The physical or mortal parts of a human being are the corps cadavre and the n'âme. The corps cadavre is the body that decays after death. The n'âme is the spirit that allows the body to function while alive and passes as energy into the soil after death.
The z'étoile decides a person's destiny and resides in the heavens, apart from the body. It is not of great importance to vodoun belief.
The most important components of humans are the two parts of the soul, the ti-bon-ange and the gros-bon-ange. The gros-bon-ange means literally, "great good angel." At conception, part of the cosmic lifeforce passes into the human being. This is the force that all living things share, connecting us to each other in a great web of energy. The gros-bon-ange keeps the body alive and sentient, and after death, passes back into the reservoir of energy in the cosmos. Without the gros-bon-ange, a person loses their lifeforce; it is possible, according to vodoun belief, to separate a person's gros-bon-ange from them and store it in a bottle or jar, where the energy can be directed to other purposes.
The ti-bon-ange makes up the other half of a person's soul. Meaning "little good angel," it is the source of personality. The ti-bon-ange represents the accumulation of a person's knowledge and experience, and is responsible for determining individual characteristics, personality and will. It can leave the body when dreaming, for instance, or when the body is being possessed by a loa. The ti-bon-ange is the part of the human make-up that is most vulnerable to sorcery, even more so than the gros-bon-ange.
Death rituals accomplish a number of functions in vodoun. The most important is to send the gros-bon-ange to Ginen, the cosmic community of ancestral spirits, where it will be worshipped by family members as a loa itself. If this is not accomplished, the gros-bon-ange can become trapped on earth, bringing misfortune on surviving family members.
The ti-bon-ange must also be dealt with. The ti-bon-ange hovers around the body for a period of nine days, at which point a ritual called nine night is performed to ensure that the ti-bon-ange stays in the grave. If this is not done, the ti-bon-ange may also wander the earth and bring misfortune on others.
Some sects of vodoun believe that everyone has evil in them. While the soul, called in this case the duppy, is in the body, it is controlled by the heart and brain, and a person will not abandon him/herself to evil. Once the duppy is released in death, however, the duppy no longer has this restraint and is capable of terrible acts. Nine night also ensures that this evil that resides in all people stays in the grave with the body.
Alternatively, the houngan can ritually separate the ti-bon-ange from the flesh and release it to live in dark waters for a year and a day. After this time, the family ritually raises the soul, now called an esprit. The esprit is placed in a special govi, where it is fed and treated like a loa, or divine being.
During the ritual, the houngan becomes possessed by a loa which makes pronouncements about the future to the société. Powered by the loa, the houngan becomes reborn as the divine essence of life that belonged to the dead person becomes part of the houngan, passing through on the way to Ginen.
Taking the spirit from the dead in this way should only be performed by a fully initiated and experienced houngan, as it is a risky and dangerous procedure. The evil spirits of the dead may appear and do harm to an inexperienced houngan before good loa can be summoned to drive them off.
To banish the ti-bon-ange, it is first placed in a jar or govi. Sometimes it resides there as a worshipped spirit, as described above. At other times, the houngan burns the jar in a ritual called boule zen. This burning of the jars releases the spirit to the land of the dead, where it should properly reside. Another way to elevate the ti-bon-ange is to break the jars and drop the pieces at a crossroads.
During the period in which the ti-bon-ange hovers over the body after death, a bokor can capture it and turn it into a zombi astral. In contrast to a zombi, which is a dead body without a soul, a zombi astral is a dead soul without a body. It wanders around and performs deeds at the command of the bokor, never allowed to achieve a final rest.
There are a few ways to prevent a dead loved one from being misused by a bokor. One is to kill the body again by stabbing it in the heart or decapitating it. Hoholi, or special sesame seeds placed in the coffin, also prevent the machinations of a bokor. Cut tufts of hair and snipped fingernails are sure signs of a bokor's tampering with a dead body.
Zombis are created by a black magician in vodoun, called a bokor. The bokor performs a ritual that causes a person to die and, within a certain amount of time, to be called back to life as a soulless body. There are a significant number of researchers who believe zombification to be an actual practice, achieved not through magic and ritual, but rather through certain powerful drugs. These drugs make a person seem dead through extensive intoxication and slowing of the bodily functions. When they are revived, they are so brain-damaged that they cannot remember who they were or who their family was. Thus, they can be controlled by the bokor.
Indeed, the bokor does administer a powerful zombi poison to a living person to begin the process. This poison is so toxic that it merely has to be absorbed through the skin to work. No one knows exactly what the components of the poison are, but it is thought to contain substances from various toxic animals and plants, including the gland secretions of a particular frog, the bouga toad, which are 50-100 times more potent than digitalis and also contain a hallucinogen. Other ingredients supposedly include millipedes and tarantulas, the skins of poisonous tree frogs, seeds and leaves from poisonous plants, human remains (for effect), and four types of puffer fish, which contain tetrodotoxin, one of the most poisonous substances in the world.
After administration, the victim becomes completely paralyzed and falls into a coma. To all intents and purposes, he or she appears dead. Sometimes, the victim remains conscious and witnesses his or her own funeral and burial. The bokor raises the victim after a day or two and administers a hallucinogenic concoction called the "zombi's cucumber" that revives the victim. Once the zombi has been revived, it has no power of speech and its senses have been dulled. The human personality is entirely absent and the memory is gone. Zombis are thus easy to control, and are used by bokors as slaves for farm labor and construction work. Contrary to what is portrayed in popular movies, zombis do not shuffle around and try to eat human brains. In fact, practitioners of vodoun do not fear being harmed by a zombi so much as they fear being made into one. Giving a zombi salt is supposed to restore their powers of speech and taste, and activates a homing instinct that sends them back to their graves and out of the bokor's influence.
Copyright 1995 Shannon
Turlington Settle. disclaimer
Last
revised 9/27/95.
