Vodou Visions


Book Description

This book introduces readers to Vodou's rich history, powerful ancestors, and vibrant spirits, known as Lwa. With more than one hundred breathtaking illustrations, Vodou Visions reveals how to honor and invoke the Lwa with specific ceremonial offerings and litanies. Using methods drawn from more than twenty years of practice, Vodou priestess Sallie Ann Glassman shares purification and empowerment rituals for individuals, communities, homes and spiritual spaces.




Vodou


Book Description

Photographs of Haitian Vodou priests and priestesses dressed in the ritual attire demanded by their deities are accompanied by explanations of Vodou practices and beliefs.




Vodou Things


Book Description

Pierrot Barra and his wife Marie Cassaise are the most astonishing artists that the author of this fascinating book has encountered in more than a decade of researching Vodou in Haiti. Inspired by dreams and psychic visions of Vodoun divinities, the couples' sculptures combine distant memories of Africa, the imagery of Catholic saints, Masonic regalia, and Hollywood Kitsch. 48 full-color photos.




Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean Paganism


Book Description

Few religions are as misunderstood as Afro-Caribbean traditions like Voodoo, Yoruba, Candomble, Shango, Santeria, and Obeah. Even the most wide-ranging books about Paganism rarely include a discussion of the African earth religions.




The Haitian Vodou Handbook


Book Description

A working guide to the proper methods of interacting with the full Vodou pantheon • Includes the myths, cultural heritage, and ancestral lineage of the lwa and how to honor and serve them • Provides an introduction and guide that is especially useful for the solitary practitioner • Discusses the relationship between Vodou, Haitian culture, and Catholicism In The Haitian Vodou Handbook, Kenaz Filan, an initiate of the Société la Belle Venus, presents a working guide to the proper methods of interacting with the full Vodou pantheon, explaining how to build respectful relationships with the lwa, the spirits honored in Haitian Vodou, and how to transform the fear that often surrounds the Vodou religion. Until recently, the Haitian practice of Vodou was often identified with devil worship, dark curses, and superstition. Some saw the saint images and the Catholic influences and wrote Vodou off as a “Christian aberration.” Others were appalled by the animal sacrifices and the fact that the Houngans and Mambos charge money for their services. Those who sought Vodou because they believed it could harness “evil” forces were disappointed when their efforts to gain fame, fortune, or romance failed and so abandoned their “voodoo fetishes.” Those who managed to get the attention of the lwa, often received cosmic retaliation for treating the spirits as attack dogs or genies, which only further cemented Vodou’s stereotype as “dangerous.” Filan offers extensive background information on the featured lwa, including their mythology and ancestral lineage, as well as specific instructions on how to honor and interact fruitfully with those that make themselves accessible. This advice will be especially useful for the solitary practitioner who doesn’t have the personal guidance of a societé available. Filan emphasizes the importance of having a quickened mind that can read the lwa’s desires intuitively in order to avoid establishing dogma-based relationships. This working guide to successful interaction with the full Vodou pantheon also presents the role of Vodou in Haitian culture and explores the symbiotic relationship Vodou has maintained with Catholicism.




Vodou in Haitian Memory


Book Description

Throughout Haitian history—from 17th century colonial Saint-Domingue to 21st century postcolonial Haiti—arguably, the Afro-Haitian religion of Vodou has been represented as an “unsettling faith” and a “cultural paradox,” as expressed in various forms and modes of Haitian thought and life including literature, history, law, politics, painting, music, and art. Competing voices and conflicting ideas of Vodou have emerged from each of these cultural symbols and intellectual expressions. The Vodouist discourse has not only pervaded every aspect of the Haitian life and experience, it has defined the Haitian cosmology and worldview. Further, the Vodou faith has had a momentous impact on the evolution of Haitian intellectual, aesthetic, and literary imagination; comparatively, Vodou has shaped Haitian social ethics, sexual and gender identity, and theological discourse such as in the intellectual works and poetic imagination of Jean Price-Mars, Dantes Bellegarde, Jacques Roumain, Jacques Stephen Alexis, etc. Similarly, Vodou has shaped the discourse on the intersections of memory, trauma, history, collective redemption, and Haitian diasporic identity in Haitian women’s writings such as in the fiction of Edwidge Danticat, Myriam Chancy, etc. The chapters in this collection tell a story about the dynamics of the Vodou faith and the rich ways Vodou has molded the Haitian narrative and psyche. The contributors of this book examine this constructed narrative from a multicultural voice that engages critically the discipline of ethnomusicology, drama, performance, art, anthropology, ethnography, economics, literature, intellectual history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, religion, and theology. Vodou is also studied from multiple theoretical approaches including queer, feminist theory, critical race theory, Marxism, postcolonial criticism, postmodernism, and psychoanalysis.




Vodou in the Haitian Experience


Book Description

One glaring lacuna in studies of Haitian Vodou is the scarcity of works exploring the connection between the religion and its main roots, traditional Yoruba religion. Discussions of Vodou very often seem to present the religion in vacuo, as a sui generis phenomenon that arose in Saint-Domingue and evolved in Haiti, with no antecedents. What is sorely needed then is more comparative studies of Haitian Vodou that would examine its connections to traditional Yoruba religion and thus illuminate certain aspects of its mythology, belief system, practices, and rituals. This book seeks to bridge these gaps. Vodou in the Haitian Experience studies comparatively the connections and relationships between Vodou and African traditional religions such as Yoruba religion and Egyptian religion. Such studies might enhance our understanding of the religion, and the connections between Africa and its Diaspora through shared religious patterns and practices. The general reader should be mindful of the transnational and transcultural perspectives of Vodou, as well as the cultural, socio-economic, and political context which gave birth to different visions and ideas of Vodou. The chapters in this collection tell a story about the dynamics of the Vodou faith and the rich ways Vodou has molded the Haitian narrative and psyche. The contributors of this book examine this constructed narrative from a multicultural voice that engages critically the discipline of ethnomusicology, drama, performance, art, anthropology, ethnography, economics, literature, intellectual history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, religion, and theology. Vodou is also studied from multiple theoretical approaches including queer, feminist theory, critical race theory, Marxism, postcolonial criticism, postmodernism, and psychoanalysis.




Vodou Nation


Book Description

While the Haitian musical tradition is probably best known for the Vodou-inspired roots music that helped topple the two-generation Duvalier dictatorship, the nation’s troubled history of civil unrest and its tangled relationship with the United States is more intensely experienced through its art music, which combines French and German elements of classical music with Haiti's indigenous folk music. Vodou Nation examines art music by Haitian and African American composers who were inspired by Haiti’s history as a nation created by slave revolt. Around the time of the United States’s occupation of Haiti in 1915, African American composers began to incorporate Vodou-inspired musical idioms to showcase black artistry and protest white oppression. Together with Haitian musicians, these composers helped create what Michael Largey calls the “Vodou Nation,” an ideal vision of Haiti that championed its African-based culture as a bulwark against America’s imperialism. Highlighting the contributions of many Haitian and African American composers who wrote music that brought rhythms and melodies of the Vodou ceremony to local and international audiences, Vodou Nation sheds light on a black cosmopolitan musical tradition that was deeply rooted in Haitian culture and politics.




Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture


Book Description

This collection introduces readers to the history and practice of the Vodou religion, and corrects many misconceptions. The book focuses specifically on the role Vodou plays in Haiti, where it has its strongest following, examining its influence on spiritual beliefs, cultural practices, national identity, popular culture, writing and art.




The Voodoo Encyclopedia


Book Description

This compelling reference work introduces the religions of Voodoo, a onetime faith of the Mississippi River Valley, and Vodou, a Haitian faith with millions of adherents today. Unlike its fictional depiction in zombie films and popular culture, Voodoo is a full-fledged religion with a pantheon of deities, a priesthood, and communities of believers. Drawing from the expertise of contemporary practitioners, this encyclopedia presents the history, culture, and religion of Haitian Vodou and Mississippi Valley Voodoo. Though based primarily in these two regions, the reference looks at Voodoo across several cultures and delves into related religions, including African Vodu, African Diasporic Religions, and magical practices like hoodoo. Through roughly 150 alphabetical entries, the work describes various aspects of Voodoo in Louisiana and Haiti, covering topics such as important places, traditions, rituals, and items used in ceremonies. Contributions from scholars in the field provide a comprehensive overview of the subject from various perspectives and address the deities and ceremonial acts. The book features an extensive collection of primary sources and a selected, general bibliography of print and electronic resources.