Vodou Fundamentals

Machine transcript. Names and Kreyòl words may be misspelled. Tap a time to play from there. Also on Jou.

0:00Intro Yonjou, lwa, ginen, yo, ap tounen, Puyo, vini, ne tie peyi ya, Mete Diabyo de yo, Pou Pep Vanyan, Kapab Rebati Lakaye, Se mesaj sa, kte gena chante yo, Se mesaj sa, kte gena kout tambou yo, Se mesaj sa, ki fe, Tambou pa, Chom, Suspon Bat. Rive sou mwen, Nenon, Rive sou mwen, Nenon, Racine Bazile, Dupep, Nande membre mdale, Ta kon sou reglement,ு Mathieu,スpon Batia Konesans. Ta kon sou reglement, Ou met THulem Mwen, Nenon, Racine Bazile, Dupep, Nde membre mdale, Are there enough of scholars of your generation

1:14Patrick Jean-Baptiste in the English-speaking world you wish there were more? We need more, don't we?

1:21Kyrah Malika Daniels We do. We do. We do need more. We do need more, and we especially need more Haitian scholars of Wodou. And I believe that everybody can study anything, as long as they do it with respect and integrity. And I believe that very firmly. And we need to be training more Black scholars of Wodou and more Haitian scholars of Wodou, because we're underrepresented. And because I do think that there is something unique that we can bring to the table as those who are coming from the heritage, not only with regards to language, because language is a major component of understanding Wodou and understanding religious heritage, but also because there are access points that are different for Haitian scholars. And that's really significant, too. Recognizing the ways in which, like, you know, when I do and conduct research with different Wodou communities in Haiti, I do work in Myobali, I do work in Bois-Pouins, I do work in Jacques Mel, I don't call people by their first name. That's not respectful. And I know that not because I'm a researcher. I know that because I'm Haitian. And I am not the equal of somebody who is 50 years old, or even 40 years old. I'm not their age mate. I'm not their peer. So in addition to using titles, like Nga or Mambo, if that's appropriate, I would say Tonton or Tantin or Monsieur, right? Those are cultural nuances that people who are from this culture will be very familiar with, and that might even come naturally to us, you know? And so I think that there are some valuable perspectives that everybody can bring, you know? And I also really think that it would be great for us to have more Haitian scholars of Wodou. And there are some that are up and coming, which I'm very, very excited about. You know, there's a new generation of Haitian Wodou scholars and Wodou scholar practitioners that is emerging, and we have more work to do.

3:17Patrick Jean-Baptiste So, I'm going to say, Professor Kira Malika Daniels, a palm drum extraordinaire. I'm going to say, can you talk about reglement, ritual order, and its importance in Wodou ceremonies?

3:37Kyrah Malika Daniels Yes, of course. So first of all, thank you so much for having me. Looking forward to the conversation. And the first thing that I would say is that reglement has different meanings in different Wodou communities. But what it always refers to is how things should be conducted, ritually speaking. In the context of Southern Wodou, and this is really important, because Southern Wodou and Northern Wodou have a lot of different variations. There are a lot of different genealogies of Wodou, equally valuable lineages, but different ways of manifesting devotion and pursuing practice and worship of the lois, of the spirits. So, in the context of reglement, in the South in particular, when people are referring to reglement, they're talking about certain things that may include prohibitions. They're talking about a sequence of things that have to happen in a particular order so that the lois, lois qu'a guiné, que comptant. And in plus, that they will see that you are handling things in a ceremonial manner respectfully. So, I'll give an example. In the context of calling for lois during sévice, or dance, or fête, meaning a ceremony, there is a particular order in which you will call the spirits. You don't just call them out of any which way, haphazardly or, you know, randomly. You start with a particular sequence. So, that means that you're starting with spirits like avadra, grand chemin. Everybody knows that legba is, you know, the first. But in fact, very interestingly, there are a few spirits whom you call even before legba. That includes uto, the sacred drums. Why is that important? That's important because following the prié guiné, which opens most voodoo ceremonies, a series of Catholic prayers recited in both French and in Creole, following that, the drums can begin. And for the drums to begin, you have to salute un toh, who is the sacred drum itself and also the spirit of the sacred drum. And then after you've called un toh, you can sing to, you know, avadra, grand chemin, who are like the openers of the roads. And then you arrive at legba. Following legba, you go to marassa. Following marassa, you go to papaluku, etc., etc., etc. And so there's a whole sequence of things. And part of the reason that that is important is because each family might do things a little differently, but each family, meaning spiritual family, each temple will have its own way of conducting reglumah. So people would generally agree in the Southern lineage of Vodou that you start with the Gada spirits, then you move to Juba spirits, then you move to Naguo spirits, you see? And so the research that I did about the Nashon was really fascinating to me because it wasn't just something that was theoretical, I realized. It has meaning and ways in which you can see that being manifested in ceremony through reglumah. Reglumah can also refer to ritual prohibitions. So, for instance, when people are getting initiated during rites of Kanzo, which is initiation, there are certain things that people can and cannot do. You're not supposed to engage in sexual intimacies, for instance, when you are working to prepare people for their initiation. You abstain from that, right? There are reglumah that people follow after they've gone through Kanzo initiation in the southern lineage. You can't drink alcohol, you can't eat pork, you can't eat, you know what I mean? So there are all of these different ways in which different family lineages and different temple lineages will conduct themselves and reglumah refers to the ritual sequence of things and the ritual way of conducting oneself and the community. I mean, I think that that's something that's not unique to Vodou. That's religions all over the world, right? I mean, people are very familiar with the way, you know, that Catholic rituals go. There's a sequence, there's an order, there's how things are done. And at a certain point, you might be able to say, oh, well, we do these things, you know, we offer, for instance, you might say, we offer, you know, champagne to Metagui, the captain of the seas, because he likes champagne and we offer, you know, concivo to this spirit and we offer clérens to this spirit. Because they like them, that's what they prefer. But at a certain point, when you keep asking that question, the answer is just going to be it's tradition. C'est comme ça, ça c'est que tu fais. Ou bien, c'est comme ça, comme tu fais. Right? And so I think that that's something that's true of all world religions across the world, that there's a way in which people establish themselves. That doesn't mean that these traditions can't be innovated upon. And I think that that's probably one of the primary differences with a lot of African and African diaspora religions. This is something that certain scholars refer to, like John Thornton, as continuous revelation. And this is a very fancy way of saying that our code of ritual conduct is not set entirely in stone. Whereas traditions of the book, like the Bible for Christianity, the Quran for Islam, Hasidic texts, or the Torah for Jewish communities, they indicate that there's a certain way that things must be done. And people typically will say, you can't divert from that path. But Vodou, Congo religions, Yoruba traditions, it's not that we have nothing written down, but historically, these have been oral traditions. And so at times, things may change, but by and large, we adhere to traditions because c'est qu'on s'aggra mon yoté fel.

9:27Patrick Jean-Baptiste You mentioned Wogan asogwe, Jean-Daniel Lafonteur.

9:31Kyrah Malika Daniels Yes.

9:33Patrick Jean-Baptiste The difference between nation and nation. Am I being too extra with the nasal there? No,

9:41Kyrah Malika Daniels that's a very important distinction. Yeah, I think so. Nation.

9:45Patrick Jean-Baptiste Okay,

9:46Kyrah Malika Daniels nation.

9:46Patrick Jean-Baptiste Okay.

9:47Kyrah Malika Daniels I'm going to say that I really appreciated the distinction because I had written this whole essay as nation, nation, nation. And, you know, I will be very transparent here. I am of Haitian descent. I am a heritage speaker, but I also studied Haitian Creole in school because I wanted to learn how to write it and to read it. And I didn't always speak Creole. You know, my mother is Haitian, my father is African American. So it's something that I learned in a formal context as well. And I knew that the word for country or nation was nation, N-A-S-Y-O-N. And I shared the essay because I think this is really important with elders in the field, with my spiritual mother and also with elders such as Nga Jean-Daniel Lafontaine, Nga Gerdes-Fleurin. And it was Nga Jean-Daniel who said, you know, we have to be clear that there is a distinction between the geopolitical state, nation, and spiritual nations, nation. And that was very illuminating because when I conferred with several others, they absolutely agreed. They said, oh yes, definitely. And I mean practitioners as well as scholars. Like, yes, there's a difference. And I think that there are reasons of a number, I think that there are a number of different reasons as to why this might be, including the fact on a cosmological level, when spirits come in ceremony, one of the ways that often they can be distinguished is because they come speaking differently than humans do. They often will come speaking language, which is a coded ritual language of West African origins, a blend of different West African languages, some of whose meaning we have forgotten, some of whose meanings we still know. But they also come speaking in a very nasal fashion. The spirits come speaking in a very nasally fashion. This is especially true of the Gédé nation or family of spirits. Y'a pas les poissons avec une voix très nasal. Right? And that's one way of distinguishing, you know, spirit voice from human voice. Not all the spirits speak in exactly the same fashion, but many spirits come speaking with more of a nasal sound, especially the Gédé spirits.

12:07Patrick Jean-Baptiste The etymology of the word voodoo. I asked one of my cousins, she's a mumbo, and she told me, like, she just calls it mwesevi. She's like, she rarely refers to it as voodoo. What's the origin of that word? It's not just a scholarly word, is it?

12:29Kyrah Malika Daniels No, it's not just a scholarly word. Vodoo comes from the Fongbe term voodun, and the Fongbe language is spoken in current-day Benin, and it comes from the voodun tradition of Benin and of the ancient kingdom of Dahomey, where there were multiple different ethnic groups, Alada peoples, and Fong peoples, and Dahomeyan peoples, all of Umahi peoples in the north, and all of these different nations of people, and I really encourage us to think about the importance of language when we refer to African peoples. I don't use the term tribes. It's a deeply racist term, and mostly it's only used to refer to black and brown peoples, but we had our own nations, we had our own geopolitical states, so these different ethnic groups, these different nations coming from the kingdom of Dahomey practiced a tradition known as voodun. Now, once upon a time it wasn't called voodun, but voodun was the term that referred to the spirit, so the way that we use the term loa in Haitian voodun to refer to the spirits, or the way that yoruba practitioners or devotees use the term orisha, the Dahomeyan peoples refer to their spirits as voodun, so it means spirit, and there are some people who have broken that etymology down even further to say that hum is the term for spirit, and you can see this because a lot of the terms that we have remembered and continue to use today are either the same terms from fongbe or slight alteration, so all of those words in voodun that start with those hum, like hum gan, hum to, when we talk about the agenikan, there are a lot of these terms that we can still trace today to fongbe, and a lot of them have that hum prefix meaning spirit, and that comes from the voodun term itself. Now, I would agree with your cousin in noting that many Haitians and many voodunisans don't say I am a voodunisans, that's what they would say in the south, and the term in the north that people more often use is voodunis, but many people don't say that, they say I am one who serves the spirits, that's a very common refrain, it doesn't mean that people don't recognize new language, I think now people are starting to, I think devotees in Haiti are starting to use voodunisans or voodunis a little bit more, but many many people who are devotees typically just say so voodunis

15:05Patrick Jean-Baptiste is the plural, right? For voodunis in the sense, right?

15:09Kyrah Malika Daniels No, they're two different, no, they're actually two different etymologies, so vi is also and it comes from small, it means small, so voodunis is like the small one of the spirits, meaning like child of the spirits, but so voodunis is typically the term that people use in the north to refer to themselves as devotees, voodunis means the same thing as voodunis in the sense that voodunis is the way that devotees would refer to themselves in the south, but again, many people would just say, and why is that? That's because of the philosophy of many African religions, which is that religion is not something that is separate from everyday life, religion doesn't exist in this little pocket or this little corner of the house, it is the whole experience, and so I think that that is reflected when people say, it's just what I do, it's when people say, oh, voodunis is not a religion, it's a way of life, I say, well, it's both, you know, and I think that the reason that people push back against that notion of voodunis being a religion is because they associate religion with very formal doctrine and biblical texts, and religion has to only look this way, but I use Charles Long's definition of religion, which I think is very illuminating, he says, religion is about orientation in the ultimate sense, I love that because it allows us to understand religion as both faith and practice, as both belief and ritual, and so if it's about how we orient ourselves in the world, then a way of life includes that and can also be religion, so voodoo for me is definitely a religion and it is a way of life.

16:50Patrick Jean-Baptiste Numerology and Haitian voodoo, what's the significance of the number 21?

16:56Kyrah Malika Daniels If I may just add one more thing, I think one thing that's really helpful when I talk to my students too and identifying the origins of the term voodun versus voodoo versus voodoo, I always tell them voodoo is Hollywood, voodoo is Hollywood, it's the zombies, it's the dolls, it's not the tradition that we're talking about. When we're talking about voodoo in Haiti, it's V-O-D-O-U, voodoo. And I think that that's important because it allows us to differentiate the actual lived experience of people versus the sort of Hollywood imaginaries. So, okay, please pose your question again, numerology, right. With regards to 21, I think that, again, many different societies, many different world traditions believe that different numbers play different functions and different roles. Three seems to be a very powerful mystic number in a lot of different societies. Of course, we know in Christianity, three refers to the Holy Trinity, the three wise men, father, the son, the Holy Ghost. In Haitian voodoo, when I ask about the number three, people will typically say, oh, father, son, holy ghost. Some people will also say it's the three graces. So I think that's faith, charity, and hope, if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong about that. I wasn't a good Catholic kid, so I could be wrong. But I know that three carries an important number, numerological quality because of its connection to Christianity. Seven also is considered a very mystic number. And then, you know, when you think about numbers in terms of their manifestations in the real world, seven is, first of all, it's a prime number. So a lot of times prime numbers are regarded very highly in different societies. But in addition to that, like if you were to take, you know, dominoes, for instance, since, you know, the way that seven is portrayed is, you know, three sets of dots facing each other, mirroring each other with one dot up high. It almost looks like a house. You see what I'm saying? It almost looks like a structure. So there's a way in which seven represents wholeness or completeness as well. So 21 is three times seven. There is one more thing I want to talk about, at least with regards to numbers. So many people, when they talk about how many luah there are, will say that there are 101 spirits or 401 spirits. And that number is really significant for a few different reasons because in Yoruba cosmology of the Ifa tradition or the Ishe tradition of southwestern Nigeria, understands that there are 401 spirits, 401 orisha. And they say specifically that there are 200 destructive spirits and 200 creative spirits, meaning there's a balance. And that plus one is very, very important. So there are scholars such as Fulaya Wood who have talked about this. One Day at Bimbola's son, Kola Bimbola, has also discussed the importance of this plus one principle means that it's ad infinitum. More spirits can also, can always reveal themselves. This goes back to the mention of continuous revelation, that the spirits can always come and manifest or bring new messages to people, bring new messages to religious devotees. And so whether it's 101 or whether it's 401 there's always going to be a signaling of that plus one principle indicating that Mordois can reveal themselves to us. This is the case, for instance, with Desalines and Bucman historically played very important roles in the Haitian fight for freedom and they have become deified. And so they became inducted, if you will, into the Vodou Pantheon and their songs for Bucman. There are ways of acknowledging that principle. So I also think that 21 might be connected to that idea of the plus one principle. It's not 20, which is a nice round number. It's not 30, it's 21. I think that part of that is in introducing or continuing with that notion of the plus one principle.

21:06Patrick Jean-Baptiste A little bird told me you have a photographic memory. Is that true?

21:12Kyrah Malika Daniels That's really funny. I'd be very curious to know who said that. I don't think I have a photographic memory, but I study art, so I would like to say that I have a sharp eye, but I don't think I have a photographic memory.

21:22Patrick Jean-Baptiste Oh, okay. Okay, well, that goes my whole question because I was going to ask you to write off all 21 nationals.

21:30Kyrah Malika Daniels Oh, but you see, that's a good exercise because you can't because there are different people who have different lists of 21 nations, right? And so not everybody agrees on them. But what I will say is that was one of the things that really fascinated me about this research study is most people whom I spoke with couldn't list all 21 because, first of all, 21 is a lot to remember off the top of one's head. But in addition to that, because not everybody agrees. Some people, for instance, don't say that Gede is its own nation. They say that it's actually like a family. And then there are many people who agree that Gede spirits are related to Bawon spirits, but they're not exactly the same. Some people say you have to distinguish them. There are people who say Makaya is its own nation. I believe this is true of Gachel Beauvoir-Dominique, the great late anthropologist and priestess who argued that Makaya was its own entity. There are others who say that Makaya is an initiatory society. So it would be difficult to list all 21 because not everybody agrees on them. I mean, I would say people agree on like maybe seven or eight. People would agree on Gada, Juba, Nagu, for the most part Gede, Petru. Many people would say Petru, Congo can go together. And then after that, it starts to be tied to your lineage and your temple, which other nations are included.

22:50Patrick Jean-Baptiste You just mentioned Rachel Beauvoir-Dominique. What's the role and function of Atsi and Voodoo? Well, you had to talk about Atsi and Max Beauvoir, the father of Rachel. How instrumental are their works, daughter and father, in the study of Haitian Voodoo?

23:12Kyrah Malika Daniels Well, their work is very, very important and I would say foundational. And I wish that more of us cited them. I know that even myself, I have more to read of Beauvoir-Dominique's work. I have more to read of Beauvoir's work. I don't want to suggest that I've been exhaustive in my readings. I know that part of it is language access. You know, many of their works were written in French. But I think that that it behooves us to engage with their work because they had some very significant contributions to make as scholar practitioners. practitioners. And, you know, Haitian Voodoo, I think that there are all different types of intellectuals. I think many, Mambu and Ongan, are some of the wisest people that I've ever met. You know, from their knowledge of pharmacology to their familiarity with navigating, mediating social relationships, providing counsel for devotees, orchestrating enormous ceremonies and fets. I mean, they're some of the wisest and most knowledgeable people I know. And they haven't necessarily all gotten PhDs, but they're organic intellectuals. Right? So knowledge doesn't always come from a classroom. And the classroom can be in multiple places. It can be in the forest. It can be in the temple. And in addition to that, there is something quite remarkable about the fact that Rachel Beauvoir, Dominique, and her father, Max Beauvoir, were both scholar practitioners who had studied history, culture. I mean, Atzi Max Beauvoir was a biochemist. That's remarkable because he understood not only the role of plants on a religious level, but on a chemical level. You know, what types of properties could be activated through medicinal plant baths and through the ingestion of leaves and things of this nature. I think that, you know, the role of Atzi is a word. Its etymology can help us understand the role that it is aimed to play in Haitian Vodou today. So Atzi, people are suggesting, scholars are suggesting that Atzi comes from the notion of the tree being a site, not only a residence of the spirits, but also a pillar of support for the community. And there are spirits, the spirit, spirit, or the Vodun of Benin known as Iroko, is a spirit of a great tree, a magisterial tree. And some suggest that it's the cottonwood silk tree, which is for us in Vodou, the Mapu. And so Iroko became for us Loko. But the term Atzi, I believe in one of these languages, perhaps it's Fongbe, refers to great tree. And so that was what the role was supposed to represent for us. And, you know, people have colloquially called it like, oh, the Atzi is the Pope of Haitian Vodou. And in a way, you know, he was supposed to be a unifying force. But again, I will mention that I think it's really important that we recognize that largely speaking, Vodou is a decentralized religion, like many other African and African diaspora religions. So it's not as if one person could make a decree that every other temple would follow, because we all have our own different genealogies within these traditions and different families practice differently than Asogui lineages. You know, the lineage of Asogui is its own very particular thing. So he comes from the Asogui lineage and he had two daughters. I believe the entire family was initiated. And Gachara Beauvoir de Vinic really was, I think, ready to carry the baton, if you will, with her scholarship. She also had done some really important work on it. So he had done really important, you know, publications with publishing Puyeghine, which very few people had seen in written format before he had published it outside of their own personal temple, you know. And some people said that that was brave. Some people said that that was not something that was wise because you shouldn't be sharing something so sacred and particular to one temple with a larger audience. But I think that that was the role that he wanted to play. You know, my mother, who, her name is Cloutine Michel, but she grew up in Haiti. And she said she always remembered in the 1970s, you know, Nga Max Beauvoir would be interviewed on television and they said, votre profession. And he replied, Nga. And she was floored, you know, that somebody with a PhD in biochemistry would reply that their profession or votre métier, that your career is Vodou priest. It made quite an impression on her, you know, and I think a generation, several generations of people. Now, Rachel Beauvoir, Dominique, in addition to her really important work connecting and identifying and studying Taino lineages and roots of Haitian Vodou, she also did some really fascinating work on Bizango, the initiatory society. And I actually remember I had, you know, the privilege to interview them. And I remember one conversation with Rachel Beauvoir, Dominique, where she said, you know, you need to do some work on Bizango. And I was like, ah, but it, I felt like there was still so much work to be done on Vodou itself in terms of demystifying it and making sure that people understand this is not a demonic tradition. I feel like we have a ways to go with Vodou first before I felt like I would be comfortable doing work on an initiatory society such as Bizango. But I do hope that there are more Haitian scholars who will begin doing that work on initiatory societies because it's deeply important. They have profound connections to Vodou, but they are not the same thing.

28:49Patrick Jean-Baptiste Let's dive a little deep, but not too much into the sort of scaffolding. It's kind of more fluid than solid, right? It will regionally vary, but give us a sort of a basic understanding of how it's structured. What is the shape of the Pantheon?

29:11Kyrah Malika Daniels So we have, the high creator god who is known by many names. The most common name that I'm familiar with is Bon Dieu, which is from the French, good god. There are others who indicate that the name of Bon Dieu is Olorum, which is quite profound because Olorum is the name of, or Oludumare is the name of the high god in the Ifa tradition or the Sheshe tradition of Nigeria. So again, there are these linkages and these connections that we can make directly to specific ethnic lineages and religious traditions on the continent. So Olorum coming from Oludumare and in the Cuban tradition, the high god is known as Olorum. And underneath the high creator god who put the world into motion and who I would say is not gendered. Many people use the term he, but as we know in Haitian Creole, there is no he versus she that is identified by gender. We just say he. So I don't think that the high god is gendered. Underneath, Mon Dieu, are the spirits, loyaux, who have many, many names. They can be called mystéaux, the mysteries, which I love. They can be called invisibaux, the invisible ones. They can be called in the north, especially zang, angels. And of course, we can imagine that this comes from the introduction of Catholicism where we understood that there were angels who do the work of God. So underneath the high creator god who frankly is very occupied with high order functions, doesn't really have time for the everyday realities of humans. And that's what the loyaux are for. They hold up different domains. Some live in the sky, some live in the sea, some live in the forest, some live in caves. And they take multiple forms. By and large, people would say that they have an ephemeral quality, but they can manifest in human mediums or they can manifest in a tree or in a rock or in a wave or in a person. There are also, after that, you know, realm of the spirits, meaning the loyaux, there are zansetchu, there are the ancestors. And the ancestors come in a few different forms. There are those whose names we know and we remember, our grandmothers who have passed, our great grandfathers who have passed, our aunts, our uncles, our cousins. But there are those whose names we do not know who are far, far, far back in our genealogy. So for those of you who are doing the 23 and me's, you know, who are finding out that you may have had ancestors who come from this place or that place, you know, these are the ancestors who really, and Maya Darren says this, I really like this language, the ancestor at a certain point becomes a principal, right? And no longer is an individual person whom you knew and who knew you. It is now a sort of concept. They become abstracted. So a lot of times in La Priée Guinea, people will say, you know, La Priée pour aux ancêtres non connues et inconnues. The names whose, the ones whose names we know and whose names we do not know. And then there are humans. So we have Bonjour, we have Loaio, the mysteries, and the ancestors, both of whom comprise Evesibio. So the spirits and ancestors work hand in hand together. And then you have humans. And in the human realm, there are animals, there are plants, all of them have a sort of divine energy that connects all of us together. Humans are not regarded as necessarily being more important than animals, but we have free will and we have agency. And so we pray to Sansecho, we pray to the Loa for guidance, for direction, and we might also pray to Bonjour, we might also pray to Olum, but typically for everyday matters. If you're asking for healing, if you're asking for strength, if you're asking for courage, if you're asking for hope, if you're asking for everyday things of human experience, you would pray to the Loa and to the Sanse.

33:15Patrick Jean-Baptiste Excellent, excellent. So where do the Catholic priests or Catholic saints fit into this pantheon? Where do the practitioners put them?

33:26Kyrah Malika Daniels Great question. The Catholic saints have been associated with different Loa and with different divine energies. Now, the term that people often use to refer to Vodou and to other Caribbean religions is syncretic. These are syncretic traditions. I really don't like using that term to refer to these traditions because, again, just like the term tribe, syncretic is only used to refer to basically black and brown people's religions, as if Christianity, Islam, Judaism, were not also blended traditions. I mean, in fact, scholars indicate that Jesus was probably born in August, but the reason that they chose December 25th as the date of Jesus' birthday is because the Romans, who were trying to convert the kingdom at a certain point in the fourth century, realized, hmm, the winter solstice is a really big holiday for these Greek quote-unquote pagans. And so if we align it at the same time with the winter solstice festival, then we're more likely to be able to convert more people to Christianity. So to me, that's an example of a syncretic faith. So if we talk about all world religions as syncretic, no problem. But if you're going to just talk about African-derived religions, no. So I call them blended religions. One of the things that we have to understand, of course, is that Christianity was imposed upon African descendants in the Americas. There's no doubt about it. And Africans, by and large, and African descendants were forbidden from practicing African religions. Now, there is an important historical nuance that we have to incorporate here. And that refers to or that must incorporate our understanding of the Congo kingdom. And I promise I'm going somewhere with this, Patrick. Don't think I've lost my train of thought.

35:04Patrick Jean-Baptiste Oh, no, no. You're good. You have photographic memory, remember?

35:09Kyrah Malika Daniels Right, supposedly. I better live up to it. In 1486, the Portuguese arrive in what is the kingdom of Congo today. This is the regions of Gabon, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola. There is a sliver about the size of California in these coastal regions that was known as the Congo kingdom. And the king at the time who met the Portuguese. I'm sorry, and

35:36Patrick Jean-Baptiste that's Congo with a K. Sorry, that's

35:38Kyrah Malika Daniels Congo with a K, right? That's absolutely correct. Yeah, there was no C in the orthography. Yes, exactly. So Congo kingdom, they were met at the time by King Nzinga Angu. And King Nzinga Angu said, hmm, this Catholicism thing, this is really interesting. Tell me more about it. And so the Portuguese brought more missionaries, Capuchin missionaries in particular. And in 1491, King Nzinga Angu converts to Catholicism. He becomes baptized as King João I. So this is a year before Columbus arrives in the Americas to cause all the devastation that he did. You have a Congo king on the African continent converting to Catholicism. Now we know that Christianity has a very long legacy in Egypt and in Ethiopia. And in fact, Ethiopia is like the second nation to become Christian in the world. And Africans were Christian before Europeans. You know, the King Ezana converts his Aksum kingdom in Ethiopia to Christianity. And they became Ethiopian Orthodox Christians in the fourth century before Constantine converts Rome to Christianity. But on the western side of the continent, you have a very early introduction to Christianity as well. So in 1491, King João I becomes baptized. Now here's the part that they don't tell you. He reverts back to indigenous religion. He tries it on for a little while and says, I don't like this. I'm going back to my ancestral religion. But he has two sons who battle over the kingdom when he died. One son was for indigenous religion. one son was for Catholicism. And the son who had converted to Catholicism and wanted to convert the kingdom won the battle for the throne. So King Afonso I converts the kingdom of Congo to Catholicism as a whole. Now, it's really important to recognize that this would be an Africanizing of Christianity, a Congoization, if you will, of Catholicism that takes place. So people were becoming baptized. They would do what's called kudiamungwa, which means to eat salt. But it's important to know that parts of these baptisms were also tied to indigenous religion. People would eat salt because they understood it as a way to ward off negative evil forces or negative spirits. They would become baptized because the simbi, which is the name for spirits, it's the equivalent of loa or orisha, the basimbi in the plural, would initiate you in the waters. So they were engaged in this Catholicism, but they were simultaneously engaging with their ancestral indigenous religion of Congo as well. Why is that important? That's important because that means that Congo as a region has been Catholic for 500 years, but it has definitely been an Africanized Catholicism. And this is also important because the about 60 to 70 percent of those who were fighting during the Revolutionary War. And at the time that the Revolutionary War broke out in Haiti in 1791, about 60 to 70 percent of those enslaved were African born. 60 to 70 percent of them were African. And of those, roughly 60 to 70 percent were coming from Central Africa.

38:54Patrick Jean-Baptiste And that's out of about 500,000 enslaved coming, if I remember correctly, right, by 1791. Yeah. And out of that, 60, 70 percent of them came from that region.

39:10Kyrah Malika Daniels And it's important to note that different regions had different population demographics. So, for instance, earlier on, we had more Senegambians who were brought at different periods of historical junctures. You had more people coming from Yoruba land, more people coming from the Gambia, you know, so different times. But at the time of the Haitian Revolution, 60 to 70 percent of those born on the continent were coming from Central Africa, and many of them were coming from Congo Kingdom or the neighboring Ndongo Kingdom. So I raised that why? Because from so early on, yes, it is important that we recognize the devastating colonial realities of imposing Catholicism on African descendants. But there was also a large population who would have already been used to an African Catholicism. And in fact, King Afonso I, right in the final battle that he fights against his brother, he says that a vision came to him. And the vision was that St. George appeared, or excuse me, St. James, that's important. St. James appeared to him in a vision. We know as Saint-Jacques, who is associated with Ogu, and the Virgin Mary, whom we know has many manifestations as And so that's important because while it is true that Africans did have to hide their spirits behind the Catholic saints, not all Africans were being introduced to Christianity and to Catholicism for the first time in the Americas. Congolese citizens would have already been familiar with the saints and would have understood them as being Africanized themselves. I'll give that historical context. Okay, I'll tell one more story and you can decide how much of it

40:55Patrick Jean-Baptiste you're going to put in this podcast. You tell all of it. And if you can talk about Beatrice, was it Beatrice?

41:00Kyrah Malika Daniels You see, that's a perfect segue. That's exactly who I was going to mention right now. Look at you, Patrick, you have done your

41:05Patrick Jean-Baptiste homework. I could listen to you all day.

41:09Kyrah Malika Daniels Very kind. So I'm so glad you mentioned that because that's actually, again, a really important part of understanding who was coming to Saint-Domingue during this period. So in the late 1690s, probably in 1684 or 1686, a woman was born named Kimpa Vita. She was initiated as a healer and as a priestess. The term that they used at the time in that region was Nganga Marinda. And Nganga means healer. Nganga means healer and typically diviner. When you say, for instance, Nganga Ngombo in the regions where I do my work in Congo, it means diviner. So Nganga Marinda was somebody who could be a spiritual medium. So she was first involved in indigenous religion. When she became about 17, 18, she fell ill with a horrible, horrible ailment. She became bedridden. And during that time, she experienced a vision. And the vision was of Saint Anthony who came to her and shared that she would be healed. It was him who would heal her. And he would come to her through what we know as ritual mountings or visitations to spread the word of peace because the Congo kingdom at the time was divided and was experiencing deep political conflicts and civil war. He would come to usher in peace and to provide healing to the citizens of Congo. She was healed. She converted to Catholicism. And so Kimpa Vita became baptized as Dona Beatrice. Dona Beatrice became a magnificent and powerful healer. She traveled all over the Congo kingdom on foot trying to negotiate peace deals between warring political factions. She was successful in some places, not as successful in other places, and she was a great healer. She healed hundreds of people who were suffering from this condition. She was kind of like a female Jesus. And in fact, as part of her proselytizing, if you will, as part of her message to convey to people, she explained that she was mounted by St. Anthony, that she was an incarnation of St. Anthony. And she explained, this is the part that I love, God was black, Mary was black, Jesus was black, and guess what? Bethlehem was Mbanza Congo, the capital of the Congo kingdom. This is what we're referring to when we're talking about the Africanization of Catholicism. And she had disciples who worked alongside her, but the story, the narrative that she explained was that I am continually mounted by St. Anthony. Now, one of her and her disciples became physically close, I should say emotionally close, and then physically close followed. They knew each other in the biblical way, as we might say. She became pregnant. And when she became pregnant, several of the warring political leaders used this as an excuse to attack her. They had already decided that she was a political threat because she was trying to unite the kingdom, and many of the political leaders at the time who were part of these warring factions wanted to have their own jurisdictions and their own kingdoms, so it was not in their best interest to have the Congo kingdom united again. At this time, the kingdom of Congo is being ravaged by European slave traders who are coming and who are taking advantage and manipulating these warring political factions to obtain more enslaved peoples to bring to the Americas. This is the Portuguese and the French in the Congo kingdom. And she's a political threat. And so they use the fact that she became pregnant as a way of trying to debunk her narrative as I am an incarnation of St. Anthony. They say, well, St. Anthony is a male saint and a saint wouldn't be having carnal relations. And so they took her as a pregnant woman who was incarnating St. Anthony and her disciple partner and burned them at the stake. This was in 1701 or 1702, something like this, the first few years of the 1700s. Now, all of those who had devoted themselves to following the path of Quimpa Vita, now known as Dona Beatrice, called themselves Antonians. They regarded themselves as Congolese and as Catholics. Many, now we know that so many of those who were African born at the time of the Haitian Revolution were coming from Congo kingdom. So we can imagine that many of them were very likely to have been Antonians. Right? So I say all of this to say like I think that it's very possible that one of the reasons that St. Jacques Magel is such a major Catholic presence in Haiti, whom we associate with Ogu, is because from almost 500 years ago, St. Jacques as St. James played such a prominent role in the Congo kingdom. I don't think that's the only reason, don't get me wrong, but it is to suggest that the alliances or the associations that the Catholic saints have with Vodou spirits who, let me be clear, are African spirits, it is not something that was exclusively done. This wasn't a top-down approach. This wasn't the church who said, ah, well, you know, that St. George of ours, he seems an awful lot like your Ogu, and so you should connect them. No, this was a bottom-up approach of cosmological infrastructure, if you will, of people saying, hmm, these depictions of these saints, this Mother Mary or this St. Sebastian is a really wonderful example because he is portrayed in the chromolithographs as, you know, a saint who became a martyr and who's riddled with arrows tied to a tree. So he became associated with Gamboa, who is a great forest mystic healer, who is associated and depicted as being connected to and even having limbs that are branches, a trunk, you know, that is his torso, and then a heart-shaped face. So the iconography at times is very aligned with the representations of these saints, and I really want to make clear that that is something that African descendants had to do because they were forced to practice Catholicism, but also that, especially for Central Africans and Congolese citizens, they would have already been used to making those connections between their indigenous spirits, their Basimbi, or their Orisha, or their Vodun, and that they started doing with these Catholic sins that they were being introduced to in the Americas.

47:44Patrick Jean-Baptiste So let's go over the four, you call them the four Potomita nations. Radha, Nago, Petro Congo, and Gede. How did you come to the conclusion that these are, in fact, the four spiritual pillars in Haitian Voodoo? Is that a scholarly classification, or did you derive that from your interactions with the practitioners or studying the practitioners overall?

48:14Kyrah Malika Daniels Both. And I think that that's how all good research should be done. You know, this is, yeah, it's an argument that I'm making, it's an assertion that I'm putting forth, but it's based off of many years of research, many conversations, and interviews with devotees. And the reason that I call them the Potomita is because while there are some houses for whom Juba nations, for instance, may play a more prominent role, other houses for whom Sneigal nations might play a more prominent role, by and large, most Vodou temples of the southern lineage, you would be hard-pressed to go to a fet or a ceremony where these four nations are not being invoked. It would be very difficult to attend a fet and to see these four nations not being invoked. Even if not every single one of the 21 nations is being called, you will definitely hear these four nations being called. So that's how I identified them as the Potomita. But if I'm really, you know, if we're keeping in line with this language that I like that you've introduced for us of superstructure or the structure, I would say that these are like the four biggest masts, the largest Potomita, and then there are other smaller Potomita, because many Vodou lineages would also absolutely call Juba, you have to call Kuzne Saka. Like, I don't know very many southern houses where you could not call Kuzne Saka, you know, but I don't know very many temples where they always call Senegal nations, for instance, or they also call Wangal nations. And of course, here we can think about the sound where these nations originating from, Senegal, Senegal, and Wangal coming from Angola. And what's really interesting there is like I've read and it's very hard to find any information about the Senegal nation. This is something I'd really like to do more research on, but my research has indicated that those who come as Senegal spirits purportedly speak a language that sounds like Arabic. They use salutations that sound like, As-salam alaykum, as-salam, which is peace be upon you and to you, may peace be upon you, which is the greeting and the response that you give to Muslim brothers, sisters, and siblings. And then in addition to that, that they refuse to eat pork. Now we know, So if you have spirits who are coming who are not eating pork, that's quite significant. It stands out. Of course, we understand that Muslims do not eat pork as part of their devotion, as part of their prohibitions, as part of their reglumah, we could say. And it's also said that they perform what looks like a bowing gesture of prayer in a particular direction, which looks like salat, the five daily prayers that Muslims will engage in throughout the day facing Mecca. And so these different nations, I think, could play different supporting roles depending on the temple and the location and the Vodou genealogy that each spiritual family has. But I would say that these four in southern Vodou, you can't have a ceremony without calling Rada, Petro-Congo, Gede, and Nago nations.

51:19Patrick Jean-Baptiste On the northern Haiti practices and southern Haiti practices, can you dive a little deeper into the contrasts and differences that you saw that you laid out in the article? Sure. Just a few. Compare and contrast.

51:40Kyrah Malika Daniels And here I'll say I'm not a scholar of northern Vodou. I have done some research in the north, but there are other scholars, including some up-and-coming scholars whose work I'm very excited about, who are doing work in northern Vodou temples. So in my understanding, Gunaive is a real base of... It's a pilgrimage site. It is a site of spiritual center. So this is something that you see very commonly in other world traditions. For instance, in the Yolba tradition, it's understood that Ili'ife is the center of the world, the cosmological center of the world. You know, in the context of Christianity and Islam, and to a certain extent, you know, or I should say Christianity and Judaism, and to a certain extent, Islam, Jerusalem is a sacred city center. Gunaive is a sacred city center for northern Vodouiza, and we can say for all Vodouiza, so for Vodouvi in the north. Why? Because there are several major pillar temples in or surrounding Gunaive. The three most well-known include Laku Sucri, sometimes known as Laku Sucri Danash, which is more Congo-based, more connected to the Congo lineages of Vodou. In addition to Laku Sucri, there is Laku Bajo, which is more connected to the Nago nation and to the Yoruba traditions of Nigeria, southwestern Nigeria. And then you have Laku Sucras, which is more connected to the Gada nation and the Nahomian lineages of Vodou. They all have their different origin stories. So for instance, Laku Sucras, which lost its spiritual leader, they've been looking to fill that role. So the Laku Sucras origin story, one of the origin stories is that there were Dahomian soldiers who were conscripted to become part of the royal army for King Henry Christophe in the north of Haiti. And that some of these Dahomians coming from Benin brought their ancestral religion with them during the early 1800s. And that they, some of those members founded Laku Sucras as a way of honoring the Vodou traditions that they were familiar with. So that's one origin story. There may be more. And each, you know, Laku has its own lineage. Now, I want to be very clear. And there's some exciting new scholars such as Alexandria Saint-Pérez, who are doing really exciting research in the north. And there are many others who have done research in the north as well. Well, I shouldn't say many others. That's something that we need to work more on in the United States. There are more Haitian scholars in Haiti doing work in the north. We need more folks doing that work in the U.S. But who explain that it is not as if in Laku Sucuy, for instance, only Congo spirits are honored, like Mama Chamba or spirits like Lemba. There are other spirits who are honored as well. So Gede spirits may still be honored. Nago spirits, warrior nations may still be honored. But that that is a primary focus of the pantheon in each of those respective three Laku. And I'll mention here that in the north, they don't typically have the same Aso Gwe lineage. They use the Kwa Kwa, which is a different ritual rattle. Now, in Haitian Vodou of the south, you have the Aso, which is used to salute the Gada spirits and then certain other spirits in certain families, like certain Nago spirits. And then the Kwa Kwa or the Cha Cha, which is also a secular musical instrument, but is used in a ritual context. And Vodou is used in the south to salute like the Peto spirits, Bawon spirits, things of this nature. And then in the north, it's typically one ritual rattle that is used, which is the Cha Cha or the Kwa Kwa. So that's another difference. You know, initiation happens in these Laku, but it is not quite the same as the Aso Gwe lineage of the south, which is a very formal and hierarchical system of initiation. You know, there's like entry level for Unsi. So Un, once again, coming from Fongbe, meaning spirit, and Si, meaning bride in Fongbe. So Unsi is literally brides of the spirit. And that's not gender specific. Any initiate is known as Unsi. Now, we don't know and typically say, oh, you become a wife of the spirit or a bride of the spirit anymore. But that's what the term means. Unsi. So Unsi is entry level in the south. It means you're initiated to a particular house. And then there is initiation at the priesthood level, which would be known as, if you're doing Konzo, you would be initiated at the priesthood level. There's like that first level. And then the last level is Ungan or Mambo Asogui, meaning that you have been trained in the rites of the rattle. You can conduct ceremony. You can conduct ritual. You can call the spirits. You can send spirits away. And you can start your own temple. When you're initiated at the first priesthood level, which is known as Supwe, it means that you've been trained in the ritual rattle language. You can serve the spirits. You can conduct ceremony. But you cannot necessarily open your own temple. When you have been initiated as Ungan or Mambo Asogui, typically that means that in theory, not everybody should run out and start your own temple. You have a lot to learn when you're initiated, right? But in theory, you could one day start your own temple and your own initiations. That's differentiated in the north where there isn't such a hierarchical system of initiation. And many families just engage in, you know, this is what my elders did. So this is what I do. You don't have to be initiated at all. It's like, And we serve the spirits. We serve the law. But there isn't necessarily needed a formal initiation. That's how much of Vodou in the countryside functions and many other family lineages.

57:19Patrick Jean-Baptiste Maafuta-i?

57:21Kyrah Malika Daniels I have no idea. Maafuta-i? La bonda-fashe-kotishita. A te. So some people will say that that comes from, like, different, and this is why langage is so. Okay. So if you're interested in langage, a good person for you to reach out to. Now, she's young. She's young and she doesn't have a book out. She's a graduate student. But she is, I mean, brilliant. She's a linguist. A linguistic anthropologist studying langage. And she is studying African languages because she makes this excellent argument. She's my student, you know, transparency. But she's brilliant. She's at GSU and she's applying to doctoral programs right now. And she makes an argument like you can, it's not like this is glossolalia. That langage is just nonsense words. She says, no, they're African words whose origin and whose meaning we've forgotten because of the trauma of slavery and because of 500 years. But if you study Fongbe, if you study Kikongo, if you study Yoruba, you can find the meanings of these terms, even if they've changed a little bit. Like, for instance, another example is like Dogwe or Dogwe-san. Like Dogwe is the ritual salutation and the ritual bowing, the prostration that you do. It's similar to in Yoruba, they talk about Dobale. And so if you ever see like an Iberian initiate or even those African-Americans who are initiated to the tradition, when you see somebody greet an elder in the tradition, they'll Dobale. They'll do this ritual salutation on the floor. We have one that's similar. It's called the Gwe Tats Fongbe. Like we know where it comes from. That's what that word means. But other ones we don't know. So Mafutai, that's some research that needs to be done.

59:06Patrick Jean-Baptiste So Alexandra, your mentor slash advisor, Dr. Malika Daniels, Kira Malika Daniels, said you would be the best person to ask. Do you know where Mafutai comes from?

59:24Kyrah Malika Daniels I do. Yeah, because you know, that's actually what my whole, basically my whole research is about. Wow. And that is the linguistic aspect to Vodou. And for example, there is linguistic variation. You hear some people say Mafutai, Afutai. It's actually Afutai. And Ai is meaning earth. So it's coming from the language of Fongbe, the kingdom of Daome. Where Ai is, Ai means earth. And so when you're saying Afutai, you're basically giving a salutation. So you salue la terre.

1:00:03Patrick Jean-Baptiste Oh, wow.

1:00:04Kyrah Malika Daniels Okay.

1:00:04Patrick Jean-Baptiste And what about the response? Bilo, Bilo. Is it Bilo, Bilo?

1:00:09Kyrah Malika Daniels Bila, Bila, Congo.

1:00:12Patrick Jean-Baptiste So what's Bila, Bila?

1:00:13Kyrah Malika Daniels Bila, Congo basically is great praises to the Congo, like great praises to the Congo lineage.

1:00:19Patrick Jean-Baptiste Wow. So it's Afutai or Mafutai sometimes it changes. Okay. So it's that whole call and response, right? It's the whole call and response.

1:00:28Kyrah Malika Daniels Yes. It's the call and response. And you've some linguists or depending on what sources that you're using, they'll have Bila, which would be meaning to call or to honor. But when you put it all together, because it's very contextual, actually. Very, very contextual. And you'll find that a lot of times in language that the meaning changes based on the song, based on the national it's coming from. But yeah, Afutai, to honor, to give praises to the earth. And then Bila, Bila, Congo. Great praises to the Congo kings, to the Congo spirit.

1:01:07Patrick Jean-Baptiste So do you find practitioners know the meaning of it or is this just something they just say by tradition? Do you think they know the meaning behind it as well?

1:01:19Kyrah Malika Daniels So actually, that was one of my own research question is what are devotees understanding of the African heritage and linguistic connection? And you find that, I mean, some do and some, they have more of a poetic meaning to it, but not the linguistic, like breaking down the words, the morphemes and looking at what does this morpheme mean? What does this word mean? It depends on who the practitioner, who the devotee is. But in my experience, a lot of people don't have that direct one-to-one correlation, but they can give you more so of a poetic, a more contextual understanding. Thank you. Here we have some proof of origin. !

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