The Serpent and the Rainbow

by Wade Davis

  For most of the day, I sat near the base of the mapou. After weeks of constant travel and intermittent tension, it was good for once to remain still and simply watch, for I knew that things were about to change. Before long I was due to return to New York to report to Kline, and I didn’t know when, if ever, I would come back to Haiti. Evidently Kline was satisfied with the increased samples and now was most anxious to begin further laboratory investigations. From his perspective the initial phase of the project was complete: a pharmacologically active substance had been identified, which he could promote as the material basis of the zombi phenomenon. All that remained to accomplish as far as he was concerned was the documentation and medical study of a victim as it came out of the ground.

  As yet another piece of evidence, the possibility of observing a legitimate graveyard ceremony intrigued me as much as anyone, and already I had begun to make discreet inquiries on Kline’s behalf. But from the start it struck me as something of a digression. The chances of success were slim, the risks were great, and moreover, even if the obvious ethical and practical difficulties could be surmounted, it would bring us no closer to what I saw as the core of the mystery. The evidence surrounding the case of Clairvius Narcisse was more than sufficient to crack the mirror of disbelief. Now for the first time the most important questions could be considered, and none of these could be answered by running all over Haiti looking for other zombis. We had the formula of the powder, and with the information provided by Herard Simon had been able to clear up a critical problem concerning the administration of the drug. From the disparate facts garnered from various informants, there was little doubt that Narcisse had suffered a form of voodoo death. But I still had not penetrated the belief system to know what the magic was, or what it had meant to Clairvius Narcisse.

  The frontier of death. In Lehman’s first words to me he had identified the critical issue. A zombi sits on the cusp of death, and for all peoples death is the first teacher, the first pain, the edge beyond which life as we know it ends and wonder begins. Death’s essence is the severance from the mortal body of some elusive life-giving principle, and how a culture comes to understand or at least tolerate this inexorable separation to a great extent defines its mystical worldview. If zombis exist, the beliefs that mediate the phenomenon must be rooted in the very heart of the Haitian being. And to try to reach those places, to isolate the germ of the Haitian people, there was no better means than to spend a night and a day at Saut d’Eau filling my eyes with wonder, and listening to the words of the houngan.

  For the Haitian, the ease with which the individual walks in and out of his spirit world is but a consequence of the remarkable dialogue that exists between man and the loa. The spirits are powerful and if offended can do great harm, but they are also predictable and if propitiated will gratefully provide all the benefits of health, fertility, and prosperity. But just as man must honor the spirits, so the loa are dependent on man, for the human body is their receptacle. Usually they arrive during a religious ceremony, ascending up the axis of the poteau mitan, called forth by the rhythm of the drums or the vibration of a bell. Once mounted, the person loses all consciousness and sense of self; he or she becomes the spirit, taking on its persona and powers. That, of course, is why the body of the possessed cannot be harmed.

  But the human form is by no means just an empty vessel for the gods. Rather it is the critical and single locus where a number of sacred forces may converge, and within the overall vodoun quest for unity it is the fulcrum upon which harmony and balance may be finally achieved. The players in this drama are the basic components of man: the z’étoile, the gros bon ange, the ti bon ange, the n’âme, and the corps cadavre. The latter is the body itself, the flesh and the blood. The n’âme is the spirit of the flesh that allows each cell of the body to function. It is the residual presence of the n’âme, for example, that gives form to the corpse long after the clinical death of the body. The n’âme is a gift from God, which upon the death of the corps cadavre begins to pass slowly into the organisms of the soil; the gradual decomposition of the corpse is the result of this slow transferral of energy, a process that takes eighteen months to complete. Because of this, no coffin may be disturbed until it has been in the ground for that period of time.

  The z’étoile is the one spiritual component that resides not in the body but in the sky. It is the individual’s star of destiny, and is viewed as a calabash that carries one’s hope and all the many ordered events for the next life of the soul, a blueprint that will be a function of the course of the previous lifetime. If the shooting star is bright, so shall be the future of the individual.

  The two aspects of the vodoun soul, the ti bon ange and the gros bon ange, are best explained by a metaphor commonly used by the Haitians themselves. Sometimes when one stands in the late afternoon light the body casts a double shadow, a dark core and then a lighter penumbra, faint like the halo that sometimes surrounds the full moon. This ephemeral fringe is the ti bon ange—the “little good angel”—while the image at the center is the gros bon ange, the “big good angel.” The latter is the life force that all sentient beings share; it enters the individual at conception and functions only to keep the body alive. At clinical death, it returns immediately to God and once again becomes part of the great reservoir of energy that supports all life. But if the gros bon ange is undifferentiated energy, the ti bon ange is that part of the soul directly associated with the individual. As the gros bon ange provides each person with the power to act, it is the ti bon ange that molds the individual sentiments within each act. It is one’s aura, and the source of all personality, character, and willpower.

  As the essence of one’s individuality, the ti bon ange is the logical target of sorcery, a danger that is compounded by the ease and frequency with which it dissociates from the body. It is the ti bon ange, for example, that travels during sleep to experience dreams. Similarly, the brief sensation of emptiness that immediately follows a sudden scare is due to its temporary flight. And predictably it is the ti bon ange that is displaced during possession when the believer takes on the persona of the loa.

  At the same time, because it is the ti bon ange that experiences life, it represents a precious accumulation of knowledge that must not be squandered or lost. If and only if it is protected from sorcery and permitted to complete its proper cycle, the ti bon ange may be salvaged upon the death of the individual and its legacy preserved. Only in this way may the wisdom of past lives be marshaled to serve the pressing needs of the living. A great deal of ritual effort, therefore, must be expended to secure its safe and effortless metamorphosis. At initiation, for example, the ti bon ange may be extracted from the body and housed in a canari, a clay jar that is placed in the inner sanctum of the hounfour. In this way the ti bon ange may continue to animate the living while remaining directly within the protective custody of the houngan. Yet even here there are no guarantees. Though it is difficult to kill the one whose ti bon ange has been placed in a canari, if the magic used against the individual is strong enough, the resulting misery may be so great that he will ask the houngan to release the soul that he might end his ordeal. And even if the individual does survive life, he is still at risk in death, for with the demise of the corps cadavre the houngan must break the canari so that the ti bon ange may return to hover about the body for seven days. Then, since the vodounist does not believe in the physical resurrection of the body, the soul must be definitively separated from the flesh, and this takes place during the Dessounin, which is the major death ritual. Throughout this period the ti bon ange is extremely vulnerable, and it is not until it is liberated from the flesh to descend below the dark abysmal waters that it is relatively safe.

  The ti bon ange remains below in the world of Les Invisibles for one day and one year and then, in one of the most important of vodoun ceremonies—the Wété Mo Nan Dlo—it is reclaimed by the living and given new form. In place of the body that has decayed, the soul, now regarded as an “
esprit,” is deposited in another clay jar called a govi. To the Haitian this reclamation of the dead is not an isolated sentimental act; on the contrary, it is considered as fundamental and inescapable as birth itself. One emerges from the womb an animal, the spiritual birth at initiation makes one human, but it is this final reemergence that marks one’s birth as divine essence. The spirits in the govi are fed and clothed and then released to the forest to dwell in trees and grottos, where they wait to be reborn. After the last of sixteen incarnations, the esprit goes to Damballah Wedo, where it becomes undifferentiated as part of the Djo, the cosmic breath that envelops the universe.

  This lengthy passage of the ti bon ange corresponds to the metamorphosis of the individual human into pure spiritual energy. Hence, with the successive passing of generations, the individual identified with the esprit in the govi is transformed from the ancestor of a particular lineage into the generalized ancestor of all mankind. Yet even this pure spiritual energy must be made to serve, and for it to function it must become manifest. Thus from the ancestral pool there emerge archetypes, and these are the loa. It is, of course, possession, the return of the spirits to the body of man, that completes the sacred cycle: from man to ancestor, ancestor to cosmic principle, principle to personage, and personage returning to displace the identity of man. Hence, while the vodounist serves his gods, he also gives birth to them, and this is something that is never forgotten; as much as the spirit is the source of the flesh, so the flesh gives rise to the spirit. In place of opposition between the two, there is mutual dependence. Thus the regular arrival of the divine is not considered miraculous, but rather inevitable.

  Within this cosmic exchange, perhaps man’s most critical contribution is the preservation of his own equilibrium, for without it the receptacle of the gods is placed in danger. The ideal form of man, therefore, is one of coherence, wherein all the sacred components of the individual find their proper place. The maintenance or restoration of this balance is the duty of the houngan, and it accounts for his unique role as healer. In our secular society, life and death are defined in strictly clinical terms by physicians, with the fate of the spirit being relegated to the domain of religious specialists who, significantly, have nothing to say about the physical well-being of the living. In vodoun society, the physician is also the priest, for the condition of the spirit is as important as—and in fact, determines—the physical state of the body. Good or bad health results not from the presence or absence of pathogens but from the proper or improper balance of the individual. Sickness is disruption, imbalance, and the manifestation of malevolent forces in the flesh. Health is a state of harmony, and for the vodounist it is something holy, like a perfect service for the gods.

  As a result, vodoun medicine acts on two quite different levels. There is an entire range of relatively minor ailments that are treated symptomatically much as we would, only with medicinal plants and folk preparations, many of which are pharmacologically active. A basic knowledge of the leaves in such profane treatments is part of the traditional education of virtually every rural Haitian, and though there are respected specialists known as dokte feuilles— leaf doctors—their expertise is considered mundane. Much more serious are the troubles that arise when the harmony of the spiritual components is broken. Here it is the source of the disorder, not its particular manifestation, that must be treated, and that responsibility falls strictly within the domain of the houngan. Since disharmony will affect all aspects of the individual’s life, problems brought to the houngan include both psychological and physical ailments, as well as other troubles such as chronic bad luck, marital difficulties, or financial problems. Each case is treated as unique. As a form of medicine, it does not ignore the existence of pathogens, it simply comments that the pathogens are present in the environment at all times, and it asks why certain individuals succumb when they do.

  To restore the patient’s health may involve a number of techniques. At the material level these include herbal baths and massage, physical isolation of the patient in the hounfour, administration of medicinal plant potions, and perhaps most importantly, a sacrifice, that the patient may return to the earth a gift of life’s vital energy. But it is intervention on the spiritual plane that ultimately determines the patient’s fate, and for this the houngan is but a servant of the loa. The spirit is called into the head of either the houngan or an assistant, and like an oracle the physical body of man dispenses the knowledge of the gods.

  Inevitably, there are times when the forces arrayed against the individual are simply too powerful. If disharmony at the core of man results in sickness, the irrevocable separation of the spiritual components will bring death. But death, like life, stretches far beyond the temporal limits of the body. Life begins not at physical conception but at an earlier moment when God first decides that a person should exist. Death is not defined just by the passing of the flesh, but as the moment when all the spiritual components find their proper destination. Thus the vodoun adept, believing in the immortality of the spirit, fears death not for its finality but because it is a critical and dangerous passage during which the five vital aspects of man dissociate, leaving the ti bon ange, in particular, vulnerable to capture by the sorcerer.

  But the death of the body brings other equally pressing concerns, for there are two possible causes of death, and the implications are profoundly different. Rarely, as in the case of an old man passing away in his sleep, a death may be considered natural, a call from God (mort bon Dieu) and beyond the influence of man. Unnatural deaths include all those we might label as “before one’s time,” and more often than not these result from the intervention of sorcery. And by vodoun definition, anyone who suffers an unnatural magical death may be raised as a zombi. At times it may be in the interest of the bokor to cause the unnatural death, and there are countless ways of doing so. But causing the unnatural death does not create a zombi; it just makes the victim immediately susceptible. Once this is understood, it becomes apparent that our entire investigation was based on an unwarranted assumption.

  Since we knew that the zombi powders could pharmacologically induce a state of apparent death, we had all assumed that the bokors recognized an explicit cause-effect relationship between the powder and the resurrection from the grave. Clearly, I now realized, the vodounist did not necessarily consider it such a linear process. For them the creation of a zombi involved two only indirectly related events: the unnatural death and the graveyard ceremony. According to their beliefs, the powders just kill, and as in the case of any unnatural death the victim of the powder may be raised as a zombi. It is not the antidote or a powder that creates a zombi; it is the magical force of the bokor. That was why Herard Simon could rest assured that I would never understand zombis. I did not know the magic, and he himself did not know, nor did he believe that anyone would share those mysteries with me.

  For the vodounist, then, zombis are created by sorcery, and it is the belief in the magic that makes the relatives of the dead concerned. For good reasons, they go to great efforts to ensure that the dead are truly dead, or at least protected from such a horrible fate. This is why the body may be killed again, with a knife through the heart or by decapitation. And this explains why seeds may be placed in the coffin so that whoever appears to take the body will be obliged to count them, a task that will take him perilously into the dawn.

  To create a zombi, the bokor must capture the ti bon ange of the intended victim, a magical act that may be accomplished in a variety of ways. A particularly powerful bokor, for example, may through his spells gain control of the ti bon ange of a sailor who dies at sea or of a Haitian who is killed in a foreign land. Alternatively, the bokor may capture the ti bon ange of the living and hence indirectly cause the unnatural death: the individual, left without intelligence or will, slowly perishes. One way of thus capturing the ti bon ange is to spread poisons in the form of a cross on the threshold of the victim’s doorway. The magical skill of the bokor guarantees that only the
victim will suffer. This, of course, was the service that LaBonté and Obin had offered me at Petite Rivière de Nippes. Yet a third means of gaining control of the ti bon ange is to capture it immediately following the death of the corps cadavre during the seven days that it hovers around the corpse. Hence the bokor may or may not be responsible for the unnatural death of the victim, and the ti bon ange may be captured by magic before or after the death of the corps cadavre.

  Whatever the circumstances, the capture of the ti bon ange effects a split in the spiritual components of the victim and creates not one but two complementary kinds of zombis. That is what Herard had shown me. The spirit zombi, or the zombi of the ti bon ange alone, is carefully stored in a jar and may later be magically transmuted into insects, animals, or humans in order to accomplish the particular work of the bokor. The remaining spiritual components of man, the n’âme, the gros bon ange, and the z’étoile, together form the zombi cadavre, the zombi of the flesh.

  Now the resurrection of the zombi cadavre in the graveyard requires a particularly sophisticated knowledge of magic. Above all, the bokor must prevent the transformations of the various spiritual components that would normally occur at the death of the body. First the ti bon ange—which may float above the body like a phosphorescent shadow—must be captured and prevented from reentering the victim. One way to assure this is to beat the victim violently, as occurred with Narcisse. Secondly, the gros bon ange must be prevented from returning to its source. Thirdly, the n’âme must be retained to keep the flesh from decaying. The zombi cadavre with its gros bon ange and n’âme can function; however, separated from the ti bon ange, the body is but an empty vessel, subject to the direction of the bokor or whoever maintains control of the zombi ti bon ange, Herard’s zombi astral. It is the notion of alien, malevolent forces thus taking control of the individual that is so terrifying to the vodounist. In Haiti, the fear is not of being harmed by zombis; it is fear of becoming one. The zombi cadavre, then, is a body without a complete soul, matter without morality.