Original image unavailable: A Makaya Bokor in the Artibonite region of Haiti uses human bones to produce magical protective charms..
In the Haitian Vodou religion, the bones of the deceased ancestors are viewed with particular respect. Most Houngans, Mambos, Makaya Bokors, and even some uninitiated Vodouisants, not to mention Haitian magicians, have skulls or other bones in our hounfors, our shrines. It is not uncommon for a hounfor to house more than one skull. Sometimes the ceremonial Cross of Baron surmounts an actual corpse, preferably that of a male child.
Of course many cultures and religions venerate bones, or "animated cadavers" like the resurrected Jesus Christ. Some cultures, such as the Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea, eat the bodies of their dead. In Haitian Vodou there is no cannibalism, but the bones of ancestors are believed to have both magical and curative powers.
For example, during the annual Rara festival which takes place every year in Haiti, culminating on Good Friday, the participants frequently wear magical objects wrapped into kerchiefs and tied around their upper arms. These objects contain the bones of ancestors, and are intended to protect the members of one Rara band from malevolent magic sent against them by other Rara bands.
Original image unavailable: A Haitian Houngan addresses ancestral lwa, and offers a sacrificial chicken..
Every year on November 2, All Souls Day in the Roman Catholic calender, Haitians celebrate Fet Gede (fet GAY-day). On this day the ancestors appear through possession, and walk among the population. Graves are cleaned and the bones or other relics of the ancestors are ceremonially fed. The ancestors are beneficent, and once fed, they are invoked for wealth, health, fertility and the physical safety of their mortal servants.
Even outside of Vodou religion and related magic, Haitian folklore assigns curative powers to human bones. Haitian herbalist Loulou Prince reminisced in the summer of 2007, "When a person got sick, especially when I was a child and there were not so many doctors around, if a person got very sick and couldn't get better, we would grate a skull or a bone from a dead person, and put it in rum, and give it to the sick person to drink. Many times they got better."
Original image unavailable: Herbalist Loulou Prince invokes ancestral aid as he produces blessed cleansing water..
When Loulou Prince performs leaf ceremonies, he often invokes the presence and power of the ancestors. In his recent Herbal Power Workshop, he venerated the ancestors as he made dlo benit, a type of magically charged leaf-and-water solution used to clean people and magical objects.
Original image unavailable: Haitian hounsis in ceremonial procession carry skulls and other objects sacred to the ancestral lwa..
In recent years, as more and more non-Haitians have become interested in Vodou, visitors without much time in Haiti have misunderstood and sensationalized the use of human bones in our tradition. These sacred relics of our ancestors, both biological and through initiatory lineage, are highly valuable objects. Their ownership indicates respect and reverence for ancestral spirits, not affiliation with "black magic" or "evil". In fact, there is no "black magic" in Haitian Vodou or the associated magical traditons - that is a racist term imposed by outsiders. In our tradition, there is religion and there is magic. If a Mambo does magic that helps Anne get a job, and therefore prevents Anne's competitor Janet from getting that job, did the Mambo do good to Anne, or evil to Janet, or both? Magic in Haitian Vodou is best characterized as "effective" or "ineffective", not "black" or "white".
Interestingly, internationals with limited experience will claim to serve a lwa, or spirit, such as Erzulie Freda, who abhors ancestral lwa such as Baron; and yet own skulls or other bones, and do aggressive magic with them!
Such a "split personality" attitude toward the use of skulls seems to be at work in the recent case of Hougan Louvel Delon and Mambo Lisa Gruber, two Americans who were recently ordained as clergy of the Vodou religion. They were given two sacred ancestral skulls by a Haitian Houngan. On their departure from Haiti they were arrested and subjected to a series of ever-morphing charges: murder, "association of evildoers", trafficking in body parts, smuggling antiquities... this in spite of the fact that Haiti is a Vodouisant-majority country! The two Americans are clearly understood to be initiates, and their possession of the skulls is undeniably spiritually motivated, there is no criminal intent. Yet the Haitian government has once again decided to give its own majority religion a black eye, making our clergy into criminals and our sacred objects into contraband!
Original image unavailable: Mambo Myrlene Severe was arrested in Ft. Lauderdale, carrying a skull from Haiti..
It seems likely that the outrageous treatment of Houngan Louvel Delon and Mambo Lisa Gruber is in some measure a retaliation for the case of Haitian Mambo Myrlene Severe, who was arrested in Ft. Lauderdale with a skull. She posted bail, and was eventually given probation.
The Haitian Constitution, the Constution of the United States, and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Haiti and the United States are signatory, all guarantee freedom of religion. No Vodouisant should ever be punished for practicing a religion older than Christianity! We, the clergy of the Vodou religion, must be the ones to decide what is the appropriate use of the sacred bones of our ancestors.
For more information about the Vodou religion, see The VODOU Page.
