Voodoo in Haiti

by Alfred Métraux

  Monseigneur Kersuzan tells how a general who had been doctored by a magician, to make him invulnerable, did not hesitate to have a bullet fired straight into his chest just to prove the dependability of the treatment he had undergone. Naturally he was killed on the spot.

  The word ‘mounted’ is used for any object which has been subjected to any magical process designed to ensure its efficacy or success. An artisan will have his tools mounted to make his work easier. A farmer will do the same for his field. Fighting cocks which have undergone a magic treatment are referred to as montés. The verb monter is the opposite of ranger which designates any magic procedure by which harm is intended to others.

  Among the charms favoured by Voodooists are the ‘lamps’ which are also called ‘work lamps’ (lampes de travail) and ‘charm lamps’ (lampes de charme). These consist of receptacles—an ordinary cup, coconut, calabash, crab-shell—containing oil and a wick floating above two splinters of bone arranged in a cross. These lamps are ‘mounted’ to bring about the accomplishment of a wish: for successful business, luck or getting a job—and also vengeance on an enemy. A lamp which is burned to harm someone, or even to kill, is called ‘black’. The magic efficacy of a lamp depends on the ingredients mixed with the oil burned in it—on substances which have power or some symbolic analogy with the proposed action. For instance if the object is to build-up a faithful clientele then glue is included; if to get rid of an enemy, then powdered human bones (poudre de mort), powdered lizard and other allegedly noxious ingredients. The lamp is mounted under the auspices of a spirit who to a certain extent becomes the guarantor of the magic operation. This will only succeed if the conduite—the maintenance of the lamp—follows certain exact rules: it must be topped-up at certain fixed times (preferably midday), certain prayers must be said each day, etc. Finally the flame must only be put out when the object of the whole operation has been attained.

  Any list of charms would be incomplete without some mention of the oraisons. These are Catholic prayers addressed to Saint Michael, Saint Claire, Saint Bartholomew, Saint Radegonde. They are carelessly printed on sheets of paper and sold in the market for a few pennies. The oraison to Saint Radegonde is not without interest:

  Radegonde Baron-Samedi

  Guardian of the cemetery You

  who have the power

  of going into purgatory

  give my enemies

  something to do

  so they may

  leave me alone.

  These prayers are pinned to walls or sewn into pillows. Some people wear them or use them in magical pharmacopoeia.

  ‘BATHS’ AND POWDERS

  We have seen in previous pages the part played by sprinklings made from infusions of herbs and other things. The liquids with which the sick and unlucky are rubbed all come under the heading of ‘baths’, although they seldom amount to a proper bath.

  Usually baths are given under the auspices of a god and it is often the god himself who, entering the body of the hungan or mambo, makes the virtue of the ‘leaves’ available to his servant. These ‘leaves’—plants and herbs which grow in the woods—are picked ritualistically under the direction of a spirit. I have spoken earlier of the tribute which on these occasions is paid to their ‘soul’.

  Baths do not only counteract illness; their virtue extends to a wider field. The ‘charm bath’ over which Damballah-wèdo presides includes jasmine flowers, orgeat syrup, powdered almonds, scent, holy water and champagne and has the power of ‘curing illnesses regarded as incurable, reconciling inveterate enemies, procuring work and securing promotion’.

  ‘Powders’ occupy an important position in the pharmacopoeia of magic. They are prepared on Christmas night in the course of solemn ceremonies previously described. The powders are not remedies in our sense of the word. They are antidotes against bad luck and sorcery and ensure certain kinds of advantage—seduction of a woman, securing a job...

  The spirit of rivalry prevailing among the various rada bands of musicians and dancers who perform in the streets of Port-au-Prince during Carnival, prompts their members to take various magic precautions against those who might wish to spoil their success. Before entering town to display their skill, they go to a humfo where they are received with whip-crackings and sprinklings of kimanga—rites which are observed whenever the petro loa are invoked. The hungan blows powder over each dancer and gives him a pinch of snuff. Then occur possessions or the preliminaries of possession. Those which I saw were due to the god Simbi who is the patron of magic pharmacy.

  Every sanctuary possesses a special kind of talisman called paquett (parcels). These are wallets padded with cloth or silk, shaped like an onion or a Chianti bottle. They are provided with handles and other ornaments which give them an obviously anthropomorphic appearance. This resemblance is, moreover, intentional since there are paquett men and paquett women who are put out together in couples. The ‘women’ are recognizable by the earrings attached to the end of a stem which sticks up from the paquett’s rounded body and represents the head. Some paquetts are provided with a mirror but most are decorated with a tuft of feathers. Those crowned with a black cross are placed under the sign of Baron-Samedi and the Guédé.

  The making of paquetts (the ceremony called marré paquett) takes place at full moon with invocations of loa. The strings with which the paquetts are tightly netted must be knotted seven or nine times. As with the Christmas powders the flesh of a ‘curly cock’ crushed up in a mortar with its feathers is mixed in with vegetable substances. The mat on which rests the powder, contained in a calabash, is placed on vèvè of Simbi and other petro loa, drawn on the ground with coffee grounds or ginger broken up small. The outstanding rite of this ceremony is the battre guerre (bat gè). It consists of beating out a particular rhythm with forks on four plates laid on one corner of the mat. The battre guerre lasts four days. Major Maximilien{96} has compared it very aptly to the bohum which is heard after funerals. The same author says ‘the bat gè is a call to those spirits which are to be put into someone or into some object. Hungan bat le gair (sic) for the making of personal talismans, with two sabres and also by beating a sabre against the body of the individual for whom the talisman is being prepared.’

  I have never heard the functions of paquetts clearly described. I only know they are used in certain ‘treatments’ and I have been assured that hungan pass them over the bodies of people who are ill. One hungan whom I questioned at length on this subject explained to me they were ‘guards’ and that they had the power of exciting and ‘heating’ loa. Without their ‘point’ loa would be weak and unable to ‘work’ for patients. It is absolutely essential to increase the power of a paquett by exposing it during bulé-zin ceremonies to the warmth of the flames which rise from the sacred pots.

  THE RAIN-MAKERS

  In Haiti the power of making rain and fine weather is not the prerogative of hungan and boko. It belongs to certain individuals who are regarded as possessing in this special department a mysterious gift which they use commercially. When I was in Marbial I visited Examan, the great ‘rain merchant’ of the region. Before recounting his own explanation of his powers I shall first say what the local people thought of them and thus show, side by side, the public version of the man’s function and the man’s idea of it himself.

  Some people attributed Examan’s powers to a white stone which he threw into the fire whenever he wanted to stop rain and make the sun shine. Those who denied the existence of the ‘sunstone’ said that he ‘limited’ the rain by putting a mortar-pestle carefully wrapped in a kind of creeper called langichatte (Eupatorium odoratum L.) near a fire.

  Others insisted that he was the possessor of three bottles containing respectively the wind, the rain and the sun. When he wanted rain he ‘signalled’ with his bottle towards the La Selle mountains, made a libation and smoked his pipe with the bowl downwards. Many peasants told me they had been to Examan to buy rain. The price of a good soaking for a field in seed was abou
t a dollar plus a few generous measures of beans or maize. What was particularly admired in the rain-maker was his ability to drop a shower plumb on his client’s field without the fields of neighbours getting a drop of benefit.

  When my inquiries about Examan were done I went to see the man himself. He lived in a remote valley and gave me the impression of being rather a down-at-heel fellow. Having boasted that he was a very skilful healer he confessed without hesitation that he could ‘fix’ rain as he chose. He owed this power to the people of Gonave where every man was a bit of a sailor and could control the weather. He passionately denied possession of any ‘bottles’ and said that to bring rain all he had to do was ‘say a prayer in English’ (sic). ‘Rain,’ he explained, ‘has a soul little different from our own and can be spoken to.’ He addressed himself to the clouds, asking them to go to the place indicated and empty themselves.

  He complained bitterly that his profession of rain-making brought him nothing but trouble since people got it into their heads that he was responsible for droughts and held it against him. ‘And then,’ he cried, ‘what difference does it make to me if the sun blazes in the whole valley where there are people unknown to me. I’ve got enough to do with my own gardens and those of my neighbours.’ He added that he had no intention of imparting his secret to his children as he wished to spare them the enmities which he had had to suffer.

  MAGIC AND THE SEARCH FOR TREASURE

  Popular imagination gives full rein to its fantasy on the theme of hidden treasure. In the bourgeoisie as among the very poor, there are people who all their life imagine themselves to be on the track of a find which will bring them fabulous riches. Some comb archives, others consult hungan, interpret their dreams or give themselves up to magic practices which will facilitate their quest. Magic is necessary not only to locate the hoard but also to appease the spirits watching over it. Treasure myth is always conceived along the following lines: a rich French planter, before fleeing Haiti at the time of the revolution, buried his fortune in a corner of his property. The slaves who carried it there and dug the hiding place were slaughtered on the spot so the secret would be kept and the place guarded by their souls. Special ceremonies must be celebrated to conciliate them. Some treasures lie under the guardianship of a baka—the most evil of spirits and very difficult to distract or appease.

  Boko naturally possess many magic recipes for the discovery of treasure. These afford excellent opportunities for swindling. The story which you may read in the following pages is the faithful transcription of a law report which appeared in the Nouvelliste of November 20, 1944. This amusing but banal story is not without anthropological interest for it gives us an excellent example of the power of popular beliefs, and of the ease with which magicians exploit them.

  THE BLACK HAND AGAIN—IN THE COURTS

  Last Tuesday we reported that a man who had been passing himself off under five different names, as circumstances demanded, appeared in court before Judge Tribié charged with defrauding a Madame Tulia Durand on a colossal scale.

  This foxy fellow, assisted in his fraudulent machinations by the no less infamous Robert Jean, a former detective of the Police Bureau, succeeded in milking his victim of 4,000 dollars and valuable jewels as well. Police recovered 3,012 gourdes 50 centimes, partly at the swindler’s house, partly at notary Vilmenay’s, where it had been paid in for the purchase of a flat.

  Here is how the rogue went about it: having well and truly singled out and shadowed his victim, the swindler went alone on a morning in March 1943, called on Madame Tulia Durand and asked her to show him the way to the house of a woman whose name he must certainly have invented—a person who did not exist. Mme Tulia said that being newly arrived in this part of the town she knew no one of that name. Then he said he had come from a long way having been summoned for some ‘work’—he did not say what kind—then he said he was very tired by the long walk and asked for a cup of coffee. Madame Tulia gladly gave him a cup of coffee and they got talking.

  He said he was the son of a well-known bokor of Port-au-faix whose marvellous exploits are remembered by all and who when he was dying passed on to him his secrets. It seems that Madame Tulia, having travelled a lot in the North West, knew of the deceased bokor. The swindler asked the woman several questions about dreams which she must have had—dreams about money for example—and finally revealed that a huge treasure lay buried somewhere on her property and to entice her further he said he would only charge twenty-eight gourdes for the few trifles essential to a search ceremony. Madame Tulia Durand hesitated a moment; but the presence and pressure of the swindler soon convinced her.

  The twenty-eight gourdes were paid over and a rendezvous arranged for that evening. When the time came, Tulia Durand, who had another woman called Gabrielle Chauvel living with her, received, in the latter’s presence, the second visit of Charité Zephirin.

  After some smooth talk he announced that the treasure was to be found in the court of the house, but, unable to conduct search in full view of neighbours, he said he must carry out other ceremonies so the treasure might be moved to the inside of a lumber-room situated in this same yard.

  To do this he had a huge hole dug in the middle of this room by an odd-job man he brought with him. Dismissing this worthy he said to the women: ‘He is now doomed to die this evening.’

  Then, after successive ceremonies in which he thoroughly primed Tulia Durand with ‘passes’ and incantations, he finally conjured up in the bottom of the hole the vision of a human skull and the top of a jar full of gold coins which he said he had brought up from the depths of the earth by the power of his sorcery. He even had the two women touch a genuine gold coin and verify for themselves its great age. This done he now merely had to elicit noises from the bottom of the hole—noises of night-terror; voices of slaves, guardians of treasure. In fact it was Robert Jean and his accomplices (whom the police have failed to arrest) and who had somehow managed to get into the hole.

  Now for the ransom, the sacrifice...

  Before a finger could be laid on this fabulous treasure the slaves of the Marquis of Caradoux demanded 100 bullocks each (there were five slaves)—at twenty dollars per bullock.

  Tulia, horrified by the size of the sum, protested vigorously. The slaves threatened her with death. The treasure having seen daylight, had to be taken. Zephirin the magician told the woman that he would soothe the slaves’ anger and obtain for her a reduction of the ransom. He went through a series of fresh cabalistic signs and the woman agreed to give twenty bullocks to each slave—which came to 2,000 dollars. And this money was immediately paid over to Zephirin.

  The latter now thought up a ceremony by the sea in which the slaves’ payment would be thrown to the waves, as a means of buying back the treasure.

  With the money well sealed, the two women, Gabrielle and Tulia, accompanied by the magician, went to the place called Nan Palmiste at Portail Léogane, beside the sea. There Zephirin, shaking his little bell, called upon the mysterious spirits of the Ocean, and threw the precious package into the water. Immediately a thunderous voice (still that of Robert Jean) boomed from the waves telling Tulia and her companion that the slaves could not be liberated because he, the Marquis of Caradoux, was getting nothing out of it. Mme Tulia Durand offered him a Mass for the repose of his soul: Caradoux protested and demanded as much as the slaves.

  The two women trembled at such a suggestion. But Tulia was so frightened that she gave in to Zephirin and promised further sacrifices. She was allowed no more than a month to find the money. If she did not pay up by then it would mean death for herself and her family...

  Madame Tulia Durand, eaten away by fear and anguish, had to mortgage her house with Ernest Caprio (the deeds being held by the notary Maurice Avin) for 1,000 dollars to which she added 500 dollars savings. Two months later Zephirin came back and went with the two women to the same place by night. But Caradoux refused the 1,500 dollars. He, too, wanted 2,000 dollars, not a centime less.

&
nbsp; Tulia had to make another mortgage of 500 dollars, on the same property with the same notary and creditor so as to reach the necessary 2,000 dollars. With the same ceremony as before the money was once again thrown into the sea. Robert Jean, who kept his body hidden under the water so that only his head showed, caught the woman’s ‘nest-egg’ and imitating Caradoux, said he was satisfied.

  The phony Caradoux now announced that the slaves were going back to Africa and he himself to Europe and that he intended to send the ladies a letter which must be put under a pillow for twenty-one days and twenty-one nights before being opened, and that in addition it must be Zephirin who should be charged with its execution. At the appointed time Tulia undid it and was seized with terrible fear. The letter did indeed contain the conditions under which she might enjoy the treasure...a pact with Lucifer...entailing further sacrifice. If she refused...it would mean death for herself and everyone in her house. The 4,000 dollars received so far were not enough.

  Taken a fourth time to the seashore (we may remember that the first time was to throw in 2,000 dollars, the second time to see the mysterious Caradoux refuse 1,500 dollars, the third time to see this same Caradoux accept the second payment of 2,000 dollars)—taken a fourth time by Zephirin to the seashore Tulia thought she saw a shape in the water and heard a voice demanding 200 dollars for the buying back of human lives. This time the woman was sent to the cemetery and now it was Baron-Samedi who came on to the stage of this tragi-comedy.

  The unfortunate Tulia began to find these repeated postponements a little fishy: they always seemed to end in a demand for money. But the fear which had been roused in her by all these comings and goings, these mysterious invocations, with their disturbing surroundings, was stronger than common sense. The devilish Zephirin with his perfidious counsels always swayed her whom he held in his claws: Tulia handed over the 200 dollars for the Master of Cemeteries. They were put down near a hole beside some candles and they vanished at once.