In chapter 13 zombies was a popular myth in Haiti; and was believed to be people who die and are called back to life by witchcraft. This chapter talks about Zora’s personal experiences in Haiti and Jamaica where she participated as in initiate rather than just an observer of voodoo practices. During her visits she stayed with several types of voodoo priests. (Houngans and Bocors) She witnessed various ceremonies with her own eyes. The religion is a mishmash of Christian and African elements. Often after reciting a Catholic litany of saints, a litany of loas (voodoo gods) is chanted as well. The voodoo gods are separated into the Rada or Arada gods (the good ones) and the Petros gods (the evil one). Zora never says if raising the dead is done…
The purpose of this research paper is to provide a better understating of general details about the Lucumi religion in Cuba. Yoruba religion is often perceived as evil or practiced by non-educated people, but such stereotypes are just misconceptions. All religions follow rules, customs, ceremonies, and are the source of discrepancies among non-believers. Lucumi practice is no exception. The Yoruba religion has its roots in Nigeria, Africa and was brought to the Caribbean by slaves during the slave trading years. Yoruba practices incorporate names and customs of Catholicism and French spiritualism. It is categorized as a syncretized religion because it merged with the Roman…
Haitian Voodoo, or properly referred to as Vodou, is characterized by various ritual ceremonies, typically called a “Service to the Loa” often translated to “African Service”. Vodou is typically described as more than just a religion and instead more of an experience that connects the body and soul. The popularized concept of connecting a soul to a tangible object in the Vodou practice is derived from the Congolese tradition of Kanga in which a similar act is performed. Vodouisants believe there is an esoteric Supreme Creator by the name of Bondye. According to the religion Bondye arbitrate in the practices of man in this way they present their…
I found Karen McCarthy Brown’s Mama Lola to be an innovative and intimate “ethnographic spiritual biography” exploring the lived realities, material and immaterial, of a Haitian Voudou priestess and her family in New York City from the late 1970’s through the 1980’s. (xiv) Brown’s approach is innovative because she treats her subjects’ as multivocal and fluid. Brown heeds her own advice and contrary to most ethnographic scholars before her, appropriately represents her own, albeit limited, voice, and positionality as similarly multiplicitous and in flux, reciprocally performing “meaningmaking” with Alourdes and family. Brown’s many voices aptly declare numerous interrelated aims, including “to describe as fully and accurately ... Alourdes’ daytoday practice of Haitian Vodou”, to “plant images of quotidian Vodou practice in the minds of thinking people, images that would linger and soften the formulaic association of Vodou with the superstitious and the satanic”, and to portray “Vodou embedded in the vicissitudes of particular lives.” (xv, xiv, 15)…
Many people think that Voodoo is an evil practice. That it is about nothing but curses and shrunken heads. Well, that is far from the truth.…
Important aspect of voodoo are singing and dancing. It is usually done to honor the “loas”. Another important aspect is the performance of animal sacrifices such as slaughtering a chicken or a goat. The blood of the sacrifice can be placed on a person, alter or even a space. Sacrifices may be done is a healing…
People make pilgrimages to a series of holy sites. Those sites became popular in association with manifestations of saints and are marked by unusual geographic features such as the waterfall at Saut d'Eau, the most famous of sacred sites. Waterfalls and certain species of large trees are especially sacred because they are believed to be the homes of spirits and the conduits through which spirits enter the world of living humans. For practitioners, or Vodouisans, Vodou rituals are part of a philosophy that ties individuals to society, their community, and the environment. Death and the Afterlife. Beliefs concerning the afterlife depend on the religion of the individual. Strict Catholics and Protestants believe in the reality of reward or punishment after death. Practitioners of voodoo assume that the souls of all the deceased go to an abode "beneath the waters," that is often associated with lafrik gine ("L'Afrique Guinée," or Africa). Concepts of reward and punishment in the afterlife are alien to…
Voodoo is a small-scaled religion that originated in the West Indies. Voodoo is an actual religion that people mislead for something scary. In the Americas and Caribbean Voodoo is thought to be a variety of African, Catholic, and Native American traditions with aged of millions of followers and believers today. The word Voodoo comes from the shortened word “Vodu” which means spirit or god. This religion had been put into categories of how people believed and their opinions. The main idea of Voodoo is that it is not a single person belief it is more a tribal and group religion. The religion maintains a certain structure in each area that it originates in. Voodoo is increasingly having people join their beliefs such as Americans, Africans, Europeans,…
Peguero, V. (1998). Teaching the Haitian revolution: its place in western and modern world history. The History Teacher, 32(1), 33-41.…
The beginning of Louisiana voodoo was created by slaves in Louisiana and New Orleans, which differs from voodoo because there’s more emphasis on the Gris Gris.…
In the old time the African people use some spells to take the sympathy of the bad spirits, so that they did not harm them. Now these spells are using to control the bad spirit. The practitioners of the voodoo magic can control the bad spirits and the souls to achieve their goal. The folk magic spells are the words which were used by the people…
Now, everything has its similarities and differences. The similarities between the U.S. and Haiti are, first, religions. The top religions in these countries are Protestant and Roman Catholic. Those are also two of the most popular religions in the world. Another similarity is having a similar ethnic group. Those ethnic groups are black and white, which is probably because of the area they are in. They both have a form of a republic. Even though America’s is a constitution federal republic with a strong democratic tradition, and Haiti is just a…
Most of the Haitian population was originally from Africa, which supports the transformation from the Kongo culture to Haitian Vodou. The Encyclopedia of Global Religion reads, “What is distinctive about Haitian Vodou additionally is that it incorporated the powerful systems of the Bakongo [Kongo] peoples in Central Africa.”21 In addition, Paul Gardullo writes in his review of Donald Consentino’s Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, “The roles of various spirit repositories and containers or Paket Kongo are described, as well as their ties to Nkisi, their Kongo counter-parts.”22 The most distinct similarity between these two objects are their relations with the spirits they ‘hold.’ Both minkisi and paket kongos can help someone communicate between the spiritual and living world in each of their respective cultures. They both have a master ritualist that uses that communication with the spirits to assist their clients. And finally, many paket kongos are tied with a crucifix atop the container, shown in figure 2. Not only is this another example of the Haitian Vodou…
Voodoo is a very interesting religion that has often been misunderstood. People have linked zombies and voodoo dolls to the religion, but this things have very little to do with the religion. When comparing it to Christianity, we do not have the rituals, and ceremonies that are associated with voodoo and we believe in God who is the overseer in all things. I found it very interesting that association voodoo have with the Catholic faith. I guess the believers in modern day worship are able to incorporate both Voodoo and Christian beliefs into one…
Haiti has a population of nearly 9,801,664, while the total median age is at 21.6 years old. After the 2010 earthquake the preliminary 2011 numbers differ significantly from those of 2010 due to the demographic effect. Birth rate is 23.87 births/1,000 populations which is fairly low due to the lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, higher death rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex. The death rate is 8.1/1,000 population and was strongly influenced by the earthquake that took a heavily toll on the country. While the urban population is at 52 percent and the rate of urbanization is 3.9 percent, including the capital of Haiti, Port-Au-Prince, has 2.143 million people for the population and population below the poverty line is above 80 percent. Roughly around 2.98 children born in total fertility rate and HIV/AIDS – adult prevalence rate is 1.9 percent (2009 EST.), also with 120,000 people living with HIV/AIDS. Major infectious diseases include food or waterborne diseases with a high degree of risk. Not to mention more than two-thirds of the labor force do not have formal jobs leaving the unemployment rate at 40.6 percent. (Stated be Indexmundi.com)…