It ascribes magical properties to herbs, roots, minerals, animal parts, and personal possessions. Some spells even make use of bodily effluvia and detritus menstrual blood, semen, urine, spit, tears, nail clippings, hair…you get the picture. The intention behind hoodoo practice is to allow people to harness supernatural forces in order to improve their daily lives.
Their practices were also influenced through syncretism with French Catholicism; this is evidenced in the use of Catholic saint images to represent the Lwa spirits honored in Vodou. Vodou is an established and structured Haitian religion that is a significant part of the Haitian culture. Practitioners worship him indirectly by venerating the spirits that assist him.
Vodou has an initiated priesthood, but initiation is not required to join the religion in fact, most people are not initiated. For generations, his family—from his enslaved Louisiana ancestors back to those who lived in the French colony of Saint-Domingue today Haiti and before that in Africa—has practiced the ancient religion of Vodou VOH-doo.
I recently realized that despite working with Gilmore, making theatre with him, and considering him a dear friend, I knew relatively little about the religion he grew up practicing and is now a leader in.
A hyper-charismatic individual as tall and wiry as he is friendly, Gilmore was kind enough to demystify an honorable, family-oriented religion practiced more commonly in Louisiana than most people realize. Hand-beaded Haitian dwapos depicting the Lwa line the walls of Carmel and Sons Botanica, along with statues of Catholic Saints, votive candles, dried herbs, and spiritual goods for a variety of faiths.
Anthropologists estimate that Vodou has existed in West Africa for six thousand years, and that more than sixty million people practice the religion worldwide today. Grete Viddal, a scholar on Haitian as well as Cuban religion whose research brought her to New Orleans, where she recently served as a post-doctoral teaching fellow at Tulane, emphasizes the importance of separating the Vodou religion from racist stereotypes.
The teachings of Vodou are complex and dynamic, varying from place to place and family to family as individuals moved or were sold, and there is no set dogma to which the religion adheres. Beneath Bondye are other spirits, known in Haitian tradition as the lwa and in West African tradition as orishas, who serve various purposes and have their own names and personalities.
Historically, enslaved individuals who practiced the African and African-Caribbean religions of their ancestors were forced to convert to Western forms of Christianity, typically Catholicism, by those who owned them. This created a culture of Vodou practitioners who used images of Catholic saints as a guise to avoid revealing the lwa, or spirits, to whom they were actually praying and making offerings. To this day, many in the Vodou faith still attend Christian church services on Sundays and incorporate Catholic imagery into their worship.
What I also see happening less is the removal of Christian images and icons, but rather the inclusion of the new, such as images of the spirits that reflect contemporary racial awareness and current styles. Yvonne Chireau. Lazarus or St. This led whites to figure out how to prevent further rebellions, passing laws that cracked down on slaves and free Blacks.
They outlawed teaching Blacks to read or write, and forbade Blacks from preaching or holding religious services. Since Voodoo had given slaves a sense of power and strength that white people couldn't understand, they certainly cracked down on that as well.
Looking back at the revolution in , it was generally believed, a secret vodou ceremony had provided the spark for the violent uprising that liberated the country from its French masters. However, in the s to , slave masters were also concerned about what the enslaved were learning in the Bible as well as reading.
If anything, the slave masters would rather read and teach what they wanted and how they wanted than for the slaves to learn for themselves. Never have any church. De white preacher would call us under a tree Sunday evenin tuh preach tuh us.
When dey tell yuh tuh do somethin run an do hit. Nevertheless, slaves were very much aware of Voodoo and some would practice in the dead of night, chanting and dancing. Others were told to stay away from the devil magic and keep their head focused on the Lord and their Christian ways. In Western culture, a hex is similar to something like the Italian version of the 'evil eye' that is warded off by those who believe in its power by wearing a piece of jewelry fashioned like a horn.
A hex is a spell or a threat that something bad is going to happen to somebody. For example, it isn't done verbally, but ritually and certainly not with dolls with pins stuck in it. The person is even usually told that they are going to be hexed. Hex i s a very small element of Voodoo and although it is meant to serve evil purposes, the myth that it is used as a tool to curse someone has been propagated by Hollywood in particular.
This doll pertains to a type of African folk magic called hoodoo. They have very little place in the religion and are not used by the majority of practitioners at all! For the most part, those involved in voodoo practice it for the same reason any other religion is practiced. It offers a sense of purpose, peace and order and the practitioners invoke the divine beings for favors in such areas as health, family life and job welfare.
Sounds a lot like what other religions do, right? Priests and priestess are the front line of social services for most of the people. White people can't gain off natural medicines, they can't use it to become rich like they do by selling us prescription pills and keeping us going back for more man made medicine. Voodoo isn't all that different from western and central African beliefs. They all merge the worship of nature, ancestors, angels, etc.
Haitian elites could not openly support the religion. Over the years, several anti-Voodoo campaigns were launched by the Catholic and Protestant churches. Systematic attacks on Voodoo temples and Voodoo objects over decades paved the way for this religion to become predominately associated with sorcery. In contemporary Haitian society, Voodoo serves in multiple ways. An important contribution is its role in healing.
0コメント