In Haiti, the African Yoruban beliefs mingled with the Catholic beliefs of the French settlers to form the syncretic religion, vodoun. In reality, vodoun is a product of the slave trade. Whites forbade slaves to practice their native religions on pains of torture and death, and they baptized slaves as Catholics. Catholicism became superimposed on native rites and beliefs, which were still practiced in secret. Tribal deities, or loa, took on the forms of Catholic saints. Worshipers saw the addition of the saints as an enhancement of their faith, and incorporated Catholic statues, candles and holy relics into their rituals.
Cousin religions of vodoun are practiced throughout the Caribbean region, including in Jamaica and Trinidad. In Cuba, a syncretic religion called Santería evolved from Yoruba foundations mixed with Spanish Catholic beliefs. All of these Caribbean religions are related in belief structure and similar pantheons, but vodoun has many characteristics that make it unique among the Caribbean belief structures. A highly malleable religion, vodoun beliefs and practices can vary hugely from community to community in Haiti itself. Still widely practiced in Haiti, vodoun has migrated with Haitians to many other parts of the world, with particularly strong communities in New Orleans, Miami and New York City. Each of these communities have spawned new evolutions of vodoun. Worldwide, vodoun has fifty-million followers.
Vodoun is marked primarily by a belief in the loa, the gods that form the vodoun pantheon. Devotees of vodoun believe that all things serve the loa and so by definition are expressions and extensions of deity. The loa are very active in the world and often literally "possess" devotees during ritual. Rituals are practiced primarily to make offerings to, or "feed", the loa and to entreat the loa for aid or fortune.
Practitioners of vodoun come together in a community, called a société. The société centers around a hounfort, where rituals are performed, and a primary priest or priestess, called the houngan and mambo, respectively. Vodoun sociétés are very close-knit and provide a central organizing structure to small communities in Haiti.
Unlike many other Caribbean, Yoruba-based religions, vodoun has a large, highly developed system of belief relating to the "dark" side of the loa and of human beings. Black magic is practiced by priests called bokors and by secret societies that splinter off from the main vodoun communities. The existing beliefs in black magic--though not practiced regularly, by any means--are the sources of many misconceptions about vodoun. Popular works of fiction and nonfiction and many voodoo movies have strengthened these misconceptions, which center mainly around false notions about cannibalism and zombification. It is my intention that these information pages will put some of these misconceptions popularly held about vodoun to rest and will educate about the highly developed, complicated structure of beliefs that make up the religion of vodoun.
Copyright 1995 Shannon Turlington Settle disclaimer
Last revised
9/27/95
