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Text originally published in 1959 under the same title.
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Cover photo by Greg Willis courtesy of Flickr/Wikipedia as “Voodoo Altar, French Quarter, New Orleans”
VOODOO IN HAITI
BY
ALFRED MÉTRAUX
Translated by Hugo Charteris
Introduction by Sidney W. Mintz
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS 4
DEDICATION 6
PLATES 7
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT 8
FOREWORD 10
1—THE HISTORY OF VOODOO 16
ORIGINS AND HISTORY OF THE VOODOO CULTS 16
2—THE SOCIAL FRAMEWORK OF VOODOO 40
I.—THE SOCIAL FRAMEWORK OF VOODOO 40
II.—VOODOO CLERGY AND CULT-GROUPS 42
III.—THE SANCTUARIES 52
3—THE SUPERNATURAL WORLD 56
I.—GODS AND SPIRITS IN HAITIAN VOODOO 56
II.—THE POWER OF THE LOA 64
III.—THE VOODOO PANTHEON 67
IV.—POSSESSION 85
V.—EPIPHANY OF THE GODS 99
VI.—DREAMS 100
VII.—THE CULT OF TWINS 102
VIII.—ANIMIST BELIEFS 108
4—RITUAL 112
I.—RITUAL 112
II.—THE RITUAL SALUTATIONS 113
III.—THE FLAG PARADE 114
IV.—INVOCATION FORMULAE 115
V.—THE LIBATIONS 115
VI.—ORIENTATION RITES 115
VII.—MATERIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF DIVINITY 116
VIII.—THE SACRIFICE 120
IX.—OFFERINGS 125
X.—MUSIC AND DANCE 126
XI.—INITIATION RITES IN HAITIAN VOODOO 137
XII.—MYSTICAL MARRIAGE IN VOODOO 167
XIII.—THE CONJURING UP OF LOA 172
XIV.—THE FEAST OF YAMS 175
XV.—VOODOO CHRISTMAS IN HAITI 176
XVI.—THE CULT OF THE DEAD 188
5—MAGIC AND SORCERY 204
I.—MAGIC AND SORCERY 204
II.—THE SOCIETIES OF SORCERERS 221
III.—WHITE MAGIC 229
IV.—ORDEALS 239
V.—DIVINATION 240
6—VOODOO AND CHRISTIANITY 242
CONCLUSION 265
VOODOO GLOSSARY 270
BIBLIOGRAPHY 275
REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 287
DEDICATION
To the memory of
LORGINA DELORGE
mambo of La Salines
whose sacred name was ‘Dieu devant’
and to
MADAME ODETTE MENNESSON-RIGAUD
‘certified’ mambo
without whose help
this book could never have been written
PLATES
Map of the Republic of Haiti
I Lorgina Delorge, mambo of Port-au-Prince.
II La-place (master of ceremonies), carrying a matchet and leading a procession of hunsi.
III 1. A death spirit painted on the door of a sanctuary consecrated to loa of the Guédé family. 2. Baron Samedi, spirit of death.
IV Chango, one of the Nago loa, painted on the wall of a sanctuary in Port-au-Prince.
V 1. A small sanctuary consecrated to divinities of the Guédé family whose funereal attributes are depicted on the building’s walls. 2. The pé (altar) of a Voodoo sanctuary.
VI 1. Altar consecrated to divinities of the Guédé family. 2. Stone tombs in the Marbial Valley.
VII The first stages of possession.
VIII A hungan, possessed by a loa, dances round the central post of his peristyle.
IX Ritual salutations.
X A hunsi kissing the ground before the rada drums.
XI A mambo ‘twirling’ the hunsi standard-bearer.
XII 1. The segond or hunto drum of the rada orchestra. 2. Drums of the rada orchestra.
XIII Dancing the yanvalou.
XIV ‘Passport’ issued by a society of sorcerers.
XV Prints of Saint James the Elder and Saint Patrick.
XVI 1. Pilgrims at Saut-d’eau, burning candles before a sacred tree. 2. A crowd of pilgrims following the Virgin of Saut-d’eau.
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
Fig.
1 The symbol (vévé) of the snake god, Damballah-wédo, drawn by the hungan Abraham.
2 Two supports for ritual objects.
3 The symbol (vévé) of the loa Simbi-yandezo, drawn by the hungan Abraham.
4 The symbol (vévé) of the goddess Ezili-Freda-Dahomey, drawn by the hungan Abraham.
5 The symbol (vévé) of Twins (marassa).
6 Dish and pitchers consecrated to marassa.
7 The symbols of various loa traced on the ground during a ceremony at Crois-des-Bouquets.
8 Ogan, or iron bell, with its clapper on the outside.
9 Petro drum.
10 Assoto drum, from Cabaret, to the north-west of Port-au-Prince.
11 The symbol (vévé) of the loa Agassu-hayman.
12 A paquett, or talisman, under the sign of the Guédé, spirits of death.
FOREWORD
Certain exotic words are charged with evocative power. Voodoo is one. It usually conjures up visions of mysterious deaths, secret rites—or dark saturnalia celebrated by ‘blood-maddened, sex-maddened, god-maddened’ negroes. The picture of Voodoo which this book will give may seem pale beside such images.
In fact—what is Voodoo? Nothing more than a conglomeration of beliefs and rites of African origin, which, having been closely mixed with Catholic practice, has come to be the religion of the greater part of the peasants and the urban prôletariat of the black republic of Haiti. Its devotees ask of it what men have always asked of religion: remedy for ills, satisfaction for needs and the hope of survival.
Seen from close, Voodoo has not got the morbid and hallucinatory character which books have given it. A talented but rather fanciful American writer, W. H. Seabrook, has given the most complete account of the black legend of Voodoo. But that legend belongs to the past. It belongs to the colonial period when it was the fruit of hatred and fear. Man is never cruel and unjust with impunity: the anxiety which grows in the minds of those who abuse power often takes the form of imaginary terrors and demented obsessions. The master maltreated his slave, but feared his hatred. He treated him like a beast of burden but dreaded the occult powers which he imputed to him. And the greater the subjugation of the Black, the more he inspired fear; that ubiquitous fear which shows in the records of the period and which solidified in that obsession with poison which, throughout the eighteenth century, was the cause of so many atrocities. Perhaps certain slaves did revenge themselves on their tyrants in this way—such a thing is possible and even probable—but the fear which reigned in the plantations had its
source in deeper recesses of the soul: it was the witchcraft of remote and mysterious Africa which troubled the sleep of the people in ‘the big house’.
Torture and branding were not merely reserved for ‘poisoners’ but also for anyone suspected of belonging to the dreaded sect called ‘The Voodoos’.
Even so, the few allusions to Voodoo which may be found in documents and books little known to the general public, could not have raised this rural paganism into the legendary terror it became, had not a British Consul, Spencer St. John, written a book, Haiti or the Black Republic (published in 1884), in which he described the most blood-curdling crimes committed by the Voodoo sect. This work was widely read and for long has been regarded as the main authority. The degree of its influence may be judged from the fact that it inspired Gustave Aymard to write his adventure story Les Vaudoux—a book in which the sect is described as a lot of fanatics thirsting for blood and power.
Spencer St. John’s revelations of alleged cannibalism in Haiti provoked, according to his own admission, very strong feeling in Europe and the United States. Although faced with an outcry in Haiti he nevertheless thought good to repeat his allegations in the second edition (1886), and even to add new details. As a result several writers denounced Voodoo as a cannibal religion and from their writings Haiti came to be regarded as a savage country where, every year, children were sacrificed and devoured by the monstrous worshippers of the Serpent.
The occupation of Haiti by American Marines resulted, amongst other things, in a renewal of interest in this African religion which the White world saw in such a dark light. The rhythm of drums which echoed peacefully in the hills to stimulate the effort of workers became, for the occupying forces, the voice of Africa, barbaric and inhuman, asserting itself over a country which had been seized from the Whites and from their civilization.
I intend in this book to discuss Voodoo from the point of view of an anthropologist—that is to say with method and prudence. If I have been chary of the enthusiasm of those who, at first whiff of an exotic religion, are seized with a sort of sacred vertigo and end by sharing the gullibility of its devotees, I have also taken pains to avoid the attitude of those small-time, niggardly Voltairians who never stop talking about pious fraud—with a good wink, of course.
My first encounter with Voodoo was in 1941. I had scarcely disembarked in Port-au-Prince before I heard of the campaign being waged by the Catholic Church ‘against superstition’. Having once read several papers on the suppression of idolatry in the Spanish colonies I took some interest in the methods used by the Haitian clergy in the twentieth century, and soon had to admit, with a certain amount of surprise, that the Dominicans and Augustans who hunted down demons with such zeal in Peru, would not have been ashamed of their French successors. It was at Croix-des-Bouquets, near Port-au-Prince, that I was given a glimpse of the vigour with which African cults had spread in Haiti: an enormous pyramid of drums and superstitious objects towered high in the court of the presbytery, waiting for the date on which there was to be a solemn auto-de-fé. I pleaded for certain pieces, which for scientific or aesthetic reasons, deserved to be spared; but in vain: the curé explained to me that the honour of Haiti was at stake and all must be destroyed.
The scale of this offensive against Voodoo, and the brutality of the measures taken against its devotees, suggested that its days were numbered; and so I conceived the desire to study it before it was too late. The Haitian writer Jacques Roumain, who went with me to La Tortue, was equally convinced of the need to put on record the story of Voodoo which seemed so gravely threatened. To this end, and out of our discussions, was born the idea of a ‘Bureau of Ethnology’ for Haiti.
When I returned to Haiti in 1944 the Bureau of Ethnology, founded meanwhile by Jacques Roumain, had managed to save important collections from the flames and had undertaken various researches into little-known aspects of Voodoo. Thanks to M. Lorimer Denis and other members of the Bureau (Jacques Roumain had now been dead for several months) I was able to get in touch with several Voodoo priests who had become friends and collaborators. It was during this period that I had the rare luck of meeting Mme Odette Mennesson-Rigaud. Few Whites have ever succeeded in getting to know Voodoo as intimately as this French woman who became Haitian by marriage. There is not a single sanctuary where she is not received as a friend—more—as an initiate. Once in the course of a Voodoo ceremony I heard her ‘valiant’ name mentioned among those of other priestesses of Port-au-Prince. The dedication of this book to her is but a small token of my gratitude.
Mme Odette Mennesson-Rigaud introduced me to Lorgina Delorge whose sanctuary lay in the popular quarter of La Salines, not far from the place called Tête de Bœuf. Maman Lorgina was a well-known priestess who, in spite of money troubles, ‘respected’ her loa (spirits) and conducted her rites according to the tradition learnt from her masters.
Although she was often carried away and looked terrible when in trance, she was an excellent woman, benevolent and hospitable. I frequented her sanctuary in preference to any other and was thus able to take part intimately in the domestic life of a Voodoo temple.
Lorgina’s welcome won me the sympathy and confidence of the whole fraternity. Although remaining very discreet about certain ceremonies and the initiation rites, Lorgina and the people in her house went to great pains to satisfy my indiscreet curiosity and always took care to let me know if a ceremony was due to take place in her sanctuary. My information therefore derives to a great extent from what I learnt from Lorgina during my numerous visits to Haiti. Lorgina died in 1953. I shall not forget that she gave me the title pititt caye—child of the house—and that I called her maman.
My relations with the Voodoo societies were not, however, limited to the Lorgina sanctuary. I knew several hungan—in particular Abraham who was one of the main sources of information for Jacques Roumain when he wrote his celebrated monograph The Sacrifice of the Assoto Drum. I was also present at many Port-au-Prince ceremonies, at Croix-des-Bouquets; and in 1947 I was able to spend Christmas in a family sanctuary in the neighbourhood of Léogane.
Some of the stories in the chapter on magic I got from M. Thoby-Marcelin; but it would be impossible to list here the names of all who generously provided me with accounts of magic, metamorphosis and encounters with evil spirits. I regret the dimensions of this work have limited me to the use of only a few.
As head of a sociological survey of the Marbial valley I stayed in Haiti from 1948 to 1950. Unfortunately the region where I had to work was the least fruitful for research into Voodoo. The anti-superstition campaign had there enjoyed an almost complete success. Those who in their heart of hearts remained faithful to the ancestral spirits did not dare mention it aloud, still less celebrate public ceremonies. However, the talks I had with voodooists sub rosa taught me a lot about the attitude of peasants towards Voodoo and about the colourful history of that religion. A recent trip gave me the opportunity of checking my information and of working in the archives of the Library of Les Frères de l’Institution St. Louis de Gonzague where there are real documentary treasures. Let me here extend to Frère Lucien my warmest thanks for his help.
Nor should I forget the young Haitians—Remy Bastien, Lamartinière Honorat, Michelson Hyppolite, R. Mortel, Jeanne G. Sylvain—who went with me to Marbial and took part in research. Some of their observations, and some stories which they picked up at my request, have been included in the text. I do not forget their efforts or goodwill.
The presentation of the material, collected in the course of different periods of residence in Haiti, has not been easy. It was impossible to describe, short of making this work quite unreadable, even a small fraction of the ceremonies I attended. The need to prune so many details will result, I fear, in the surprised indignation of many Haitian specialists who will search in vain through these pages for points of ritual which they perhaps consider vital. Again, certain descriptions will seem to differ from what they themselves have witnessed. May I remind t
hem that Voodoo is a religion which is practised by autonomous cult groups of which each often has its own peculiar custom and tradition. Whatever anyone may say to the contrary, there is no Voodoo liturgy and doctrine to which priests and priestesses are obliged to conform. Such an idea is a widespread illusion which we must avoid.
Just as the Creole language in the north of the republic differs in many particulars from the language used in the south and centre, so Voodoo practised at the Cap Haitian and at Port-de-Paix is not exactly the same as that which I studied at Port-au-Prince and at Jacmel. It is therefore Voodoo of the capital and the surrounding area which forms the material of this book.
There is no literature on Haitian Voodoo to compare, in scope and quality, with that which deals with the African cults of Brazil and Cuba. Nevertheless, books and articles on Voodoo keep coming out and it seemed to me worth taking stock. This work is merely an attempted synthesis in which I have tried to include at least some part of all the documents to which I have had access. Naturally, I gave preference to my own observations and I never had recourse to the work of my predecessors except when it contained information which for one reason or another I was not able to collect for myself.
The great pathfinder in Voodoo research is Moreau de Saint-Méry who, in a celebrated passage, written at the end of the eighteenth century, gave a summary but valuable description. Among the authors of former times who have written seriously of the religion let us mention d’Aubin whose work on Haiti, published at the beginning of the century, is too often forgotten.
To Dr. Jean Price-Mars, today Haitian Ambassador in France, belongs the credit for making Voodoo respectable and even endearing to Haitian public opinion; he has exorcized the bogy with which the cult had become identified. Ainsi parla l’Oncle will therefore remain a great Haitian classic, less perhaps for its rather too timid pages on Voodoo than for the influence it had on a whole generation. It would be unjust not to mention the name of Dr. Dorsainvil who, a few years earlier, tried to interpret Voodoo scientifically and explain away mystical possession as neurosis.
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