Vodou Connections

Vodou is a perfect way to bring alot of cultures and religions together.  It's religion is influenced by beliefs and practices from mainly West African peoples and Roman Catholics. It was created by African slaves who came from European Christian families and applied it to their new home in Haiti. Now the small country of mostly African slave influence practice Vodou in Haiti. This religion of Vodou relates to many things we've talked about in the African arts and practices like communication to the spirits/gods through masquerades, dances and music, and sacrificial practices.

After watching the Black in Latin America: Haiti & Dominican Republic movie, I could really begin to see the relations to African practices we have studied so far. When at a Vodou ceremony, the peoples become possessed by the spirits just like many African cultures do at a masquerade. When putting on a mask, that person becomes that figure and communicates to the audience around them the message of who or what that figure means and represents. This is very similar to the communication received through the godly spirits in Vodou when it takes over a person's body. Also similar to the masquerades, the ceremonies include meaningful music and dances.

Another similar way of communication to the spirits/Gods between Haitian Vodou religion and other African cultures is their sacrificial practices. While they have different performances of sacrificing, it has a similar concept. In the Vodou practices, they use birds, mainly chickens, to cleanse someone of bad or make peace to and then break their legs and also use their blood as an offering to the gods. At bigger ceremonies or at a new year, they also sacrifice a goat as an offering to the gods. In African cultures like the Dogon, the tellem ancestor figures and other shrine objects are sacrificial materials. Instead of killing a specific animal, sacrificial blood is used on specific tellem figures to communicate to the gods for certain request.

A chicken being sacrificed at a Vodou ceremony

After comparing many Vodou practices with different African cultures practices, I can really see the many African influences in the Haitian religion of Vodou. Now I am more curious on our American perception of voodoo and how or why the two get mixed up.