Shunned for centuries, Vodou grows powerful as Haitians seek solace from unrelenting gang violence

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Voodoo worshipers sing, their voices rising above gunshots exploding miles away as frantic drums drown out their troubles.

They pause to drink rum from small brown bottles, spinning in unison as they sing in Haitian Creole: “We don’t care if they hate us, ’cause they can’t bury us.”

Publicly rejected by politicians and intellectuals for centuries, voodoo is transforming into a more powerful and accepted religion throughout Haiti, where its believers were once persecuted. Increasingly, they seek solace and protection from the violent gangs that have killed, raped and kidnapped thousands of people in recent years.

The violence has left more than 360,000 people homeless, largely shuttered Haiti’s largest seaport and closed the main international airport two months ago. Basic commodities, including food and life-saving medicines, are declining; Almost 2 million Haitians are on the brink of famine.

From January to March alone, more than 2,500 Haitians were killed or injured, more than 50% more than the same period last year, according to the UN.

Amid the spiral of chaos, numerous Haitians are praying more or visiting voodoo priests known as “oungans” for urgent requests ranging from locating loved ones who were kidnapped to finding critical medications needed to keep someone alive.

“The spirits help you. They are always present,” said Sherly Norzéus, who is initiated to become a “mambo” or voodoo priestess.

In February, he invoked Papa Ogou, god of war and iron, when 20 armed men surrounded his car as he tried to flee the community of Bon Repos.

Next to her were her three children and the two children of her sister, who died during childbirth.

“We are going to burn you alive!” He remembered the screams of the gunmen.

The gangs had invaded their neighborhood before dawn, burning homes amid relentless gunfire.

“I prayed to papa Ogou. He helped me get out of the situation,” Norzéus said.

When he opened his eyes, the gunmen told him he was free to leave.

Voodoo was at the root of the revolution that led Haiti to become the world’s first free black republic in 1804, a religion born in West Africa and brought across the Atlantic by enslaved peoples.

The syncretic religion that fuses Catholicism with animist beliefs has no official leader or creeds. It has a single God known as “Bondye”, which is Creole for “Good God”, and over 1,000 spirits known as lwa, some of which are not always benevolent.

During voodoo ceremonies, the Lwa are offered delicacies ranging from papayas and coffee to popcorn, lollipops and cheese buns. A ceremony is considered successful if a voodoo is possessed by a lwa.

Some experts consider it a religion of the exploited.

“Voodoo is the system that Haitians have developed to cope with the suffering of this life, a system whose objective is to minimize pain, avoid disasters, mitigate losses and strengthen survivors as much as the survival instinct,” wrote the sociologist Haitian Laënnec Hurbon. in a recent essay.

Voodoo began to take shape in the French colony of Saint-Domingue during the funeral rituals of slaves and the dances called “kalendas” that they organized on Sunday nights. It was also practiced by slaves known as maroons who escaped to remote mountains and were led by François Mackandal, a voodoo priest.

In August 1791, about 200 slaves gathered at night in Bois-Caiman, northern Haiti, for a voodoo ceremony organized by Dutty Boukman, a renowned enslaved leader and voodoo priest. They sacrificed a pig, drank its blood and swore an impending revolt against slavery to secrecy, according to a surgeon present at the ceremony.

After a 13-year revolution, Haiti became independent, but voodoo remained oppressed.

The country’s new leaders condemned the voodoo cult, as did the Catholic Church.

Catholic leaders required parishioners to take an oath renouncing voodoo in 1941.

Thousands of voodoo followers were lynched and hundreds of symbolic spaces destroyed in what became the most violent attack in Haiti’s history against the religion, according to journalist Herbert Nerette.

But the voodoo persisted. When François Duvalier became president in 1957, he politicized religion during his dictatorship, appointing certain oungan as his representatives, Hurbon wrote.

In 2003, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Salesian priest who became Haiti’s first democratically elected president, recognized voodoo as one of Haiti’s official religions.

Despite formal recognition, voodoo continues to be rejected by some Haitians.

“When you say you’re voodoo, they stigmatize you,” said Kadel Bazile, a 42-year-old civil engineer.

Until recently, Bazile was a practicing Catholic. But when he lost his job and his wife left him almost two years ago, a friend suggested he try voodoo.

“What I find here is spirituality and fraternity. Being here is like being with family,” she said while attending a May 1 ceremony honoring Kouzen Zaka, the lwa of the harvest.

She identifies more with Erzulie Dantor, the divinity of love represented by a Black Virgin with scars on her right cheek.

“That’s the spirit that lives in me,” he said. “She’s going to protect me.”

As the ceremony began, Bazile smiled and moved to the beat of the drums as dancers twirled nearby, her long earrings swaying to the beat.

Voodoo is attracting more believers given the rise in gang violence and government inaction, said Cecil Elien Isac, a fourth-generation oungan.

“Whenever the community has a big problem, they come here, because there is no justice in Haiti. You find it in the ancestral spirits,” she said.

When Isac opened his temple years ago in Port-au-Prince, about eight families from the area became members. It now has more than 4,000, in Haiti and abroad.

“We have a group of intellectuals who have joined,” he stated. “Before they were people who didn’t know how to read or write. Now it has more visibility.”

That shift is attributed to thinkers like Jean Price-Mars, whose 1928 book, “Thus Spoke Uncle,” envisioned voodoo as a religion, “without making the Haitian elites blush,” wrote sociologist Lewis Ampidu Clormeus.

“Until the 1920s, Haitian voodoo was generally regarded as a series of superstitions, witchcraft, and ritual cannibalism,” Clormeus wrote. “Talking about voodoo was a shame for Haitian intellectuals.”

Since then, voodoo has become a key ingredient of Haiti’s rich cultural scene, inspiring music, art, writing and dance.

It is unknown how many people currently practice voodoo in Haiti, but there is a popular saying: “Haiti is 70% Catholic, 30% Protestant and 100% voodoo.”

Voodoo also has countless lwas, although Ogou Je Wouj, the red-eyed god, has become more important to Haitians given the lack of security in the country, said Erol Josué, singer, oungan and director of the National Office of Ethnology of Haiti.

Ogou Je Wouj is a manifestation of the god of war and is believed to wield a machete.

“They want power in their body and in their mind,” Joshua said of those who seek the god.

While the spirits infuse believers with energy and hope, voodoo priests warn that they do not perform miracles.

“We are praying, but we are also taking precautions,” Isac said. “There are many lwa to protect you from kidnapping, but if you walk through certain areas, no lwa will protect you.”

On a recent afternoon, hundreds of Haitians gathered on a steep hill and crowded into a small church to celebrate St. George, a Christian martyr believed to be a Roman soldier revered by Catholics and Voodooists alike.

They offered him money and prayers in hopes of overcoming Haiti’s deepening crisis.

“It’s very important to be here,” said Hervé Hyppolite, a chef who practices Christianity and voodoo. “You find strength, courage and also protection.”

Around him was a sea of ​​people dressed in khaki and red, the colors of the saint. Some held candles while a handful of women danced nearby,

“Street. George!” shouted the priest leading the celebration. The crowd shouted in response: “We need you!”

Josué, the singer and oungan, noted that some young people who are turning to voodoo are trying to change traditional prayers or certain practices, but he said the oungan and mambos are not buying into the impulse.

“We make them understand that these spirits are a symbol of resistance of the Haitian nation,” he said. “There is a lot of substance in voodoo that can lead to a renaissance of Haiti.”

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Associated Press writer Evens Sanon contributed to this report.

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