Voodoo is a sensationalized caricature of voudon; an Afro-Caribbean religion with followers in Haiti, Brazil, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, the United States and elsewhere.
Vodun is an ancient religion practised by about 30 million people in the West African nations of Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana.
West Africa was once regarded as the Slave Coast because it was at the centre of the transatlantic slave trade for centuries. West African slaves brought voodoo with them to plantations in Brazil, Haiti, Cuba and Louisiana.
Most of these slaves were Yoruba and were from present-day Southwestern Nigeria which comprised Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, and Kwara as well as Lagos State, parts of Kogi state and the adjoining parts of Benin and Togo.
The religion practised by the Yorubas is the basis for a number of religions in the New World, notably Santería, Umbanda, Trinidad Orisha, Haitian Vodou, and Candomblé.
The Yorubas were exquisite statesmen who spread across the globe in an unprecedented fashion. The reach of their culture is largely due to migration – the Atlantic slave trade.
During this period, many Yorubas were captured and sold into the slave trade and transported to Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Vincent & The Grenadines, Uruguay, Venezuela, and other parts of the Americas.
Traditional Yoruba beliefs hold that life and death is an ongoing cycle of existence in various bodies. Olodumare is the name of the divine, supreme being who is the creator of all things. Olodumare, also known as Olorun, is an all-powerful figure and isn’t limited by gender constraints.
The Yoruba orishas work as the intermediaries between man and the supreme creator, and the rest of the divine world.
With its countless deities, animal sacrifice and spirit possession, voodoo – as it’s known to the rest of the world – is one of the most misunderstood religions globally.
In the United States, voodoo has significantly been sensationalized by Hollywood, demonized by Christian missionaries and parodied in New Orleans tourist shops.
Voodoo, which is also spelt Vodou, voudou, and voudun, is an actual religion commonly thought to have originated in Haiti and has roots in West African spiritual traditions.
As a religion, voodoo has specific practices that you have to be ordained to perform. It has religious leaders, known as mambos and houngans, who oversee these practices. It has a set of deities and spirits that are worshipped and respected.
It also involves ancestor worship and includes a creator deity and a pantheon of divine spirits such as the Orisha, Loa, Vodun, Nkisi, and Alusi, among others.
In addition to the religious syncretism of these various African traditions, many also incorporate Folk Catholicism elements, including folk saints and other forms of Folk religion.
The practice of Voodoo varies from country to country.
Known as “Vodou” in Haiti, the religion served as a form of resistance against the French colonial empire.
Adherents are known as Vodouists or “servants of the spirits”.
In Brazil, it is known as Candomblé. Its followers worship a supreme being called Olorum or Zatnbi, who rules through subsidiary divinities called orixas, to whom the worshipers, chiefly the poor, appeal for help—in love, in sickness, in enduring a hard life.
Candomblé’s members usually meet in temples known as terreiros run by priests called babalorixás and priestesses called ialorixás. A central ritual involves practitioners drumming, singing, and dancing to encourage an orixá to possess one of their members.
Voodoo in Jamaica is known as ‘Obeah’. Obeah thrived during the era of slavery, but it has virtually died out in urban centres.
Obeah’s history is similar to that of Voodoo in Haiti. Enslaved Africans brought spiritual practises to the Caribbean.
Voodoo came to New Orleans in the early 1700s through slaves brought from Africa’s western “slave coast.”
Like so many things in New Orleans, Voodoo was then infused with the city’s dominant religion, Catholicism, and became a Voodoo-Catholicism hybrid sometimes referred to as New Orleans Voodoo.
Voodoo was bolstered when followers fleeing Haiti after the 1791 slave revolt moved to New Orleans.
The voodoo practices popular in movies and fiction bears little resemblance to real voudon beliefs or practices.
Voudon has a largely undeserved reputation as a sinister religion. Though some voudon rituals involve animal sacrifices, it is hardly unique; many other religious traditions involve animal bloodletting, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism.
The irony is that voudon’s best-known and most sensational features have little to do with its actual beliefs and practices.
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REFERENCES:
- https://www.livescience.com/40803-voodoo-facts.html
- https://theconversation.com/what-is-haitian-voodoo-119621
- https://www.neworleans.com/things-to-do/multicultural/traditions/voodoo/
- https://www.nytimes.com/1976/02/15/archives/voodoo-rites-in-brazil.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candombl%C3%A9
