One of the greatest problems in the study of African creole religions is determin- ing just what one’s sources are describing. The terminology of hoodoo and Voodoo is often unfamiliar to both scholars and laypersons (see Preface and Chapter 1). Moreover, casual observers frequently conflate different traditions. In keeping with the Western world’s predilection for treating Africa as a single, monolithic unit, many wrongly understand Santería and other Afro-Caribbean faiths as mere subsets of a generalized Voodoo, profound religious and historical distinctions notwithstanding. More commonly, popular authors tend to confuse Mississippi Valley Voodoo with Haitian Vodou and West African Vodu. Even the terms and/ or their proper spelling remain disputed, with practitioners, scholars, and the general public often preferring different versions. For instance, what most Cuban and American believers call Santería, meaning “the way of the saints,” is frequently called by the Yoruba term Lucumí by scholars and others wishing to emphasize its West African roots (Murphy, Santería, 2, 27; Brandon, 56). Similarly, although most whites call the black creole religion of the Mississippi Valley Voodoo, some practitioners prefer Vodou to emphasize its ties to Haiti. Many scholars use Vodun or Voudou to distance the religion from the negative connotations with which whites have invested the more popular Voodoo. The following discussion sorts through some of these conceptual problems by tracing the development of African American religion and supernaturalism and its nearest Afro-Latin relatives.
VODU AND OTHER AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGIONS
African religions are many and varied. For centuries the North has been over- whelmingly Islamic. Sub-Saharan Africans have historically put their faith in
various indigenous religions, collectively known as African Traditional Religions or African Philosophies. In some areas, such as Angola and Ethiopia, Christian- ity had become a prominent influence by the heyday of the Atlantic slave trade. Although monotheistic faiths of Asian origin have long been prominent in Africa, the foundation of black creole religions and supernaturalism was a blend of multiple African Traditional Religions. Africa, second largest of the conti- nents, has a stunning array of traditional faiths, rendering any comprehensive treatment of them impossible. The following discussion addresses only those most directly linked to Voodoo, hoodoo, and conjure.
The African faith that scholars most commonly point to as the source of Haitian Vodou and Mississippi Valley Voodoo is Vodu, the traditional religion of the West African Ewe and the closely related Fon. Many West Africans, includ- ing the Ewe-Fon, have traditionally envisioned the universe as ruled by multiple tiers of gods and spirits. For the Ewe and Fon, Mawu or the spirit couple Mawu- Lisa are the all-powerful creator gods. Most believe them to be distant from their people, and thus they receive little in the way of worship (Rosenthal, Ewe
Voodoo, 61; Thompson, Flash of the Spirit, 166, 167). Much more approachable
are the lesser deities, called voduwo or trowo (singular vodu and tro ). These gods have their own functions and personalities. For instance, Legba, whom the Fon adopted from the Yoruba, is a humorous and clownish but highly important trickster and spokesman for the gods. Dañh-gbi, the spirit of wisdom and earthly happiness, is a great benefactor of humankind, especially the Fon Kingdom of Dahomey. Numerous religious ceremonies, including initiations into various Vodu societies, invoke these and other lesser gods. One feature of Vodu worship that has never ceased to amaze outsiders is the phenomenon of worshippers’ possession by such deities (Rosenthal, Ewe Voodoo, 1, 135–136; Opoku, 9–10, 14–18; Thompson, Flash of the Spirit, 165–167; Ellis, Th e Ewe Speaking Peoples,
56–63).
The spirits of the dead also have great importance in traditional faiths and receive offerings from their descendants, for whom they can bring good or ill. Sometimes, the dead become evil ghosts who seek to harm those who do not protect themselves by sacrificing fowl and suspending the dead birds above paths leading to dwellings. At the other extreme, prominent ancestors can rise into the ranks of lesser deities, as was the case with a legendary fifteenth-century Fon hero named Agasu, who became an important water god to later generations (Ellis, Th e Ewe Speaking Peoples, 83, 84, 101–116).
Below lesser deities and the ancestors are a wide range of additional spiri- tual beings and forces. One nineteenth-century observer recorded a vast array of local deities associated with particular bodies of water, hills, and other geo- graphic features. Other such beings are the animistic spirits of animals or plants sacred to specific clans. The Ewe also believe that each person has his or her
own indwelling spirit, to whom he or she offers sacrifices. Furthermore, Fon-Ewe supernaturalism relies heavily on amulets, which possess spiritual potency. Al- though these do not have spirits of their own, believers consider them to have powers emanating from deities (Ellis, Th e Ewe Speaking Peoples, 77–116).
Other West African peoples who unwillingly contributed immigrants to the New World had similar beliefs, although with numerous variations for each ethnicity. For instance, the Yoruba have a spiritual hierarchy that closely resem- bles that of the Fon and Ewe. A stress on àshe, a commanding power originating in the supreme being and residing in spiritually powerful animals, plants, objects, and people is one feature that sets the Yoruban religion apart from that of its neighbors. Another West African people, the Igbo, have a highly developed tradi- tion of wisdom and supernaturalism known as dibia, which makes practitioners especially important in their society (Thompson, Flash of the Spirit, 5–9; Umeh, vol. 1, 1). Their importance is indicated by an Igbo proverb, “ Chukwu welu; Olu
Dibia, ” which in English means “After God is dibia” (Umeh, Vol. 1, 2).
Religious societies operated throughout much of West Africa. Some examples are the modern Fon-Ewe Gorovodu and Mama Tchamba societies, which have recently received substantial treatment by anthropologist Judy Rosenthal. These have long been important orders that regulate not only the religious beliefs and rituals of members and their locales but also shape laws and otherwise order society ( Possession, Ecstasy , and Law in Ewe Voodoo, 1). The Ewe and Fon are far from unique in their institutions. For example, the Krobo of modern Ghana have a sisterhood of their own in the Dipo Society. Farther west, Mande speakers cre- ated the male Poro and female Sande societies, which had spread to neighboring peoples by the nineteenth century. The Efik of the Niger River Delta have long had a leopard society, called the Ekpe or Ngbe Order (Gomez, 94–102; Olmos and Paravisini-Gebert, 87–88).
Traditional religionists from elsewhere in Africa crossed the Atlantic as well. Chief among them were slaves from West Central Africa, most notably from the Kingdom of the Kongo. Their traditional faith during the era of the heaviest slaving in the area shared much with the beliefs of West Africans. Most conspicu- ously, the Kongo religion had multiple gods. At the apex of the universe was Nzambi Mpungu, a supreme being, who roughly corresponded to the Ewe Mawu or Igbo Chukwu. On the other hand, the spirits of the dead held greater impor- tance there than they typically garnered in West Africa. The ancestors, known as Bakulu, were next in importance to Nzambi Mpungu and were honored in numerous ceremonies. Below the Bakulu were three more classes of supernatural beings, all of whom had also once been living humans but had not achieved the status of honored ancestors. Souls could even reincarnate in living humans. This universal centrality of humanity is enshrined in the Kongo cosmogram, which in its simplest form resembles a plus symbol (+). This cosmogram symbolized
a great many things to traditional Kongo believers, including the circulation of souls through the universe in the same way the points of the two lines can be un- derstood as orbiting their point of intersection (MacGaffey, 63–89; Thompson, Flash of the Spirit, 108–116).
Similarly, supernaturalism was as important to the Kongo people as it was to West Africans. At the heart of much of their magic was the nkisi (plural minkisi ), a type of charm. Each of them included magical materials, called bilongo, and a soul, called mooyo. One of the most popular materials that embodied these souls was graveyard dirt because of its direct connection to the dead. Such charms took a variety of forms, ranging from bags tied shut with string to cauldrons. Depending on the intentions of the maker, minkisi could serve either good or evil purposes (Thompson, Flash of the Spirit, 117–131).
Unlike many peoples, however, West Central Africans had early and persistent contact with Christianity. In 1491, the Kingdom of the Kongo officially adopted Catholicism and worked to convert surrounding peoples, although scholars continue to debate the pervasiveness of the new belief. The Kongo cosmogram acquired new meaning in light of the Christian cross, which it so strongly re- sembled, and religious objects often took on the protective roles of traditional minkisi charms. Problems between the Christian concept of the soul that enters either heaven or hell upon death and the Kongo idea that souls continued to cir- culate through the living world were generally ignored. All told, this syncretism in Africa was not terribly different from what would take place in the New World (Thornton, 71–90).