In 1791, a slave revolt took place under the leadership of Toussaint L’Ouverture which was to lead to Haiti’s independence from France in 1804. Although L’Ouverture died in a Napoleonic prison, his generals had become sufficiently inspired by his example to continue the struggle for freedom until the myth of white supremacy was banished from the island.
After the Concordat of 1860, when relations were reestablished with France, the clergy fulminated against vodun from the pulpits but did not actively campaign against their rival priesthood until 1896 when an impatient monsignor tried without success to organize an anti-vodun league. It wasn’t until 1940 that the Catholic church launched a violent campaign of renunciation directed at the adherents of vodun. The priests went about their methodic attack with such zeal that the government was forced to intercede and command them to temper the fires of their campaign.
Today there are over 80 million people who practice vodun worldwide, largely where Haitian emigrants have settled: Benin, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Togo, various cities in the United States (primarily New Orleans), and, of course, Haiti. In South America, there are many religions similar to vodun, such as Umbanda, Quimbanda, or Candomblé.
A male priest of Vodun, is called a “houngan” or “hungan;” his female counterpart is a “mambo.” The place where one practices vodun is a series of buildings called a “humfort” or “hounfou.” A “congregation” is called a “hunsi” or “hounsis,” and the hungan cures, divines, and cares for them through the good graces of a “loa,” his guiding spirit.
The worship of the supernatural “loa” is the central purpose of vodun. They are the old gods of Africa, the local spirits of Haiti, who occupy a position to the fore of God, Christ, the Virgin, and the Saints. From the beginning, the Haitian Voodoo priests adamantly refused to accept the Church’s position that the “loa” are the “fallen angels” who rebelled against God. The loa perform good works and guide and protect humankind, the hungans argue. They, like the saints of Roman Catholicism, were once men and women who lived exemplary lives and were given a specific responsibility to carry out to assist human spirituality. Certainly there are those priests, the bokors, who perform acts of evil sorcery, the left-hand path of vodun, but rarely will a hungan resort to such practices.
The loa communicates with its faithful ones by possessing their bodies during a trance or by appearing to them in dreams. The possession usually takes place during ritual dancing in the humfort. Each participant eventually undergoes a personality change and adapts a trait of his or her particular loa. The adherents of Vodun refer to this phenomenon of the invasion of the body by a supernatural agency as that of the loa “mounting its horse.”
There is a great difference, the hungan maintains, between possession by a loa and possession by an evil spirit. An evil spirit would bring chaos to the dancing and perhaps great harm to the one possessed. The traditional dances of vodun are conducted on a serious plane with rhythm and suppleness but not with the orgiastic sensuality depicted in motion pictures about Voodoo or in the displays performed for the tourist trade.
All vodun ceremonies must be climaxed with sacrifice to the loa. Chickens are most commonly offered to the loa, although the wealthy may offer a goat or a bull. The possessed usually drinks of the blood that is collected in a vessel, thereby satisfying the hunger of the loa. Other dancers may also partake of the blood, sometimes adding spices to the vital fluid, but most often drinking it “straight.” After the ceremony, the sacrificed animal is usually cooked and eaten.
The traditional belief structure of the Yoruba envisioned a chief god named Olorun, who remains aloof and unknowable to humankind, but who permitted a lesser deity, Obatala, to create the Earth and all its life forms. There are hundreds of minor spirits whose influence may be invoked by humankind, such as Ayza, the protector; Baron Samedi, guardian of the grave; Dambala, the serpent; Ezli, the female spirit of love; Ogou Balanjo, spirit of healing; and Mawu Lisa, spirit of creation. Each follower of vodun has his or her own “met tet,” a guardian spirit that corresponds to a Catholic’s patron saint.
In Haiti and in New Orleans, Papa Legba is the intermediary between the loa (also referred to as “lwa”) and humanity. He stands at a spiritual crossroads and gives (or denies) permission to speak with the spirits of Gine; he translates between the human and “angelic” and all other languages of the spheres.
A Voodoo High Priest is called a “houngan” or “hungan” (art by Ricardo Pustanio).
Papa Legba is also commonly called Eleggua and is depicted as an old man sprinkling water or an old man with a crutch accompanied by dogs. He is also known as Legba or Legba Ati-Bon in other pantheons. In any vodon ceremony, Legba is the first loa invoked, so that he may “open the gate” for communication between the worlds. The dog is his symbolic animal, moving with him between the worlds and across the waters of the Abyss.
When it comes to the protection of one’s domicile, Voodoo practitioners place representations of Papa Legba, similar to those of St. Michael and St. Peter, beside the back and front doors of their homes. Legba will keep evil from entering the home unchecked.
According to the research of historians at Haunted America Tours (http://hauntedamericatours.com), many Voodoo and Hoodoo Kings and Queens became wealthy during the Civil War in the 1860s by reanimating fallen Confederate and Union soldiers and selling them as zombie slaves. The sorcerers mixed up dead things in a big black stew pot. They ground up corpses and zombie fingers and toes to make special Zombie Brand powders that only the very rich could afford and only the very evil would want to employ.
For some, this was the Golden Era of Zombies. Half white/half black Creole Queens and Kings plied their special dark swamp medicines, amulets, charms, and “zombified” wares from coast to coast after Uylsses S. Grant became president.
Experts on the history of Voodoo, such as Lisa Lee Harp Waugh, Karen Beals, and the noted New Orleans artist Ricardo Pustanio, have observed that the deep dark secrets of a Voodoo-hoodoo person at the time was always well accepted. These special Creole people were never more sought after and revered than those of the Great White Mamba’s whose names are still remembered and honored today.
The old red-bricked, crumbling, white-washed tomb of Marie Laveau is the spot where many say the eternal Voodoo Queen still grants wishes from beyond the grave. However, some say, she will grant your wish only if you promise to come back to the tomb no later than one year and a day. If you do not show at the allotted time then you might just find that you have lost all you gained. Even worse, is the curse that the one you love most will become a real zombie when he or she dies.
Many researchers in certain Voodoo-hoodoo circles believe that real zombification came to America through the teachings of Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Others believe it was her teacher and mentor Dr. John who first taught Marie. Still others claim that the Great Texan Voodoo Queen Black Cat Mama Couteaux was the ultimate “zombifier.”
Black Cat Mama Couteaux, according to Lisa Lee, was the ultimate Voodoo-hoodoo Queen in Marshall, Texas. “The stories of her in the state are often told as far away as Abilene and Fort Worth,” she said. “They say she even rode out the Great Storm of 1900 in a row boat. The woman was said to have been married to her zombie lover. The dead Mamba husband zombie is said to be still around, guarding the treasures she amassed.”