October 01, 2009
What is Voodoo: An Assembly of Christians, or a Pagan Sect?
The very fact that this question has been raised is an indication of how controversial Voodoo continues to be, despite its official status, beside Catholicism and Protestantism, as one of the state-recognized religions in Haiti.
Voodoo, the English translation of the Haitian word Vodou (Pronounced Voh-doo), is generally understood to mean "black magic" or witchcraft. Because of the notoriously outlandish claims made under the banner of voodoo, such as the power of voodoo practitioners to resuscitate the dead, their ability to drive the human soul out of the body to create zombies, among other equally bizarre things, the word itself has become somewhat of a slur that is used to cast aspersion on any proposition or practice that is so far out of touch with logic and common sense that it is deemed highly improbable, if not unthinkable. Coupled with voodoo as a qualifier, any idea takes the meaning of an oxymoron and, sure enough, the idea of Voodoo as a religion did not escape the curse of voodoo.
Given this starkly negative public perception of voodoo, some Haitian intellectuals have tried to distance Vodou from voodoo on the ground that voodoo and Vodou are two distinct entities. Vodou, they argue, is a monotheistic religion that recognizes Bondié or Gran Mèt as the Supreme Being, the One and only God to whom all loas or spirits are subordinate. On the other hand, they contend that Voodoo is, well, voodoo, and must absolutely not be confused with Vodou. Unfortunately, such arguments have generally fallen on deaf ears and, for all intents and purposes, voodoo and Vodou remain joined at the hip under the clouds of paganism. Therefore, the question should not be, "What is Voodoo?" Everybody already knows what voodoo stands for in the public psyche. Rather, it should be about whether Vodou can credibly be branded as a religious organization, distinct from the caricature of voodoo with its association with zombies, zobops, san pwell and Vlenbendengs.
Unfortunately, as Colin Dayan reflects in his thought-provoking treatise, "Haiti, History and the Gods," no one knows for sure what Vodou is. Indeed, while Vodou is generally defined as a polytheistic and syncretic form of worship that combines elements of the West African religious practices with elements of Western Catholicism, no one can tell how the slaves' knowledge of their African deities and rituals was impacted by the contact with European liturgy, and what the end-result has been at the conclusion of the colonial period. What are, for example, the Vlenbendengs, the Bizangos, the San Pwells and the Zobops within the Vodou organization? If they are, as they appear to be, the remnants of guerilla cells that were operative during the revolutionary period, what role do they continue to play in today's Vodou hierarchy? How do they express and manifest their religiosity? Who are the Vodou gods and spirits Haitians pray to and worship? Are they the original African deities or newly minted colonial gods, the Haitian war heroes who attained god-like stature in the eyes of the liberated populace? These questions are germane to the issue of Vodou as a religion or pagan sect, and should have been addressed by respectable Haitian Vodouists and/or theologians.
For further reflection on the subject, the reader is referred to the first chapter of Dayan's book, (Rituals of History in "Haiti, History, and the Gods; University of California press, 1998.")