Wicca, Wiccan Magick, Witchcraft, and Magic Spells

Vodou, Vodu, Vudu, Vodon, Vodoun, Voudou, or other phonetical equivalents are by some individuals steady to the branches of a Western African hereditary tradition religious. It is important to note that the word “Voodoo” is most common and use known in the American and popular culture, and is looked as an offensive by the communities of practice of Afro-Diaspora. However, the various forms of this limit can be explained as follows:

The word “Voodoo” is employed to describe the creole tradition of New-Orleans, Vodou is employed to describe the Haitian tradition of Vodou, whereas Vudon and Vodun and Vodoun are employed to describe the deity as well as honoured in the Brazilian nation with Jeje (ewe) with Candomble Vodoun African Western, and in the Diaspora Afro-American. When the word “Vodou/Vodoun” is profited, it indicates the religion itself. When the word is employed in small capital letters, it indicates the deity real honoured in each respective tradition.

Its roots are supposed to be changed and include the people of Fon, Mined, Kabye, ewe, and Yoruba of Western Africa, Western Nigeria in Eastern Ghana. With Benign, Vodun is the religion national, followed around 80% of the population, or some of 4 ½ million people. The word Vodún “Vodoun” “Vudu” is the word of Fon-Ewe for the spirit. Voodoo in Haiti is strongly influenced by central African traditions. The rites of Kongo, also known in the north of Haiti like Lemba (at the origin practised among Bakongo) and is as widespread as the Western African elements. The religion of Vodoun was removed during slavery and the rebuilding in the United States, but was maintained the majority of its Western African elements.

Vodun/Vodoun is a name allotted to a Western African hereditary system religious of worship and ritual practices, where deity specific are supported and honoured, with the veneration of the ancient and recent ancestors who earlier served same the deity guardian. It is thought that this system of worship is widespread in a multitude of African groups in Western Africa and in all all Africa. They are regarded as being by the members of Diaspora discutablement some of historical times of the oldest anteriority of systems religious. [necessary quotation]

The cultural sector designs common metaphysics of share of Fon, gun, Mined and ewe of people around a divine principle cosmological duel: Buluku chick, the God-Creator, and the God-Actor or Vodun, girls and wire of the twin children of the creator Mawu (goddess of the moon) and LISA (a god of the sun). The God-Creator is the principle cosmogonical, which not trifle with the society man, and Vodun are the God-Actors who govern really the ground.

The Pantheon de Voduns, although noncomplete, is completely large and complex. In a version, there are seven girls and wire of Mawu, interethnic direct and related to the normal phenomena or the historical or mythical individuals, and the dozen ethnic Voduns, defenders of a certain clan or tribe.

Western African Vodu, just like all the indigenous African religions, has its emphase primary on the ancestors, with each family of the spirits having her own specialized priest and priestesshood which is often hereditary. In much of African clans, the deity could include Mami Wata, which are a god/desses of water; Legba, which in some clans is virile and young people contrary to the old man form it returns Haiti; Gu, reigning iron and smithcraft; Sakpata, which reigns the diseases; and much of other spirits distinct from their own way towards Western Africa. After this is the hereditary demoniations lineageal of Tchamba mom. An ancient system matriarchal of the raised controlled ancestors, who now surround all the Africans controlled throughout the world.

European colonialism, followed totalitarian modes to Western Africa, tried to remove Vodun as well as other forms of the religion. However, because the deity of Vodou are constant with each African clan-group, and its clery is central to maintain moral the, social one and political order and bases hereditary its villagers, it was close with impossible to remove the tradition. Today in Western Africa, one estimates that the religion of Vodou is practised close more than 30 million people.

Large a sequined Voodoo “drapo” or flag by the artist George Valris
Implements of Vodou, Port-With-Prince, Haïti.Dans Voodu or Haitian Sèvis Lwa or “service with the spirits” in Haiti, a form of Vodou, Haitian Vodou also have the strong elements of Bakongo of central Africa and Igbo and Yoruba of Nigeria, although much different people or nations of Africa has the representation in the liturgy of Sèvis Lwa. Islam was also noted in some services. Among these other nations are Taíno and the Indians of Arawak, venerated as an indigenous population (and consequently, the shape of ancestors) of the now known island under the name of Hispaniola. Large and significant part of Haitian Vodou generally neglected by disciples, particularly who speak English, is until recently the component of Kongo. The whole Scandinavian area of Haiti is particularly influenced by practice as regards Kongo. In north, this is more often called Kongo Rite or Lemba, of the worship of Lemba of the area and Mayombe de Loango. In the south, the influence of Kongo is called Petro. Many loas or lwas (also a limit of Kikongo) is of origin of Kongo such as Basimbi, Lemba, etc

The Haitian creole forms of Vodou exist in Haiti, in Dominican Dominican Republic, the areas of Cuba, in the United States, and other places which the Haitian immigrants dispersed with during years. However, it is important to note that the religion of Vodoun existed in the United States, brought more from West Africans controlled in America, specifically of the groups of ewe, Fon, of Mined, of Kabaye, and Nago. Some of its more durable forms always exist in the islands of Gullah. There is a reappearance of these traditions of Vodoun in America, which maintains the same elements linealritual and cosmological that is practised in Western Africa. Those and other African-diasporic religions such as Lukumi or Regulated of Ocha (also known under the name of Santería) in Cuba, Candomblé and Umbanda in Brazil, all the religions which evolved/moved among descendants of the Africans transplanted in Americas.

Majority of the Africans who were brought while the slaves towards Haiti were Western central Africa and. The pracitioners of Vodoun brought more and controlled in the United States go down mainly from the ewe, the Anlo-Ewe, and other the Western African groups. [necessary quotation] the survival of the systems of belief in the new world is remarkable, although the traditions changed with time and even took some catholic types of worship. One of the greatest differences however between African and Haitian Vodou is that the transplanted Africans of Haiti were obliged to disguise their leasing (lwa sometimes written) or spirits as catholic saints, an element of a syncretism called process.

The majority of the experts speculate that this was done in order to try to hide their “pagan” religion their Masters who had prohibited them to practise it. To say that Haitian Vodou is simply a mixture of the Western African religions with a plating of Roman Catholicism would not be entirely correct. This would be unaware of many influences of the indigenous Indians of Taíno, as well as the process évolutionnaire that Vodou underwent formed by the volatile leaven of the Haitian history. However, without deity of Vodou, and their ritual element corresponding the religion known under the name of “Vodou” could not exist. [necessary quotation]

Vodou because one knows it in Haiti and the Haitian Diaspora is the result of the pressures of much of various cultures and of the ethnic memberships of the people being uprooted of Africa and being imported towards Hispaniola during the African Slavic trade. Under slavery, the African culture and the religion were removed, of the lines were reduced in fragments, and people put their religious knowledge and of this fragmentation became culturelement unified. In addition to combining the spirits of many various African and Indian nations, Vodou incorporated pieces of catholic liturgy to replace lost prayers or elements. Images of the catholic saints are employed to represent various spirits or “mistè” (of the “mysteries”, really limit preferred in Haiti), and much with saints themselves are honoured in Vodou in their own line. This syncretism makes it possible Vodou to surround the European African, Indian, and ancestors in a whole and complete way. It is really a religion of Kreyòl.

Most historically the important ceremony of Vodou in the Haitian history was the ceremony of Bwa Kayiman or Wood Caiman of August 1791 which began the Haitian revolution, in which the spirit Ezili Dantor had a priestess and received a black pig as an offer, and all the participants pawned themselves in the combat for freedom. This ceremony finally had like consequence the release of the Haitian people of the French colonial rule in 1804, and the establishment of the first popular Republic of black in the history of the world and the second independent nation in Americas.

Haitian Vodou developed in the United States at a significant degree starting towards the end of the Sixties and the beginning of the Seventies with the waves of the Haitian immigrants saving the mode of Duvalier, taking the root in Miami, New York City, Chicago, and other principal cities.

Haitian Vodouisants believe, according to the spread African tradition, that there is God who is the creator of all, appointed under the name of “Bondyè” (of “French broad bean God” or “good God”). Bondyè is distinguished from God “of the white” in a dramatic speech by Boukman houngan at Bwa Kayiman, but is often considered even God of other religions, such as Christianity and Islam. Bondyè is distant from sa/sa creation however, and thus they is the spirits or the “mysteries”, of the “saints”, or the “angels” that Vodouisant turns to for the assistance, as well as to the ancestors. Vodouisant adores God, and serves the spirits, which are treated with the honor and respect as older members of a household could be. There would be twenty and one nations or “let us nanchons” spirits, sometimes also called the “lwa-yo”. Some of the more important nations of the lwa are Split it (corresponding to the ethnic groups Gbe-speaking in the Republic about modern-day about Benign, of Nigeria, and Togo); Nago (synonymous with the ethnic memberships Yoruba-speaking in Nigeria, the Republic of Benign, and Togo); and the many ethnic memberships African West-Power stations linked under Kongo of ethnonym. The spirits also come in the “families” that all share a surname, like Ogou, or Ezili, or Azaka or Ghede. For example, “Ezili” is a family, Ezili Dantor and Ezili Freda is two various spirits in this family. The family of Ogou are soldiers, Ezili govern the female spheres of the life, Azaka govern agriculture, Ghede govern the sphere of dead and the fertility. In Dominican Vodou, there are also family of Agua Dulce or one “of fresh waters”, which surrounds all the spirits of Amerindian. There are literally hundreds of lwa. The lwa individual known good include Danbala Wedo, dad Legba Atibon, and Agwe Tawoyo.

In Haitian Vodou, spirits are divided according to their nature in roughly two categories, if they are hot or fresh. The fresh spirits fall under the category of Split, and the hot spirits fall under the category of Petwo. The spirits of Split are family and of the same character, whereas the spirits of Petwo more combative and are agitated. Both can be dangerous if annoyed or disturbed, and in spite of the complaints to the contrary effect, neither one nor the other is “good” or “badly” compared to the other.

It is said that each one has spirits, and each person is regarded as avoire a special relationship with a particular spirit one says that “has their head”, however each person can have much lwa, and that which have their head, or “the small fireclay cup met”, can or can which not to be the most active spirit in the life of a person in the Haitian belief.

By serving the spirits, research of Vodouisant to carry out the harmony with their own individual nature and the world around them, expressed as the power and a private mean by facing the life. Part of this harmony is inside adhesion and reports/ratios of maintenance in the context of the family and the community. A house or a company of Vodou is organized on the metaphor of a family extended, and the initiates are the “children” of their initiators, with the direction of the hierarchy and the mutual obligation which implies.

The majority of Vodouisants are not launched, not indicated under the name being “bosal”; it is not a condition of being an initiate in order to serve as the spirits with one. It there has clergy in Haitian Vodou for which the responsibility it is to preserve the ritual one and the songs and maintains the relationship between the spirits and the community as a whole (however part of this is the responsibility of the whole community as well). They to carry out the service of all the spirits of their line. Priests indicated under the name of “Houngans” and priestesses as “a mambos”. Below the houngans and mambos are the hounsis, which are initiates who act as assistances during the ceremonies and which are devoted to their own personal mysteries. One serves just no lwa but only that which they “have” according to the destiny or nature with one. Which spirits a person “A” can be indicated to a ceremony, in a reading, or the dreams. However all Vodouisants also serve the spirits of their own ancestors of blood, and this important aspect of practice as regards Vodou is often annotated more or to the minimum reduces in the importance by the commentators who do not include/understand the significance of it. The worship of ancestor is in fact the base of the religion of Vodou, and much of the lwa as Agasou (formerly a king of Dahomey) are for example in fact of the ancestors one says that who are high to the divinity.

After one day or two of furnace bridges of establishment of preparation, ritually preparing and making cook the poultry and all other foods, etc, a service of Vodou of Haitian starts with a series of prayers and catholic French songs, then litanies in African Kreyòl and “langaj” which passes by all saints and lwa European and African honoured by the house, and then series of worms for all principal spirits of the house. This is called “Priyè Gine” or the African prayer. After songs more introduction, starting by greeting the spirit of the drums called Hounto, the songs for all various spirits are sung, starting with the family of Legba by all spirits of Split, there is then a cut and the part of Petwo of the service starts, which finishes with the songs for the family of Gede. Because the songs are sung the spirits will come to participants by taking the possession from the individuals and while speaking and the action by them. Each spirit is greeted and greeted by the initiates to present and give readings, the council and treatments those which approach them for the assistance. Many hours later in morning, the last song are sung, leave of guests, and all hounsis and houngans and manbos exhausted can go to sleep.

On the level of the household of the individual, Vodouisant or” “of sèvitè/“servant” can make aim one or more tables for their ancestors and the spirit or the spirits which they serve with images or statues of the spirits, perfumes, foods, and other things supported by their spirits. The most fundamental bench is right a white candle and clear glass of water and perhaps of flowers. The day of a particular spirit, one lights a candle and indicates to one our father and Mary hail, greets the dad Legba and asks him that to open the door, and then one greet and speaks with the particular spirit like an older member about family. Ancestors are directly approximate, without mediation of the Legba dad, since they would be “in blood”.

Cultural values that Vodou embraces the center around the ideas of honor and respect - to God, with the spirits, the family and the company, and with. There is also a concept of relative suitability - and what is appropriate to somebody with Dambala Wedo because their head can be different somebody with Ogou Feray as a their head. For example, a spirit is very fresh and the other is very hot. The combination of freshness is evaluated, and thus is the capacity and inclination to protect itself and its characteristic with the need. The love and the support at the family of the company of Vodou seem to be the most important consideration. Generosity while giving to the community and the poor is also an important value. The blessings with one come by the community and there is the idea that one should be been willing to give again to him alternatively. Since Vodou has such an orientation of the community, sometimes one sees it like prolongation of the belief in the old Soviet Union, and, since the dissolution of the USSR, drew many Russian initiates. There is no “solitaries” in Vodou, only separate people geographically of their elder and house. A person without report/ratio of a certain kind with the elder ones will not practise Vodou as one includes/understands it in Haiti and among Haitians.

According to the opinion of some the religion of Vodou of Haitian is enthusiastic rather than a fertility based tradition and because of these some do not have prohibitions against the merry men and the women lesbians.

There is a diversity of the practice in Vodou through the country of Haiti and the Haitian Diaspora. For example in the north of Haiti the tèt of lava (“principal washing”) or the kanzwe can be only release, because it is in Dominican Dominican Republic and in Cuba, while in the Port-With-Prince and the south they practise the rites of kanzo with three categories of release - the senp of kanzo, silicon pwen, and asogwe - and the last are the mode most familiar of the practice apart from of Haiti. Some lines combine both, as reports/ratios of Manbo Katherine Dunham of his personal experiment in its book the had island.

While the total tendency in Vodou is very preserving in agreement with its African roots, there is no form singular and final, only what is exact in a house or a particular line. The small details of the service and the been useful spirits will change house at the house, and information in books or on the Internet can thus seem contradictory. There are no central authority or “pope” in Haitian Vodou since “each manbo and houngan is the head of their own house”, because a popular stating in Haiti disappears. Another consideration in terms of Haitian diversity are many the sects without counting that Sèvi Gine in Haiti such as Makaya, Rara, and other secret societies, which has its own Pantheon distinct from the spirits.

A stating of communal ground is that Haiti is 80% catholic, 20% Protestant and Vodou 100%. Thus the catholic contribution to Haitian Voodoo is completely apparent. However, in the United States the history is different, in spite of the complaints to the contrary effect.

Confusion about Voodoo in the United States emerges because there in the whole of the United States a widespread system of African belief and practice magic folk American known under the name of Hudu exists or more popularly like hoodoo. The similarity of the hoodoo and Voodoo of words notwithstanding, the hoodoo is not a religion organized like Voodoo, but is an integral part of the religion of Vodoun in Western Africa and discutablement in all all Africa. Some aspects of hoodoo is considered derived mainly from Congo and the Angolan magic practices of central Africa and maintains elements of the traditions and practices which emerged among the loudspeakers bantous of language. However, any serious expert who travelled and Hudu studied in Western Africa, will conclude easily that this ancient practice and magio-botany are indigenous and essential with all the indigenous religious systems and the west African, having only meticulous variations.

Today, because of the suppression of the religion of Vodoun in America, the majority of the hoodooists are now members of the African American Protestant churches, such as various the Baptist, the denominations episcopal African methodists (HEART), of Pentecost, and holiness, but when the hoodoo is compared with certain African religions in the Diaspora, parallel narrowest is to it cuban and Dominican Palo, a survival of the religious belief of Congo announced with some catholic forms of worship.

Survivals of the Haitian and religion of Vodou African-influenced by west in the southernmost USA are claimed by certain finding in the spiritual churches Afro-Americans of New-Orleans, a city with a large catholic population. It is a fallacious claim.

The spiritual churches of New-Orleans are sections of Christian rested by the Wisconsin-constant mother leafy Anderson at the beginning of the 20th century. These churches incorporate the catholic iconography, enthusiastic worship derived from the African sources of Pentecost Protestant American, and a great amount of Spiritualism, but a narrower examination proves than the seal of New-Orleans the churches than spiritual is to honour with the indigenous American spirit called Black Hawk, which lived in Illinois and Wisconsin (the state at the house of Anderson), not in Africa, or Haiti. Moreover, names of some various churches in the denomination -- like divine Israel -- to bring to deal with the typical black names of church of Baptist more than the catholic those.

In the sum, Haitian Voodoo is derived from the Western African religious traditions and was maintained in the form modified by the controlled Africans living in the Caribbean which were considered to be captive by Catholics. However, in the United States the religion of Vodoun is mainly derived from the ewes and other African groups Western and central.

Relation-wise public, Vodou came to be associated in the popular spirit phenomena such as “zombis” and “headstocks of voodoo”. While there is obviously ethnobotanical concerning the creation of “zombi”, it is a minor phenomenon in the rural Haitian culture and not part of the religion of Vodou as such. Such things fall under the auspices from the bokor or the wizard rather than the priest from Lwa Gine.

The practice to stick pins in “headstocks of voodoo” has the history in curative lesson as an identification of the points of pressure. How it became notorious as method to curse an individual by some disciples of what came to be called “New-Orleans Voodoo”, which is a local alternative of hoodoo is a mystery. Some speculate that they were one of many manners of self-defence by inculcating fear in the Slavic owners. This practice is not single in New-Orleans “voodoo” however and has as much bases in magic devices European-based such as the “headstock” and the nkisi or the bocio of Western central Africa and (see also the kongo of Paket). In fact it has more basic in European traditions, because the nkisi or figures of bocio used in Africa are in fact of the objects of power, which in Haiti would be mentioned like pwen, rather than the magic substitutes of a target envisaged of sorcery if for the advantage or the plague. Such headstocks of “voodoo” are not a device of Haitian religion, although headstocks intended for the tourists can be found on the iron market in the left prince of With. The practice became closely related to the religions of Vodou in the public spirit by the vehicle of films of horror. In fact, the voodoo always obtains a bad blow dry and hard in films with probably the only exception being the film London Voodoo where the voodoo is shown like forces for good.

There is a practice in Haiti to nail the rough headstocks with a shoe thrown on trees close it cemetery to act as messengers with beyond, who is very different in the function in the way in which headstocks are depicted as being employed by “admirers of voodoo” in popular media and imagination, IE. for purposes of the magic sympathetic nerve towards another person. Another use of the authentic matter headstocks in practice of Vodou is the incorporation of the plastic babies of headstock in furnace bridges and objects employed to represent or honour the spirits, or pwen inside, which points out the above mentioned use of the figures of bocio and nkisi in Africa. An in particular known Haitian artist for his not very common crowned constructions employing parts of headstock is Pierrot Barra of the left prince of With.

Approximately 60% of the population of Benign, approximately 4 ½ million people, practise Vodun. (This does not count other hereditary religions with the Benign one.) moreover, much of the 15% of the population which are referred as a Christian practice Vodun, nondifferent from Haitian Vodou. In Togo about half of the practical population of the indigenous religions, whose Vodun is largest by far, with roughly 2 disciples of the ½ million; there can be perhaps still million among the ewe of Ghana (ewe of 13% and indigenous belief of 38% in general out of a population of 20 million.) in plain appeases, because of the continual mark, there are not any statistics confirmed on the real number of members in the Diaspora. However, one it believes that an increasingly significant number of the Diaspora practise the religion of Vodou of their ancestors, as well as of other traditional religions of African/Diaspora. In Haiti, Haitian Vodou is practised beside Christianity by approximately half of the population, or approximately 4 million people, and this was carried abroad in particular to Louisiana with the Haitian emigration.