Haitian Vodou

Haitian Vodou PDF Author: Mambo Chita Tann
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN: 0738731633
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Haitian Vodou is a fascinating spiritual tradition rich with ceremonies and magic, songs and prayers, dances and fellowship. Yet outside of Haiti, next to no one understands this joyous and profound way of life. ln Haitian Vodou, Mambo Chita Tann explores the historical roots and contemporary practices of this unique tradition, including discussions of: Customs, beliefs, sacred spaces, and ritual objects Characteristics and behaviors of the Lwa, the spirits served by Vodou practitioners Common misconceptions such as "voodoo dolls" and the zombie phenomenon Questions and answers for attending ceremonies and getting involved in a sosyete (Vodou house) Correspondence tables, Kreyol glossary, supplemental prayer texts, and an extensive list of reference books and online resources Well-researched, comprehensive, and engaging, Haitian Vodou will be a welcome addition for people new to Haitian spirituality as well as for students, practitioners, and academics.

Haitian Vodou

Haitian Vodou PDF Author: Mambo Chita Tann
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN: 0738731633
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 132

Get Book

Book Description
Haitian Vodou is a fascinating spiritual tradition rich with ceremonies and magic, songs and prayers, dances and fellowship. Yet outside of Haiti, next to no one understands this joyous and profound way of life. ln Haitian Vodou, Mambo Chita Tann explores the historical roots and contemporary practices of this unique tradition, including discussions of: Customs, beliefs, sacred spaces, and ritual objects Characteristics and behaviors of the Lwa, the spirits served by Vodou practitioners Common misconceptions such as "voodoo dolls" and the zombie phenomenon Questions and answers for attending ceremonies and getting involved in a sosyete (Vodou house) Correspondence tables, Kreyol glossary, supplemental prayer texts, and an extensive list of reference books and online resources Well-researched, comprehensive, and engaging, Haitian Vodou will be a welcome addition for people new to Haitian spirituality as well as for students, practitioners, and academics.

The Spirits and the Law

The Spirits and the Law PDF Author: Kate Ramsey
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226703819
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
Vodou has often served as a scapegoat for Haiti’s problems, from political upheavals to natural disasters. This tradition of scapegoating stretches back to the nation’s founding and forms part of a contest over the legitimacy of the religion, both beyond and within Haiti’s borders. The Spirits and the Law examines that vexed history, asking why, from 1835 to 1987, Haiti banned many popular ritual practices. To find out, Kate Ramsey begins with the Haitian Revolution and its aftermath. Fearful of an independent black nation inspiring similar revolts, the United States, France, and the rest of Europe ostracized Haiti. Successive Haitian governments, seeking to counter the image of Haiti as primitive as well as contain popular organization and leadership, outlawed “spells” and, later, “superstitious practices.” While not often strictly enforced, these laws were at times the basis for attacks on Vodou by the Haitian state, the Catholic Church, and occupying U.S. forces. Beyond such offensives, Ramsey argues that in prohibiting practices considered essential for maintaining relations with the spirits, anti-Vodou laws reinforced the political marginalization, social stigmatization, and economic exploitation of the Haitian majority. At the same time, she examines the ways communities across Haiti evaded, subverted, redirected, and shaped enforcement of the laws. Analyzing the long genealogy of anti-Vodou rhetoric, Ramsey thoroughly dissects claims that the religion has impeded Haiti’s development.

Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou

Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou PDF Author: Donald Cosentino
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
This abundantly illustrated anthology brings together sixteen essays by artists, scholars and ritual experts who examine the sacred arts of Haitian Vodou from multiple perspectives. Among the many topics covered are the ten major Vodou divinities: Vodou's roots in the Fon and Kongo kingdoms of Africa and its transformation in the experiences of slavery, and the encounter with European spiritual systems; Vodou praxis, including its bodily and communal disciplines, the cult of St. James Major (Ogou), and the cult of twins.In the final section, essays by Elizabeth McAlister, Patrick Polk, Tina Girouard, and Randall Morris look at Vodou arts and artists, Oleyant, and the legacy of ironworker Georges Liautaud.The Envoi, by Donald J.Cosentino, is devoted to the Gedes, spirits of death and regeneration.

The Faces of the Gods

The Faces of the Gods PDF Author: Leslie G. Desmangles
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807861014
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Vodou, the folk religion of Haiti, is a by-product of the contact between Roman Catholicism and African and Amerindian traditional religions. In this book, Leslie Desmangles analyzes the mythology and rituals of Vodou, focusing particularly on the inclusion of West African and European elements in Vodouisants' beliefs and practices. Desmangles sees Vodou not simply as a grafting of European religious traditions onto African stock, but as a true creole phenomenon, born out of the oppressive conditions of slavery and the necessary adaptation of slaves to a New World environment. Desmangles uses Haitian history to explain this phenomenon, paying particular attention to the role of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century maroon communities in preserving African traditions and the attempts by the Catholic, educated elite to suppress African-based "superstitions." The result is a society in which one religion, Catholicism, is visible and official; the other, Vodou, is unofficial and largely secretive.

Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture

Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture PDF Author: C. Michel
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0312376200
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
This collection introduces readers to the history and practice of the Vodou religion, and corrects many misconceptions. The book focuses specifically on the role Vodou plays in Haiti, where it has its strongest following, examining its influence on spiritual beliefs, cultural practices, national identity, popular culture, writing and art.

Vodou Love Magic

Vodou Love Magic PDF Author: Kenaz Filan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594777594
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
A working guide on how to find love and sexual fulfillment by working with the lwa, the spirits of Haitian Vodou • The first book on wanga (love magic) by an actual Vodou initiate • Provides spells and spirit work for many different problems associated with affairs of the heart • Spells included are detailed and easy to follow Haitian Vodou, like other folk traditions, is an eminently practical craft. Vodou practitioners see their relationship with the lwa--the spirits honored in Haitian Vodou--as mutually beneficial rather than one-sided. In return for sincere offerings, the lwa are happy to provide protection and support in dealing with life’s problems--which more often than not concern love. In Vodou Love Magic, Kenaz Filan details the myriad aspects of love and sex governed by the different lwa and explains what services each can provide in attaining fulfilling relationships--and who will likely offer the best wisdom for your needs. If you are having trouble meeting people, Legba’s Opening the Door spell can resolve this difficulty. If you wish more fire in a relationship, then you should work with the warrior spirit Papa Ogou. Filan presents easy-to-follow instructions for numerous love spells and also reveals how the lwa offer counsel for dealing with ending relationships, toxic behavior patterns like codependency, or romantic triangles. Vodou Love Magic does not provide a magic genie who will fulfill every wish, but it does offer access to a team of spirits who can help transform dreams into realities.

A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou

A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou PDF Author: Benjamin Hebblethwaite
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 149683562X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
Connecting four centuries of political, social, and religious history with fieldwork and language documentation, A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou analyzes Haitian Vodou’s African origins, transmission to Saint-Domingue, and promulgation through song in contemporary Haiti. Split into two sections, the African chapters focus on history, economics, and culture in Dahomey, Allada, and Hueda while scrutinizing the role of Europeans in fomenting tensions. The political, military, and slave trading histories of the kingdoms in the Bight of Benin reveal the circumstances of enslavement, including the geographies, ethnicities, languages, and cultures of enslavers and enslaved. The study of the spirits, rituals, structure, and music of the region’s religions sheds light on important sources for Haitian Vodou. Having royal, public, and private expressions, Vodun spirit-based traditions served as cultural systems that supported or contested power and enslavement. At once suppliers and victims of the European slave trade, the people of Dahomey, Allada, and Hueda deeply shaped the emergence of Haiti’s creolized culture. The Haitian chapters focus on Vodou’s Rada Rite (from Allada) and Gede Rite (from Abomey) through the songs of Rasin Figuier’s Vodou Lakay and Rasin Bwa Kayiman’s Guede, legendary rasin compact discs released on Jean Altidor’s Miami label, Mass Konpa Records. All the Vodou songs on the discs are analyzed with a method dubbed “Vodou hermeneutics” that harnesses history, religious studies, linguistics, literary criticism, and ethnomusicology in order to advance a scholarly approach to Vodou songs.

The Haitian Vodou Handbook

The Haitian Vodou Handbook PDF Author: Kenaz Filan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594779953
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
A working guide to the proper methods of interacting with the full Vodou pantheon • Includes the myths, cultural heritage, and ancestral lineage of the lwa and how to honor and serve them • Provides an introduction and guide that is especially useful for the solitary practitioner • Discusses the relationship between Vodou, Haitian culture, and Catholicism In The Haitian Vodou Handbook, Kenaz Filan, an initiate of the Société la Belle Venus, presents a working guide to the proper methods of interacting with the full Vodou pantheon, explaining how to build respectful relationships with the lwa, the spirits honored in Haitian Vodou, and how to transform the fear that often surrounds the Vodou religion. Until recently, the Haitian practice of Vodou was often identified with devil worship, dark curses, and superstition. Some saw the saint images and the Catholic influences and wrote Vodou off as a “Christian aberration.” Others were appalled by the animal sacrifices and the fact that the Houngans and Mambos charge money for their services. Those who sought Vodou because they believed it could harness “evil” forces were disappointed when their efforts to gain fame, fortune, or romance failed and so abandoned their “voodoo fetishes.” Those who managed to get the attention of the lwa, often received cosmic retaliation for treating the spirits as attack dogs or genies, which only further cemented Vodou’s stereotype as “dangerous.” Filan offers extensive background information on the featured lwa, including their mythology and ancestral lineage, as well as specific instructions on how to honor and interact fruitfully with those that make themselves accessible. This advice will be especially useful for the solitary practitioner who doesn’t have the personal guidance of a societé available. Filan emphasizes the importance of having a quickened mind that can read the lwa’s desires intuitively in order to avoid establishing dogma-based relationships. This working guide to successful interaction with the full Vodou pantheon also presents the role of Vodou in Haitian culture and explores the symbiotic relationship Vodou has maintained with Catholicism.

Vodou Things

Vodou Things PDF Author: Donald Cosentino
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 9781578060146
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 76

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Book Description
Pierrot Barra and his wife Marie Cassaise are the most astonishing artists that the author of this fascinating book has encountered in more than a decade of researching Vodou in Haiti. Inspired by dreams and psychic visions of Vodoun divinities, the couples' sculptures combine distant memories of Africa, the imagery of Catholic saints, Masonic regalia, and Hollywood Kitsch. 48 full-color photos.

Vodou Nation

Vodou Nation PDF Author: Michael Largey
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226468658
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
While the Haitian musical tradition is probably best known for the Vodou-inspired roots music that helped topple the two-generation Duvalier dictatorship, the nation’s troubled history of civil unrest and its tangled relationship with the United States is more intensely experienced through its art music, which combines French and German elements of classical music with Haiti's indigenous folk music. Vodou Nation examines art music by Haitian and African American composers who were inspired by Haiti’s history as a nation created by slave revolt. Around the time of the United States’s occupation of Haiti in 1915, African American composers began to incorporate Vodou-inspired musical idioms to showcase black artistry and protest white oppression. Together with Haitian musicians, these composers helped create what Michael Largey calls the “Vodou Nation,” an ideal vision of Haiti that championed its African-based culture as a bulwark against America’s imperialism. Highlighting the contributions of many Haitian and African American composers who wrote music that brought rhythms and melodies of the Vodou ceremony to local and international audiences, Vodou Nation sheds light on a black cosmopolitan musical tradition that was deeply rooted in Haitian culture and politics.