Louisiana Voodoo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (November 2007) |
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2008) |
Louisiana Voodoo, also known as New Orleans Voodoo, originated from the ancestral religions of the African diaspora. It is a cultural form of the Voodoo religions which historically developed within the French- and Creole-speaking African-American population of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is one of many incarnations of African-based religions rooted in the West African Dahomean Vodou tradition and the Central African traditions found in Haitian Vodou. They became syncretized with the Catholic religion as a result of the massive forced migrations and displacements of the slave trade.
Louisiana Voodoo is often confused with – but is not completely separable from – Haitian Vodou and southeastern U.S. hoodoo. While it generally shares the same loa as Haitian Vodou, it lays a generally greater emphasis upon folk magic (as does hoodoo). This emphasis has become a spiritocultural marker for southern, Afro Diaspora, francophone Louisiana within the Western media. It was through Louisiana Voodoo that such terms as gris-gris (an Ewe term) and voodoo dolls were introduced into the American lexicon.
Contents |
[edit] History
 |
Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. |
The Vodou religion was brought to Southeastern America via the many ethnic African groups during the slave trade. Slave owners forbade the Africans from practicing Vodou under penalty of death and forced many of them to convert to Catholicism. There was syncretization or creolization of the names and aspects of the Voodoo lwa to those of the Christian saints who most closely resembled their particular areas of expertise. In the USA, the Vodoun religion is derived chiefly from the Ewe and other West and Central African groups.[citation needed]
[edit] Louisiana Voodoo and Christianity
As an alternative religion based in African society, Voodoo faced substantial suspicion from some segments of the Christian contingent of southern Louisiana's African-American and white populations. They looked at it as superstition, pagan practice, and/or as both evil and Satanic.
Scholars believe that survivals of Haitian and West African-influenced Vodou religion may be found in the African-American Spiritual Churches of New Orleans, a city with a large Catholic population. Scholars[who?] debate the variations of Voodoo, how they have survived, how much they have changed, and to what extent Christianity in general or Catholicism in particular were used as covers to enable the survival of Voodoo.
Many popular songs of the Delta Blues tradition (circa 1900 to 1941) referenced voodoo or its derivative Hoodoo explicitly. For instance, Robert Johnson sang of "hot foot powder sprinkled all round my door" and Muddy Water(s) referenced "the gypsy woman", "seventh son", and the "mojo hand".[clarify]
The Catholic syncretic contribution to Haitian Vodou is quite noticeable. However, in the United States, there appeared to be different development. Nonetheless, Voodoo in New Orleans was influenced by the large Haitian immigration, including slaves and free people of color, in 1809 after the Haitian Revolution.
Some scholars believe confusion about Voodoo in the USA arises because there is a widespread system of African-American folk belief and practice known as Hudu, or more popularly as hoodoo. Hoodoo may have tenuous connections to Vodou, but may be an integral part of the Vodoun religion in West Africa and throughout all of Africa. Some[clarify] aspects of hoodoo may be derived primarily from Congo and Angolan practices of Central Africa, and may retain elements of the traditions and practices that arose among Bantu-language speakers.
[edit] Voodoo and Spiritualism
The Spiritual Churches of New Orleans are a Christian sect founded by Wisconsin-born Mother Leafy Anderson in the early 20th century. These churches incorporate Catholic iconography, ecstatic worship derived from African-American Protestant Pentecostal practices, and a large dose of Spiritualism. A closer examination shows that the hallmark of the New Orleans Spiritual Churches is the honoring of the Native American spirit named Black Hawk, who lived in Illinois and Wisconsin (Anderson's home state), not in Africa, or Haiti.[citation needed]. Furthermore, the names of some individual churches in the denomination—such as Divine Israel—bring to mind typical Black Baptist church names more than Catholic ones.
Practitioners combined aspects of Spiritualism and Voodoo in the nineteenth century; the voodoo-influenced "Spiritual Churches" that survive in New Orleans are the result of a mingling of these and other spiritual practices. The New Orleans "Spiritual" religion is a blend of Spiritualism, Voodoo, Catholicism and Pentecostalism. It is unique among African-American "Spiritual" religions in its use of "Spirit Guides" in worship services and in the forms of ritual possession that its adherents practice.[1] It is hardly surprising to find such an interest in Spiritualism. The first issues of L'Union demonstrated the deep interest that Spiritualism held for Creole New Orleans in general and for the Creoles of color in particular. The blending of Spiritualism and Voodoo occurred because of Spiritualism's technical similarities to Voodoo possession. Spiritualism, "as a technique for communication with the dead," was not very different from the forms of ritual possession that were encountered in 1920s New Orleans.[2]
[edit] Voodoo today
Due to the suppression of the Vodoun religion in America, most hoodooists are now members of Christian churches, such as the various Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal (AME), Pentecostal, and Holiness denominations. When hoodoo is compared to some of the African religions in the diaspora, the closest parallel is to Cuban and Dominican Palo, a survival of Congo religious beliefs melded with some Catholic forms of worship.
Segregation minimized the number of bi-lingual African Americans (those who spoke basilect and fluent acrolect), and at the same time minimized the number of whites who could translate basilect well enough to discover Voodoo in the spoken, sung, or written words of middle class, working class or working-poor African Americans. In isolated African-American communities, such as the Georgia Sea Islands or in the Mississippi Delta, Voodoo lore could be freely referenced and practices, at least the more subtle ones, were more public.[citation needed]
With the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast, hundreds of thousands of individuals, including many Louisiana Voodoo practitioners, were driven to many different parts of the United States.[3]
[edit] Difference between Voodoo and Hoodoo
The difference between Voodoo and Hoodoo is similar to the difference between Wicca and Witchcraft. Voodoo is a religion that serves the African deities in West Africa, and Afro-Caribbean Loa or Lwa and the Catholic/Christian saints in Haiti and Louisiana.
Hoodoo, on the other hand, is the magical practice, with no religious connections or connotations. Not all people with Voodoo beliefs practice Hoodoo, and not all who practice Hoodoo have Voodoo beliefs.[citation needed]
[edit] See also
- Vodou, for the Haitian tradition
- Afro-American religion, for a general overview of the spirituality
- Marie Laveau
[edit] References
- ^ Jacobs, Claude F. (1991). The Spiritual Churches of New Orleans Origins, Beliefs, and Rituals of an African-American Religion. The University of Tennessee Press.
- ^ Duplantier, Jean-Marc Allard (2007). "Nos Freres d'Outre-Golfe: Spiritualism, Vodou and the Mimetic Literature of Haiti and Louisiana". Louisiana State University.
- ^ NPR - Katrina Disperses New Orleans' Voodoo Community
[edit] External links
|
|||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
