Voodoo in Haiti

  The spark of life which sorcerers wake in a corpse does not wholly give the dead man back his place in the society of men. A zombi remains in that misty zone which divides life from death. He moves, eats, hears what is said to him, even speaks, but he has no memory and no knowledge of his condition. The zombi is a beast of burden which his master exploits without mercy, making him work in the fields, weighing him down with labour, whipping him freely and feeding him on meagre, tasteless food. A zombi’s life is seen in terms which echo the harsh existence of a slave in the old colony of Santo Domingo. A hungan is not satisfied with the daily labour of his dead: but uses them for dishonest purposes such as stealing the harvest of neighbours. There would seem to be a special category of zombi called zombi-graines who are trained to steal the flowers of the coffee bush and graft them on to those of their master.

  Zombi are recognized by their absent-minded manner, their extinguished, almost glassy eyes, and above all by the nasal twang in their voices—a peculiarity which they share with the Guédé, spirits of death. Their docility is total provided you never give them salt. If imprudently they are given a plate containing even a grain of salt the fog which cloaks their minds instantly clears away and they become conscious of their terrible servitude. Realization rouses in them a vast rage and an ungovernable desire for vengeance. They hurl themselves on their master, kill him, destroy his property and then go in search of their tombs. Read in Seabrook{91} the strange story of the zombi of hungan Joseph who worked as cane-cutters at la Hasco. The hungan’s wife, to whom these unfortunates had been entrusted, had the unlucky idea of giving them some tablettes (pralines) made with salted peanuts. The zombis, suddenly realizing that they were only dead men, fled to the valley whence they came. No one dared stop them because ‘they were corpses’. Staring straight ahead, without paying the slightest attention to their relations who called to them or tried to stop them, they went to the cemetery. There each hurled himself on his grave and tore at the stones with his nails...and as their hands touched their tombs they turned into stinking carcases.

  Here is another story which was told me at Port-au-Prince. The principal protagonists were, it seems, people from the highest society. A ‘Monsieur’ who was coming to Jeremie by road had to stop near a village to repair a puncture. An old man with a white goatee suddenly appeared beside him and having said that he would get help from a friend who would soon be here (a prophecy which was certainly fulfilled) invited him meanwhile to take a cup of coffee with him. On the way to the house the little old man, who in fact was a powerful hungan, said—laughing—that it was he who by means of a charm had caused the puncture, but asked the man not to hold it against him. As they were taking coffee in the room the hungan warned his guest to be careful of a wanga which lay in his car. The visitor, a sceptic, was unable to repress a smile. The hungan’s vanity was piqued and he asked if his visitor had known a certain Monsieur Célestin, dead six months earlier. It so happened that this man had been his great friend. ‘Would you like to see him?’ asked the hungan and without waiting for a reply he cracked a whip six times. A door opened and a man appeared on the threshold. He was walking backwards but his silhouette was familiar to Monsieur X. In rough tones the hungan ordered the man to turn round. Since he did not obey quickly enough, his master gave him a blow with the handle of the whip. Then it was that Monsieur X recognized his friend Célestin, who now made a move towards the glass which X was holding. Full of pity X wanted to give it to him but the hungan stopped him dead with his whip and reminded him nothing could be more dangerous than to give something to a dead person directly, from hand to hand. He told him to leave the glass on the table.

  The zombi said not a word. He kept his head hanging and his face wore an expression which was both stupid and wretched. The hungan revealed to his guest that the issue of blood from which the friend had died was caused by a spell. The sorcerer responsible for this crime had sold him his victim for twelve dollars.

  The following story seemed to me interesting in so far as it is typical of this kind of anecdote.

  A girl from Marbial, engaged to a young man with whom she was much in love, was unwise enough to reject—rather sharply—the advances of a powerful hungan. The latter, wounded, went away muttering threats. A few days later the girl was taken seriously ill and died in the hospital at Jacmel. Her body was taken to her family at Marbial but at the moment when she was being put on the bier, the coffin, which had been got in the town, was seen to be too short. It was necessary to bend the corpse’s neck in order to fit it into the space available. During the wake someone dropped a lighted cigarette on to the foot of the deceased causing a slight burn. Two or three months later a rumour spread that the deceased had been seen with the hungan. No one believed it. But a few years later, when during the anti-superstition campaign the hungan repented and set his zombis free, the girl appeared and went back home, where she lived for a long time though without ever recovering her sanity. All those who knew her remember her bent neck and the scar of a burn which she bore on one of her feet.

  ‘WANGA’

  Along with sorceries which cause incurable illnesses and destroy crops or cattle there are others, milder, which only inflict transitory trouble and curable illnesses. The magic weapon par excellence is the wanga{92}—a term which is applied to any object or combination of objects which has received, as a result of magic procedure, a property that is harmful to one or more people. Wanga are also called ‘poisons’. The word is suitable so long as one remembers that these concoctions are only poisonous on the supernatural plane. The obsession with poison dating back to the colonial era, proceeds from a confusion between matter that is genuinely poisonous and that which is poisonous only in a magic way. The Whites, eternally haunted by their fear of the Blacks, accepted in the most literal sense magic interpretations of every illness or death, provided there was the smallest ground for suspicion. In Haiti the power of a wanga is often personified. Its efficacy is then attributed to a spirit which has been vested in the enchanged object.

  Many wanga are objects which have been ‘arranged’ (rangé) by a sorcerer in such a way that a mere touch from them is enough to produce the desired effect—generally illness. Not least of their marvellous properties is that of being harmful only to the person who has been marked down for the sorcerer’s attention. A woman of Marbial had received, in a quarrel, a blow from a stick which had not done her much harm; nevertheless she died shortly afterwards and everyone was convinced that the stick in question had been ‘arranged’ by its owner.

  One of my neighbours died from the effects of a thorn which became embedded in his foot. On the evening of the funeral several people came and told me in great confidence that the thorn had been rangé and put down by someone whose name they muttered in my ear. On another occasion in the course of a fete, a woman of the dead man’s family was possessed by Zaka who told her himself that his servant had been poisoned. The god added that no harm would have befallen him had he only known how to keep on good terms with the loa who would have warned him of his danger.

  In country districts strange chickens who come wandering unexpectedly into people’s back-yards are looked upon with a mistrustful eye. They may well be ‘arranged’ and therefore the wisest course is to cut off their heads and leave their bodies at a crossroads.

  The following story, which I was assured is true, shows the extent magic is feared even in the highest society. Its hero is a historian, whom I knew well, and who at the time was a member of the Conseil d’État. On his way to a reunion at the presidential palace, he bought some seed for his pet birds which he put in his dispatch-case. Unluckily for him this had a hole in the bottom and as he went into the assembly hall he left behind him a trail of seed. At the sight of this his colleagues shouted ‘Wanga, wanga!’ The following day the councillor was called to the President: who said, ‘My dear friend, I am too educated to believe these silly tales of black magic, nevertheless I feel it my duty to ask you to resign.’<
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  Poisoned powders are naturally classed as wanga. They are much feared because it needs no more than a pinch of them spread on a garment for the wearer to be struck down with an illness which will resist every kind of treatment. A stronger dose is naturally fatal. A few years ago newspapers of Haiti told of an unfortunate incident which befell a high official in the education department. I had the story from the man himself. In the course of a rather bitter argument which he had had with the Minister, the latter suddenly became anxious and tried to put him out of the room. When unable to do so, he hurried to the office of the President of the Republic before whom he lodged a formal complaint of having been victim of an attempted enchantment. He said he had perceived a suspicious smell and began to feel upset. This was enough for the official to be removed from office—at least this was the reason given in the newspaper for his dismissal. I heard that the Minister in question was obsessed with fear of sorcery. When practising as a solicitor he was visited by a peasant who had come to ask him a favour. His visitor was carrying a stick with which he unconsciously, from time to time, made flourishing gestures. Noticing this the man of law suddenly shouted ‘Wanga!’ and the petitioner was arrested and had the greatest difficulty in getting himself set free. The same personage, when sent as government emissary to Saint Marc, suddenly withdrew from that town saying he had seen black hands on the walls of his room and felt himself menaced by werewolves.

  MAGIC AND RICHES

  The peasants of Haiti never boast of prosperity. Even those who cannot conceal it complain of their lot and belittle their possessions. Indeed, prudence is pushed to extreme lengths: a man congratulated on his healthy, happy looks and plumpness will protest indignantly, ‘Me plump? The idea! Alas—it’s inflammation—not plumpness.’ Dread of provoking fate is even reflected in the small coin of everyday politeness. To someone who asks after your health you must reply: ‘No worse.’ Such attitudes are very common in rural milieux; the same sort of thing can be found in France and elsewhere. But specifically Haitian is the tendency to attribute the wealth or even simply the well-being of others to shady dealings with evil spirits. The Haitian finds it difficult to admit that anyone might become rich without having made an arrangement with a sorcerer. There are always people ready to pretend they know the exact nature of the contract with a diab by which such and such a grand don was enabled to complete his fortune: to be rich is to be something of a sorcerer. Naturally all this is the eternal jealousy of the peasant, here taking the form of magical imputations. Nevertheless such goings-on do constitute an important part of the study which we have undertaken.

  If we are to believe what we hear in the country districts, the clientèle of the boko seems to be made up more of people ambitious or desperate to grow rich at whatever price than people thirsting for vengeance. The ‘hot point’ (point chaud) which is sold to them is usually a spirit who is bound to serve them on certain conditions. It can be represented by a talisman (stone, red herring, etc.) which exercises a direct effect by virtue of an intrinsic property or through the agency of a spirit attached to the object as a ‘slave’, as was the genie to Aladdin’s lamp. The supernatural beings whom sorcerers use as their auxiliaries are ‘bought’ loa or zombi souls (âmes zombi). The latter are sold to them by corpse-washers who, when members of the family are not looking, seize the opportunity of popping the soul of the deceased into a bottle. The souls most to be feared and also the most magically effective are those of men who were sorcerers in their life-time.

  Zombi souls and bought loa are often termed baka. This word also covers a particular class of evil spirit which wanders in the woods in the form of cats, dogs, pigs, cows or monsters which defy description. Baka too are those evil loa such as Ti-Jean-pied-chèche, Ezili-jé-rouge, Marinette-bwa-chèche, etc.

  Wandering baka do not always attack passers-by but sometimes drive them out of their wits by assuming successively, before their very eyes, the weirdest and most varied forms. The following story gives a typical example of their behaviour. A rider travelling by night, far from any dwelling place, saw beside the road a crying child. Moved by pity he took it up behind him to take it to its parents. The child suddenly began to grow bigger and bigger until finally its legs were dragging along the ground; it was a baka. It said to him: ‘You are innocent, therefore I will not hurt you. But let this be a lesson. In future when you come across a “thing” like me, leave it alone—pass by on the other side.’

  These monsters inspire such terror that some people die at sight of them or after they have been ‘seized’ by them fall seriously ill. There are various forms of protection against baka but the best of all is to refuse to give in to the terror which they try to inspire. They must be looked straight in the eyes: then they turn their heads away and vanish.

  It is said of someone who has acquired a point chaud that he has got a ‘commitment’ (engagement). This agreement—which binds him to evil spirits—usually entails an obligation to feed the baka with a human being, preferably some member of his own family: mother, father, husband, child or failing that a neighbour or friend. In point of fact the person who accepts the ‘engagement’ does not always understand the nature of the deal which is proposed to him. The better to deceive people sorcerers use an ambiguous language in which ‘cock and hen’ means mother and father; ‘a pair of chickens’ two children; ‘a bottle of water’ a pregnant woman. Whoever lets himself be trapped into granting, for instance, the ‘chickens’ which have been asked of him, unwittingly condemns his children to death. The ambitious man who wants a ‘point’ should know that he is dealing with pirates of whom he must beware. It is up to him to pick out among the demands of his new partner those which beneath a harmless appearance conceal traps. The life of his family depends on his wisdom; though naturally there are always deprived individuals who for personal ends will not hesitate to sacrifice every member of their family.

  The possession of a ‘hot point’ is only obtained at great risk. Once you are ‘committed’ to him, a baka never lets you go. You think you are its master, only to discover you are its slave. Always thirsting for human blood, a baka keeps asking, every time it opens its mouth, for fresh victims. Nothing can bend its will. Sooner or later it ends by killing its partner who, tired of giving it human beings, tries to get out of his commitment. The phrase ‘work is getting too much for me’ is used to describe the plight of an apprentice sorcerer who has lost control of his ‘hot point’.

  One story which I heard at Marbial will fully illustrate the fate of those who become ‘committed’. An inhabitant of Marbial whom we shall call Novilius, went to ask a hungan for a ‘point’ so that he might become rich. The sorcerer made him bury offerings and food in a coffin. Then he said the following prayer: ‘Holy Earth, receive this food-offering and all these medicines. This man is poor: may he within a year ride on a horse and be able to count his money like an important man.’

  One year later our friend was prancing about on a horse and gave the hungan 1,000 gourdes. Now extremely rich, he talked gladly of God, whom he thanked for all his good fortune, but he quite forgot about his ‘point’. For eight years he gave it nothing to eat. The evil familiar, tired of waiting, ‘broke the neck’ of one of the man’s children. A great deal of money had to be spent on the funeral but the father took no heed of the warning. Then it was the turn of the second child. Then a third fell ill. Finally the fourth committed a crime and his father had to pay a large sum to get him out of prison.

  This series of misfortunes made Novilius suspicious. He returned to the boko and said: ‘What have I done to deserve all these punishments?’ The boko explained to him that the ‘point’ must be appeased though this would cost money—a lot of money. Finally Novilius died and the little he left his wife scarcely paid for his burial. The evil spirit, still unsatisfied, turned its wrath on the wife who, soon after, died too. In the absence of heirs the land belonging to Novilius fell to the State. The very first day it was rented the new landlord, who had jus
t settled in, heard mysterious footsteps in the attic. In vain he searched the house from top to bottom: he found nothing suspicious. But every night the same noise deprived him of sleep. Worn out, this man at last fled and since then no one has dared take on the property which could only be lived on again if the evil spirit which haunts it were appeased.

  A person can make a deal with an evil spirit by which his life is forfeit after a certain number of years, as stipulated in the contract. There were once two small farmers of Marbial who helped each other. They were very poor. One day one of them said to the other, ‘My friend, I’m tired. I work like a beast and it brings in nothing. My life must see a change.’ ‘What can you do?’ said the other. ‘Don’t you see that this is our fate for life?’ ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ replied the first, ‘but this is my last year of wretchedness.’ And indeed three months later he became the owner of ten acres of fine banana plantation. His friend was surprised. He began to be suspicious when he saw his friend had bought a lorry and then two more acres of land.

  But it was much later, after his death, that it transpired how he had managed to make such a quick fortune: he had exchanged his life for six years’ happiness and riches. When the bill fell due the diab of Trou-forban came faithfully to claim his debt.