The Voodoo Cult of the Twins The practice of Voodoo is probably as old as the African continent itself. Sometimes written Voudou, Vodou or Voudun, the word itself means God Creator or Great Spirit. Voodoo probably isnt what you think it is. It might be easier to start with what Voodoo isnt: Voodoo isnt accurately portrayed in most movies, TV shows and books. Even some documentaries and non-fiction books are misleading. Voodoo isnt a cult, black magic or devil worship. People who practice Voodoo are not witchdoctors, sorcerers or occultists. Voodoo isnt a practice intended to hurt or control others. Most Voodooists have never seen a Voodoo doll. Voodoo isnt morbid or violent (well, except for the poor goat). Voodoo isnt the same everywhere. Not everyone who practices Voodoo does it in exactly the same way or agrees on exactly the same things. So, what is Voodoo? Voodoo is a religion that originates in Africa. Pythons, preserved skulls and Voodoo ceremonies originate in Benin, the birthplace of Voodoo. These fetish origins of worship predate many religions by 10,000 years, and keep a link of ancestry alive in West Africa. Voodoo has no scripture or world authority. It is community-centered and supports individual experience, empowerment and responsibility. Voodoo embraces and encompasses the entirety of human experience. What do Voodooists believe? To understand what they believe, you have to first understand how a Voodooist sees the world. Those who practice Voodoo believe that there is a visible and an invisible world, and that these worlds are intertwined. Death is a transition to the invisible world, so our predecessors are still with us in spirit. They watch over and inspire us. In addition to ancestors and loved ones known in life, there are the Lwa, which can also be understood as archetypes of human personalities and others that embody more specific concerns or localities. Each Lwa is actually a family of similar types. Voodooists develop relationships with the Lwa to seek their counsel and help with concerns in the visible world. In some ways this is not dissimilar to the secular practice of studying and honoring remarkable historic figures. For example, someone who wishes to effect social change might find inspiration from Martin Luther King Jr. or Mahatma Gandhi and feel a kinship with them. A voodooist develops a relationship with particular Lwa, seeks to understand and embody the principles they represent, connects spiritually in order to affect personal transformation and manifest this energy in the visible world to help the living. Voodoo recognizes one God with many helpers. A single divine Creator, called variously Mawu or Nana Buluku is an androgynous being who in one tradition bore seven children and gave each rule over a realm of nature - animals, earth, and sea - or else these children are inter-ethnic and related to natural phenomena or to historical or mythical individuals. The creator embodies a dual cosmogonic principle of which Mawu the moon and Lisa the sun are respectively the female and male aspects, often portrayed as the twin children of the Creator. Mawus youngest child, Legba, was to remain with her and act as a go-between with her other children: in some clans he is young and virile while in Haiti he takes the form of an old man. Other deities might include Mami Wata, god/desses of the waters, Gu, ruling iron and smithcraft, Sakpata, who rules diseases and many others. Eshu, a messenger deity who relays messages between the human world and the world of the Orishas, is depicted as a dark, short man with a large staff and often a pipe, candy or his fingers in his mouth. As the mediator between the gods and the living he maintains balance, order, peace and communication. All creation is considered divine and therefore contains the power of the divine. This is how medicines such as herbal remedies are understood, and explains the ubiquitous use of mundane objects in religious ritual. Voodoo talismans, called fetishes, are objects such as statues or dried animal parts that are sold for their healing and spiritually rejuvenating properties. Fetish followers, (about 50% of the population) practice animism as part of Voodoo, worshiping the Python. They believe that the snake will not bite, but if you kill one, even accidentally, you will die. Voodoo has ordained clergy, Hougan (priests) and Manbo (priestesses) that make a commitment to a spiritual path and can offer guidance when needed, but it is believed that each person is responsible for their own actions and capable of self-actualization. Voodooists especially places value on the strength of community for support and enrichment. Just as there are differences within other faiths, there is great variation within Voodoo beliefs and practices. In places and times where conditions are very desperate, Voodoo is often focused on survival. In New Orleans many Voodooists feel that part of religion is service to their community, so there is an emphasis on healing and social activism. If Voodoo is just another religion, why does everyone think its scary? Racism clouds our view of Voodoo. It is rooted in slavery and intricately connected to this hemispheres political and social evolution. Voodoo was first practiced in America and the Caribbean by slaves of African descent, whose culture was both feared and ridiculed. Slaves were not considered fully human. Their religion was dismissed as superstition, their priests were denigrated as witchdoctors, their Gods and Spirits were denounced as evil. One of the only successful slave revolutions in modern history occurred in Haiti in the late 1700s. Slaves of African descent overthrew European rulers and took control of the country. Many slaves were Voodooists, and some of their military leaders were priests who inspired and organized their communities to fight for freedom. The Haitian Revolution provoked fear in other European and American colonies that were reliant on vast numbers of slaves as plantation labor. The imagery and vocabulary of Voodoo (and other Afro-Caribbean religions) became threatening and ingrained in those cultures as something horrifying, associated with bloodshed and violence. It was brutally repressed in most places. It became taboo. Over time, American culture became fascinated by this mysterious tradition and began to depict it in movies and books as sensationalized horror. Voodoo practices were dreamed up by Hollywood; most of the disturbing images fixed in our minds are something we saw in a movie. Hollywood created a mythology that we have taken as truth. Voodoo has become part of modern folklore as something evil that can hurt us. But Voodoo is widely practiced in Haiti, and it is still relevant in politics there. Politics and religion make a controversial mix. In that regard, Voodoo is the same as any belief system. In the U.S., many Voodooists are afraid of how they will be treated so they hide their religion. While this is understandable, it also reinforces suspicion that they practice in secret to conceal something bad or violent. Fear begets fear. Cult of the Twins 38 year-old subsistence farmer, Koffi Ameko lives with his wife and four children along the Mono River in Benin, West Africa. Together with the 20 families of his small village, Ameko shares a genetic predisposition to produce twins and a fervent belief in their special place in the vodun, or voodoo, religion. Like other indigenous peoples in this part of West Africa, Ameko, a devout follower of voodoo, believes twins are living deities that symbolize fertility. He worships them as a member of what is known as the Cult of the Twins. This belief is especially apparent during the Voodoo New Year, which generally falls in September, a time when Amekos family structure and his spirituality intersect. As part of Voodoo New Year celebrations, Ameko offers prayers for divine protection of his four-year-old twin boys and other sets of twins in his village. During our New Year, we also pray our twins will bring blessings to our village, he explained. We dress our twins in ritual white clothing, and we bring them to a shrine where we offer food in their name to our spirits. Anthropologist Kossi Djonouku, from the University of Lome in neighboring Togo, says the Voodoo New Year ritual marks a renewal of the bond between twins and their neighbors. Twins are considered beings of divine origin who live forever and will bless all who treat them with reverence and respect, Djonouku said. Because New Year is a time of prayers for a plentiful harvest, twins play an important role at this time as symbols of fertility. Ritual and Sacrifice Anthropologist Wade Davis is a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence and the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow, a book-length account of his investigation into the botanical and animal sources of voodoo zombie potions used in Haiti. He notes that some cultures view twins as symbols of imbalance. But here in Benin, twins here are viewed as two halves of the same soul, he said. As icons of fertility, twins are featured in a Voodoo New Year ritual in which villagers pray for the success of the next harvest. Cassava flour and palm oil are two staples of the West African diet. During ceremonies, they are mixed in a ceremonial gourd and poured slowly on the ground. The mixture of flour and palm oil is a sacrifice offered to maintain the fertility which the twins signifiy, said Roberto Cerea, a former Catholic priest from Italy now living in Togo. Cerea describes himself as both a student and admirer of voodoo culture. The liquid formed by the mixture seeps into the ground, creating a link between the village and the ground which they depend upon for their crops. Koffi Amekos late paternal grandfather and grand-uncle were also twins. According to Ameko, twins never die, and he describes his long-gone elders as being away collecting wood. Ameko showed a visiting reporter uniforms used to dress wooden dolls representing his elders during Voodoo New Year celebrations. After his grandfather passed away, Ameko took possession of a doll carved by his father, a wooden image representing the living spirit of his grandfather. A similar doll representing his grand-uncle is always placed beside it. Ameko also described a daily ritual that takes on a particularly poignant meaning each New Year. He described how the dolls are bathed, clothed, and fed each day. My grandfather and his brother are here with my family. We speak with them every day. They know we are here, which brings them comfort. For our New Year, we dress the dolls in white cloth and green caps. The white means purity. The green is for eternal life. Ameko believes voodoo gives him guidance on family structure and the ongoing dialogue between the living and ones ancestors. The celebration of the link between the living and the departed is a highlight of the West African Voodoo New Year festival.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 05:18:19 +0000
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