2—THE SOCIAL FRAMEWORK OF VOODOO
I.—THE SOCIAL FRAMEWORK OF VOODOO
Voodoo is essentially a popular religion. The greater part of its adherents are recruited among the peasants who form 97 per cent of the total population of the country. As to the city dwellers—they have remained faithful to it in whatever measure they have kept up their rural roots. The practice of Voodoo, along with the exclusive use of the Creole language, is one of the characteristics which sociologists have kept to distinguish between the masses and the small class of educated people who enjoy a certain material ease and call themselves the ‘élite’. The members of this élite, who are mostly Mulattos, adhere with the utmost tenacity to Western modes of life and thought, and hold the country people in the greatest contempt. Between these two classes the cleavage is so pronounced that the élite has been termed a ‘caste’ and one American sociologist, Leyburn,{44} has gone so far as to describe them as two different nations sharing the same country. In fact the differences have been very much exaggerated. The élite is not a caste since it is open to those who succeed in raising themselves, either by talent, luck or politics from the masses. Even in the subject which concerns us here, the contrasts are not so marked as one might think. Most of the élite children are brought up by servants who come from the mornes (mountains) and carry with them the terrors of ‘African Guinea’. All Haitians, whatever their social status, have trembled in their youth at stories of zombi and werewolves and learnt to dread the power of sorcerers and evil spirits. Most of them, under the influence of school or family, react against such fancies but some give in to them and consult a Voodoo priest in secret.
On this point I will quote the evidence of a bishop who unfortunately must remain anonymous: ‘Superstition is so widespread and deep that it could be said to touch everyone. The best, even those who don’t practise it, have to fight against the feelings they experience when faced with certain facts, certain signs which recall superstition to them.’ Even a Haitian priest once confessed that he was prone to such feelings: ‘The whole of one’s being is impregnated with them, right to the bottom of the soul; the smallest detail of existence is dominated by them.’ And beside this testament we can quote an excerpt from a conference held by Monseigneur Kersuzan in 1896: ‘A bocor [sorcerer] crosses our streets. We know him. Everyone spots him. Where is he going? You might think to some poor person who cannot afford doctor or chemist. But no. He is going to a superb house where he will operate on the father of some family in the highest rank of society.’
This evidence of superstition among the upper classes, perhaps slightly exaggerated at source, nevertheless fits in with the description of Voodoo which we have given so far. The cult is, before all else, a rural paganism and must be considered in its true setting—in the mornes and villages. The political and social frameworks peculiar to the African tribes from whom the Haitians of today are descended, were pulverized by slavery. Even the family did not survive that dissolution; only in haphazard fashion was it reconstituted on the fringe of plantation life and in the first years of the country’s independence Toussaint Louverture, Dessalines and Christophe had all intended to maintain the system of huge properties on which the peasants would have lived as serfs. History decided otherwise. It was the peasant small-holding which triumphed in the end. The families which divided between them the lands of the State, regrouped along lines which, though not strictly speaking African, yet recalled the organizational forms common to Africa and Europe. Not very long ago, the social unit of the Haitian countryside was the extended family consisting of the head of the family, his children, married or unmarried, and his grandchildren. Each ménage had its house and field. The whole group of conjugal families, all closely related, was called the ‘compound’ (laku), and its houses and granaries often made up a hamlet. Its members were further bound together by worship of their common root-loa (loaracines), that is to say of the gods and protecting spirits of the extended family which were inherited just like property. The compound head kept a little sanctuary or humfo for his gods and there, in the presence of his kin, he officiated. A hungan (priest) and mambo (priestess) were only called upon in the event of serious illness or to ‘feed’ the family gods.
Today the compound is tending to disintegrate. Families are being dispersed by the carving up of land and weakening of the kinship ties. The cult of ancestral spirits with its attendant obligations continues to assure a measure of cohesion between the members of a scattered kin group: when the gods and spirits demand food the whole family must be present and share the costs. Nevertheless Voodoo as a domestic cult is losing importance daily to the profit of the small autonomous cult-groups which grow up round the sanctuaries.
People who regret that Voodoo is, in fact, the religion of the people of Haiti, forget how hard is the life of the average peasant and worker. Isolation, economic stagnation, administrative fecklessness, ignorance—all help to explain the misery which is to be found among the masses. At the source of that poverty stands the familiar curse of so many under-developed countries: over-population on ever less fertile land. Haiti has the highest density of population in the Western Hemisphere—250 people to the square mile. Beneath a gay and optimistic exterior the peasant conceals a chronic anxiety which is, unfortunately, only too well justified. Seldom does he own enough land to escape the dearth which occurs at the slightest caprice of weather. Usually he is in debt, in possession of doubtful title-deeds and can neither read nor write. Unable to speak French as do the townfolk, he feels an easy prey to their cupidity. And then to all these causes of anxiety is added the dread of illness. Tuberculosis, malaria and hookworm are endemic and their threat is always present in addition to that of the accidents which may ruin him. Voodoo reflects these cares. What the faithful ask of their gods is not so much riches and happiness but more the removal of the miseries which assail them from every quarter. Illness and misfortune seem to them divine judgments which must somehow be mitigated by offerings and sacrifice. It is unjust and naïve to reproach the peasants for wasting much of their meagre resources on pagan ceremonies. As long as medical services are non-existent in the country districts, so long may the Voodoo priests be sure of a large clientele. Voodoo allows its adherents to find their way back to a rudimentary form of collective life, to show their artistic talents and to have the exalted feeling of contact with the supernatural. At Marbial where Voodoo has been more or less suppressed, a wretched depression has settled over the valley, and life for the peasants has lost all point.
We have seen that Voodoo exists in two forms—one domestic, the other public. It is this last which mainly concerns us here. Most of my observations were made at Port-au-Prince where the sanctuaries are numerous and prosperous and where the ritual is full of refinements and subtleties which are lacking in the rural cults. People are prone to suppose that the purest and richest traditions are to be found in the remotest valleys. The little I was able to see of rural Voodoo convinced me that it was poor in its ritual compared to the Voodoo of the capital. Simplicity of rite is not always a guarantee of antiquity. It is often the result of ignorance and neglect. No doubt some African characteristics are better preserved in the backwoods than in the faubourgs of Port-au-Prince, but the purity of the African heritage only moderately concerns us. Voodoo deserves to be studied not only as regards the survival of Dahomean and Congolese beliefs and practices, but also as a religious system born fairly recently from a fusion of many different elements. It is the dynamic aspect of Voodoo always evolving before our eyes which is more to our purpose than the rich material it affords to the erudite, possessed by a craving for the search for origins.
II.—VOODOO CLERGY AND CULT-GROUPS
Voodoo has preserved one of the fundamental characteristics of the African religions from which it is derived: worship is sustained by groups of adherents who voluntarily place themselves under the authority of a priest or priestess whose sanctuary or humfo they frequent. The faithful who have been i
nitiated in the same sanctuary and who congregate to worship the gods to which it is sacred, form a sort of fraternity called ‘the humfo society’. The importance of this cult-group depends to a great extent on the personality and influence of the priest and priestess who preside.
This complex religion with its ill-defined frontiers may perhaps be more easily approached through a study of its social and material frameworks. It is the priests and their numerous acolytes who have out of widely different beliefs and rites formed a more or less coherent system.
Spirits incarnate themselves at will in the people they choose. Any devotee can therefore enter into immediate contact with the supernatural world. Such intimacy, however, does not involve communication or dialogue with the god since the person possessed is mere flesh, a receptacle, borrowed by the spirit for the purpose of revealing himself. If you wish to get a hearing from the spirits—particularly when health and fortune are at stake—it is better to have recourse to the skills of a priest or priestess: hungan and mambo, less commonly called papa-loa and maman-loa. The word gangan, used as a synonym of hungan, carries with it a nuance which is respectful or depreciatory, according to the region.{45}
Although hungan and mambo are often closely linked with each other, they are by no means part of a properly organized corps. They are the heads of autonomous sects or cult-groups, rather than members of a clerical hierarchy. Certainly the prestige of a hungan may spread and affect sanctuaries served by his disciples, but there is no subordination, as such, of one hungan to another. The profession has its grades which correspond with the various degrees of initiation, but a priest only has authority over those who voluntarily offer themselves as servants of the spirits worshipped in his sanctuary.
There is the greatest variety of types in this profession, ranging from the ignorant, inspired peasant who puts up an altar near his little house and invokes the loa on behalf of his neighbours, to the grand hungan of the capital, cultivated in his own way, subtle and tinged with occultism, with a sanctuary full of artistic pretensions. Some priests enjoy a reputation which goes no further than the limit of their district and others attract crowds of clients and are known all over the country.
Some hungan and mambo even cut a figure in the world of fashion. Their humfo is frequented by members of the bourgeoisie who are not afraid to rub shoulders with artisans and workmen. Some years ago, a mambo of Croix-des-Bouquets who was getting ready to celebrate a grand ceremony for his guardian loa, sent out printed invitation cards to his many relations in the town. The evening was a great success. An elegant gathering, which included several high-ranking members of the government, crushed into his peristyle. The mambo led them through the rooms of her sanctuary, replying graciously to the naive questions which were put to her and, while the hunsi were possessed by perfectly mannered loa, she had refreshments served. Indeed, she was the perfect hostess, and the impresario of an exhibition which convinced the most prejudiced that Voodoo was obviously a wholesome and picturesque entertainment.
All sorts of fantastic stories about the powers of hungan may be heard. Atenaïse, a woman in Marbial who claimed to be a mambo, often spoke to me about her grandfather, a hungan well versed in all the lore of Africa who could ‘change people into animals and, what is harder still, into Guinea grass!’ The power of remaining several days under water is attributed to many hungan and mambo. Madame Tisma, who was none the less a well-balanced and intelligent woman, told me in the most normal tones that she had spent three years at the bottom of a river where she had received instruction from water spirits.
The gift most prized in a priest is second sight. To some hungan it has brought fame which merely increased after their deaths. A certain Nan Gommier acquired such a reputation that even today a soothsayer will say as a boast, ‘What I see for you, Antoine Nan Gommier himself would not have seen.’ This hungan is reputed to have known a long time in advance who was going to come and consult him and if it were a person of importance he sent a horse to meet him. With Nan Gommier questions and explanations were superfluous. He read people’s thoughts and replied before being asked.
Voodoo adepts use the word ‘knowledge’ (connaissance) to describe what we would define as ‘supernatural insight and the power which is derived therefrom’. It is in degrees of ‘knowledge’ that various hungan and mambo differ from each other. In addition to this power, which depends more or less on supernatural gifts, hungan and mambo must also acquire a more technical kind of education: they must know the names of the spirits, their attributes, their emblems, their various special tastes and the liturgies appropriate to the different kinds of ceremony. Only those who have mastered this lore deserve the title hungan or mambo. To do so requires perseverance, a good memory, musical aptitude and a long experience of ritual. A good hungan is at one and the same time priest, healer, soothsayer, exorcizer, organizer of public entertainments and choirmaster. His functions are by no means limited to the domain of the sacred. He is an influential political guide, an electoral agent for whose co-operation senators and deputies are prepared to pay handsomely. Frequently his intelligence and reputation make him the accepted counsellor of the community. Those who frequent his humfo bring their troubles to him and discuss with him their private affairs and work. He combines in his person the functions of curé, mayor and notary. Material profit is not the only attraction of his profession: the social position which goes with it is such as to interest all who feel they have enough talent and application to raise themselves above manual labour. To become a hungan or mambo is to climb the social ladder and be guaranteed a place in the public eye.
A psychological study of hungan and mambo would perhaps reveal that most of them shared certain characteristics. My experience in this subject is not wide enough to allow me to generalize. Many hungan whom I knew seemed to me to be maladjusted or neurotic. Among them were homosexuals—impressionable, capricious, over-sensitive and prone to sudden transports of emotion. On the other hand Lorgina, with whom I had a long friendship, was a perfectly normal woman. She did occasionally ‘go off the deep end’—with the violence of a cyclone—but she calmed down so quickly that these frightening outbursts never struck me as being completely sincere. Madame Andrée, another prominent mambo, was remarkable only for her intelligence and cunning. In spite of her peasant origin she became a complete bourgeoise in her tastes and behaviour. Of the hungan I knew there was one whose name I shall withhold who acquired a certain reputation among intellectual circles by his intelligence and by his readiness to put himself at the disposal of anthropologists. He was rather a disturbing person, sickly, perhaps a drug-addict and gifted with a rather odd imagination. To strengthen the effect of his services he made innovations which he subsequently justified by bold and naive theological speculation. Beneath a genial exterior he concealed a morbid vanity and sensitivity. When I refused to pay the costs of a ceremony which he had wanted to organize in my honour, he revenged himself by inviting me to his humfo to take part in a fete. Pretending to honour and to doctor me, he in fact made me expiate my crime with all kinds of small cruelties.
Most of those who choose the profession of hungan or mambo, do so at the impulse of a motive in which faith, ambition, love of power and sheer cupidity are all inextricably mixed. Priestly vocation is none the less interpreted as a call from the supernatural world which cannot be disregarded with impunity. Suspicion and censure weigh heavily on those who are accused of having ‘bought’ their patron spirits, for if they have indeed done this, then it is because the ‘good loa’ rejected them as unworthy and the mercenary loa, to whom they applied in despair, accepted them. Those who have done such a thing can only be hungan ‘working with both hands’ (travaillant des deux mains) that is to say the kind of sorcerers known as boko. The amount of power put into the hands of a hungan lays him open to great temptations, though his profession—like that of medicine, with which it has much in common—has its ethic. Unhappily this is often violated. Have not certain hungan been acc
used of showing themselves to be in no hurry to cure their patients and even of aggravating an illness in order to make it more fruitful of fees? It has even been suggested that they get together with the sorcerers who have cast a spell on their client in order to learn the secret of the spell which caused the disease. The two accomplices then share the profits from the treatment. Against this kind of extortion the faithful are powerless or, more exactly, they have no other refuge than the moral sense of the loa themselves. Spirits do not like to see their help abused. Sometimes they punish the guilty hungan by withdrawing their patronage and depriving him of his ‘knowledge’. Their punishment can even go as far as subjecting him to prison or to some other humiliation.
Spirits who have chosen a man (or a woman) as vessel for supernatural powers and have decided to keep him in their service, make their will known to him either by the utterances of the possessed or by a symbolic dream. Before one man, Tullius, became a hungan, he often saw, in dreams, a gourd containing the beads and snake-bones covering the sacred rattle (asson), symbol of the priestly profession. To say of someone that he (or she) has ‘taken the asson’{46} means that person has become a hungan or mambo.
Voodoo in Haiti Page 6
