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Introduction to Voodoo in Haiti


The priesthood of Voodoo contains both men (houngan) and women (mambo). Their functions are:



healing.
perform religious ceremonies to call or pacify the spirits.
to hold initiations for new priests(tesses) (kanzo service and taking the ason).
Telling the future and reading dreams.
casting spells and creating protections.
creating potions for various purposes. (From love spells to death spells.)





Voodoo's relationship to Christianity.
The Catholic experience.



Under the French slaves were forbidden from practicing Voodoo. Nonetheless Voodoo survived. The colonists did allow occasional dances on the weekends. These dances were actually Voodoo services! After the liberation of 1804 all white people were kicked out of Haiti and many were killed. This included Roman Catholic priests. Thus in 1804 the Vatican broke with Haiti and did not establish relations with her again until 1860. During this 56 year period houngans and mambos built up the public religion of Haiti, Voodoo, in a weird amalgamation of African spirit religion and Catholicism. Virtually all lwa became associated with Catholic saints (Dumballah the snake lwa is St. Patrick; Erzulie, the earth mother is the Virgin Mary). The most important consequence of this is that Haitians see nothing odd at all with practicing Voodoo and Catholicism side by side and are often very devout about each of them. I can't explain this, I only describe it.




From time to time from 1860 until the late 1940s the Catholic Church waged campaigns against Voodoo. They never came to anything. In 1941-42 some elements of the Catholic Church waged an all out physical, holy war against Voodoo. They burned peristyle, Voodoo shrines, beat (some say even killed) houngans and mambo, demanded their ostracism from society and shot things up. But, they lost. Voodoo went under-ground to some extent, but it grew in popularity, in large measure because of the oppression. By the early 1950s the Catholic hierarchy halted this war, got rid of these priest warriors and made their peace with Voodoo. Voodoo drums and melodies were incorporated into Catholic church services. The Catholics took the position, if you can't defeat them, co-opt them. Relative peace has held between the Catholics and serviteurs ever since.





The Protestants.



Until the 1970s Haiti was nearly 100% Catholic. In the 1970s evangelical Protestantism came to Haiti. After Reagan came to power evangelization mushroomed.
Evangelical Protestants are bitter enemies of Voodoo and denounce it all the time as devil worship. Many of these people claim that Haiti's misery is because she is being punished by God for the sins of her Voodoo serviteurs. Protestantism has come to Haiti as a serious business. Evangelical Protestants groups own 7 of Haiti's 11 radio stations and have made significant gains in conversions. Today most observers believe that at least 15% of the Christians in Haiti are Protestant evangelicals.







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