Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
appeared among the
vévérs
, and the word
Adonai
occurs frequently in the language of the cult. Freema-
sonry has left its traces, and in Guadeloupe the secret African rites and those of the Grand Orient are
practised side by side.
Some of the Lwas (like Baron Samedi and his consort Maman Brigide) actually originated in Haiti.
The most important of these is Petro. Don Pedro is a fierce and shadowy figure, a Negro from the Spanish
part of the island who played a part in the Independence War. Some, alternatively, maintain that he was
an African god, the spirit of a great king, worshipped first in Surinam in Dutch Guiana. Whatever his
origin, he introduced new dances and ceremonies into Voodoo and then vanished, leaving his sinister ob-
servances behind him, so that Voodoo now has three rites (each of which is subdivided into a number of
ceremonies): Rada, Congo and Petro.
Four and a half centuries have passed since the Spaniards, in the time of the Emperor Charles V, imported
the first slaves from Africa; so it is to that date—1503—that the first bubbles of religious fusion must
be ascribed. But the chemico-religious process achieved its most intense activity under the French, when
the shipping of slaves from the whole West Coast of Africa took place on a much larger scale. By the
middle of the eighteenth century, Negroes were arriving at the rate of 30,000 a year. The period imme-
diately before the War of Independence brought the mixture to the point of boiling and overflow, and
all through the nineteenth century, when Voodoo, though officially forbidden, was in practice connived
at, the crucible simmered, steadily furnishing new accretions to the vast mass of the religion which had
already become solid.
So voluminous and complex is the ritual of Voodoo, so numerous its traditions and its obligations, that
it is hard to discover what skeleton of theory underlies the unwieldy body of actual practice. The most
fervent Voodooist would be nonplussed if he were suddenly asked to formulate a simple
credo
of his re-
ligion, and the learned Haitian writers are all at variance about its more abstract side. There are many
opinions, for instance, about the identity of the chief of the heavenly hierarchy. And the fact that this di-
versity of opinions should be a matter of little concern is a proof of the purely instinctive nature of the
cult.
Some maintain that the all-powerful demiurge is a nebulous figure called
le Grand Maître
, successor
of a divinity called Mawu
[4]
in the religion of Dahomey. But if this Great Master is the main God, he is
a personality of great remoteness, and certainly not a paternal god or a god of Providence. Even the sex
of this Being is not certain, for he is sometimes appealed to as
Bon Dieu maman moin
. But the usual term
for him is
Bon-Dicu-Bon
. Other authorities maintain that Schango—who is, alternatively, merely one of
the prominent Lwas of the Ogoun group (he has given his name to cults equivalent to Voodoo in the oth-
er islands)—is the Omnipotent One and the Demiurge; and that Schango has gracefully stepped aside to
cede his high place to the Word, the Creative Spirit of the Christian faith; indeed, Christ himself, and so,
according to Christian logic, God. But the nature, name or sex of this Divinity arouse neither interest nor
deep controversy. He is too lofty and dim for any practical purposes. His (or Her) immediate subordinates
are so powerful, so well known and so real that Voodoo is virtually a polytheism. Prayers are addressed
to them, not for intercession or advocacy with a higher power, but for direct action on their own account.
It is hard to say whether they are more exactly gods or saints.
The Lwas have many different definitions. The word in Créole is usually written
Loa
, but they are also
called
voudous, z'éspwits, mystères, z'invisibles, z'anges
and
lessaints
; gods, angels, saints, daemons, nu-
mina and genii all contribute something to their complex nature. They are guides, counsellors, judges,
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