#3099: Vodou (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Tom F. Driver <tfd3@columbia.edu>

<color><param>0100,0100,0100</param>Returning from a visit to Brazil, I find Guy Antoine's post (#2812) that  
responded to something Madison Bell had written.  Guy is wrestling with the  
question of Vodou's role in Haiti's social development.  It is, as he notes, a  
mixed picture.  Myself a theologian, I regard all relligion, including my own,  
as a mixed picture.  Guy's observations are sagacious. 


Readers of this list may want to look at my study of ritual entitled <italic>Liberating  
Rites:  Understanding the Transformative Power of Ritual </italic>(Westview Press:  
Boulder, CO, 1997).  It has a chapter that describes and analyzes a Haitian  
Roman Catholic ceremony juxtaposed with a <italic>service Vodou.  </italic>The latter is  
seen as the more egalitarian and the more open to social transformation.   
The book also contains numerous references to Vodou in connection with  
the thesis that ritual is not always socially conservative, since it frequently  
plays a strong role in <color><param>0000,0000,0000</param>transformations <color><param>0100,0100,0100</param>of the social.as well as the personal  
domain. 


In Brazil I had my first experiences of Candomble, which is the Brazilian  
version of Vodou.  Long familiar with the latter, I was struck by the  
differneces between the Orisha of Candomble and the Lwa of Vodou.  I would 
 like now to read up on this topic.  Does anyone know of studies that  
compare and contrast Candomble and Vodou?  Is there any literature  
exploring their different lines of development in the New World? 



<nofill>
-------------
Tom F. Driver
New York City
<tfd3@columbia.edu>