evening there is generally a danse de rejuissance in honor
of the loa feasted that day. In a ceremony offered by an in-
dividual, even when it is conducted in a hounfor, the coucher
yam 1s omitted and the entire ceremony is condensed, so that,
with short rest intervals, it is concluded in two days.
 Transfusing Life to the Loa 213

5
TRANSFUSING LIFE TO THE LOA

In a major feasting of the loa, the mangé sec, or mangé Guinée

is but the “hors d’ceuvre”, so to speak, of the offering. This
does not mean that it is less meticulously prepared, for although
the food is, by and large, similar for all the loa, there are
differences in detail of composition and preparation and
manner of serving which must be observed if the loa are to be
pleased rather than angered. In the sacrifice of the animals
there are differences not only in the composition of the bath
which cleanses and purifies the chicken, goat, or bull, but also
in the manner in which the animal is killed, in the cooking of
the meat, and in the selection of the portions which are put
aside for the loa.
Neither the idea nor the reality of animal sacrifice carries any
emouonal charge or repugnance for the Haiuan. For one thing,
his own food is so difficult to come by, and he has so many
dependants, both infant and aged, that the feeding of a pet
animal strikes him as either ludicrous or actually immoral, and
he has never developed any sentimentality toward animals.
There are many dogs about, to be sure, and a man may become
genuinely attached to these, or to his donkey or horse, but such
an individual attachment is not generalized into any feeling
about animals per se. Furthermore, all poultry, most pigs and
young goats are sold alive on the market (there being no
facilities for keeping meat from spoiling) and they are kept alive
about the courtyard unul they are killed to be eaten. A Haitian
is, therefore, accustomed to killing animals. This does not
mean that the sacrificial animal is killed in “cold blood”. On
the contrary, in the course of being ritualistically prepared the
animal enjoys more tenderness and care than one destined for
purely secular purposes. While this could not be understood
to “console” the animal, it does make evident to one who has
observed it, the fact that the Haitian is completely innocent of
214 The Rites
any brutal emotion or intention toward it. Chickens and goats
are selected according to sex and to the color sacred to the loa
for which they are destined.1® In many cases certain foods are
taboo for the animal, since he must be kept pure, yet he must
also be reasonably well fed, for a very thin chicken would not
please the loa. On the day of the sacrifice the animal is cleansed
with a purifying bath. Goats’ horns are “dressed” with ribbons
of the appropriate color, and a large silk handkerchief is
draped over them. A bull may wear a very ornate and elegant
tobe. The chicken, however, is by far the most common
sacrifice.
When the proper time for this act arrives, the chicken is first
oriented, and then the houngan, or the loa, holding the chicken
by its legs, begins the rounds of the participants in the peristyle.
Each one in turn removes his hat and kneels while the houngan
passes the chicken over the head and shoulders, or even the
entire body, of the serviteur, as if it were a large feather cloth
with which he would wipe away any impurity or evil.” When
everyone has been so cleansed, the chicken is “ventailler”, that
is, swung in the air, or aired, after which it is held to the food
which lies on the vever.18 When it eats of that food, it becomes
identified with the loa, and this is a signal that it may now be
sacrificed and will be accepted by that loa. Sometimes the
wings and legs are skillfully broken, in order that, with the
burden of impurities which have been accumulated from the
participants, it may not (either in body or in spirit) Aly free and
loose these once more uponthe world. Immediately following this,
it is killed in the manner prescribed by the loa for whom it is
destined.!® For Legba, the neck is twisted; for Loco the throat
is cut and the bird is bled.29 When the sacrifice is performed
at the tree sacred to Legba, or at the cross sacred to Ghede, a
few feathers are plucked from the chicken, wetted in the blood,
and stuck to the tree or the cross. The blood may also be used
to anoint the sacred objects, such as the jar of water for the
libations, or even the forehead of the person for whom the
ceremony is performed.”! If anyone is ill in the hounfor, a
 Transfusing Life to the Loa 21
special point is made of anointing the patient with the blood
of Ghede’s chicken. Then the bird (or birds, if several have
been offered) is laid upon the vever and a cross of maize or other
flour sprinkled upon it. Bits of the various dry foods, libations
of water, coffee and syrup are dropped upon it, and the entire
meal is represented in this final offering. A plate is then placed
on the body to receive the money, which is given either for the
cooks, or as a special offering to the loa. Those who make such
contributions (which are used to buy things for the loa) kneel
and kiss the ground beside the chicken and when this adora-
tion has been concluded, the chicken is gathered up and taken
to be cleaned and cooked. The prescribed morsels are put in a
special plate destined for the loa, the plate is oriented, a small
portion 1s scattered toward the cardinal points, and the dish is
set in the appropriate niche before the altar.
Essentially the same pattern is followed for the goat, which 1s
never offered alone, but always in addition to one or more
chickens. It is “aired” and oriented by two men who lift it by
the legs and swing it toward the cardinal points, and the ritual
leaves are offered it to eat by the person primarily involved in
the ceremony. Just before it is killed, it is skillfully castrated and
its beard is cut off. Then the throat is cut, the blood is gathered
into a half-gourd containing coarse salt and deposited on the
vever. Both before and after the animal is sacrificed bits of the
other foods and libations of the various liquids are poured upon
it, and this sacrifice, like that of the chicken, ts concluded with
an adoration.
The detail which distinguishes the sacrifice of the bull is the
manner in which it is “aired”. After all the consecrations and
libations have been made upon tt, the la-place, leading it by che
rope around its neck, runs it at full speed throughout the entire
courtyard, with all che hounsis and other participants in full
pursuit. The whole chase is carried out with much laughter,
noise and excitement, which seems a veritable explosion after
the long, workmanlike intensity of the prayers, the chicken and
goat sacrifice. The chase ends at a given tree in the courtyard,
216 The Rites
where the bull is killed with a single swift stroke of the
machete.
The sacrifice of the bull is the ultimate in the feasting of the
loa, and it is followed by a dance of great rejoicing; for this is
the offering which, as sheer nourishment, will most invigorate
the loa. The sense is almost that of a transfusion, and has the
same organic intent. The attitude of the Haitian toward the
death and blood of these sacrificial beasts is never morbid.
The intent and emphasis of sacrifice is not upon the death of
the animal, it is upon the transfusion of its life to the loa; for
the understanding is that flesh and blood are of the essence of
life and vigor, and these will restore the divine energy of the
god. The excitement and the rejoicing have nothing to do with
death; they project the sympathetic surge of the new vigor and
new life with which the loa is now infused.”
In addition to feasting, there are many other ceremonies
relating to the loa. They are baptized when new to a person,”
they areinstalled into a new peristyle, they can be restrained, and
even buried, they can be summoned in a govi, and, from time
to time, they must be warmed, or activated. This may be
accomplished, in a minor way, by the burning of rum during a
ceremony, and on important occasions, such as when the
spirits are going down into the cold abysmal waters for a year
and a day, or when they have been brought back up, there may
be a ceremony of bruler-zin to re-animate their life. This cere-
mony, however, 1s most closely linked to the climactic moment
of the initiatory rites, and will be described in that connection.

CEREMONIES FOR THE SERVITEUR

If men are so concerned with feasting the loa, it is because the

divine energy into which the nourishment is transformed can
accomplish things which the greatest physical strength of man
could not. Thus, the men upon whom the loa are dependent
 VEVIR DRAWING OF A BULL

for their strength are, in turn, dependent upon the loa. It is true
that the man who serves the loa well evokes, by that very fact,
their answering benevolence. Many persons find, indeed, that
this exchange 1s enurely satisfactory, and throughout their Life
ume they may serve the loa privately, in their family circle.
But there may come a moment when a man may say: “I have
fed my loa; I have respected their authority and their rules; I
have done everything that a man might do. But sull I suffer one
misfortune after another. My crops are not as good as my
neighbor's. My child has been ill for three years and does noe
seem to get any better. My cow gave birth, but the calf died.
Twice I have paid a bocor for a magic charm to protect me
from some evil, but the next misfortune always finds a new
place to strike. My brothers and sisters are scattered, and we
cannot join forces to make a truly important ceremony for the
loa. Perhaps I should go to speak to Andre. He is a good man,
and a strong houngan. Perhaps it would help to join his
hounfor. Perhaps I should become canzo.”
218 The Rites
The ceremonies which mark the step by step elevation of a
man in the ranks of the hounfor are both the means and the
evidence of the adjustment of his relationship to the loa. To his
personal knowledge of religious doctrine is gradually added
the advanced and professional knowledge which the houngan
calls “la science des Mystéres’”’, the science of the mysteries. The
psychic strength of which the man has been subjectively and
privately aware is increased and collectively confirmed by
objective ordeal and public recognition. And where his
service of the loa had formerly been confined and limited by
his personal means, it is now incorporated into the collective
effort and so gains dimension.
The rank of canzo, which is only one grade lower than the
profession of houngan, marks both spiritual adulthood and
participation as a fully-fledged member in the spiritual comv
munity. Relatively no importance is attached to the physical
development of a person; neither puberty nor marriage 1s
marked by an important ceremony. Only birth and death are
attended by rituals. Voudoun is concerned with spiritual
maturity and this is considered to be independent of physical
development. Elevation in a hounfor does not necessarily mean
that the person elevated is more sincerely devout than one who
serves only within the family context; it means that he has a
greater control over the psychic cosmic forces. He can activate
them to a greater degree, and he can better direct that energy.
In sum, he has greater mastery, and so, greater spiritual force.
The advantages of membership in a société are many. A man
is enabled to participate in ceremonies for which, individually,
he would have neither the physical means nor the ritual know-
ledge. His service of the loa is more regular and consistent, for
in his lean times he shares in the ceremonies of the hounfor,
and he makes his own contribution when his fortunes have
improved. Even from the secular point of view he gains a
certain security, for there is a social bond between the members
of a société, a fraternity which can be relied on in times of critical
need and even in problems of daily life.
 Ceremonies for the Serviteur 219
The person who has finally achieved the rank of canzo has
passed through a number of ceremonies, and some of these may
have been performed even prior to his membership in the
société. The baptism of the loa maitéte was probably per-
formed quite early, for such an adjustment of relationship
between a loa and the “horse” is necessary if the latter is not to
be enurely at the mercy of the former. Someone whose
possessions begin and end with a certain difficulty and violence,
who becomes possessed at inopportune moments, that is, in the
midst of some activity which requires his conscious attention,
or when he is attending a dance at a hounfor which may not be
worthy of his loa, or which he does not know well—such a
person is said to need a laver téte ceremony. This ceremony,
also, may be performed for one by a houngan before one has
joined a hounfor. Such ceremonies give a person a certain
restraining control over the loa, but they do not give him any
positive power over the psychic forces.
Psychic power begins only with one’s entry into a soci¢té, and
the initial step consists of a short ceremony whose major
element is the taking of a simple pledge of loyalty and respect
toward the hounfor and the authority of its hierarchy. In other
words, the individual’s positive control begins with his
deliberate integration into the collective. With this ceremony
he becomes a bossale. In all of these ceremonies, which are
prerequisite to the canzo grade, the two major elements—
purification and mastery—are already dominant.”
The canzo ceremony is one of the most elaborate which an
individual undertakes, and it may be some ume, even several
years, before the bossale is able to accumulate the necessary
funds and accoutrements. But it would be impossible, in any
case, to proceed immediately to canzo, for it is while a person
participates as bossale in the numerous and diverse ceremonies
of the hounfor that he observes and learns the ritual procedure,
memorizes the prayers and songs, trains himself in the dis-
ciplines, and becomes altogether familiar with the physical
details, as well as psychologically prepared forthe responsibilities,
220 The Rites
which, as canzo, he must assume. It is a development
which only experience can provide.

7
INITIATION: THE BIRTH OF A MAN

All in all, from the moment when the candidate withdraws

from the world as bossale to the moment when he is led out as
canzo, the ceremony of initiation is a process of death and
resurrection, a re-creation of spiritual genesis. The first phase is
one of purification, both physical and spiritual. It begins with
a confession at the Catholic church, and another to the houn-
gan, who conveys it to the loa who is master of the hounfor.
The candidate then withdraws from the world for several days,
and this solitude is devoted to an intensification of the purifi-
cation. He meditates and bathes repeatedly. Both the body
and the spirit are cleansed of the past, and he is innocent once
more.
As an innocent, then, he goes back to the beginning, and
this pure, vulnerable state is under the patronage of Ayizan,
the loa who is exorcizer of evil and who purifies. She 1s the
loa, too, who represents elements of both Legba and Loco in
female principle. She is the loa of the psychic womb, entrance
to the world; she is the spiritual mother principle, and the rites
of spiritual birth are under her patronage. The ceremony which
is performed at this point in her honor, to win her patronage,
includes the ritual of chirer Ayizan. A branch of the palm, the
tree sacred to her, is cut, and the hounsis, singing in her
honor, split each thin leaf into the finest possible strips, so that
when they have finished, the branch is like a huge plume of
finest fringe. Bearing it in a processional that rotates to the
right, to the left, and turns, revolving in a dance movement,
they deposit it in the chamber where the candidate is secluded.
There a purifying bath has been prepared, and after this final
cleansing, the candidate is completely enclosed in a white
 Initiation: The Birth of a Man 221
sheet, as if in the shroud of a corpse. He stretches out upon a
bed made of leaves of mombin, emblem of ancestral Africa,
and of the palm branch of Ayizan which has just been
prepared.
This is a state in which that person's past has died, has
been completely annihilated. In this condition of ulumate purity,
and here, upon this bed where the leaves of the original world
of the race lie with the leaves of the original womb, the new
being is gradually conceived. For four days the body is anointed
with oil at noon, when the sun is highest. And in this nascent
state the nourishment of the spiritual embryo is entirely liquid:
a broth of corn-flour, calalous and mushrooms, and leaves of
laLbuinin. The neophytes may not communicate with each
other, should there be several in the same room, but they may
pray, and beside them is a bell for calling the houngan’s
assistant to tend to their needs. Outside the door, each day, the
other hounsis come and sing, invoking the loa and their
blessing upon those within.
And now occurs the ceremony of the first spiritual differentia
ion, as if, within the embryo, the first definiuons now took
place. First the loa guardian, the divine force which primarily
infuses this being, is determined. This will be the maictéte.
Just as grains of maize are placed on vevers, which are portals
of divinity, so now grains are placed on the head and up-
turned palms of the recumbent person; for it is from the depths
of the abyss, into and through the person, that the loa will
come. The sacrificial chicken, in the color sacred to the loa,
must eat of these grains to indicate that the loa accepts this
offering. To one side stands the consecrated earthen pot which
will be the pot-de-téte, and into it are placed the beak, feathers
and blood of this first sacrifice, together with a sampling of the
hair and nails of the neophyte. Thus the soul, the gros-bon-
ange, is created. It is a mixture of the cosmic loa and the
immediate life essence of the person, defined as a singular
amalgam contained in this pot-deséte. Around it the ntual
beads are placed, as a person might wear them,” and, in token
222 The Rites
of the fact that it is part of the spiritual collective, the pot-de-
téte is not taken home as a private, personal possession, but 1s
entrusted to the care of the hounfor.?’
This newly-created soul is baptized, now, by two children,
as if, once again, the original Marassa, the first creations of God,
gave name to their first offspring, and so originated the spiritual
race of man. The name is a secret name, as a new-born child
has a sacred name, which 1s the essence of the self and must
therefore be guarded.” Then the mait-téte is summoned to the
head of this newly-created soul, and, having arrived, it is fed
of the same chicken which had been passed over the person’s
body and whose beak, feathers and blood had gone into the
creation of his soul. With this act, the creation of the soul is
complete. It is compounded of both the cosmic force of the loa
and the life essence of the individual human being. These have
been integrated into an identity which has been baptized
and named, and the guardian loa has been fed its initial
meal,?9
Yet this soul, this creation, would be as nothing were it not
touched by fire. Fire, and the ceremony of bruler-zin, which
is the ultimate rite of fire or heat, are many things at once. They
are the fire of life, and so the ceremony is performed at the
moment when the soul of the newly deceased is about to
descend to the abysmal waters for a year and a day, and again,
at the end of this token death, when it is reborn into the world.
At any ceremony rum may be poured upon the ground and a
match set to it, so that the fire may “heat up” the loa. Whether
in this latter form—a minor, improvised statement—or in the
elaborate rite of bruler-zin, fire is used whenever there is need
to animate, to “recharge” the life spirit. It is most natural, then,
that at the virtual birth of the soul this ceremony should be
performed in its most elaborate form. In fact, canzo means one
who is at once master of fire and infused by it.*°
The ceremony of bruler-zin is both lengthy and complex
in detail, but its essential elements are the three zins—or pots—
which are filled with oil and set over small separate fires in the
 Initiation: The Birth of a Man 223
peristyle. The zin for Ogoun is of iron; the others, for the Dead
and the loa maittéte of the initiate, are of clay. While the oil
is heating, the chickens are sacrificed, rapidly plucked, and,
along with ground maize and other ritual ingredients, put into
these pots. At this point the initiate, escorted by the houngan,
the la-place and the flag bearers, is brought out of the chamber.
Sometimes he (or she) crawls on all fours, like an infant, or
sometimes he walks upright, but carefully and tenderly sup-
ported by hounsis. He may be completely draped in a white
sheet, or the sheet may be carried, like a white cave, around
him, but in any case it covers him completely from view. He is
led around the zins three times and then kneels before them.
The white sheet is extended to cover both the zin and the fire,
and, while the initiate is so breathing fire, the houngan plunges
his hand into the boiling zin to bring out a fistful of the mealy
dough which has been cooking in the oil. He kneads it in his
own hand, and then taking the hand of the initiate, which has
been rubbed with oil, closes it over the fiercely hot dough.
Sometimes there is a cry of pain, but that is rare. This piece of
dough, moulded by the hand of the initiate, is returned to the
zin. His feet are passed over the ame, and the entire procedure
is repeated at each zin. Then the initiate is led back into the
chamber. In the peristyle the zins conunue to burn, while the
gods are sung, one after another. Eventually the clay zins crack,
or are taken down from the three long iron nails which sup-
ported them over the flame, and broken into pieces. These
pieces, along with the food, which is folded in a napkin, are
buried in a hole that has been lined with leaves of the mombin.
The hole is refilled and every one joins in stamping down the
ground over it. The ceremony ends with the salutations to
Ghede.®!
On the morning following, the new initiate emerges into the
world. Dressed in white, wearing a large straw hat (like
Legba) and the fringed palm leaf of Ayizan, like a protective
mask over the face, he is led forward under a white sheet
carried like a canopy over his head. He is sull weak, and is
224 The Rites
repeatedly supported and aided by the hounsis, as the pro-
cessional, led by the houngan, visits each sacred tree in turn,
where, like a new-born child, the initiate, this new-born soul,
is ritually presented and introduced to the loa. This accom-
plished, the state of canzo has been completely achieved. In
the afternoon, there may be a “reception” in the peristyle, and,
in the evening, a dance in honor of the new member of the
spiritual community.”

ANDROGYNOUS TOTALITY
 CHAPTER VI

Drums and Dance

I

THE SACRED FORMS

To think of art is usually to think of beauty; to think, for

instance, that dance is an accumulation of grace. If a visitor
to Hai were to spend most of his ume on a country roadside,
he would have the sense of being spectator at some theater-in-
the-round, where a lyric dance drama of prodigious grace and
infinite variety is in continuous performance. One could say
that the beginning is an overture in the pre-dawn dark, when
small groups of “voyageurs”, making their way market-warc
from the distant mountains, pass unseen along the road, trailing
a melodic line—the onomatopoetic rhythms and cadenced
phrasing of Creole, which, being an unwritten language, lives
sull primarily as a sound to be understood rather chan as a
symbol of meaning. Dawn, like stage lights being slowly
raised, reveals a spectacle of diverse elegance. The bodies of the
market-bound women are like fine dark stalks, at once supple
and steady, bearing tremendous blooms of egg-plant purple,
tomato red, carrot orange, greens of all shades, on their heads.
Along the side of the road sways a long file of donkeys. The
percussion of their hooves is transmitted to the women riders
and flows up their straight backs like a rhythmic wave, spend-
ing itself finally in the gentle undulation of the large brims of
the straw hats. Whether here, or in the men walking toward
the fields, the grace of the bodies’ bearing is so manifest that 1¢
imparts elegance to even the most poorly cut dress and the most
patched and baggy overalls. In the backyard, the women
cooking, tending the children, carrying water, forever doing
laundry or braiding each other’s hair, possess, also, this same
grace of the body, which, since so much is demanded of it, has
225
226 Drums and Dance
discovered how to achieve by balance what might otherwise
require muscular force. Indeed, every posture, every movement
is in balance. Even the groups of people—resting and talking
in the high heat of mid-afternoon—seem to be “composed” in
a painter's sense, reflecting, in this easy, automatic integration
of physical arrangement, the fact that here is no mere gathering
together of individuals but rather that these people live to-
gether, relate to one another. All this the body carries even
into its sleep. The “voyageurs” from distant places, when
accorded the traditional hospitality extended to travelers, settle
into the corner of the unfamiliar room with such delicate
adjustment that they cease to seem strangers at all.
It is even as if this way of moving, which the visitor’s eyes
drink in so constantly, were accumulating in his own limbs
and muscles; so that even the total stranger may, one day,
discover with surprise, in his own posture, this very stylization.
It is a natural grace, in that it is a necessary grace for the Haitian
way of living; but it is natural also in the sense that the infant
spectator, riding its mother’s shoulder or hip continually, and
even often cradled to the beats of the ceremonial drum,* could
not but learn this as the way of the body’s movement, could
not but come to know the drums’ beat as its own, blood-
familiar pulse.
It might seem that it would suffice merely to give this
pervasive grace a narrative or symbolic sequence, a planned
acceleration to a climax, and the spacing of several stylized
exaggerations, in order to have what, in our culture, would be
known as a dance. Indeed, to a large extent, the ritual dances
have been explained as precisely such extensions of natural
grace into religious context. But the quality of movement in the
ritual dance is not such an extension. Even the walk of a man
participating in a ritual salutation is somehow essentially
* While it is doubrful whether Negroes are born with a greater sense of rhythm
than other peoples, their cultures are such that, even in a modern city, the child
learns rhythm from a very early age. In Haiti it is not unusual to see a mother
carrying her child while dancing ritual dances, or bringing her children to the
ceremonial peristyle.
 The Sacred Forms 227
different from the equally graceful way he walks to the fields,
and from the no less formal manner in which he might
approach and salute a partner at a ball. The walk of salutation
and the ritual dance, like all sacred works or arts (whether
music, painting or sculpture) and whatever the national mode
(drum beat or clavicord), are distinguished and distinguishable
from the secular by a special ethos. It is a quality of form which
informs us that the painting before us is a Madonna and not a
woman with a shawl. And whoever has experienced this in
one context would need but brief familiarity with the local
idiom to recognize, elsewhere, one archaic statuette as that of a
warrior and another as that of the God of War; or to distin-
guish the sound of ceremonial drums from those which beat
for labor in the fields or for the simple secular dance.
This quality of the sacred form is independent of subject-
matter, symbolic knowledge, and even degree of skill. To some
extent, the quality resides in a sense of ulterior reference. For
example, it is clear, in the very manner in which 1t is done,
that the purpose of a Libation is not that of watering the ground.
Yet an ulterior reference might characterize the symbolic move-
ment in a secular context. In the sacred movement, the reference
is not only ulterior but metaphysical. Moreover, it is a statement
addressed not to men but to divinity. The form of an act derives
not only from the purpose of the act, but from the attitude of
the one who performs it. Even in daily, purposive movements
we can tell chat one man is resentful of what he 1s doing, while
another is enjoying his activity. In art, where fictional purpose
is substituted for real purpose, the attitude, the manner of the
movement, is increasingly important. And in sacred works,
where the acts will not, in themselves, resule in anything, but
may be rewarded if they please the divinity to whom they are
addressed—where, therefore, there can be said to be no direct
material purpose—the form is the total statement; and its
distinctive quality is that reverent dedication which man
brings only to divinity. The sense of the dedicated act is to serve,
not oneself, but the object of one’s dedication, and it 1s therefore
 228 Drums and Dance
characterized by a quality of selflessness, discipline and even of
depersonalization.* The performer becomes as if anonymous.
It is from this that one derives a sense of the abstract.

THE COLLECTIVE AS CREATIVE ARTIST

In principle, a statement of such anonymity would depend

upon an intense degree of dedication, devotion. In technical
terms, to create a physical statement (whether a painting or a
drum beat) which would effectively project such a metaphysical
reference, would require an individual at once saint and
artistic genius. But if such was the condition of the origin of
traditional movements, their subsequent function, in a collec-
tive religion, provides for precisely the opposite contingency.
A. collective religion cannot depend upon the vagaries of
individual aptitude and persuasion; on the contrary, it must
stabilize these vagaries and protect the participants against their
own weaknesses, failures and inadequacies. It must provide
the generally uncreative, often distracted individual with a
prescribed movement and attitude, the very performance of
which gradually involves and perhaps inspires him. It must
provide the drummer with a beat which will properly unite
and pace the proceedings, whether or not, as an individual, he
might ever have been capable of inventing that beat. The
tradition must support the individuals, give them security
beyond personal indecision, lift them beyond their own
individual creative powers. Thus the collective functions at a
level superior to the creative capacities of the individuals which
make it up. It does not rise from their grace, their power, their
knowledge. It confers these upon them. In this sense, it blesses
them. It brings out the best in them, and serves as a Noor below
which the collective cannot drop; just as ritual masks achieve
* This is contrary to the common idea that primitive dance is “spontaneous,
uninhibited, self-expression”.
 The Collective as Creative Artist 229
a projection that does not depend upon the variable facial
expressions of individual actors. The individual participates in
the accumulated genius of the collective, and by such partici-
pation becomes himself part of that genius—something more
than himself. His exaltation results from bis participation, it does
not precede and compel it.
In so elevating the individual, the collective action of
religious ritual offers to him qualitative support, as well as
security of a numerical, quantitative nature. This, which is a
major function of ritual, is something to be experienced only
in participation. Thus, while the tradition elevates, it must
do so by means accessible to the diverse capacities of the
individuals. And this is, perhaps, the most astonishing
achievement of the forms of Voudoun, both in song and in
dance. The steps of the dances, for example, require no
special training other than that of gradual familiarity; they
can be performed by children of ten and women of sixty; they
are so designed that they can be maintained for six or eight
hours by persons of normal energy.* Yet they engage and elevate
both the individuals for whom all this represents an effort and
those who might, otherwise, be capable of much more. There
are many who, in secular dance, display a prodigious virtuosity,
excel in inventiveness, energy and sheer acrobatic skill. Yet
such achievement never induces in them the exaltation which
they know in the performance of the simple, anonymous move-
ments of the ritual dance. For the exaltation of ritual dance
derives from a sense of dedication, the denial of that very self
which is the source of all virtuosity and whose pride is the
pleasure of unique achievement. To be a virtuoso 1s to assert
the self, and this would contradict the sense of dedication. By
definition, then, a man could not be a virtuoso and remain
within the context of the ritual.
* It should be obvious that a “Haitian dance” which strains a crained,
professional dancer and leaves him or her winded after a ten-munute performance
could not be as “authentic” as the program notes for such theatncal presentauions
of “ethnic dance” would lead one to believe.
230 Drums and Dance

3
THE DIVINE VIRTUOSI

If, in the chorus, one hears, suddenly, a single voice emerging

with special tone and insistence, or if, in the crowded peristyle,
one remarks, among all these bodies which move with such
homogeneity, one whose movements exceed this generality,
become spectacular—this is a sign that a loa arrives. For if the
mark of man’s dedication to the loa is selfless anonymity, the
mark of a loa’s devotion to man is his most elaborated, realized
manifestation. Therefore, virtuosity is the province of divinity.
Only the loa are virtuosi.*
A. loa is, indeed, capable of putting its horse through paces
which that individual, in a normal state, could never achieve.
There are times when the loa, as virtuoso, must be restrained
by the houngan lest the after-effects upon the merely human
body be disastrous. The ancient, partially crippled woman
possessed by a young Erzulie, doing the young, lively dance,
will break no bones nor suffer any ill while she is mounted by
* Since theatrical performance, in our culture, is necessarily a statement of
virtuosity addressed to an audience, ethnic dances (which are predicated on
collective participation, presume a common agreement and knowledge among
the participants, and are addressed to divinity) can only be greatly and funda,
mentally distorted in theatrical presentation. In ritual dances the inevitable
personalization of movements remains minimal and subtle in the extreme,
since there is no audience to provoke their development and exaggeration.
Courlander, in his notes to an album of Haitian recordings, states: “While
Haitian dancing is packed with the elements of drama, probably the most
important thing about it is that it is primarily participative. Where there may
be an audience, that audience is secondary, usually composed of resting partici-
pants, the aged and the sick, and others who for one reason or another are
unable to join in. What I mean to say ts that there is no sophisticated con-
ception of a singing or dancing performance as such. There is no tradition of
famous dancers, famous singers or famous drummers. . . . Good dancing and
good singing are recognized and applauded, but these, like the audience, are a
by-product, not the ultimate objective. The prime reason for the dance is
participation.” For a full discussion of the difference between theatrical and
ethnic dance see “Ritual and Social Dances of Haiu”, by the present author,
Dance Magazine, New York, June, 1949.
 17. YANVALOU DOS-BAS. These two men, dancing the
low-back yanvalou, are apprentice priests and ritually entitled to use the miniature sacred rattles.

d in partner
18 CONGO DANCE. The Congo is one of the few dances sometimes performe
relationship.
19. DRUMMERS AND CHORUS OF HOUNSIS. The three drums constitute the Rada batterie.
 The Anonymous Inventors 231
the Goddess; in fact, the knee that had been locked suff by
arthritis for the past five years is for that moment as limber as
that of a young girl. But when the loa leaves, the body col-
lapses in a heap and the old woman may be in a critical con-
dition for days after. However, possessions which may have
such disastrous consequences are rare. The priest intercedes on
behalf of his serviteur. And the loa are considerate. Besides,
Erzulie, for instance, as Goddess of Beauty, is naturally vain.
As Titon has put it, if Erzulie wishes to appear, to become
manifest, to dance, will she not rather choose among those at
the ceremony the young, beautiful body in which she can dance
beautifully2 Would she not logically wish to appear in the best
manifestation possible? And if one wishes to be so favored—to
be the carrier for the Goddess—should not one then prepare
one’s dancing, one’s costume, one’s enure appearance to induce
her to select oneself as her horse?
Not all the loa are interested in dancing and singing. Dany
ballah, Agwé and Loco might, or might not, dance and sing,
might or might not do so with special excellence. But Erzulie,
Ghede and Azacca, among others, love to dance and sing and
to have a good time. Whenever these come, space is cleared for
them. And should Ghede or Azacca or another create some
of the boisterous “disorder” which a party spirit so often brings,
the people smilingly say: “Quitté yo jouir” (Let them have
their fun), with the same indulgent tenderness that one might
bring to the occasional excesses of children.

4
THE ANONYMOUS INVENTORS

While virtuosity is thus restricted to divinity, it would noc

be to the advantage of any tradition to cut off the sources which
refurbish and revitalize it, to impose a ceiling which denied the
contributions of such individual talents as might be capable
of functioning above and beyond the line of duty. Thus,
232 Drums and Dance

although the songs are traditional, and their order as well, it is

possible for special talent to be manifest. One could say that
Titon, for instance, was one of the best houngenikons in the
area. This did not imply that he was an individualistic virtuoso.
His talent was neither in conflict nor in competition with the
traditions. He did not discard or abandon the traditional
methods; rather, he amplified and developed them, and ex-
tended his execution past the level of performance of which the
ordinary serviteur was capable. The recitatives with which he,
as houngenikon, launched the songs, were of an intensity which
restored the invocative sense to phrases and words grown
too familiar, and they magnetized one’s attention. He sang the
solo portions with such compelling projection that the
chorus answered with an ardor that transcended the merely
proper.
His degree of mastery, indeed, went to such a point that it
made possible even that peculiar, subtle detachment which is
professionalism in its best sense. Sometimes when he sang, his
eyes wandered about the peristyle with the casual, transitory
regard of an habitué. If he noticed something that required his
authority—such as the sending of someone to bring a chair for
a guest—he would shout out his instructions in the interval
when the chorus was answering, and then take up the solo on
the next beat. The voice carried a strong, harsh conviction
which was hard to associate with the detachment of his
expression and attitude. He seemed scarcely aware of his own
singing, yet the syllables and sounds continued to come forward
in cadences timed so perfectly that one would have been
tempted to say he was inspired. Nevertheless, watching him,
one knew that this moment did not have for him such an
exceptional quality. But there was nothing of sacrilege in this
detachment. On the contrary, it was as if the ritual so far sur-
passed him that it had not even the need of his exaltation.
Those who were familiar with other houngenikons could
recognize, also, Titon’s personal inventions—a way of raising
the voice after the word was completed, which anticipated and
 The Sacred Oratory of the Drum 233
drew in the chorus, and other similar techniques. But these
were never manifest as improvisations compelled by an excess
of ardency, nor was one ever aware of his creative effort. His
dedication would not be proven by such moments of personal-
ization. On the contrary, the real proof of his dedication lay
in the fact that, already, he could bring to his own invention
a detachment which seemed to render it anonymous; that
through labor he had so perfected the technique that it became
independent of personal ardency, and already part of the
collective. Yet even this funneling of individual talent into the
tradition was not left to the discretion, the religious devotion or
collective sense of such an individual, who might conceivably
be inclined to use such special talent as an independent
assertion. For, since the ritual statement is not addressed to men
but to divinity, the judgement of men is relatively irrelevant.
The principle of complete participation eliminates an audience;
moreover, the attachment of a serviteur to one hounfor or
another would never be determined by the fact that in one he
felt more like singing, since sing he must in any case. For Titon,
as houngenikon, there was nothing of any consequence to be
gained by being more or less excellent, except praise. There
was nothing for him to do with his talent except to funnel it
into the tradition; and the tradition, in turn, rewarded him by
stabilizing it and incorporating it into the collective.

5
THE SACRED ORATORY OF THE DRUM

In Haiti, of all che individuals related to ritual acuvity, it 1s

the drummer whose réle would seem most analogous to that
of an individual virtuoso. Yet this, again, 1s not to say that he
is unconfined by tradition; on the contrary, Haiuan ntual
drumming requires more explicit craft training and practice
than any of the other ritual activities.* The organization of
* It should not be imagined that everyone in Haiu can drum, of that i 1s
 234 Drums and Dance
Rada ceremonial, for instance, could be compared to a con-
gress of tribes and cults, each with its characteristic drum beat
and dance movement, so that in the progress of such a cere-
monial* it is as if a loa were saluted first by the Dahomeans,
with the Yanvalou beat and dance, then by the Mahi tribe,
with its national beat and dance, and then by the Nago, with
the Nago beat and movement. There are at least a dozen such
distinct and specific beats, each of which has a specific move-
ment and is related also to a song.** The drummer must not
only learn each of the beats, but must be familiar with a vast
literature of songs, so that when the houngenikon launches into
a recitative (and it is usually the houngenikon who determines
and initiates the song for the divinity), the drummer must
immediately know to which nation it belongs and which beat
must therefore accompany it. He must, in addition, be able to
beat Petro, since Petro rites frequently follow Rada rites, and at
dances of celebration it 1s customary to conclude the evening
with Petro dances. When Azacca arrives, he frequently asks
for a Martinique or a Juba dance, and it is necessary for the
drummer to be able to satisfy this request. Or it may happen
that at least a round or more of songs for the Ibo divinities
should be included in a feasting of the loa; the Congo, the
Quitta Mouillé, and others may also be necessary at one
point or another. Since the drummer is, in a sense, hired for his
expertness, it is to his own interest to be familiar with as many
of these different beats as possible.
merely a matter of “picking it up”. Men go to consideravle trouble and even
expense to be instructed and become practised as drummers.
* There is a distinct difference between a ceremonial—in which a specific
ritual is to be accomplished—and a “dance”—which is a celebration of the loa.
A ceremonial may také place without being followed by a dance, although
it usually culminates in at least a few rounds; but dances frequently take place
without rituals. The order in which the loa are saluted, however, is the same
in ceremonies and in dances, unless the ceremony is directed toward a specific
loa, who then takes precedence.
** In Haiti Singing, Harold Courlander has shown outstanding scholarship
and appreciation in listing songs, drum beats and dances and in describing
dance movements. I have not attempted to duplicate his detailed and elaborate
accomplishment here.
 The Sacred Oratory of the Drum 235

VEVER FOR DRUMS AND OCAN

Moreover, most of these beats are polyrhythmic. In the Rada

rites three drums are involved: the petit, the seconde and the
maman, and these are pitched at specified intervals relative to
each other. In addition to the drums, an ogan—a piece of iron
—is beaten. Not only does each of the three drums have a
specific, designated beat which is different for Nago, Mahi,
Congo, etc., but all three must combine their separate rhythms
in very specific manners in order that the resultant ensembles
shall maintain the Nago, Mahi, or Congo beats. If any of the
three drummers, because of fatigue, inattenuon, sheer ignor-
ance, or, in rare cases, possession, loses his beat for even a
fraction of a second, the entire ensemble is thrown off and the
total beat disintegrates. The same thing would result, obviously,
if any drummer ever sought to improvise individualistically.
To say that the beat disintegrates by virtue of such a depar-
ture, is not to say that the Haitians are any less capable of im-
provising together than are American jazz bands. Drummers
may sometimes have such sessions for pure amusement, and
the enure cultural emphasis upon collective action gives them
a great facility for such ensemble adjustment. But a jazz band
has no commitments outside of its own musicianship. The
Haitian drums on the contrary, are only one of the elements
of a vast ritual structure, and they are committed irrevocably
to it.
It is, in fact, upon the drumming that the burden falls of
integrating the participants into a homogeneous collective. It
is the drumming which fuses the fifty or more individuals into
a single body, making them move as one, as if all of these
singular bodies had become linked on the thread of a single
pulse—a pulse which beats, now with the rounded roll of
236 Drums and Dance
Yanvalou, sending the body into a slow serpentine undulation
which begins in the shoulders; now with the imperious drive
of Nago Chaud, which stiffens the spine into the tensions of
pride while the muscles of the shoulders and back flex rapidly
in the manner of man announcing his strength. It may beat
the deceptive Mahi, which brings the legs into play as if gaily,
at first, but then, by mere persistence, compels every inch of
fatigued, sweating flesh into the tensions of sheer endurance;
or again, with the slow massive pound of the Nago Grand
Coup, an unequivocal reference to the majestic progress of a
warrior of heroic stature, whose great shoulders roll with each
gigantic stride of irrevocable triumph. Or finally, it may beat
with the special tension of Petro, where, instead of supporting
the dancer, the beat seems to drive him before it.* It is im-
possible, in mere words, to convey the extraordinary achieve-
ment which such beats represent from the musical point of
view. Even if a drummer were not ritualistically committed to
their execution, it would be a foolish man indeed who would
dare propose some personal invention to stand comparison
beside such an accomplished tradition. Above all, it is when
one records, uninterruptedly, an hour or more of ceremonial, as
I have done, that the integrating réle of the drumming becomes
apparent. The microphone, fixed at the center-pole, has faith-
fully captured all coming and going. The houngenikon’s voice
1s strong at times, but at other times fades away completely, when
in the course of ceremonial procedure, he may have been
obliged to move to the other end of the peristyle in order to
assist the houngan with ritual details. At other times he is
* The impression that primitive drumming and dance are almost without
variation is due to improper theatrical presentation, and the commercial
emphasis upon pelvic movement. Actually, the movements of each dance differ
very much from the others, and the drumming conveys, in each case, a distinct
impression. In addition to what has been said above, I should like to point out
that the Ibo drumming is impressively intellectual in its suggestion, and one
senses almost an erudite mentality behind it; the Congo has a quality of gradual
mesmerization, in contrast to the emotional expressiveness of Rada and the
tensions of Petro; while the Ghede beat seems to be the musical crystallization
of attitudes of sexual impertinence without the weight of obscenity.
 The Sacred Oratory of the Drum 237
obviously struggling to ward off being mounted by a loa, since
this would leave the chorus without conductor; here his voice
breaks, and his solo has gaps of silence. The chorus also Aluc-
tuates in strength and intensity as its attention is transferred to
some ceremonial activity, or as a number of the hounsis,
becoming preoccupied with one among them who is being
possessed, cease to sing altogether, for a brief period. Sometimes
the good houngenikon is apparently replaced, for a brief rest
period, by someone else, whose leading of songs is far less
dynamic. Ac other times the priest, who happens to have a very
poor voice, leads the songs to a loa who has particular personal
relevance for him. One hears, intermittently, the cackling of the
chickens which are to be sacrificed, the crowing of a rooster.
Some dispute about ritual procedure between two people who
are assisting can be heard. And suddenly there intrudes the
nasal voice of Ghede, telling some joke, and an answering roar
of laughter. In the brief silences between songs one is aware of
conversations. In addition to the audible record of all this
divergency, I can recall that, if there is a wind, the lantern
which lights the peristyle frequently goes out and must be relit.
Some hounsi is undoubtedly looking for the clean white hand-
kerchief which she put down on the bench two minutes ago
and which has disappeared. Guests arrive a little late and there
is much shifting of seating and standing arrangements to permit
such honored visitors a primary place. The houngan has run
out of candles, or rum, or something else, and has sent someone
off to buy more. Through this multitude of miscellaneous
acuvity, digression, intrusion—which I cannot imagine as
making for anything less than complete disorder and confusion
in any other context—runs the solid mass of the drum’s beating,
at once compellingly dynamic and yet of a reliability, a
stability, which transcends all miscellany, comprehends 1t,
swallows it, holds steady with such unshakeable persistence that
it serves as a magnetic core to which all temporary deviation
returns. Listening, one knows that that center is there and will
be there; that one may leave but chat one must return; that,
238 Drums and Dance
sooner or later, it will have gathered everything to it, and will
have fused all divergence into one transcendent whole.*
It is significant that, in the order of ritual salutation, it is the
drums which are saluted after the center-post and before any-
thing else; that if one feels that the loa who is being invoked
might possess one, and that such a possession is, for some reason,
inappropriate at the moment, one may win leave from such
possession by ritually saluting the drums at such times; that
often the loa themselves salute the drums in the same spirit in
which they may salute the houngan—an obeisance to that
which makes it possible for them to become manifest.
Indeed, if the center-post is, as it were, the inorganic, static
axis of the cosmos, the geographically fixed avenue by which
the loa enter and the core around which the material facts of
ceremonial—the architecture of the peristyle, the vevers, and
many of the ritual acts—are organized, then this core of
drumming is as the organic axis of the spiritual cosmos, around
which all the temporal elements of ritual are centered. It 1s
upon these pulsations that, for the most part, the loa are brought
forward; and, as they can be led in on water, or on rum, or on
the fire of burning rum, so, innerly, it is as if they were brought
in on the stream of the blood, pulsed not by the individual
personal heart, but by some older, deeper, cosmic heart—the
drums.
If I have referred to the drummer as virtuoso, it is not so much
in the sense of a deliberate or conscious individualistic departure
from tradition, but rather because, in spite of every traditional
prescription and standardization, and in spite, also, of an almost
metronomic accuracy (so that the beats are always played
within a fraction of a second of the same tempo), the drummer,
as the man who initiates and paces the beating of that heart, 1s
in a position of especial influence. His slightest personal
modulation—whether a negative lack of vigor, which 1s
sensed as a near-lag in the beat, or some positive excellency in
* A copy of a portion of these recordings is in the Caribbean Collection, the
School of Inter-American Studies, at the University of Florida.
 The Sacred Oratory of the Drum 239
the “break” of the maman—is as if amplified by the entire
resonance of the drums and inevitably conveyed to all the
individuals who, dancing, live by that pulse. As in the case of
a houngenikon, a better than average drummer lends to the
ceremonial or dance a sharper color and a brighter tone. But
apart from this, there are certain elements over which he has a
control which cannot be regulated or seconded by anyone else.
I doubt that even a profoundly informed musicologist could
explain how it can be that, without any change in beat, tempo,
pacing, tone or volume, it is possible for the drumming to
become more or less intense, although this Auctuation 1s
unanimously recognized and can be consciously controlled by
the drummer. He may observe that a loa threatens to overcome
the houngan who must execute some complex ntual detail,
and he can relieve the situation by making the drumming less
intense. On another occasion he may, by simply maintaining
that intensity, make futile a serviteur’s resistance to possession.
Above all, it is in his “breaks” that he has most control.! In a
“break” the maman (and this is the only drum which “breaks”)
ceases to beat with the other two drums in the fixed rhythm and
works at a highly syncopated, broken counterpoint to them
for a short period, only to slide back and resume the pattern
again. This “break” is related to the cumulative tension which
the dancers inevitably experience from constantly repeating a
single small movement. Some movements, being by nature
tense and uring, accumulate such tension rapidly. Moreover,
it is logical that such an accumulation should be more frequent
toward the end of a ceremony than toward its beginning, and
also that it should have a good deal to do with the subrle
fluctuation of the intensity of the drumming itself, since the
muscular ardor of the dancers derives from this.
240 Drums and Dance

DANCE AS THE MEDITATION OF THE BODY

Yet these dance movements should not be understood in

purely physical terms, as if they were secular pleasure dances.
At dances for the divinities, which may occur quite indepen-
dently of any ceremonial or feasting, there is, to be sure, no
ritual choreography apart from the general counterclockwise
direction of the foor-movement around the center-post; yet it
would not be at all accurate to consider the introduction of
rhythmic dance movement in addition to this, as a decorative
device designed to make the ritual sensually more impressive or
palatable. It is not only the attitude of reverent dedication,
characteristic of all ritual action, which distinguishes ritual
dance from secular dance; for just as the ritual does not symbo-
lize a principle but is an exemplary demonstration of that
principle in action, so the actual dance is, itself, principled.
Our culture, having no “moral” or “principled” dance,
contains nothing which is an accurate analogy, but I hope that
the sense of the distinction which I wish to communicate here
may be somewhat indicated by considering the variety of ethos
in our own social dances. The sheer performance of a waltz
movement (providing one is really dancing and not convers-
ing) induces in the performer what might be termed a “waltz
frame of mind”—an emotional tone which is somewhat
sentimental, attitudes of romantic elegance, a strong awareness
of coquetry as the feminine projection and courtship as the
masculine réle. By contrast, the sheer performance of the rhumba
creates a mood far less romantic and more immediate, compels
the woman to attitudes of provocation instead of coquetry, and
in the man a stance of conquest rather than of courtship. The
square dance, the blues, the boogie-woogie—each has its dis-
tinctive ethos, which it imposes upon the performer. In ritual
dance, whose very raison d’étre is the intent to affect the partici-
pant, the means by which the physical act creates a specific
 Dance as the Meditation of the Body 241
psychic state are refined and developed beyond the obvious
machinery which so crudely disunguishes the rhumba from the
waltz. It would, in fact, surprise me if the techniques designed
to project from the physique to the psyche, which are in actual
operation in the dance movements of Voudoun, were less
complex and evolved than the drum beats, whose structure is
admittedly of such refinement that it surpasses our own systems
of musical analysis; for it would only be logical to assume that
the evolution of the drumming and the dancing moved
together.
In a sense, then, such dance might be understood as a
meditation of the body, so that the entire organism is made to
concentrate on a concept as definite and real as the “walez frame
of mind”, but more complex and less accessible to verbal
aruculation.* It is to che concentration of this physical-psychic
meditation that the “break” of the maman drum is directed.
When che maman “breaks”, the dancers “break” with it; that
is, they interrupt the small, aight repetitious movement and take
long, relaxed steps, in ume to the “breaking”. Since the con-
diuons of accumulating tension are so variable, the maman
drummer, who has been watching the dancers, is the sole
* Compare the following statements: “To dance was at once to worship and
to pray. . . the gods themselves danced, as the stars dance in the sky. . . and to
dance is therefore to imitate the gods, to work with them, perhaps to persuade
them to work in the direction of our own desire.. . . To dance is to take part
in the cosmic control of the world. Every sacred Dionysian dance 1s an imuta
uon of the divine dance” (Havelock Ellis, Dance of Lfe).
“The ulumate goal of che mystic is a oneness with God, but the paths to
wards this goal are divergent... we Mevlevi believe that soul and body are alike
divine—that the soul grows, like a flower, on the body's sem. We accepe
material beauty as the rue murror of divine beauty. And we seek this divine
beauty, this ineffable harmony, in which all things become as one, through the
most nearly perfect of sensuous forms—the rhythm of music and the dance.”
(T. Shawn, p. 13, quoting from an interview by W. B. Seabrook with the
head of the Mevlevi sect of Syrian Tripolt).
“With regard to the danceinstinct Lombroso gave the physiological
explanation that the auditory nerve stands in so close connecuon with the sp inal
cord that we may say “dancing is a sort of reflective mouion caused by music’.
(Wallaschek, p. 259, quoting Lombroso, Cesare, Klinische Bestrage zur Pry-
che
 242 Drums and Dance
arbiter of when to give the dancers such a respite. But since this
cumulative tension is also the cumulative concentration which
brings the loa into the head, the drummer then becomes, to
some degree, arbiter of the loa’s arrival; for by withholding the
respite of the “break”, which interrupts this concentration, he
can “bring in the loa” to the head of a serviteur. When the
drummer is particularly gifted and acute, he can also use the
“break” in precisely the inverse fashion. He can permit the
tension to build to just the level where the “break” serves not to
release the tension but to climax it in a galvanizing shock—the
first enormous blow of the “break”—which abruptly empties
the head and leaves one without any center around which to
stabilize. This is a state of helpless vulnerability. Instead of
being able to move in the long, balanced strides of relaxation,
the defenceless person is buffeted by each great stroke, as the
drummer sets out to “beat the loa into his head”. The person
cringes with each large beat, as if the drum mallet descended
upon his very skull; he ricochets about the peristyle, clutching
blindly at the arms which are extended to support him,
pirouettes wildly on one leg, recaptures balance for a brief
moment, only to be hurtled forward again by another great
blow on the drum. The drummer, apparently impervious to
the embattled anguish of the person, persists relentlessly; unul,
suddenly, the violence ceases, the head of the person lifts, and
one recognizes the strangely abstracted eyes of a being who
seems to see beyond whatever he looks at, as if into or from
another world. The loa which the song had been invoking,
has arrived.*
* This is not the only means by which possession occurs. It would seem that
this réle of the maman drummer in bringing the loa would invalidate much of
what has been said previously (namely, that the religion rests on the traditions
and on the anonymous generality of the collective) and that, on the contrary,
the personal genius, subjective inspiration and particular craftsmanship of this
individual was of primary importance. It must be reiterated, however, that the
drummer’s personal inventiveness, like that of the houngenikon, is not a
statement of independence from, or revolt against the collective and the tradi-
tions; it is valid only insofar as it is sufficiently in line with these to become a
part of them. Indeed, the drummer would never be hired again if his activities
 Dance as the Meditation of the Body 243
Sometimes the drummer is obliged to return to the beat and
set the dance back in motion before the loa is entirely “in
stalled”. In such cases, the return to the beat may bring the
person back as well, but frequently he is, as it were, abandoned
by the drum, having neither mortal nor divine idenuty, and
only the houngan can help. Shaking the asson with as much
insistence and projection as possible, the houngan may then also
use langage, speaking sometimes with tight, intimate intensity,
and at other umes virtually screaming, but in any case com,
pletely concentrated upon projecting those sacred sounds
through the person into the void, to establish contact there
either with his proper gros-bon-ange or with the loa. I have
seen the sweat stream from a houngan’s face and his voice grow
hoarse as he labored to make some contact with a spiritual
identity which he might bring forward into the body of the
person.
disrupted the ritual integrity. Musically speaking, it must be pointed out that,
since all improvisation is inevitably based on what the improvisator knows, the
habits which he acquires in the process of his qaining will be reflected in all
his performances, even when he is theoretically “free” of those explicit dis
ciplines. In this sense there is no such thing as a completely free improvisauon;
particularly is this true of the Voudoun drummer, whose cultural and musical
background have been so strongly disciplined that even when he someumes
improvises for idle amusement (privately) his beats tend, by sheer muscular
habit, to resemble the sacred beats. When he improvises a “break” he 1s
theoretically free of the prescribed beat; but the continuity of the seconde and the
petit (whose beats continue unaltered throughout) and his own rhythmic habits
give his free improvisation a firmly disciplined and madiuonal form.
The degree to which this is so is evident in the fact that, although these
“breaks” give him an opportunity to display his virtuosity, their traditional and
even standardized quality is immediately apparent when contrasted to those
rare occasions when a drummer is possessed by the Hountor, the loa of the
drums. Once more it is apparent that only the loa are the real virtuon, for the
drumming of the Hountor is one of the most astonishing musical experiences
possible. Significantly enough, since the Hountor drums for himself, hus
drumming does not bring other loa. On the contrary, these tend to depart, if
present; the drummers of the seconde and petit abandon any effort to accompany
this divine virtuosity, and since the drumming has ceased to serve the funcuon
of integrating the ritual proceedings, these, also, tend to fall apart. This dis
rupuve effect of the Hountor is no doubs the reason why his presence is not
generally encouraged and rarely occurs.
244 Drums and Dance

7
THE DRUMMER AS MECHANISM

As between the drummer and the houngan, it frequently

seems that the former has command of the superior technique;
for it is much more readily effective and may overpower even
the houngan himself, whereas drummers are very rarely
possessed and seem, at times, to be the persons most in control
during a ritual.* It would seem logical to expect, then, that
the drummer would command a high position in the religious
hierarchy. Yet the opposite is, in fact, true. The drummer, as
such, has no position whatsoever in the hounfor, although, as
a serviteur, he may belong to one hounfor or another. In any
case, it has been my experience that rarely, if indeed ever, is the
drummer canzo. He takes a professional craft attitude toward
his work and may drum at the ceremonies of various and even
competitive hounfors of the same region, whereas no member
of one société participates officially at the ceremonies of another
société, apart from the houngan, and perhaps the la-place, who
may assist in an honorary capacity. It has been my observation,
also, that drummers, on the whole, may frequently neglect to
make ritual salutation at the altar of the mait-caille—the patron
of the hounfor—where they may be drumming; whereas such
an obeisance is required of all members of the société and 1s
expected of visitors, whose neglect of such salutation would be
regarded as extremely indiscreet and even insulting. During
prayers, the drummer may frequently wander away from the
peristyle, and is the only individual to do so. This dis-
association from the authority and structure of the hounfor, and
psychic detachment from the ritual, place him outside the
control of the houngan; except that one who 1s persistently
indiscreet in forcing the loa upon the houngan at inappropriate
moments, or who otherwise takes his important responsibilities
too lightly, may not be hired again.
Not only is the drummer outside the organization of the
 The Drummer as Mechanism 245
hounfor, but he is systematically distinguished from the drums.
It is the drums® which are sacred, and it is understood that
salutations addressed towards the drums do not include the
men who happen to be beating them. The degree to which the
drums are understood as independent spirits, almost as loa, is
revealed in many of the ceremonies which attach to them. All
the sacred objects are consecrated by being baptized in the
name of a chosen loa, but the drums are the only objects which
are “dressed” for their baptism, as a child is dressed. They are
also the only objects which are literally fed with food and put
to sleep overnight, a ritual designed to strengthen them. Very
special attention is given to putting a “guard” over them should
the houngan plan to leave for a trip. They are also conceived
as having a will of their own, which can even oppose the will
of the drummer, in that they may refuse to speak for him under
certain conditions.‘
In effect, the inanimate object is sacred, although it cannot
function at all without the drummer, and he, although in
technical control of the presence of the loa, is at the same ume
without moral commitment or authority in the religion. Ac
first glance, such an arrangement seems very odd. Yet it
eliminates a potential which would be infinitely dangerous to
the religious structure. The ability to drum is considered, and
properly so, as a purely technical achievement, accessible to
all human beings of normal rhythmic perception and muscular
co-ordination, who may achieve unusual excellency by dint of
practice, or, possibly, by some special rhythmic talent. As such,
it constitutes a purely physical or material equipment, and 1s
completely unrelated to moral equipment or development.
Just as vocal range and power could never confer upon an
individual the hierarchical moral status of houngenikon, which
is accessible only through initiatory procedure, so the drummer
does not command any moral authority by virtue of his craft
mastery, however admired and sought-after he may be. To
conceive otherwise would be to place the entire moral organiza-
tion of the collective in the hands of men who happened to be
246 Drums and Dance
endowed with fortunate rhythmic and muscular talent. It is the
drums and the drum beats, per se, which are the sacred sound,
and although one man may articulate the drum’s voice more
Auently, brilliantly and invocatively than another, he is but a
minor part of the mechanism of that speech. If he beats any-
thing except the sacred beats, his most brilliant virtuosity
produces not one loa. But the loa will come to a merely
adequate rendition of the sacred beats, and to the call of the
asson; to just the voices lifted in song or invocation; in answer
to ritual gesture; and even, on their own initiative, in answer to
silent need.
It is as if the drums were understood as the moral organism,
whereas the drummer was a mechanism, a necessary material
accessory to their activity. The loa, themselves non-physical,
are not linked to mere matter, as such. They are a moral essence;
they answer to moral movement, to moral sound, to moral
matter.
 of
20 and 21. POSSESSION. Characteristic postures of the “horse” while the loa 1s in the process
casual,
mounting it: pitching forward on one leg, and inability to maintain balance. Note the
habituated expression of other people, including the man whove arm has been grasped (above);
also the agony on the face of the girl being mounted (below).
22 and 23. GHEDE. These two photographs, taken six months apart and in different hounfors,
show that possession is not a period of “self-expression”. On the contrary, the individual’s
psyche is displaced by that of the loa, whose character is constant and independent of that of the
person in whose body he becomes manifest.
 CHAPTER VII

The White Darkness

I HAVE left possession until the end, for it is the center
toward which all the roads of Voudoun converge. It is the
point toward which one travels by the most visible, the most
physical means, yet, for the traveler, it is itsclf invisible. One
might speak of it as the area of a circle whose circumference can
be accurately described; yet this circumference is not, itself, the
circle which it defines. To know this area, one must, finally,
enter.
Upon such a threshold to the unknown, it is inevitable that
one should pause to glance backward to survey the area
accomplished, to ascertain whether the step is without alterna,
tive or whether, perhaps, the devious configurations of this
diverse terrain may not conceal some twist, some crevice
referring out of this landscape. Surely there was an egress which
had escaped attention; for the structure of the terrain had, ae
umes, been so receptive, so tolerant, its contours so undulant
and apparently acquiescent, as to seem almost malleable, and
frequently to lack those confinements and constrictions by
which one has learned to define form. Yet, in such a survey, the
impact results from the contrary discovery. From no previous
vantage point had this geography so clearly revealed its
immaculate geometry.
From this central point surges the lavish arterial river of
ancestral blood which bears all racial history forward into the
contemporary moment and funnels its vast accumulations into
the denim-dressed serviteur. The entire collecuve over ume,
from the demiurgic Marassa to the proverbial wisdoms or the
sharp, crafty angers of the grandfather, dead but a year and a
day, here is comprehended, here becomes intimate and feeds
and comforts. Yet up through this same center emerge also the
monumental archetypes, the loa as pillars of the moral cosmos,
247
248 The White Darkness
each of them multi-faceted yet homogeneous, each one a marvel
of diversity without digression, and these may simply parade
their transcendent perfection briefly, and then leave without
intimate contact. Often the loa do nothing, say nothing of any
immediate consequence. Yet their very remoteness, evidence
of areas invulnerable to immediate anxieties and defeats,
assures the serviteur of an essential order and stability. Here it is
not nearness but the distance between a man and his god which
comforts, which assures that the good endures and will endure;
for it is to such distance that man removes his divinity to isolate
him from the ravages and diminution of human inadequacy,
just as, in times of violence, one might secrete one’s most
ultimate and cherished treasure.
To be made aware, once more, that man is of divine origin
and is the issue of and heir to an uncounted multitude of hearts
and minds; that at the root of the universe the great imper-
turbable principles of cosmic good endure; and that even under
his torn shirt, his hunger, the failures of his wit and the errors
of his heart, his very blood harbors these. monumental loa—is
to experience the major blessing with which possession re-
wards men’s dedicated service. This major reward comprehends
all minor needs, and, with its very generality, soothes all the
diversity of singular fears, personal losses and private anxieties.
Whatever other benefits the loa may bring—advices, prescrip-
tions, disciplines—these are but secondary.1
Demur, if you will, that all this is merely a reference to a
man’s intellectual powers. Explain that it is the “imagination”
which makes him capable of conceiving beyond the reality
which he knows, and that this is compounded of memories.
Speak of “idealism” as source of his willingness to undergo
ordeal on behalf of creative, non-material achievement. Insist
that in foregoing immediate reward he seeks historical position.
Add, even, that such values are engendered by the influence of
father, the love of mother, the praise of men. List all those
intellectual and moral qualities—vision, inspiration, imagina-
tion—which most distinguish the poet, the philosopher, the
 The White Darkness 249
scientist; catalogue them, name them, count and differentiate
and “explain” their origins, their operation, mechanisms and
motivations. The Haitian will not dispute you. When you
have finished, he might shrug his shoulders, saying simply, in
Creole: “All that, we call ‘to have loa’.”
If the major value of the loa is their very transcendence, they
cannot be, simultaneously, identified with man. To survey the
structure of Voudoun is to encounter everywhere this distance,
this divide which no man can straddle. It is evident in the final
limitations of a houngan’s control over the loa who may even
subjugate him, and are free to be manifest outside his province;?
it is defined in the feasts which nourish no man, in the accoutre-
ments which no man may wear; it is implied in all the calling
sounds—song, drum beat, asson and langage—which are like
lines thrown out, to become the cables of the bridge upon
which man would cross that chasm; it is present, as physical
fact, in the amnesia which makes even the sense of the loa
inaccessible to the very “horse” which bore him. To under-
stand that the self must leave if the loa is to enter, is to understand that
one cannot be man and god at once.®
Thus the possessed benefits least of all men from his own
possession. He may even suffer for it in material loss, in the
sometimes painful, always exhausted physical aftermath. And
to the degree that his consciousness persists into its first moments
or becomes aware of the very end, he experiences an over-
whelming fear. Never have I seen the face of such anguish,
ordeal and blind terror as at the moment when the loa comes.
All this no man would ordinarily accept. But since the collec-
tive consists of ordinary men with a normal interest in their
personal welfare,vit is dependent upon its ability to induce in
them a moment of extraordinary dedication if it is to have
access to the revitalizing forces that flow from the center. Ic 1s
toward the achievement of this—toward the forcing open of the
door to the source—that the entire structure of Voudoun 1s
directed. The serviteur must be induced to surrender his ego,
that the archetpye become: manifest. In the growing control
250 The White Darkness
accomplished by the ordeals and instructions of initiation, and
in the protective vigilance of houngan and société, he is reassured
that the personal price need not be unpredictable or excessive.*
In the principle of collective participation is the guarantee that
the burden shall, in turn, be distributed and shared. And
finally, the structure has evolved—drum beat by drum beat,
movement by movement—a force which compels a man
forward, and which, in even the most dedicated, must triumph
against that final terror which attends the loss of self, that last
convulsive recoil from the dark sense of death.® It is in the
ceremonial peristyle that all this is brought to a focus and that
the momentum is set in motion with the first songs for Legba,
Loco, Ayizan.
I can remember an evening when it was as if, with those
initial salutations, the drums flung the enormous snare of their
sound into the night, across the still landscape, and from every
direction drew captives across the threshold into the peristyle.
I was among these latecomers. The singing, which might have
been desultory at first, became warmer as the stream of arrivals
gradually filled the benches, the space near the walls, flooded
into the corners and finally overflowed into the court. A
neighboring houngan, Joe, arrives, and a chair is placed beside
me for him. I compliment him on his last ceremony, which,
indeed, was conducted in a very eloquent fashion, and remark
that he seems to be recovered from the illness which had troubled
him for some time. “Oh, I was finally able to settle my diff
culties with Loco”, he answers, and since he knows that I am
interested in such matters, proceeds to tell me the details of his
involvement. I am so concentrated on this recital that I am not
aware of the songs or the drumming until Titon, who is
houngenikon, shouts in anger at the crowd which has, by now,
solidly blocked off the entrance to the peristyle, and I realize
that they are now beating and singing the song of salutation
for the flags of the société and the la-place. A path 1s finally
cleared and this trio enters the peristyle. They salute the center-
post, the drums, and Houngan Joe suspends his recital, for in a
 The White Darkness 251
matter of moments they will address themselves to him. As
always, I enjoy watching him, for the authority and grace of
his bearing. He returns to his seat and the trio balances in
place before me, stepping side to side in rhythm with the drums.
As I rise in answer, a sense of nervous self-consciousness over-
whelms me, although I have done this many umes. (I am noe
at all alone in this; I have seen the lips of even mambos and
houngans quiver nervously in such moments.) Curtsey, turn
left, two, three; curtsey, back right, two, three; curtsey, now
left, two, three—muirroring the trio before me. I walk west,
crossing between the la-place and the flags, as they walk east. I
turn, curtsey, then left, curtsey, right, then back; then north;
then south. We approach each other and suddenly I cannot
remember what I am supposed to do, but no one can perceive
this, for the la-place kneels, holding the hile of the saber high.
I touch it with my lips, the two flags cross over it, and [ salute
these also. Then, with an enormous feeling of relief at having
accomplished this act properly, I return to my chair. It seems
now as if the drums and the singing were louder, sharper, and
I can hardly hear Joe’s recital, which he has resumed.
The drums pause, finally, and I am grateful for that, although
the heat of the crowded peristyle seems more intense in the.
silence. The people converse casually, fanning themselves with
their straw hats. Suddenly, like a sharp knife plunging into the
soft heat and the soft chatter, Titon’s imperious voice launches
the invocation to Damballah. Over the demanding, compelling
rush of its syllables, the tight staccato Yanvalou beat of the petit
sets in; now the rounder tone, the more rolling rhythm of the
seconde slides in under it; and then one feels a vibration beneath
one’s feet even before one hears the beat of the maman, which
rises as if from some unfathomable depth, as if the very earth
were a drum being pounded. Hardly has hearing plunged to
encompass this dark dimension, than the high clang of the
iron ogan sets in, its wind-filled resonance abruptly Ainging
open all the upper regions of sound, and the very air vibrates
as if with tones above and beyond the reaches of the car's
2§2 The White Darkness
intelligence. For a brief moment this towering architecture of
sound, stretching solidly from the abyss below to the heavens
above hearing, seems to advance without movement, like a
tidal wave so vast that no marker exists to scale its progress for
the eye. Then the chorus of voices, having, it would seem,
accumulated its force in the trough concealed behind the
towering crest, hurls forward over that crest, and the whole
structure crashes like a cosmic surf over one’s head. I find
myself standing bolt upright, singing, or perhaps even scream-
ing the song. Others about me, who had also been seated are
now also standing. Most of them move forward to dance, but
it is as if the shock of that inundation had completely winded
me and I sink back into my seat.
Now it is the dance which suggests water. Before me the
bodies of the dancers undulate with a wave-like motion, which
begins at the shoulders, divides itself to run separately along
the arms and down the spine, is once more unified where the
palms rest upon the bent knees, and finally hows down the
legs into the earth, while already the shoulders have initiated
the wave which follows. The eyes are fixed on the ground, and
although the head is steady, the circular movement of the
shoulders seems to send it forward, to draw the body after it,
over and over; and as the bodies, which began in a posture
almost erect, bend toward the earth, the undulation becomes
more and more horizontal, until all figures blend into a slow
flowing serpentine stream circling the center-post with a
fluency that belies the difficulty of the movement. What have
they all found there, on that central ground, that their limbs
should move with such ease and such perfection while, on the
exiled outskirts, my own limbs are burdened with muscles,
must ponder and delay my every will to motion? What secret
source of power flows to them, rocks them and revolves them,
as on a roundabout the bright steeds prance and pursue,
eternally absolved of fatigue, failure and fall? I have but to rise,
to step forward, become part of this glorious movement, fow-
ing with it, its motion becoming mine, as the roll of the sea
 The White Darleness 253
might become the undulation of my own body. At such
moments one does not move to the sound, one is the movement
of the sound, created and borne by it; hence, nothing is
difficul.
The drums cease; I return to my seat and only at that moment
realize that I am perspiring profusely. La Merci, my domestic,
is carrying my large handkerchief, and I scan the line of
hounsis several times before I distinguish her face, which is
ordinarily so expressive of her distinct, lively cemperament, but
now seems to have been planed down into a mask of anony-
mity blending and losing itself among the other white-
kerchiefed heads. I try to attract her attention, but fail, and so
rise to go toward her. I take two steps and my left leg suddenly
roots, numbly, to the ground, pitching me forward. Someone’s
hand grasps my arm, supports me firmly, while, stunned, |
momentarily in this posture, seek to regain center and
balance, and finally straighten out. The man who happened
to have been standing there, relaxes his support. I smile my
thanks and return to my seat, still shaken by this abrupt blow.
Someone is sent to get the handkerchief for me. There is an
unpleasant lightness in my head, as if the many parts of the
brain were being gently disengaged, its solidity, its integrity
being somehow imperceptibly dispersed, as a fog might be
gently dispersed by a light, inconstant breeze; and as these
separations occur, there are little spaces of emptiness.
Foolish to disregard the leg momentarily caught, or this
strange, subtle thinning out of consciousness. These are the
warming auras of possession. One knows oneself vulnerable.®
I begin to repeat to myself: “Hold together, hold, hold.” As the
drums start up again, I feel I must get away if I am to hold
and I press through the crowd toward the exit, smiling, so that
No one may suspect my predicament, which is as a weakness,
as something I should, by now, have been able to master and
regulate. At the moment I pass the short wall which marks the
edge of the peristyle the sounds abruptly become fainter. The
night is cool and luminous. I light a cigarette, cross the familiar
254 The White Darkness
court, and wander up the road slowly. How distant the voices
and the drums seem, although they are quite clear. I can hear
that the round for Damballah has finished. My head is
tightening, integrating, becoming solid once more. Yet this
cool, quiet, private dark, where nothing demands or insists,
is a gentle peace, where I would linger, where I would com-
pose and recompose myself once more, while, in the peristyle,
the processional advances, celebrating now Agassou, Agwé
and Bade.
I hear, then, the first beats of the salute to Ogoun. Now I
must return, for this is the guardian of the hounfor and I cannot
offend the house by being absent at his salutation. I start back
toward the peristyle, hurrying now, for I had wandered farther
than I thought. By the time I arrive, the loa has already mounted
Isnard. He is barefoot, the legs of the trousers are rolled up, so
that the abrupt movements of the feet do not catch in them and
trip him, and he wears a bright red handkerchief. He is pacing
up and down, in a kind of anger. It is impressive. Isnard is, to
begin with, tall and powerful in body; now that sense of
stature is enormously reinforced by the psychic projection of
the heroic loa which has infused that body. The loa walks to
the drums, and, laying his hand on the skin of the maman, orders
them silenced. He stands and waits. Titon approaches, turns
in ritual salutation, kisses the earth at his feet and would with-
draw, but Ogoun extends his hand in ritual greeting. I see
Titon stiffen, as one might prepare to endure an onslaught.
They shake right hands, and the Ogoun extends the left, the
loa hand. For a moment Titon hesitates, then he meets it with
his left. He staggers a moment, but regains balance and rights
himself, holds his ground until his hand is released, and walks
away.’ Now houngan Joe 1s greeting the loa head-of-the
house. I find Titon standing beside me. He looks at me, who
must go forward next, and says “Attention! Attention!’ He
takes my hand suddenly and digs his nail into my palm. The
sharp, sudden pain restores me. He had recognized, although
I had not even been aware of it, that, once more, I had become
 The White Darkness 2$5
vulnerable. As I step forward for my salutation I concentrate
upon the memory of that pain, almost as one might finger an
amulet at moments of crisis. It serves me well. The contact of
the left hand with the loa produces only a momentary shock,
which passes rapidly, like an electric current, and I, too, return
to my place. Others step forward to make the ritual salutation;
Titon launches a song for Ogoun, and the drumming and
dance begin again.
I am troubled by this persistent vulnerability, and, pretending
to see something in the court outside, I turn my back on the
dancers and the drums, a gesture and means of withdrawal.
The drum beat of the maman “breaks” and at that very moment,
a man standing on the sidelines a few yards from me, keels over
backward, as if stunned by a blow. The loa can come like this,
without warning, as a wind. The fall has been broken by
several persons standing beside the man, and they are support,
ing him, bracing the still dead weight of his body, so that he
remains on his feet. Then his body jerks violently out of its
stullness, and with a mighty wrench which knocks one of his
supporters to the ground, he frees himself and hurtles forward
into the dance area of the peristyle. Now the drum has caught
him up, catapults him from side to side. A woman who has
accidently been jarred by the violent debdtment, freezes on
one leg—as if this contact had been a contagion—lurches for-
ward, is also caught up in the drums. I do not wish to watch
this, and I turn my back to the peristyle. It troubles me the
more, in that, with Isnard himself mounted, there is no one
there now who can help these agonized creatures, no one
who, with the asson, could arbitrate between the loa and
the human self; which wrangle violently over possession of
the bodies, as two hands might fiercely compete for a single
glove.
I recall how they would sometimes cling to Isnard, how,
with the sound of asson and syllables, he would gradually
subdue the last ravaging tremors. It is this that must be learned,
above all, I say to myself slowly: not only the power of divine
256 The White Darkness
invocation, but also the tender mercy of worldly restoration;
so that, to the body which must walk the earth, is returned the
self that is appropriate to such dimension.
Sull looking out, I say to myself, also, “This is the moment
when you must make your decision.” For I now know that,
today, the drums, the singing, the movements—these may
catch me also. I do not wish that. There is both fear and
embarrassment in the idea. I know that I can leave now, that
I can push out through the crowded exit, and cross the smooth,
trampled court, turn up the rutted road, walk down its cool
length—the sound growing more and more distant—until, in
the small hut, with its thick clay walls, I might lie down, not
hearing the drums at all, except for brief moments when the
faint, fiftul breeze would turn in that direction. Yet to do this
would be to read myself out of it altogether, in a large sense.
Not that I would be subsequently excluded; not at all. Yet, in
my heart, I know that somehow, it is not fair to stay only
when it is easy, or pleasurable, or exalting and to withdraw in
the face of discomfort. This is as much a part of it, as if, in
accepting the rewards, one had contracted to endure the
ordeals. There is a sense of pride, too. To run away would be a
cowardice. I could resist; but I must not escape. And I can
resist best, I think to myself, if I put aside the fears and nervous
ness; if, instead of suspecting my vulnerability, I set myself
in brazen competition with all this which would compel me
to its authority. With this decision I feel a resurgence of
strength, of the certainty of self; and of my proper identity.
I turn back toward the dancers, and join them. I sing, con-
verse with Ogoun. Nothing ts shaken within me. After many
songs Ogoun announces that he is content with the dance, and
that now he will leave. He stands there a moment, then a great
spasm shakes the body, jerking it off balance. But already there
are several to catch Isnard as he falls, to drag his limp body to a
chair where, in a moment, he slowly raises his head, looks about
him with the puzzled concentration of one who wakes in a
room not yet habitual and familiar, and would orient himself.
 The White Darkness 257
His hand rubs the arm of the chair with an almost imperce
uble movement, as if he would reassure himself of its solid
reality. Then, as the concentration fades from his features,
fatigue sweeps over them. He rises wearily and makes for his
private chamber, where, I know, he will lie down to rest for a
short while before resuming his duties.
Everyone stops to rest, as if some critical moment had been
passed. The drummers stroll into the courtyard to buy soda pop,
gtillots, biscuits. Those people who arrived late use this oppor-
tunity to exchange personal greetings with the hounsis. We
all wander about, chatting. Then che drummers return to their
seats and I hear Titon urging the hounsis back into the peri
style to take up their formation. Some people have already left,
but the peristyle is still crowded. The next song 1s for Erzulie.
Once more the drums and the chorus, skillfully, rapidly, in a
matter of moments, construct the vast tidal wave of sound and
crash its surf forward. And once more the dancers ride forward
on that surf, on that sound, the rise and fall of its waves, all of
them once more part of the flow of the Yanvalou together,
circling the center-post with a slow undulation as of a single
serpentine body.
Watching, one senses that if these are united, it is not at all
because they refer to each other. They are separate, as bodics
and as beings; the ground-fixed eyes and the deep crouch
accentuate this sense of each of them inaurned, in-listening,
moving in common to a shared sound, heard by each of them
singly. When, following a “break” and having resumed the
erect posture which would slowly sink earthward again, they
may face each other and briefly mirror each other's movements,
even then the pairs seem less to duplicate each other than to be,
both, mirrors which, face to face, doubly reflect some invisible
figure who dances between and who knows reality only in
such mirrors. It is this which draws one in, for one rises to
commit oneself neither to the dancers nor to the drummers, but
to some pulse whose authority transcends all these creatures and
so unites them. The total is not the sum of its parts: we do not
258 The White Darkness
serve each other; but rather, together, one serves a common
which comprehends all.
The drums pause; then, almost immediately, begin again,
accumulating, this time, into a Mahi. This has a gay quality
and is a dance step which I particularly delight in, although it
rapidly tires the muscles of calves and thighs. At first the
drummer is considerate and “breaks” often enough to permit
the limbs to relax and rest. But as the dance goes on, these
“breaks” become more rare and the sense of fun gives way to a
sense of great effort. The air seems heavy and wet, and, gasping,
I feel that it brings no refreshment into my laboring lungs. My
heart pounds in the pulse at my temple. My legs are heavy
beyond belief, the muscles contracted into an enormous ache
which digs deeper with every movement. My entire being
focuses on one single thought: that I must endure.
I cannot say, now, why I did not stop; except that, beneath
all this is always a sense of contract: whether, in the end, one be
victor or victim, it is to be in the terms one has accepted. One
cannot default. So focused was I, at that time, upon the effort
to endure, that I did not even mark the moment when this
ceased to be difficult and I cannot say whether it was sudden or
gradual but only that my awareness of it was a sudden thing,
as if the pace which had seemed unbearably demanding had
slipped down a notch into a slow-motion, so that my mind
had time, now, to wander, to observe at leisure, what a
splendid thing it was, indeed, to hear the drums, to move like
this, to be able to do all this so easily, to do even more, if it
pleased one, to elaborate, to extend this movement of the arms
toward greater elegance, or to counterpoint that rhythm of the
heel or even to make this movement to the side, this time.
As sometimes in dreams, so here I can observe myself, can
note with pleasure how the full hem of my white skirt plays
with the rhythms, can watch, as if in a mirror, how the smile
begins with a softening of the lips, spreads imperceptibly into a
radiance which, surely, is lovelier than any I have ever seen.
It is when I turn, as if to a neighbor, to say, “Look! See how
 The White Darkness 259
lovely that is!” and see chat che others are removed to a distance,
withdrawn to a circle which is already watching, that |
realize, like a shaft of terror struck through me, that it is no
longer myself whom I watch. Yet it is myself, for as that terror
strikes, we two are made one again, joined by and upon the
point of the left leg which is as if rooted to the earth. Now there
is only terror. “This is it!’ Resting upon that leg I feel a strange
numbness enter it from the earth itself and mount, within the
very marrow of the bone, as slowly and richly as sap might
mount the trunk of a tree. I say numbness, but that is in-
accurate. To be precise, I must say what, even to me, is pure
recollection, but not otherwise conceivable: I must call it a white
darkness, its whiteness a glory and its darkness, terror. It is the
terror which has the greater force, and with a supreme effort I
wrench the leg loose—I must keep moving! must keep moving!
—and pick up the dancing rhythm of the drums as something
to grasp at, something to keep my feet from resting upon the
dangerous earth. No sooner do I settle into the succor of this
support than my sense of self doubles again, as in a mirror,
separates to both sides of an invisible threshold, except chat
now the vision of the one who watches Aickers, the lids Autter,
the gaps between moments of sight growing greater, wider. I
see the dancing one here, and next in a different place, facing
another direction, and whatever lay between these moments 1s
lost, utterly lost. I feel that the gaps will spread and widen and
that I will, myself, be altogether lost in that dead space and that
dead time. With a great blow the drum unites us once more
upon the point of the left leg. The white darkness starts to
shoot up; I wrench my foot free but the effort catapults me
across what seems a vast, vast distance, and I come to rest upon
a firmness of arms and bodies which would hold me up. But
these have voices—great, insistent, singing voices—whose
sound would smother me. With every muscle I pull loose and
again plunge across a vast space and once more am no sooncr
poised in balance than my leg roots. So it goes: the leg fixed,
then wrenched loose, the long fall across space, the rooting of the
260 The White Darkness
leg again—for how long, how many times I cannot know. My
skull is a drum; each great beat drives that leg, like the point
of a stake, into the ground. The singing is at my very ear,
inside my head. This sound will drown me! “Why don’t they
stop! Why don’t they stop!” I cannot wrench the leg free. Iam
caught in this cylinder, this well of sound. There is nothing
anywhere except this. There is no way out. The white darkness
moves up the veins of my leg like a swift tide rising, rising; is a
great force which I cannot sustain or contain, which, surely,
will burst my skin. It is too much, too bright, too white for
me; this is its darkness. “Mercy!” I scream within me. I hear
it echoed by the voices, shrill and unearthly: “Erzulie!” The
bright darkness foods up through my body, reaches my head,
engulfs me. I am sucked down and exploded upward at once.
That is all.®
* * *

If the earth is a sphere, then the abyss below the earth is also its
heavens; and the difference between them is no more than time, the time
of the earth’s turning. If the earth is a vast borizontal surface reflecting,
invisibly, even for each man his own proper soul, then again, the abyss
below the earth is also its heavens, and the difference between them is
time, the time of an eye lifting and dropping. The sun-door and the tree-
root are the same thing in the same place, seen now from below and now
from above and named, by the seer, for the moment of seeing.

* * *

How could memory reach back beyond the first thing which
might be remembered? How could I know a void as void,
who had not yet learned substance, or darkness, who did not
know light? My memory begins with sound heard distantly,
addressed to me, and this I know: this is the sound of light. It
is a heard light, a beam invisible but bright, scanning the void
 The White Darkness 261

VEVER FOR ERZULIE

for substance to fix upon; and to become upon that substance

light. Around the sharp directness and direction of that sound
the darkness shapes itself and now it is as if I lay at the far
distant end of an infinitely deep-down, sunken well. Each cell
of body and brain anguishes upward and yet I cannot lift
myselfby my own motion; but, like some still unborn, unliving
thing, am drawn up, slowly ac first, by the sound’s power.
Slowly still, borne on its lightless beam, as one might rise up
from the bottom of the sea, so I rise up, the body growing
lighter with each second, am up-borne stronger, drawn up
faster, uprising swifter, mounting still higher, higher still,
faster, the sound grown still stronger, its draw ughter, sull
swifter, become loud, loud and louder, the thundering rattle,
clangoring bell, unbearable, then suddenly: surface; suddenly:
air, suddenly: sound is light, dazzling white.
How clear the world looks in this first total light. How
purely form it is, without, for the moment, the shadow of
meaning. I sce everything all at once, without the delays of
succession, and each detail is equal and equally lucid, before
the sense of relative importance imposes the emphasis of cyes,
the obscurity of nostril which is a face. Yet, even as I look, as
if to remember forever this pristine world, already the forms
262 The White Darkness
become modulated into meanings, cease to be forms, become
the night, the peristyle, the people. The white dresses and
shirts, the asson’s beaded mesh, still quivering from its labor,
these blend, for a moment, with a fleeting memory of a white
tent in the dark night and a trough of water. As the souls of the
dead did, so have I, too, come back. I have returned. But the
journey around is long and hard, alike for the strong horse,
alike for the great rider.
 APPENDIX A

NOTES ON TWO MARRIAGES WITH VOUDOUN LOA

by Odette Mennesson Rigaud

JusT as in many other religions, so in Voudoun there exists the mystic

mariage between divinity and devotee. Such marriages may be requested,
and even required, by the Spirits. If a young man has served Mistress
Erzulie assiduously, she usually demands such a marriage, parucularly if
this man wishes to marry a mortal woman, and the mysuc mamiage with
Erzulie serves to reaffirm and reinforce the bonds between the vodouisant
and his loa. The human partner, on the one hand, receives the benefit of
the loa’s guardianship, protection, and the blessing of good fortune in
all his undertakings; in return, however, he is bound by scrict commit-
ments to the loa with whom he has conwacted this marriage. Mistress
Erzulie, in all her various aspects and aliases, is the divinity who mos: fre-
quently—more than any of the other loa—requires such a marnage with the
men who serve her. Women, on the other hand, may wear a wedding-
ring for Dan-Ba-Lah, Ogou, Guédé (Damballah, Ogoun, Ghede), etc.
It may often happen that a vodouisant hesitates so to commit himself, for
fear of the jealousies and tyrannies of the loa with whom he would enter
into contract; but the loa may make it impossible for him to evade this
union: his business affairs may be jeopardized, illness may descend upon
him, or he may be threatened with even graver dangers. If he is faced
with nothing more than the loa’s expressed desire for such a union, he
can turn to a houngan and seek, through his intervention, to arrive at
some compromises: long-dated pledges, guarantees to regard that loa as
pre-eminent, etc. If there is no immediate prospect of a mortal manage,
it is possible to evade in this way the mystic mamiage. But if the contrary
is true, it is rare that the vodouisant can evade it without seriously endanger-
ing the welfare and the very life of his mortal marnage. Warnings,
reminders, commands will follow one after another, and then, finally,
sanctions will be imposed. Nor will the loa accept as spouse for its “horse”
just anybody ar all; it will choose the one who is to marry or be “placed”
with the “horse”, and in this way it seeks to act in the bese spiritual
interests of che vodouisant.
263
264 Appendix A
Sometimes, however, a marriage with a powerful loa is sought by an
ambitious person, who would like to achieve certain definite ends
(whether financial, social or political). Here the marriage takes on the
quality of a pact, and its conditions are imperious. In such cases celibacy
is frequently obligatory. This is no longer a religious union of mystic love,
but a magic pact.
Marriage with a loa, as it is usually practiced, is rather costly. It is
necessary to prepare a room, hung with appropriate draperies, in which
the loa will be received. According to the loa’s character, everything which
would please her (or him) must be assembled: a complete outfit, in fine
silk and according to the taste and colors of the loa. For Erzulie, one
must add cosmetics, perfumes and jewels, and wedding-rings or gold are
obligatory. Erzulie (or the woman who is marrying a male loa) must
own a complete bridal outfit, with a veil and white shoes. There must be
a large reception, including cakes, liquors, refreshments of all kinds; and
champagne, or other drinks favored by the loa, must not be overlooked.
An orchestra may be engaged. To all this must be added the expenses of
the ceremony: the fees of the pére savane and the houngan.
The two mystic marriages which are here described took place in
Haiti, near Port-au-Prince. The first one was with Erzulie.
A young man, by the name of Sebastien, wished to marry and have
a family. However, he was a devout serviteur of Mistress Erzulie and she,
very jealous, wished to retain her privileged position. After several broken
engagements, he finally decided to dare marriage with a woman who
also served the Mystéres Vodou (the Voudoun spirits) and with whom he
had lived, in common-law marriage, for some time. Erzulie favored this
woman, since she lavished much attention on the loa and also knew that
on the days sacred to Erzulie (and which belonged to no one else) the
room must be adorned and decorated with Aowers and basil. Mistress
Erzulie did not seem to be opposed to the projected marriage, but de-
manded a preliminary marriage with herself, which was a usual require-
ment. It took place on a Thursday, a day sacred to Erzulie, and the
mortal marriage was to follow on Saturday. The mystic marriage was to
take place in the hounfor where Sebastien served his loa, and the cere-
mony was to begin at four o’clock in the afternoon. Sebastien, freshly
shaven and his hair newly cut, wore a white suit and a beautiful silk
shirt. All his costume was new and of good quality cloth. The evening
before, he had purified himself, bathing in the water of basil, and he was
now perfumed. His fiancée wore her best Sunday dress. The bridal gown
 Appendix A 265
was ready in an adjoining room—called “Erzulie’s room”—which was
hung in light-blue fabrics and filled with bouquets of roses, jasmin and
basil. Laid out upon an embroidered cloth on the dressingable was all
that Maicresse might desire for her coquetry: face-powder, cosmetics and
perfumes.
A beauaful niche had been set up in the peristyle. It was a sort of tent,
made up of embroidered sheets and silk cloths seretched over an armature
of flexible bamboo and open in front. Inside was a table covered with a
white cloth and bearing candlesticks, a missal, a crucifix, bouquets of
lowers, holy water, and, in the background, chromo-lithographs of
Erzulie and of some of the other guardian loa. In front of the niche were
placed two armchairs for the bridal couple, and one of them was covered
with ligh-blue and sea green fabric. Behind these were two chairs for the
godfather and god-mother. A short distance away stood a long table,
overflowing with candy, sweets, liquors and fine wines, arranged about a
beautiful wedding-cake which was flanked by bottles of champagne. In
front of the niche a fine cornflour vever had been drawn, represenung a
heart, the symbol for Erzulie, and, to one side, was the vever of Ogou
(Ogoun), who, in the terms of this mythology, was her husband. These
vevers were consecrated in the usual ritual fashion by the houngan.
Sebastien and his fiancée took their places in the chairs reserved for them,
in front of the god-parents and the witnesses. Many guests, dressed in
their holiday best, were present. The pére savane stood in front of the
niche where large candles had been lit. He was a small, chin, dried up old
man with a white tuft on the chin, a white mustache, and large eye-
glasses perched on the end of his small, round nose; he worea black jacket
and vest and oldAashioned white trousers. His atutude was authoritarian,
songly imbued with a sense of his own importance, and, as he bens
over his large Latin book, he brought to mind a dark-skinned rabbi.
He began the prayers of the action de grace and the audience answered
devoutly; then, following the Litanies, he began the canticles. Finally he
stepped aside and the houngan took over, following with the canucle,
after having greeted “all the saints in heaven”—that is to say, the loa—
naming them at great length. The Virgin Mary was, naturally, cele,
brated more than the other saints, and then followed the Voudoun songs
in customary ritual order, with Erzulie being invoked with especial
fervor. However, she did not seem to be ready to manifest herself. Every-
one became a little impatient, and the houngan shook his asson and bell,
and perfumed the guests. They had hoped that Mistress Erzulie would
266 Appendix A
mount the mortal bride, but she seemed to decline this “horse” that day.
Then, one of the women who was to be witness began to sway, at first
imperceptibly and then with a more exaggerated movement. Her eyes
closed, she fell backward, was held up on her feet, and, here, Erzulie
appeared.
The transfiguration was complete. Out of an insignificant young
woman, the loa had created an irresistible coquette, who leaned
languorously on the shoulders of two young men summoned to support
her and to lead her to the room reserved for her use. There Erzulie per-
formed her meticulous toilette with the finest soap, put powder and
make-up on, combed her hair endlessly before arranging the golden
combs and flowers in her black tresses under the veil of tulle which was
held with a blue satin bow. Finally she appeared in her bridal dress,
perfumed, shining with golden jewelry, a bouquet of fowers on one arm
and a light-blue handkerchief in her hand, her long skirt often lifted to
reveal the pink taffeta petticoat, and smiling in recognition of the flattering
whispers: “Oh, what a beautiful lady is Mistress Erzulie!’”’ Her eyes
shone, her full, moist lips were parted slightly. All men belonged to her
and she honored them all.
Erzulie was led to the chair which was covered in her colors and her
feet rested upon a soft carpet. The pére savane returned to perform the
wedding ceremony, which took place very solemnly. The wedding
rings, as well as a golden ring set with a blue stone, were passed through
the smoke of the incense, blessed, then slipped on to the fingers of the
bridal couple. Sebastien was to wear this ring under his own wedding
band. In answer to the ritual question: “Do you take this man... 2”
came the statement: “Yes, I, Erzulie Fréda Dahomé. . . .” The marriage
contract was written out by the pére savane in his best handwriting and
was an accurate transcription of the official marriage document, except
that here, Erzulie Fréda Dahomé pledged to protect her husband,
Mr. Sebastien, and to bring him good fortune and prosperity, and he,
in return, was to fulfill all the obligations which he had assumed toward
her. Then the newlyweds, the god-parents, and the witnesses, signed the
contract ceremoniously and it was placed on the altar in front of the
picture of Erzulie Fréda Dahomé in the hounfor.
Mistress Erzulie was surrounded by the guests, congratulated and
complimented. Graciously she strolled about on the arm of her husband
and then turned to the reception table to cut the wedding-cake, slices of
which were offered to the guests with glasses of champagne. Then the
 Appendix A 267
dances began, but Erzulie did not remain long. She left as quietly as she
arrived, and the young woman, returned to herself, looked with astonish-
ment at the bridal gown which she sall wore. The drums continued to
resound throughout the whole night for the Voudoun dances. The civil
and Catholic wedding of Sebastien and his mortal bride took place the
following Saturday. New wedding-tings were used.
The tone of such mystic marriages depends greatly upon the character
of the loa involved. The ceremony, which, in the case of Erzulie, would
be ostentatious would be marked by a solemn gravity and a far more
complex ritual procedure in the case of O-Dan or Dan-Ba-Lah (Dam-
ballah), while one which involves Guédé (Ghede) always has a humorous
and even grotesque aspect. The one which is here described is a marriage
ceremony between Guédé Mazaca and a mambo.
One day a young hounsi, Ramise, made fun of the Papa Guédé who
danced in the head of one of her woman friends. Papa Gueédé was
displeased by this, and, in order to punish her, mounted her and declared
that at some later date she must marry him. Since that ume, this Guéde,
having adopted her as his “horse”, often mounted her, and Ramise, who
became a mambo, finally accepted this with good grace. However, there
came a ume when he refused to appear, even when he was invoked, and
Ramise ascribed che various troubles which beset her to his determination
to hurt her. Therefore she went to the person in whose family line this
particular Guédé had been inherited and made her invoke him in order
to question him. In this way she discovered that Mazaca had decided
that the moment had come for the marniage which he had asked for. He
refused to compromise on this point and had an answer for every
objection. He demanded that the marriage take place and Ramuse finally
had to agree, since she feared the displeasure of the loa who had previously
brought her many advantages. The ceremony was scheduled for the
following Sunday, in the late afternoon.
There was a big crowd in the peristyle that day because all the hounsss
were present, as well as many guests, including many houngans and
mambos. The people wore their very best clothes, silk dresses, saun
handkerchiefs, rustling skirts, all in vivid and shining colors. Suips of
multicolored, cut-out paper adorned the walls and crossed under the
ceiling, Auttering in the lightest breeze. The Voudoun dances had begun
several hours earlier, since the Guédés are at the very end in the hierarchical
order of the loas and it was necessary, therefore, firs to salute all of them
in turn, after asking Legba to open the sacred gate. The center-post and
268 Appendix A
the three Rada drums were ritually saluted with a libation of water,
which had first been oriented to the cardinal points, as well as with the
sacred address in Guinin langage. The flags were brought out of the altar
chamber, according to the usual ceremonial procedure, being conducted
by the saber of the laplace, and were leaned against the center-post. Large
bouquets of fowers hung from the rafters and were pinned to the white
sheets which formed the niche in a corner of the peristyle. Under these
draperies there stood a sort of altar covered with a white tablecloth,
embroideries, laces, and, upon it, candles, a crucifix, a basin of holy
water and a vase of fowers. Religious pictures decorated the background,
while in front of the niche there had been placed two chairs for the bride
and groom, and two others for the god-parents. Then the pére savane, a
tall, thin gentleman, with an imposing mustache which almost con-
cealed his dark face, arrived. His gold-rimmed glasses and tight black
jacket gave him the appearance of a professor. First he checked to see that
nothing would be missing for the ceremony, and then the Guédeés were
invoked. The houngenikon launched the songs in their honor, beginning
with several yanvalous, and followed by their favorite dances, the
crabiniers and bandas. A houngan traced the vever of Mazaca on the
soil in front of the niche and then consecrated it. But wherever there is a
party going on, the Guédés are only too glad to come, and already many
of them had mounted their “horses” and had even had time to put on
their special costumes. There was a Brave Guédé Nibo, dressed from
head to foot in mauve, and full of high manner and sophistication, his
droll tone containing a touch of précieuse ridicule, which, however, did
not hinder him from dancing the disorderly bandas with a Guédé
Nouvavou who wore a most serious, solemn expression under an
incredible hat draped with funeral crépe. The indispensable dark glasses
lent their macabre touch to these faces shining with perspiration or
drenched with white powder. The faces were rigid, but the bodies
whirled in frenzied pirouettes, spasms of shaking, waddling, and be-
wildered gyration, to the rhythm of the drums. Both Ramise and the
woman who served this Guédé Mazaca by family heritage had gone to
dress. The latter was not yet mounted, but already seemed to be staggering
and losing her balance repeatedly. After a moment she reappeared, weat-
ing a pretty dress of dark-grey silk, printed with small, white and black
bouquets. In her hand she held a black scarf embroidered with the name
of the loa. She was a lady of reserved character, amiable, small and plump,
about fifty years old, with a pleasant brown face under her carefully
 Appendix A 269
arranged coiffure. She had hardly taken a few steps into the peristyle when
she was immediately overcome by Papa Guédé, who definitely mounted
her. He had the same serious, dignified character as his “horse”, but this
did not prevent him from dancing the most suggestive bandas from
ame to ume, without this activity at all affecting his demeanor, however.
He raised the satin skirt so high over his short, chubby legs that others
were obliged to intervene and lower the satin underskirt, while remon-
strating with him. He hardly spoke, his eyes were half closed, and his
dark face conveyed a strangely hermetic expression.
Then Ramise entered, in a splendid, white satin dress. Her black skin
glowed strangely in this bridal outfit, and a small bouquet of white
flowers was set in the very center of her uny, glistening braids. She seemed
more enormous than ever in her ught skin, which seemed about to
burst its seams at her hips and outlined one full curve of her body after
another. Brooches, necklaces, ear-rings, bracelets and rings decorated her
as if she were a reliquary. Her jovial nature made her laugh at everything,
while Papa Guédé took everything much more seriously. A corége was
formed, the godparents leading the future married couple to their chairs.
As they sar in front of che improvised niche, the engaged couple listened
seriously to the regular Catholic prayers. Many different Guédés had
arrived among the hounsis and the guests, and many of them were already
wearing their costumes: jackets, frock-coats, ragged clothes topped
by bowler hats and dented top-hats. They crowded behind the bridal
couple, singing the litanies and canaques in voices which were at once
nasal—as is true of all the Guédés—and thunderously loud.
Meanwhile the pére savane continued with the service in an off-hand
tone of voice: “Does Mr. Guédé Mazaca take Madame Ramise, mambo,
alias ‘Aprés Dieu’, for his lawful wedded wife?” The answer came out
loud and clear. The wedding-tings were blessed, then put on the fingers
of the bridal couple. In addition to these, the mambo later wore another
ring set with a large, black stone. The wedding was over. The contract
was signed on a small table arranged for this purpose, having been
dictated by Ramise and prepared in advance by the pére savane. As usual,
the loa pledged to use every possible means to protect his spouse and she
pledged herself to fufill the obligations of a wife. The cortege was formed
once again, and proceeded to the hounfor, there to deposit the contract.
The flag bearers turned and danced under the direction of the laplace,
whose sword was held high. There were two sets of flags, one pair more
profusely spangled than the other, embroidered on dark-red and black
270 Appendix A
velvet grounds. Each movement of the flag bearers, who pirouetted at the
slightest directive of the agile young laplace, sent the multicolored
reHections of the spangles over the peristyle.
The drums rolled and beat louder and louder. This time the bride
gave her arm to her husband, Guédé Mazaca, who, with a severe and
pompous expression, pulled himself up to the entire height of the stubby
figure of his “horse”. People rose to congratulate the newlyweds, to kiss
Ramise and wish her happiness and prosperity. When the couple
returned to the peristyle, the flag bearers and the laplace made ritual
salutation to them, and all the hounsis twirled before them, in proper
hierarchical order. Then enormous slices of the wedding-cake and other
refreshments were served to the guests. It was really a wonderful reception!
The songs and dances started up again, better than ever, and, naturally,
in honor of the Guédés, who were in their gayest and maddest mood.
The drums beat an imperious salute, which Ramise and then Papa
Guédeé were to answer by lightly marking time, to salute the drums, and
finally placing some money between the lips of each drummer. (This
expensive honor is paid to important persons by the drummers.) But
alas, Ramise staggered, righted herself, lost her balance again. The
hounsis hurried forward to support her and take off the beautiful white
dress because Papa Guédé had just mounted her. He escaped from their
hold, but they caught him again, and put a black frock-coat over his
white satin skirt. He grabbed a pair of dark glasses in passing, and, witha
pirouette, joined the dancers in an impudent crabinier. The dancing
continued for many hours more.

(These notes have been extracted from Mme Rigaud’s work on Haitian Voudoun. The
orthograpby of Voudoun terms which she has adopted for that total work bas bere been
retained.)
 APPENDIX B

SOME ELEMENTS OF ARAWAKAN, CARIB AND

OTHER INDIAN CULTURES IN HAITIAN VOUDOUN

Unless otherwise indicated, the parenthetical page references are to volume XI of THE
MYTHOLOGY OF ALL RACES, Latin-Amenican by Hartley Burr Alexander,
Marsball Jones Company, Boston, 1y20.

HISTORIANS have been content to remark that the Petro cult is probably
traceable to a Spanish houngan, Dom Pedro. Herskovits (p. 150)
specifies “a Spanish Negro”, a specificauon that I have not heard else-
where, and one which is not very logical. If this Dom Pedro was the
illegitimate child of a Negro woman by a Spaniard, this would hardly be
unusual or significant enough to warrant the special classificauon of
Spanish. But a pure Spaniard would have been a white Catholic, not a
houngan. The specification “Spanish” was probably introduced into the
legend as a means of indicating that this man was not an African, i.e. a
Negro. Apart from that of the Negroes, the only other non-Catholic
religion which could have existed there at that time, would have been
Indian, and if there had been an intermingling of African and Indian
religions, the priests of the Indian cults might easily have come to be
called houngans. As a matter of fact, it is far from irrelevant that the
Spanish word petreo means stony and that the traditional phrase used to
characterize the Petro loa in Creole is “raide” (stiff, hard). Consequently
it is enurely possible that Petro is not a corruption of the proper Spanish
name Pedro, but a characterization, in simplified Spanish, which became
attached to or even adopted (most proper names have originated in this
manner) by a non-Spanish person. Another important clue lies in the
fact that a majority of the Petro words are Spanish. This indicates thei
origin in a period of Spanish domination, a period in which the Indians
as well as the Negroes were used as slaves. Spanish was the language
that the Indians learned, and it was the linguistic meeting ground with
the imported Africans. But whereas the majority of Afnicans were
subsequently (after 1677) imported by the French, and began translaung
their religious terms into the Creole which began to evolve, Spanish
would have become set as the “sacred” or “ritual” Language of the religious
27!
272 Appendix B
practices contributed by the Indians, who were almost extinct by the time
the French period opens.
It is also inconceivable that the Indians, who were on home ground,
should have been any less disposed to run away into their familiar hills
than the newly-arrived Africans. And finally, in spite of all efforts to the
contrary, certain dances and names are admitted (reluctantly) to be of
Indian origin. This proves that culture-contact was made. In view of this
fact, and the facts cited above, it is difficult to understand why this
direction of investigation has been pursued only, and merely to some
small degree, by Maximilien.
It may be due partially to the fact that the Haitian intellectual has taken
pride in aligning himself with French culture, and, in racial terms, has
been particularly self-conscious about his Negroid origin. Conversation
with a Haitian intellectual leads one unconsciously to conceive of the
island as having been discovered by the French and to ignore completely
the Spanish period, which lasted 185 years, and during which the Indian
culture must have made its mark before being completely exterminated.
For the French historian, the Spanish-Indian period was apparently
unimportant. He assumed that whatever he found in Haiti was African.
Another explanation may lie in the fact that the ethnologists who have
worked in Haiti were either African authorities (Herskovits), or men
especially interested in African elements (Courlander), so that if they
were able to find in some African context a possible origin for a Haitian
phenomenon, they were satisfied.
Yet certain major Voudoun deities, such as Baron Samedi and the
Simbi family, could not be traced to Africa at all; other tracings, such
as for Ghede and Azacca, were extremely tenuous. Even where specific
artifacts, legends, or concepts could be traced to Aftica, they could be so
referred only on very mechanical grounds, and without regard for the
sharp difference in ethos between definitely African concepts and attitudes
(whether of the Dahomeans, the Nagos, the Ibos, etc.) and those
present in the Petro ritual, as well as in certain elements of Rada ritual,
as, for example, in the vever as a form of symbol.
The Arawakan Taino, who seem to have been the earlier settlers of
Haiu and the Antilles, and the Caribs who conquered them, as far
north as to Puerto Rico (pp. 16-17), themselves had originated from the
tropical forests of the Orinoco and Guiana, and using the Antilles as
stepping-stones, had brought the elements of the mainland culture with
them: they are of the same linguistic stock (p. 255): as a sea-faring people,
 Appendix B 273
moreover, they had made contact with Ceneral Amanica, leaving thea
imprint in the same region which bore signs of the Aztec world in the
Nahua cribes, which had penetrated that far south (p. 43). It was at this
juncture of the continent, stretching toward the Greater Antilles and
commanding the passage between the Gulf of Mexico and the Canb-
bean Sea (p. 43), that the Mayan civilization had been dominamt—
although it was the Quiche and Cakchiquel, as well as other groups of
Guatemala, “whose mountain valleys drain towards the Gulf and the
Caribbean” (p. 156), who had preserved the most significant records of
the Maya; and it is in those valleys chat the ruins of the monumental cities
lie. Moreover, in the same Central American zone, the Chibchan
dominated the Isthmus of Panama (p. 43), and these (whose center was
in the plateau of Bogota), along with the neighboring Quechua (Aymara
and Diaguite-Calchaqui mbes), had been conquered by the Inca
civilization. Their use of ceremonial objects points to Bolivia, to the
Venezuelan coast, and even to the Annilles; which would seem to indicate
a remote unity of the whole region from Haiti to Ecuador and from
Venezuela to Nicaragua. The central body of Andean myth is that of
the Incas (pp. 189-90). At the same time, Oviedo's description of the
tribes about the Gulf of Nicoya, where the civilizacons of the two
Americas meet, indicates a religion of the Mexican type (p. 190).
The Caribs, who were known as extremely aggressive marauders, and
from whose practices the word “cannibal” derives, had contact with
elements of the great Aztec, Inca and Mayan cultures, as well as with the
native myths of the tribes who had fallen under the domination of these
three great civilizations, and among whom the practice had frequently
been the canny one of not destroying the deities of the subjugated tribes,
but putting them into a kind of jail. Students of Indian culture point out
that in the new world there was a “oneness of race nowhere else to be
found over so great an area”; and that this “unity is best represented
neither by physical appearance nor material achievement, but by a
conservation of ideas and of the symbolic language of myth which 1s at
bottom one” (p. 343). Thus, the Arawaks and the Caribs, with which
the escaped African made contact in the hills, were carrying clements
which were either historically derived from cultures as advanced as the
Inca, Mayan and Aztec or prehistorically derived from a source common
to them all and to all South American Indian culture.
The Africans and the Indians have in common the very basis of
religious belief—belief in a deity as first source, ancestor worship, and
274 Appendix B
other elements—and it is inevitable that, starting from the same premise,
there would be similarities which developed simultaneously in both
continents. Thus, while it would be difficult to distinguish, in every case,
the origin of those beliefs, ritual practices and magical works, yet there
are many elements in Voudoun today which are either not traceable to
Africa or hold a position in Haiti much more dominant than in Africa.
When these elements are found in the Indian culture, the latter can at
least be considered as a possible source. Most of the elements which point
to such a linkage are elements of magical manipulation.
The asson, which is today the sacred rattle of the priest, is dominant in
Taino myth. It appears as the calabash filled with bones, in which the
bones became fish, and from which “ran so much water... as overhowed
all the country . . . and from which the sea had its origin” (p. 29). The
Orinoco, the immediate forefathers of the Caribs and the Arawaks, tell
of the “sacred rattle” of the peaiman—the priest; while the Tupinambi
of the Amazon were understood to hold sacred a calabash rattle,
called tammaraka (obviously the instrument we know now as maracas),
with which they danced and whose sound the priests could interpret
(p. 296). Maximilien (pp. 140-1) gives an African source for the
asson, but acknowledges that the decoration is Indian. Moreover, in
Africa it was (if his source is correct) a musical instrument. Herskovits
(p. 269) also mentions the rattle as being West African, but also in the
nature of a musical instrument. In Haiti it is a sacred instrument,
precisely like that of the Indians.
Yet the most revealing legend in this connection is the tale of the
Orinocan Orehu, who are water sprites, or mermaids, and who may drag
a man to the depths of their aquatic haunts. This is a very recurrent myth
in Haiti. They are not altogether evil; for it is said that in ancient times an
Arawak, walking beside the water and brooding over the sad condition
of his people, beheld an Orehu rise from the stream, bearing a branch
which he planted as she bade him, its fruit being the calabash, till then
unknown. Again she appeared, bringing small white pebbles, which she
instructed him to enclose in the gourd, thus making the magic-working
rattle. She instructed him in its use and in the mysteries of the semecibi,
who are the medicine men of the Arawak corresponding to the Carib
peaimen, though the word seems related to the Taino zemi. Orehu ts no
other than the mainland equivalent of the Haitian (Taino) woman of the
sea, Guabonite, who taught the medicine hero, Guagugiana, the use of
amulets of white stones and gold (p. 261).
 Appendix B 275
This legend is precisely comparable to the stories in Voudoun mytho-
logy that are told of the Water People, whom Herskovits (p. 244)
classifies as baka, spirits of the Petro group, which are sometimes good but
someumes drag or entice the victim to the bottom of the water.
In Voudoun today there is langage, a sacred speech for communicating
with the gods, which occurs in the songs and litanies and which the
priest alone understands. It has been explained as of ancient African
origin. However, there was the use of “words none of our people under-
stand” by the Arawak priests when they were possessed by the spints
(p. 22). Many of che words which are currently Voudoun langage cannot
be traced, others are sometimes attributed to ancient Spanish (Cour-
lander, pp. 21, 96) and these sound very much like Indian words. The
words written out by Courlander (p. 21) as ke le manyan could well be
eather peaiman (Orinoco for “priest”, p. 260) or kenaima (a death-dealing
or vengeful spirit, p. 267). The langage of a song for Ghede ts transcribed
as nou-monnouce (Courlander, p. 89), but is quite as likely guamaonocon,
the name of the supreme deity of the Taino. The langage in a song to
Agwe, cina, cina, is possibly the Arawak word cinaci, meaning “our
father”, or perhaps ciba, the white shells of Orehu. The dance Crabinier
(variously pronounced and transcribed as “Crabignien”, “Carabiner”,
and even “Gabienne”) which frequently closes the ceremonial dances, 1s
referred to as Indian by Courlander (p. 122) and the name is clearly
derived from the word “Carib”. The Creole word for intoxicating drink
is tafia and the same drink is called in the Orinoco tongue tapena (p. 262).
There are many such examples.
The paquets Congo which are bound as magical safeguards and
whose efficacy depends on the technique of careful wrapping (the idea
being to enclose the soul well, so as to keep it from evil) are suspiciously
like the “peculiar type of Antillean cultus-image” mentioned by Peter
Martyr, among others, made of “plaited cotton, tightly stuffed inside”.
There is a deity, little known but presumably of ancient origin, in the
region of Petit Goave, which is known as “Cing-Jour-Malheureux™
(Rigaud, p. 53). He is very old, and bent, and much like an older version
of Legba, who is the sun as well as the crosstoads. “Cing-Jour-
Malheureux” is obviously a calendrical figure, referring to the five empry
and unlucky days, or the five nameless days, which is what both the
Aztecs (p. 99) and the Mayans (p. 147) called the last days of their year
—those left over because of the discrepancy between the lunar and solar
years. In this period the Sun was old and had to be reborn. Ic 1s
276 Appendix B
interesting, moreover, that in the region of Leogone, there is a ceremony of
great bonfires during the days between Christmas and New Year, which
carries out the principle of heating up and restoring life to the dying sun
that has been reported for many cultures (Frazer, p. 359). Such calen-
drical concerns are not typical of African culture—unless one can relate
them to Egyptian belief.
Perhaps the most striking element in Voudoun rites, yet one that has
not been identified as derived from Africa, is the vever, a design made by
dropping flour or ash (this is called farine Guinée) to form a symbolic figure
upon the ground. Each deity has his own symbol, which serves to
consecrate the ground for him during ceremonies, the offering being
placed upon the drawing. The cabbala-like character and function of the
drawings does not suggest any African tradition, but is similar to the
intricate drawings of the Aztecs and Indians. (Maximilien, p. 45, has
also commented on this linkage.) In the Codex Ferjervary-Mayer, the
first sheet is devoted to the figure of a cross pattee combined with a St.
Andrew’s cross, which is supposed to represent the basic principles of
Aztec belief: the five regions of the world, the nine lords of the night, the
four trees supporting the four quarters of heaven, etc. (p. $5). The center
is the pou-sto, “the Mother, the Father of the Gods, who dwells in the
navel of the earth”. It is this figure which constantly recurs in Voudoun
vevers for the cross-roads divinity, Legba, who is also the loa of the
poteau-mitan, the center-post, through which all the loa enter the peristyle.
Moreover, the Bororo of Brazil have a dance rite called the bakororo a
semi-secular festival, described as being full of pandemonium, which is
held on the eve of a hunting expedition and includes the following action:
“They cleared a space . . . and formed animals in relief with ashes .. .
especially the figure of the tapir, which they were going to hunt” (p. 291).
This kind of sympathetic magic might well be used to invoke a deity.
Ashes also refer, undoubtedly, to the ashes of the sacrificial victim, and the
universal custom of scattering these upon the fields to insure their
fertility. The bakororo might also throw light on the Haitian secular
“Rara” festival, whose purpose is pandemonium. The Indian sand-
paintings of North America are in a tradition similar to that of the
vever, and Maximilien (pp. 42-3) has traced a similar rite in Mexico.
Certainly the geometric drawings bear more affinity with the Indian
cultures than with the African, as do likewise their cabbalistic qualities.
(Courlander, p. 22, remarks on the special character of various motifs
recurrent in the vevers.)
 Appendix B 277
The Dahomean serpent deity Damballah has his counterpart in Indian
myth. The firs: Carib came from a serpent (p. 272); the Orinoco called
him the serpent of the sky and had a legend regarding the cosmic eggs
which he nurtured (p. 232). Among the Andean tribes he was associated
with the rainbow (pp. 200-1), and in the Mexican Aztecan legends he
is the plumed serpent (p. 100), also represented as a double serpen:
(p. 100) or a double-headed serpent (p. 72). This strongly suggests the
serpent images in Voudoun, where the double snake represents Dam
ballah and Ayida (his female counterpart, whose symbol is the rainbow)
and is frequently shown in conjunction with an egg. This represencs
eather an extraordinary coincidence between the Indian and African
cultures, or indicates an assimilation of the Indian into the Afncan in the
Caribbean. It is particularly significant that both Damballah and (more
frequently) Legba are referred to as Grand Chemin, which may be a
reference, in French, to road and crossroad, or may be the Carib word
emin ot chemin, used to designate the great spirit ot sky god, a designation
signifying “majoc importance”.
The most important parallelism between the two cultures, and conse-
quently the area in which ritualistic influences would be mos readily
absorbed, is in the beliefs concerning the ancestral dead. Among the
Arawaks and the Caribs, the dead were understood to return to a vale
in their own country (p. 278), which would be in the Orinoco Guiana
homeland, and settle to the bottom of the waters of a lake (p. 279).
This resembles the Voudoun belief, even to the expression nan Guinde,
which should be reconsidered in terms of its possible geographical
reference, particularly since the Haitians distinguish berween loa Dabomey
and loa Guinée. The Indian belief also contained, rather imprecisely, the
notion of the center of the earth, as noted in Andean belief (pp. 180, 198).
(This distinction between Dahomey and Rada on the one hand, and
Guinée, Petro, and Creole on the other, is suggested in various contexts.
Marcelin records conflict between Creoles and hounsis canzo (p. 33)
and between Creoles, Agaza, and Loco (pp. 42-3); Courlander notes
such conflict berween Papa Dahomey and the Creoles (pp. 121-2); and
Herskovits associates Guinée with Perro in distinguishing the Larter from
Rada (p. 270). It may well be that the Guinée references in Voudoun songs
and litanies are references to the South American conunent in certain
contexts, instead of the African, which has always been the assumptuon.
The citations above are also interesting in that they indicate a certain
period of adjustment in the meeting of African and Indian tradmons.)
278 Appendix B
Moreover, the Taino made a special distinction in reference to their
“caciques” or priests, who were not permitted to die natural deaths but
were strangled (p. 27). The notion of killing the king (who is frequently
also the head priest in a primitive culture) so that his powers, which
reHect the powers of the tribe, may never wane, is very widespread.
Among the Taino, it serves to distinguish between the general ancestors
and the particularly sacred souls of the priestly dead. The bones of the
dead, especially those of the caciques and great men, were kept either in
baskets or in the plaited cotton fetishes (p. 27); and these dead were also
represented by zemi—fetish-objects either of stone or of wood. In Vou-
doun, the placement of such symbolic remains in baskets has been
noted repeatedly, and we have spoken above of the paquets Congo. As
for the cult of zemiism, this was dominant among the Arawaks and
Caribs about Haiti and has become the name of the aboriginal cult of
this area. Each cacique or priest had his particular zemi, which was kept
in a separate house, or in the case of lay-individuals was given a separate
room. The custom is precisely analogous to the special hounfors of the
houngan and the cailles Mystéres of the Voudoun serviteurs. The zemi
(the word is understood by some authorities to mean “animal” and by
others as a corruption of guami, “ruler”) could be made of wood, stone,
or roots, according to the dictates of the vision or the “divine accident”
of the particular individual. When the zemi were stones, they had a
particular nature: “as if they sweated” (p. 29). This is precisely the con-
dition which determines the sacred stones of Voudoun—stones which
sweat (Courlander, p. 35)—and these, like the zemi, may represent various
loa and ancestors, whereas the sacred stones of African tradition are
related exclusively to the thunderbolt divinities (Courlander, p. 28).
The zemi, which was considered to be the receptacle of the spirit of
the ancestral dead and an intermediary between the living and the divine
(holding the same position as the loa in Voudoun) was also frequently
made, we are told, of wood hollowed inside in some fashion, and con-
nected to speaking tubes leading from a concealed area. The zemi would
be addressed by the name of the father or other ancestral dead (pp. 22-3)
and would speak out advice and oracles, precisely in the manner in which
the souls of the dead are addressed and reply in the Voudoun govi. (The
“speaking tubes”, by the way, may well be the figments of the white
man’s devaluating imagination; for no such quackery is necessary in
Haiti today.)
The most important zemi (or cemis) of the tribe are variously reported
 Appendix B 279
as consisting of two or three large scones which sweat, of as (wo statues
of wood, which were kept in a grotto or cave to which the Indians made
annual pilgrimage. They were the twinned deities of rain and sun (in
the case of three, they were understood to help the corn to grow, the rain
to fall, and to aid in the delivery of children), and were represented in the
twir-hero myth which runs so persistently through all Indian culeure.
The power ascribed to these zemi—ferulity, rainfall and childbirth—are
precisely those ascribed to the Haitian Marassa. According to Her-
skovits (p. 201), the cwin cule is very strong in Africa, and he adds,
concerning the Haitians, that some “families worship twins because a
houngan has divined that their unknown ancestors in ‘Guinée’ had
included them”. Courlander (p. 38) defines Marassa Creole as being
twins of the same sex and Marassa Guinée as ewins of different sex. If
Guinée may be taken to represent the new-world culture (i.¢., Petro),
Herskovits’ reference to Guinée would be to the new world; whereas
Courlander’s references would be either to the new and the old world
(if Guinée is Africa), or to a difference between what was the old world
for the Indians (Guinée of South America) and the newer world of the
Antilles. The fact that there is a definite distinction made indicates, in
any case, a coming together of two different craditions. The word
Marassa itself recalls the Spanish word marras (long ago) as well as
Maorocon, Father Sky (p. 24), and Marocael, Watchman of the Caves
(p. 28), of the Indian myths, and has not been definitely traced to Africa.
In the Andean culture there is repeated and important reference not
only to twins but to a spirit which either has three heads on one body
(p. 198) or represents three persons sharing one heart (p. 180). This is
precisely the sense of the “plat-Marassa-Trois”, and of the belief thac ewins
share a common soul (Herskovits, p. 204).
Like the Marassa, the Indian twirvheroes are considered to have been
the first creation of God, and many legends are concerned with the
adventures of these demiurgic beings. According to Taino myth, the
first two tribes of Indians, Cacibagiagua and Amaiauva, emerged from
two caves in Hispaniola (Haiti). And there is a legend of quadruplets,
the four Caracarols, which implies that each of the two original zen
was itself actually cwins. This is similar to the Voudoun elaboration of
the Marassa—the invocation to whom also refers to the “four races”
(Rigaud, p. 17), which is simultaneously a reference to the cardinal
points.
Among the Indian stories referring to the divine hero pair there is told
280 Appendix B
repeatedly a tale of their ball-playing (the characteristic activity of the
Marassa is to play at marbles or at ball), which is a symbolic reference to
the solar and lunar orbs (p. 173). Time and again, their major power is
that of trickster-transformers, or magicians, and the tales of their magical
escapades are innumerable. The Marassa are particularly important for the
working of magic.
There is an Arawakan tale that tells of Guaguguiana, a hero of the first
people who emerged from the caves. He was a trickster-transformer. And
he lost his comrade, his twin. In grieving for his comrade, he resolved to
go forth from the cave, but in doing so, let out che women and children.
He abandoned the women on the island of Matenino (possible source of
the Spanish legend of the Caribbean Amazons) and the children beside
a brook or an ocean. The children, starving, were crying for milk, calling
“toa, toa”, and they were transformed into little creatures like dwarfs
(pp. 310-32), who are called tona. In Haitian Voudoun, there is at least
one song to Agwé Woyo in which he is referred to as “Toni Agwé”
(Rigaud, p. 15), and the fact that his name suggests Spanish rather than
French (Woyo is also pronounced as arroyo, which in Spanish means
fearless, or fing, hurl, or burn [arrojar]) may point to a connection with
the Spanish-Indian period of Voudoun development. In Mexican myth
there is a comparable synonymy between children and dwarfs, who are
considered to be the servants of “rain” (p. 72), and the image is extended
to include hunchbacks, who, in one case at least (p. 81), were instru-
mental in fashioning the first human pair. In Voudoun, one of the
important deities is a hunchback, Bossu, while several deities are repre-
sented as dwarfs—particularly Alovi, who is known as mischievous, in
the manner of the trickster-transformer demiurgic twins.
In other words, the beliefs concerning the Marassa duplicate in so
many particulars the beliefs of the Indians concerning the relationship of
twins to rain, fertility, corn and magic, as well as to the origin of the race,
that the concordance is too precise to be coincidental.
The Voudoun god of agriculture, Azacca (as well as deities related to
him, such as Aza), has never been satisfactorily traced to Africa. He is
known as a Juba (Martinique) deity, a group not acknowledged as of
African provenience. His name may derive from an Indian word for
corn, zara, or from some related word, such as azada, or azadon—teferring
to hoeing and plantation digging—or from one of the maza-structured
words from which our own word maize is evolved. This would be an
agrarian reference in Indian-Spanish terms, such as should be expected.
 Appendix B 281
from the history of Haitian agriculrure. The Haitian assimilation of
Indian agrarian nites is, however, most apparent in Perro, as we shall
presently see.
The aboriginal cult of zemiism links not only to the Marassa, but, even
more surely, to the cult of the Ghedes, to Baron Samedi, guardian of the
dead and the cemetery, and to the zombie, the figure of the soulless dead.
In many cases Ghede is completely identified with Baron Samedi, at
other umes there seems to be a slight, insignificant distinction. Her-
skovits, on the other hand, distinguishes the two sharply, stating that
Ghede is just, and will not bury a person even if Baron Samedi wishes
him to do so (p. 247). Yet, in another connection, Herskovits asserts that
the Rada gods leave when Ghede comes (which is not the experience of
other writers) and that there are a number of names compounded with
Ghede, which raises the question as to whether Ghede might noc be a
generic term. “All those loa who bear the same name,” he writes (p. 318),
“such as all Ogun or Bosu or Simbi deities, are brothers; but who the
parents of these groups may have been is not known.” Herskovits suggests
Gedeonsu, as the name of a Dahomean totem (p. 267), upon whose
significance, however, he has not commented; neither has he indicated
any special connection of this totem with the dead. Surely the pre,
eminent positon which Ghede has come to command in many
areas as Lord of the Dead can hardly have been derived from a
mere totem.
However, another connection which has been suggested for Africa is
the cult of death and resurrection of a secret society of the lower Congo,
which was called Ndembo (Frazer, p. 697): Ghede is frequently called
Ghede Nimbo. It is possible that both the Dahomean Ghede and the
Congo Ndembo were blended into a single grouping which owes its pre-
eminent position and ritualistic practices to Baron Samedi, acknowledged
as chief of the Ghede grouping.
In every other respect, however, Ghede and his cult have been created
as standing apart from African Voudoun. In some areas (Herskovits,
p. 318) Ghede is not even considered to be a loa in the African tradiuon,
but an evil spirit. And ceremonially he seems always to be created apart.
Likewise, zombic-ism is not considered Voudoun (Courlander, p. 88).
On the other hand, various Arawakan beliefs concerning zenus are
precisely those of the zombie—the relation of the words is obvious; as it 18
equally obvious for zemi and Semedi. It is interesting, and significant, to
note that the archaic Spanish-American word for a mixture of Indian
282 Appendix B
and mulatto was zambo (this is related to zambobo, which means a
“rustic clown” and possibly to the American Negro folk character,
Sambo; while the zambapalo—“ancient Indian dance”—is undoubtedly
the source of the contemporary ball-room dance, the Samba). Moreover,
if zemi and guamiare are linguistically linked (see p. 278, supra), the word
Ghede may belong to this context. Or perhaps it is related to Giadru-vava
(vava is acommon Arawakan suffix; it is still heard in Voudoun Litanies
as vavou), who was the twin (the dead brother) of that trickster, Guagu-
guiana, who led the women and children from the cave. Guaguguiana
mourned for Giadruvava when he was turned into a night-singing bird.
A Ghede Novavou is a well-known loa (Maximilien, p. tor and Rigaud,
Appendix A of this book); the langage phrase “aima sa foula” which
occurs in a Ghede song 1s reminiscent of the Indian ken aima; while Baron
la Croix, who is also Baron Cimitiére (brother to Ghede and Samedi),
is also known as Azagon la Croix, azadon or azagon being the Spanish
word for spade, digger, etc.
Zemis, the souls of persons, could be stolen; the practice was recorded
among the Indians (p. 22) and is what creates a zombie in Haitian belief
(Courlander, pp. 26-7; Metraux, pp. 86-7). Furthermore, among the
Indians, people whose souls had fled or been stolen had no navel (the
sign of life, the lack of which signified a dead being): it is through the
navel that the Haitian houngan liberates the gros-bon-ange and the
mait-téte at death. The Indian living dead could also be recognized by
the fact that the pupils of their eyes did not reflect: in Haiti, Ghede wears
sun-glasses and the test of a real possession by Ghede is the ability of the
possessed person to receive a sharp, burning liquid in the eyes without
blinking. (Perhaps cognate with the sun-glasses of Ghede is the circum-
stance of the Aztec god of the underworld, who is blindfolded, yet sees
all [p. 62].) The living dead of the Caribbean Indians were known to
walk about at night, and they particularly liked tobacco: a cigar or
cigarette is one of the essential accoutrements of Ghede. In addition,
Ghede is related to digging tools by the Indian words mazacca and azadon
(cf., p. 280, supra and fn. 48, Ch. III). The Caribs had a term kenaima
(which may be the origin of the Voudoun word Kbensou; cf. p. 275,
supra), which meanta class of death-bringing powers, and was the insular
equivalent of the continental maboya, the great and first snake deity; ma
meaning great, and boii meaning snakes (but also used as the word for
“priests” by the islanders). The range of this term (which is linked to
zemiism), from the sphere of primary divinity to that of the exercise of
 Appendix B 283
malevolent magic (as in zombies), is the same as that covered by the
Voudoun concept of Ghede. There is, also, a rite recorded among the
Ucatan, which is called em-ku, of renascor (Spanish: renazco, “I am
reborn”), which is concerned with resurrection: the word ronsor occurs
repeatedly in Voudoun litanies, in connection both with Agwe (the
comrade of Ghede) and with Ghede himself.
(These verbal analogies are hardly more remote than many of the
African “sources” chat have been found by the authorities. They are
presented here, not as philologically definitive, but as clues to congruent
spheres of concept and sound, shared by the Indians and Voudoun.
The extermination of the aborigines of the Caribbean area before any
precise record could be made of their religious and linguistic heritage
leaves us with litle to go on; but this does not reduce the likelihood of
Indian influence on Voudoun. The myths and rites of the Indian world
here being noted are certainly closer to certain aspects of Voudoun than
anything yet indicated for those aspects in Africa: it is not unlikely thas
verbal echoes also resound.)
One of the traits peculiar to Ghede is his special appetite for cassava,
an Indian bread. In the Arawak legend of origin, when the four Cara
carol were born, they ate of the fish in the calabash and upset it, which
resulted in the inundation of the land and the origin of the sea. The four
brothers being hungry, one of them begged for cassava bread, but was
refused and struck on the shoulder with a sheaf of tobacco: the shoulder
swelled and when it was opened a live female tortoise issued forth, with
which the brothers mated, and she conceived. The hermaphrodiuc
brother, who had begged for the cassava and became the mother of the
mother tortoise, seems to have become the Haitian-Arawak god of the
underworld (p. 29)—like Ghede. The phrase “o la bel caraco” occurs
in a song to Ghede, an obvious reference to the Caracarol.
A third, and perhaps the most important, linkage of Indian and
African elements in Voudoun appears in connection with the Petro
deities. It has been generally agreed thar Dan or Dom Perro, first of the
Petro deities, came into existence in the new world. Dan may not stand
for the Spanish don, but may be an African word, dan, meaning snake
(the snake was worshipped as primary deity both in America and in
Africa), while Petro may derive from petreo (see p. 271, supra). The
association with the snake would be further born out by the fact that
Ti-Jean Petro, the son of Dan Perro, is characterized as having one foot,
or no feet at all, and yet is famous for going up trees. Dan Petro himself
284 Appendix B
commonly appears in animal forms, and his son, Ti-Jean, is obviously
a snake (Herskovits, p. 191: Courlander, pp. 45 and 132).
Among the Yoruba of Nigeria, when the king was to be killed before
the total degeneration of his powers, the custom was to inform him of the
moment by sending him the foot of his son (Frazer, p. 274). This may
have some connection with the one-footed son of Dan Petro. But the
Aztec god of the underworld, Tezcatlipuca Iztli, who was the patron of
crossroads and magicians, and was blindfolded, had one stump ofa leg.
(The foot was often replaced by a mirror—for divination?—and he was
also related to the image of a smoking mirror, which suggests the moon
as the reMection of a burned-out sun. Ghede’s magical rites take place
during the new moon.) Indeed, the idea of the lame god or maimed king,
lame goat, or other animal or human, is widespread throughout the
world. (Robert Graves has made a good deal of the idea in his The White
Goddess and in King Jesus.) Frazer associates it with the idea of the cut corn
(Frazer, p. 455). The Petro cult and rites are especially associated both
with agrarian concerns and with magic.
Congo Zandor is known as a manveater who grinds the sacrificial
victim in a mortar, as one would crush maize (Courlander, p. 43). Now,
while human sacrifice to the corn deity is a world-wide practice, the
special image of grinding the person to death occurs in the Mexican
“meeting of the stones” ceremony, where two carefully balanced rocks
were allowed to fall together on the vicum, grinding him (Frazer, p. 444).
This is the kind of concept that the Caribs, themselves given to bloody
sacrifice, could easily have picked up from their contacts with Central
America. The Congo Mazonne dance (the name, apparently, is a com-
bination of African and Indian words) is understood to be for Congo
Zandor (also called Congo Savanne) and is known not only in Haiti but
throughout the islands, perhaps because of its derivation from an Indian
maize dance (Courlander, p. 157). The word Zandor itself may derive
from any number of possible sources: Spanish sangrar, “to bleed, to be
bled”; mazonear (an old word, replaced by apisonar), which means “to ram,
to stamp, to crush”. Savanne, which is the alternate name for Zandor,
suggests not only plains, but also Spanish savia, “sap”, and therewith,
blood.
Yet it is not so much in possible words as in the general tone and in
numerous details of the cult that the really striking analogies occur. The
characteristic appellation of the Petro deities is Ge-Rouge, red eyes: the
Caribs are described (p. 37) as painting themselves with strange devices,
 Appendix B 28s
parucularly staining their eyes and eyebrows to give a ternfying appearance.
The Carib women were distinguished for wearing leg-bands fastened
just below the knee: the Petro deities ue a band or handkerchief in the
same place on the leg, as well as on the upper arm. The Carbs, it will be
recalled, were cannibalistic; cheir agrarian rites were extremely violent and
bloody. Their relatives, the Orinoco, put red-pepper in their cyes to
propitiate dangerous spirits (p. 268).
From the Mexicans we hear of the custom of sacrificing to the corn
with a homan sacrifice; the deity honored was known as Zipe Totec,
“our Lord the Flayed”. He stood for the renewal of vegetasion and was
represented as clad in a human skin stripped from the body of a sacrificed
captive. His chief festival was in spring, when the fresh verdure was
appearing, and in the songs there is reference to the changing of a snake's
skin. In Petro, the dresses worn by the women are specifically open in
front, over another garment, a representation suggesting the wearing of a
second skin. Moreover, the dances for the Petro deities are called Quitta
stche: quite, in Spanish, means “taken off, removed”; it is from the same
root as the French quitter, “to part with, to slip off, to take or pull off, to
renounce”. Bras Chéche and Pied Chéche, which are characterizanons
of Petro deities likewise give the French sec oc seche, “dry”, suggesting dry
bones, dry skin, and the dry sheaf: possibly a sacrificial reference.
At Perr rites the table on which offerings are placed is called a bile,
and in this connection Maximilien tells of a certain Jerome or Poteau
(Aztecan pou-sto, fifth of the cardinal points, i.e., che point of the center),
who, aided by a Negro, introduced some strange pracuces. These are
said to have come from Europe; however, the description cites small
stones sold to the Negroes under the name maman bila, which may well be
a French transcription of mepoia or maboya, the name of the great Canb
snake deity; or of mayombo, a stick which could magically beat any other
stick. As already pointed out, the word maboya breaks down into boya,
or boii, which in the Carib tongue denoted “snakes” or “priests”, and
ma, meaning “great”. The table called a bila resembles that in the houses
in which the Taino zemis were worshipped: a “handsome, round table,
made like a dish” (p. 22).
The principal rite of the Indians of Haiti was in honor of cher earth
goddess, who had several animal heads, and was attended by twin
animal spirits. In modern Haiti, the baka are man-cating animals; they
have the red cyes of the Petro deities. We do not know what the attendant
spirits of the earth goddess were called in Haiti, but in Yucatan the becab
286 Appendix B
were the four deities of the quarters, the earth-guardians, and the guardians
of the waters which were symbolized in rites by water-jars with animal
or human heads (pp. 137, 143-4 and 154). A magician in Haiti is known
as a bocor. The owl, which is the familiar representation of Marinette,
Brise, and other Petro deities is, again, a dominant figure of the Indian
myths, being, particularly among the Orinocos, a bird of ill-omen (pp.
139, 170, 265, 268 and 274).
But the great patron deity of magic in Voudoun is Simbi, who is said
to straddle the Rada and Petro sides. In the Petro context he is associated
with Congo Zandor, is represented as a snake, is related to Quitta, and
has an owl as familiar. As a kind of cross-roads deity, he is associated
with Carrefour (the Petro equivalent of Legba); under their joint
patronage talismans and soul-paquets are bound. Simbi is the patron of
rains and of drinking waters, and as such duplicates Damballah. Indeed,
it is only with difficulty that he can be co-ordinated with the Dahomean
deities without overlapping their functions. Moreover, he is not neces-
sarily malevolent, but rather magical. He has been traced, tentatively, to
the Samba tribe, deep in Africa; but if he ts actually of such provenience
he would be the only representative of that tribe in Haiti, and this would
hardly account for the importance of his position; for he ranks among the
highest divinities of Voudoun. Herskovits remarks briefly that Simbi is a
Congo deity; but it is not clear whether he means of Congo origin in
Africa, or of the Congo nation in the new world (p. 268). The most
logical possibility is, that Simbi is a new-world interpolation into the
African tradition, derived from the slave-refugees in the Haitian hills,
where the Indian zemé cult prevailed.
In sum: parallels enough exist, even on first viewing, to support the
hypothesis of a powerful Indian strain in the Petro side of Voudoun, and
many of the traits of Voudoun are more readily explained in these terms
than by reference to Africa.
 NOTES

(In these notes, works which are frequently cited are referred to by the author's name
only; the title of the work is contained in the bibliograpby. When Rig-ud is cited alone,
it refers to the work of Odette Mennesson Rigaud; Rigaud-Denis refers to their joent
work: ““Ceremonie
En |’Honneur de Mariette’. )

CHAPTER I

! The sense of this anonymous heritage is especially well rendered in a

ceremony described by Rigaud. In that instance the invocations ¢o the
dead included not only all the dead relatives of the woman (p. 15), but
also, at a special rite for the dead, the following phrase: “To those whom
I know and to those whom I don’t know, to all the dead who belong
to my family or who don’t belong to my family, to all I give food” (p. 53).
2 Simpson (I) has described death rites for persons of varying abilities
and it is clear thar the one for che houngan is the most elaborate. In
another connection, he says: “I am sure that dead persons do become
loas, and that in general those who attain this status are those who were
prominent and powerful houngans”; and again: “Perhaps che essennal
thing is that a serviteur for whatever reason or reasons, has made an
impression on his relatives or followers which is strong enough to cause
them to think that he will surely outrank the ordinary dead and take his
place among the important figures in the world which is known only
imperfectly co the living” (II, p. 47). Simpson also relates the “degrada
tion” rites, which precede burial, to the special talents or abiliues of the
person (I). (Mose other observers have concerned themselves primarily
with death rites relating to the soul of the person and to the loa guardian.)
Such special talents would subsequently characterize and determine the
nature of the loa into which the ancestor might eventually cvolve.
Courlander (p. 238) also observes that “Any ‘great’ man may become
one [a loa] if his descendants remember to make him one.”
3 Courlander (p. 27) has remarked that modern, or recent loa are
generalized in their powers, whereas the ancient loa are more specifically
defined in their functions, and that they seem “caricatures of special
abilities”. This observation would support the process here described.
The recent loa would still retain the diversity of human personality
whereas, in the case of the ancient loa, the “disullason” into archetype
would have taken place.
287
288 Notes
4 The ritual of summoning the loa who is lodged in the govi is per-
formed frequently, particularly by houngans and mambos who seek
guidance for their work. The quality of the voice which emerges from
the govi is truly impressive. Both Maximilien (p. 163) and Courlander
(p. 113) have remarked upon it, and the latter has cited a song in which
this ritual is mentioned.
5 Maximilien maintains that the act of placing a soul in a govi makes
it a loa (p. 175). However, the distinction between the mere souls of
the dead and the loa proper is that only the latter are able to possess a
person. The souls of the dead that were placed in the govis in the cere-
mony described in this chapter could not yet possess a person.
This statement is emphasized as a condition of becoming loa by both
Courlander (pp. 14-15 and 237) and Herskovits.
6 Courlander (pp. 14-15) and Herskovits have emphasized the idea
that only those who have been possessed by loa can become loa. As an
exclusive condition, this formula is virtually meaningless, since the loa
are automatically inherited by everyone and it is rare, among those who
practice Voudoun, to find people whose loa fail to manifest themselves,
unless they have been formally dismissed.
” Dessalines and other historical heroes of Haiti have been mentioned
in invocations, but these have been addressed as spirits of the dead and
there is no record of any of these historical figures possessing someone as
loa. Rigaud cites the case of a woman, Mariline, who was possessed by a
personal deity, a Captain Deba. Metraux (in his introductory notes to
Rigaud’s article, p. 5) says that this Captain Deba seems to have been
an early lover of Mariline, who left her and the country a long time ago.
Mariline, however, maintained that she did not know of such a person
and that she inherited this loa, Captain Deba, from her father.
8 As quoted by Rigaud, this song goes on to mention Damballah
Gienon (p. 25). Marcelin, however, quotes it with the phrase “Ayizan,
old, old”, instead of the Damballah reference, and precedes it by a
stanza “Grandmother Ayizan, Saluez Legba! This is the moment that
silver breaks rocks! We ask: how are you? Salute Legba!” Marcelin
translates “argent” (silver) as a reference to money, but this is most unusual
in a loa song, and, since it is immediately followed by the mirror reference,
it would seem at least as likely to be a reference to the silvering of a
mirror (p. 29).
® Marcelin, pp. 42, 128.
10 Rigaud, p. 18.
11 Herskovits also cites these movements in reverse (p. 183).
 Notes 289
18 Courlander (pp. 26-7) also says that the dead go to “zilet en bas de
Peau” (the island beneath the water); he cites a song that speaks of Grand
Bois as master of thar island (p. 137), and another speaking of a houngan
making ready to go there (p. 110). He also cites the belief that if any one
were to see these “beasts of the sea”—thar is, che marine or insect forms
—this would mean death (p. 27).
* These gestures have been frequently misinterpreted as being a
reference to the earth itself, the “Mother Earth” concept.
¢ Maximilien, p. 155 and illustration 20, following p. 42.
Courlander (p. 129) also finds the concepts of the center-post and
trees analogous in this connection.
16 Foe an illuminating discussion of the crucifixion as a coincidence of
opposites, see Campbell (p. 260).
17 Courlander, p. 41.
18 Herskovits, pp. 203-4.
19 Rigaud, p. 56. The only possible explanation for the agelessness of
the Marassa is that, being divine from the beginning (as distinguished
from loa, which are souls that have become divine after the death of the
person), they are not subject to the physical laws of the universe. More,
over, as twins they straddle the divide, and so remain half-human, half-
divine, whereas if they were permitted to age and die they would belong
exclusively to che world of the Invisibles and would become the same
as any loa, thereby losing their special position as twins. Age is a process
which would seem to occur to the physical being when, as in ordinary
life conditions, it is separated from the metaphysical self.
% Herskovits (p. 200) particularly notes the close relauonship between
the Marassa and the Dead, and describes the ritual food offering for the
Marassa which is given to children.
™ Actually, the Marassa are not considered, precisely, as loa, but as a
divine category apart. The phrase cited here is from a ritual described by
Rigaud (p. 17). Herskovits (p. 199) describes his efforts to determine
which is the most important, the Marassa, the Dead, or the Loa, and
receives answers that seem extremely contradictory. If, however, one
understands these three as constituting a cinity, that is, three aspects of
the same thing, the apparent contradiction berween the replies disappears,
and the fact that these different answers could be given testifies to the fact
that since the three are different aspects of the same thing, there cannot
be any definitive gradation in their importance. Several of the sentences
290 Notes
quoted as answers suffice to show the linkage between the three: “Twins
who have been dead a long time become loa”; “Those long dead become
loa”; “The Twins are stronger than the saints [loa]”; “The Twins are the
mother of saints [loa]”; “Everyone serves the Dead [therefore] the Dead
are strongest.” Herskovits also cites the fact that in West African belief
the Twins and the Dead were linked as both having “passed through
the womb of woman” (p. 200).
22 The belief that the twins share a common soul is also cited by
Herskovits (p. 204). The Haitian concept of Marassa is comparable to
that of the twin heroes of the Navahos. Here the twins are shown, under
certain circumstances, as a hero and his mirrored reflection in the water.
The magician, or what would be, in Haiti, the soul, is the one in the
reflection, this being analogous to the Haitian belief that the world of the
Invisibles is on the other side of the mirror. Campbell points out that,
characterologically, the twins are distinguished as extra- and introvert;
the doer of deeds and the worker of magic; the killer of enemies and the
child of the water (cf. Jeff King, Maud Oakes, Joseph Campbell,
Where the Two Came to Their Father, The Bollingen Series I, New York,
1943, Plate XI).
3 Lorimer Denis refers to two statuettes, in the possession of the
Bureau of Ethnology, as being Marassa, male and female. The Marassa
vever contains symbols that would seem to represent male and female
principles, and this characteristic is true of the vevers that represent loa
who probably were originally hermaphroditic, such as Legba, etc.
*4 Herskovits, p. 204.
25 Herskovits, pp. 89-91; Courlander, p. 104.
26 Maximilien, p. 87.
27 Rigaud, p. 17.
28Tn the vever reproduced by Maximilien (illustration 4, following
p- 42) the figure representing the united male-female Marassa is very
similar to the vever for Legba (illustration 1), and it is very probable that
Legba in Africa was not only the loa of fertility but also a hermaphrodite.
29 Tt is significant that this child, who is actually the first human, ts
considered “plus raide” (more powerful, hard, or stern) than the Twins
themselves, just as the houngan is, in a certain sense, more powerful than
the loa, since he can, to some extent, control them. This applies only
when referring to the demiurgic Twins, although the words dossu and
dossa are used for a child following ordinary twins. This is cited also by
 Notes 291
Herskovits (p. 202) from his region, and also by observers from other
regions.
* Courlander quotes such an extension by multiplication in a cere.
mony (p. 55). He also lists, in addition, Marassa Creole (as being
Haiuan in origin) and Marassa Guinée (of African origin). In another
connection (p. 38) he defines Marassa Creole as being of the same sex,
and Marassa Guinée as being of different sexes.
"1 According to Metraux the body, soul and spirit are represented by
shadows. The regular shadow is the “ombre cadavre”; under cenain
circumstances of light, there is a double shadow, and this is understood
to be the gros-bon-ange and the u-bon-ange.
#2 Ic is an acknowledged fact that “un-natural” or magic deaths do
occur, and that a state of trance, or zombieism, also exists. Walter B.
Cannon (American Antbropologist, Vol. 44, No. 2, April-June, 1942), in
an article entitled “Voodoo Death”, cites instances from many regions,
including lower Nigeria, of persons being “bewitched” into death. He
concludes that it is an actual death which is caused by shock and the
effect of fear upon the adrenalin system. Zombie-ism is apparently
recognized by the Criminal Code of Haiti (according to William Sea-
brook, p. 103, who quotes from Article 249 as follows): “Also shall be
qualified as attempted murder the employment which may be made
against any person of substances, which, without causing actual death,
produce a lethargic coma more or less prolonged. If, after the administering
of such substances, the person has been buried, the act shall be considered
murder no matter what result follows.”
3 Courlander says that a zombie is the “negative after image” which
has refused to be separated from the body after death (p. 18) and that the
soul is a zombie (p. 26). These statements would seem to imply that the
zombie is a spiritual being. This is not the usual understanding, for one
of the functions of a zombie is to work as slave laborer in keeping with
the belief that the zombie is a physical being without its own spintual
essence, and in the power of another psychic. Metraux, for exaunple,
says that a zombie is a person whose gros-bonvange has been stolen and
that the possibility of such a theft is one of the dangers involved in en-
trusting one’s soul, in a container, to someone else.
4 Metraux cites an amusing anecdote (pp. 85-6) illustranng the cruth-
fulness of the ti-bon-ange—sometimes called &i-Zange. He also refers to
the belief that it hovers over the corpse for nine days and then goes to
heaven, and describes the ceremony intended to restore strength to the
ti- Zange.
292 Notes
35 The fact that the soul and the loa are but different stages of the same
essence, that they are both lodged in pots, both called esprits etc., and
that their liberation from the corpse is almost simultaneously achieved has
created a confusion in scholarly intepretation.
Metraux has interpreted the ceremony as referring exclusively to the
loa, with the implication that the gros-bon-ange is self-liberating.
Herskovits does not cite such a ceremony in his chapter on the Dead, but
says that the loa must be sealed in a jar to prevent it from going under
water. Courlander (p. 237) says that the Mystére is put into a canari
which is broken nine days later to put the loa at liberty. Simpson speaks
of dessounin as applying to any special talent, which would be the
gros-bonvange, and tells both of the breaking of a canari at the cross’
roads, and, in the case of a houngan’s death, of the sealing of a loa into a
canari for “transmission”.
He specifically disagrees with Herskovits and Courlander about
removing the loa in order to prevent the soul from becoming a loa (why
would one seek to prevent this?) and believes that it is not the loa which
is removed, but the ability to become possessed by loa. (Simpson does
not, however, make the logical inference, namely, that the gros-bon-
ange represents this ability to become possessed by a loa, or, in other
words, is the divine potential of a person.)
My own interpretation is corroborated by Maximilien, who speaks
of the function of dessounin as the separation of the loa mait-téte from the
immortal soul or gros-bon-ange (p. 171). His description of the cere-
mony he witnessed is the most detailed available and includes an action
of the houngan over the navel of the corpse, which would seem to be the
moment of the liberation of the loa. (In this connection Campbell’s
discussion (p. 44) which relates the cross-roads, the navel, and the
Yoruba God of Death, Edshu, is especially interesting.) Maximilien
recounts that the gros-bon-ange is gathered into the pot-de-téte, the
deceased having been an initiate (for non-initiates, having no pot-de-
téte, one is made up for this purpose) and this pot is deposited at the
cross-roads so that the soul may find its way to the abysmal waters. It is
significant that a mangé Morts and sometimes a bruler-zin preceded this
liberation of the gros-bon-ange, as if to feed and warm it in provision
for its disagreeable period in the abysmal waters. The confusion in
reference to loa being placed in a govi, presumably to be “remitted” or
restrained (Herskovits), overlooks the fact that loa are inherited at birth
(making Simpson’s's “remission” unnecessary) and that a govi would hardly
suffice to restrain a loa, since that requires special and elaborate cere-
monies. My impression is that a govi does not confine a loa, at all, but
provides it with a throat, so that it can henceforth be directly invoked for
 Notes 293

consultations. What is remitted, therefore, is the voice of the loa. For both
the houngan (in Simpson's account) and the family (which Herskovits
describes) such a govi would be a valuable possession as a religious
accessory.
This is also cited by Metraux.
*7Maximilien (p. 9) says that the ancient Egypuan myth of the
separation of the waters of the depths from the waters of the surface was
conserved in the mythology of the Yorubas, who have conmmibuted much
to Voudoun. It would be impossible to determine absolutely whether
this is the historical source of the Haiuan belief. However, it is clear from
the way the Haitian talks about these waters that they are the same as those
which, in other mythologies, are termed the “abysmal waters”. While a
certain confusion with oceanic waters does exist, no Haitian would say
that the dead went to the bottom of the Adantic Ocean and when the
Haitian is pressed into localizing and locating these waters, he may give
any kind of answer chat involves water since, indeed, all waters are
related. The loa Simbi-en-deux-eaux, who is considered a particularly
powerful figure, and especially related to magical power,1s referred to as
straddling the two waters. These are explained as being the sweet (he
guardian
loa of rain) and the salt. And these are, by extension,
the waters
above and below the earth, as they are distinguished in Egypuan and
other mythologies. A figure with such a span would, logically, be very
powerful.
** Maximilien (pp. 175 ff) believes that this canopy is actually an
element derived from Egyptian rites of resurrection. Although the
historical link would be difficult to establish absolutely, the two symbols
may well represent the same principle. The idea is one that is common
to many mythologies.
%° Metraux cites a retirer den bas de [eeu ceremony which 1s, in many
details similar to the one here cited. Particularly, he records an incident
where a soul arrives but for whom no govi is available. Maximuben
(pp. 177 ff) also records such a ceremony in detail.

CHAPTER II

1 Herskovits, who seems to have encountered more Chnisuan influence

in Mirebalais than other writers working elsewhere, has the most extended
references to the prét-savanne and his functions, parucularly in his chapter
on Catholicism and Voudoun.
294 Notes
2 Leo Frobenius and Douglas C. Fox, African Genesis, New York,
1937, pp. 215 ff.
3 Courlander, p. 39 (12).
4 Denis, p. 24 (1).
> For a discussion of this High God idea by a number of Christian
missionaries, cf. Edwin W. Smith (ed.), African Ideas of God, A Sym-
posium, London, 1950.
§ Denis, p. 25.
7 All writers on Voudoun include lists of saints who have been so
identified with the loa. Herskovits particularly has an extended list
(pp. 279-80) of such identifications. Since the identifications are made
on a superficial basis they obviously differ from locale to locale, and for
the same reason, these differences are of only very minor importance.
8 They even say that the church bells ring for Legba, so that he will
open the way. This phrase is quoted by Herskovits (p. 288) in his
chapter on Voudoun and the Church (pp. 267-91). The sense of
Herskovits’ entire chapter is that Christianity has had a strong influence
on Voudoun, but it is difficult to understand how he expects us to
follow this conclusion when much of his data, like the phrase quoted
above, would seem to indicate the reverse, namely, the assimilation of
Christianity by Voudoun. Herskovits’ method is to question infor-
mants and to base himself upon their formulations. The Haitian peasant,
however, has been subject to four centuries of intensive propaganda to
the effect that he ought to be a Christian; he has been severely punished
for practicing Voudoun; and he has been especially impressed with the
fact that his practices are “stupid” or “savage”, and that he absolutely
must not let strangers know about Voudoun. All of this has created in
his mind almost a schism between the Christian formulations that he has
learned to recite when questioned by authorities or strangers, and his
actual beliefs and practices. Even when he has no intention to deceive,
his sense of pride, his determination to be “civilized” and “intelligent”,
lead him, when questioned, to give the answer which he imagines would
be respected as “proper” by the one who questions. Or he may, as I have
stated in my introduction, “translate” Voudoun concepts into Christian
terms without being aware of the discrepancies. The very vocabulary
that is used in many of the phrases that Herskovits quotes indicates
that most of his peasants were inclined to give him the “proper” answers,
not with any intention to deceive, but rather with the intention to
impress. And the most “proper” answers are those that they have heard in
 Notes 295
church from the only other white men with whom they have had much
contact, the Catholic prieses.
® Rigaud, pp. 14-15.
© Simpson cites a ritual for “dismissing” loa ritualistcally. They are
summoned, fed and sent away.
1! While the inheritance of loa is automatic (Maximilien, p. 165), 1
is usually accompanied by nituals of varying degrees of elaborauon.
(Herskovits, p. 94; Denis, Bulletin, March 1947.)
13 Denis, p. 1.
3 These are listed by Herskovits (pp. 18-22; 267-8) and Courlander
(p. 3), among others.
1 Herskovits, p. 140; Courlander, p. 6.
% Courlander, pp. 102, 40. Herskovits, pp. 263, 267-8 (16-17).
¥ Courlander, p. 29.
Campbell (pp. 81-5) discusses other mythologies in which
daemons, when placated, are good.
18 Maximilien, pp. 42 ff.
19 Maximilien, p. 134.
© Rigaud Denis.
"| Herskovits, pp. 59-61.
™ Both Herskovits (pp. 220 ff) and Maximilien (p. 149) make a
somewhat similar distincuon between religion and magic.
%3 This very common practice is also cited by Courlander (p. 22). In
this connection, the left hand serves Petro. That is, a vever drawn for
Pero will be drawn with the left hand. This is not to be confused with
the mirror reversal mentioned in the first chapter, which takes place
between the visible and invisible worlds.
% This distinction is elaborated by Courlander in his discussions of
Haitian dance and music.
© Courlander, p. 28.
® Courlander refers to Damballah as feathered, or plumed, uacing thus
to Dahomey, p. 33.
7 Maximilien (pp. 91-2) comments on the method of religion
absorbing various rituals but retaining its own integrity. He speaks of
“Indian, European and African” clements as having been fused together
into Voudoun. “The African contribution, in spite of the delicacy
296 Notes
necessary to dissociate it from that of the Island aborigines because of the
great similarity between the two cultures, seems so important that it may
be said that Voudoun . . is African.” He points out that although the
Dahomean and Yoruba rituals predominate, those of other tribes are also
included.
28 Rigaud cites another case where a single individual had “ramassé”
(gathered) all the loa of the family (p. 11).
29 The idea of psychic force is sometimes described in the word
“poin” (point) which would seem to be a reference to the point of
intersection at which the psychic energy from the world of the invisible
is transmitted to the visible, material world. To say that a certain loa
“marcher sur ‘poin’ Rada” is to indicate his source, or connection. To
speak of a chanson “poin” is to refer to a song that makes some very
direct and precise reference, the most explicit kind of contact between a
man of this world and a loa of the other world. Courlander (pp. 96-9)
has written an excellent exposition of this “poin’” concept.
30 At first glance it may seem erroneous to place the loa of agriculture
in a minor position but this is explained and elaborated in the chapter
on the pantheon.

CHAPTER III

1 Most writers on Haiti do, indeed, refer to Voudoun as an animistic

religion, but, having done so, do not subsequently elaborate upon it
from this point of view. Denis, however, has conscientiously applied the
concept to the pantheon (Denis I, p. 21.) and has indeed eliminated
major loa in so doing, although he refers to these in other connections.
A similar misinterpretation exists in reference to the many ritualistic
gestures addressed toward the ground. These, as has been pointed out
(p. 36), are addressed not to the spirit of the earth, in the Mother Earth
sense, but to the waters of the abyss below the earth, which is the source
and residence of all loa.
It is possible that other primitive religions have been similarly mis.
understood, as animistic in the accepted sense, and that the divinities
removed from the pantheons by such Procrustean operations have been
consequently lost by mythological record.
For the discussion of trees as avenues for the loa, see p. 36.
2 Levy-Bruhl’s discussion of “primitive mentality” is characteristic of
the approach which ignores the necessary pragmatism of primiuve
cultures and fails to concede that the primitive is capable of distinguishing
 Notes 297
berween principle and phenomena, possibly because that distincuon is
couched in terms different from those of European culrure. He writes:
“Their mental acuvity was a mysuc one . . . implies belief in forces and
influences and acuons which, though impercepuble to sense, are never-
theless real . . . the reality is itself mystical...” (p. 7) and elsewhere, “The
primiuve makes no distinction between this world and the other, berween
what is actually present to sense, and what is beyond. He actually dwells
with invisible spirits and intangible forces. To him it is these that are
real and actual” (p. 32). Consrast this Hindu statement: “Though He
is hidden in all things, that Soul shines noc forth; yet He is seen by
subde seers with superior, subdle intellect” (Katha Upanishad, 3 : 12).
? Levy-Bruhl contrasts the European notion of a world which is
“ordered by cause and effect” with that of the primiave, in whose world
“all objects and all entities are involved in a system of mysuc parucipa
tons and exclusions; it is these which consurute its cohesion and 1s
order” (p. 35), and “What appears accidental to us Europeans is, in
‘reality’, always the manifestation of a mysuc power which makes icself
felt in this way by the individual
ot by the social group” (p. 43). But to
the primitive these “mystic powers” (which are analogous to invisible
principles) ere causes, and, in excluding the possibility of accident, the
primitive is much more consistent in a concept of a world completely
“ordered by cause and effect”, than the European. Levy-Bruhl, in fact,
would seem to define as “mystic” any causation which he understands,
believes or knows to be not the true cause. Logically,
then, he would be
obliged to term “mystic” those scientifically established causes which
subsequent investigation reveals to have been incorrectly or inadequately
determined
Malinowski expresses the primitive idea of pervasive causauon—the
essential interrelation of all phenomena—as follows: “. . . it bnngs down
a vague but great apprehension to the compass of a mivial, domesuc
reality... . Elements of human error, of guilt, and of muschance assume
great proportions. Elements of fate, or destiny and of the inevitable arc,
on the other hand, brought down to the dimension of human mustakes
(pp. 76-7). This is an excellent statement of the manner in which the
concept of a completely integrated and “mouvated™ universe tends to
“level” the significance of all experience, so chat the inumate detail ranks
with the large phenomenon as being equally an expression of cosmic
forces. But Malinowski subsequently would seem to interpret magic as a
response to “chance and accident”, which is absent “wherever the pursuit
is certain, reliable and well under the conarol of rational methods and
technological processes” (p. 81). It would seem necessary, however, to
point out that, to the Haitian primitive, at least, “lack of control” resulss
298 Notes
from insufficient connaissance—knowledge—of the divine processes
involved and of how they might be controlled, rather than from the
arbitrary or accidental nature of the universe.
4In certain passages Malinowski sees the function of religion as
primarily a moral adjustment. “Myth fulfills, in primitive culture, an
indispensable function: it expresses, enhances, and codifies belief; it safe-
guards and enforces morality; it vouches for the efficiency of ritual and
contains practical rules for the guidance of man... .” (p. 19). As such,
Malinowski considers it “an indispensable ingredient of all culture”
(p. 92). But in another connection he seems to assert that it is a com-
pensation for inadequate scientific analysis and technological control of
the physical universe. “We do not find magic wherever the pursuit is
certain, reliable, and well under the control of rational methods and
technological processes.. . . The integral cultural function of magic...
consists in the bridging overer of gaps and inadequacies in highly important
activities not yet completely mastered by man. . . . Magic is thus akin to
science in that it always has a definite aim intimately associated with
human instincts, needs and pursuits... .” (pp. 81-2). The implication
would seem to be that scientific, technological progress would somehow
automatically and simultaneously comprehend a moral authority and
directive for its benevolent and proper administration and that it would
thus eliminate the need for myth or religion as a separate moral system
once the technological inadequacies, for which it compensated, were
eliminated. This nineteenth-century confidence in the positive moral
nature of material progress can almost be formulated, in retrospect, as a
belief that science and technology are infused or animated by a benevolent
spirit. Such confidence, which the pragmatic, realistic primitive only
guardedly extends to the cosmic forces and attends with a complex
system of corrective vigilance and persuasion, has unfortunately proven
to be completely illusory in reference to man. It is even possible that, in
encouraging the devaluation of moral systems as distinctive and valid
constructs, this unreserved confidence in science and technology con-
tributed to the contemporary situation in which the inadequacy of moral
values and authority is the more alarming inasmuch as that every
technological progress has created forces for which moral control is more
imperatively necessary than ever before.
5 Tt has been said that there are seven of each divinity, and this may
refer to the original major nations, but the number of aspects of each
divinity is now much greater. (Herskovits, pp. 149 and 310; Courlander,
pp. 26-47; and Maximilien, pp. tor and 105, where invocations are
cited, list the prevalent nations.) Some family lines would seem to be
 Notes 299
indicated in recurrent names such as Dantor, while others may be
symbolized by the crab, the owl, the torch (La Flambeau), which may
y totems.
* While there remains no explicit reference to Legba as the sun
divinity, his functions and character as a whole, as well as vestigial
references in songs and rituals, make such an identification logical. He
belonged to the Dahomean Sky Pantheon (Herskovits, p. 20), while in
certain districts of Haiu a special bonfire is lit for him, and when he
possesses a person he is known to walk in fire (Herskovits, pp. 160, 174).
The ritual “re-heating” of the sun with bonfires and the identification of
the sun and fire are practically universal in mythology, and a simular
connection is indicated here. Another common mythological idenufica-
ton is that of the sun, as the supreme cosmic force, with the king, as
supreme among humans; which is almost always attended by a taboo,
prohibiang the king from being touched by the sun (Frazer, p. 600)
and necessitating that the king be covered by canopies or wear a hat out
of doors. There exists several references to Legba as king (Marcelin,
p. 21, has noted one such example). Moreover, Legba is known to wear
always a large hat and this characteristic, in the light of a phrase which
occurs in a frequendy heard song—“You who wore a hat in Guinee,
you who shaded the loa from the sun” (quoted by Marcelin, p. 18, and
Courlander, pp. 75-6)—is undoubtedly a reference to the Dahomean
version of such a taboo. In invocations to Legba (Maximulien, illustraaon
1 following p. 42) there occur words such as “claironde” (round bight
ness?) and “kataroulo” (four wheels of the sun-chariot?), which, in
view of all the other indications, would seem to be oblique references to
Legba as sun.
7 Ie is very common in mythologies for the first or mayor divinity of
principle to be androgynous. Campbell (pp. 152-4) cites instances
and discusses them. In Haiu such a concept is related to che Marassa
(supra, p. 40) and to Ghede, who is sometimes dressed in androgynous
ion. Courlander (p. 10) describes a ceremony in which the drummer
was dressed partially in male and partially in female dress, but does not
identify the loa involved. The symbol for the Marassa, when presented
as united, and that of Legba are someumes drawn in almost idenucal
fashion. (Maximilien, illustrations 1 and 4, following p. 42). Dens
(I, p. 26) quotes a phrase from a prayer: “O Bon Dieu, Maman moin ,
which extends this androgynous concept even to Chrisuan divinity.
® These phrases are from prayers cited by Herskovits (p. 89). References
to the opening of gates or roads are formulations specifically related to
Legba.
 300 Notes
® Ice is agreed by almost all writers that Legba was god of fertility in
Africa. Courlander (p. 35) goes into some detail in this connection. It
is also possible that the ritualist libation for Legba, which precedes all
others, is related to seminal waters.
10 Maximilien (p. 34) and Marcelin (p. 16) also refer to his relation to
the center-post.
Ut These songs, are cited by Herskovits (p. 173) and Rigaud (p. 25),
respectively. In this latter song, “learn the secrets” is the translation given
the phrase “Sondé miroir” by Rigaud and Metraux, as rendering the true
sense of the expression.
12 Cited by Marcelin (p. 18). Such omniscience is usually attributed
to the god of the underworld, Ghede, and, indeed, as will be pointed out,
Legba and Ghede are very close together.
18 Herskovits, p. 30.
14 One of Legba’s titles is Grand Chemin, and Courlander (pp. 36 and
82) also interprets this as the road to the other world.
15 Rigaud (p. 17) and Herskovits (p. 174), respectively.
16 Herskovits (p. 30) makes Legba a divinity of “accident”, on the
grounds that he offers a “way out” from worldly destiny. Insofar as Legba
is the point of contact with the other world, he is “a way out”, but the
divine intervention which would be the reward for ritual supplication
or the bringing out of daemons by magical invocation, would hardly
constitute accident in the eyes of the Haitian, who ascribes everything to
the logical action of the Mystéres. Herskovits also points out that Fa was
a divining cult in Dahomey, the divination there being achieved through
the patterns of sixteen kernels; but elsewhere murrors, crystals and other
means have been used and these latter may be related to the mirror
references in songs to Legba and other loa.
1? Herskovits, p. 174.
18 Marcelin, p. 17.
18 Marcelin, p. 17.
20 Marcelin, p. 16.
21 Such a possession is described by Rigaud (pp. 26-7).
22 A pipe and tobacco are among the inevitable accoutrements of
Legba.
23 In a song cited by Marcelin (p. 16), this statement is made: “Attibon
Legba has come to the gate, How old he is! Papa Legba has come to the
crossroads... .”
 Notes 301
™ Legba is linked to Grand Bois both by Courlander (p. 44) and in
an invocation cited by Maximilien (opposite illustrason 1, following
Pp. 42).
* Legba Avradra is described as a wandering vagabond (which is a
characterization typical of Ghede) by Herskovits (p. 315) and the same
idea is implied in a song cited by Marcelin (p. 18).
* Courlander, pp. 36 and 99.
*" Courlander (p. 37) places “Kalfu” under Rada as an aspect of
Legba; Maximilien (p. 106) relates Carrefour and Legba, but elsewhere
(p. 42, ill. 19) indicates that Carrefour is invoked by the same formula
as thar used for Simbi. Simpson (II) lises Carrefour as of Haitian (new-
world or Petro) origin.
® Though such a distinction is not always made, it is present in vevers,
at ames, and apparent in those reproduced by Maximilien (Illuscrasons
1 and 19 following p. 42). Another interesting differenaauon is observed
in the sacrifice of cocks. When killed for Legba, it is customary to use a
white cock, and twist its neck. For Carrefour (in at least one hounfor)
a black cock is set on fire at the crossroads (recalling the regeneraung
bonfire for Legba) at midnight, and let run flaming along the road.
® Courlander (p. 22) cites the destruction of a man’s vinility and a
woman's fecundity as among the evils which these daemons can perform.
© Herskovits (pp. 225-37) gives a detailed description of the nual
fashioning of such a garde, which, in fact, is generally considered
essential
"1 Although there are minor variations, this seems to be the classic
attitude for Carrefour, and is similarly described by Maximilien (p. 134).
8 Other aspects of Legba have been cited as follows: Legba-Ibo
(Denis I); Legba-Petro (Courlander, p. 44); Legba-Congo (Rigaud,
p. 22); and Sousou Panman (Simpson II), who would seem to be a
malevolent Legba, being also characterized as old, covered with sores,
wearing odd, mixed clothing, and having no fixed abode.
* According to Herskovits (p. 30), Legba was associated with the
soul, as well as, the destiny of man. This indicates that he may have been
Lord of the Underworld in Africa.
* Rigaud (p. 49). Ghede is sometimes written “Gede” oc “Guédé”.
Nimbo is also written “Nibo”.
* Rigaud (p. 49). It is also noteworthy that magic under Ghede is
undertaken during the period of the new moon (Maximulien, p. 185),
which is the rising night sun.
302 Notes
*6 Maximilien (pp. 119-25) believes Ghede to be derived from Egyp-
tian Osiris, and it is significant that one of his names is Khensou, an
Egypuan deity. A statue of this Egyptian deity (Khonsw) is at the Cleve-
land Museum of Art. (F 19 2. 14.)
3? This is also cited by Maximilien, p. 174.
38 Cited by Herskovits, pp. 164~5.
39 Both Rigaud (p. 50) and Herskovits (pp. 194-5) cite this song and
comment upon its eerie quality.
40 Rigaud (p. 48) and others cite this characteristic. It is this indis-
cretion on the part of Ghede which leads to Herskovits’ observation that
Ghede is “tolerated rather than favored” (p. 318). He further remarks
that the other loa leave at once, should Ghede arrive, and, characterizing
Ghede as himselfa zombie, attributes this repulsion on the part of both
loa and people to a desire not to mingle with the Dead. It is difficult,
however, to grasp the logic of this interpretation since, on the one hand,
the loa are all spirits of dead ancestors themselves, while the living
serviteur is constantly occupied with establishing contact with spirits of
the dead. They would not be repelled by the dead, per se, but by the falsely
dead, malevolent zombies. However, while Herskovits himself cites songs
and incidents in which Ghede does not appear as a malevolent figure, his
summary portrait of Ghede, in the Appendix, indicates that he does
not consider him a full-fledged loa. However, no other writers have
considered him so minor a figure. As a matter of fact, the loa will leave
whenever they wish to protest against ceremonial disorder per se, not
only when Ghede may be the cause of such disorder. If Ghede does not
appear for competitive or disorderly purposes, if he is quiet and well-
behaved (admuttedly a rare discretion on his part), his presence is not at
all resented.
41 Maximilien (p. 175) interprets the tail coat as a symbol evolved from
the animal skin, which, in Osirian rites, was the winding sheet of the
king.
42 These are his universally recognized identifications, cited by Cour-
lander (pp. 15-17) and others. Simpson (II) says he is armed with a
knife for beating people, and this would obviously seem to be a phallic
symbol.
43 Courlander (pp. 16-17) has written a moving description of Ghede
in this kind, paternal aspect, and has used the apt phrase, “Death is
Positive”, in reference to Ghede. This has been my experience, and that
of other observers, although Herskovits makes no mention of a benevolent
Ghede.
 “ Courlander, p. 88.
“ Maximilien (p. 185) has a detailed account of the making of such
paquets.

“ Ghede is referred to as a heavenly judge by Courlander (p. 87) and

his just refusal to dig a grave is cited by Herskovits (p. 247). In Ghede’s
altar chamber there is sometimes a scale for weighing the soul, and
Maximilien makes reference to this. These scales are probably an inter-
polation, as symbol, from medieval European magic. Dorsainville, in
speaking of Mawu-Lisa says that while Mawu (this divinity 1s from the
Fons) does not partake of life, he does judge after death. This weighing
of good and evil proceeds by conceiving of a man as a stick, good on
one end and bad on the other, and the stick is balanced at death for
judgement. The scales, therefore, may be of African origin, at least in
principle, and the straight sack which Ghede often carries as a cane but
never leans upon (in the manner of Legba), may be at once a phallic
symbol and a means of weighing souls. On the other hand, the enure
interpretation of the judgement of souls may stem from the Chnsuan
concepts of the observers since, in fact, any soul may be reclaimed from
the abysmal waters without undergoing such judgement, and, moreover,
the presumably malevolent, or bad, Petro loa were reclaimed under the
sign of Ghede and were not made to “suffer for their sins”.
“7 Courlander (p. 87) also cites Ghede as a protector of children and
cites a song in which his generally protective réle is apparent in that he
is asked “to guard the loa’s children”. The maringuin drum which 1s
particularly related to Ghede, is also known as a children’s toy. It is also
possible that, as guardian of the history of the race, the continuity of
its loa-lines, he is particularly interested in seeing that a child does nox
die before it has developed a soul which can be immonal. It is significant
that in Haiti a child’s death is attended by very lite ritual of ritual
mourning.
8 It would appear that Ghede has more aspects than any other loa.
Among those listed by Courlander are Gedevi, Gede Mazaca (a possible
relation to the agricultural loa Azacca), Ghede Zeclai and Ghede
L’Oraille (as possible references to the Sky Pantheon), Baron La Croix
and Azagon La Croix (these are mainly related to the cemetery and to
magic rather than to eroticism) and Baron Piquant (listed as a Petro,
Quitta Chéche loa). Denis lists some dozen Ghedes, among them
Brav, Omsou (or probably Khensou), L’Oraille, etc. Maximilien lists
Baron La Croix and a Ghede Zariguin (Spider) as Petro aspects.
Rigaud identifies Ghede (which she spells Guédé) L'Oraille as a Peero
loa (pp. 15-16). Simpson (IT) describes a loa Limba which 1s nude,
304 Notes
lascivious and a glutton, and this would seem to be a malevolent Ghede.
Simpson also lists him as being of new-world origin. Herskovits, on the
other hand, says that Gede onsu is a Dahomean totem (p. 267) and says
elsewhere (p. 318): “There are a number of deities whose names are
compounded with the name of Gede—Gedenibo, Gedeonsu, Gedehun
—and hence the question whether or not this is a generic term or a
specific designation is pertinent.” For a discussion of Ghede’s origins
and history, see the Appendix on Indian influences preceding these
notes.

49 The “bassin” is a pool, constructed specifically for such sacred use,

and ranging from a few feet square, inside the hounfor, to swimming-
pool size. Marcelin (p. $8) cites several songs referring to the bassin, as
does Courlander.
60 Herskovits (p. 171) cites a case of a Damballah who speaks clearly
and a good deal. (The song cited in connection with this possession,
however, refers to Shango, usually understood as an Ogoun family loa.)
It is conceivable that there exists an articulate aspect of Damballah, but
among the many Damballahs I have seen, only a few were capable even
of rare, partially intelligible phrases, and other observers concur with my
impression. Marcelin (p. 55) cites a Damballah song which specifically
states: “The serpent cannot speak . . .” and this seems a highly reasonable
assertion.
51 This is the definition given to this Dahomean word (also written
Dan) in the Dictionary of Folklore. Marcelin (p. 55) refers to fecundity
as one of Damballah’s functions and makes the point, as others do, that
a devout serviteur, man or woman, will remain chaste on the day
dedicated to him. Rigaud (p. 37) makes brief reference to a legendary
“affair” with Erzulie. Nevertheless, fecundity in reference to Damballah,
has an almost abstract, primal connotation, rather than one of a sexual
nature. Chastity, as a form of minor ordeal comparable to fasting, is
universally observed, on occasion, for all the major deities and does not
constitute a specifically sexual reference.
52 At the International Folklore Congress in Chicago in 1893 a
Mary Alicia Owen reported on “Voodooism” as if it were fairly prevalent
in that area and cited the following “Voodoo” myth of origin: That
“Old Sun” (the first divinity) “squatted down on the bank of a great
river and began to make all sorts of birds . . . and tore a fragment from
his body and flung it into the weeds . . . where it became the Great
Rattlesnake.” Although the tone and form of her report do not conform
to modern scholastic form, there is no doubt but that the stories she
 Notes 305
quotes are accurately reported, and the incident cited above gives a logical
connection to Legba and Damballah.
* In the Dictionary of Folklore, Aido Hwedo is defined as a male
snake in Dahomey. In Haia, however, she is definitely a female, and is
considered the wife of Damballah. They are almos: always represented
together. Marcelin cites informants to the effect that a rainbow 1s under-
stood as a snake, and, in another connection, quotes a story to the effect
that when the rainbow touches the sea it is evidence of Ayida’s “affair”
with Agwé. This single reference to her promiscuity is not in keeping
with her character and her respectable and respected position. A further
elaboration of her character, in relation to that of Erzulie, Goddess of
Love, is given on pp. 115-16, supra. Dorsainville (p. 22) refers to her
as “Soleil de la terre.”
& For an excellent discussion of the World Egg concept in mythology,
see Campbell (p. 276).
6 The drinking of the egg without the use of the hands is unanimously
recorded. Rigaud (p. 37) gives a description in which Damballah’s
head is carefully hidden by a white cloth while he is eaung, a pracuce
which I have also observed. Frazer (pp. 198 and 199) cites what 1s
undoubtedly the origin of this practice, a taboo based on the fear chat a
man’s soul might leave or an evil spirit might enter, through the mouth.
The Ewe people of the Slave Coast eat and drink in complete privacy.
In Loango, it was a capital offense to see the king eat or drink, and the
same is true of the king of Dahomey: “when he drinks in public . . . on
extraordinary occasions, he hides himself behind a curtain, ot handker-
chiefs are held up around his head. . . .” Such a tracing of loa sacred
practices with ancient royal taboos (the hat of Legba was another) further
illuminates the relationship of loa to royal ancestors.
% The Wedos would seem to be a royal family. Courlander, for
example, cites an Agao Wedo (p. 30) who works in a garden and a
Gran Wedo (p. 35) who is his mother.
87 Sobo and Badé (as Badessy is sometimes called) are both children of
Mawu-Lisa and members of what has been termed the Sky Pantheon
of Dahomey. In songs they are related to Damballah (Rigaud, p. 11),
Agwé (Courlander, p. 32), Gran Erzulie (Marcelin, p. 97) and
Agassou (Maximilien, p. 103). Maximilien also cites the invocauon to
Sobo as identical with that to Damballah, and in the same invocauon
Agarou Tonnerre is given the family name Wedo (p. 42) and elsewhere
(p. $7) is described as an animal “without blood” which climbs trees,
i.e. a snake.
306 Notes
58 The theme of gathering up the past occurs frequently in songs.
Rigaud (p. 37) has cited one in which Damballah is requested to
“gather the family”.
5® Cited by Courlander (p. 19). Maximilien (illustration 18, following
p. 42) which is a crossroads vever, similar to that for Legba, but con-
tains no serpent.
6° This is quoted by Maximilien (p. 155) and indicates the order of
difference between Rada and Petro, as well as the emotional color of
Petro.
6! According to Herskovits (p. 160-2) this is his major function.
Herskovits lists him as a Congo deity (p. 267) and elsewhere includes
him in the Baka Squad (p. 241).
This again is evidence of his probably Indian origin, which 1s dis-
cussed in the Appendix on Indian influence.
82 These relationships are evident in general, and, for specific example,
in songs cited by Herskovits (p. 164).
63 There is considerable disagreement about the overlapping and
placement of these names and figures. Maximilien (p. 156), Marcelin
(p. 64), Rigaud-Denis (I, p. 14) and Courlander make somewhat con-
Alicting statements. The very existence of such confusion would indicate,
it seems to me, that all of these are essentially of the same family and
perhaps even the same figure.
64 Cited in Rigaud-Denis (I, p. 14), again indicating that Petro is not
a simple moral opposite to Rada.
65 A ewé seems to be related to Sobo and Badé (Courlander, p. 31 and
in litanies cited by Maximilien, p. 102); Sobo is also related to Agassou
(Maximilien, p. 103). Maximilien traces Agwé to an Egyptian king
(p. 103). Marcelin (p. 107) speaks of his aspects as admiral and minister
of the Navy, and in that connection relates him to Dessalines, Haitian
revolutionary hero. He also cites a legend (p. 104) of slaves being able to
escape on the back of a fish, presumably Agwé. Denis is the only
one who mentions a Petro version of Agwé—Agwé Ge-Rouge—but this
seems very illogical since the Petro emphasis on both fire and agriculture
would be extremely antagonistic to Agwé’s nature. Rigaud cites a phrase
“Toni Agwé” (p. 38), which might possibly be a reference to Indian
myths (see A ppendix B).
66 Campbell (pp. 87-8) discusses the thunderbolt as symbol of psychic
or magic power.
 Notes 307
* The African mythological origins of Ogoun are given by Cour-
lander (p. 37-8) and Maximilien (p. 13), among others. Herskovits
(p. 267) gives his derivation also, and relates him to the African Shango.
© The phrase “cord cuts cord”, a cryptic suggestion of magical mans
pulacions, occurs frequently in songs about him. (Courlander, p. 78.)
* Courlander (pp. 40-1), Herskovits (pp. 280 and 317) and Rigaud
(pp. 42-8) all menuon the various aspects of Ogoun and characterize
them. Rigaud’s detailed account of an Ogoun possession includes many
keen observations and much information, and is altogether an excep-
donally good presentation of Ogoun’s character.
Courlander (p. 12) describes a similar possession, with its “period”
accessories.
1 This parucular loa was observed in only one hounfor and may have
been a personal loa of che mambo, who, significantly enough, was known
to enjoy special privileges—in reference to ceremonial permuts, etc.—as
a result of her political “connections”.
78 This is true at least in the vicinity of Port-au-Prince, which 1s the
political center of Haiti. Such membership seems to be associated some-
what with the sense of priestcraft. It is also in the adiuon of the secret
societies which were a prevalent African insutuuon and which were
undoubtedly maintained, at least as a cradition, in the new world.
On one occasion the vever of Ogoun was accompanied by another
vever which consisted of a large hand and other symbols and this was
explained as the Masonic symbol of the Hand of God.
73 Courlander (pp. 45 and 78) cites these Petro Ogouns, and other
writers have recorded others, but they all seem to play a relauvely minor
role in the Petro hierarchy.
74 The linking of Mounanchou to the Ogoun family was first sug-
gested in the characteristic spraying of rum, which is peculiar to the
Ogoun family. Furthermore, Courlander (p. 45) lists a Nanchou from
the Leogone district, which he identifies as a Petro loa, a warrior deity.
Such a linkage is supported by the entire character and funcuon of
Mounanchou, who could be logically related to none of the other mayor
divinities.
78 One of the terms used in the invocation cited by Maxamuben
(illustration 11, following p. 42).
76 Herskovits (p. 236) cites a song which contains this phrase, and
gives other descriptions of Bossu on pp. 160-2, 164, 170, 197 and 319.
308 Notes
This story is cited by Courlander (p. 31) as a legend collected by
Herskovits.
’8 La Sirene, who is understood as an aspect of Erzulie, is specifically
related to Agwé, and is pictured as a mermaid. According to Marcelin
(pp. 19-22) she is said to steal children and take them to the bottom
either of the sea or of a stream, but also is known to bring them up. In
Maximilien (p. 101) she is related to Gran Danguy, which would seem
to establish her relationship to Ayida, Damballah’s female counterpart,
the rainbow or snake which goes into the water. Most significantly, how
ever, La Siréne is related to La Balaine (whale), a figure which is rarely
elaborated. Marcelin feels that it is a male deity, but Campbell’s inter-
pretation of the whale as a searwomb symbol (pp. 90-4, 207-8)
seems to explain La Balaine much more satisfactorily. Courlander also
lists an “Ezilie Balianne” (p. 47).
® Erzulie is usually identified with the Mater Dolorosa. There are
many aspects of Erzulie, however, and these are idenufied with various
saints. La Siréne is identified with Notre Dame de Grace (Herskovits,
p- 279); Gran Erzulie, understood sometimes as a separate aspect of
Erzulie and sometimes as an older stage of Erzulie, is identified with St.
Anne (Marcelin, p. 93); however, Herskovits (p. 279) identifies with her
the Mater Dolorosa, and identifies St. Anne with Adams Wedo (p. 280).
Marcelin also lists an Erzulie known as La Vierge Caridad (p. 86),
presumably created after that saint.
80 Frzulie is known for her insistence upon “fraicheur”, coolness. Part
of her regular equipment is a fan, and she is always being fanned by
her devotees and admirers. Maximilien mentions this during his descrip-
tion of an Erzulie possession (pp. 196 ff).
81 This toilette is her initial key action and is described by many
writers, including Marcelin (pp. 81-3) and Maximilien (pp. 196 ff).
82 Frzulie’s beauty is mentioned in many songs, some of which have
been cited by Marcelin (pp. 83-4) and Courlander (p. 118).
83 This characteristic fashion of greeting women (also cited by Marce-
lin, p. 84) is only one of her ways of indicating her preference for men;
and men, rather than women, attend to her various wants.
4 It is significant that she is not always in favor of the marriage of her
woman devotees, possibly because this is frequently accompanied by a
“let down” in these various graces of coquetry.
85 This phrase occurs in a song which is very popular, and is cited by
Courlander (p. 118).
 Notes 309
**In his description of an Erzulie possession, Maximilien (p. 199)
also makes a point of this gift giving.
Marcelin (p. 77) mentions the pierced heart and Maximilien has
attempted to trace the Erzulie vever to Christian sources in this con
nection.
All these details of Erzulie’s amorous exploits are elaborated in
Marcelin’s account; Rigaud (p. 37) cites her “affair” with Damballah.
* The competition berween Ogoun and Agwé is described by Denis
(I, p. 35) and others.
* Marcelin (pp. 77-80) cites such marriage; Maximilien (pp. 210-11)
reproduces such a marriage contract, and an account of such a ceremony
is given in Appendix A to this book, pp. 263-71, supre.
For a discussion of the general mythological and metaphysical signi-
ficance of such marriages see Campbell (pp. 350-1, 109-20, 309-10).
Many serviteurs who do nox go as far as this, remain chaste on the days
of the week sacred to her.
*! Marcelin (pp. 77, 94) quotes a number of Erzulie’s songs which deal
with her “hard luck, betrayals”, etc.
* Herskovits (p. 316) has listed Erzulie Ge-Rouge as the wife of
Simbi, and has named several other Perro Erzulies (pp. 165-6).
Courlander lists a “man-eating” Erzulie Mapionne (p. 42). This ss
characteristic of the increasing identification of Marinette with Erzulie in
her sterner or Petro aspects. “Man-eating” and “man-grinding™ are
especially associated with the propitiatory ceremonies of the Indian
maize, or corn mother. This is the Marinette figure. Erzulie Ge Rouge,
as I have seen her, and I believe that this was the aspect which did denve
from the African Erzulie, had a definite rage which was turned in upon
itself, to the point where the fingernails drew blood. It was not the
extraverted, triumphant, aggressive violence of the consuming corn
mother. The corn mother is not unhappy; the tears belong to the Afncan
Erzulie—Erzulie Freda Dahomey, as her full name 1s.
* According to one of Marcelin’s informants (p. 96), Gran Erzube
(the older Erzulie) repented for the sins of her youth, and having been
forgiven, would similarly intercede for the prosututes as well. Such an
interpretation would imply that the younger Erzulie is regarded as sinful,
which is inconceivable, inasmuch as she is idenufied with che Virgin
Mary. All interpretations hingeing on “sin” (as in the case of the waghing
of souls) would seem to be Christian interpolations and are rarely con-
of fact,
as a matter
sistent with the rest of the character of the loa. Erzulie,
is characterized by purity and the demand for chastity among her devotees
310 Notes
on the days sacred to her. This purity motif has been mentioned by all
wiiters, including Maximilien (pp. 196 ff), Courlander (p. 33) and
even by Marcelin himself (p. 80).
*4 One of the explanations advanced to justify the weeping derives
from the Mater Dolorosa association. It is said that Erzulie had borne
only one child, by Ogoun—a girl named Ursule, who went out in a
boat and drowned, and that Erzulie weeps for this lost child. (This
explanation is cited by Marcelin, p. 95.) Such an explanation is highly
unreasonable inasmuch as the child of two major divinities would not
be mortal.
8 Agassou, whom Dorsainville (p. 22) defines as the guardian of
customs and traditions and who is listed as a sacred ancestor and founder
of a royal Dahomean sib by Herskovits (pp. 267 and 197), ranks very
close to Loco and Ayizan in importance and shares many of their
functions and characteristics.
86 Marcelin (p. 42). Courlander (p. 37) also says that Loco is of the
Sky Pantheon.
9? Herskovits, p. 196.
8 These titles appear in various songs, some of which are quoted by
Marcelin (pp. 41-9).
89 Frazer (pp. 9-10) makes a point of the fact that the functions of
priest and king were often combined in Africa, and in Central America,
among the Fans (pp. 85-6), and he cites the prevalence of taboos for such
divine kings (p. 169), particularly the restriction noted above (pp.
198-9).
100 Marcelin, p. 29.
101 This occurs both in Rigaud (p. 32) and in Herskovits (p. 316),
but in general Ayizan is thought of as a woman.
102 Nanan-bouclou, who is now a loa of herbs and medicines, is pre-
sumably an ancient androgynous Dahomean deity, who even preceded
Mawu-Lisa (Courlander, p. 39) but neither this loa nor Silibo-Gweto,
another of the sacred ancestors (Herskovits, p. 267), plays any prominent
réle today. Both of these ancient loa are related both to Ayizan and
Agassou in songs quoted by Courlander (pp. 41 and 78) and by
Marcelin (pp. 30-1 and 130-1).
103 This is cited by Courlander, p. 37.
#4 Both Loco and Agassou are related to a mirror in songs (Marcelin,
Pp. 42, 128), and it is noteworthy that Agassou is understood to be
guardian of springs, which are also the pathways of the loa. On the other
 Notes 311
hand, he is said to be Agweé’s son (Courlander, p. 31) of his Leutenant,
and my own experience has been that, when he manifesss himself, he
appears to be a sailor.
106 There is a song about this, quoted by Courlander (p. 89) and
Marcelin (p. 45) which says “Ring the bell [asson] there, Papa, I am
Ghede;I am coming all in black to meet Loco. . . .” Agassou is said to
have brought up Sobo from the abysmal waters (Maximilien, p. 103 and
Herskovits, p. 197).
108 Courlander, p. 31.
107 The song “Watch the house for me” is quoted by Marcelin (p. 42);
Ayizan’s palm leaf also purifies the menstruating or pregnant woman,
who would not otherwise be able to participate in mtuals during that
period.
108 Several writers mention this fact, including Marcelin (pp. 43-4).
Agassou is also known for his cures.
10° This power of protection is menuoned in several songs, and quoted
by Marcelin (p. 34).
110 Marcelin (pp. 47 ff) tells of an occasion when the people were
having difficulties with a loa, and Loco interceded on their behalf.

CHAPTER IV

1 Courlander (pp. 82 and 110) quotes songs referring to a houngan

being selected by loa.
2 The position of the hounsi bossale is elaborated by Courlander (p. 9),
Herskovits (pp. 146 and 188) and Maximilien (p. 73). A hounsi bossale
may have a laver téte ceremony which is understood to give her enough
control over the loa to prevent them from arriving at inopportune
times of mistreating their “horse”.
3 Simpson II) lists the four stages of elevation as follows: houngans,
badjicans (assistants to the houngan), serviteurs (those who become
possessed) and fideles (believers who do not become possessed).
Maximilien adds to the hierarchy a “confidant”, as a person inumately
close to the houngan or mambo.
4 One of Miss Owen’s statements is of particular significance in this
connection. She says that “the inner nature of Voodooism . . . is telepathy,
. . . Clairvoyance—in a word it is WILL. Its motto is: Control yourself
312 Notes
perfectly and you can control the rest of the world—organic and inv
organic... Alexander doesn’t need magic . . . Old Grandfather power
should make it possible for him to look a man dead.” She then lists the
four degrees and ordeals designed to impart such control: Ist stage—
instruction in the use of poisons, remedies, significance of dreams, power;
2nd stage—fasting, withdrawal, ordeals, Dance of the Snake, of Fire and
the Moon. The following stages are not clearly differentiated but she
indicates that after conquering oneself, one is ready to conquer others, and
that such initiates meet in a “Circle”—“a society for the dissemination of
knowledge and the trial of strength. Knowledge is principally bio-
graphical.” She concludes: “Hypnotism is Voodoo’s pastime as well as
his power.” Dorsainville (p. 33) lists “la prise des yeux”, explained as
clairvoyance, as the fourth and highest step of elevation. This would
seem to be a reference to divinatory powers such as derive from a capacity
of the eyes, rather than from interpreting fallen kernels, etc. Dorsainville
is the only one to refer to such a stage as a ritual step. Herskovits, however,
refers to divination by houngans who gaze into crystal balls, etc. (p. 152).
5 Frazer notes that it is common to many cultures that these three
functions should be vested simultaneously in a single individual. It is
obvious that the entire structure of the hounfor is an extension of family
organization. Herskovits has made a point of this and has included many
relevant observations (pp. 125, 145, 213 and 268). Maximilien (p. 70)
speaks of the houngan and the mambo in the role of kings: this would be
compatible with the political function, which, in the new world, was most
apparent in their revolutionary réle, and which now 1s apparent in their
political réle.
6 Maximilien also cites the houngan’s distinction between “natural”
and “supernatural” illness, as well as his calling the loa in the govi for
consultation as to treatment. Courlander refers to the houngan as a
“pharmacist” (p. 23). It is relevant to point out, in connection with
herbal knowledge, that arsenic and digitalis (foxglove) were first used
medicinally in the practice of “witchcraft”.
7 Herskovits (p. 134) also speaks of this practice of avoiding an undue
display of wealth lest it inspire envy, and cites (p. 95) the slight scarring
of a child to prevent the evil eye of envy.
8 Herskovits (p. 202) also cites the phrase “kembi’ as referring to a
loa-given illness and notes that the Marassa are said to cause constipation,
the loa, dysentery, and the Dead, headaches.
® The healing role of the houngan is especially stressed by Herskovits,
who differentiates between a bocor—a practitioner of magic—and a
 Notes 313
houngan or mambo, by the fact that “the loa, of their own accord are
believed to have given ‘connaissance’—the knowledge of healing and
helping—to these Larter”. He goes on to list the loa, who, in particular,
give such healing knowledge (pp. 151 ff). In saying that the “houngan
can cure only diseases ‘sent by man’—that is, those caused by magic—
and by the loa, since against illness sent by God he can do nothing”,
Herskovits is making a distinction similar to that berween “natural”
and “supernatural” illness, the “natural” one being caused by God. He
also gives a detailed account of the houngan’s réle in aiding during a
pregnancy and a delivery (pp. 88 ff).
10] am deeply indebted to an article by Dr. Max Jacobson (“Func-
tional Disorders”, Tomorrow Magezine, March, 1951) for a professional
medical analysis of the psychosomatic mechanism which aided me in
formalizing and clarifying my own analysis of the houngan’s methods.
I had begun with the conviction that a poor man is necessarily pragmatic,
for he cannot afford to be otherwise, and that therefore the houngan’s
treatments must be effective. I had been especially interested in what
seemed to be psychosomatic disorders among the peasants and had traced
st to the basic insecurity of their lives; and I had also understood how the
houngan’s methods met this problem of morale. My analysis was, how-
ever, necessarily chat of an amateur, medically speaking. The ideas which
Dr. Jacobson advances are especially illuminating in this connecuon,
precisely because, basing himself on experiences far removed from the
Haitian scene, his conclusions are so relevant that his analysis consurutes
an objective confirmation of the analysis which I had advanced without
professional authority. Dr. Jacobson not only discards the idea thar
psychosomatic projection is “bad” but goes so far as to point out that the
typical psychosomatic explosion acts as an automatic safety shield which
provides the organism with a “breathing” spell, a relief from unremitung
psychic pressures, and so drains off the accumulated tensions before they
overcome it entirely. He goes on to suggest that such explosions not only
incerrupt, or temporarily “black out”, descructive pressures, but even
release constructive forces. He indicates that “migraine attacks are
followed by a deep sense of relaxation and recovery” and that “forces of
renewal . . . are released by the recovery”. In connection with epilepuc
attacks, he says that “certain toxic materials are eliminated . . . and that
this is an indication that nature may be trying to protect the personality
from further damage”. He also points out that permitting the explosion
to run its course, rather than secking qreatment to terminate it im
mediately, may be the wise way of getting full benefir out of nature's
therapeutic measures. Dr. Jacobson’s essay would almost seem to have
been based upon careful analysis of Haitian problems and the houngan’s
314 Notes
methods. Migraine, which the peasant calls simply a headache, is
extremely common among them; epilepsy is also fairly frequent; but
most significant, the houngan does not try to rush his treatment through.
Most frequently the therapeutic measures take place over a certain period
of time, and therefore the curative properties of the “explosion” are fully
exploited. The cure is consequently the more sound and lasting, and
this is more important than the proud exhibit of spectacular speed.
11 Courlander (p. 8) also refers to the “mediator” function of the
houngan.
12 Herskovits (pp. 145-6) also sites the “tying” and burying of the loa,
and other means of restraining them (p. 167).
13 Simpson (II) also cites a similar occasion, when a ceremony was
performed inside a house while “bal” was being played outside by a
small jazz orchestra.
14 This situation, which might easily lead to destructive competition,
is modified by the houngans themselves who are too proud to compete
openly for clientele (they habitually avoid seeming over-anxious in any
respect) and observe a code of at least ostensible collaboration. Almost
inevitably they will invite one or more houngans or mambos to assist
them, in positions of honour and prestige, at their own ceremonies, and
the prestige of the host houngan is raised or lowered according to the
number and importance of the houngans and mambos who “assist” at
his ceremony. A certain distinct hierarchy does, actually, exist in such
cases and is manifest in the salutations described on pp. 206-7, supra.
15 Herskovits (p. 223) also refers to the fact that his prestige 1s dependent
upon his successes.
16 Courlander (p. 7) says: “The priest does not control Voudoun ...
he is part of it.”
17 These two terms, cited by Maximilien (pp. 93 and 107), are not in
current colloquial usage. Mr. Milo Rigaud, who has read this portion of
the manuscript, feels that my translations, or transpositions, into English
are inexact; but since there are no precise equivalents for these Voudoun
elements in the Christian religion, I have been forced to refer them to the
most nearly analogous objects.
18 This “nom vaillant” is discussed by Maximilien (p. 18).
19 Maximilien (p. 18) believes this bassin to be of Indian origin.
20 The pierre-loa (discussed in Chapter I) are often pieces of stone
work and flints dating from the aboriginal Indian culture, and are
actually closer to the Indian zemi (as discussed in Appendix B) than
 Notes 315
the chunder stones of African tradition. The stones are believed to con-
tain the spiritual essence of the divinity. Courlander (pp. 27-8) discusses
these stones and relates anecdotes of how they are found, their sale from
person to person, etc.
*! Both Maximilien (pp. 18 ff) and Courlander (p. 18) have given
full and excellent descripuons of hounfor, peristyle and related objects.
Herskovits (p. 155) has described a family chapel, which, in general,
is related to the hounfor.
™% The amount of power transferred in the cransference of the object
varies in a rather complicated fashion. For instance, one may buy pierre-
loa, and, in so doing, one is buying the actual power as well. Ifa pot-de-
téte is stolen, deliberately, chat is dangerous, for the spiritual essence is
understood to travel with it. On the other hand, if one finds an object and
is innocent of its value, one may not be able to put it to use; however, it
may, under certain conditions, be active against the finder.

CHAPTER V

1 Maximilien, who concurs in the general belief that the words are
African in origin, quotes (p. 105) M. Le Herisse, who believes thar they
may even be Oriental in origin. Thelitanies and prayers which Maximilien
has rendered (pp. 101-3), word for word, would certainly seem to
contain Spanish and Indian words as well as African.
2 Maximilien (p. 106) has quoted the words attending this salutauion
in the four directions, as follows: east, “A Table”; west, “Dabord”;
north, “Olande”; south, “Adonai”. Marcelin (p. 44) also quotes words
of address in this connection. The jug which is used for such libauons
may be very plain, of clay or china, or it may have been painted and
dedicated to a specific deity. Such objects, which are in constant use and
may be broken during ceremonies, are not treated with great reverence.
On the whole, it is felt that the use of the object is sacred, rather than the
object itself.
3 Maximilien (p. 97) also describes such libations, beginning with a
circle of water around the poteau-mitan, which he specifies as a salutation
for Legba. Rigaud (p. 23) has also referred to these libauons as a means
of leading the loa in on water.
Maximilien (p. 98) speaks of this as a magic circle which protects
the center-post from evil spirits and magicians, butit also serves as an
integrating, unifying element for the vevers which radiate in all direcuons.
316 Notes

5 Maximilien (pp. 41-3) believes the vevers to be derived from the

Indians and has an extended discussion of their significance. He notes
also the presence in them of medieval Christian elements.
Joseph Campbell has pointed out that the vever, in fact, creates a
ground altar and that the fire on an altar is in India understood to repre-
sent the mouth of the god. This may be the significance of the candle
which is required to burn during the entire drawing of the vever and is
planted at the foot of the center-post (or wherever the vevers are drawn),
to burn there throughout the ceremony.
° Rigaud (p. 20) has described a ceremony including most of these
elements. She has pointed out that the permission of the mait-hounfor
must be asked for any ceremony addressed to another loa. Maximilien
(p. 97) describes a ceremony where the la-place and the Alags run around
the center-post instead of engaging in the mock competition here described
with the houngan.
7 Two houngans may also salute each other by shaking their assons at
each other in a strange, cryptic choreography of movements. Maximilien
has cited such a salute (p. 97), as well as other salutes and gradations.
8 Herskovits (pp. 157-60) also describes a ceremonie caille and an action
de grace.
® Maximilien (pp. 98-100) quotes these prayers at length. He states
that “Djo” is an African word signifying “protect”, and that although it
is addressed tothe saints, itis in Creoleand langage. The Litanies des Mysteres
Djor which follow are the same as the Litanies des Saints, except that they
include Legba. Rigaud (pp. 22-3) describes a ceremony in full, giving
the order of invocation.
10 Although this is a very effective moment of the ceremony, I have
not found it described in other accounts.
11 The desctiption which follows is drawn largely from Arada or
Rada rites; other rituals—the Petro, Ibo, Congo, etc.—may be different
in specific terms, although the general principles would be approximately
the same. Maximilien (p. 36) includes a listing of ceremonials.
It should be pointed out that the dating of ceremonies may be arrived
at in any one of a number of ways. Certain ceremonies, such as the
feast of the Dead (in the last days of October) or the mangé Marassa
(at harvest or Christmas time) are set by tradition. The general feasting
of the loa may be changed every year or every two years, the precise date
being determined by convenience and by the need to avoid the rainy
season. When an individual feasts his loa, the date may depend upon
his ability to accumulate all of the offerings; or it may be forced upon him
 Notes 317

desire to put an end to the misfortunes which result from his

of the loa, or the loa may himself specify a date. Ceremonies
ee
involving magic gardes take place during the new moon, as do cere
monies referring to the cutting of wood for drums. In other words, the
occurrence of ceremonies other than those calendrically prescribed is
completely circumstantial and depends upon both the. need and the
resourcesof the person.
"* Rigaud’s account of a ceremony includes many observations on the
varying practices and beliefs attending the feeding of the loa. She paru-
cularly mentions the fact that food consumed by a person while
by a loa does not diminish the hunger of the person himself. Herskovits
(p. 79) also refers to the belief that “Tis the essence of the food which is
consumed by the loa.
13 Rigaud has perhaps the most elaborate account of the ntual pre-
paration of the food for the loa.
4 Herskovits (pp. 79-81) refers to the scattering of the firs corn on the
fields, and also to the ceremony-yem.
% Maximilien (pp. 131-6) has given a detailed descripuon of the
mangé yem ceremony.
16 Legba’s chicken is white, or sometimes grey; Loco’s is yellow,
Damballah, Agwé and Erzulie require white, Ogoun requires red;
Ghede’s animal must be black, etc.
17 This act also conveys the sense of putting power into, as well as
taking evil out of the person.
18 There seems to be a certain disagreement as to whether “ventailler™
refers to the act of passing the chickens over the persons, or to that of
swinging them in the air.
19 If the loa being feasted has meanwhile possessed one of the persons,
he may himself perform the sacrifice.
® Petro loa often bite off the head of the chicken. Maximilien and
Rigaud, in their descriptions of ceremonies, include detailed accounts of
the various methods of sacmifice.
1 Rigaud (p. 35) also mentions such an anointing.
3 Courlander (p. 54), Maximilien (p. 94) and Herskovits (pp. 162-3)
have included descriptions of and observations upon animal sacrifice.
%3 The baptism of the loa is fully discussed in various contexts by
Herskovits, particularly in the secon, pages 143 ff.
318 Notes

24 The laver téte ceremony is described by Courlander (p. 9) and

Herskovits (p. 144).
25 Maximilien (p. 73) describes this ceremony for a hounsi bossale,
including the taking of a pledge. Courlander (p. 14) speaks of a bruler-
zin for a bossale, which included the breathing of fire.
26 These ceremonial beads consist of one double strand, joined at
every seventh bead (understood as the female strand), and one single
strand (the male strand) and are worn, at certain ceremonies, crossed over
the shoulders and chest. Maximilien, who has the most extended dis-
cussion of these beads, refers to them as being worn in the “maniére
A fricaine” (p. 97). However, that manner of wearing them resembles the
Brahminical Thread, as discussed by Campbell (p. 129). The motif of
a double strand for the female principle and a single strand for the male
principle is also carried out in the decorative stitching found on peasant
denim blouses in Haiti. The combining of the two elements is obviously
a statement of integrated cosmic totality achieved at the moment of
initiation.
27 Maximilien (pp. 85-6) speaks of the surrender of the “moi per-
sonelle” at the moment when the soul is placed in the pot-de-téte, which
is akin to the interpretation I have offered here, i.e. that it tokens the fact
the individual has become part of the spiritual collective.
28 This concept of the name as containing the essence of the person is
repeatedly noted by Frazer, who notes many name taboos; and the ritual
concern with the “signing of name” occurs in reference to Legba
(Maximilien, p. 16). Ogoun (Rigaud, p. 42) is mentioned in litanies
(Maximilien, p. 100) and in reference to secrecy (Herskovits, p. 95).
For a discussion of the general mythological significance of baptism, see
Campbell (p. 251).
29 Maximilien (pp. 75-91) has perhaps the most detailed and elaborate
account of the rituals of the hounsi canzo initiation.
30 Courlander (p. 9) says that “kanzo” means “‘to tie fire”. In daily life
when a person is able to handle hot things easily, he is often said to
be “canzo”.
31 Maximilien has a very detailed description of bruler-zin. Cour-
lander (pp. 10-15) also describes a bruler-zin ceremony, citing many of
the details mentioned in my account. He notes, however, that there is no
bruler-zin in the north (p. 48). He cites it as a Rada rite, which is the
general understanding (p. 75), but also cites a Quitta song (usually
understood as part of the Petro complex) in which there is mention of
the boiling zin (p. 145).
 Notes 319
3 Maximilien (p. 93) speaks of the “reception” of the houns: canzo as
being che most important manifestation of the cule, and describes i in
considerable detail.
Campbell has pointed out that, inasmuch as the initiauion represents
the accomplishment of knowledge and conrrol over the loa, « consuny
mates the integration of the archetypes of the unconscious with the con
sciousness and corresponds to what Jung calls integration, in the sense
thar the powers of the psyche which are out of the control of the un
integrated person are under the control of the integrated one. (See Carl G.
Jung, The Integration of the Personality, Farrar and Rinehart, Inc., New
York, 1939.)

CHAPTER VI

' This “break” was typical of the Rada and Congo drummung in the
Port-au-Prince area but was not heard in Jeremie and is probably
not a
universal practice.
2 The drummer may sometimes be possessed by the loa which is ba
invoked or by the loa Hounroe. which is as a los of the drums; but such
possessions occur very rarely.
3 In addition to Courlander’s research on drums, the work by Denis
and Paul, and that of Romains (dealing specifically with the assator)
includes much detailed information upon the great variety in kinds of
drums, shapes, sizes, etc.
“The making of drums is accompanied by a number of ritualisuc
activities.
The three Rada drums are all hollowed out of solid ace trunks
and oak is the favoured wood; bur all wood must be cut on the nung
moon, for otherwise it would become worm infested. After being
seasoned, the trunks are dug out by hand, the entire procedure being
opened with a small ceremony and accompanied, at intervals, by vanous
rites. These drums are covered with cowhide and are bearen with sucks
of various sizes and shapes, except for the maman, which is beaten with
one hand and one stick. Almost every hounfor has a set of two Petro
drums, which are covered with goatskin and beaten by hand. In a Large
hounfor there may be Congo, Ibo, Martinique and other drums as well.
The drums are usually painted in the color of the loa to whom they are
consecrated, and the name is often inscribed upon them. They are some-
times profusely decorated, but this decoration is of abstract rather than of
representational nature. In addition to the works on drums which have
already been mentioned, there is Herskovits’ descripuon of drums
(p. 182) and an account ofa drum bapusm (pp. 273-6).
320 Notes

CHAPTER VII

* There are a good many misconceptions about possession. The

popular supposition relates it to sexual orgies; the clinical supposition is
that it is a form of hysteria which liberates inhibitions and is a form of
neurotic explosion. The essential fact about possession which stands in
contradiction to such concepts is that it does not free the identity of the
individual, but, on the contrary, replaces it with a highly formalized,
disciplined identity, that of the loa. Herskovits has made some of the best
statements in this reference which are available, and inasmuch as my
own statements might possibly be construed as a justification of my own
experience of possession, I find it preferable to quote from him in this
connection.
“, . . 1¢ is not strange that the untrained observer tends to assess what he
sees in almost any terms but those of the underlying discipline that defines
all activity in the worship of the gods. A release of psychic tension 1s
undoubtedly afforded those who become possessed . .. nevertheless it must
be emphasized . . . that this form of worship of the loa is neither un-
restrained hysteria nor drunken orgiastic satisfaction of the sex drive. The
behavior of the participants . . . often seems uncouth, vigorous, violent
and even dangerous, when it is merely the expression of a different
tradition. And as for the orgiastic aspects of these rites, Haitians have
ample opportunity to satisfy their sexual impulses elsewhere without
making this a basic and constant element in the worship of their gods. ...”
(pp. 177 ft.)
. One must reject an hypothesis which attempts to explain the
vodoun cult of Haiti in terms of the neuroses, even when, as in the
admirable exposition of Dr. Dorsainvil, the approach neglects neither
accepted genetic theory in stressing the inheritance of neurotic tendencies
in voduist family lines, nor the important historical forces which have
been operative. For in terms of the patterns of Haitian religion, possession
is not abnormal, but normal: it is set in its cultural mold as are all other
phases of conventional living. . . . Hence to consider all possession as
something which falls within the range of psychopathology is to approach
it handicapped by a fundamental misconception.” (pp. 147 ff.)
“Once more it may be emphasized that vodoun is neither the practice
of black magic nor the unorganized pathological hysteria it is so often
represented to be. The gods are known to their worshippers and the
duties owed them are equally well understood. The reward for the per-
formance of these duties is good health, good harvests, and the goodwill
of fellow men; the punishment for neglect is corresponding ill-fortune.
On the basis of this belief is erected the ceremonial of worship.” (p. 153.)
 Notes 321
* Ac ames the theory has been suggested that possession 1s a form of
hypnousm and is used by the priest to retain conerol in the sense that the
god would be manifest only at his direction. Nothing could be further
from the cruth in the Haitian context. The function of the priest, if any,
is to control the loa and to protect the serviteur from being ravaged by
them. Moreover, the loa may appear in many contexts outude the
houngan’s province. Possessions in the context of family worship are, if
anything, more frequent than in the hounfor. Possessions may even occur
under ritualistically informal circumstances, although this is infrequent.
The loa may come to give personal advice to the family, of to a person,
Of may possess a person in sleep, when the loa is experienced as a dream.
Such an occasion is cited in Rigaud-Denis (II).
? Among people living in close, intimate familiarity with one another
it is inconceivable that a man should worship his neighbor. The dis
tinction between the horse and the rider is absolute and complete and
without any exception. This means that a person cannot, as himself,
benefit from che respect shown the loa which mounted him.
« The possessed person is always looked after very carefully; the women’s
earrings and money are removed so that they will not be lose; similarly,
men’s pockets are emptied; and efforts are made not to permut the loa to
soil the dress. This vigilance is also cited by Herskovits (p. 170).
6 There are many elements in possession which inspire comparison
with hypnotism. There is anticipation, tension, and, in the case of
possessions occurring during ceremonies and dances, there is the enare
weight of atmosphere and rhythmic pressure. Undoubtedly, some of the
movements are psychologically designed to induce mance states, by
effecting the spinal column, the rate of breathing, etc. The effects of
possession are also frequently similar to those induced by hypnousm: an
ability to climb impossible heights, or perform other such phyucal feats,
an imperviousness to pain, certain rigidities, etc. But there are other
fundamental differences, and among them is the fact chat while hypo
is dependent upon relaxation and agreement, possession takes in
spite of the most active resistance engendered by terror. Moreover, the
entire experience of possession is in the opposite direction from that of
hypnosis. Hypnosis could be described as going inward and downward,
whereas possession is accompanied by a sense of an explouon upward
and ourward. One might say that hypnosis is the ulimate in self-neganon,
whereas possession is the ultimate in selfrealization to the point of self
transcendence. In hypnosis one accepts the substiruion of another human
identity in place of one’s own; in possession the sense is of being over-
whelmed by a transcendent force.
322 Notes
® Tt is accepted procedure to be warned by such auras and to use every
possible method of resisting possession, for any one of a number of
reasons. Lack of control is considered indicative of psychic weakness.
It has already been pointed out that a houngan or mambo who has
specific ritual duties to perform will use all his force to avoid the possession
which would make him unable to fulfill his functions.
7 Possessions are sometimes understood to be contagious by contact.
They may also be brought about if a loa spins the person into a reverse
pirouette.
8 It is extremely rare that a person from outside the Haitian culture is
“mounted” by a loa, and therefore any additional data which I can pro-
vide may be of interest. The first question which may arise in the reader’s
mind is whether this was a “regular, authentic” possession. The account
of the period immediately preceding the “installation” of the loa in the
head (and that of the return which follows) is as detailed and exact a
description as I have been able to give of the inner experience. (The
outer appearance of a possession has been described throughout this book
and in virtually all books about Haiti.) The period during which the
loa was “installed” is a complete blank in my memory. It is not customary
to discuss a possession with the person who was mounted, and this is in
keeping with the absolute distinction between the individual himself
and the loa, for it serves to prevent any identification between the two or
any proprietary attitude which might, for instance, be expressed as “my
possession by such and such a loa”. A group of serviteurs may even
discuss the actions of a loa in great detail without thinking to make a
single reference as to whose head that loa had entered. However, from the
fact that these conventions were observed in my presence (the references
were explicitly to Erzulie and not to myself), from such details as were
recounted in my presence, and from the reports of persons who had not
been present, had heard of the event and had explicitly questioned those
who had been present as to the “authenticity” of the loa’s manifestation
—from all this I infer that it was accepted and understood as an authentic
possession by the loa Erzulie and that, in general, it conformed to the
pattern of activities which would be expected of her.
In this connection it is important to note the following. The hounfor
where this occurred was devoted predominantly to the service of Ogoun,
the mait-caille, and Azacca, the mait-téte of houngan Isnard. These loa,
along with Ghede, Agassou and several others were the most frequent
visitors. Erzulie came rarely to that district altogether, and I had only
briefly witnessed her on one occasion. Although I knew her character
and personality in general, I was not at all very familiar with the details
of her attitudes and actions at this time, and it was only towards the end
 Notes 323
of my stay in Haiu that I had made sufficient observations to be able to
give the descripuon in Chapter III.
The occasion which I have described is not the only ume that Erzulse
mounted my head. She was understood as my maittéte, since, not
infrequently, she threatened to mount my head and actually installed
herself seven or eight times. One of her arrivals was paruculasly in
opportune. Towards the end of my stay in Haiti I had ordered a set of
drums and arranged to have them baptized and “put to sleep” overnighe
with a special ceremony. I was very anxious to make a wire recording of
this relatively infrequent ceremony which I had never seen and which
I would not have another opportunity to witness before my departure.
I began by making the technical arrangements for recording and, since
the drum ceremony would take place after the regular songs of salutasion
to the loa (which I had already recorded frequently and had no interes:
in duplicating), I was free to participate in the early part of the ceremony.
It was during this period that Erzulie mounted my head. When |
regained consciousness, about four hours had passed, and I was in
formed that I was very lucky since Erzulie herself had performed the
complete drum ceremony. Inasmuch as these were my own drums, |
was justified in asking whether the ceremony was properly executed by
her, and the houngan assured me thar this was so.
Although Erzulie was my miaitséte, the loa Loco occasionally
threatened my head and installed himself once, briefly; and Azacca also
threatened my head a number of times. On one occasion this interfered
seriously with my efforts to photograph the bull sacrifice and it was then
that houngan Isnard recommended a laver téte ceremony to strengthen
my control over the loa so that they would not impede my acuvines. (1
did not, however, have this ceremony, nor did I ever go through any of
the stages of initiation.) Ic is interesting that alchough I am more con,
cerned with Ghede than with any other loa (because of his impressive
metaphysical scope) and although he carly pronounced himself my
guardian and often came to my house in the head of a visitor or one of
my domestics (but never in his boisterous ot obscene aspect), he was not
one of the loa who ever threatened to mount my head.
There remains, finally, the question which has been posed, and would,
I presume, be posed again. Since the loa mounted my head, is this to
say that I believe in Voudoun and in Erzulie? In the comext of Voudoun,
such a question did not occur to me. I would say that, as a metaphywcal
and ritualistic structure Voudoun is a fact, and does exist, and that, as
such, it incorporates values with which I am in personal agreement,
displays an organizational, psychic and practical skill which I admure,
and accomplishes results of which I approve. | would say further, thas
I believe that the principles which Ghede and other loa represent are
324 Notes
real and true, in the sense that it is true, for instance, that nature follows a
life-death-life cycle; and the possessions which I have witnessed have
seemed to me to be exemplary and absolute personifications of these
principles. It was this kind of agreement with, and admiration for the
principles and practices of Voudoun which was and is my conscious
attitude towards it. Otherwise I simply participated in it to the extent
that an average serviteur might, and with the average proportion of
pleasure, boredom, and discomfort, according to the circumstances. I
observed the appropriate conventions and formalities of the rituals which
I attended, sang the songs as I became familiar with them, and danced
the dances. In effect, and regardless of what I might think or believe,I
served the loa and, in so doing, I learned (as I have said in the chapter
on the rites) that the effect of the ritual service is upon the doer.
 GLOSSARY OF CREOLE TERMS
REFERRING TO VOUDOUN

A
ACTION DE GRACE
Catholic ritual and litanies preceding a Voudoun ceremony.
ADORATION
The song which attends the offering of money at ceremonies. The coins
are usually placed on a plate which rests on the sacrificed animal and this
moncy may be either buried for the loa, or used for the purchase of some
sacred paraphernalia or paid to the officiant for his services.
ANGE
Angel; often used as synonym for a guardian loa; also in phrases s-bon
ange and gros-bon-ange.
ASSATOR
A very large, ricual drum. There exists a special cult of the assator.
ASSON, ACON
The sacred rattle of houngans and mambos. It consists
of a calabash
which has a handle-growth, and it is either filled with seeds of snake
vertebrae, or is covered with a loose web of beads and vertebrae. It is
usually used in conjunction with a small bell, and for ceremonial pur-
poses only. It should be carefully distinguished from the cha-cha, a
seedfilled calabash whose function is percussive accompaniment to
dances.

BAGUETTE
A drum stick.

BAKA
An evil spirit in the form of an animal; a daemon. Not of the same class
as a loa.
BANDA
A dance variously assigned to Martinique and African ongins. It is a
suggestive dance, usually beaten at the request of a loa, often Ghede, who
feels like doing a gay dance.
335
326 Glossary
BAPTEME
Baptism; in Voudoun all sacred objects, areas, etc., are consecrated by
baptism.
BARQUE D’AGWE
A. specially constructed raft, upon which the offerings to Agwé are
placed, and which is then set on the sea.
BARRIERE, BAYE
An entrance way; term used frequently to designate loa to the cross-roads.
BASILIQUE
Basilica; the basil leaves are believed to ward off evil spirits. They are
also steeped in water used for ritual cleansings.
BASSIN
A. basin for water or a pool; the bassin of Damballah is a pool con-
secrated to the use of this loa when he arrives.
BATON-LEGBA
The gnarled crutch of the loa Legba.
BATTERIE MACONNIQUE
A special beat, produced by clapping hands and beating drums, which,
in ceremonies, probably signifies a rapping on the door of the loa world.
BOCOR, BOKOR
A practitioner of magic, not necessarily an initiate of Voudoun, and
therefore to be sharply distinguished from the houngan or priest.
BOIS
A single tree, as in “pied bois” (foot of the tree); also a wood, forest.
Colloquially, it is sometimes used as a phallic metaphor.
BOSSALE
Wild, untamed, uninitiated.
BOUCAN
In Voudoun, it refers to the ritual bonfires for Legba which are lit
immediately preceding the New Year in some regions, and relate to the
concept of re-lighting, or re-firing the sun. In Cassell’s French-English
Dictionary it is defined as “A place used by the American Indians to
smoke-dry their meat.”
BRULER-ZIN
A ceremony involving the boiling of sacred cooking vessels.
BULA
The smallest of the set of three Rada drums.
 Glossery 327

Cc
CAILLE
Hut ot house; caille Mystéres is the house consecrated
to the loa.
CALBASSE
A gourd. From the Carib “calabaza”.
CAMBE, KEMBE
To be seized or caught. In Voudoun it refers to pains of illness which
an angered loa may cause a person.
CANARI
A jar of red clay, used for holding water; also for lodging the spirits and
the loa.
CANZO (KANZO)
Fire ordeal, an important step in initiation. One who has passed through
it is called canzo, or hounsi canzo.
CARREFOUR
Crossroads; also the name of the Petro loa of the crossroads.
CASSAVAS
Unleavened, flat, round breads made of coarsely ground maize, a
favorite food of the loa Ghede.
CEREMONY-CAILLE
A fairly elaborate and complete feasting of the loa to encourage thar
favor to the caill- oc “temple” of the hougan.
CHA-CHA
A calbasse rattle used for percussive purposes at dances.
CHARGE
Magical energy or power enabling one to accomplish unusual feats.
CHAUFFER
To warm; to burn rum or zins to warm, enliven and encourage the
spirits of the dead or the loa.
CHEVAL, CH'WL
Horse; a person, as a horse, is mounted by a loa, as a nder. Thus is the
metaphor for possession.
CHIRER AYIZAN
A ceremony of protection and purification, under the patronage of
Ayizan, which involves the shredding of palm leaves.
 328 Glossary
CLAIRIN
Raw rum; favorite drink of Ghede.
COLLIER
Necklace; the special ritual necklace worn by initiates.
COMMERE, COMPERE
Godmother, godfather.
CONGO
A nanchon of African origin; the Congo rites, dances and loa are today
almost assimilated by Petro.
CONNAISSANCE
Ritual knowledge; refers to herbal cures and control of supernatural forces
achieved by those who are advanced in religious training.
COUCHER
To put to sleep; a ceremony in which yams, drums, neophytes, etc. are
ritually laid to sleep overnight, as a rite of purification and strengthening.
COUVERT SEC
Synonym for mangé sec.
CREOLE
Term used to designate anything native to Haiti—whether persons, loa,
plants, language, etc., and as distinguished from African origin.

DAHOMEY, DAROMAIN, DAHOME

A kingdom in Africa. Retained in Haiti to designate dances or loa
originating from that area.
DANSE DE REJUISSANCE
Dance of celebration. Religious dances may follow a ceremonial or take
place independently of a ceremonial. Their form and purpose, however,
is religious, not secular.
DEBATMENT
A period of physical movement, sometimes very intense and violent,
which reflects the inner conflict between the gros-bon-ange and the loa
over the possession of the physical body of a devotee. Once the loa is
“installed”, this conflict is resolved and subsides.
 Glossery 329
DESSOUNIN
A portion of the death rites, designed to separate the loa and grov-bon-
ange from the body of the deceased.
DOGUE, DOGWE
Ritual word for the sacrificial
goat.
DOSSA
The first child, female, born after rwins. Also the female of the Marassa-
Trous.
DOSSU
The first child, male, born after rwins. Also the male of the Marassa-
Trois.
DRAPEAUX
The ceremonial banners of the hounfor société, heavily spangled, used
during rituals.

E
ENGAGEMENT
A pact berween a person and a loa, in which che latter is rewarded for
certain services. A magical contract, usually with a malevolent loa.
ESPRIT(S)
The spirits or souls of the dead. Also, colloquially, intelligence. See
distinction from Myszres, loa.

F
FARINE
Flour. In Voudoun, used to trace vevers.
FARINE GUINEE
Powdered ash, used to trace vevers and for other ritual purposes.
FORT
Scrong. In Voudoun it specifically means one who knows a good deal
about ritual procedure and therefore is powerful in commanding the loa.

G
GAGNIN LOA
To have a loa in one’s head or to be possessed by a boa.
GANGAN
Synonym for houngan.
330 Glossary
GARDE
Protective charm against magic.
GHUEVO
Small chamber, containing an altar, consecrated to the worship ofa loa.
GOVI
Red earthen vessel in which the spirits of the dead or the loa are lodged.
This term is used only in reference to such sacred vessels, as contrasted to
canari, which refers to all earthen vessels.
GRAN, GRAND
Good, as opposed to gros, which means large; also “important”. Gran
moun, means good or important person. It may also mean a very old
person, or a grandmother or grandfather.
GRAN MAITRE
The original creator deity, the main God, as distinct from the many loa.
GROS-BON-ANGE
The soul of a person, his metaphysical double.
GUINEE
Usually understood as Africa, land of origin. Possibly also a reference
to South America (see Appendix B).

H
HAUT CHANT
Special song of salutation, either to distinguished visitors or, as Haut
Chant Nago, for a Nago loa.
HOUNFOR, HUNFOR
The “temple” of a Voudoun priest, including the paraphernalia of the
service and understood to include the persons who serve there. When
used in juxtaposition to peristyle, it means the actual altar chamber.
HOUNGAN, HUNGAN
Voudoun priest. Literally chief, gan, of the spirits, boun, from the language
of the Fon people.
HOUNGENIKON
A high official of the hounfor, assistant to the houngan, and usually
charged with the leading of the singing.
HOUNSIS, HUNSIS
Members of the société at various stages of elevation and initiation.
 Glossery 331
HOUNTOR, HUNTOR
The spirit of the Voudoun drums. Sometimes understood as a loa who
may possess the drummer. Also reported as the name of a ritual dance
and as the term for the sacrificial goat, in the north of Haiti.

I
1BO
An African tribe; retained in Hai as the name of a nanchon of loa and
a dance.
INSTALLE (ER)
Possession by a loa, who installs himself in a person. Also refers
to the
ritual introduction of the loa to a new hounfor, a ceremony of consecra-
don and bapusm.
INVISIBLES (LES)
Generic term comprising all the invisible spirits including the loa, the
souls of deceased.

J
JUBA
An American nanchon, usually linked with Martinique. Also the name
of a dance.

K
KANGA
Wes African tribe represented in Haiu.

L
LAMBI
Conch shell, used as a horn.
LANGAGE . .
Sacred language, probably African words, used in ceremonials.
LA-PLACE
An apprentice
and assistant to the houngan.
LAVER TETE .
A titual washing of the head designed to baptize a loa in the head of a
person, or to strengt hen
his conrrol.
 332 Glossary
LIMBA, LEMBA
African tribe represented in Haiti; the name of a loa and a dance.
LOA
Deity or deities of Haiti.
LOA ACHETE
A “bought” loa, of definitely “lower” class than the major loa.
LOA RACINE
A “root” or very ancient loa.
LOA TRAVAIL
A “work” or immediately functional loa.
LOUP GAROU
Werewolf.

M
MACOUTTE
Straw sack carried by peasants; in Voudoun, associated with Legba and
A zacca.
MATT”
Master; as in Mait’ Hounfor, Mait’ Téte (loa, master of the hounfor or
the head of a person, the dominant loa).
MAMAN
Mother; also the largest of the set of three Rada drums.
MAMBO
Woman priestess.
MANGE (R)
A sacrifice; a feast; to eat.
MANGE GUINEE
A ritual feasting of the loa, of certain specified foods.
MANGE MARASSA
Feast of the Marassa.
MANGE MORTS
Feast for the Dead.
MANGE MOUN
“To eat men”; metaphor for the fatal illness or accident sent by malevo-
lent spirits who “eat men”.
 Glossary 333
MANGE SEC
“Dry” offerings,
no animal sacrifice.
MARASSA
Contemporary twins; demiurgic, or Divine Twins. See discusson of
Marassa, Chapter I.
MARCHER ENSEMBLE
To go together, as when two loa usually are feasted at the same time, or
arrive at the same ume; referring to a close relanoaship.
MARRE (R)
To te of restrain, as to “marrer loa”, a magical of reual restraine of a
troublesome loa.
MARRON, MARRONAGE
Term used to describe Negroes who escaped from the plancauons in pre-
revolutionary times and lived in freedom in the hills. Also used, now, in
the sense of wild, runaway.

MARTINIQUE
A nanchon and dance closely linked to the Juba.
MASCARON
Mardi Gras secular dance.

MASSISSI
Homosexuals of either sex.
MAZON (NE)
Congo dance of Haitian origin, as opposed to the A frican Congo dance.
MOMBIN
Leaves of mombin are ritualistically important, and include the idea of
African origin as well as purifying properues.
MONTER
To mount, as a loa mounts his “horse”, a person.

MORTS
The Dead, as a collective category.

MOUNDONGUE
An African tribe represented in Haiti; a dance and a loa are known by
thar name.
334 Glossary
MYSTERES
Les Mystéres usually mean the loa, as distinct from the spirits of the Dead;
in some contexts it could also be understood as referring to the rituals,
in the sense of the “mysteries”.

N
NAGO
An African tribe represented in Haiti; a dance; and a loa.
NANCHON
Nation, tribe, cult or clan grouping.
NOM VAILLANT
The “fighting” or ritual name of a houngan.

O
OGAN
The iron piece beaten to accompany the drums for ceremonies and
dances.

p
PAQUETS CONGO
A small package, wound around many umes, which serves as a magical
protection, in effigy, of the person against illness and evil spirits.
PE
The altar.
PERISTYLE
The roofed, open-sided area in which most of the ceremonies and dances
take place. See illustration 10, facing p. 167.
PETRO
A nanchon of loa; also the word designating the drum beat, dance, etc.
Of American origin.
PIERRE-LOA
The smooth, “sweating” stones inhabited by loa.
PILON
Mortar used for grinding and pounding grain.
PLACAGE
A relationship similar to common-law marriage.
 Glossery 335
PLATMARASSA
Paes of tod clay, specially for offerings to the Marassa. They consis:
of two or three
bowls joined
to a single head.
POT-DE-TETE
Earthen jar into which the gros-bor-ange
is ritually placed.
POTEAU-LEGBA, POTEAU-MITAN
The center-post of the peristyle or tonnelle, understood as the avenue by
which the loa enter during ceremonies.
POIN, POUIN, POINT
A ctypuc bur specific reference to a person in a song; the line of force
or point of contact with the loa world.
PRET-SAVANNE
“Bush priest”; a person who reads the Catholic prayers and litanses at
ceremonies.

R
RADA
Nanchon of loa, with songs, dances, etc., of Dahomean ongin.
RAIDE
Stern, strong; used in characterizing Petro loa.
RAMASSER
Gather together; to collect into one’s own heredity and obligasion, the
loa abandoned by other members of the family.
RARA
Dance festival occurring in spring.
REGLER
To regulate, control; to have command and authonry over the loa; to
quiet and reserain the loa.
RELER
To call, cry out; in Voudoun songs, to invoke.
RENVOYER
To ritually “send away” a loa.
REPOSOIRS
The circular cement basin enclosing the foot of a cree sacred to los.
336 Glossary
RETIRER D'EN BAS DE L’EAU
Ceremony for reclaiming the souls of the deceased from the waters of the
abyss.

SAINTS
Saint; used as synonym for loa.
SALANGO
An African tribe; in Haitt, a dance and a loa of the Petro group.
SECONDE
The second, or middle drum of the Rada set.
SERVICE, SERVIR, SERVITEUR
A ritual service of loa; to serve the loa; one who serves the loa.
SERVIR A DEUX MAINS
Serve with both hands, meaning to serve both Rada (right hand) and
Petro (left hand) loa.
SIGNALER
To signal; a ritual gesture extending the offering towards the cardinal
points while indicating the loa for whom it is intended.
SOBAGUI
The altar. See illustration 1, facing p. 38.
SOCIETE
An organization; the communal organization underlying a hounfor.

TAMBOUR
Drum.

TAMBOUR MARINGUIN
A mosquito drum, associated with Ghede.
TI-BON-ANGE
The spirit, or conscience, of a person as differentiated from their gros-
bon-ange, or soul.
TONELLE
A thatched canopy, improvised in the absence of a peristyle, under
which the ceremonies and dances take place.
 Glossery 337
TRAITEMENT
A herbal cure; in Voudoun, one administered by a houngan.

V
VENTAILLER
A ritual gesture of “airing” the sacrificial chickens.
VERSER
To spill; in Voudoun it refers to the ritual pouring of drops
of water,
coffee, liquor, etc., on the ground for the trinity and the loa.
VEVERS
Symbolic, caballa-like designs drawn on the ground to invoke the loa
at ceremonies, made of wheat or maize flour or ashes.

VOUDOUN
The metaphysical principles and the ritual practices comprising the
religion of the Haitian masses.

Ww
WANGA
A magic charm of malevolent
intent.
WEDO
Place-name related to loa brought from the Dahomean seaport of
Whydah.

Y
YAM (IGNAME) |
A root vegetable of ritual importance; the ceremony-yem 1s the mayor
annual agrarian ceremony.
YANVALOU, YENVALO
A dance of the Rada rites.

Zz
ZEMI
The fetish or sacred object of the Arawauken Indians who inhabued
of Indian
Haiti; also understood as ancestral spirit. Important evidence
influence in Voudoun, and probable source of words “zombi”, and the
loa Baron Samedi, and others. See Appendix B.
338 Glossary
ZEPAULE
Shoulder dance of the Rada rites.
ZILE MINFORT
Island below the water, residence of Agwé.
ZILET EN BAS DE L EAU
Island below the sea where the souls of the dead go, and also where the
loa live.
ZINS
Ceremonial cooking pots, usually of clay, but made of iron for the Nago
loa.
ZOMBIE
A soulless body. The soul may have been removed by magic from a
living person, or the body of someone recently deceased may have been
brought up out of the grave after the soul had been separated from it by
regular rites of death. The purpose is to make use of the body as a slave.
 REFERENCES

Alexander, Hartley Burr. Latin-American. Vol. XI. The Mytholegy

of
All Reces. Boson, 1920.

Bateson, Gregory. Neves (A study of the Lacmul cukure of New

Guinea). Cambridge University Pres, 1936.

Bleuler, Dr. Eugen. Texthesk of Prychistry. New York, 1924.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero WithA Thousand Feces. New York, 1949.
Cannon, Waker, B. Veedeo Deeth. American Anthropologia. Vol. 44,
No. 2, April-June, 1942.
Courlander,
Harold. Haiti Singing. University
of North Carolinas Press,
1939.

Davis, H. P. Bleck Democracy. New York, 1928.

Dents, Lorimer. Le Religion Pepulerre. Bullenn
Du Bureau D’Ethno
logse. Porvau-Prince, Hain, March, 1946.
Denis, Lonmer and Paul, Emmanud C. Essai Orpanographie Haitienne.
Porvau-Pnoce,
Haim, 1948.
Dorsainvil,
J. C. Psychologie Haitienne, Vedeu
ct Magie. Porven-Pnace,
Hani, 1937.
Fox, Dr. Charles D. Prychepethology of Hysteria. Boon, 1915.
Frazer,Sir James Ceonge. The Golden Bough. (One Volume, abridged
edition). New York, 1947.
Frobenius, Leo and Fox, Douglas C. African Genesis. New York, 1937.

Herskovits, M. J. Dabomey. New York, 1938.

Life In A Hartian Velley. New York, 1937.
Jacobson, Max. Functional Disorders. Tomorrow Magazine. New York,
March, 1951.

-Beuhl, Lucien. Primitive Mentality. New York, 1923.

n, James
G. The Haition People. Yale Universay Press, 1941.

Malinowski, Bronislaw. Myth in Prinitve Prychelegy. New York, 1936.

Marcelin, Milo. Mythologie Vedeu (Rute Arede). Porvau-Prince, Haiti,
1949.
339
340 References
Mars, Dr. Louis. La Crise de Possession Dans Le Vaudou. Port-au-Prince,
Haiti, 1946.
Maximilien, Louis. Le Vodou Haitien, Rite Radas-Canzo. Port-au-
Prince, Haiti, 1945.
Metraux, Alfred. The Concept of Soul in Haitian Vodu. Southwestern
Journal of Anthropology. Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 1946. University
of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Owen, Mary Alicia. Voodooism. International Folklore Congress,

Chicago, 1893.

Parsons, Elsie Clews. Spirit Cult In Hayti. Paris, 1928.

Pressoir, Charles Fernand. Debats sur le Creole et le Folklore. Port-au-
Prince, Haiu, 1947.
Price-Mars, Dr. Ainsi Parla l’Oncle. Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 1928.

Rigaud, Milo. Jesus ou Legba. France, 1933.

Rigaud, Odette Mennesson. The Feasting of the Gods in Haitian Vodu,
Primitive Man (Quarterly Bulletin of the Catholic Anthropo-
logical Conference). Vol. XIX, Nos. 1 and 2, January, and April,
1946.
Rigaud, Odette Mennesson, and Denis, Lorimer. Ceremonie En L’
Honneur de Marinette. Bulletin Du Bureau d’Ethnologie. Port-au-
Prince, Haiti, July, 1947.
Rigaud, Odette Mennesson, and Denis, Lorimer. La Vie Mystique de
Marie Noel. Bulletin Du Bureau d’Ethnologie. Port-au-Prince,
Haiti, March, 1947.
Roumain,’ Jacques. Le Sacrifice du Tambour Assator. Port-au-Prince,
Haiti, 1943.

Seabrook, William. Magic Island. New York, 1929.

Sylvain, Suzanne: Le Creole Haitien. Port-au-Prince. Haiti, 1936.
Simpson, George Eaton (I) Four Vodoun Ceremonies. Journal of Ameri
can Folklore. April-June, 1946.
(II) Belief System of Haitian Vodoun. American
Anthropologist. Vol. 47, No. 1, January-
March, 1945.
(IIT) Two Vodoun Related Ceremonies. Journal of
American Folklore. Vol. 61, January-
March, 1948.
INDEX
 INDEX

abyss, waters
of the, of, 46, ongmnal, 34-40, mgnificance of
260-2, Ch I fn 12; African and ee
Indian concepts compared, 65; at neiple
in myth, 22,
foot of crossroads, 3$. 37 com Chill f 9: wm Ghede, tir mn
munication 48, $1, 205; Legba 96; in Loco and Ayizan
descert
to, 30, 35, 45-6,
Ch I 146-7, n Masassa 40; in Nanan
fm 18, recall from, 46-33, of Chede bouclou, 55; in Maww-Lisa, 35; in
by Loco, 149, of Sobo by vever, 41
Agasou, Ch EI fn 105 animal sacrifice, significance of, 31 )-
actionde gréce, 208, 212 16, Ch V fm 17; in canto core
Adja, 137 mony, 221, 223; differences accord.
adoration, 215 f ing to loa, 63 fn, 119, 128-9, 212,
concepts, $4-$, 107 ITT fm 28, Ch V fs 16, 20
Ch IV fn 46; compared wah animusm, incorrectly
applied to Vow
Indian, 65-6; in Voudoun, 36, doun, 36, 86-7, Ch III f& 1
$6-60, 64-70, 82-5; High God,
$$; mibes, 58-9; words in Vow
doun, 18, 196: xe also nanchors
Agaou,$6
Agarou Tonerre, 116
Agassou, 34, 122, 127, 254; Ch III
fns 95, 104-5
Pama in Petro rues, use of in hounfor, 130-3, 181-2,
110 fn, 137-8 fn, Appendix B 211; in drawing vevers, 204-5
pps 280, 285-6; se Axacca, Ashann, 58
ceremony -yem asson, conferred by, 69, 80-1; m
Agwé, 56, 89-90, 82-5, 119-30, 137, Indian culkure, 274-5; powers of,
142-3, 182-4, 212, 231, 254, 275, 48, 158, 177-8, 206; use in tual,
280, Ch III fns 65, 104 48-53. 177-8, 206, 208, 243,
Akadja, 137 Ch IV fa 9
nes99; ste Legba Arbon Legba, 82-3, 99; sr Legbs
Ayida, 34, 82-3, 115-16, 120-1,
a $3,“t78; me pl sobagui £82, 184, 222; ov
amnesia, during possession, 30, 258- Ayizan, 82-5,93, 146-50, 382, 221-§,
60 Chifas
ancestors,
concept of as psychic her Axzacea, 82-5, 108-11, 142, 210, 312,
age 27-8 7o-1, 81; Afcan and 280
ndian concepts compared, 65, Axacca Médé, 109 fn
Appendix B; aid to daily Ie, 72; Antec, 66; xe AppendixB
loa, 28-33,
91, Ch I
fns 2, 3, Ch ILI fns 93, 102; los Badé, 82-3, Ch ILI fas 57, 65
principle of, 141; Marasa as Badessy, 116
43
 344 Index
baka, 75, 113, 136, 285-6 179-80; simultaneous service to
Bambaras, 58 and Voudoun, 15, 54
baptism, significance of, 185-7; Afri- center-post, axis of ritual activity, 34,
can tradition, 56; of canzo, 40, 238; as tree, 36; see poteau-Legba,
222; of drums, 245; of loa, 216, poteau-mitan
219 ceremonial beads, description of, Ch
Baron Cimitiére, 102, 117-18 V fn 26; in canzo ceremony, 221;
Baron Piquant, 112 in hounfor, 183
Baron Samedi, 49, 69-70, 82-4, 103, ceremonies, dating of, Ch V fn 11;
112-13, 117-18, 281-2 payment for, 174 fn; permission
bassin (Damballah), 115, 182, Ch III for, 160, 173; see ritual, mangés
fn 49, Ch IV fn 19 ceremony, of Agwé, 119-30; of asson,
baton-Legha, 99, 146 80, 186; of baptism of asson, 186,
battérie maconnique, 209 drums, 185-6, loa, 219, sacred
birth, aid to childbirth: Marassa, 40, objects, 185, see baptism; of bruler-
Legba, 96; initiation as, 223 Zin, $3, 216, 222-4; of canzo, 23,
belief, as service, 74; see participation, 28, 30, 40, 49, 147-8, 219-24;
primitive mentality of chirer Ayizan, 147-8, 220-3; of
bocor, 75, 217; powers of, 113; con- coucber, 211; of the Dead, 28, 41;
trasted to houngan, fn 77; see of dessounin, 44-5; of family, 173-4;
magic, nature of compared to of Ghede, for sick child, 113;
religion of laver téte, 219, Ch IV fn 2; of
bossale, 154-5, 219 Marassa, 39; of retirer d’en bas de l’eau,
Bossu, 136, 174, 280 27-8, 33, 47-$3 147, Ch Ill fn
Boukman, 63 fn 10$, see reclamation, resurrection
Brav Ghede, 82-3, 104-7, III ceremony-caille, 208-12
Brigitte (Maman), 82-3, 103 ceremony-yam, 110 fn, 210-12
children, in canzo ceremony, 40;
cabbala, similar elements in Indian in death rites, 39; introduced to
culture, 66 loa, 49; Ghede, protector of, 38,
caille(s) Mysteres, 168, 173 113-14, Ch III fn 47; learning of
canari, 30, 46; see govi, pot-de-téte rhythm, 226; Marassa as, 38-40,
cannibalism, 67 fn, 285 Ch I fn 19; possession by loa, 71;
canzo, functions of, in ceremonies, see family, parents
154-5; brulerezin for, 222-4; pre- Christian, concepts of death com,
paration for, 219/20; reasons for, pared, 45; element of in Voudoun,
217; reception for, 224; see cere- 24, 38, $4, 56-7, Ch II fn 8;
mony of canzo terms for Voudoun, 17; concept of
cardinal points, in cosmography, 35; divinity compared, 90 fn
libations to, 203; salutation of, cleansing, of corpse, 43-4; Erzulie
205; ofientation to, 203-4; see toilette, 139-40; see also purification
crosstoads, cosmography, Legba colors, sacred to loa, 37, 119-20, 132,
Carrefour, 61-2, 69, 82-4, 100-2, 139, 145, 181, 183, Ch V fn 16
117-18, Ch III fn 27 Congo, drums, 68, 184; peristyle,
Catholic Church, confession to, 220; 184; character of tribe, 58, 68;
litanies in Voudoun, 54, 207; drums, 184; peristyle, 184; position
Opposition to Voudoun, 62 fn, of in Voudoun, 68, 82-4, 234
 345
descripnon of, $4, 355-4, 353, 357,
function of, 129-30, 240-1; order
of, 334
dansede rejuissance, 3}, 213
E Dead, recs for, 41; dumncnon of,
i
:

if i ital aI
ih t LiFi
M ijt:
ESi

3$-7, 6$, 72-3; food a, 39, loa

principle of Leghs. 97-100, are
. 100-1, Marassa, 39, Sembn,
117; contained in vevers, 41, 61;
myths of, 100 fn; vevers,
41, 61
Crucsfixion,
attirude of Erzulse, 144,
of Ogoun, 131-2, 135

Dahomean, ancestor, 38; characesr of

cukure, 60-1; eclemenss in Vow
doun, 64-6, 82-4, 97-8, 234; sryths
$6, 69, 7$, 82-4, 105-4,
116-16, 87-3$, 337, 242, 182,
184, 231, 358, ChI fx 8, Chil &
26, Ch ITT fs 50, $3
Dan Pero, 70, :138-1% se Pero,
AppendixB
dance, a cred form, 137-8;
346 Index
education, religious, function of, 214-15, 231, 275, 281-3, Ch III
157-8; methods of, 78, 88-9, 194; fns 35-6, 40-3, 46-8, 105; aspects
loa principle of, 148-50; prepara- of, Ch III fn 48
tion for canzo, 219 Ghede Mazacca, 109 fn
Entretoute, 111-12 ghuevo, 178
Erzulie, 31, 34, 62, 69, 82-4, 95, God, Marassa as first children of, 38;
120-2, I12$, 137-145, 161, 183,231, “le gran’ maitre,” $4; African High
2$7; various aspects of, 62, 75, 143, God, $5; in Voudoun, 55-7
145, Ch III fns 79, 92-4 govi, souls introduced into, 46-8, $1;
esprit, concept of, 15-18, 25-6, 32; voice of loa in, 28-30, 58, 86-7,
see gros-bon-ange, spirit, soul Ch I fns 4, 5
Ewe-speaking people, 54 Grand Bois D’Ilet, 36, 82-4, 99,
101-2, Ch I fn 12
family, loa heritage in, 28, 46, $4, 71-2,
Grand Chemin, 98
75» 90, 94; twins in, 40; Conversion
gros-bon-ange, concept of, 15, 26-7,
to Christianity in, $4; service in
35, Ch I fns 31, 33; in receptacles,
family, 153, 168; family lines of loa,
30, 32, 79; see ceremony of canzo,
84, 94; loa as families, 32; family
of the Dead
relationships compared to religious
Guinée, 36
organization, 156, 172-3, 207; see
parents, education, inheritance
Haiti, history of revolution, 62
feasts, for loa, see mangés
harvest, 40
fertility, principle incorporated in all
heavens, 37, 260
loa, 40, 97, 132, Ch III fns 9, 51;
hounfor, 18, 47, 168, 178-87; as
see Azacca, Ghede, Marassa;
community center, 160 fn; guardian
Indian and African concepts of
loa of, 35; see houngan
compared, 65
fire, ritual use of, 65, 86, 96, 222-3,
houngan, apprenticeship of, 153-8;
attitude toward modern medicine,
Ch V fns 5, 25, 30; Ogoun, loa of,
180; called by loa, 78-81, 151-2;
86, 96, I2I, 130, 132-3
civic réle of, 160; economic posi-
flags, ceremonial, 177-8, 154 fn, 183,
tion of, 174; equipment of, 78-81,
205-7, 251 see hounfor; functions of, 17, 159-
folklore, 79-81
62, 175-8; in ceremony, 46-53,
Fons, 58
104-6, 204-7, 243; compared with
food, significance of feeding loa, 33,
Christian priests, 17-18; compared
65, 209, 216;. methods of feeding
with parent, 153-4, 158, 174-$;
loa, 36, 39, 40, 205, 209, 223; Loco as loa principle of, 146-7;
essence of consumed, 209; specified
Masonic Order, 134-5; profession,
for each loa, 108-10, 115, 125,
128-9, 140-1, 210-12; for canzo,
hereditary, 151-3; personality of,
176-7; relationship to other houn-
221; see animal sacrifice, mangés
gans, 206-7, Ch IV fn 14; rela-
Fulas, 58
tionship to loa, 157, 172, Ch VII
garde, 77 fn, 101 fn 2
gates, guardian of, see Legba houngenikon, craft of, 232-3; func-
Ghede, 31, 37-8, 49, 70, 79-80, 82-4, uons of, 48, 51, 156; salutation to,
86-7, 93, 102-14, I17, 132, 137, 207
142, 149, 172, 184, 189, 212, hounsis, 47-8, 154-5, 157 fn, 208
 Index 347

nest
Hounsor, 243 fn 214 275, Ch I fra 8, 38, Ch IT
fn 6-9, 16, 35, 37, 32-5
libsnons, as address to loa, 1& as
immortalzy, 15-16 3 88
Indian, of in Haiti, 64, 67;
characeer of culsure, 65-6; clemenss
in Voudoun, 18, 63-70, 82-4,
Appendix B, Ch IV fn 19 30, 37-8; les Invissbles,
and los as,
inhermance,concept of, 37,31 fn; of 3$. 35. 73-3, 96, 885; meroduced
loa, 30-1, 45, $4, $8, 71-2, 80-1, bapusm, 185; contol of, 147,
90, 151-3; obligations of, 78; Ch II
fn 29
means of remission
of, 45, Ch |! Linglesou,
149 fn
_ fn 5; sre ancestor,
loa, family Loangp, 58
imianon, as second beth, 23, 28; loa, nature of, 16, 29, 33, $$. 76,
Cae ConaTol of conmnic Forces, 86-96;
a3 cosmic pr 63-—
mak-he, maturity as marror mages, 34-3; analogous
Invisibles,
les, as cosmic principles, to saints, §5-6, powers of, 16,
25-7, 88-9, access to, 35-7, 49, 29-31; punsshmens by, 79-80, 351,
20$, 209, 249; manifest in mater, 168-9, 186, Ch I fm 35, Ch IV
88-9, world in maxtor, 34-5; a fn 8; cures by, 168; ongins of,
loa, Mystdres 37-9, Ch I fs a, 3. 5-7. 35;
invocation,a3 genealogy of divinzy, heranceof, 31, $4, 58, 72,
78, 90,
81; in ceremony, 123; se saluta- 1g8- ns, Ch Il fp: traramaned an
tons head, 51-2, 90-1; bapusm of, 216,
Island Below the Sea, 36, Ch I fn 12 31g relanon to individual,
33-2,
1$2-); appearance af maeturny,
Jaco, 134 152, 157-8,
218; individual
Jube, 234 of, 90-1, 99-5; dasmmal
Kadjs Bossu, 136 threat eo withdraw, 77, ose
posession by, 29, 78, av possession:
langage, function of, 196; languages control over, 71, 74, 357; resmainl
in, 69, 275, Ch V fo 1; use of, of, 172, 316 ongin of word, 60,
208, 243, Ch V ing order invoked,8) fn; 208, relative
la-place, 35, 156, 177, 304, 215 satus of, 39, 55; relanve srength
La Saréne, 120-2, 127, 137, 145, 182, of, 35 fn, 14m nanchons of,
Ch Ill fn 78 Dako
other ank dum
of, 92-5
panhed
leaves, properties of, 36, 162; found by
Loco, 148; used medicinally, 162; ay ester wo howagaa, Wh 17%
use in ceremonies, 230-3 relanon wo serviecur, 33. 8e, ot,

left hand, as los hand in murror, 54-5. 72-3; intervennon in life,

354; as Pero, Ch IT fn a3; service 33; educanonal funcnon of, 88-9,
with two hands, 68 194; home of, 3& access00, 36,
leh leg, in possession, 359-60 30m, loa in govi, 38-30, 58, 86-7,
Legba, 34. 37. 49. $6, 63, OD, 75, Ch I fs 4. 3; m . ate
83-4, 86-7, 93, 96-100, 103, 187- sacred accessones
and costumes of
88, 137, 146-7, 140, 203, 208, 333, Axzacca, 189-4; Damballah, 115;
348 Index
loa—contd. mangé Morts, 28, 39, 209
Erzulie, 139-40, 183, 263-7; mangé sec, 210
Ghede, 105, 107, 184, 267-9; mangé yam, 212
Ogoun, 183; Mounanchou, 136; mirror, cosmic, 34-6, Ch III fn 11;
also Ch III fns 41-2, 46; see colors; twinned by, 38; effect in dances,
days sacred to, 212; feasting of, 33, 257; loa as mirror images, 98, 146
39, 309, Ch III fn 28; see food, Maori, $4
mangés, ceremony Marassa, 38-41, 80-1, 209, 212, 222,
loa racine, 36, $4, 174 279, Ch I fns 19-23, 28-30, Ch
loa acheté, 74, 77 Ill fn 7
loa travail, 74-5 Marassa-Trois, Marassa-Dossu-Dossa,
Loango, $8 40
Loco, 34, 82-4, 93, 145-50, 172, 212, Marinette, 63 fn, 82-4, 138 fn, Ch
214, 231, Ch III fns 104-5 III fn 92
marriage, loa advise on, 74, 103; rela-
magic, nature of compared to religion, tionships, 155 fn, 165; loa nuptials,
66, 7$-6, 1§8, 200-1; African 124-5; loa and devotee, 263-70
sources of, 65-6; Indian sources of, “marronage”, of slaves, 64, 68
65-6, 70; element in Petro cult, Martinique, 234
61; power of Marassa, 39; Simbi, Mary, 122, 138, 141, 143-4
70, 117, 132, 136; Carrefour, Masonic Order, 134-5; Ch III fn 72
101-2; Ghede, 42-3, Ch III fn Massassi, $4
35; Qgoun, Ch ITI fn 68; Ayizan, maturity, 152, 157-8, 218; see mait-
148; daemons, Ch [I fn 29; téte, canzo
character of rites, 76, 136 fn; cause Mawu-Lisa, 55, 98, 146, Ch III fn
of illness, 170 46, 102
Mahi(s), 58, 234, 236, 258 Mayan Indians, 66
mait-caille, see mait-hounfor medicine, function of priest, 65, 161-2,
mait-hounfor, 177, 183, 203, 208 171; function of loa, 67, 74, 112-14,
maittéte, relation to individual, 31-2; 132, 148-9, 168, Ch III fn 102
manifest at maturity, 71, 92, 152; meringues, 174
determined at canzo ceremony, moon, 101, 284, Ch III fn 35
221-2; baptism of, 219; detach. morality, concept of, 26-7; function
ment of at death, 44; salute to of of rituals, 189-91; in Rada-Petro,
deceased, 51 compared, 64, 67; of scientific
mambo, powers of, 46 fn, 173; Ayizan techniques, 88, 189-90; distinction
as first, 146; see houngan as equiva, of personal from collective, 191 fn,
lent 192-3, 200-2; absence of in zombie,
man, concept of twinned nature, 38; 42; see magic (and religion)
component parts expressed in Mounanchou, 135, 212
vever, 41, 42 Morts, les, concept of, 28, 39; rites
manners, Haitian regard for, 42-3 fn, for, 45, Ch I fns 1, 12
175 fn; required by Erzulie, 141 fn; Mystéres, les, concept of, 29; in trinity,
freedom of personality, 191-2 fn 41; maittéte agent among, 45;
Mandingo, 58 the “science” of, 74; see loa
mange Guinée, 213 myth, nature of, 21-4; other myths
mangé Marassa, 38-9, 40, 209 compared with Voudoun, 107 fn
 Index 349
Nago, 59-60, 82-4, 93, 234, 236 toa}; mgmcance of wo Hasians,
oases, of, 185-6; “nom 199
vaillant’, 182; secret name, 222; peerre-loa, 31, 43, 58, 183, Ch IV
essence of person, Ch V fn 28; wr fn 20, 378
bapusm ene 155 &
Nenan-bouclou, $$. 146, Ch IM Maressa, 39-40
102 politica,
effect on religion, 190-1;
on
nanrhons, incorporated in Voudoun, serviecus, 170 fn; on loa Ogoun,
$8-9, 67-8, 93-4. 233-6 133-4; opposed to Voudoun, 57,
Nigeria, 60 17% ble of Voudoun in, 62-3,
360
offerings, se animal secrifice, food, possesion, 247-67, concept of, 16-17,
ederation 29-30, 92; function of, 30, 63,
Ogoun, 31-2, 59, 67, 68, 74, 82-4, 247-% movements of, 34-5, 255,
104-7, 121-2, 135, 190-7, 142-3, 2$8-6o, resistance 00, 47, 257-8,
148. 168, 172-3, 183, 208, 212, 353-4. 358-60, prosscuon duning,
134-7 105, 17a, 231; control of, 319;
Ogoun Badagns, 132 terminologyof, 29, of children,
29;
Ogoun Balindjo, 132 oy an Ae Ch "
Ogoun Batala, 132
Ogoun Bayé, 132 Arcee, nA “Canbea tor
tot,
Ogoun Feraille, 132-3 Damballah, 105, 115, Entresousr,
Ogoun Panama, 132 111, Exzube, 63, 139-45, 330,
Ogoun Shango, 6o 266-7, Eszule CeRouge, 6:2,
Ogoun Ge 69-70 Ghede, 109-7, 114, 172, 268-70,
origin, myths 22, 36, 38 39, Hountor, 243, Jaco, 134 St
$4. 5§ Jacques, 133, Legba, 99, Loco,
149 fn, MMasasa,
39, Mounanchou,
peguets Congo, Petro, 115, 275, 278 136, Ogoun, 131-3, 168, 254-6

oc
parents, as priest, 153-4; pot-deeiee, 30, 46, 79, 175, 221-2,
Chi fm 35
relationships, 154 wre potcau-Legba,
97
Masassa, Loco and Ayizan, un Poseanrenseany 16, 97. 99. 846-7, 182,
20}, 205, 208

amen as means of moral edu-

participation, préssavanne, $4, 57
cation, 91-2 fn, 194; effect of on pritre Gainde, 208
participant, 197 200, 206, 128-9
pe, 178 structure
of, 36, 47, 182;
disunct from akar chamber, 78;
for separate nanchons, 68, 179
Pero, nature of compared to Rada,
61-2, 64 fn, 63-70; réle in hasory, ineerpretauon
of Vou-
62-5; position in Voudoun,
67-6, doun, 192-5 fn, 199 fm, 151-2 &
82-4, 95, 117, 135, 184, 312, 334, psychosomanc, scton of loa, 80,
236, 271-€7, Ch Il fo a3 diagnows of, 161, 164-7, therapy
for, 169-71, Ch IV fas 9-10
3$0 Index
purification, 219-21; see also cleans- société, in ceremonies, 203 ff, 123, 154,
ing 177, 20$-6; advantages of, 218;
first step in elevation, 219; coat of
Rada, character of, 60-1, 64; in Vou- arms of, 182
doun, 70, 82-4, 93, 95; 184 songs, 48, 98-9, 103-4, 107, I13,
rain, see Damballah, Simbi 127-8
receptacles, for souls and loa, see soul, concept of, 16-18, 24-6, 28,
canari, govi, pot-detéte 39-42; see gros-bon-ange
reclamation, of souls of deceased, 27-8; Spanish, terms in Voudoun, 18; in
see ceremony retirer d’en bas de l’eau Haitian history, 64, 271-2
reposoirs, 181 spirit, see esprit
resurrection, Ghede, God of, 38, 102; stones, sacred, 69-70; see pierre-loa
concept of, 42-3 sun, 94-9, 102, 145-9, Ch III fns 6,
rituals, function of, 92, 188 ff; 35, $273
preparation for, 123; procedure of,
203 ff, effect of participation in, tu-bonvange, concept of, 26, 41, 44,
197-200; impression of, 236-8 Ch I fns 31, 34
Ti-Jean Petro, 118, 135, 138 fn
saints, identified with loa, $5-6; tohwiyo, 38
images of in hounfor, 56, 122, Trinity, 41, 6-7, 197, 203, ChI fn 21
182-3 trees, significance of, 36, 49, 65, 86-7;
salutations, ritual, significance of, loa of, 97-9, 146-8, 181
202-3; function of, 206; order of, twins, 26, 38 ff, 55, 279, Ch I fn 22
37, 39, $4, 83 fn, 149, 177, 183,
205-7, 250-1, 254-6; see libations vevers, significance of, 204; described,
Samedi, see Baron Samedi 34, 36, 40, 61, 69, 105, 120-1, 136,
serpent, significance of, 195 fn, 277; 141, 187, 204-5, 276, Ch III fn
see Damballah, Simbi, Dan Petro, 309, Ch V fns 4, 5
Ch ITI fn 53 Voudoun, principles of, 15, 19, 27,
service, religious, principle of in Vou- 73, 88, 187, 191, 198-9; history of
doun, 73-4, 76, 187, 197-200 organization of, 57~70; effect of
Silibo, Silibo-Gweto, 38, 146 modern culture upon, 188-202;
Simbi, 70, 82-4, 116-19, 183, 286 orthography of terms, 18
slavery, 62, 63 fn, 64, 67
sobagui, 178 - wanga, 77 fn, 117
Sobo, 116, Ch III fns $7, 105 womb, symbol of, 24, 49, 146, 148-9
MAYA DEREN’S life is the subject of a multi-
volume biography, The Lagrad of Maya Deren,
published by Anthology Film Archives, New
York. Born in Kiev in 1917, Deren emigrated to
the United States with her parents a few years
later, grew up mainly in Syracuse, New York,
and attended Syracuse University. A social

first in dance and subsequently in filmmaking.

Throughout the 1950s, until her premature
death in 1961 at the age of 44, Maya Deren was
a leading exponent of expenmental cinema and
considered one of its most influential artists.
She first traveled to Haiti to film dances in
1947, and returned in following years for
lengthy stays. The work in Haiti led to this

and a documentaryfilm which was later edited

by Teiji and CherylIto.
Two video cassettes of Deren’s films are
available from McPherson & Company: Drowar
Horsemen and Experimental Films. \n addivon,
two LP albums of Voudoun music recorded by
Deren are available on the Lyrichord label:
Drowne Horsemen and Meringue: and F olt Ballads
of Hain. A two-hour documentary on Maya
Deren and her work was produced for BBC
television
in 1987.

MCPHERSON& COMPANY
Post Office Box 1126
Kingston, NY 12401

Primed
in U.S.A.