Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, And Reality

Haitian Vodou breaks away from European and American heuristic models for understanding a religio-philosophical system such as Vodou in order to form new approaches with an African ethos. The contributors to this volume, all Haitians, examine the potentially radical and transformative possibilities of the religious and philosophical ideologies of Vodou and locate its foundations more clearly within an African heritage. Essays examine Vodou’s roles in organizing rural resistance; forming political values for the transformation of Haiti; teaching social norms, values, and standards; influencing Haitian culture through art and music; merging science with philosophy, both theoretically and in the healing arts; and forming the Haitian "manbo," or priest.

Patrick Bellegarde-Smith is Professor of Africology at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is author of Haiti: The Beached Citadel and In the Shadow of Powers: Dantes Bellegarde in Haitian Social Thought, and editor of Fragments of Bone: Neo-African Religions in the New World. He is a houngan asogwe, a priest of Vodou.

Claudine Michel is Professor of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is author of Aspects Educatifs et Moraux du Vodou Haitien and co-author of Theories du Developpement de l’Enfant: Etudes Comparatives. She edits the Journal of Haitian Studies.