I chose to explore the culture of Haitians who practice Vodou, religion is also known as Voodoo, Vodun, vodoun, Voudun and Yoruba Orisha. I just returned from a vacation in the Caribbean (Punta Cana, Dominican Republic), which shares an island with Haiti. Although, I met a man from Haiti and was reminded of this bizarre experience I had in 1998 when I was driving the orishas (LOA) for inner-city Christian church services. So, I thought it would interesting topic for this task. To make things easier in this essay, I will refer to this group simply as Vodou or vodoun.
Presentation of Vodou and Haitian culture
Caribbean religion of Vodou is blended from African religions and Catholic Christianity. Long stereotyped by the outside world as "black magic", the priests and priestesses vodoun are also psychics, healers and religious leaders, who derive most of their revenue from healing the sick than the target of the attack victims.
Vodou comes from the African word for "spirit" and can be directly traced to West African Yoruba people who lived in the 18th and 19 century Dahomey. However, his African roots can go back 6000 years. Today, water is commonly practiced in the land of Haiti and the United States around New Orleans, New York, and Florida. Today, more than 60 million people practice Vodou across the Caribbean and West Indies islands, as well as in North and South America, Africa and the UK.
During the days of slave trade, and religion is connected with Catholic Christianity. So, in this current century, children born in rural Haitian families usually are baptized in the Vodou religion, as in the Catholic Church.
Those who believe in practicing Vodou pantheon of gods who control and represent the laws and forces of the universe. In the pantheon, a supreme deity and Loa-strong group of minor deities corresponds Saints Catholic Church. These gods protect people and provide special services through their representatives on earth who hougans (priests) and mambos (priestesses ).
Loa (including LWA or L'wha) ghosts are something like saints and angels in Christianity. They are intermediaries between the Creator and humanity. Unlike saints or angels, not only prayed, they were used. They are each distinct beings with their own personal likes and dislikes, distinct sacred rhythms, songs, dances, ritual symbols and special way of services.
rituals, behaviors and practices associated with dying and death
Haitians who are in compliance with the Vodou death is not considered to be the end of life. They do not believe in life after death. Vodoun followers believe that every person has a soul that has the Gros Bon Ange (the soul of a great and universal life force), and you bon ange (little soul and individual soul or essence .)
When someone dies, the soul is hovering near a corpse will be seven to nine days. During this period, you Bon Ange is vulnerable and can be captured and made into a "spiritual zombies" from Wizard. Provided that the soul is caught, a priest or priestess performing a ritual called the nine nights to separate the soul from the body so the soul can live in the dark waters for a year and a day. If this is not done, you Bon Ange can wander the earth and bring misfortune to others.
After a year and a day, relatives of the deceased perform the rite Reclamation pick up a deceased person's soul essence and put it in a pot of clay known as Govi.Uvjerenje that every person's life experience can be transferred to family or community, forcing Haitians to pray to the spirit of death temporarily have a family member, a priest (houngan) or priestess (mambo) to communicate any final words of wisdom.
clay jar can be placed in houngan, or Mambo temple, where families can get to feed the spirit and keep it as a divine being. At other times, houngan burning glass jar in a ritual called Boule Zen. It frees the spirit to the land of the dead, where it should properly lie. Another way to raise the TI-BON-Ange is to break the jar and drop the pieces to the intersection.
the ultimate purpose of the death ritual in vodoun culture send-Gros Bon Ange-in Ginen, cosmic community of ancestral spirits, where they will worship the family members as the LOA itself. After the final ritual is done, the spirit is free to adhere to the rocks and trees and rebirth. Sixteen incarnations later, the spirits merge into the cosmic energy.
Here are some other common behaviors associated with death in Haitian culture:
· When death is imminent, the whole family will gather to pray, cry, and use religious medallions or other spiritual artifacts. Relatives and friends are spending considerable effort to be present when death is near.
° Haitians would rather die at home, but the hospital is also an acceptable choice.
° marks the moment of death ritual wailing among family members, friends and neighbors.
· When a person dies, oldest member of the family makes all the arrangements and notify the family. The body was kept until the whole family can gather.
° last swim is usually provided by a family member.
° Funerals are important social events, and involve several days of social interaction, including feasting and drinking rum.
° Family members come from far away to sleep in the house, and friends and neighbors gather in the courtyard.
° Burial monuments and other mortuary rituals are often expensive and elaborate. People are increasingly unwilling to be buried underground. They prefer to be buried above ground in the development of multiple-chambered tomb that can cost more than the house in which the individual lived while alive.
° Since the body is thought to be necessary for the resurrection, organ donation and incineration is not allowed. An autopsy is permitted only if the death occurred as a result of wrong doing or confirm that the body is actually dead and not a zombie.
Like many Western Christian religions that use figurative sacrifice symbolizes the consumption of flesh and blood, some vodoun ceremonies are literally a sacrifice in which chickens, goats, doves, pigeons, and turtles are sacrificed to celebrate births, marriages, and of death.
Vodou Beliefs about the Afterlife
Vodou practitioners assume that the souls of the deceased go to the residence under the water. The concepts of reward and punishment in the afterlife as a foreigner Vodou.
in the water, the soul continues to live on Earth and can be used in magic and can be incorporated in a member of the dead person's family.
Communion with God or goddess appears in the context posjedovanja.Bogovi sometimes work through Govi, and sometimes take on a living person. This activity is called "mounting a horse," during which the person loses consciousness and the body becomes temporarily obsessed with the LOA. Special priest (houngan) or priestess (mambo) assists in the evocation of gods and help them leave on termination of possession.
Gros Bon Ange-back to high solar regions from which their cosmic energy was first made. She was joined in second over all and through all the stations
Variations
Each group of believers is independent and has no central organization, religious leader, or a set of dogmatic beliefs. Rituals and rites vary according to family traditions, regional differences, and exposure to practices of other cultures, such as Catholicism, which is the official religion in Haiti.
Some Haitians believe that the dead live near the LOA, in a place called "under water". Others believe that the dead do not have a special place after death.
funeral ceremonies vary depending on local tradition and the status of the person. Some families do not express grief aloud while a good majority of the deceased were removed from the home. People who are educated in the burial customs of washing, dressing, and place the body in the coffin. Mourning wear white clothing representing smrt.Svećenik may be invited to spend usluge.Pokop burial usually takes place within 24 hours.
Conclusion
Westerners, or so-called logical people can find vodoun strange and exotic mix of spells, fortune, and rituals. Like any other religion, its purpose is to comfort the people by giving them a common bond. Vodoun network surprisingly well with Catholicism the official religion in Haiti. With a supreme being, such as Saint-spirits, belief in the afterlife and spirits invisible to the protection of patron saints, voodoo is not very different from traditional religions.
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