Vodun, voodoo, orishas

This paper compares anthropomorphic power-figures from the Vodun and Kongo cultural areas. Vodun is practised along the Guinea Coast of West Africa (especially in Benin and Togo) whereas the Kongo religion is native to the west coast of Central Africa (especially the two Republics of the Congo and northwest Angola). First, overlaps in belief and praxis between the Vodun and Kongo religions are highlighted. Second, similarities are identified in the design and significance of anthropomorphic Vodun power-figures, especially Fon bocio and Ewe bo/vodu/tro(n), and their Kongo counterparts – minkisi, and especially minkondi, which are better known in the West as “nail fetishes.” The disturbing appearance of the figurines, the ritual operation of features such as pegs/padlocks, nails/blades, bonds/sutures and magical/medicinal material (Kongo bilongo) are treated in detail. Activation and appeasement by sacrificial blood, alcoholic drink and coloured dyes are also considered. The analysis ends with a broad intercultural comparison which ranges from ancient Egyptian belief to the art of Polish surrealist Zdzisław Beksiński, encompassing en route the zār cult and the Polynesian tiki. Overall, the study finds that the Vodun bocio/bo/vodu/tro(n) has much in common with the Kongo nkisi nkondi, the two sharing notable similarities in purpose, construction and operation. One difference, however, is that large Kongo minkondi used to serve as archival repositories of a community’s oaths, treaties and petitions, a commemorative role seemingly not shared by Vodun power-figures.

O Vodu haitiano é um sistema de crenças surgido do encontro e hibridismo, realizado em condições de forças muito assimétricas, entre o catolicismo e as crenças dos africanos transportados à força para o trabalho escravo na parte francesa da Ilha da Hispaniola. Ele possui uma série de similaridades com o culto aos voduns da África Ocidental e de sua recriação no nordeste brasileiro e em outras regiões americanas, mas também uma série de especificidades que têm a ver com a incorporação em sua mitologia e práticas das relações políticas e religiosas próprias da história do Haiti, região marcada principalmente pelo seu original processo de independência, surgido de uma rebelião escrava, animado pelos ideais republicanos das Revoluções Americana e Francesa, muito estimulado pela peculiar religiosidade local e alvo de uma sistemática sabotagem da parte dos demais países ocidentais. O Vodu haitiano é organizado ao redor do culto aos loa, espíritos de diversos tipos, que se manifestam entre os seres humanos através de atos prodigiosos ou da incorporação em determinados médiuns, em cerimônias especificamente destinadas a isso. Os loa são organizados em nações e linhagens, reunidos de acordo com sua origens, relações e personalidades. Uma destas linhagens é a das Èrzulie, espíritos femininos muito populares e importantes no sistema vodu, bons para se pensar como este funciona e como se conjugam em seu interior elementos históricos e religiosos de procedências diversas. O objetivo desta oficina é, partindo de uma breve caracterização da história do Haiti e do Vodu, e fazendo um breve inventário sinóptico dos loa Èrzulie, tratar de algumas questões referentes às relações entre história e religião.

This article is a comparative and ethnographic analysis of syncretism as a theoretical tool for explaining " African-based " religions (Vodu and Orisha) in West Africa and the New World. Vodu and Orisha defy syncretism as a valid concept for explaining the creativity of ritual life because it fails to account for the historicity, the religious imagination, or the cultural context of these forms. This article discusses that despite many shortcomings and problems with syncretism as a concept, it continues to be employed across many disciplines, even as it conflates and mystifies the different aspects and elements of African religions. Syncretism approaches tend to mystify African symbols and explain away things that, from the inside, are fundamental to African systems. This article will explain and contextualize many of these flaws and deficiencies with the concept through fieldwork and archival research.

This paper seeks to historicize and demystify “Voodoo” religion in Africa and Haiti while also drawing comparisons and contrasts to concepts and themes related to “the gothic”. What is assumed to be “supernatural” or “paranormal” in Western and Gothic circles has long been a part of everyday reality for many peoples of African descent and devotees of Vodun in Western Africa and Vodou in Haiti. Tropes that are essential to realms of the gothic (supernatural characters, mystery, the macabre, spirits, and paranormal entities) — are also central to the cosmology and liturgy of so-called “Voodoo”. As “the gothic” undergoes a resurgence in academic and popular cultures, so too does “Voodoo” religion. And yet, both terms continue to be conflated by popular culture, and by equating “voodoo” with “the gothic”, the true spirt of both concepts become confounded. A certain racialized Eurocentric hegemony devalues one of the world’s least understood religions (“Voodoo”) by equating it with equally distorted concepts of “the gothic”. As globalization transforms society, and the neo-liberal order creates more uncertainty, the continued distortion of both terms continues. Vodun does more than just speak to the unknown, it is an ancient organizing principle and way of life for millions of followers. Vodou/Vodun are not cognates of the “American Zombie gothic”, but rather, are a mode of survival and offer a way of seeing and being in an unpredictable world.

El vudú como sistema de creencias ha sido estigmatizado en gran medida por el sincretismo religioso como consecuencia de la esclavitud. El fundamento de la práctica vudú en África es la comunicación con divinidades elementales y ancestrales que se consolida entre otras cosas por medio de la posesión y el fetichismo, la forma en que este ritual se lleva a cabo cambió radicalmente de África a América, tanto en su contexto como en su finalidad. El presente trabajo retoma el fetiche y la posesión como dos de los elementos fundamentales que se mantienen presentes en la práctica endógena y exógena.

This article focuses on the promises of Vodu and Gorovodu for multi-party democracy in contemporary Togo. While focusing on rituals of atonement and reconciliation, and social movements of Ewes from below, it also analyzes current political and economic trends on the national level from above. With comparisons to nearby Benin, the article measures the present role for Vodu in contemporary Togolese society and politics. The role of the anthropologist, coupled with activism and advocacy, and relationships between northerners and southerners are the focus. When marginal groups are included in ongoing power structures in places like Togo, it makes for a more tolerant, peaceful, and pluralistic society, which has been conspicuously absent throughout most of Togolese history. Cet article met l'accent sur les promesses de Vodu et Gorovodu pour la démocratie multipartite dans le Togo contemporain. Tout en se concentrant sur les rituels d'expiation et de réconciliation, et les mouvements sociaux d'Ewes d'en bas, il analyse également les tendances politiques et économiques actuelles au niveau national d'en haut. Avec des comparaisons avec le Bénin voisin, l'article mesure le rôle actuel de Vodu dans la société et la politique contemporaines togolaises. Le rôle de l'anthropologue, conjugué à l'activisme et au plaidoyer, et les relations entre les habitants du Nord et du Sud sont l'accent mis. Lorsque des groupes marginaux sont inclus dans les structures de pouvoir en cours dans des endroits comme le Togo, il fait pour une société plus tolérante, pacifique et pluraliste, qui a été manifestement absente pendant la majeure partie de l'histoire togolaise. In the context of recent government discourse and events of national importance in Togo, cross-ethnic and cross-regional possession trance, with its ethics of radical reciprocity, takes on a certain political irony. While government-controlled press accuses " southerners " of tribal hatred against the north, these very southerners honor northern cultures by hosting and worshipping northern spirits during Vodu rituals.

Essay written on my Facebook page, 4/15/2018, discussing those who seek to honor Mami Wata and their consideration in understanding that if they do not truly know this spirit it could be a disservice to the pantheon of Mami and to those who are her authentic representatives.

This article is a photo-essay from a salah Gorovodu ceremony among Anlo-Ewes living in Southern Togo. It is a shared ethnographic project employing the photo-voice of three subjects and the anthropologist. The experiment was determined, produced and edited by three members of a local shrine and compiled during focus groups and feedback screenings in the summers of 2013–2014. Photo-voice and related shared approaches help to cast more light on a historically misinterpreted religion, “Voodoo,” by employing local agency and empowering the subjects to participate in analysis centered on ritual, healing and identity.

The privileging of Yoruba and Orisha in the African Diaspora scholarship creates a gap in knowledge production involving other African Diaspora religious traditions. Vodun, Vodou, or Voodoo is particularly marginalized and maligned and understudied especially outside of the United States and in places such as Cuba and Brazil. The debates surrounding "authenticity" in African religions been perhaps the biggest debate within Vodun and Orisha on both sides of the Atlantic. These debates speak to the importance of lineage, ancestry, and legitimacy. Sorting out what is authentic and legitimate is often a futile task, one that harmonizes better with Western urges to categorize than it does with African philosophies of embeddedness and continuous change.

Vodún/Vodu have long served as a "way of life" and ontology for making sense of the world along the Bight of Benin, and in the Caribbean and Atlantic world where many slaves were brought. In Togo, the core ethnic groups, the Ewes, continue to turn inward toward Vodún/Vodu traditions as mechanisms of resistance against an autocratic and despotic rule of a northern regime. While the north remains underdeveloped regarding education, economics, and health care delivery-the majority southern Ewes remain locked out of a political process run by the Eyadema regime, who regularly cite north/ south conflict as a justification for absolute one-party rule over all of Togo. Vodùn/ Vodu become motors of modernity through creative assimilation and adaptation to the most pressing geopolitical concerns of the day. This paper assesses the relationship between Vodùn/Vodu and contemporary Togolese politics, and its resistance to state sponsored terror and autocracy.

In the cities of southern Benin, streets and squares are constantly
the scene of events related both to identity and sacrality. In Porto-Novo, all groups of population inhabiting the town, such as the Yoruba, the Goun, or the Brazilians, perform music and masquerades related to their so-called traditions. Yet there is a certain dimension of public performance and competition among the different followers and organizers. The Bourian is the festival of the Aguda – the descendants of the returnees – former slaves in Brazil who returned to Africa. The Bourian takes part during traditional funeral festivities and is perceived as the Agudas’ public emblem, as well as a moment of affirmation of their identity. The links between Porto-Novo and Brazil offer us an opportunity to reflect on how popular festivals, ancestry and urban space are strongly interconnected in Benin.