Don’t Know Much About® Mythology (60 page)

Although commonly called voodoo, this New World religion traces its roots to the African traditional religion Vodun (also Vodoun, Voudou), a word meaning “spirit.” Vodun was recognized as the official religion of Benin in 1996, is practiced by many in Haiti, and can be found in many large cities. One estimate is that 60 million people worldwide worship Vodun. Its followers, called Voduns, are concentrated in Benin, Ghana, Haiti, and in the United States, largely in the American South and wherever Haitian refugees have settled. Also practiced by the West African Yorubans, Vodun may have roots that stretch back thousands of years.
During the colonial slave-trading era, slaves brought Vodun with them to Haiti and other islands in the West Indies, where, upon arriving, they were baptized as Catholics, and slave masters and priests tried to suppress the African Vodun belief. Its priests were killed or imprisoned, which forced the slaves to create underground societies to secretly worship their gods and venerate their ancestors. While attending Mass, as required by their masters, slaves simply continued to follow their original faith. An influential 1884 book called
Haiti, or the Black Republic,
by S. St. John, described Vodun as an “evil religion,” falsely alleging that it included human sacrifice and cannibalism. Unfortunately, the image has stuck.
Vodun has many traditions based on Yoruban religion, including the belief that Olorun, the chief god, is remote and unknowable. Olorun authorizes a lesser god, named Obtala, to create earth and its life forms. The pantheon of Vodun spirits called “Loa” includes Aida-Wedo (the rainbow spirit based on the creation serpent Aido-Hwedo), and Shango (also known as Sango).

Also called Le Regia Lucumi or the Rule of Osha, Santeria originated in Cuba as a combination of West African Yoruba religion and Catholicism. There, as in Haiti and elsewhere, slaves were forced to follow Roman Catholic practices, which contradicted their native beliefs. But finding parallels between their own religion and Catholicism, and in order to please their slave masters while disguising the worship of their own gods, they, too, created a secret religion. Santeria uses Catholic saints and personalities as “fronts” for the traditional African god and his spiritual emissaries, the orishas of the original Yoruba religion. Santeria spread quickly among these West African slaves, and even when the slave trade was abolished, Santeria flourished, its African-based religious traditions continuing to evolve and fuse with Christian ideas, native Cuban traditions, and, later, Enlightenment ideas brought from France.
Santeria has no sacred texts, and has been passed on orally to initiates for hundreds of years. Today it continues in small numbers in many countries, including the United States, where it is still practiced—in New York and Florida, in particular.
Like voodoo, much of Santeria corresponds to Yoruban religious traditions and mythical stories. The supreme god is Olodumare (or Olorun), who is the source of all energy in the universe, and is equated with Christianity’s Jesus Christ. Olorun’s emissaries, the orishas, are equated with specific Roman Catholic saints. Just as Legba is the messenger god in Africa, Legba (or Elegba) of Santeria acts as the intermediary between humans and the orishas. He is equated with the Catholic St. Anthony; nothing can be done without his intercession. Shango, who rules thunder and lightning, is called Chango in Santeria and is linked with Catholicism’s St. Barbara. Demoted from the litany of saints in a 1969 reform of Roman Catholic liturgy that downgraded her along with many other notable martyrs, Barbara was said to have been beheaded by her own father for her Christian faith. When her father was killed by lightning, Barbara became associated with the force of lightning and with death that falls from the sky. That provides the connection to Chango, who is also a god of thunder, lightning, and martial power.
For five hundred years, the traditions of Santeria—including a set of Eleven Commandments, roughly equivalent to the biblical Ten Commandments, with the addition of a prohibition against cannibalism—have been maintained by its followers. These traditions include a belief in magical spells and trance possessions, which both play an integral part in Santeria. The trance possession occurs at shamanistic drumming parties, during which dancers try to attain a sacred state of consciousness and ecstasy.