Voodoo in Haiti

by Alfred Métraux

  Fèy o vini sòvé mwê

  La misè, mwê yé

  Oh leaves, come and save me

  I am so wretched.

  The supply of leaves having been exhausted, the last multure was about to be taken out of the mortar when Docelia jumped down and stretched herself out on the ground on a mat. Several peasants lifted the mortar and set it down on her back. She took the whole weight while people once more set to work with the pestles. Such a feat required a rare degree of strength; consequently the faithful gave the kudos not to Docelia but to Grand-Bois who in her goodness permitted this powder to be pulverized on her back and thus endowed it with new powers. This performance brought the ‘grinding of leaves’ to an end. The mortar was now emptied and the hollow meticulously combed so that not a grain should be lost. When the interior had been well cleaned the hungan poured in some clairin. This he ignited with a brand taken from the bonfire in the court. The leaf pounders came and scooped up some of the flaming liquid in their calabashes and raised it to their lips. Then, plunging their hands into the fire they rubbed their hands and faces with it. Sometimes it was the possessed who took this fire-bath and passed their flaming hands over the body and face of the hungan or the leaf-pounders. The hungan taking a calabash full of powder went round the company giving everyone a pinch. Wherever he went he was followed by a concert of sneezing for no mucous membrane can stand up to the powder. This distribution brought the first part of the fete to an end.

  The second act which was due to take place round the bonfire, at some distance from the make-shift peristyle, opened with hymns in honour of the loa, notably of Maître-Cimetière-Bumba. Docelia, still possessed by Grand-Bois but much calmer now that she was no longer presiding over the leaf-pounding, seemed to be nervous and on edge. She finally sank down on to a chair and covered her face with her cloth. When she took it away she had resumed her habitual expression: Grand-Bois had left her. But suddenly she again tottered, completed a few erratic steps and slumped to the ground where she remained stretched out, her eyes fixed, her limbs rigid. This time it was Maître-Cimetière who in descending upon her had changed her into ‘a corpse’. Immediately a symbolical funeral toilet was carried out: a strip of cloth was tied round her head, cotton wool put between her teeth and in her nostrils and ears. Other dancers, among whom were many women, collapsed in their turn on the ground. They too ‘became corpses’ and were therefore ceremonially laid out. Soon their bodies, motionless at first, were overrun with mild tremblings which built up into sudden starts. Some of the ‘dead’, using their elbows and feet, crawled towards the pyre. Others, sprinkled with kiman, got up and walked to the fire helped by the loa Malulu. The latter, who had perhaps drunk more than was wise, buzzed and bumped around like blind bees. The spectators, gathered round the brazier, watched the loa with curiosity and amusement tinged with alarm. As well as Maître-Cimetière-Bumba, an essentially terrifying loa, there were a few comic Guédé in funny hats and wearing dark-glasses as is their custom. These walked up and down in front of the fire with rigid legs, uttering obscenities in a high-pitched nasal tone. The orchestra had left the peristyle and installed themselves outside near the bonfire. From the first drum-beats the possessed came round the fire dancing, and jumped with great agility into the middle of the flames to ‘bathe’ there. They did not linger and despite their apparent state of trance, took care to put their feet on parts of the logs not yet alight.

  Other less bold members of the Guédé remained at a distance and continued to provide light relief for the whole performance. One Guédé, sinking down in front of the drums, pretended to want to rape a woman seated nearby—a farce which earned him a huge success.

  Some loa, Malulu in particular, tried to provoke possessions among the spectators by stationing themselves face to face with them and staring straight into their eyes. They even pressed themselves against people and rubbed foreheads, but these efforts were not always crowned with success. Maître-Cimetière-Bumba, despite the chin-support and the wad of cotton-wool stuck in their mouths, felt it incumbent upon them as living corpses to emit lugubrious death-rattles rather as children will when trying to frighten each other. Docelia, who had put on a black dressing-gown and a strange Chinese hat, did her best to live up to her part. Spirit though she now was, she did not forget her responsibilities as daughter of the house and so watched over the smooth-running of the ceremony. Every time the crowd came too near the fire and got in the way of the possessed, she drove them back, threatening them with a flaming torch. The Maître-Cimetière spirits, taking some hunsi by the hand, pirouetted them so violently that several, losing their balance, all but fell into the fire. One loa seized the hand of a young woman which he held in the flames a few moments without her wincing. At that moment one of the spectators cried out, ‘I would never submit to anything like that; if I did an ambulance would soon be on its way.’

  The preceding year there had been plenty of comedy. Knowing the Guédé’s dread of fire, one of the other loa, Brisé, had seized Guédé-nuvavu and tried to drag him into the flames. The poor Guédé had struggled without managing to get free. When he felt the heat of the fire on his naked feet he screamed in terror. Maître-Cimetière-Bumba then ‘came to his assistance and prevailed upon Brisé to have pity. The latter let go whereupon the Guédé fled amid general laughter and jeers.’ This impromptu which the possessed had enacted round the fire had attracted a lot of people. People crowded round, the better to see, and the spectators in the front row, finding themselves pushed towards the fire, reacted vigorously, protested and resisted the crowd behind. From the direction of the sanctuary came an appeal loud enough to quell the disturbance. It was the loa Loco-atissu who had come down into Sino, the brother of Calixte, to demand that everyone present should get back beneath the arbour. The drums changed rhythm to ‘salute’ the loa and the choir intoned the song which begins:

  Loco-atissu, nu la agoé.

  Loco-atissu, we are here, agoé.

  A few minutes later, since the crowd was still milling about the fire, Loco-atissu, clad in a black frock-coat, came in person to hasten the withdrawal. This god is regarded as a sage whom it is worth consulting. He did the rounds of the congregation full of friendliness for one and all. Of some he took the hands and raised them to the four points of the compass, of others the clothing and shook it to free them of bad luck, and all the time he was prodigal both with advice and reproaches.

  The last part of the fête was entirely given over to dance. The Guédé in particular proved gay companions—particularly Guédé-brave who kept sitting on the knees of the women, lied shamelessly, stole food and suggested to those present that he should change clothes with them. All this with furtive gestures, timid evasions and rodomontades.

  Docelia, who as we have said had been mounted by Grand-Bois and then by Maître-Cimetière-Bumba, finally fell prey to Damballah-wèdo. Instead of the god’s usual ‘t-t-t-t’, she yapped or more precisely barked like a cur. She disappeared in the direction of the humfo and came back clad in red, her hunsi necklace worn crosswise. She resumed her barking louder than ever and danced with her arm stretched out, the fingers of her right hand forming horns. She was given an egg nested in flour which she took and threw away. After this she demanded a bath in the humfo pool. The hungan addressing himself to the loa who was lodged in her head, begged him to spare his ‘horse’ a bathe which might be harmful to her so soon after exposure to the flames of the bonfire. Damballah vanished as though by magic—to give place to the marine god Agwé whom everyone hastened to revive with towels and sponges as though he were a wilting boxer—for Agwé suffers from the heat whenever he leaves water. At more or less the same moment a woman rolled on the ground, seized with violent convulsions. She knelt, tore the top of her dress and flung herself into a dishevelled dance, the upper part of her body quite naked. She resisted all attempts to calm her and went on with her frenzied prancing. When finally she was soothed she burst into tears. Recovering quickly she danced until
she was finally overcome by an excess of weariness. A child loa came on and began to cry, begging for something to eat. Among the supernatural personages who mingled with the dancers there was a certain Pierre-Boucassin, one of whose peculiarities is a weakness for salted coffee.

  At dawn when the drums were silent the last exhausted dancers went and flung themselves down on mats. The ‘horses’ of the gods were there before them, sleeping deeply.

  The following day some of them woke up already possessed by their loa and continued to adhere to their various divine personalities. But on the whole their hearts were not in it. Worn out by the agitation of the previous day the loa dawdled and made insignificant remarks.

  The cycle of ceremonies, beginning with the quest for the sulphurous water and ending so brilliantly with Christmas night, is mainly designed to bring good luck to the devotees by means of the ‘baths’ and to give priests an opportunity of preparing, with all due pomp and circumstance, the magic powders which they use in their ‘treatments’. The fête which we refer to as ‘Christmas’, on account of the coincidence of dates, is at root only a magic ceremony designed to ensure the capture of that vague power called ‘luck’ and to confer immunity against sorcerers. However, other stray rites seem to have got grafted on to the magic ritual. These are doubtless vestiges of other ceremonies which had to do with the winter solstice and the visiting of the earth by the dead. Of this the part played by fire, as well as the presence of the funeral deities, are signs which cannot be altogether dismissed.

  XVI.—THE CULT OF THE DEAD

  The dead, after the loa and the Twins, are the third category of supernatural beings to be worshipped. But before a deceased person is promoted to the rank of tutelary spirit, and becomes in his turn a loa, his family must first complete various ceremonies which are usually spread out over several years. The funeral customs of the Haitian peasantry are extremely complex. Alongside rites borrowed from Catholic liturgy—and scrupulously observed—there exist many practices which are dictated by fear of ghosts and the simple desire to put death at a distance as soon as possible. Strictly speaking such precautions are no part of Voodoo, in so far as ‘Voodoo’ is taken to mean a religious system. They are magic precautions whose exact origin is hard to establish; and they are common to the folklore of both Europe and Africa. These funeral rites are much more elaborate and much stricter when the deceased has been an initiate holding some rank in a Voodoo cult-group.{82}

  It would be somewhat arbitrary merely to describe Voodoo funeral ceremonies without giving some attention to rites which, although apparently not linked with the cult of loa, nevertheless are always observed over every dead body no matter whether it is that of a Catholic, a fervent Voodooist or an uncompromising Protestant. Christian churches tolerate many pagan customs either because they are ignorant of their origin or because they do not dare to condemn traditions whose roots lie deep in the life of the people.

  Fear of the dead is such that their close relations would never dare, under any pretext whatever, to avoid those duties which custom exacts. Even the most destitute family does not hesitate to sacrifice its last pennies to ensure a proper funeral for one of its members. In such spending—which may seem unreasonable to us—there may be an element of vanity and concern for ‘what the neighbours might say’, yet this ostentation has a deeper cause. That the style of funeral actually determines the fate of the soul in eternity may not really be believed or given clear expression, but it does somehow influence the reaction of peasants when confronted by death. The anguish which gnaws at the heart of some, when they imagine they will have no funeral vigil and perhaps only a coffin of rude planks, cannot be explained away merely in terms of peasant pride. Any man who respects himself takes fore-thought for his funeral. If his cattle are insufficient to defray the costs he designates plots of land to be sold as soon as he enters his last agony or after his death. The needs of heirs are pitilessly sacrificed to their duties towards the deceased. I was told of peasants who, having no direct heirs, actually adopted a child to make sure they would get a proper burial. Others fearing their children may prove stingy when it comes to the quality of the coffin, make one for themselves and keep it carefully in their homes. In a report which reached Unesco, someone speaking for the Marbial community thanked the International Organization for having provided them with a carpentering shop and so paved the way to coffins on account. Let us forbear to smile: the dead are demanding and these poor country folk were truly glad that their burden had been lessened.

  Initiation serves to create a mystic bond between loa and devotee, making the spirit into a maît’-tête for the human being. Later, other spirits may possess the initiate but the one who first made him his ‘horse’ remains his particular patron and protector. This link must, however, be broken after death or else the loa will rain vengeance on the heads of neglectful relations. The ceremony by which this separation is effected, between the deceased and his loa, is called the déssunin (from the French déssonner), or dégradation. It takes place immediately after death but can equally be celebrated at the cemetery some days or even weeks later if, for some reason or other, it was impossible to celebrate it at the desired moment.

  The déssunin ceremony begins with appeals to the loa and ends with a scene which people have always described to me with terror—provoked by the mere mention of it. The hungan, having motioned the spectators to stand at a distance, advances towards the death-bed, gets under the sheet which covers the corpse and crouches over it. Shaking his rattle he beseeches and invokes the loa. Then, having murmured some mysterious formulae three times over in the corpse’s ear, he calls the deceased loudly by name. Now, apparently something horrible and strange happens: a shudder runs through the corpse and slowly it raises its head, or shoulders, as though trying to sit up—then it slumps back—an inert mass. This is not a spark of life, struck into being by the hungan’s art, but merely a muscular contraction—the effect of the loa leaving the mortal remains of his servant. It is not unusual for the released loa to go, there and then, and take up residence in some person who, appointed by him, will immediately become, so to speak, the spiritual heir of the deceased and will take over the obligations which the latter may have contracted vis-â-vis the god.

  This description of the most dramatic moment of the déssunin is based upon eyewitness accounts, honest—certainly—but carried away by faith so that every detail was seen in terms of marvel. To separate truth from fantasy is not always easy. A Haitian teacher who had witnessed a déssunin, told me that the hungan straddling the corpse had pulled it up by the arms. No doubt it is this striking scene which for believers becomes a miracle.

  I have left out of this chapter many details, which were generously contributed by various informants, simply because they are to be found in the majority of Voodoo ceremonies. One episode, however, which I got from an excellent source, I will mention. It takes place shortly before the departure of the loa. The hungan marks a cross on the head of the corpse with flour, then places a tuft of its hair in a little white pot, some of its body hair, and parings of nails from the left hand and foot. To these are added feathers plucked from a chicken which the hungan has first passed to and fro several times over the head of the corpse. The meaning of this rite seems clear to me: it is the soul of the ‘good angel’ of the departed which is put in the white pot and not the loa, as some Voodooists make out. The soul of the dead person, since it is destined to become a loa, is often referred to as such—which makes for confusion. As we have seen in another chapter, hungan transfer the soul of initiates into a pot-tête by an identical procedure, and magicians gather, similarly, into a bottle the souls of those who wish to protect themselves from evil spells. Hair, body hair and nail-parings thus become the vehicles and symbolic matter of the soul. Whoever possesses them has power over the person from whom they have been taken.

  The pot containing the soul of the deceased is carefully sealed and placed in a safe place—often in the boughs of a t
ree—until the day when it is opened and exposed to the sacred flames of the bulé-zin.

  In the Plaisance region the déssunin rite is observed not only for the adepts of Voodoo but also for anyone who excels in his profession. Thus musicians, photographers and experienced sailors are all ‘dismissed’. The talent, or simply the ability which such people have shown during their lifetime, is taken to be supernatural, therefore the work of a loa, who must of course be withdrawn from the body.

  THE LAYING-OUT OF THE DEAD

  This takes place after the déssunin. The body is washed with an infusion of aromatic herbs of more or less magical powers, the nostrils and the ears plugged with cotton-wool, the mouth closed by means of a sling knotted on top of the head and the big toes tied together. In the course of these last attentions the deceased is treated as though he were still conscious. Rubbing him with leaves of the custard-apple the ‘washer’ explains to him that he is only washing him to make him more beautiful and to ensure that even in his condition he shall not lose one jot of dignity. If, in the course of dressing him, he experiences any difficulty in putting on his shirt or trousers he politely asks for a little co-operation. It is reported that the limbs of the deceased then become flexible as though the request had been heeded. Friends and relations come up to the body and entrust it with messages for the other world. It is assumed, too, that the deceased can take illnesses with him. A woman of Marbial who was suffering from yaws told me in confidence that she had bribed a ‘washer’ to use water in which she had soaked her wounds for the last washing of a corpse. Convinced that the deceased would thus relieve her of her complaint, she had rewarded him with an offering of a few sous.