What is the Voodoo religion? Characteristics, history and myths

We review the history and actual beliefs of this religious form present in West Africa.

It is certainly one of the greatest myths of all times.. When we hear the word voodoo, voodoo religion or the famous phrase "I'm going to do voodoo to you", we don't exactly think of something positive. Throughout history this belief has been presented to us as something evil, something related to the devil himself and that serves to harm the people we hate, especially physically. It is a kind of spell, to be understood.

However, for a little more than a decade now, especially pointing to the year 2003 - the date when the Voodoo religion became official in Haiti - that has begun to clarify what really derives from this mythology that has been distorted to the point of ridicule, as experts point out. Millery Polyné and Elizabeth McAlister, are two experts in the field who have helped to carry out different historiographical studies to demystify the "bad press" that voodoo suffers.

What does the Voodoo religion consist of?

According to Polyné, an American of Haitian origin who arrived in the State of Florida (USA) in the 1990s when he was only 14 years old, he was already impressed by the comments and prejudices that were being reproduced when his person was present when it came to socializing. "Even I didn't know my own religion in depth," says the author. It was as a result of those paradoxical moments that he decided to take advantage of his curiosity and study African-American and Caribbean history, where he teaches as a professor at New York University.

As it usually happens in this type of cases, where the lack of knowledge and a bad projection of a distant culture is not very attractive to be investigated, we quickly internalize the first thing that is offered to us behind a screen, especially if it is a series or movie. There are also hundreds of thousands of literary works that have not exactly helped to dispel these black legends that still haunt the voodoo religion.

Nothing could be further from the truth, all the fantasy that has been generated by the aforementioned industry has been flagrantly disproved.. It turns out that the origins of voodoo are to be found in the period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the European powers continued in their efforts to colonize the overseas extensions to continue trading with slaves and import riches from the Caribbean islands, such as tobacco, sugar or rum.

The Voodoo religion is a direct descendant of Roman Catholicism, and some of its precepts are shared with Western Christianity. They have a God who commands spirits to work on the visible earth through flesh and Blood human beings. Curiously, voodoo does not believe in either heaven or hell.. They simply believed in the good work and peace that the ancestors had entrusted to those who professed this religion.

An intentional manipulation

History always repeats itself and, as it is often said, it is written by the victors. And this was to be no exception. Considering that voodoo comes from the colonial and slavery era, the blacks who suffered these injustices took refuge in a religion that allowed them to maintain any glimmer of hope and comfort. It was at this time that the French waged a whole propaganda battle to prevent any kind of revolution that would allow the emancipation of their lackeys.

Indeed, the voodoo religion was at times a revolutionary act that put the imperialist forces of the time in check on more than one occasion. of the moment. As a result, influential global forces such as the Church, Haitian politicians and white scientists began to organize a criminalizing narrative against this belief. Satanic rites, carnivorous ceremonies and idolatry to monsters is the image that was exported from the island to the West.

After Haiti's independence back in the 18th century, the poor locals did not shake off all this claptrap. Having suffered all kinds of humiliations by the French, it was the turn of the North Americans who, curiously enough, gained independence from the English empire shortly before the Caribbeans. Faustin Wirkus, a U.S. Army admiral, saw enormous potential in the riches to be exploited within Haiti, as well as installing permanent naval bases to dominate the Central American seas.

The Haiti tsunami

The memory of the fatal natural events suffered by the island in 2010 is still fresh, when on a calm day a gigantic wave engulfed the entire coast, reaching the area full of hotels and tourist resorts located on the seafront. Today, the area is still considered catastrophic, as well as the poorest country in the world according to a United Nations report.

The Haitians were not spared from being insulted and slandered for practicing the Voodoo religion. Without going any further, the American evangelist and polemic Pat Robertson, affirmed that the natural disaster had been a punishment from God for having made a pact with the devil in the year 1791. These unfortunate statements only incite hatred and racism towards an already unfortunate population.

Bibliographical references:

• Hurbon, Laënnec (1993 / first French edition: 1984). "El bárbaro imaginario". Mexico DF: Fondo de Cultura Económica (translation by Jorge Padín Videla).
• Pancorbo, Luis (1993). "Reflejos del vudú", "El Canal de la Tortuga". In: Río de América". Barcelona: Laertes (pp. 303).
• Seabrook, William (2005). "La isla mágica". Editorial Valdemar. Colección: El Club Diógenes / CD-229 (Translation by José Luis Moreno-Ruiz).