The History and Practices of Voodoo Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The History and Practices of Voodoo - Essay Example In the documentary, Witchcraft & Magic, Patrick Macnee suggests that â€Å"voodoo is generally perceived as tribal black magic practiced in primitive cultures.† Ross Heaven, the first white priest of Vodou in Europe, explains that â€Å"Vodou is a spiritual tradition of Africa and Haiti† (Heaven 7). Brandi Kelley, the Director of the Voodoo Museum in New Orleans, states that â€Å"voodoo is a compromise between African voudon and Catholicism† (Macnee). While all of these statements are applicable, the history of voodoo and its evolution is somewhat nebulous. In the book for middle school students, The Real Monsters, Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen discusses perception and reality, â€Å"sometimes movies and books portray voodoo as a dark and evil religion that is dominated by black magic and pin-struck voodoo dolls. In reality, these things are not a part of traditional voodoo practices† (45). Bardhan-Quallen relates the observations of photographer Lynne Warberg, who has documented Haitian voodoo for years. â€Å"Participation in voodoo ritual reaffirms one’s relationships with ancestors, personal history, community relationships—and the cosmos. Voodoo is a way of life† (qtd. in Bardhan-Quallen, and Cochran 45). Slavery played a defining role in the history of voodoo. ... Linking their deities [†¦] to Catholic saints, slaves could pretend to pray to St. Barbara, for example, while really delivering their wishes to the vo-du thunder god, Songo† (Davis 8) Open to suggestion and seeking answers within the social constructs that confined them, slaves developed a new religion in which â€Å"transplanted voudon borrowed freely from native Indian cultures, European witchcraft, and other non-voudon African slave religions, for example the Kongo-based palo mayombe. And it co-opted precisely as much Catholicism as locally necessary to prevent the African content from being crushed by the Europeans† (Davis 8). In the words of Rod Davis, a reporter who researched and studied Voodoo for his book, American Voudou: Journey into a Hidden World, â€Å"Voudou took as many guises as necessary to survive, [†¦] hoodoo, root medicine, spiritual healing, ju-ju, black magic, and dozens of other euphemisms and forms† (75). Davis states that †Å"in different areas, voudou has different rituals and doctrines† (9). One can deduce that differing circumstances in each location, as well as other religions and cultures in the region, influenced the evolution of the religion. According to Davis, â€Å"in Haiti, the religion metamorphosed into vodun or vaudoux; in Cuba, Santeria; in Brazil, candomble; in Trinidad, Shango Baptist; in Mexico, curanderismo; in Jamaica, obeah. In the American South, it became voodoo and, in the most extreme caricature, hoodoo, the petty hexing (pins in dolls, love potions, etc.) which most people, black and white, confuse with the real thing† (Davis 9). In discussing people’s attitudes toward voodoo in early