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DEFINITION OF VODOUN
The (Vodoun "Vudu" "Voodoo" "Vodou" "Vodun" "Vaudou" "Vaudaux") religion at its cosmological, theological, ritual and philosophical core, is an African ancestral religion, practiced today largely in West Africa, Haiti and througout the Diaspora. Its fundamental tenants are the honoring of specialized deities typically born to Africans and honored along with their ancient, and recent ancestors, through specific ritual, prayer, evocation, and celebration. On a basic level, these deities are often described and symbolized as "forces of nature," and are honored with specific rites unique to their element. It is this level of Vodoun that is understood and practiced in popular culture. However, the Vodoun religion is far more cosmologically complex, and theologically grounded in the early development of African and global religious civilization than what is displayed in western religious history and culture.
ANCIENT ORIGINS OF VODOUN RELIGION
The Vodoun religion is estimated to have existed for more than 10,000+ years, having its ancient roots in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, East Africa, India, Asia Minor (ancient Turkey), ancient Crete, Thessalonia, ancient Israel, and in ancient Afro-matrilineal Ionia (later known as "Greece") , and later in ancient Rome. It was in all of these locations where the African, Queen mothers established their powerful temples and theocratic empires. At their height, these African, matriarchal empires reigned for more than 4,000 years—centuries before their conquer by the Dorian Greek invaders (6-7th B.C.E). Until the present, western revisionists credits the ancient social and religious history of these African matriarchs to the Dorian Greeks, and have hidden their cultural theology under "Greek Mythology." The consequence of this action was intended to forever obscure the historical fact that the Vodoun (and other African) religion(s) was one of the major African, ancestral religions practiced all throughout the ancient world. Over the centuries, as the African matriarchs were conquered and their temples seized or destroyed, they migrated westwardly, ultimately settling into the West African region; the religion having adapted to the cutural and language nuances with each new settlement and wave of immigrants. Currently, Benin (ancient Dahomey), the Domincian Republic, Cuba, Brazil, and Haiti are credited with being the "home" of the Vodoun religion by western scholars. However, the actual number of its practitioners and adherents throughout the world are far more numerous.
POPULAR MYTHS OF VODOUN'S ORIGINS
Haiti is universally credited by western scholars of developing and introducing the “Voodoo” religion into America. Haiti is also credited as the location where "Voodoo" reached its highest philosophical and cultural development. These historic claims though popular, are categorically untrue. Haiti is not where the Vodoun religion was born, nor is it where it reached its highest pinnacle of philosophical, ritual and theological development, nor did they introduce the religion into America. The Vodoun religion was being practiced in America long before Haiti'an influence. There were already powerful Vodoun priests and priestesses, and numerous Vodoun temples present in Louisiana and throughout the United States, many never having even encountered a Haitian. Lack of the fundamental understanding by western, cultural experts of what it means to be “Voddoo” as it is known and understood in West African cosmology, is largely responsible for the perpetuation of this myth.
Image (right): 'Cudjo Lewis, ‘Cujo’, meaning "born on Wednesday" who was Ewe, was amongst the last shipload of Africans from Dahomey whose ship the “Clothilde,” landed directly in Mobile, Alabama in 1859. After the Civil War, Cudjo and his shipmates founded Plateau, Alabama. The Vodoun religion of Africans enslaved in America came directly in their blood from these and other “serpent worshiping” sibs/clans. Source: National Geographic, Escape From Slavery: Underground Railroad, Vol. 166, No.1., July 1984'. Excerpted from book: -Mami Wata: Africa's Ancient God/dess Unveiled-Reclaiming the Ancient Vodoun Heritage of the Diaspora.
ENSLAVED AFRICANS BROUGHT THE VODOUN RELIGION TO AMERICA
In West African cosmology, the vodou are divine, specialized deities, whom, along with special ancestral and totemic spirits are cosmogenetically and biologically linked to each African at birth. As such, no individual or group can "introduce" these deities into ones biogenetic sphere. Further, the Africans who were imported and sold into the American slave-holding states, were transported directly from West Africa. The vodou deities and the exoteric “culture of the deities” (religions) also came directly from West Africa into America. The two largest and primary groups of Africans who were transported directly from West Africa into the United States, upon whom the Vodoun religion would soon overlay, were from the Congo and southwestern, Nigeria. The largest West African groups imported into America who actually brought the Vodoun religion with them were mainly from the Ewe, Guin and the Nago groups. The “Nago groups” were the Vodoun-Yoruba worshipers who comprised the inter-ethnic (Ewe-Fon, Edo, Igbo, Ijaw, and other) sub-mixtures, which were long ago established in Badagry, southern Benin and southern Togo. This blend came about as a result of their long history from ancient Ketu, to their continual political and economic struggles through warfare after the establishment of the Dahomean and the Oyo empires. In between both of these nations quest for regional hegemony, there were sparse periods of inter-ethnic marriages, mass migrations, mutual commerce and inter-cultural sharing. It was these primary West African groups who initially laid the cultural, linguistic and the religious substratum for the African spiritual traditions that existed in America.
LATER HAITIAN AND OTHER CULTURAL INFLUENCES
As the exoteric “culture of the deities,” (religious practices) of these initial enslaved African groups were systematically suppressed, each new wave of West Africans imported would simply overlay or "refresh" the older traditions with the new, until they too were forcibly suppressed. However, what is critical to understand is that although the “culture of the deities,” (religious practices) were outwardly suppressed, the deities themselves continued to be born with the African people, and the Vodou traditions though modified, continued in individual African-American families, and ceremonies were held in secret meeting places or masked in early Christian religious worship. Haitian cultural and religious influence was the last to refresh what was clearly the exoteric (outer) cultural expression of the deities. However, even their influence did not began to take root until the early 1800s, shortly after Haiti won their independence, and many disgruntled, white French slaver- holders fled to the U.S. and to Cuba, bringing many of the enslaved Africans with them. The Haitian groups who refreshed and overlaid the diminishing Vodou exoteric culture in America, specifically in Louisiana, were largely from the Fon, a subgroup of the Ewe, and the final group to be imported- which is why their Haitian blends remained the most recent and the most enduring.
The point that is being made, is that the Vodoun religion was introduced into America by the Africans who were directly imported into the slave-holding states from West Africa. Over the centuries, as a system of African religious and cultural suppression was effected in America, the Haitian blended influence being the last, became the most enduring. In time, it too would be ultimately reduced to the present day ethno-botanical and magical folk practices known as “Hudu” (“hoodoo”). It is this Afro-folk tradition that Hollywood and Christian evangelists enjoy labeling as the “Voodoo religion” proper. Finally, making the distinction between the cosmogenetic and biological link that Africans and the Diaspora possess with the vodou spirits and the “popular 'New Age" culture" of worship of the deities, is critical to understanding the consistency and the permanency, and the indestructibility of the unique relationship that the Afro-Diaspora have had with their ancient ancestors and gods for thousands of years.
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTON AND SUPPRESSION OF VODOUN IN AMERICA
There are literally volumes of material available on the history of slavery and its subsequent aftermath on African-American culture and family. However, little if any information is available on the religious persecution and suppression that took place on the plantation and in American culture during and after Reconstruction. In America, the practice of the Vodoun and other African religions were strictly forbidden. On many southern plantations, it was even against the law for any enslaved African to pray to God. The slave owners greatly feared the spiritual powers that many enslaved African priests possessed. Those who were caught praying to God were often brutally penalized, as the following excerpt taken from Peter Randolph's 1893 narrative "Slave Cabin to the Pulpit" recounts:
In some places, if the slaves are caught praying to God, they are whipped more than if they had committed a great crime. The shareholders will allow the slaves to dance, but do not want them to pray to God. Sometimes, when a slave, on being whipped, calls upon God, he is forbidden to do so, under threat of having his throat cut, or brains blown out. Oh, reader! this seems very hard- - that slaves cannot call on their Maker, when the case most needs it. Sometimes the poor slave takes courage to ask his master to let him pray, and is driven away, with the answer, that if discovered praying, his back will pay the bill.
All throughout America, an aggressive campaign was implemented to do away with all African traditional religious practices once and for all. Heavy fines were often levied. Brutal forms of torture, severe beatings, genital castration, lynchings, and even death was imposed on anyone caught practicing any form of the religion. Stringent laws were passed to prevent the Africans from speaking any African languages, building shrines, making ritual drums, or any musical instruments. Family members and neighbors were encouraged to "report" one another if caught practicing any form of the religion.
These medieval laws were so successful, that in less than one generation, the many priests and priestesses who were not murdered, were forced to practice underground, earning Vodoun the undeserved reputation of being “dark and mysterious.” Intentionally mocked as "Voodoo", no clear distinctions were made between the ancestral religious traditions and its beneficent practices, and the "darker" maleficent traditions such as "sorcery, conjuration, and witchcraft." Tantamount to the spiritual-genocidal equivalency of blending Satanism with Christianity proper.
Because the African diaspora welded no significant economic, or political clout, and most of what remained of its priesthood duly maligned and discredited, it became nearly impossible to present the true spiritual reality of what Vodoun actually is, and its profound importance to the spiritual sustenance of the African diaspora. Unfortuantely, many "New Age" believers are inexplicably drawn to the Vodoun religion based upon the belief that it is a magico-cultic blend of the "dark arts," with no clear theological structure, or moral foundation. Nothing could be further from the truth.
VODOUN IN POPULAR CULTURE
Today, with African Traditional and Diaspora religions making a powerful re-emergence especially in America, they have become the tradition of choice among New Agers, Wiccans, and others who are searching for spiritual sustenance and divine meaning in their lives. Additionally, many in the Diaspora are being born with their deities, and are being called to serve as did their enslaved and ancient ancestors. As a result, many are challenging the often racists stereotypes, and mis-information portraying Vodoun as "cultic," "satanic" "magical" and "superstitious." Many too in the Diaspora are demanding that the image of Vodoun reflect its historical and present reality, as being an ancient tradition of ancestral and deity veneration and worship, that is deserving of the same recognition and respect as all religions.
see also:
Ewe Slaves & Voodoo: America's Hidden Heritage
[edit] Other Vodoun Resources
- Religious Persecution of Vodoun in America
- West African Mami Wata & Diaspora Vodoun
- Misconceptions about Vodoun
- New Boook: Mami Wata: Africa's Ancient God/dess Unveiled-Reclaiming the Ancient Vodoun History and Heritage of the Diaspora
- Interview: African Origins of Vodoun. by Vodoun Priestess Mama Zogbé
- The African Origins of "Voodoo
- "Voodo" Comes Alive in the African-American Diaspora
- Slavery & American Restitution
- Pope Apologizes for Centuries of Demonzing African Religions
- The Religion of the Slaves
- Vodoun Culture of the Ewe & Fon
- Library of Congress Changes the Way it Classifys African Religions
- Slavery and Religion in America
- A Slave In Brooklyn:Archeologists Uncover Ritual Artifacts
- Plates in Graves: An Africanism?
OTHER RESOURCES
- Vodun (and related religions: Candomble, Lucumi, Macumba, Voodoo, Vodoun and Yoruba) at religioustolerance.org
- Haitian Vodou: Serving the Spirits by Mike Rock
- TVodou.org
- Vodoun Culture
- Traditional Religion in Africa:The Vodun Phenomenon in Benin
- Animisme au Bénin
- Haitian Voodoo and Medieval Jews: A Historical Comparison
- The White Darkness
- - House of Voodoo, New Orleans, Louisiana
- Caribbean Guide to Creole Religions (including Voodoo)
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| Religions | Candomblé • Hoodoo • Kumina • Obeah • Palo • Quimbanda • Santería (Lukumí) • Spiritual Baptist • Umbanda • Vodou |  |
| Deities | Babalu Aye • Eshu • Iansan • Mami Wata • Obàtálá • Ogoun • Ọlọrun • Orunmila • Ọṣun • Shango • Yemaja | |
| Roots | Ifá, Oriṣa (Yorùbá) • Lwa (Dahomey) • Nkisi (Kongo) • Catholicism (Portugal, Spain) | |
