The blood of victims is collected in a calabash containing salt, ashes, syrup or rum. Care is taken to prevent coagulation by stirring it with a stick. The officiant and sometimes all the hunsi in turn drink a spoonful of warm blood. I remember often seeing Lorgina dip her fingers in the blood, taste it and then dab it on the lips of her hunsi. Sometime she traced a bloody cross on their foreheads or mouths. The blood of sacrificed animals, with cinnamon, star-anise, nutmeg and other spices added, is made into a strange beverage called migan. A spoonful of this is given to each member of the family celebrating the service. The rest is kept for ceremonies of a magical nature.
The body of the victim is put on the loa’s vèvè where it is again ‘cross-signed’. All present come up and throw money into a plate. This is either distributed among the cooks or buried along with other offerings in a ditch. The sum given to the cooks is not strictly speaking a payment for their services. It is intended to make it possible for them to make offerings or libations to their own loa who would otherwise resent their having neglected them in favour of rival deities.
The cutting up of victims is a rather dangerous operation. It releases dangerous powers against which it is as well to protect yourself in advance. When the victims have been cooked, the pieces for the loa are put out on the altar and then buried in a ditch or thrown to the four cardinal points. The bones of the victims are sometimes buried separately or hung in the branches of the arbres-reposoirs.
A loa’s portion of the sacrifice is determined by rules which are not fully known. One example will be sufficient: when a goat is sacrificed the loa Linglessu is entitled to the ends of the tongue and the ears as well as to the front feet and the extremity of the tail. Any meat set apart for him must not be cooked with salt.
IX.—OFFERINGS
A ‘servant’ seldom communicates with loa without first inviting them to eat something which he knows they like. Ritual meals are made up in accordance with traditional Haitian recipes, but the kind of dishes, the way of preparing and serving them, must follow exact rules which it would be dangerous to ignore; in culinary affairs the loa are hard to please. The choice of foods, and the method of preparing them, are often determined by the symbolic attributes and the character of a loa or by the group to which he belongs.
All these ritual minutiae would provide enough matter for a treatise on ritual cookery, but we shall limit ourselves to mentioning a few recipes.
Foods—meat, tubers, vegetables—prepared for Legba, must always be boucanés, that is to say grilled on a fire. A cock sacrificed to him is cut in four quarters and prepared without removing the crest or feet of which only the nails and spurs are pared off. It is regarded as important not to break any bones. These dishes sprinkled with oil are served up in a red calabash.
Foods prepared for the white loa—Damballah, Ezili, Agwé, Grande-Bossine etc.—must be as far as possible of that colour. An example of this may be seen in the following menu of a manger offered to mistress Ezili: rice cooked in milk, greengage jam, cinnamon milk, fried egg, bananas fried in sugar, maize biscuit, mangoes and a glass of water.
Each loa has his favourite drinks. We have already mentioned the very pronounced taste of members of the Ogu family and of the Nago loa for rum and clairin (white rum). Ezili being a white loa and ‘a woman of the world’ has a fondness for pale and sugary drinks. Nearly all loa like to quench their thirst with coca-cola or any of those sugary kola drinks of which the Haitians consume such a lot.
The way in which offerings are presented to the divinity is similarly prescribed by ritual. Each of the main loa worshipped in a sanctuary owns a large calabash (assiette de Guinée), painted in his own colour and decorated with his emblems and in this he is served with the foods donated to him. The Ibo loa, for instance, get their manger in an oblong dish called ékuey ibo (écuelle des Ibo—Ibo basin) and they are summoned by a special rhythm which is beaten out with a rod on the edge of this receptacle. According to the loa’s group and the circumstances, offerings not eaten by the faithful are either buried, thrown away at random or left at a crossroads.
When a person possessed eats food prepared for the god who is lodged in him, then it is the god, and not he, who is supposed to get the benefit.
While the food for the great loa is being arranged on a table or at the feet of the guests, the hungan goes round the house, scattering far and wide grilled maize, peanuts and bits of cassava for the little loa and the dead, wandering on the outskirts. Like the other loa they have been drawn by the songs and drumming, but being poor and often sickly they do not dare come in under the peristyle. They too are hungry. Were they forgotten they might take revenge. For even a weak and humble loa becomes dangerous when irritated.
Among the offerings are to be found foods and drinks not specifically for the consumption of the gods and spirits but possessing intrinsic virtues of a kind that justifies their inclusion in rites of consecration. Among the sacred foods in this category there is one—a mixture of grilled maize, peanuts, bits of cassava and bread—which is arranged in little piles on the vèvè and spread over sacrificial victims. The manger-dyò or manger sec which is served in calabashes alongside other foods consists of yams, sweet potatoes, pumpkins and other tubers raw and cutup.
X.—MUSIC AND DANCE
The drum{73} on which the rhythms are beaten out for the dances symbolizes Voodoo. ‘Beating the drum’ in popular speech has come to mean ‘celebrating the cult of the loa!. Whenever the State has tried to suppress paganism it has begun by forbidding the use of the drum. That the drummer himself may be only a professional musician, not even initiated, is neither here nor there: he remains the linchpin of every Voodoo, ceremony. The fervour and concentration of the dancers and a general nervous tension conducive to trance depend upon his mastery of rhythm and upon the vitality of his touch. A musician who has not got all the rhythmic formulae at his fingertips will certainly throw dances into confusion and directly hamper the epiphanies of the loa. On the other hand a talented drummer can induce or terminate possessions at will.
The tambouriers (drummers) are endowed not only with a delicate sense of rhythm and a vast musical memory but also with exceptional nervous stamina. For nights on end they make their instruments speak with a passionate violence which at times attains frenzy. To see them with their eyeballs turned back, their faces taut, to hear the rattling gasps in their throats you might easily suppose them to be possessed. But their delirium is not the work of a god. In fact only very seldom are drummers possessed by loa.
Their talent is all the more admirable when you consider that Voodoo orchestras are polyrhythmic and each musician is striking an instrument of a different pitch from that of his neighbour and developing his own theme which must nevertheless fit in such a way as to give an impression of overall unity. In addition to a knowledge of rhythmic formulae he must also have an enormous repertoire of Voodoo songs and be capable—as soon as the choir leader intones the first bar of a song—of following on at once with the rhythm which belongs to it.
Such virtuosity is not merely the expression of innate gifts but also the fruit of a long apprenticeship. During ceremony intervals it is not unusual to see a little boy go up to a drum with a look of grave concentration and start beating it after a fashion. Sometimes a drummer comes and guides his inexpert fingers and teaches him a simple rhythm which the child repeats under the approving eyes of the congregation. Thanks to small encouragements like this, children gradually develop their talent until the day they feel ready to take their place in an orchestra. An opportunity for young people of showing their skill in public occurs at the end of ceremonies when the exhausted professional drummers go to bed. The apprentice musicians then take over the instruments and play for the last dancers till dawn. To be a good tambourier is a lucrative profession but above all it is a means to fame and honour. Some members of this profession have acquired an international reputation.
As we have already shown, the difference between the main rit
uals is reflected in the diversity of the rhythms and in the form, or even the kind, of instruments which belong to them. We shall first examine the latter. The drums assigned to the cult of rada loa take after the typical drums of Dahomey; their shell, carved from the trunk of a tree, is in the shape of a truncated cone; the head—bullock or goat skin—is stretched by means of pegs braced with cords. They are usually painted in bright colours that symbolize the patron god of the sanctuary.
Rada drums are never played by themselves but always in groups of three. Identical in shape, they differ in size—the biggest, the adjunto or manman, being more than a yard long; the second (ségond) occupies a middle position between the big one and the bula, the height of which varies from forty to fifty centimetres. Each of these drums is beaten in a different way; the manman is struck with the hand and a small wooden hammer, the blow being delivered either on the rim or on the drumhead. The player stands or sits behind the drum which is kept at a considerable angle and bound either to his body or his chair with a rope.
The person who beats the ségond remains seated with the instrument held firmly between his legs, striking it either with his left or right hand and a forked stick or a small bow (agida) held in the free hand. The bula, always vertical, is struck with two sticks. The ogan is a metal bell rung with an iron rod: this it is which sets the rhythm, followed by the bula, the ségond and the manman. The orchestra is dominated by the manman. In the rhythm of the latter there is a freedom and intensity which stands out clearly from the sonorous, more regular, background and to its voice people attribute the power of bringing down the loa. In fact the musician who plays this instrument can, by sudden changes of beat and ingenious feints, induce trance in dancers who are avoiding a loa’s hold. It has been said of the manman that, within the total percussion, it is ‘what song is to accompaniment’.
Drums used in the ritual of the petro loa go in pairs; they differ from the ones just mentioned in size (they are smaller) and particularly in the Y-shaped attachment of the cords. The bigger of the two is called manman or gros baka, the other pititt or ti-baka. The latter has the more important role. It is struck with the flat of the hand. The grave tone of the manman is called ralé; the slighter sound of the pititt, taille.
The Congo orchestra consists of three drums of different sizes called manman, timebal and ti-congo. In their cylindrical shape, double heads and method of head-attachment they are remark ably like European drums of which they may be merely copies. The head tension is obtained by two wooden rings. Unlike the other drums which are positioned vertically or sloped, the timebal is kept horizontal on a chair or some other support. It is played with sticks. A small board is often fixed to its casing and this serves as a percussion instrument. It is the timebal, people say, which gives the true Congo music, the other drums being merely there to back it up with crié and ralé.
The djuba or martinique drum only appears in a religious ceremony when the peasant god Zaka demands, via the mouth of someone possessed, that the dance which goes by the same name, djuba, be danced for him. The djuba is a small cask; it has only one head which is attached as on the petro drums. Two musicians can play it at the same time, one striking the skin with his hands the other striking the casing with sticks.
The cylindrical Ibo drums are related to the petro but their heads are attached in a different way since they have to be made of sheepskin. This is pierced with a series of holes through which strings are passed and laced through other holes arranged along the base of the instrument.
Sometimes in the north of Haiti large calabashes take the place of the drums and these are struck with thimbled fingers.
Dance rhythms, notably those of the petro rites, are beaten out with a rattle, the chacha which unlike the asson of the hungan is made from the cylindrical fruit of the calabash tree (Crescentia cuyete) and furnished with a handle which crosses it from one side to the other. The beads with which it is filled make a metallic sound when it is shaken. It is usually decorated with engraved or painted pictures and sometimes covered with a piece of stuff. It is used for both sacred and profane music. The marine conch (lambi) is rarely associated with worship. None the less it is sounded during certain ceremonies and at wakes.
THE DRUM AS A SACRED OBJECT
The drum is not only a musical instrument, it is also a sacred object and even the tangible form of a divinity. The mysterious power with which it is endowed is conceived of either as a nanm (soul), a sort of vaguely defined life-force, or as a spirit called huntò, a Dahomean word used also for the big manman drum and the man who beats it. If the order in which the sacra of a sanctuary are ‘saluted’ at the beginning of ceremony is any guide to their position in the religious framework, the highest rank then goes to the drums, for it is in front of them that people pause first and only afterwards in front of the poteau-mitan even though this is the very symbol of the peristyle and the pathway of the loa. Time and again in the course of ceremonies, hungan and mambo will kiss the ground in front of the drums and pour out libations to them. Like all divinities the drums need men to renew their energy and strength. Sacrifices and offerings to the drums are part of the ritual obligations of Voodoo societies and constitute a ceremony known as ‘putting the drum to bed’ (coucher tambour), or bay manger tambour (feeding the drums). The instruments are placed on banana leaves near the vévé which represent them symbolically. They receive offerings of food and libations; chickens are sacrificed to them. A propos this ceremony, M. Rigaud{74} makes a very interesting observation (though it needs checking): ‘The drums are put to bed to the sound of bohun—that is to say funeral songs. The congregation affects great sadness, for this music is announcing the departure of the drums across the sea—to Africa where they will renew their powers and then return.’
The making of a drum is accompanied by rites and precautions which foretell its sacred nature and which, at the same time, help to augment its supernatural quality. In fact the early ceremony endows it with a nanm. Even before the axe has cut down the tree from which the drum is to be shaped, the hungan celebrates a ‘ceremony of adoration’ to the loa who will answer its call when the instrument is finished. In the hollowed-out trunk rum is burnt.
Particular reverence is shown for the first hole made—for the peg called manman which occupies a privileged position. The fastening-on of the drumhead is accompanied by pious formulae and ritual movements. Before drums are absorbed into the business of worship they are consecrated with special baptism. For this occasion they are arrayed in ‘robes’ the colours of the loa and then a pére-savane gives them a name in the presence of godfathers and godmothers. These Catholic rites are followed by a second ceremony, according to the traditions of ‘Guinea’,{75} conducted by a hungan.
No drum is so sacred as the huge assoto, a veritable monster more than six foot high, which is only beaten on solemn occasions. Most of the assoto disappeared during the anti-superstition campaign. I have only seen one—in a humfo where it had a special room to itself. It was ‘dressed’—that is to say covered with a white robe which gave it a vaguely human appearance. The Bureau of Ethnology of Port-au-Prince has an assoto which is certainly very old. It has been described by Jacques Roumain in the excellent monograph which he devoted to its ritual consecration. The drawing shown in figure 10 was taken from a photograph in that work.
Jacques Roumain’s monograph, so rich in details of Voodoo ritual, is unfortunately not based on personal observations but upon the description of a ceremony which the hungan Abraham would have celebrated had he been able to.
The sacrifice of the assoto drum comprises a whole assortment of ceremonies in honour of various loa, the general pattern of which is standard so I need not describe them. Instead I will merely cull from Jacques Roumain’s work the parts which concern the worship of the assoto drum.
So sacred an essence is attributed to this drum that it could almost be called an idol or a fetish. It must be hewed from kinds of wood laid down by tradition, particularly f
rom mahaudéme (Ochroma pyramidalis cav.) ‘wood which has much blood’. It must be cut in the full moon and the membrane which covers it must be laid as midday is striking. The first ceremony which the assoto undergoes is the baptism which must ‘install the soul’. Seven, or three times seven, godfathers and godmothers are selected for this ceremony. Here is the song sung on this occasion:
Asòtò micho
N’a po rélé ja
Jâ asòtò n’a po rélé
Pu nu batisé tabu asoto
D’yé li Pé, Dyê li Fi,
Dye li Sê Espri
Apré Bô Dyé m’ap batisé
U sòti nâ Giné
U vini wè kéol-la yo
Nu kôtâ wè, Asòtò micho
M’ap batisé Asòtò
Assoto micho
We call Jean
Jean Assoto we call you
So we may baptize the assoto
God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Ghost
After the good God I baptize you
You left Guinea
To come and see the Creoles
We are glad to see you, Assoto Micho
I baptize you Assoto.
After ceremonies in honour of different loa—Legba, Ayizan, Loco, Ogu—a black or a white goat or more often still a russet coloured ox (Bœuf rada) is sacrificed to the drum. The animal is put to death according to a subtle ritual, and with its blood the hungan traces a cross on the assoto which is then beaten alternately by seven hunsi dancing round it. If any of them misses her turn to beat a member of her family will die.
Voodoo in Haiti Page 19