ed their native beliefs to the circumstances which awaited them in the New World. Today, the vodun religion of Haiti, which is strongly based on the principles of spirit possession central to voodoo, has become a stronghold for the practice of voodoo throughout the world. At the same time, however, the beliefs of voodoo have also spread to various areas of the Americas beyond Haiti. Thus, during the time that vodun was being developed in Haiti, other nearby nations also experienced the growth of "clandestine African assemblies . . . organized with a blending of the various African beliefs and practices" (Barrett 179). As a result, the santeria belief of Cuba, the umbanda belief of Brazil, and the cumina belief of Jamaica, all bear relationship to the vodun religion of Haiti. All of these diverse faiths can be traced to voodoo-based beliefs which originated among the tribes of Western Africa.
It may be noted that the West African beliefs of the slaves were merged with the Christian beliefs of their masters soon after their arrival in the New World. As soon as African slaves were brought to the Americas, an attempt was made to civilize them according to the definitions of Western society. As such, they "were almost totally deprived of their traditional culture and Christianized" (Keller 1556). However, the slaves did not become fully Christianized; they simply absorbed the influences of their Christian masters while at the same time maintaining their original spiritual beliefs. In the Caribbean and Latin America, this Christian influence was primarily in the form of Roman Catholicism. Thus, in those regions, "while seeming to pray to the Catholic saints, they [the West African slaves] actually were praying to their own gods" (Kahaner 111). Some historians have claimed that this merging of beliefs came about because the slaves were able to cleverly adapt themselves to their new surroundings. It was important to them to main...