On the evening of August 14, 1791, in a forest in Haiti’s mountains, slaves from the surrounding plantations gathered for a ceremony of their religion, Vodou (formerly spelled Voodoo). According to traditional accounts, the priestess Cecile Fatiman sacrificed a black pig to the spirit of Ezili Dantor. The priest Dutty Boukman called for revenge on the white slavers.
For many Haitians, the Bois Caïman ceremony, named after the site where it happened, is the real start of the revolution that erupted days later and culminated in Haiti’s independence in 1804.
100 percent Vodou devotee
In Haiti, as the saying goes, 70 percent of the people are Catholics, 30 percent Evangelicals and 100 percent Vodou followers – that’s how central the faith as a popular religion is to their self-image. Nevertheless, Vodou was only officially recognized as a religion in the Caribbean country 20 years ago. 20 years ago, on April 7, 2003 – on the 200th anniversary of the death of the freedom fighter Toussaint L’Ouverture – the Haitian President at the time, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, decreed that Vodou be given legal equality with the Christian denominations.
Since then, people in Haiti have been more daring to speak publicly about vodou, says Kyrah Malika Daniels, assistant professor of Afro-American studies at Emory University in the US. “But by and large, religion continues to be incredibly debased, demonized and misunderstood.” The followers were harassed by the police.
nature spirits and saints
In the 17th and 18th centuries, hundreds of thousands of Africans were taken to Haiti as slaves. In West Africa, in the area of present-day Benin, Vodou had its origins. On the sugar cane plantations of Haiti, the slaves had to camouflage their cult because the white rulers tried to enforce Christianity among them. This is how a so-called syncretism came about: the mixing of two religions. Today almost every one of the nature spirits in vodou – the “loa” – corresponds to a catholic saint.
The fact that the slave revolution in Haiti created the world’s first black-led republic was seen as a threat in the white world. Haiti has been portrayed as a country of bloodthirsty devils, not least in Hollywood – the term “zombies” comes from the Haitian Vodou belief.
But religion also had a difficult time in independent Haiti. According to widespread belief, leaders of the uprising could become gods, as did Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, emeritus professor of African Studies and co-editor of the “Journal of Haitian Studies” in the USA Vodou priests – in the book “Fragments of Bone” writes: “Once in power, however, the generals/presidents, fearing the proven power of religion, banned it in order to secure their own hold on power or for the (European) world public opinion to appease.”
According to Daniels, Vodou followers are still being demonized and persecuted today. Haitian Protestants in particular felt threatened by this. She points to a report that after the devastating 2010 earthquake, vodou devotees who chanted to the spirits for help were shouted down. They were accused of triggering the quake, says Daniels. “When we still had a severe earthquake in the south of the country in 2021, people were quick to blame vodou again.”
According to Bellegarde-Smith, the religion is finding increasing numbers of followers in the United States among young people of Haitian origin. He attributes this to a pride in Haitian identity as opposed to other immigrant groups. Dozens of Vodou priests and priestesses now have doctorates and teach at US universities, he tells the German Press Agency. “As a natural, traditional, tribal and indigenous religion, vodou transcends the boundaries of a religion, it anchors a national ethos.”
