Haitian Vodou

**Haitian Vodou** is a syncretic mixture of Roman Catholic rituals developed during the French colonial period, based on traditional African beliefs, with roots in Dahomey, Kongo and Yoruba traditions, and folkloric influence from the indigenous Taino peoples of Haiti. The Loa, or spirits with whom Vodouisants work and practice, are not gods but servants of the Supreme Creator Bondye (pronounced Bon Dieu).

## History

The majority of the Africans who were brought as slaves to Haiti were from Western and Central Africa. The survival of the belief systems in the New World is remarkable, although the traditions have changed with time and have even taken on some Catholic forms of worship. Two important factors, however, characterize the uniqueness of Haitian Vodou as compared to African Vodun; the transplanted Africans of Haiti, similar to those of Cuba and Brazil, were obliged to disguise their loa or spirits as Roman Catholic saints, an element of a process called syncretism.

Two keys provisions of the Code Noir by King Louis XIV of France in 1685 severely limited the ability of enslaved Africans in Saint-Domingue to practice African religions. First, the Code Noir explicitly forbade the open practice of all African religions. Second, it forced all slaveholders to convert their slaves to Catholicism within eight days of their arrival in Saint-Domingue.

Despite French efforts, enslaved Africans in Saint-Domingue were able to cultivate their own religious practices. Enslaved Africans spent their Sunday and holiday nights expressing themselves. While bodily autonomy was strictly controlled during the day at night, the enslaved Africans wielded a degree of agency. They began to continue their religious practices but also used the time to cultivate community and reconnect the fragmented pieces of their various heritages. These late night reprieves were a form of resistance against white domination and also created community cohesion between people from vastly different ethnic groups.
While Catholicism was used as a tool for suppression, enslaved Haitians, partly out of necessity, would go on to incorporate aspects of Christianity into their Vodou.

Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry, a French observer writing in 1797, noted this religious syncretism, commenting that the Catholic-style altars and votive candles used by Africans in Haiti were meant to conceal the Africanness of the religion,

but the connection goes much further than that. Vodounists superimposed Catholic saints and figures onto the Iwa/Ioa, major spirits that work as agents of the Grand Met.

Some examples of major Catholic idols re-imagined as Iwa are the Virgin Mary being seen as Ezili. Saint Jacques as Ogou, and Saint Patrick as Dambala. Vodou ceremonies and rituals also incorporated some Catholic elements such as the adoption of the Catholic calendar, the use of holy water in purification rituals, singing hymns, and the introduction of Latin loanwords into Vodou lexicon. Vodou was a powerful political and cultural force in Haiti.The most historically iconic Vodou ceremony in Haitian history was the Bois Caïman ceremony of August 1791 that took place on the eve of a slave rebellion that predated the Haitian Revolution.