15425: Mambo Racine replies to Karshan on recent Vodou decree (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Racine125@aol.com

MKarshan@aol.com makes a good point when she writes:

<<For god's sake people, this is what the Vodou community has been asking for, for years!!!!>>

The biggest disadvantage to affiliation with the Vodou religion is not this imaginary "stigmatization" that non-Vodouisants insist we feel!  We are the majority religion of Haiti, and we are the main originators of Haitian cultural activity.  We don't feel "stigmatized", we feel proud!

(Let me note parenthetically that Charles Arthur is absolutely right that the decree won't change how we practice Vodou - what we have to do is evolve marriage ceremonies, things like that, because we don't have any.  The only Vodou marriage ceremony we have so far is for a person to marry a lwa, not another person, and this marriage is conducted with Roman Catholic liturgy.

We do have a death ceremony, or rather a ceremonial cycle, which includes the "desounen" and later the "retire mo nan dlo".)

The disadvantage of being Vodouisant (not "Vodouist") is lack of access to social services such as schools and health care, and the inaccessibility of legally binding ceremonies such as marriage.

Most Vodouisants are also Roman Catholic, but if you want to be married in the Catholic church, you have to pretend not to be a Vodouisant at all!  Of course the Catholic church has every right to insist that people who receive their ceremonies are members of their religion, I am not complaining about that.  But the problem for Vodouisants is that there was no other alternative, except maybe the Officier d'Etat Civil.

Now there is an alternative, although some Vodouisants seem to have the notion that this decree will give us access to *Catholic* ceremonies, which isn't true.

Another possible benefit of this decree is that we can start to seek funding for social services - schools and hospitals above all.  Whether this can ever actually work in the current climate of "magouj", I don't know, but it would be nice.

Could I possibly offer a little information?  I'm not cranking, I'd just like to offer it.

<<Check with the vodou societies, of which I think there are at least three major ones>>

I am guessing that the author is referring to groups like "Bode Nasyonal" and "Zantray".  These are not Vodou societies.  They are secular organizations of Vodouisants, just like the Knights of Columbus is a secular organization of Catholics.  They are very inegalitarian organizations, always headed by one single individual, always a man, usually a right winger with a history of association with the Army or attaches or FRAPH or whatever.  Zantray, for instance, just before the 1994 UN / OAS intervention to restore constitutional democracy, issued a press release threatening armed violence!

These organizations could indeed have done much to organize Vodouisants and articulate our needs, but instead they mostly function to aggrandize the individual at the top.

There are literally thousands of Vodou societies in Haiti.  Mine is called La Societe Racine Sans Bout.  Every Houngan or Mambo with a functioning congregation which includes initiates that they have made, is the head of a society.

The members of each society owe allegience to their initiator and to their initiatory only.  I can't stress this enough!  There is no central authority in Vodou, and even if there is a place where we go to register, we will never have a "high priest" or a "central temple" or anything like that.

It is going to be very interesting to see how people are "vetted" when they go to register - will non-initiate Makaya Bokors also be permitted?  They have no initiatory parents, no lineage, no one to vouch for them... how will the people in charge know who is really a Houngan or Mambo or Bokor and who is not?  And within the "orthodox" ranks, will only Houngans and Mambos asogwe (the highest rank) be permitted?  Or will the privilege be extended to Houngans and Mambos sur point?  What about lowly hounsis kanzo, they are initiates too, will they have the privilege of registering?

What about international initiates?  My own initiatory "son", Houngan Steven C. Denney of New Orleans, is licenced in New Orleans, and can perform weddings and so on there, as a "Vodou priest".  It kind of irks me that he could do that in the USA before I and my Haitian initiates could do that here, really.

In order to support his claim, I made a notarized statement here in Haiti and sent him back to New Orleans with it. But he would have been much happier to have been licensed in Haiti before he was licensed in New Orleans.  I am sure most of my international AND Haitian initiates will want to register here in Haiti, so now the next question is, what kind of training will be provided so that people know what rights and responsibilities they have, and don't have?

It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out, and how Houngans and Mambos, Haitian and non-Haitian, react.

Peace and love,

Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen

"Se bon ki ra" - Good is rare
     Haitian Proverb

The VODOU Page - http://members.aol.com/racine125/index.html

(Posting from Jacmel, Haiti)