15589: Mambo Racine re: 15516: Hyppolite again, on Vodou and the discussion with VenerableMambo, Kathy Grey (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Racine125@aol.com

Hi Hyppolite!  Thank you for making me "venerable", I never was before!

:-)

Let's talk a little about "decentralization", since that is where your post led off from.  The Vodou religion is much more decentralized than Protestant churches in America - we have no "diocese" or bishopric or whatever, no one to pay us a salary.  Each peristyle is financially independant.

The clergy of Vodou, however, are subject to a discipline every bit as real as clergy of a Protestant denomination.  It's just that we owe obedience not to a church, but to an initiator.  That idividual we call "papa" or "mama", and we have the same relationship with that person as an adult has with their parents.

I have not suggested, by the way, that Protestant denominations or the Roman Catholic church or Islam "are not interested in power!"  But the question is not "how else could European powers you control the natives' mind"!  (And by the way, "the natives"?  Africans were not "native" to Haiti either.)  It was not by moral suasion that colonialists controlled Africans, it was by force.

Of course those religions have, in practice, sought and used and abused power - but it's not a tenet of the religion, at least not in Christianity.  The Bible preaches turning the other cheek, not recouping losses or getting revenge.  It downplays material wealth - "Take no thought for your raiment", or "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven" come to mind.

Vodou isn't like that.  One of our proverbs says, "If you stop me from eating, I will stop you from shitting!"  (Si ou empoze m manje, m ap empoze ou kaka.)  If you steal a cow worth 5000 gourdes from me, I will do a wanga to make you get caught, get a beating or an injury, go to court, pay your lawyer 5000 gourdes and pay me 10,000 gourdes and still go to prison in the bargain!  Now, is that "evil" magic on my part?  I don't think so!

I've used this example before too:

Let's say you come to me because a promotion is becoming available at your job.  You and a coworker are rivals for the position.  If I am like most Houngans and Mambos, I will do work for you to rise AND for your rival to fall, you see?  You will find favor in the eyes of your employers, and your rival might even lose her job, that is her problem.  She should get a good Mambo too!

Now, when you are chosen for the promotion, did I do good to you?  You will certainly think so.  Or did I do evil to your rival?  She will certainly think so.

Get it?

<<Is there a concern from the High Priests in that religion, that they may lose their financial advantages by not being able to perform the "bad"?>>

See above, but let me point out one more thing (other than the fact that we do not have "High Priests", we have Houngans and Mambos).  There is no way you, the Haitian government, or anyone else can prevent Houngans or Mambos from doing wanga when, how, and for whatever reason that we choose.  Neither should anyone presume to attempt to do so.  So this "concern" doesn't need to be "soothened or cured"!  Instead, some people need to learn the meaning of the term "freedom of religion" - or rather, in this case, "freedom of magic", because what you are focusing on is magic rather than religion.

You ask:

<<... will Vodou have its own "Bible", or "Coran", or whatever else?>>

We already do!

I keep telling people, we have a liturgy, we have a prayer book and a hymnal and sacred scripture, but it is all transmitted orally, we do not and will not write it down.  Yes, you can find the lyrics of some of our songs written down, and parts of the Priere Guinea, but we really don't write down much else or organize it into books to be distributed to Vodouisants.  As a Mambo, I had to learn a lot of stuff by heart, and now that is where it is, in my heart.

We are not interested in "propagating".  Anyone who wants to enter Vodou is free to do so, and you don't even have to "convert" or give up previously existing religious affiliations, but we don't go around like Protestants promising people misfortune if they don't serve Vodou and paradise if they do!

People from a Christian background ought to develop their ways of thinking enough to realize that we are NOT CHRISTIANS.  We do not think like Christians, we do not have the same value system as Christians, we do not want to be Christians or to be like Christians, we are Vodouisants and that's that.

The unifying force of our religion comes from it's discipline - we must remain faithful to our instructions given to us at the time of our kanzo or we become "Houngan gate" or "Mambo gate", spoiled Houngan, spoiled Mambo.  If people say that about you in your community, every initiate you ever made is going to die of shame, they are going to come to you and yell at you and get you back in line!  Other Houngans and Mambos will shun you or even cuss you if you violate the rules, you'll be ostracized.

How can you possibly say that:

<<you will need at least in the short term, to have some kind of body that emanates from the religion itself to ensure that most people understand what they're getting into. >>

What they're "getting into"?  Again (and again and again), the vast and overwhelming majority of Haitians are Vodouisants, have been raised in a Vodouisant household and a Vodouisant culture.  The kanzo (initiation) ceremony is something which Vodouisants consider very desirable, something which is greatly esteemed and greatly desired.  If a family has even one member who is kanzo, that family considers itself very fortunate.

As for international initiates, I have made dozens of them, and I find that the vast majority of them have been people who studied a great deal, traveled, did research, searched and searched until they found my house, the Roots Without End Society.  Our house is a very orthodox, very correct, authentic Vodou house, no "New Age" stuff, no improvising, and that is what makes us so popular among sincere international would-be initiates.

<<By that I mean, those who may therefore be willing to reject my religion, Catholicism, or my Mom's, Protestantism. because they're more comfortable with praying God according to their homegrown Haitian culture.>>

You don't have to reject your religion!  Most Haitian Vodouisants are also Roman Catholics, you know that.  We don't have a problem with that.  I'm a Protestant - one of the few Protestant Mambos around, I bet.  I am a member of the Episcopal church.  We in Vodou don't have a problem with a person having other religions besides Vodou.  If those other religions have a problem, that is THEIR problem, it's not our problem.

You suggest:

<<When a potentially vital segment of your population stands firm against the culture of the majority, that country is in serious, very serious trouble.>>

Maybe.  However, it is not up to Vodouisants to change our religion to make it acceptable to that "potentially vital segment".  This is your basic premise - that Vodou needs to be cleaned up and written down and given a central authority, so that people who don't like Vodou might be cajoled into "accepting" or "respecting" it.  Why should we Vodouisants do that?  Why are these people who don't like Vodou so important that we should change what we do in order to suit them?  Bah!  They are the minority, and even if they were not, it doesn't matter - we Vodouisants will practice our religion as we see fit.  Who wants to be happy, be happy; who wants to be angry, be angry.

Sa ki vle kontan kontan, e!.
Sa ki vle fache fache, o!
Gran Bwa ile ile O!
Gran Bwa ile ile,
Sousou pajamen.

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)