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Vodou, the folk religion of Haiti, is a by-product of the contact between Roman Catholicism and African and Amerindian traditional religions. In this book, Leslie Desmangles analyzes the mythology and rituals of Vodou, focusing particularly on the inclusion of West African and European elements in Vodouisants' beliefs and practices. Desmangles sees Vodou not simply as a grafting of European religious traditions onto African stock, but as a true creole phenomenon, born out of the oppressive conditions of slavery and the necessary adaptation of slaves to a New World environment. Desmangles uses Haitian history to explain this phenomenon, paying particular attention to the role of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century maroon communities in preserving African traditions and the attempts by the Catholic, educated elite to suppress African-based "superstitions." The result is a society in which one religion, Catholicism, is visible and official; the other, Vodou, is unofficial and largely secretive.
The Republic of Haiti is a fascinating country of contrast where are joined together tradition and illiteracy, high religion and folk religion, light and darkness. It is a country ravaged by poverty and afflicted by a considerable social backwardness where people live in a constant fear of a heavy and gloomy threat which impregnates every fiber of the society in which they live: that of Voodoo. Through this captivating work, Dr. Andre J. Louis translates us into a world that most ordinary people would never even imagine the existence of such occultism where superstition, sorcery, magic, spiritism, divination, and animism combine all their strength in order to set up the background of the daily life of each Haitian, which, unfortunately, overwhelms him with a heavy weight of fear, economic bondage and uncertainty regarding his future."
This book is one of the most extensive single ethnographical studies on religion yet conducted in the Caribbean. It is a sociological analysis of the Marian devotion in Haiti that aims to reveal the differences between the Marianism of Haitian poor and that of the Haitian elite, and to explain the forces that underlie these differences, and to understand the syncretism of Marian beliefs and symbols with their correspondents in Haitian Vodou. Data generated through over four hundred interviews with Catholics and Voduisants and extensive participant/observation at Marian feasts throughout Haiti over a four-year period is analyzed and explained with references to the theories concerning religion and class of Antonio Gramsci, Max Weber, and Pierre Bourdieu. Two case studies personalize the elite/popular schism at the heart of Haitian Marianism, while a historical survey of the roles that the Mary symbol has played in Haitian politics reveals both the ways in which the dominant in Haitian society have, since the arrival of Columbus in 1492, attempted to manipulate the symbol and myth of the Virgin to legitimize and perpetuate the social inequalities upon which their power and privilege depends, and instances of Marian appropriation by the subjugated, who have at times transformed Mariology into a source of inspiration for struggle against domination. Historical research also discloses how the Catholic Church hierarchy has aimed to employ the Virgin Mary in its epic campaign to eradicate Vodou from Haitian society. The reason that this campaign has failed is due to the fact that the Virgin Mary was widely assimilated with Ezili, the Vodou spirit of love and sensuality, making Haiti's Maryuniquely Haitian. In sum, the effects of Vodou and of class struggle on Haitian Marianism are discussed and analyzed.