Voodoo in Haiti

by Alfred Métraux

  Of the loa who preside over the elements, the one whose province is most clearly defined is Agwé or Agwé-taroyo. The sea with all its flora and fauna, as well as the ships which plough its surface and those who live off its produce, all come under his jurisdiction. He is invoked under the names ‘Shell of the Sea’, ‘Eel’, and ‘Tadpole of the Pond’. His emblems are miniature boats, oars painted blue or green, shells and madrepores, and sometimes small metal fishes. He is represented in the frescoes which decorate humfo, by steam-boats with smoking funnels or by warships bristling with guns. This Haitian Neptune also has a trident as part of his insignia but it may well be asked whether this emblem, borrowed from classical antiquity, may not have been adopted quite recently through the influence of the intellectuals whose interest in folklore is positively militant. Like many aquatic spirits the symbolic colour of Agwé-taroyo is white. That is why he is depicted as a mulatto with a fair skin and eyes as green as the sea. He wears the uniform of a naval officer, white gloves and a helmet. He is also every inch a ‘president’ of Haiti. Agwé likes gunfire. Many people think the salvoes which salute the arrival of warships in the harbour of Port-au-Prince are fired in his honour. Any reference to signal-ling can only come as a pleasure to this god:

  U signalé Agwé-taroyo

  M’apé signalé Agwé-taroyo

  M’apé signalé kuala zâgi

  Signalé duâ uelo

  M’ap signalé

  Presidâ Agwé

  You make signals Agwé-taroyo

  I will make signals Agwé-taroyo,

  I will make signals kuala zangui

  I will make signals duan wélo

  I will make signals President

  Agwé.

  He is the protector of seafaring men and it is to him they pray in times of danger.

  Mét Agwé kòté u yé?

  U pa wé mwê nâ résif?

  Agwé taroyo, kòté u yé?

  U pa wé mwé su lâ mé

  M’gê z’avtrâ nâ mâ mwâ

  M’pa sa tunê déyé

  M’duvâ déja

  M’pa sa tunâ déyé

  Mét Agwé-woyo kòté u yé nu

  U pa wè mwê nâ résif.

  Maitre Agwé where are you?

  Don’t you see I’m on the reef?

  Master Agwé, where are you?

  Don’t you see I’m on the reef?

  Don’t you see I’m on the sea?

  I’ve a rudder in my hand

  I can’t go back

  I’m already going forwards

  I can’t turn back.

  Agwé-taroyo, where are you?

  Don’t you see, I’m on the reef?

  ‘Services’ for Agwé take place beside the sea (sometimes on the edge of a lake or river), and his effigy—a miniature boat—is then carried in procession. The dishes of which Agwé is most fond and his favourite drinks (champagne among others) are put on a ‘bark’—a float with tiers, painted blue and decorated with marine motifs. Any ‘society’ wishing to offer a ‘great service’ to Agwé, hires a boat and sets sail in the direction of the Trois Islets, a well-known reef about three miles from the coast. The boat is festooned with streamers, the flags of the humfo crack in the wind, drums beat and the hunsi dance as best they may on the bridge or in the hold. When the boat reaches the Islets, one or two white sheep are thrown into the sea. After making a few libations in the water, the faithful make off as quickly as possible, without looking back in case they offend the god when he surfaces to get the offering. The moment the sacrifice is eaten many possessions are induced by Agwé and other sea spirits, such as Ogu-balindjo and Agau, who are part of Agwe’s ‘escort’. The crew have to take care that people possessed by sea deities do not give in to their sudden marine nature and jump overboard. One of Lorgina’s acolytes told me in front of her mistress, without being contradicted, that during her youth, in the course of such voyages she often jumped into the sea ‘with Agwé in her head’, and swam to the shore without knowing she had done so. On several occasions Lorgina is said to have dived to the bottom of the sea and come back each time with seven fish and seven shells.

  Offerings to Agwé are also sometimes loaded on to a little boat which the current is allowed to take to the Trois Islets. If it floats to the shore it means Agwé has refused the sacrifice. He must then be appeased by some other ‘service’.

  The Siren and the Whale are two marine divinities so closely linked that they are always worshipped together and celebrated in the same songs. Some say the Whale is the mother of the Siren, others that he is her husband; and there are still others who say that these two names are used for one and the same deity. The Siren is represented according to European tradition, but when she turns up in a sanctuary the person possessed by her appears simply in the rôle of a young coquette most careful of her looks. During one Voodoo ceremony the Siren and the Whale were incarnated in two young women who, affecting elegance, began talking French. A Guédé, exasperated by their snobbery, took them off so cruelly that the two poor goddesses fled in shame.

  In most Voodoo sanctuaries a sink is installed in a corner of the péji or in the altar. This is sacred to one of the most popular of the Voodoo gods, Damballah-wédo, the serpent god, who is invoked in the following song:

  Kulév, kulév-o

  Dâbala-wédo, papa

  U kulév-o

  Kulév, kulév-o

  M’apé rélé kulév-o

  Kulév pa sa palé,

  Dâbala papa u sé kulév

  Si nu wé kulév

  U wé Aida-wédo

  Siu wé kulév

  U we Dâbala

  Aida-wedo sé ñu kulév-o

  Serpent, serpent-o

  Damballah-wédo papa

  You are a serpent

  Serpent, serpent-o

  I will call the serpent

  The serpent does not speak

  Damballah papa you are a serpent.

  If you see a Snake

  You see Aida-wédo

  If you see a snake

  You see Damballah

  Aida-wèdo is a snake.

  He and his wife, Aida-wèdo, are often shown on humfo murals as two snakes who look as if they were diving into the sink, and by a rainbow. This last being merely a celestial serpent, it is identified with both Damballah and Aida-wèdo. Damballah is also lightning.

  People possessed by Damballah-wèdo dart out their tongues, crawl on the ground with sinuous movements and climb trees or the supports of the peristyle. Hanging on to the beams of the roof they let themselves fall head first like a boa. Damballah does not speak but he whistles, and that is why people possessed by him utter a staccato ‘tettetetete’. They try to make themselves understood by modulating this sound into a phrase of whatever language obtains. The loa Ogu, or failing him the priest of the sanctuary, interprets this god’s messages.

  ‘All trees are resting places for Damballah because snakes climb all trees.’ Being both snake and aquatic deity, he haunts rivers, springs and marshes. White is his colour and white must be the food and drink which is offered him. Silver is a ‘white metal’ and so he is in charge of it. Hence it is he who grants riches and allows treasure to be discovered. Between treasure and rainbow there is a mysterious correspondence. Whoever can grasp the diadem of Aida-wèdo will be assured of wealth.

  The Simbi, too, are guardians of fountains and marshes. They cannot do without the freshness of water. I remember a woman who, being ‘ridden’ by Simbi-yan-kita, kept repeating ‘water water’ until, opening and shutting her mouth like a fish out of its element, she threw herself head first into a pool. Simbi feasts are held near springs and several of their songs mention such places specifically as being their favourite haunts:

  Simbi nâ sus o

  Rélé loa yo, o papa Simbi etc.

  Grâd. Simbi wa yo

  Grad Simbi sôti lâ sus

  Li tut muyé

  Simbi in the spring o

  Call this loa, O papa
Simbi

  The great Simbi wa yo

  The great Simbi is coming out of the spring

  He is all wet.

  Children who go to fetch water at springs run the risk—particularly if they are fair skinned—of being abducted by Simbi who takes them under water to be his servants. After a few years he sends them back to the earth and, as reward for their trouble, bestows upon them the gift of clairvoyance.

  Sogbo, brother of Three-horned-Bosu, is the god of lightning. It is he who hurls down polished stones which are piously collected and used as symbols of the loa. Bade, his inseparable companion, is the loa of the winds. He shares his functions with Agau who, as the following song shows, is also a storm spirit:

  Agau vâté vâté

  Li vâté Nodé

  Li vâté Sirwa

  Agau sé pa mun isit

  Agau grôdé, grôdé

  Li grôdé, I’oraj

  Agau vâté, vâté

  Li vâté, vâté

  Agau sòti lâ Guinȇ

  Li vâté, li grôdé

  Agau blows, blows

  The north-west blows

  The south-west blows

  Agau is not a person who lives here

  Agau roars, roars

  The storm roars

  Agau blows, blows

  He blows, blows

  Agau has left for Guinea

  He blows, he roars.

  When there are earth tremors it is Agau who is angry. Trances induced by this god are extremely violent. He can cause by his brutality the death of the people he ‘rides’. Those who are strong enough to harbour him in their bodies try to imitate the grumblings of thunder and the moaning of tempest, puffing with all their strength and spluttering like seals. All the time they keep repeating ‘It is I who am the gunner of God; when I roar the earth trembles...’

  Ogu-badagri (of the great family of Nago loa) delights in the din of battle and probably that is why a Voodoo hymn makes him the master of lightning and storm, a rôle which by Nago tradition devolves upon Shango, a loa of the same group.

  Badagri-, jénéral sâglâ

  Badagri ki kébé I’oraj

  U sé jénéral sâglâ

  Zèklè fè kataoo

  Sé u ki vòyé zèklè

  Tònè, grôdé

  Sé u ki vòyé tònè

  Badagri-, jénéral sâglâ

  Badagri oh! ferocious general sanglant

  Badagri who keeps the storm

  You are a ferocious general

  The lightning goes kataoo

  It is you who throw it

  The thunder grumbles

  It is you who send the thunder

  Badagri oh! Ferocious general.

  The spirit of vegetation is Loco. He is mainly associated with trees of which he is in fact the personification. It is he who gives healing power and ritualistic properties to leaves. Hence Loco is the god of healing and patron of the herb-doctors who always invoke him before undertaking a treatment. He is also the guardian of sanctuaries, and that is why he is compared to an invisible hungan with authority over all the sanctuaries of Haiti. In one of the hymns addressed to him, there are these words: ‘The key of the humfo is in thy hand.’

  The worship of Loco overlaps with the worship of trees—in particular of the Ceiba, the Antillean silk-cotton tree and the tallest species in Haiti. Offerings for a sacred tree are placed in straw bags which are then hung in its branches.

  The attributes and character of nature-spirits are not always revealed by their outward appearance, that is to say, by the get-up or bearing of the people they possess. Hence, although Loco is a personification of plants, he is only recognizable by the pipe smoked by his servant and the stick which he carries in his hand.

  Crops and agricultural labour are the province of the loa Zaka—the ‘minister of agriculture’ of the world of spirits. First and foremost a peasant god, he is to be found wherever there is country. People treat him with familiarity, calling him ‘cousin’. When Zaka possesses devotees, they appear in peasant dress: straw hat, dark blue denim shirt, matchet slung and short clay pipe in the mouth. Their manner of speech is rustic. By nature the Zaka take after the peasants of the region: they are suspicious, out for profit, fond of quibbling, and they fear and hate townfolk. In the following song Zaka is shown up:

  Kuzê Zaka u ârajé

  Odiab-o

  Kuzé u ârajé

  Odiab-la

  U vlé kité fâm dé byê

  Pu alé viv-ak vagabô

  Kuzé Zaka u ârajé

  Odiab-la

  Cousin Zaka, you’re in a rage

  O devil-o

  You’re in a rage

  O devil la

  You want to leave a good woman

  And go and live with vagabonds

  Cousin Zaka, you’re in a rage

  O devil.

  Local political life has inspired other songs in honour of Zaka. These revolve round election-talk, the chamber of deputies and the Senate; in them the divine right-honourable ‘Minister’ witnesses electoral triumph. The favourite offerings of the Zaka are the dishes which peasants feast on—boiled maize, bread soaked in oil, afibas,{53} rapadous,{54} all washed down with a glass of trempé.{55}

  Gods associated with a profession or a function are not tied down to strictly prescribed tasks. They are invoked whenever an affair seems to come within their province, but no one hesitates to seek their support for undertakings which logically should not concern them. Voodooists seem to attach more importance to the character and personal tastes of a loa than to the specific functions attributed to him by mythology. Let us take Ogu as an example. In Dahomey, Gu is the blacksmith of the mythical world. Ironwork having lost most of its importance in Haiti, he has become mainly a warrior loa, symbolized in humfo by a sabre stuck in the earth in front of the altar. A few vestiges of his former rôle are nevertheless still preserved in the homage paid to him and in the-accepted idea of his taste and character. ‘Ogu’s forge’ is the name given to the iron rod (pince) stuck in a brazier which represents him. Because of Ogu’s passion for fire, people possessed by him wash their hands in flaming rum. The most worked-up among them think nothing of handling red-hot spirits. For this reason they are never offered a libation, as are other loa. The water-pot is tilted three times in their direction without a drop being spilt. Ogu-balindjo, on the other hand, lives right in water and must be constantly sprinkled with water whenever he leaves his element.

  Ogu is seen in the guise of an old veteran of the ‘time of bayonets’ (the civil wars). People possessed by him dress themselves in red dolman and French képi, the better to incarnate him. Those who do not possess such cast-off military clothing wrap a red cloth round their heads and tie other scarves of the same colour round their arms. The ‘Ogu’ always wave a sabre or matchet. They affect the brusque and lively language of a soldier and season it with coarse oaths. They chew a cigar and demand rum in the time-honoured phrase: ‘Grén mwê frét’ (my testicles are cold). The members of this celestial family are great drinkers. Alcohol has no effect on them. We learn as much from a song in their honour, which goes thus: ‘Mét Ogu bwé, li bwé jâmé su’ (Master Ogu drinks, he drinks but he is never drunk).

  Ogu would not be a genuine soldier if he had not got a weakness for ‘a bit of skirt’. He ruins himself for pretty women:

  Ogu travay li pa mâjé

  Li séré l’ajâ

  Pu I’al dòmi kay bèl fâm

  Yè swa Fèray dòmi sâ supé

  Ogu travay-o

  Ogu pa mâjé

  Li achété bèl rob bay fâmli

  Yè swa Ogu dòmi sâ supè

  Ogu works, he doesn’t eat

  He puts money on one side

  In order to sleep with a pretty girl

  Yesterday evening Ferraille went to bed without supper

  Ogu works o

  Ogu doesn’t eat

  He has bought a dress to give to his girl

  Yes
terday evening Ogu went to bed without supper.

  Ezili-Freda-Dahomey is usually compared to Aphrodite. The two goddesses resemble each other in so far as a pretty Antillean half-caste is capable of evoking an Homeric divinity. Like Aphrodite, Ezili belongs to the family of sea spirits but she has become so completely divorced from her origins as to be now almost exclusively a personification of feminine grace and beauty. She has all the characteristics of a pretty mulatto: she is coquettish, sensual, pleasure-loving and extravagant.

  In every sanctuary there is a room, or corner of a room, dedicated to Ezili. Her red and blue dresses and jewels are kept there, and on a table, always ready to hand, lie basin, towel, soap, tooth-brush, comb, lipstick and orange-stick. As soon as Ezili possesses a devotee, man or woman, the chosen person is led into this room to be dressed and titivated. While this is going on the choir sings the following song:

  A ñù bèl fâm

  Se Ezili! (bis)

  Ezili m’a’ fè nu kado

  Avâ u alé,Abobo

  Ah, the lovely woman

  Who is Ezili!

  Oh, I will give you a present

  Before you go away, Abobo

  At last, in the full glory of her seductiveness, with hair unbound to make her look like a long-haired half-caste, Ezili makes her entrance to the peristyle. She walks slowly, swinging her hips, throwing saucy, ogling looks at the men or pausing for a kiss or a caress. She likes to get presents and she gives them. Her caprices are sometimes expensive: has she not been known to moisten the dried mud floor of the peristyle with scent? She is so fond of men that she instinctively mistrusts women as rivals; she treats them haughtily and greets them by hooking her little finger in theirs. Ezili is ‘a woman of etiquette’ and when she pretends to speak French, she purposely talks in a high-pitched voice. When she goes back to her boudoir men flock to escort her.