Abstract
This work explores and highlights how the African religion of Vodou and its ethic (i.e. syncretism, materialism, holism, communalism) gave rise to the Haitian spirit of communism in the provinces, mountains and urban slums of Haiti, which would be juxtaposed against the Catholic/Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism of the white, mulatto and petit-bourgeois classes (i.e. the Affranchis of the island). This latter worldview, I go on to argue, exercised by the free bourgeois blacks and mulatto elites on the island undermined the revolutionary and independence movement of Haiti, and made it an apartheid state.
Keywords
Introduction
This work argues that the constitution of Haitian society and practical consciousnesses are the parallel evolution and reification of two social class language games (the term ‘language game’ is borrowed from Ludwig Wittgenstein and synthesized with structural Marxism and structurationist sociology to capture the mode of production, language, ideology, ideological apparatuses, communicative discourse and practical consciousness or purposive-rationality, which constitute the form of system and social integration of a society): the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism, and the Catholic/Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism. The argument here is that the purposive-rationality of the originating moments of the Haitian Revolution at Bois Caïman and the counter-plantation system originate out of the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism social class language game of the African masses and their Vodou leadership, oungan yo, manbo yo, gangan yo/dokté fey and granmoun yo. It diametrically opposed the purposive-rationality of the liberal agents of the whites and Affranchis, mulattoes and petit-bourgeois black creole classes on the island. The latter three sought to recursively reorganize and reproduce the practical consciousness of their former white slavemasters for equality of opportunity, distribution and recognition, while the agents of the former did not. The constitution of Haitian society, in the mountains and provinces, became an intent by the majority of the Africans to reorganize and reproduce their culture/civilization or language game, the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism, on the island, undergirded by the power elites, oungans, manbos, bókós/bokors and elders of the provinces against the liberal bourgeois Catholic/Protestant language game of Europeans and the Affranchis operating through the state and its ideological apparatuses. The latter agents, mulattoes and petit-bourgeois black landowning classes would marginalize and discriminate against agents, Vodouisants, peasants and machanns (market workers from the mountains and provinces) of the former via economic policies and laws of the state attacking Vodou and its social and economic practices centred on the lakou system. In doing so, they established Haiti as an apartheid state dominated by the struggles between the mulatto elites and petit-bourgeois black landowning classes for control of its apparatuses, which they use(d) to undermine the desires and interests of the African-born majority on the island (Du Bois, 2004, 2012).
Background of the Problem
Haiti is not a Francophone country. It is, as the former Prime Minister of Haiti, Laurent Lamothe (2012–2014), opined, ‘Africa in the Caribbean’.
1
The majority, two-thirds, of the social actors who would come to constitute the Haitian nation-state were African-born amongst a minority of mulattoes, gens de couleur, creole and petit-bourgeois black people (Affranchis) on the island interpellated, embourgeoised, and differentiated by the language, communicative discourse, modes of production, ideology, and ideological apparatuses of the West (the Catholic/Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism social class language game). As such, given their interpellation and embourgeoisement via the language (French), communicative discourse, modes of production (slavery, agribusiness, mercantilism, etc.), ideology (liberalism, individualism, personal wealth, capitalism, racialism, private property, Protestant Ethic, etc.), and ideological apparatuses (churches, schools, prisons, plantations, police force, army, etc.) of the West, the latter, Affranchis, became ‘blacks’, dialectically, seeking to recursively (re-)organize and reproduce the ideas and ideals, the Catholic/Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism social class language game, of the European white individuals in a national position of their own amidst slavery, racism and colonialism. As the colonial administrators informed the ministry of the marine of the Affranchis as early as the 1750s: [t]hese men are beginning to fill the colony and it is of the greatest perversion to see them, their numbers continually increasing amongst the whites, with fortunes often greater than those of the whites … Their strict frugality prompting them to place their profits in the bank every year, they accumulate huge capital sums and become arrogant because they are rich, and their arrogance increases in proportion to their wealth. They bid on properties that are for sale in every district and cause their prices to reach such astronomical heights that the whites who have not so much wealth are unable to buy, or else ruin themselves if they do persist. In this manner, in many districts the best land is owned by the half-castes … These coloreds, [moreover], imitate the style of the whites and try to wipe out all memory of their original state. (Quoted in Fick, 1990: 19)
Carolyn Fick goes on to highlight about the report: [t]he administrator’s report went on to predict, somewhat hyperbolically, that, should this pattern continue, the mulattoes would even try to contract marriages within the most distinguished white families and, worse, through these marriages tie these families to the slave gangs from which the mothers were taken. (1990: 19)
Fick further notes of the Affranchis: [b]y 1789, the affranchis owned one-third of the plantation property, one-quarter of the slaves, and one-quarter of the real estate property in Saint Domingue; in addition, they held a fair position in commerce and in the trades, as well as in the military. Circumstances permitting, a few had even ‘infiltrated’ the almost exclusively grand blanc domain of the sugar plantation by becoming managers of the paternal estate upon the father’s return to Europe or even inheritors of property upon the father’s death … The affranchis imitated white manners, were often educated in France, and, in turn, sent their own children abroad to be educated. Having become slave-holding plantation owners, they could even employ white contract labor among the petits blancs. (1990: 19–20)
As the colonial administrator sarcastically observed, the coloureds had an original state, which they were attempting to ‘wipe out’ of their memory. This original state was not solely a reference to their conditions as descendants of slave labourers or former slaves themselves, but is also a reference to their African practical consciousness. The former, African-born majority were not blank slates, but embodied from Africa their African languages, communicative discourses, ideologies, ideological apparatuses and modes of production (form of social and systems integration), what I am calling the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism social class language game, to the island, which they recursively reorganized and reproduced on the plantations and as maroon communities in the provinces and mountains when they escaped (Bellegarde-Smith and Michel, 2006; Deren, 1972; Desmangles, 1992; Du Bois, 2004, 2012; Fick, 1990; Genovese, 1974; Métraux, 1989[1958]; Ramsey, 2014; Rigaud, 1985; Trouillot, 1995). As Leslie G Desmangles (1992) notes of the communities the African majority would constitute: These communities were small, formed initially by Africans who congregated along ethnic lines. As the plantations increased in size and required a larger labor force, the number of maroons increased proportionately, so that by the end of the eighteenth century representatives of other ethnic groups joined the communities; soon, they federated to form … ‘maroon republics’. By and large, the various ethnic groups represented within each republic formed separate secret societies or fraternities based on ethnic origins. Each secret society possessed its own ancestral traditions, which it poured into the religious and cultural fabric of its republic; in the contact between these different ethnic cultures, the maroons hammered out for themselves new religious beliefs and practices based on the old … . Hence, marronage can be seen as a phenomenon that bears witness not only to the slaves’ political and social resistance to slavery, but also to the preservation and maintenance of widely divergent ethnic religious traditions from different parts of Africa. (Desmangles, 1992: 35)
The Vodou ceremony of Bois Caïman, 14 August 1791, was the gathering and unification of representatives of these ‘maroon republics’, a congress, among several congresses, to address their grievances against the Catholic/Protestant Ethic and spirit of capitalism of the whites and Affranchis; it constituted the Haitian nation based on the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism social class language game, and commenced the Revolution on 22 August 1791 (Fick, 1990; Genovese, 1974). The negotiations of the African maroon leaders with the whites and Affranchis, for more free days for the Africans to work their lots and less institutional violence on the plantations, during the Revolution must be seen as an attempt to balance the two forms of system and social integration as opposed to an internal struggle between the interest of the leaders of the Revolution and that of the masses, as proposed by Carolyn Fick (1990). Both sides failing to compromise left the war for independence on the island as a struggle between the ever-increasing rationalization of two forms of system and social integration: the Catholic/Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism of the whites and Affranchis on the one hand; and the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism of the African masses on the other.
Theory
Following the Revolution, the Affranchis would come to recursively reorganize and reproduce their being-in-the-world as interpellated, embourgeoised and structurally differentiated black ‘other’ agents of the Catholic/Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism social class language game seeking equality of opportunity, recognition and distribution with whites amidst worldwide slavery, racism and colonialism. The majority of the half million Africans in the mountains and provinces were not blacks, i.e. a structurally differentiated ‘other’ defined within the lexicon of signification of whites based on their skin pigmentation, lack of culture/civilization and desire to be like whites. They were Africans interpellated and ounganified/manboified by the modes of production, language, ideology, ideological apparatuses and communicative discourse of their African worldview or structuring structure, i.e. the Vodou Ethic and spirit of communism social class language game, which they reproduced in the provinces and mountains under the leadership of oungan yo (priests), manbo yo (priestesses), gangan yo/dokté fey (herbal healers – medicine men and women) and granmoun yo (elders) (Bellegarde-Smith and Michel, 2006; Deren, 1972; Desmangles, 1992; Fick, 1990; Genovese, 1974; Métraux, 1989[1958]; Rigaud, 1985).
2
Against the Catholic/Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism of the Affranchis, with its emphasis on individualism, personal wealth and capitalist exploitative labour, the Africans sought balance, harmony and subsistence living. In the words of a racist colonial observer who saw the futility of attempting to establish a regimen of labour that would impose upon the freed slaves of Saint Domingue a European, occidental mode of thought and of social organization, central to which are the virtues of work, in and of itself, of competitiveness, profit incentives and ever-expanding production – in short, the virtues of the western capitalist ethic as practised by the whites and Affranchis: Unambitious and uncompetitive, the black values his liberty only to the extent that it affords him the possibility of living according to his own philosophy. (Quoted in Fick, 1990: 179)
The ‘philosophy’, Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism, of the blacks diametrically opposed/oppose the western capitalist ethic of the whites and Affranchis highlighted here by the colonial observer. It is the failure of the Affranchis, once they gained control of the Revolution and subsequently the nation-state and its ideological apparatuses, to either (re)constitute Haiti via the philosophy/practical consciousness of the Africans or eradicate it completely (via their anti-superstitious campaigns) as they sought and seek to reproduce the ideas and ideals (western capitalist ethic) of their former colonial slavemasters amidst their own racial-class tensions, between the creole free blacks and the gens de couleur, mulatto elites, which maintains Haiti, after over 200 years of independence, as the so-called poorest country in the western hemisphere.
Following the Haitian Revolution, the majority of the Africans, given their refusal to work on plantations or agribusinesses (corvée system), migrated to the provinces and the mountains, abodes of formerly established ‘maroon republics’, and established a ‘counter-plantation system’ (Jean Casimir’s term) based on husbandry, subsistence agriculture and komes (i.e. the trade and sale of agricultural goods for income to purchase manufactured products and services). The mulatto elites and petit-bourgeois free blacks, a Francophile neocolonial oligarchy, countered this counter-plantation system through their control of the ports, export trade and the political apparatuses of the state, which increased their wealth through the taxation of the goods of the African peasants. As Laurent Du Bois observed of the process, the former enslaved Africans: [t]ook over the land they had once worked as slaves, creating small farms where they raised livestock and grew crops to feed themselves and sell in local markets. On these small farms, they did all the things that had been denied to them under slavery: they built families, practiced their religion, and worked for themselves … . Haiti’s rural population effectively undid the plantation model. By combining subsistence agriculture with the production of some crops for export, [komes] they created a system that guaranteed them a better life, materially and socially, than that available to most other people of African descent in the Americas throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But they did not succeed in establishing that system in the country as a whole. In the face of most Haitians’ unwillingness to work the plantations, Haiti’s ruling groups retreated but did not surrender. Ceding, to some extent, control of the land, they took charge of the ports and the export trade. And they took control of the state, heavily taxing the goods produced by the small-scale farmers and thereby reinforcing the economic divisions between the haves and the have-nots. (Du Bois, 2012: 6)
This counter-plantation system the African majority established against the spirit of capitalism social class language game, i.e., economic gain for its own sake, individualism, personal wealth, private property, labour exploitation, etc., of the Affranchis, mulatto elites and petit-bourgeois free blacks, who were interpellated, embourgeoised and differentiated by the mode of production, ideology and ideological apparatuses of the West, was not a reaction to slavery or the material resource framework of the island as presented by Du Bois and Casimir. Instead, it was and is a product of the ever-increasing rationalization of the ideology (konesans) of Vodou and its ethic of communal living or social collectivism, democracy, individuality, cosmopolitanism, spirit of social justice, xenophilia, balance, harmony and gentleness, which united all of the African tribes shipped to the island during the slave trade. What I am calling the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism social class language game of the Africans was, and is, reified and recursively reorganized and reproduced via the ideology of Vodou; its modes of production, komes, husbandry and subsistence agricultural; and ideological apparatuses, lakous or lakou yo in Kreyol (yo in Kreyol is used to pluralize terms and concepts), lwa yo (spirits), ounfo (temples) peristyles, sosyete sekré (secret societies), vévés, herbal medicine, proverbs, songs, dances, musical instruments, Vodou magic and rituals, and ancestor worship.
The African Religion of Vodou, in other words, gave rise to the spirit of communism or communal living based on subsistence agriculture, husbandry and komes, which the Africans, acting as both subjects and agents of the language game, transported with them to the Americas (Desmangles, 1992; Fick, 1990; Genovese, 1974). In Haiti, under the leadership of oungan yo, manbo yo, gangan yo/dokté féy and granmoun yo, they recursively reorganized and reproduced this structuring structure and its modes of production via ideological apparatuses, i.e. lakous, lwa yo, peristyles, herbal medicine, proverbs, songs, dances, musical instruments, secret societies, Vodou magic and rituals, vévés, ancestor worship and ounfo, used to interpellate and ounganify/manboify the human actors on the plantations, in the provinces and on the mountains of the island (Bellegarde-Smith and Michel, 2006; Deren, 1972; Desmangles, 1992; Fick, 1990; Genovese, 1974; Métraux, 1989[1958]). As such, by communism I do not mean the social relations of production emanating from the dialectical contradictions of capitalist relations of production as outlined by Marx (1992[1867]) and Marxists of the early 20th century. Instead, the spirit of communism I refer to here speaks to the agricultural and communal form of individual, social and material relations (purposive-rationality) produced by the metaphysical, psychological and sociological logic (konesans – knowledge) of the religion of Vodou by which the Africans went about recursively reorganizing and reproducing their material resource framework prior to its interruption by slavery, the slave trade, racism, colonization, and the Affranchis’s attempt at nation building based on the language, communicative discourse, ideology, ideological apparatuses and modes of production of the West (i.e. the Catholic/Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism) (Table 1). As an ethos, the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism social class language game emphasizes balance, harmony, perfection and subsistence living over the economic gain for its own sake, individualism, wealth, private property and exploitative logic of the Catholic/Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism social class language game of the whites and Affranchis (Bellegarde-Smith and Michel, 2006; Deren, 1972; Desmangles, 1992; Métraux, 1989[1958]).
Differences between the Catholic/Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism and the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism in Haiti.
Discussion and Conclusions
For the African leadership, which synthesized the practical consciousnesses of the Taino and African tribes, Vodou became a monotheistic religion in which the one God, Bon-dye, or Gran-Met, is an energy force that gave rise to a sacred world out of itself. Everything that is the world, universe, galaxies, animate and inanimate objects, etc., are a manifestation of Bon-dye, and are sacred. Thus, unlike the barbaric God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which stands outside of spacetime and makes human beings, the fallen, the superior creation of its design, i.e. the earth, which is to be exploited and dominated for human happiness and wealth. The God of Vodou has no such place for the human being. Bon-dye is spacetime, and the human being is no different from any other creation that is a part of this being. The aim of the human individual is to maintain balance and harmony between nature/God, the community and the individual. Ideologically in Vodou, therefore, as in all other West African and Native American beliefs, the human being and all that is the universe is a manifestation of Bon-dye. Balance and harmony with this Being, as revealed in nature, is the modus operandi for human existence. This one good God (Bon-dye bon) is an energy force that can manifest itself in the human plane of existence via the ancestors and 401 lwa yo, which humans can access as a material energy force and concepts to assist them in being-in-the-world in order to maintain the aforementioned balance and harmony. Hence, like the God of Judaism, the good God, Bon-dye bon, of Vodou, is active in history and in current political events, via ancestors, lwa yo, and humans, rather than in the primordial sacred time of myth. Unlike the God of Judaism, however, in Vodou, human beings are not distinct from that great energy force due to sin and must seek to reunite with it – we are always a part of it whether we like it or not. The human being, like all other beings, whether sentient or not, are a manifestation of the energy force of Bon-dye. In other words, the human being is a spirit or energy force living in a material body or physical temple. We are constituted energy, which is recycled or reincarnated 16 times – eight times as a male and eight times as a female – on the planet earth in order to achieve perfection. There is no moral right or wrong in Vodou. As such, the energy, which constitutes the human being, is not punished for acts done in the material world through the descent into animal embodiment as highlighted in the reincarnation logic of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. The emphasis in Vodou is on experiencing the lived-world and perfection. The closer the human being gets to their sixteenth experience on earth and perfection, the wiser and less materialist they are. At the end of their sixteenth life cycle, the energy that constitutes the human being is reabsorbed with the original energy force, Bon-dye, which manifested them as life.
The Vodou Ideology and the Spirit of Communism
Whereas slavery and the colonization of Africa undermined the Vodou religion and communal way of life among people of African descent in Africa and the diaspora, the Africans of Haiti, given their early freedom from slavery and the fact that the majority of them, almost 70 per cent of the population, were directly from Africa when the Haitian Revolution commenced, were able to maintain, reorganize and reproduce the Vodou way of life and its ethic, communism and ideological apparatuses (lakous, peristyles, hounfo, secret societies, etc.) in its purest form (Du Bois, 2004, 2012). At Bois Caïman or Bwa Kay-Imam (near the Imam Boukman Dutty’s house), the birthplace of the Haitian Revolution in 1791, 19 African tribes or nations and one tribe of the Taino nation organized a Vodou ceremony led by the oungan, Boukman Dutty and manbo, Cecile Fatima, to create one new nation, the Empire of Ayiti, the twenty-first tribe or nation of the ceremony, in the Americas around the Vodou religion, with its ethic of communal living, subsistence agricultural production/komes, Kreyol language and ideological apparatuses. As highlighted by Boukman’s prayer, the aim was to recursively reorganize and reproduce the Vodou religion and its way of life (practical consciousness) through the new Haitian empire against the European worldview or language game practised by the Europeans and the Affranchis:
Bon Dje ki fè la tè. Ki fè soley ki klere nou enro. Bon Dje ki soulve lanmè. Ki fè gronde loray. Bon Dje nou ki gen zorey pou tande. Ou ki kache nan niaj. Kap gade nou kote ou ye la. Ou we tout sa blan fè nou sibi. Dje blan yo mande krim. Bon Dje ki nan nou an vle byen fè. Bon Dje nou an ki si bon, ki si jis, li ordone vanjans. Se li kap kondui branou pou nou ranpote la viktwa. Se li kap ba nou asistans. Nou tout fet pou nou jete potre dje Blan yo ki swaf dlo lan zye. Koute vwa la libète k ap chante lan kè nou.
The god who created the sun which gives us light, who rouses the waves and rules the storm, though hidden in the clouds, he watches us. He sees all that the white man does. The god of the white man inspires him with crime, but our god calls upon us to do good works. Our god who is good to us orders us to revenge our wrongs. He will direct our arms and aid us. Throw away the symbol of the god of the whites who has so often caused us to weep, and listen to the voice of liberty, which speaks in the hearts of us all.
Within the Vodou worldview or language game and its communal organizations and practices, serviteurs, practitioners of Vodou, as previously highlighted, believe Bon-dye, the primeval pan-psychic field, created the multiverse and all of its objects out of itself. As such, the earth, its objects and all life on it are a manifestation of Bon-dye through our nanm (soul), and as such are sacred. Bon-dye manifests itself in the material and spiritual, or energy world, through the spiritual and conceptual essences of the 401 lwa yo and deceased ancestors (lwa rasin or lwa eritaj) (ancestor worship is huge in Haiti), who manifest themselves to the living in dreams, divinations and bodily possessions so that they can maintain balance and harmony within the material world, which is the manifestation of Bon-dye. Lwa yo, in essence, are manifestations of Bon-dye, who exist, without a material body, in a different dimension of spacetime from living human beings as energy. Because the energy force of Bon-dye is so vast and powerful, it manifests itself in the material world through the deceased ancestors and lwa yo, who represent cosmic forces, concepts, values and personalities for us to model in the material world in order to achieve balance, harmony, subsistence living and perfection as we experience being-in-the-world. Although they do not possess corporeal bodies, lwa yo nonetheless have personalities and enjoy corporeal things such as drinking, eating, smoking, dancing and talking.
Lwa yo, essentially, are cosmic forces, the spirits of the ancestors, and the major forces or concepts of the universe (i.e. beauty, good, evil, health, reproduction, death and other aspects of daily life). Each lwa is represented by a hieroglyphic symbol, a hieroglyphic vévé, and are predominantly divided into two nations or families (nanchon) – Rada and Petwo lwa yo – representing lwa yo of the 21 nations of Bois Caïman. The Rada lwa yo are relatively peaceful, happy spirits, cosmic forces and concepts, beauty, reproduction, etc., of daily life served by oungan yo and manbo yo. Petwo lwa yo represent malevolent spirits of animals and other forces of nature, and are usually served by members, bókós/bokors, of secret societies to gain wealth, political power, do harm, kill, or cripple. Bokors (bokor yo, plural form in Kreyol) are also the police force of the society or village life, and mitigate the harshest punishment, zombification, in Vodou.
The Rada tradition constitutes 95 per cent of Vodou practices, and Petwo 5 per cent. Notwithstanding its sacerdotal hierarchy, Vodou is very democratic. Once initiated, everyone establishes their lakous and peristyles and serve their lwa or lwa yo according to the will and desires of lwa yo (this is similar to the Protestant faith, where pastors establish their own churches based on their readings and interpretations of the bible). Albeit, recently (January 2008), all the lakous and peristyles have organized themselves under one political organization Konfederasyon Nasyonal Vodou Ayisyen (KNVA) led by Max Beauvoir, who is called the ATI-oungan of Vodou.
Whereas in the Petwo tradition the human individual seeks assistance from lwa yo through a bokor for wealth and power (i.e. pwen), to do harm to someone, vindicate oneself, revenge, etc., in the Rada tradition that is not normally the case. In the Rada tradition, the human individual does not seek lwa yo. (Albeit, they can seek certain lwa to assist them in acquiring wealth, love, health, political power, revenge, etc. But this is done through bokors (sorcerers), initiates of secret societies in Vodou.) Each person has a spiritual court, meaning that particular spirits show interest in them and become intertwined in their lives. Everyone’s spiritual court is different and people must learn to recognize their spirits so they can effectively work with them. Since it can be difficult to decipher exactly what a spirit wants and which spirit is affecting a person’s life, religious professionals or the power elites of Vodou (i.e. oungan yo, manbo yo, bokor yo, gangan yo and granmoun yo (elders) in the family) are consulted to decipher the spiritual court of an individual and ensure that their life is being led in harmony with the desires and wills of lwa yo who constitute their spiritual court. Once an individual’s spiritual court is determined through a card reading or Vodou ceremony, many people use this knowledge to create a home altar to strengthen their relationship between themselves and lwa yo of their spiritual court. For individuals who are called further, they may choose to have a head washing (lave tét), which connects them permanently to their mét tét (ruler of the head) who is the spirit most closely aligned with them. The next step, if one chooses, would be to initiate into the religion in one of three stages: ounsi (congregation member), manbo or oungan (priestess or priest) and manbo asogwe or oungan asogwe (high priestess or high priest). These levels of initiation (kanzo) are not decided by the individual but by the spirits, and revealed through dreams, card readings and other forms of communication. This is a permanent life-time commitment and each level requires different duties to spirit and community. Contact provides a way to mitigate relationships with lwa yo and ancestors who otherwise could impact lives without individuals having the ability to negotiate their situation. Lwa yo and ancestors have individual personalities and preconceived notions about proper behaviours that can cause them to help or hinder people as they see fit. Engaging with lwa yo allow humans to gain their aid and take control over their own luck. However, this usually requires a pledge of either a direct exchange of offerings for services or a lifelong commitment to serve and honour. Failure to uphold a person’s end of the deal or to recognize when a spirit is making a demand can result in punishment that affects luck, health, personal relationships and financial situations. Lwa yo also become part of an extended spiritual/material family, and as such individuals love them and provide offerings because they enjoy making the lwa yo and ancestors happy. Home altars, as in Hinduism, dedicate a space to honouring and feeding lwa yo and ancestors, who in dreams bring messages, and daily experiences reinforce their presence. Hence, humans and spirit beings exist in a symbiotic relationship on earth.
Within this symbiotic relationship on earth, the Petwo tradition dialectically balances and harmonizes nature, the community and the individual by counterbalancing the relatively peaceful and happy spirits or concepts of the Rada traditions with the malevolent forces and concepts of nature. In the Petwo tradition, the individual seeks the aid of a bokor for wealth, political power, protection, or to do harm to an adversary through the aid of the malevolent forces or concepts (i.e. revenge, greed, hate, violence, etc.) of nature. Whereas the killing or harming, etc., of an individual is not allowed in the Rada tradition, they are sanctioned in the Petwo tradition. The Petwo tradition houses both the secret societies of Vodou, which are in place to protect the society from those who violate the norms of the ounfo, and the sorcerers, bokors, who use their knowledge of les mystere to kill, cripple, or do harm (financially, socially, politically, etc.) to an individual. According to Max Beauvoir, the late ATI-oungan of Haitian Vodou, the bokors stem from the Taino tradition (which paralleled the Congo elements of the Africans) of the island. When serving in the capacity as the protector of social norms and social relations, practitioners, bokors, of the Petwo tradition must obtain the consent of leaders, oungan yo avek manbo yo, of the Rada tradition, of the ounfo, which is not the case when serving as sorcerers to benefit themselves or those seeking power, wealth, or to do harm to an adversary. In the former instance, zombification is the ultimate punishment allowed by oungan yo avek manbo yo to be meted out by a bokor for violation of social norms and relations, which are deemed sacred. In the latter instance, anything and everything goes (i.e. financial, social and political ruin, zombification, or death). The Petwo tradition is considered the black magic of Vodou, and it is this tradition and its practice of zombification that is and has been portrayed by Hollywood and Wade Davis’s (1985) work, The Serpent and the Rainbow. Conceptually, the Vodou tradition is not one or the other – it is both. The two traditions represent the energy/material symbiotic (binary) world that is Bon-dye and within which all life is constituted and experiences exist.
As the late ATI-oungan of Vodou, Max Beauvoir (2006), highlights, within this energy/material symbiotic relationship, the human being is a sentient being, which is constituted as three distinct entities: the physical body, the gwo bon anj (sé médo) and the ti bon anj (sé lido). The latter two constitute our nanm (soul), and the physical body is aggregated matter that eventually dies and rots. It is animated by the energy force of Bon-dye or the universe, the gwo bon anj, which is not active in influencing personality or the choices that the human individual makes in life. Instead, it is simply the spark of life or the energy force that keeps the body living or activated. In other words, metaphorically speaking, imagine the body as an electrical cord, Bon-dye as the socket, and the spark of energy from the socket that animates the appliance as the gwo bon anj.
The animated body, the physical body and the gwo bon anj give rise to consciousness and the personality through the ti bon anj. The most important part of the body is the head, which is the seat of consciousness and the space where sight, hearing, smell and taste all reside. The five senses of the head, and the brain’s reflection on what is smelled, heard, seen, tasted and touched, give rise to the ti bon anj, which is consciousness, intellect, reflection, memory, will and the personality. That is to say, it is the ti bon anj that houses the ego, self, personality and ethics of the person from experiences in life. So the gwo bon anj animates the physical body, which gives rise to the ti bon anj (i.e. the individual ego or ‘I’ of a human individual as they experience being in the world with others).
The three aforementioned distinct entities constitute the average individual and can be separated at various points throughout their life cycle and at the time of death. As previously mentioned, people who are called to work with lwa yo also have a fourth entity, personal lwa, mét tét, who permanently resides within their head (i.e. a sort of split personality that guides the individual in making important and daily decisions). For the average individual, at the time of death the physical body dies and rots, and the ti bon anj (the ego, personality, etc.) returns to Ginen (Africa) and the gwo bon anj lingers around seeking to animate a new body. Serviteurs, oungan yo, manbo yo and bokor yo, can work to bring the ti bon anj of elders back across the waters from Africa so that they can be an active and honoured ancestor. This latter process of ancestor retrieval is usually done a day and a year after the death of the person, and requires an animal sacrifice (i.e. the taking of a life to feed lwa yo in order to retrieve the deceased ancestor from Ginen). Upon retrieval, the ti bon anj of the ancestor is kept in a govi, a small clay bottle. Bokors, who are members of secret societies in Vodou, and stand apart from oungan yo and manbo yo as sorcerers who serve Petwo lwa yo, can also capture the lingering ti bon anj to do spiritual work aimed at healing, obtaining money, love relationships, work, political power (i.e. pwen), or other desires. This latter act is one form of zombification wherein the ti bon anj of a deceased person is captured in a bottle, govi, is directed to serve either the bokor or an individual seeking wealth, love, political power, or to do harm to another person, etc.
Aside from separation in death, separation can also take place during a person’s life cycle. During a person’s life cycle, the gwo bon anj can be displaced by a lwa during possession or a bokor for zombification. The lwa utilizes the animated body (the person possessed is called a chawl or horse for the lwa) to experience the world, heal, protect, etc. The ti bon anj can be displaced during a person’s life cycle by a bokor for the mitigation of punishment through zombification. This latter action is essentially the death penalty in Vodou when individuals morally violate nature, communal life, or an individual. Bokor yo are called upon by oungan yo and manbo yo to punish the transgressor through the removal of their ti bon anj from their bodies. During this process, the ego and personality (ti bon anj) is removed, and the person is left with the material body and the gwo bon anj. The purpose of this act is to render the transgressor without the desire and drive to commit any further acts, which arose from their ti bon anj. The person is not killed, but the desire and passion that caused them to commit the initial transgression that they committed is removed. Hence, the person is left alive as a mindless zombie. Essentially, whereas oungan yo, manbo yo and gangan/dokté fey are the readers, judges and healers, bokor yo are the sorcerers and police force of the village. They are practitioners of black magic, and are visited by people seeking, for instance, wealth, power, luck, revenge, or to do harm to someone. There are three other, external, cosmic forces and lwa yo that impact the individual. They are the zetwal (i.e. the star of a person), which determines their fate; the lwa rasin, or lwa eritaj, the spirit of the ancestors ‘who enter the path of the unconscious to talk to him or her in dreams, to warn of danger, and to intervene at the many levels of his [or her] life’; and the wonsiyon, ‘these are a series of spirits that accompany the lwa mét tét and modify somewhat the amplitude and the frequencies of its vibration or presence’ (Beauvoir, 2006: 128).
The Power Elites and Ideological Apparatuses of Vodou
The arrangements of social and familial obligations, relationships and interactions (i.e. Haitian practical consciousness in the mountains and provinces), move outwards from this central spiritual and communal worldview or language game of Vodou, also known as the mystery system, through its power elites, oungans, manbos, bokos and elders, subsistence agricultural mode of production and commerce, and their ideological apparatuses, lakous, peristyles, secret societies, herbal medicines, Vodou ceremonies and zombification. In Vodou, the emphasis is on balance and harmony with nature, the community, and within the individual – all of which are interconnected. As such, subsistence agricultural production (i.e. the tilling and protection of the earth) and the trade (commonly referred to as commerce, usually performed by women) of agricultural products for other goods are emphasized as the proper form for human environmental, communal and individual interactions with nature and each other. Village life in the majority of the provinces is centred on a lakous, family compound, and its peristyle, where everything is shared. All provinces, cities and communes in Haiti have a lakous and peristyles (to date over 165,000). The three dominant lakous – Souvnans, Badjo and Soukri – are located in Gonaives, Haiti and maintain the rites and traditions of Dahomey, Nago and the Congo, respectively. The class structure of the lakous and the villages or regions they influence, hounfo are not based on the subsistence mode of production but on the spiritual relationship, which is tied to nature (i.e. the earth, the cycle of birth, rebirth and death in nature). That is, religious leaders and elders of the community constitute the power elites of the society followed by the middle-aged and then the young. The elders are the intermediaries between the young and the religious leaders. The functions of the religious leaders, oungans and manbos, are healing through herbal medicine, performing Vodou ceremonies to call or pacify the spirits and bring about harmony to village life, initiating new oungans and manbos, forecasting the future, reading dreams, casting spells, resolving village disputes, protecting the society, and creating protections. Conversely, the bokors are the sorcerers and police force of the society. They are responsible for black magic, patrolling village life – through Sanpwels, Bizangos and lougawous – and meting out punishment through zombification.
Vodou morality is not a black and white understanding of right and wrong, but rather a contextual response that above all works to maintain harmony in the community. The universe exists in harmony as a natural state, and any action that creates discord is a moral transgression. Moral transgressions are not individual acts that permanently taint the soul and change the outcome of the afterlife as one finds in Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. There is no defined concept of heaven in Haitian Vodou and reincarnation of the nanm is not affected by the sins of the past life. Rather, moral transgressions change the circumstances of the individual and community in the here and now but can be overcome and moved past through some form of retribution or punishment. Also important is that the moral violation of harmony by one individual can affect the morality of the group and cause repercussions from spirits and ancestors that affect the community. This places a huge focus upon the collective and tends to downplay the individual. Yet, it would be wrong to characterize the Haitian Vodou worldview as solely a collective one. That is to say, individual action is an important part of disrupting, maintaining and repairing balance through the religious leaders and elders of the community who must decide the appropriate course of action to take against any transgressions in order to restore balance and harmony. As the taking of life is prohibited in the Rada Vodou family, the ultimate punishment in the Haitian worldview is the second form of zombification outlined above, which is usually performed by bokors of the Petwo tradition. Vodou requires that some form of retribution or punishment is required for all forms of moral transgression in order to restore balance and harmony in nature, the community, and within each individual involved in the transgression. Understandably, this is why the Haitian Revolution commences with a Petwo Vodou ceremony at Bois Caïman on 14 August 1791. The ceremony was called upon by the oungans, manbos, bokors and elders under the leadership of oungan Boukman Dutty and manbo Cecile Fatima to bring about retribution and punishment against whites for the institution of slavery, which was causing great disharmony and imbalance in nature and the African communities on the island. According to serviteurs, Manbo Fatima was mounted by the Petwo lwa, Manbo Erzulie Danthor (the Goddess of the Haitian nation), who meted out the punishment for the whites, and laid out the hierarchy of the leaders of the Revolution. In return, as highlighted by Boukman’s prayer, the participants promised not to serve the white man’s God or allow inequality on the island. Following the Revolution, it would be the struggle between the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism language game of the Africans of the mountains and provinces and the Catholic/Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism language game of the Affranchis which would bring about the great disharmony and imbalance that has plagued Haiti since the death of oungan Jean-Jacques Dessalines on 17 October 1806, the father of the Haitian nation. Ostensibly, this struggle, contemporarily, is captured in the political discourses of political leaders and the masses as the ideas, social inclusion, democracy, equitable distribution of wealth, social wealth, etc., of the children of Dessalines versus the ideas, capitalism, individual wealth, etc., of the children of Pétion who assassinated him.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
