Voodoo in Haiti Read online

  With the Revolution and the Wars of Independence a new chapter in the history of Voodoo opens. Gone are the ties with Africa, the Catholic clergy is scattered and official control of religious activity is no longer so strict. Voodoo can evolve freely, sealed off hermetically, receiving contributions only from Catholicism and this all the more easily as the successors of the colonial priests proved lax and superstitious.

  For the sake of clarity it might be worth recalling a few landmarks in the history of events with which Voodoo was more or less directly involved.

  In 1789 Saint-Domingue was the richest jewel in the French crown. The slave population was about 500,000 Blacks. In addition there were 40,000 Mulattos and 30,000 Whites. The Revolution created a profound disturbance among the White population, who wanted a greater measure of independence, and among the Mulattos, who insisted on their rights of equality as citizens. The fever which possessed free men soon spread to the slaves. In 1791 there was a slave revolt. It would have proved nothing but a mad, blind peasant rising, quickly put down, had there not emerged from the armed bands war-leaders like Toussaint-Louverture, Dessalines and Christophe, who knew how to command and organize. Toussaint-Louverture, imprisoned by Napoleon, was destined to die in France, but his generals Dessalines and Christophe, aided by the Mulatto, Pétion, were to annihilate the French troops of Leclerc. On January 1, 1804, Dessalines proclaimed the Independence of Haiti. A savage massacre put paid to White supremacy.

  After the short reign of Dessalines, who assumed the title of Emperor (1804-6), the country split in two. Christophe, having become king of the north, reigned till 1820. The south, under Pétion, maintained a republican constitution. After the long dictatorship of Boyer (1820-33), who extended his power over the whole island, the Republic went through a difficult time until the dictatorship of Soulouque (1847-67), who achieved fame by his parody of imperial forms and behaviour.

  Haiti freed itself from Soulouque only to make way for a string of presidents who reached power by coups d’états or revolutions. Trouble was still rife in the opening years of the twentieth century. In 1915, after the assassination of President Sam, American Marines landed at Port-au-Prince. This American occupation was to last till 1933. The nation’s economy was much improved thereby and since then the country has developed a great deal without, however, achieving political stability. Fresh disturbances and political acts of violence have been added to the long list of past revolutions. Even as I write these lines, Haiti is once more prey to political dissension.

  The rôle of Voodoo, in the social history of Haiti, may be glimpsed from brief allusions in the writings of the nineteenth century. Without these we would have lost all record, not only of popular religion, but also of peasant life. The Haitian nationalists, who set themselves to reinstate Voodoo, claimed that its influence had been all-important on the men who had won independence for the country. Although they might find it difficult to support such an opinion with facts, they were certainly not wrong in thinking that the African cults were a unifying force, and that the exhortations of the Voodoo priests must have helped inflame the hearts of the black soldiers. One historian, Dantes Bellegarde,{19} who on this point is above suspicion since he has never concealed his distaste for the African traditions of Haiti, did not hesitate to write, in his Histoire du peuple haïtien, that ‘the slaves found in Voodoo the ideal stimulus for their energy—since Voodoo had become less a religion than a political association—a sort of “black carbonaro” dedicated to the destruction of the Whites and the deliverance of the Negroes’. M. Bellegarde does wrong to deny the religious nature of Voodoo, though it is true that the circumstances in which the Oath of Bois Caiman, the signal for the Black revolt, took place, do provide a case for those who believe that Voodoo helped directly towards the liberation of the slaves and the independence of Haiti. Here is the account of that memorable night—of August 14, 1791—as it is told to the school children of Haiti:{20}

  ‘To put an end to all holding-back and to obtain absolute devotion, he [Boukman] brought together a great number of slaves in a glade of Bois Caiman, near the Red Mountain. When all were assembled a storm broke. Lightning scribbles the low dark clouds with brief radiance. In a few minutes torrential rain begins to turn the ground into a marsh while a savage wind twists the moaning trees till even the thickest branches are wrenched off and crash to the earth.

  ‘In the middle of this impressive scene, motionless, petrified in sacred awe, the assembled slaves behold an old Negress rise up, her body shaking from head to foot. She sings, she pirouettes and over her head she brandishes a huge cutlass. Now, in the great congregation an ever more pronounced stillness, more bated breath, eyes ever more burning fixed on the Negress, show how the crowd is rapt. At this moment a black pig is produced. The din of the storm drowns his grunts. With one vivid thrust the inspired priestess plunges her cutlass into the animal’s throat. The blood spurts—and is gathered smoking to be distributed in turn, to the slaves; all drink, all swear to obey Boukman.’

  The Bois Caiman ceremony which has been passed down to tradition only in a confused form, was certainly one of those blood pacts ‘by means of which the Dahomeans, in a dangerous undertaking, bound themselves to their comrades. Three things are sure to emerge from such pacts: a spirit of solidarity (for better or for worse), unlimited confidence on the part of all who have been “blooded”, and finally complete discretion as regards all secrets imparted under the seal of the blood pact and unfailing punishment of anyone who breaks them.’ The rites which produce these emotions are very complex but they include the sacrifice of a pig (symbol of discretion, since he proves himself not inquisitive by seldom looking at the sky) and then the licking-up of the pig’s blood after it has been mixed with other ingredients. Once the oath has been taken—woe to him who breaks it. Magic powers have been set up which will return against those who have voluntarily submitted to them. On the eve of a revolt, of which the outcome was still uncertain, what more natural than that the conspirators should seal their agreement by drinking a mystic potion and invoking the Voodoos of their distant homeland.{21}

  A few days after the Bois Caiman ceremony the White masters were massacred in their plantations and the cane fields reduced to ashes. A thick cloud of smoke hung over Saint-Domingue. So began the merciless war which was to last twelve years. The bands of insurgent slaves, who fought under the command of Jean François, of Biassou and other less famous guerilla leaders, were made up of Africans who still practised ancestral cults and of Creole Negroes who were mostly Voodooists. They included in their ranks priests and priestesses who by prayers, sacrifices and charms did their utmost to ensure victory.

  The historian Madiou has gathered stories on this subject which although warped and exaggerated, are certainly related to fact. ‘Biassou’s tent,’ he writes, ‘was full of little, variously coloured cats, snakes, dead-men’s bones and every sort of object typical of African superstition. At night huge fires were lit in his camp; naked women carried out hideous dances round these fires, singing words only understood in the deserts of Africa and twisting their bodies into frightening shapes. When exaltation reached its peak, Biassou, followed by his sorcerers, showed himself to the crowd and announced that he was inspired by God; he told them that if they were killed in battle they would go back to Africa and live again in their native tribes. Then came the sound of long terrible cries far away in the forest; singing and sombre drumming began again. Biassou would use just such a peak of exaltation as the moment to move his bands against the enemy, taking all by surprise, in the dead of night.’

  Madiou tells us of another guerilla leader, Lamour Derance, who was ‘sunk in crude delusions, joined faith to sorcery and to the prophecies of the fetish priests and papas from whom he drew his counsellors. His system was barbarous; his followers, grouped by tribes, were never organized as regular troops. When he went into battle he was preceded by bands of Congos, Aradas, Ibos, Nagos, Mandingoes, Hausas who hurled themselves again
st the French battalions with fabulous courage, shouting that bullets were merely dust. But this spirit, fanned by superstition, smashed itself on the fire and steel walls of European squares.’{22}

  The presence of Voodoo priests and priestesses is also recorded by Colonel Malenfant{23} in his account of an expedition, in February 1792, against a rebel camp in the Fonds Parisiens, in the Plaine du Cul-de-Sac: ‘As we drew near the camp we were amazed to see huge poles stuck at the side of the road each crowned with a different dead bird, arranged in a different position. Some had herons, some white chickens, others black chickens. In the roadway birds had been chopped up, thrown down at intervals and surrounded by stones artistically arranged; finally we came across seven or eight broken eggs circled by zig-zag lines.

  ‘In spite of these marvels I pushed on with fifty dragoons. After a quarter of an hour I saw a camp covered over with ajoupas arranged like soldiers’ tents. Imagine my astonishment when we perceived all the Blacks leaping about and more than two hundred Negresses dancing and singing without a care in the world. We rode full tilt at the camp and the dance was soon finished. The Negroes fled. We chased them right into Spanish territory, killing about twenty. They killed three of our dragoons...

  ‘When I got back I found that the dragoons who had stayed with the infantry had chased the Negresses: two hundred were taken without any harm being done to them. The Voodoo High Priestess had not fled: she was taken prisoner: instead of listening to her and finding out her plans they cut her down with their sabres. She was a very fine Negress, well dressed. If I hadn’t been away at the time, chasing the Blacks, I would not have let her be massacred, not, at least, without having first made a thorough inquiry into what she was up to.

  ‘I singled out a few Negresses for special questioning; some, from the little Gouraud settlement at the Fonds Parisien, knew me; they couldn’t understand how we had managed to get past the obstacles which the expert Voodoo priestess had scattered across our path. It was faith in these—the devices of their priestess—which had given them confidence to dance. Since I had stayed, for a time, on a small hill, to watch them, they thought we were stuck there by magic. This priestess was a lovely Creole Negress from the Boynes settlement and I believe at other times an excellent subject.

  ‘In the year 4 we captured an Arrada Negress in the Saint-Suzanne mountains. She was of the Voodoo sect. This woman was taken to Le Cap; she was questioned but she spoke very little Creole. She was tried by the black Telemaque, and taken into the great square before a huge crowd of all colours. Negroes and Negresses were saying openly that no human power could affect her. Telemaque made a passionate speech; he was not afraid to say it made him ashamed to be black when he saw how easily fooled his fellow Blacks could be. “The hairs of this Negress,” said he, “which are so beautifully curled, so well matted with resin and gum and which you think are so powerful are going to fall.” He then addressed a few words to the sorceress, who, like the Pythoness, was put before a little brazier on a tripod. She was sad and calmly disdainful. Then he ordered a Black executioner to cut off her hair which, to the great astonishment of the credulous crowd, then fell from the scissors’ edge. They were no less surprised to see the sacred hairs consumed by the flames. This Negress was taken back to prison, and a few days later she was sent to a plantation where she became the laughing-stock of the Blacks.

  ‘Let it not be thought in France that all the Blacks are like this: the Creoles and those who have been “Creolised” laugh at and make fun of all this hocus-pocus.’

  In many places where the white man has imposed his law and religion on so-called ‘primitive’ societies, prophets have risen, calling the people to revolt and announcing the dawn of a new era in which the Whites are to be cast down and the native traditions restored in all their former glory. These revivalistic movements, called ‘Messianic’, usually spring from the reaction of a social group which feels itself at bay—the impotent spectator of the slow death of its own culture and values. In a last desperate lashing-out it tries to escape its destiny. Time and again, ever since the sixteenth century, the Indian or half-caste masses of Brazil have lent a willing ear to prophets who have promised them the return of the Culture Hero and the beginning of a new Golden Age. The Blacks, on the other hand, have taken part in such movements but they have never instigated them. Indeed the absence of such movements among the Blacks of Brazil puzzled the French sociologist Roger Bastide.{24} He wondered what could be the cause of such a falling-short—when everything seemed favourable to the blossoming of messianic urges amongst the slave population. According to him it was the lack of a mythology from which they could have developed a revolutionary mystique with religious overtones that prevented them, even in their brutal subjugation to European civilization and bitter resentment of it, from throwing up a truly prophetic movement. Their rebellions have been weakened by the lack of precise and real objectives.

  And it is a fact: the slave rebellions in Haiti do not seem to have taken a typically messianic form. Certain chiefs did, none the less, assume the rôle of prophets or miracle-workers. The best known of these was Macandal who was one of the forerunners of Haitian independence. His attempt took place in 1757. He was an African from Guinea who, having been maimed on a plantation, ran away and took command of a band of fugitive slaves whom he soon turned into fanatics, persuading them ‘that he was immortal and inspiring them with such fear and respect that they thought it an honour to serve him on bended knee and to worship him as they normally worshipped the god of whom he professed to be the mouthpiece. The most beautiful Negresses fought for the honour of sharing his bed.’{25} He seems to have been possessed by a determination to drive the Whites from Saint-Domingue and to turn it into an independent kingdom. His weapon was poison. He exhorted his supporters to do away with the people in the big houses, to wreck workshops and annihilate cattle. Having imprudently attended a dance on a plantation he was recognized and arrested. Condemned to be burnt alive, he put about a rumour that he would escape from the flames by turning into a fly. The crowd, assembled for his torture, experienced a moment when his prophecy looked as if it would come true. Driven by the agony of the flames into violent writhing he tore up the stake to which he was bound and finally pitched out, over the logs. A cry went up ‘Macandal saved’. Panic broke out; but Macandal tied to a plank was once again given to the flames. Although his body was reduced to ashes many Blacks refused to believe that he had perished.

  Today the name ‘Macandal’ still lives in popular memory—but it has come to mean ‘poison’ or ‘poisoner’.

  There were imitators of Macandal during the revolutionary wars. One guerilla leader, who operated in the west of the country in 1793, signed himself ‘Romaine the prophetess’ and announced he was the godchild of the Virgin.{26} He insisted that it was on orders from his Holy Godmother that he massacred Whites. In the eyes of his men Romaine was endowed with supernatural powers.

  When this prophet became a military commander he is supposed to have promised his followers, if not immortality, then at least immunity against bullets. The Voodoo priests who threw themselves into the revolutionary maelstrom always made a point of giving a similar assurance to the faithful. Hyacinthe, who distinguished himself at the Battle of Croix des Bouquets, convinced his men they had nothing to fear from cannon: they turned up armed with knives, hoes, iron-shod sticks and slings—only to be decimated by artillery. Colonel Malenfant{27} who witnessed this engagement said that some put their arms into the cannon’s mouth and shouted to their comrades: ‘Veni veni, moi tin bin li’ (Come, come, I am holding it fast). As for Hyacinthe himself, he went through the thickest fire ‘in range of the pistols, holding a little whip made of horse-hair, which he whisked about, shouting “Forward! Come on! It’s water (coming out of the cannons’ mouths). Don’t be afraid.” After the victory Hyacinthe went to the nearest presbytery to get his troops blessed by the priest—first asking absolution for himself. This shows that even in those days a Voodoo
priest did not find his vocation incompatible with the duties of a good Catholic.

  Although Toussaint-Louverture has never been accused—to my knowledge at least—of having practised Voodoo, Descourtilz{28} tells how on the arrival of the French expeditionary force commanded by Leclerc ‘he had his fortune told at the fort of Crête-à-Pierrot by a Voodoo priest, famed for his powers of divination, only to learn that he would be betrayed and handed over to the French by his most trusted and senior general—the ferocious Dessalines’.

  As a slave, Toussaint-Louverture had practised the art of healing with herbs. It was as ‘herb-doctor’ that he began his military career with the guerilla bands of Jean François. ‘Herb-doctors’ are neither hungan (priests) nor boko (sorcerers) but when treating people they make use of many magic prescriptions; and Toussaint-Louverture will have been no exception. Nevertheless his zeal for the Catholic Church proves that he had little time for the gods of Africa and served them not at all. He did however believe in magic and if what Madiou{29} relates is true he used often to say that if he did not speak through his nose it was only because the Voodoos had cast an evil spell on him. It is to this that Toussaint’s horror of Voodoo is attributed by the Haitian historian.