Voodoo: Search for the Spirit

The roots of voodoo, or vodun, were in Africa and were transported to the New World with the slaves. The word "means an invisible force, terrible and mysterious, which can meddle in human affairs at any time." This innate mystery was overlaid by further layers of mystery in its New World form because the slaveowners wanted to break the slaves connections to their African roots. In order to worship the slaves incorporated major elements of the Christian religion, especially the Catholicism of the Spanish captors, producing a hybrid which was more acceptable to those captors.

Hurbon examines the specific origins of voodoo in Africa, its many subtleties and variations from region to region and group to group, even family to family. The overriding similarity, however, is how all-embracing the religion was in the lives of its adherents. That is, voodoo was not simply a religion which believers referred to now and the

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he independent state of Haiti gave voodoo an opportunity for "international respectability," as the author puts it, although the world has not granted such respect to a religion which deserves it. Part of this neglect is certainly tied to the blood sacrifices in voodoo, involving small animals. One might remind Jews and Christians, for example, that sacrifice has played a major role in the history of their religions, including, in a sense, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world. Part of the problem of voodoo's lack of respect and inclusion among the world's religions is that it does not have a single book containing its history and evolution, its tenets, its principles. It does not have a single historical leader. Non-adherents can then ask how it can be respected or included if it appears to be a loose set of bizarre rituals and beliefs which its adherents keep secret for the most part. To be sure, "the voodoo religion has no written basis' it has no dogma nor a centralized organization, much less a set ritual/" There, realistically, "it would be hard for it to attain the status of an official religion." This lack of international respect and inclusion, however, has not dimmed the vitality at the heart of
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Approximate Word count = 1205
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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