Haiti continued - The Traveller's Tree: A Journey Through the Caribbean Islands - page 172

Strange sounds may accompany the phenomenon, sounds which, when observers have stooped to
record them, approximate to the syllables rounyou! rounyou! rounyou! repeated interminably, and fre-
quently punctuated by hiccoughs, grunts and sobs. Sometimes words find utterance in disconnected se-
quences which demonstrate, in the elegant terms of one expert, the complete emancipation of the tongue
from the brain. The symptoms of Voodoo possession are akin to those that ancient chronicles ascribe to
people possessed by the Devil, a state which was no doubt attained by the same processes of hysteria
and self-hypnosis, and by the same conviction of the presence of a supernatural being; in this case, of the
Evil One. For, like Hell as opposed to Heaven, the Devil has always been distinguished by a more intense
aura of immediacy, and by characteristics more understandable to many laymen than those of the God of
Light. A witches' coven must have had much in common with a Haitian religious ceremony.
The majority of Haitians are thus in a permanent state of divine gestation. Every Haitian devotee is a
Dr. Jekyll whose personality is split up into an enormous and invisible phalanx of Mr. Hydes. I wondered,
at first, if this strange religious delirium could in any way be compared to the ecstasy of the Unitive period
in Christian mysticism. Could these African paroxysms be a short cut to the feelings which inspired, after
such devious and terrible journeys, St. Theresa on reaching the innermost dwelling, or St. Juan on the
summit of Carmel? I learnt with relief that the adepts, on emerging from possession, feel little beyond a
sensation of the great honour that the Lwa has paid them, and a feeling of lassitude. 'Otherwise, nothing
in particular….'
The slaves of Saint Domingue were drawn from four main areas of western Africa. The smallest number,
about ten per cent. of the whole, came from the confines of the Sudan: Senegalese, Wollofs, Peuhls,
Bambaras, Quimbaras, Soussous, Mandingos, Haussas and Malinkis. Next in numbers, about twenty per
cent., were the Negroes of Dahomey: the Alladas, Fongs, Mahis and Mines. These tribes, before leaving
Africa, had overlapped and interacted culturally with the inhabitants of Guinea proper, notably with the
Nago, Ibo and Kaplaou which contributed about twenty per cent. of the new Transatlantic population.
The largest single group came from the basin of the Congo—the Fangs, the Mayombés, the Monsombés,
the Bafiotes and the Mondongos, who formed the remaining percentage of the whole slave race. Each
kingdom and tribe brought to Hispaniola its own language and religion, and, just as their languages fused
and solidified into the universal Créole, bit by bit, their innumerable beliefs coalesced into a single whole
in the dark secrecy of the barracoons. Each tribe was represented by a number of Lwas who possessed
the religious and physical characteristics of the race that had created them. The new religion had two
main branches which were eventually believed and practised by all: the Congo Rite, originating among
the slaves of Congolese origin, and the Rada Rite, named after the town of Allada, which, along with
the territory of the Mahi and Nago tribes, was conquered by the warlike Fongs of Dahomey early in the
eighteenth century. So, before their enslavement and embarkation for the islands, much of the Dahomey-
Guinea [2] group of tribes—the Alladas, the Fongs, the Mahis, the Mines, the Nagos and the Ibos—were
under the influence of the religion of Dahomey; and it was the religion, the legends and customs of the
Dahomeyans which, through their greater strength of character, or a higher culture or religious dynamism
than all the others, dominated the new hybrid Negro race which was growing up. The Congo Rite fell
into a secondary place, and Rada remained supreme.
Many of these religions had become inextricably tangled by foreign influences long before they were
thrown into the same alembic and melted into one religion by the fire of a common evil. Faint rings of
sound from Luxor and Athens and Bethlehem and Mecca had crossed the empty wildernesses, and their