Voodoo in Haiti

by Alfred Métraux

  ‘Later God sent twelve more apostles who this time behaved like dutiful sons and preached the gospel. They and their descendants are what we call the saints of the Church.’

  One of those who provided Simpson{99} with information explained to him that because God is too busy to listen to the prayers of men, loa and saints have fallen into the habit of meeting each other half-way between heaven and earth. There the loa inform the saints of the wishes of the faithful. The saints then transmit the requests to God who grants them or not, as He chooses.

  The assimilation of loa and saints is very much more superficial in Voodoo than it is in the Afro-American cults of Brazil. The one and only example of a Catholic saint being substituted for an African god in Voodoo is given us by Herskovits{100} a propos St. John the Baptist who, in the north of Haiti, has taken the place of Sogbo and Shango in the rôle of storm-god. In this context there is a story which under a Christian exterior still savours of Africa. ‘On a given day of the year God permits each saint to have control over the universe. St. John the Baptist, however, is so irresponsible, and his rage so violent, that God fears the consequences if he were allowed to exert his power on his day. By plying him with drink the day before, he is therefore mad so drunk that when he falls asleep he does not awaken for five days. When he is told his day has already passed, his rage is so terrible that great storms flay the earth, and it is a commonplace in Mirebalais that this day is marked by thunder and lightning storms of almost hurricane proportions. Though he can do some damage, his power is now limited, however, to his own sphere.’

  Saint Expedit, once included in the Catholic calendar thanks to a pun, has now in Haiti become a great sorcerer—thanks to another pun.

  Then again the title ‘saint’ is sometimes used to express animist representations which are not out of place in Voodoo. On certain occasions, rare it is true, prayers are addressed to ‘Saint Earth’, ‘Saint Thunder’, ‘Saint Sun’ (identified also as Saint Nicholas), and to ‘Saint Moon’.

  Voodoo ritual has borrowed heavily from Catholic liturgy: it is customary for most services to loa to be preceded by thanks-giving (action de grâce). Standing in the middle of their hunsi before an altar covered with candles, under a panoply of lace decorated with pictures of saints, priest or priestess recites Paters, Confiteors and Ave Marias followed by hymns to the Virgin and to the saints. The famous ‘African prayer’ (prière Guinin) which opens the most solemn ceremonies, begins with Catholic prayers and interminable invocations of saints: the loa are only summoned afterwards. In giving a Catholic cachet to ceremonies which are not Catholic, Voodooists are in no way trying to pull the wool over the eyes of authorities or Church: rather is it that they are in fact convinced of the efficacy of Catholic liturgy and therefore wish their own religion to benefit from it. The singing, prayers and kneelings, which precede a service, are said to ‘stir the loa up’: in other words help to attract their benevolent attentions.

  Voodoo has also appropriated the use of holy water with which its devotees are sprinkled from a leafy branch. Father Labat,{101} at the end of the seventeenth century, had already noticed that slave converts used it for magical ends. ‘All the Christian Negroes have a great devotion to, and a lively faith in blessed bread and holy water. They always carry blessed bread about with them. They eat it when they are ill or when they fear some danger. As for holy water—whatever quantity may be prepared on Sunday morning for High Mass, seldom a drop is left by the end of the service; they take it away in little calabashes and drink a few drops standing up, thinking they will thus guard themselves against any spell that may be cast upon them. However hard I tried I was unable to discover who had inspired them with this faith: even the elders and most reasonable among them could say no more than that they learnt it from their fathers and handed it down from one to another and found it good.’

  The profanation of the Host is one of the most serious charges which the clergy have lodged against the devotees of Voodoo. ‘One of the most painful revelations,’ wrote Monseigneur X, in the memorandum quoted above, ‘was that people were often sent to the Holy Table to steal the Host. To obey a bokor people are prepared to submit to any conditions, pay any price, undergo any ordeal: they had to get their Holy Communion. But the catechism which they have been taught has changed nothing in their hearts. It is a formula required of them by the priest and which must therefore be learnt.’ The bishop is however wrong not to make clear that it is only the magicians who feel the need to procure the Host—for themselves. No Voodooist, unless he is a sorcerer, would think of committing such a sacrilege.

  The symbiosis of Catholicism and Voodoo has resulted in a very close parallelism between their respective calendars. Loa feasts often coincide with those of the saints who have been identified with them: the day of Kings is kept for ceremonies in honour of the Congo loa: throughout Lent, Voodoo sanctuaries are shut and no service is celebrated in them: sometimes even—in Holy Week—cult accessories such as pitchers containing spirits, loa stones, emblems of gods—are covered over with a sheet as are the images in Catholic churches; at All-Hallows the Guédé spirits of the dead overrun the countryside and towns, clad in black and mauve, and people possessed by them may be met not only in the sanctuaries but also in the markets, public places and on the roads: Christmas night, as we have seen, is the moment when Voodoo ritual takes wing, as it were, in its full plumage.

  Catholic clergy finally came to realize that some of the patron-saints’ days were attended by many more Voodooists than true Catholics. The grand pilgrimage of Saut-d’eau and Ville-Bonheur, which was started fairly recently, gives us a classic instance of syncretism. The Tombe river, having crossed a green and laughing plain, hurls itself in one leap into the void. All the mysterious charm of tropical forests which have today disappeared survives in that dense grove where the falls gleam like jewels, darkly cased. An iridescent mist crossed by tiny rainbows rises from the foaming water, bedews the ferns and blurs the luxuriant foliage of the giant trees whose roots break the moist ground into humps and valleys. This oasis of coolness is the home of Damballah-wèdo, Grande-Bossine and other aquatic deities. Towards the middle of July it is invaded by thousands of pilgrims from all parts of the Republic. As soon as they reach the foot of the cascade they merge their prayers and hymns with its level roar; and they hasten to expose their bodies to the violence of the healing, saving water. They roll about, frolic and feel at the same time excited, happy and a little afraid to be in the vicinity of spirits. From time to time a bather shaken by tremblings, staggers like a man drunk; his neighbours hold him up so that he shall not sink into the deep pool which the waters have worn away: it is one of the spirits of the falls, usually Damballah-wèdo, who has ‘mounted’ him. The possessed man reaches the bank, flickering his tongue, eyes upturned and making the characteristic ‘tétététété’ of the god. The pilgrims crowd round him, speak respectfully to him, squeeze his hand and ask those small favours which the loa dispense among those they love.

  A huge fig-tree which rears up beside the falls is the resting place of Damballah. Among its roots the pilgrims put little candles and attach their bodies to its branches with strands of wool. Some take pinches of earth from round the tree and store them away in a handkerchief.

  The aquatic gods of Saut-d’eau are no longer the only masters of the river. Today they share their domain with Saint John and the Virgin. Notre Dame du Carmel appeared on top of a palm-tree in a little sacred wood, not far from Ville-Bonheur and some few miles from the falls, and from then on the palm also became an object of devotion for the pilgrims and cured the sick who came in their hundreds to petition Notre Dame du Carmel. A zealous curé, scenting idolatry, had the miraculous tree cut down. Then, when he found the faithful merely transferred their veneration to the roots, he had these torn out. But the Virgin punished him for his sacrilege for, I was told, he soon lost both his legs in an accident. Faced with the persistence of devotees who, having bathed in the falls, came to pray to
the Virgin and Saint John, the clergy made the sacred wood an official place of pilgrimage. On the eve of the Festival of the Virgin of Saut-d’eau, brightly-painted charabancs bring devotees into the centre of Ville-Bonheur. They spend the night in the grove lit by thousands of candles. The bush priests recite prayers, herb-doctors rub the hands of the sick with oil from the lamps which have burnt in front of the sacred trees, and with the water of springs in which medicinal plants have been left to soak.

  In the town many peasants make merry, dance to the sound of jazz orchestras and exchange spicy sallies with the prostitutes of whom there is always an influx. Penitents sport their motley costumes, distribute food to the poor, hoping by this act of Christian charity to appease the loa whom they have offended.

  On the actual day of the fête an enormous crowd crushes round the church built in honour of the Virgin. Those who cannot enter accumulate outside. After the service the statue of the Virgin is tied to the front of a truck and taken round the main square followed by a publicity-car blaring out hymns to the Virgin through a loudspeaker. The crowds of faithful who at dawn bathed in the waterfall of the aquatic spirits, watch her go by with their hands lifted in adoration and their faces transfigured.

  The Church must certainly have tolerated many of these ‘popular superstitions’ in the hope of eliminating them slowly, without violence or outrage. In 1,500 years it has surely acquired some experience in the art of transforming practices and beliefs which could not be supplanted at once. Yet in Voodoo the clergy found themselves faced with a different problem which was formulated very concisely by the bishop just mentioned: ‘It is not we who have got hold of people to christianize them, but they who have been making superstitions out of us.’ This veritable seizure of Catholicism by Voodoo is nowhere better illustrated than in the sacrilegious use it makes of the Holy Sacraments.

  Since the Colonial period the Haitian peasants have attached great importance to baptism. Moreau de Saint-Méry{102} had already pointed this out: ‘Since the Creole Negroes who have been baptized pretend, on this account, to a great superiority over those newly arrived from Africa, whom they call bossals (a name used throughout Spanish America), then the African Negroes, who are also slightingly referred to as “horses”, hasten to get baptized. At certain days such as Holy Saturday and Whit-Saturday, when adults are baptized, the Negroes turn up at the church and too often without any sort of preparation and no concern for anything but the provision of a godmother or godfather who are sometimes allotted to them on the spot, they receive the first Christian sacrament and thus guarantee themselves immunity from the insults addressed to the non-baptized: although in the eyes of the Creole Negroes, they remain always those who were “baptized standing up”.’

  The haste shown by these slaves in getting baptized cannot be entirely explained by their desire to become assimilated to the Negroes born in Saint-Domingue. Other writers tell us they tried to get themselves baptized several times over. This zeal, whatever people may say, was not based on hope of small presents, but sprang from magico-religious motives. At the first treaty between the runaway slaves of the west, and the French authorities of Saint-Domingue, it was laid down that the rebels who had waged guerrilla warfare for eighty years in the woods should be allowed to go and get baptized at Neybe and that they should retain the liberty they had won with their blood.

  Baptism has been adopted by Voodoo as a consecration rite. Not only are men baptized but also loa and all objects used in the cult. The ceremony is celebrated with a degree of solemnity which varies according to whether the object baptized is a sanctuary, drums, necklaces, clothing or any other object—but it is always carried out in conformity with Catholic liturgy. The officiant recites prayers, sprinkles the object with holy water and gives it a name chosen by a godmother and godfather who remain beside it and who afterwards call each other jokingly commère and compère.

  Catholic communion is considered by certain Voodoo priests as a sacrament which increases their powers; sometimes they recommend it to their clients. Even further: some loa are regarded as Catholics and by virtue of this fact must communicate from time to time. This is notably the case with Damballah-wèdo; when the god feels the need to approach the Holy Table, he tells one of his servants who then prepares himself, as a good Christian, to take the sacrament and when the day comes, putting a stone sacred to Damballah in his pocket, goes and kneels before the altar; at the very moment of taking communion he is possessed by Damballah who communicates in his place. A woman of Jacmel who was more or less a Voodooist told me that one Sunday during Mass she noticed signs of strange excitement in one of her neighbours. She watched her and realized that she had Damballah in her head. This woman went up to communicate and it was only at the moment when she got back to her place that she frankly abandoned herself to trance. While she was being removed from the church the loa inside her kept calling out: ‘They were saying I couldn’t communicate; well I have.’

  We have seen how the marriage sacrament serves to unite a human being with a loa, thus assuring the former the protection and favour of the latter. In order to obtain forgiveness from an offended loa Voodooists also practise various forms of external, typically mediaeval, Catholic penitence. The penitents, usually women, wear garments made of grey, so-called ‘siamese’, cloth or a kind of harlequin dress made of bits and pieces which correspond in colour to the various different loa; the clothes must be blessed by the bush-priest. Having sung a Mass, burnt some candles and said prayers to the saints, the penitents offer their friends and relations a grand farewell feast. Then they go out, all over the countryside, visiting in turn all the main places of pilgrimage—Saut-d’eau, Vierge du Mont Carmel, Alta Grecia, Saint Dominique—and live on public charity and on the food distributions which certain pious people dole out to acquit themselves of debts to loa or saints. They frequent the markets where they are sure to get a few sous and at least some fruit and vegetables. When they think that by their suffering and weariness they have expiated their sin in the eyes of their protecting loa they go home and resume their normal life.

  At Marbial market I met a penitent who said she had incurred the wrath of the loa Champagne-miofré, of the Ogu family. This divinity had inflicted various illnesses upon her but fearing worse, she was trying to placate him with the spectacle of a painful and wandering life. She devoted part of the alms she received to the saying of Masses for the dead.

  Some devotees, on orders from a hungan, take food to people in prison who in Haiti are usually very poorly fed. Others give food to the poor, not in any spirit of Christian charity, but to obtain the favour of a loa.

  Voodoo borrows from Catholicism unevenly: whereas the main elements of the liturgy have been indissolubly mixed in with ritual of African origin, the sacraments and funeral rites have not been similarly absorbed. Only partially integrated with Voodoo, and occupying a rather marginal position, they stand outside the competence of hungan and mambo and fall within the province of the pères-savane who have become to a certain extent established as the official representatives of the Catholic Church in the bosom of paganism. They are entrusted with the conduct of all rites—baptisms, communions, marriages with loa, funerals—all of which should, if it were possible, be celebrated by a curé. These personages are catechists or sacristans on the loose—men who know how to pray and sing in Latin and French with the correct gestures and intonation. They are called in whenever a Voodoo ceremony has to include a Catholic intermediary. Often it is they who carry out the thanksgiving which precedes the invocation of loa—the latter being always the responsibility of a Voodoo priest.

  All the pères-savane I knew seemed to me good-for-nothings who took their functions very lightly. It is hardly surprising. Are they not marginal people who, having learned to despise the beliefs of their brothers, have yet failed to become good Christians? I was somewhat surprised that their off-handedness and buffoonery shocked no one. In actual fact the Catholic sacraments and liturgy incorporated in Voodoo
lose part of the religious significance which they have in their rightful context, in a proper church. Voodooists therefore draw a very clear distinction between sacrament administered by a curé and the more or less faithful imitation as practised by the pères-savane. How can Voodoo communion be taken seriously when you see the absentminded and amused way in which the servants of the gods kneel down before the bush-priest who crams into their gaping mouths crustless lumps of bread soaked in wine?

  In other words we are here faced with a counterfeit which easily explains the indifference and even the irreverence of the participants. Sometimes the bush-priests and the devotees overdo it: then parody turns to farce. Proof of this lies in the ‘catechism of the Guédé’, which would doubtless be regarded as sacrilege by the Voodooists themselves if they thought it was their own doing; but since it is the Guédé themselves who are fooling, then nobody need be shocked: everyone knows that the spirits of the dead are roguish and rather obscene. I witnessed this game or play—as you please—at the conclusion of a fete which I had offered in honour of the Guédé. A goat had been sacrificed to them with all the usual circumstance and the sacrificial meal had put them in a good mood. Most of the hunsi, possessed by various Guédé, were dancing with gusto, rolling their bottoms and behaving like so many clowns. Suddenly the drums stopped and a hungan, himself possessed, ordered the Guédé to form up in one rank. He told them he was going to make them undergo an exam. Stationing himself before the leader of the file, he intoned the first question of the catechism: ‘Are you a Christian?’ The Guédé questioned assumed an idiotic expression, crooked his knees and bleated: ‘I am a Christian—yes,’ firmly emphasizing the ‘yes’. The examiner went on, ‘What is a Christian?’ to which, still in the same tones, the Guédé gave the first response of the catechism. Questions and answers followed until the moment the possessed man, affecting an ever more stupid manner, finished by singing in an urgent, pressing rhythm a song which described coitus in the crudest terms possible. The hungan heard him out with enjoyment, congratulated the candidate and awarded him the rank of ‘colonel of the Haitian armed forces’ a promotion which was greeted by shouts of joy and capering. The examiner passed to another Guédé who distinguished himself by his understanding of the catechism and the brio with which he sang an obscene couplet—a feat which earned him the rank of general. Each Guédé in turn received some prestigious title borrowed from the military, ecclesiastical or political hierarchies. A fat girl with a jolly nature was proclaimed ‘pope’. At the announcement of this high distinction the ‘popess’ let out roars of triumph and despite her size skipped about like a little girl whose success in school has gone to her head.