This is a study of Voodoo in Haiti: its character as a religious system of belief, and its socioeconomic and political role in Haitian culture.
Voodoo is a household term in American popular culture.1 Everyone has heard of "Voodoo dolls" of one's enemies, into which pins are supposedly stuck to kill or otherwise curse them. Zombies variously "the living dead" or living individuals so drugged as to lose all independent personality are a fixture of science fiction horror movies. When in the 1980 Republican presidencial primary campaign, George Bush wished to castigate then rival Ronald Reagan, he denounced Reagan's economic policies as "Voodoo economics." This popular American image of Voodoo includes a tie to Haiti, where it is associated with the Tonton Macoutes and the system of terror which characterized the regime of "Papa Doc" Duvalier.
This "pop" image of Voodoo tends to disguise the fact that Voodoo is not a creation of Hollywood, nor even a fringe cult, but a religion which commands the spiritual allegiance of a large segment probably a majority of the people of Haiti, which serves as a central thread in Haitian society, and which has played a leading role in Haitian history since French colonial times. In order to understand Voodoo in its proper Haitian context, we must first of all rid ourselves of our popular preconceptions, and attempt to approach it with fresh, unbiased eyes.
Voodoo is, in essence, an animistic religious system of
1Milo Rigaud, Secrets of Voodoo, trans. Robert B. Cross (New York: Arco, 1969), 7.
primarily African heritage. It combines monotheistic and celestial elements with elements of animal spirit worship and a belief in the numinousness or sacredness of many specific things and places. It has no elaborate formal theology, not doubt in large part because it has traditionally been the religion of Haiti's masses, never of the educate...