MyAyiti.com a Place for Haitian Empowerment!: Voodoo

Showing posts with label Voodoo. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Haiti: Voodoo and the Western Imagination

Drive the pin into the doll. Wait for the witch, the victim and the scream – or maybe turn the football on, instead. It’s film fodder, and as an audience, we’ve learned to associate Voodoo with all sorts of awful things. Zombies, puppets, locks of hair – a pact with the devil, I’ve seen that, too – they might make for a late-night flick, but haven’t got much basis in belief. Whatever we see on TV, the reality of Voodoo is altogether more interesting.

While the stereotypes start on screen, Voodoo (or, correctly, Vodou) begins in West Africa. The Yoruba and Kongo people, abducted as part of the Atlantic Slave Trade, brought its core beliefs to Haiti in the eighteenth century. Though many were coerced into Catholicism, some retained their belief in an all-powerful, non-interventionist creator. Known as Olorun, this creator soon gained a new name, Bondye – from the French ‘Bon Dieu’. His servants, the Ioa, govern daily life, each with their own personality. Relationships are established between follower and spirit through music, dance, and offerings. For all the efforts of the French, these ties began to supersede those of the slave and master, and a revolutionary religion was established.

As Saint-Domingue became the most valuable colony in Caribbean, the Spanish looked to destabilise Robespierre’s France. Fomenting revolt amongst African slaves, who made up more than 90% of the island’s population, Vodou quickly took on prominence. Second only to racism in uniting revolutionaries, French forces became convinced the success of former slaves was supernatural – rather than, say, strategic. Superstition spread as fast as Yellow Fever, both securing victory for the revolution, and cementing the myth of the ‘Voodoo curse’. In 1804, Haiti was declared a republic, and to this day, ‘hoodoo’ remains slang for ‘black magic’ in the Cajun south.

Amy Wilentz's 'Farewell, Fred Voodoo: a Letter from Haiti' among 2013 National Book Critics Award winners

The New York Times reports on the winners of the National Book Critics Circle awards. Among the winners is Amy Wilentz, who collected the top prize for Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti, based on her years of reporting from Haiti.

A love story that examines modern attitudes about race, a chronicle of the days after Hurricane Katrina and a biography of Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift won National Book Critics Circle awards on Thursday.

The prizes presented at the New School in New York City honor books published in the United States in the past year and are selected by the group’s 24-member board of directors.

The prize for fiction went to “Americanah,” the third novel by Nigerian-born author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about childhood sweethearts who move to different countries.

American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sheri Fink’s “Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital”, was awarded the prize for nonfiction, and Leo Damrosch’s “Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World” won for biography.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Video: Mambo Faucia chante pour le Lwa Danballah

Mambo Faucia Dumornay, du Lakou 'Gran Dra' (Gressier) chante pour le Lwa Danballah Wedo.

Danballah (or Damballah) is one of the most popular Haitian voodoo lwa. Aida Wedo husband, it is the lwa of knowledge symbolized by a snake. - Google Translate

Video: Mambo Faucia chante pour le Lwa Papa Legba

Mambo Faucia Dumornay, du Lakou 'Gran Dra' (Gressier) chante pour le Lwa Papa Legba.

Papa Legba is the "lwa who opens the gates", and as such, it is always greeted first in the ceremonies.

Master of the mystical barrier that separates the men from Lwas. He is the guardian of the gates, fences and intersections. It opens and closes paths. He is the messenger of the Almighty Lwas. - Google Translate

Video: Mambo Faucia chante pour le Lwa Ayizan

Mambo Faucia Dumornay, du Lakou 'Gran Dra' (Gressier) chante pour le Lwa Ayizan Velekete.

Video: Mambo Faucia chante pour le Lwa Ogu

Mambo Faucia Dumornay, du Lakou 'Gran Dra' (Gressier) chante pour le Lwa Ogu Feray.

Video: Mambo Faucia chante pour le Lwa Klermezin Klermey

Mambo Faucia Dumornay, du Lakou 'Gran Dra' (Gressier) chante pour le Lwa Klermezin Klermey.

The Lwas or Loas are the spirits of the voodoo religion practiced in Haiti. - Google Translate

Video: Mambo Faucia chante pour le Lwa Papa Loko

Mambo Faucia Dumornay, du Lakou 'Gran Dra' (Gressier) chante pour le Lwa Papa Loko.

Papa Loko is the spirit of vegetation and trees in particular. It is he who gives leaves their healing properties and their ritual virtues. Papa Loko is figure Lwa healer. He is also the guardian of Hounfors (voodoo temple). - Google Translate

VIDEO: Vaudou Haïtien - Salutations La-place et parade des drapeaux

[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ejp0BCraeQ[/embedyt]

Le "La-Place" - abrévisation de "commandant général de la place" est le maître des cérémonies. Son insigne est le sabre ou la machette qu'il manie avec grâce lorsqu'il conduit une procession ou la parade des drapeaux.

VIDEO: Vaudou Haïtien - Ati Max Beauvoir (Rencontre avec le 'Chef Supreme')

[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zulOx0ypVEo[/embedyt]

Rencontre avec Max Beauvoir

VIDEO: Vaudou Haïtien - Cérémonie 'Boulezin'

[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd9vspGFPqo[/embedyt]

Boulezin ou boule-zin : Cérémonie dans laquelle des pots en terre, dans lesquels on fait cuire des offrandes sont enduits d'huile et chauffés jusqu'au moment où l'huile s'enflamme. Le Boulezin est une cérémonie polyvalente qui fait partie des rituels d'initiation (comme celui présenté ici - ndlr) , de consécration et des rites funéraires. Le feu est censé "chauffer" les lwas et leur donner plus de force et vigueur. On expose également les objets sacrés aux flammes des zincs.

VIDEO: Vaudou Haïtien - Cérémonie 'Chiré-Aïzan'

[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMtD2lHS49Y[/embedyt]

Le Chiré-Aïzan est l'effrangement rituel des feuilles de palmiste. Par extension il désigne la première cérémonie d'initation des "hougno", futurs hounsi (initiés).

Monday, March 3, 2014

VIDEO: Voodoo fever hits Gonaïves, Haiti at the 2014 'Kanaval' // RT Ruptly

[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbt7ThYdm74[/embedyt]

Haitians spilled out onto the streets of Gonaïves in their thousands on Monday to celebrate the country's annual national 'Kanaval'.

People dressed up, and danced and performed in the streets to celebrate the theme for this year's carnival which is "heads together for a stronger Haiti."

The 2014 carnival began on Sunday, March 2 and will continue until Tuesday, March 4.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Le Haïti Jazz Vaudou de Jacques Schwarz-Bart

After brilliantly mixed his jazz Gwoka , Guadeloupean saxophonist Jacques Schwarz- Bart returns with Jazz Racine Haiti , a new record , where he rubs his "blue notes" to the sacred music of voodoo. A rich , teeming project , woven music and spirituality. Story.

To trace the origins of the new disc Jacques Schwarz- Bart , Jazz Racine Haiti , a geographical detour is required. Towards Essaouira , far from Port -au- Prince ! We are in 2007 - "or about " , he said - the famous festival of Gnawa music . On stage, the saxophonist from Guadeloupe occurs with Maâlem Hamid El Kasri . During a sax solo on a piece of Sufi inspiration , spirits dance , trance watches , magic darts ! "I see in you the same jinn in Gnaoua religion ," said he, at the end of the concert, the Master of Ceremonies .

The same evening , Schwarz- Bart continues to experience , drunk with fatigue, jet -lag in full , surrounded by Maâlem and drummer Karim Ziad . Twelve hours , " without moving a bone ," he blows his instrument during a "Lila " these nights Gnawa ritual . " At dawn, out of place , I was overwhelmed by an indescribable sensation : a first emotion, almost pre- birth ... ," he says .

Thousands attend religious summit in Haiti mountainside

BOIS-NEUF, Haiti (AP) -- The Christian pilgrims crowded on to a barren mountainside in central Haiti by the thousands, seeking favors and spiritual renewal.

Organized over the weekend by Our Lady of Fatima Bible Center, the three-day summit was among the largest of its kind in the Caribbean nation in recent years. Although the center is Roman Catholic, the event had an evangelical feel, and some elements of Voodoo.

The gathering in the village of Bois-Neuf was called "Prayer, Penance and Conversion," and participants came with hopes of a better life for themselves or others.

Some brought their passports in hopes that their prayers might help them secure a visa to leave impoverished Haiti. Others held aloft photos of sick family members in hopes that their prayers would cure them.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Video: The Voodoo (short film)

A vignette art piece, about an overbearing sexual spirit directed by Steven Alexander.