Are Voodoo Dolls Real?

Question: Are Voodoo Dolls Real?

Answer:

The Myth

Popular culture depicts the “Voodoo doll” as a poppet bearing the resemblance of an enemy. The target is cursed with misfortune, pain and even death via the thrusting of pins into the doll. Such items are not a part of traditional Vodou, although some Vodouisants, primarily in New Orleans, have now adopted them, often for sale to tourists.

Possible Origin

Tales of similar poppets have existed in European witch folklore for centuries.

It’s certainly possible that Europeans, knowing very little about Vodou and commonly decrying it as evil and Satanic, merged rumors of Vodou with familiar witchcraft rumors from back home.

Pwen

In Vodou, a pwen is an item filled with particular components that appeal to a particular lwa. They are meant to attract a lwa and gain its influences for a person or place. Pwen come in a variety of forms, including dolls. Pwen dolls can be found in a variety of forms, from crude poppets to elaborate works of art.

Source:

Catherine Beyer, Alternative Religions Expert

Article found on & probably owned by About.com

What is Vodou?

Vodou, sometimes referred to as Voodoo, is a religion that blends Catholicism with West African diasporic faiths. Primarily practiced in the Caribbean, Vodoun incorporates ancestor worship and animism alongside saints and African gods. Many of the traditions followed today are directly related to those brought to Haiti by enslaved Africans hundreds of years ago. During the colonization of Hispaniola, Africans from many different tribes brought their customs with them.

These beliefs were blended with the native Taino Indians of Haiti, along with the influence of Spanish and French Catholicism.

During the late 18th century, there were a number of slave rebellions in Haiti, and former slave Touissaint L’Ouverture led battles against the French colonists. Haitian lore attributes L’Ouverture’s success to a Vodou ceremony — according to legend, this was the beginning of the revolution. Today, while many of Haiti’s people identify as either Protestant or Catholic, nearly all acknowledge the country’s connection with Vodou.

Bob Corbett of Webster University has a wonderful outline of the basic beliefs of Vodou on his page at Introduction to Voodoo in Haiti. He describes the basic concepts of Vodou, as well as the deities and ritual format. Corbett reminds his students “to recognize that Voodoo is Haiti’s religion, it is taken very seriously not merely by unlettered peasants, but many intelligent and learned members of the Haitian society believe as sincerely in Voodoo as do German theology professors in their Christianity.”

Following the January 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti, Vodou was brought to the forefront of the public’s attention. A scholarly association for the study of Haitian Vodou was formed at University of California, Santa Barbara, and named Kosanba. Their website says, “The presence, role, and importance of Vodou in Haitian history, society, and culture are unarguable, and recognizably a part of the national ethos. The impact of the religion qua spiritual and intellectual disciplines on popular national institutions, human and gender relations, the family, that plastic arts, philosophy and ethics, oral and written literature, language, popular and sacred music, science and technology and the healing arts, is indisputable.”

Source:

Patti Wigington, Paganism/Wicca Expert

Article Found On & Owned By About.com

Ebbos in Santeria – Sacrifices and Offerings

Ebbos (or Ebos) are a central part of Santeria practice. Humans and orishas both need an energy force known as ashe in order to succeed; orishas, in fact, need it in order to survive. So if one would like to be favored by the orishas, or even just pay respect to these beings that are intimately involved with forces in the physical world, one must offer ashe. All things have some quantity of ashe, but nothing is more potent than blood.

Sacrifice is a method of delivering that ashe to the orishas so they, in turn, can use ashe for the petitioner’s benefit.

Types of Offerings:

Animal sacrifices are by far the most known type of offerings. However, there are many others. One may need to pledge to do a particular action, or abstain from certain foods or activities. Candles and other items may be burned, or fruits or flowers may be offered. Singing, drumming and dancing also contribute ashe to the orishas.

Creating Talismans:

Food is the usual offering in the creation of talismans. A talisman provides certain magical qualities to the person wearing it. In order to infuse as item with such influence, ashe must first be sacrificed.

Votive Offerings:

Those who wish to more generally attract the positive aspects of an orisha might make a votive offering. These are items that are left at a shrine or otherwise put on display as a gift to the orishas.

Animal Sacrifice Where the Meat is Eaten:

Most ceremonies that involve animal sacrifice also involve the participants eating the flesh of the slaughtered animal.

The orishas are only interested in the blood. As such, once the blood is drained and offered, the meat is eaten. Indeed, the preparation of such a meal is an aspect of the overall ritual.

There’s a variety of purposes for such a sacrifice. Initiations require blood sacrifice because the new santero or santera must be able to be possessed by the orishas and interpret their wishes.

Santeria believers do not merely approach the orishas when they want something. It is a continual reciprocal arrangement. Blood may therefore be sacrificed as a way of saying thank you after the receiving of good fortune or the resolution of a difficult matter.

Animal Sacrifice When Meat is Discarded:

When the sacrifice is made as part of purification rituals, the meat is not eaten. It is understood that the animal takes the impurity upon itself. Eating its flesh would simply put the impurity back into everyone who partook of the meal. In these cases the animal is discarded and left to rot, often in a location of importance to the orisha being approached.

Legality:

The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that religious animal sacrifice cannot be made illegal, as it falls under freedom of religion. However, those that perform animal sacrifices do need to follow certain rules to limit the suffering of the animals, just as slaughterhouses have to do the same. Santeria communities do not find these rules to be burdensome, as they have no interest in making the animals suffer.

What is becoming more controversial is the discarding of purification sacrifices. The discarding of carcasses in certain locations is important to many believers, but that leaves local city workers the task of cleaning up the rotten bodies. City governments and Santeria communities need to work together to find compromises on the subject, and the Supreme Court also ruled that related ordinances should not be overly burdensome to believers.

Source:

Catherine Beyer, Alternative Religions Expert

Article Found On & Probably Owned by About.com

What is the Santeria Religion?

Although Santeria is a religious path that is not rooted in Indo-European polytheism like many other contemporary Pagan religions, it’s still a faith that is practiced by many thousands of people in the United States and other countries today.

Santeria is, in fact, not one set of beliefs, but a “syncretic” religion, which means it blends aspects of a variety of different faiths and cultures, despite the fact that some of these beliefs might be contradictory to one another.

Santeria combines influences of Caribbean tradition, West Africa’s Yoruba spirituality, and elements of Catholicism. Santeria evolved when African slaves were stolen from their homelands during the Colonial period and forced to work in Caribbean sugar plantations.

Santeria is a fairly complex system, because it blends the Yoruba orishas, or divine beings, with the Catholic saints. In some areas, African slaves learned that honoring their ancestral orishas was far safer if their Catholic owners believed they were worshiping saints instead – hence the tradition of overlap between the two.

The orishas serve as messengers between the human world and the divine. They are called upon by priests by a variety of methods, including trances and possession, divination, ritual, and even sacrifice. To some extent, Santeria includes magical practice, although this magical system is based upon interaction with and understanding of the orishas

Today, there are many Americans who practice Santeria. A Santero, or high priest, traditionally presides over rituals and ceremonies.

To become a Santero, one must pass a series of tests and requirements prior to initiation. Training includes divinatory work, herbalism, and counseling. It is up to the orishas to determine whether a candidate for priesthood has passed the tests or failed.

There are a number of different orishas, and most of them correspond to a Catholic saint. Some of the most popular orishas include:

• Elleggua, who is similar to the Roman Catholic Saint Anthony. Elleggua is a liaison between man and the divine, and has very great power indeed.
• Yemaya, the spirit of motherhood, is often associated with the Virgin Mary. She is also affiliated with moon magic and witchcraft.
• Babalu Aye is known as the Father of the World, and is associated with disease, epidemics and plague. He corresponds to the Catholic Saint Lazarus.
• Chango is an orisha who represents powerful masculine energy and sexuality. He is a being associated with magic, and may be invoked to remove curses or hexes. He ties strongly to Saint Barbara in Catholicism.
• Oya is a warrior, and the guardian of the dead. She is associated with Saint Theresa.

A number of adherents of Santeria have made the news lately, because the religion does incorporate animal sacrifice – typically chickens, but sometimes other animals such as goats. In a landmark 1993 case, the Church of Lakumi Babalu Aye successfully sued the city of Hialeah, Florida. The end result was that the practice of animal sacrifice within a religious context was ruled, by the Supreme Court, to be a protected activity.

In 2009, a federal court ruled that a Texas Santero, Jose Merced, could not be prevented by the city of Euless from sacrificing goats in his home. Merced filed a lawsuit with city officials said he could no longer perform animal sacrifices as part of his religious practice. The city claimed “animal sacrifices jeopardize public health and violate its slaughterhouse and animal cruelty ordinances.” Merced claimed he had been sacrificing animals for over a decade without any problems, and was willing to “quadruple bag the remains” and find a safe method of disposal.

In August 2009, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said the Euless ordinance “placed a substantial burden on Merced’s free exercise of religion without advancing a compelling governmental interest.” Merced was pleased with the ruling, and said, “”Now Santeros can practice their religion at home without being afraid of being fined, arrested or taken to court.”

It is estimated that about a million or so Americans currently practice Santeria, but it’s hard to determine whether this count is accurate or not. Because of the social stigma commonly associated with Santeria by followers of mainstream religions, it is possible that many adherents of Santeria keep their beliefs and practices secret from their neighbors.

Source:

Patti Wigington, Paganism/Wicca Expert

Article found on & owned by About.com