Interestingly, escaping to Spanish Santo Domingo and seeking out othercommunities of runaways or free people of color were the least commondestinations – each accounting for only 0.62 percent of the sample obser-vations

seeks to makeis to disrupt not only the idea that enslaved people were “socially dead”without meaningful interpersonal relationships among other things

Marronnage was a dangerous endeavor – runaways rarely had accessto food or clothing, were chased by hunting dogs and the maréchausséefugitive slave polic

For example, Cécile Fatiman led thesacralizing ceremony for the August 1791 mass revolt, “Princess”Amethyste galvanized women fighters under the symbolism of vau-doux to help Boukman Dutty attack Le Cap

Africa-inspired ritual gath-erings in Saint-Domingue may have been strictly coordinated on ethniclines in the early eighteenth century,1 but there was more than likely inter-ethnic collaboration and exchange

The Code Noir intended to restrictenslaved people’s everyday movements and activities, while the hierarchyof commandeurs and plantation managers readily used torture as punish-ment aimed to prevent rebellious behaviors. H

. This is the first personal account of an encounter with thereligion of Vodou on a deeply personal level in the United States. It is also a record ofZora Neale Hurston’s courage and insight as a woman of the spirit world. She was thefirst African-American to put herself out there in the uncharted waters of Vodou ini-tiation and to emerge from her profound experience

Belief in magic is older than writing. The way we tell it, Hoodoo started way back therebefore everything. Six days of magic spells and mighty words and the world with its ele-ments above and below was made. And now God is leaning back taking a seve

esoteric knowledge, both simple and complexthat originates in the spiritual experiences of initiates and mystics and is expressedintuitively in the healing and magical rituals of the religion. H

The belief is widespread in Haiti that Ague' T'Royo carries off people whom he chooses to a land beneath the waters.

Guedé is a powerful loa. He has charge of everyone within the regions of the dead,and he presides over all that is done there. He is a grave-digger and opens the tombs and when he wishes to do so hetakes out the souls and uses them in his service.

in the domestic servant who now and then appears before her employer "mounted" by this god who takesoccasion to say many stinging things to the boss.

A was awakened because somebody required his body as a beast of burden. In his natural state he could never have beenhired to work with his hands, so he was made into a Zombie

family and friends, to contemplate the probability of his resurrected body being dragged from the vault -the best that loveand means could provide, and set to toiling ceaselessly in the banana fields, working like a beast, unclothed like a beast,and like a brute crouching in some foul den in the few hours allowed for rest and food. From an educated, intelligentbeing to an unthinking, unknowing beast. Then there is the helplessness of the situation. Family and friends cannot rescuethe victim because they do not know. They think the loved one is sleeping peacefully in his grave. They may motor pastthe plantation where the Zombie who was once dear to them is held captive often and again and its soulless eyes mayhave fallen upon them without thought or recognition. It is not to be wondered at that now and then when the rumorspreads that a Zombie has been found and recognized, that angry crowds gather and threaten violence to the personsalleged to be responsible for the crime

They are the bodies without souls. The living dead. Once they were dead, andafter that they were called back to life again

Vixama

For the firsttime I heard about the sacred stones of Voodoo.

blancs (unimportant whites or mulattoes) are coming." The crew blew again and sat down as the sun was rising. At 11:00o'clock we landed at Ansa-a-galets.

A study of the Marassas and the Dossou or Dossa, the twin gods represented by the little joined plates are worthy of avolume in themselves. The same could be said of the Ogouns, the Cimbys, and the ramifications of Agoue'ta-Royo, theMaster of Waters, the Erzulies, the Damballas and the Locos

Though the picture that is bought of him is thatof St. Patrick, he in no way resembles that Irish saint. The picture of St. Patrick is used because it has the snakes in itwhich no other saint has.

And right here, let it be said thatthe Haitian gods, mysteres, or loa are not the catholic calendar of saints done over in black as has been stated bycasual observers.

There is no mystery beyond the mysterious source of life.

The split body is representational of my splitting as I witnessed andexperienced the earthquake and its subsequent event

the drawing of vèvè or cosmogram-like objects.

While post-quake discussions on Vodou were quick to either dispar-age Vodou for its role in producing the January 12, 2010, earthquake

Theseburial rites allow devotees—whom I refer to as religious citizens—tostabilize the universe following the ricochets of a natural disaster.Such rituals enable a community to assure the ancestors that they willbe taken care of as tenderly and devotedly as possible by the familymembers who could not protect them from (super)natural disasters,the subsequent negligence of the state, or the inadequacies of foreigninterventions

Comparative religion scholar Kimberley C. Pattonsuggests that within the scope of human evolution—from fishy pres-ence to amphibious creature and later, land mammal—all of us longfor the primordial home in the sea (Patton 2006). This can certainly beobserved in the myths and rituals of African descended populations inthe Americas.

imes regard these rituals as “superstitious.” 7 However, it is imperative thatwe come to consider these ritual practices that lovingly tend to the deadas part of a wider cultural philosophy

n the creolizing cauldron of the slavery experience, thesedifferent groups of Africans merged their religious and cultural practicesso that all might survive.

would imply, "serving the Lwa" is Vodous cen-rral practice.

the life force or archetypal orsymbolic force of natural elements like fire, mountains, rivers, trees, and thesea

This mute condition, well known in Haiti andgenerally seen in young women, is considered especially difficult to treat.

When the considerable wealth of the 8 to 9 percentof the population known as “the elite” is taken into account,

For example, a traditional healer may advise a patientto go to a hospital or get a shot of penicillin from the local clinic. Unfortunately, therehas not been the same openness in the other direction.