Voodoo in Haiti

by Alfred Métraux

  In a commendable attempt to glorify the name of Voodoo, several contemporary nationalist writers have convinced themselves that Dessalines, the founder of the Haitian State, was a zealous ‘servant of the loa’ and that he had a quite special feeling for Ogu, the Nago god of iron and war. Dessalines, who had been a plantation slave, must have known Voodoo better than Toussaint-Louverture who had always lived in ‘the big house’. Descourtilz{30} says he used to consult the macandals (magicians) of the country and that from them he learnt to find out a man’s intentions by the humidity—or dryness—of the tobacco inside his snuff-box. According to the same writer (who is reporting the gossip of Blacks who stayed faithful to the French), ‘the Congo Negroes and other Guineans were so superstitiously affected by the utterances of Dessalines that they even let him persuade them that to die in battle, at the hands of the French, was nothing but a blessing since it meant they were immediately conveyed to Guinea where, once again, they saw Papa Toussaint who was waiting for them to complete the army with which he proposed to reconquer Saint-Domingue. This absurd system worked so well, said the informant, everyone goes into the attack with supernatural dash, singing the traditional songs of Guinea as though already possessed by hope of seeing old friends once more.’{31}

  Dessalines is none the less the only hero of the struggle for independence who was deified. The Haitian anthropologist, Lorimer Denis{32} vouches that once, during a Voodoo ceremony, he saw a priest possessed by the spirit of the terrible emperor: ‘It was indeed the man himself,’ he writes. ‘I saw the ferocious face, the fanatic cast of countenance and the whole body moulded in a vengeful attitude.’ As soon as the god Dessalines appeared the choir of the ‘servants of the gods’ sang as follows:

  Apérè Désalin o (bis)

  Nu sé vayâ gasô

  Sa u kué yo fè nu

  Péi la nâ mê nu déjà

  Oh Emperor Dessalines o,

  You’re a fine fellow,

  What do you think they did to us,

  This country is already in our hands.

  There is another Voodoo song which mentions Dessalines and which thrills with the far-off echoes of revolutionary airs:

  Pito muri pasé m’kuri

  Désalin Désalin démâmbré

  Viv la libèté

  Better to die than run away,

  Dessalines Dessalines the powerful,

  Long live liberty.

  In spite of such evidence there is good reason to doubt if the Liberator had much sympathy with Voodoo. The historian Madiou{33} tells how Dessalines, when appointed inspector-general of culture in the western departments, ‘relentlessly hunted down all the secret societies in which African superstitions were practised’. Hearing that a Voodoo reunion was going on in the Cul-de-sac plain, under the direction of a mambo, he rushed there with a battalion, set fire to the house where the meeting was being held, broke it up and having taken fifty Voodooists prisoner ‘killed them with bayonets’. Once he became Emperor he showed the same distrust of Voodoo, prohibited ‘services’ and shot its adherents.

  The entrenchment of Voodoo in Haiti is largely due to what local historians rather pompously call ‘the great Haiti schism’. Throughout the period which stretched from the Proclamation of Independence to the Concordat of 1860, Haiti had, in fact, been separated from Rome and remained outside the framework of the Church. It was only Catholic in the solemn declarations of its various constitutions. Catholic worship had not been suspended, but it had fallen into unworthy hands. Evidence of this may be found in the account of Victor Schoelcher{34} who visited Haiti in 1832. ‘He (President Boyer) was pleased to entrust these lofty and delicate functions to the rubbishy rejects of the French and Spanish Churches; he was ready to receive as a priest—without examination, without any system of control, or verification of his standing—the first tramp who laid claim to the office. Haiti has many clerics who were certainly never clerics anywhere else...Far from enlightening the people they keep them fixed in the silliest superstitions. One takes ten gourdes for saying prayers to bring rain which some labourer needs, another takes five good piastres for an exorcism which is to bring peace of mind to an old woman accused of being a were-wolf; and when you reproach these pedlars of sanctity they blandly reply: “But monsieur, only faith can help you and unless I had taken that woman’s money she would still think she was a werewolf.” To explain the fortunes made quickly in the sale of holy objects, I ought to add that the priests, over and above the celebration of Mass, vie with the makers of wanga, grigris and charms, and with the soothsayers who make stones talk, and that they sell scapularies and printed prayers to be hung round the necks of children in a locket to keep out cockroaches. And so whichever way the people turn they find nothing but lying and deceit. Is it surprising, in such circumstances, that in the country, as we are assured, there are Haitians who worship snakes?’ These adventurers simply fitted themselves in with Voodoo and became the accomplices and associates of the hungan and mambo. We have proof of this in an ecclesiastical document which denounces the ease with which these priests baptized ‘animals, crops, boats, canoes and, in fact, anything which was brought to them’.

  Under the famous Emperor Soulouque, Voodoo, for a few years, became almost the established religion of the State. For it was in a world ‘frequented by zombi and omens, by the marvellous and the fearful’ that Soulouque was sought out to be raised to the presidency. This obscure soldier, who was so soon to turn into a bloody tyrant, gave a glimpse, even on the day of his investiture, of the superstitious fears which haunted his imagination. During the Te Deum he obstinately refused to sit down in the presidential chair which he thought was enchanted. On his behalf let it be pointed out that the fate of those who had preceded him in the chair did not inspire confidence. Soulouque was equally reluctant to settle into the presidential palace; he only resigned himself after consulting a mambo of whom Madame Soulouque herself was a client. After a magical consultation the priestess declared that President Boyer, overthrown in 1843, had hidden a charm in the palace garden before he left. The charm prevented any successor from staying in power longer than thirteen months. Soulouque ordered a search which revealed the charm in the place indicated.

  Soon after having himself crowned Emperor, Soulouque, now Faustin the First, celebrated Mass for his mother at Le Petit-Goave, where he was born. The day was given over to the rites of the Church but in the dead of night Soulouque went to the cemetery where ‘the blood of a lamb, sacrificed by his own hand, was sprinkled on the tomb of the old slavewoman who had given Haiti an Emperor’. The funeral rites lasted a week. The Emperor had 100 bullocks killed to feed the 20,000 guests who had come from all over the country.

  To what extent are they true, these anecdotes gleaned from a book by Alaux{35} which was written when Soulouque was still Emperor? The author admits that the Mulattos—who had good reason for hating a man who treated them with the greatest cruelty—spread stories of a kind calculated to make a fool of him. On the other hand it would have been surprising if Soulouque had not shared the beliefs of the Voodoo milieu in which he was brought up and of the great mass of the people who were his main supporters. His precautions against spells, the rites which he celebrated for his mother are still common practice in Haiti today and it is quite possible that he did behave like a zealous servant of the loa—which would not have prevented him from remaining the good Catholic who tried, for instance, to achieve a Concordat with Rome.

  Finally let us cite an incident, related by Spencer St. John, which tells us a lot about the influence of the hungan and the mambo under the rule of Soulouque.{36} A Voodoo priestess was arrested for having performed a sacrifice too openly. ‘When about to be conducted to prison, a foreign bystander remarked aloud that probably she would be shot. She laughed and said, “If I were to beat the sacred drum, and march through the city, there’s not one, from the Emperor downwards, but would humbly follow me.” She was sent to jail, but no one ever heard that she was punished.’ />
  The famous affaire de Bizoton, which took place in 1863 during the presidency of Geffrard, demands our attention only because it achieved a notoriety out of all proportion to its importance, and because it gave, quite unjustifiably, Voodoo—and therefore Haiti too—a bad name. It is told in great detail in the work of Spencer St. John, Haiti or the Black Republic.{37} Briefly the facts are as follows: a certain Congo Pellé, whose sister was a mambo, made plans with two other papa-loa, to sacrifice his niece to a Voodoo god. He kidnapped the child who was eventually strangled and cut up at an end-of-the-year ceremony. Her flesh was cooked, with other eatables, and consumed by all who had taken part in the rite. A few days later another little girl was carried off to be sacrificed on the Day of Kings. The police were warned and they found the girl, who was due to have her throat cut, lying bound under a Voodoo altar; and at the same time they discovered the remains of the girl who had been killed earlier. Eight people involved in this affair were arrested and tried. They confessed monstrous crimes but before accepting their confessions as proof, we would do well to remember the disturbing statement made by one of the accused. Asked to confirm her confession in front of the tribunal she said, ‘Yes, I did confess what you assert, but remember how cruelly I was beaten before I said a word.’

  Seemingly the prisoners were tortured by the police—a custom which has not died out. The confessions therefore are open to doubt. None the less, the remains of the victim, which Spencer St. John was able to see, and various other evidence, amounted to a weight of proof which was deemed sufficient to procure the death sentence for all the accused.

  Spencer St. John gives us other rather doubtful stories about human sacrifice and cannibalism. The terrifying picture which these elements enabled him to paint, struck the popular imagination with such power that people have been addicted, ever since, to thinking of the peaceful Haitian countryside as a sort of jungle where hideous crimes were perpetrated. Echoes of such fantasy are to be found in relatively recent works by Americans—such as Black Bagdad by John Craig. These legends, against which the Haitians protest, with good reason, do in fact spring from folklore—and not, as has often been said, from the calumny of Whites. What Haitian is there who has not heard tales far more sinister than those of Spencer St. John! The peasants are haunted by the fear of sorcerers whom they look upon as cannibals thirsting for the blood of children. Such folk tales are taken as gospel truth by the Haitian elite and foreign journalists. When we come to the question of sorcery we shall have an opportunity of returning to all these terrors which survive, fed by a tradition which remaining basically the same through the ages, merely adapts itself to fashion. Many presidents of Haiti have been accused of Voodooism. A good many of the stories about them belong to the kind of folklore which Haitians never fail to weave round men in position; but probably several generals, risen from the ranks, brought to the palace, as Soulouque did, the religious ideas and practice of the milieu in which they were brought up.

  If we can believe Spencer St. John,{38} President Salnave, harassed by enemies, finally gave in to the lure of Voodoo and agreed to take part in a ceremony which entailed the sacrifice of various animals. Considering the popularity enjoyed by Salnave in Voodooist circles, the story seems far from impossible. But the English writer is beginning to overdo things when he accuses the wretched president of having consented to sacrifice a ‘goat without horns’—in other words a human being.

  Apart from Soulouque, no president of Haiti ever achieved a reputation as Voodooist and sorcerer comparable to that which is still enjoyed by Antoine Simon. This former rural constable, a peasant who had but slightly lost his uncouth ways, swept to power by revolution in 1908, believed in the loa and in the power of witchcraft. His daughter Celestina was reputedly a Voodoo priestess with marvellous ‘knowledge’. She went through various rituals in the grounds of the presidential palace to counter the traps laid by those who were plotting against her father; but to no avail: after two and a half years of dictatorship he was over-thrown by another revolution. In all the countless stories still told about him today, an important part is assigned to a goat called Simalo. People go as far as to say that once he wanted this goat to be blessed by the archbishop, specially for some Voodoo ceremony, and so he substituted it for the mortal remains of a general whose solemn funeral was to take place in the Cathedral. The story, out of which W. H. Seabrook makes some amusing pages,{39} is a good example of the kind of lampoon so dear to the Haitian heart. But the ‘angling’ which doesn’t spare the all-powerful head of the state does not always stop at funny stories. W. H. Seabrook{40} is unpardonable for giving as authentic a terrible story which he picked up in Port-au-Prince: Celestina, wanting a human heart for a magic rite, caused a soldier of the guard to be disembowelled in front of her. She was seen, dressed in red, walking towards her father’s palace carrying the heart on a silver platter. Faced with this kind of fantasy, which unfortunately Whites are only too ready to believe, we can but share the justified exasperation of the people of Haiti.

  Aubin,{41} who is one of the well-informed and very honest writers, makes an observation about the humfo of La Petite Plaine, near Port-au-Prince which deserves to be quoted: ‘Papalois and hungan rely less on the local people than on the inhabitants of Port-au-Prince who though by nature sceptical and irregular in their offices, are revived now and again by a resurgence of African atavism. I did not have the good fortune to meet M. Durolien, at Croix-des-Missions. He was the special, private papaloi to President Hyppolite.’

  All presidents during, and since, the American occupation (1915-33) have belonged to the educated bourgeoisie and are hardly targets for charges of Voodooism. Public malice has nevertheless reproached them for having transactions with the hungan and has poked fun at their terror of black magic. We must remember that the people of little Haiti are always tempted to establish a chain of cause and effect between sorcery and success. Not many years ago it was said, quite openly, among the people of Port-au-Prince, that the then President owed his office to one of his uncles who was regarded as a powerful magician.

  It is impossible to gauge with any accuracy the rôle which Voodoo plays today in the politics of Haiti. It is said that certain priests and priestesses are prepared to act as police informers and that this co-operation is the price of the immunity they enjoy. Candidates for the Chamber or the Senate take good care not to overlook the support of certain priests or priestesses whose influence is sometimes enormous, to say nothing of the support of the loa themselves which is not to be disdained. Some candidates ensure themselves of this support by generous gifts to the Voodoo sanctuaries or by paying for ceremonies out of their private purse.

  During the troubles which occurred in 1957 a charge of Voodooism was lodged against Dr. François Duvalier, presidential candidate and former director of the Bureau of Ethnology.{42} This politician was indeed very interested in Voodoo—to the extent of gleaning information for, and publishing, various articles on the subject. This was enough for his rivals to anoint him chief hungan.

  During the American occupation Voodoo was looked upon as a sign of barbarism and served as a butt for the spite of the military authorities. One of the Marine officers, John Craig, treats it in his book Black Bagdad with as much naïveté as horror. In reading some of his accounts, allegedly authentic, you cannot help wondering which is the more gullible and has the greater weakness for marvels—the unsophisticated peasant or the White chief of police. All the same, the persecution of Voodoo, which went on throughout this period, was limited to the arrest of a few hungan, the laying waste of a few sanctuaries and the confiscation of drums. Later on it was to experience a more serious ordeal: the Catholic offensive. This action was somewhat ungrateful on the part of the Church as Voodoo had in one way made the task of the Concordat easier: during the so-called schism, it had kept alive the memory of Catholicism, alongside its own African rites and beliefs, to such good effect that priests who came over from France did not find themselves c
onfronted by a completely pagan population.{43}

  After the Concordat of 1860 the Catholic Church did not give much thought to Voodoo. It deplored its existence, denounced it from the pulpits, but hoped that with time and patience the whole population would end up completely Christian. Were there not touching signs of devotion to the Church on the part of the people? In 1896 Monseigneur Kersuzan organized an anti-Voodoo League but his attempt came to nothing. It was not until 1940, after events which I will speak about later, that the Church abruptly changed its attitude. The violent campaign waged at that time by the clergy is known amongst the people as la renonce. It has left its scar on Haiti, and would perhaps have forced Voodoo ‘underground’ if the government had not taken steps to moderate the zeal of the priests.

  Today Voodoo is tolerated. In certain parts a police permit is still required for ‘beating the drum’. At Marbial, where I conducted my research, the priest kept a jealous watch to see that no ceremony was celebrated in his parish. The chefs de section were compelled to keep up a strict supervision. Nevertheless, the peasants still secretly danced for the loa, and defied the priest and his police.

  Although neither Church nor State has succeeded in breaking the hold of Voodooism, tourism, on the other hand, in its most commercial forms is having a rapidly destructive effect. For several years now, thanks to the efforts of the government, Port-au-Prince has been turning into a vast tourist centre. Every American who disembarks there has but one word on his lips—‘Voodoo’; and one wish—to see ceremonies which he imagines to be orgiastic and cruel. Many hungan and mambo who for several years have been pleased to see parties of Americans turn up at their humfo, have responded with alacrity to the curiosity of foreign clients. The humfo threw wide their doors to the tourists; link-ups were made between hotel porters and hungan, to such good effect that on Saturday evenings long files of cars may be seen in some wretched back-street near a sanctuary. Some enterprising hungan have even put on Voodoo ‘shows’ which are repeated weekly and designed purely for tourists. They have altered their ancestral rites so as to provide their clientele with the picturesque which it demands. They take care, it seems, to stage for the ravished eyes of the readers of Seabrook and other titillating works, the goat with lighted candles on the tips of its horns. Sanctuaries have become neon-lighted theatres. Great sums may have been made by the hungan and mambo, but they have driven away true believers from their temples. It is true that this shameless prostitution of religion, at the hands of its own priests, flourishes only in Port-au-Prince, but it will end by shaking the faith of the country people who are under the influence of the capital. Another formidable enemy is Protestantism which, in the course of gaining many converts, has shown itself inimical to Voodoo, harrying it with relentless hatred and, unlike the Catholic Church, refusing all compromise.