Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English

Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English

Author: Benjamin Hebblethwaite

Publisher: Temple University Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 1439906025

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Vodou songs constitute the living memory of Haitian Vodou communities, and song texts are key elements to understanding Haitian culture. Vodou songs form a profound religious and cultural heritage that traverses the past and refreshes the present. Offering a one-of-a-kind research tool on Vodou and its cultural roots in Haiti and pre-Haitian regions, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English provides a substantial selection of hard to find or unpublished sacred Vodou songs in a side-by-side bilingual format. Esteemed scholar Benjamin Hebblethwaite introduces the language, mythology, philosophy, origins, and culture of Vodou through several chapters of source songs plus separate analytical chapters. He guides readers through songs, chants, poems, magical formulae, invocations, prayers, historical texts and interviews, as well as Haitian Creole grammar and original sacred literature. An in-depth dictionary of key Vodou terms and concepts is also provided. This corpus of songs and the research about them provide a crucial understanding of the meaning of Vodou religion, language, and culture.


A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou

A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou

Author: Benjamin Hebblethwaite

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2021-09-30

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1496835646

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Connecting four centuries of political, social, and religious history with fieldwork and language documentation, A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou analyzes Haitian Vodou’s African origins, transmission to Saint-Domingue, and promulgation through song in contemporary Haiti. Split into two sections, the African chapters focus on history, economics, and culture in Dahomey, Allada, and Hueda while scrutinizing the role of Europeans in fomenting tensions. The political, military, and slave trading histories of the kingdoms in the Bight of Benin reveal the circumstances of enslavement, including the geographies, ethnicities, languages, and cultures of enslavers and enslaved. The study of the spirits, rituals, structure, and music of the region’s religions sheds light on important sources for Haitian Vodou. Having royal, public, and private expressions, Vodun spirit-based traditions served as cultural systems that supported or contested power and enslavement. At once suppliers and victims of the European slave trade, the people of Dahomey, Allada, and Hueda deeply shaped the emergence of Haiti’s creolized culture. The Haitian chapters focus on Vodou’s Rada Rite (from Allada) and Gede Rite (from Abomey) through the songs of Rasin Figuier’s Vodou Lakay and Rasin Bwa Kayiman’s Guede, legendary rasin compact discs released on Jean Altidor’s Miami label, Mass Konpa Records. All the Vodou songs on the discs are analyzed with a method dubbed “Vodou hermeneutics” that harnesses history, religious studies, linguistics, literary criticism, and ethnomusicology in order to advance a scholarly approach to Vodou songs.


Vodou Shaman

Vodou Shaman

Author: Ross Heaven

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2003-11-10

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 1594776644

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Goes beyond the stereotypes to restore Vodou to its proper place as a powerful shamanic tradition • Provides practical exercises and techniques from the Vodou tradition that can be used as safe and effective means of spiritual healing and personal transformation • Shows how to remove evil spirits and negative energies sent by others • Written by a fully initiated Houngan (Vodou shaman) Providing practical exercises drawn from all aspects and stages of the Vodou tradition, Vodou Shaman shows readers how to contact the spirit world and communicate with the loa (the angel-like inhabitants of the Other World), the ghede (the spirits of the ancestors), and djabs (nature spirits for healing purposes). The author examines soul journeying and warrior-path work in the Vodou tradition and looks at the psychological principles that make them effective. The book also includes exercises to protect the spiritual self by empowering the soul, with techniques of soul retrieval, removing evil spirits and negative energies, overcoming curses, and using the powers of herbs and magical baths.


Rara!

Rara!

Author: Elizabeth McAlister

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2002-05-01

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0520926749

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Rara is a vibrant annual street festival in Haiti, when followers of the Afro-Creole religion called Vodou march loudly into public space to take an active role in politics. Working deftly with highly original ethnographic material, Elizabeth McAlister shows how Rara bands harness the power of Vodou spirits and the recently dead to broadcast coded points of view with historical, gendered, and transnational dimensions.


Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture

Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture

Author: C. Michel

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2006-11-27

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0312376200

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This collection introduces readers to the history and practice of the Vodou religion, and corrects many misconceptions. The book focuses specifically on the role Vodou plays in Haiti, where it has its strongest following, examining its influence on spiritual beliefs, cultural practices, national identity, popular culture, writing and art.


Haitian Vodou

Haitian Vodou

Author: Mambo Chita Tann

Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide

Published: 2012-02-08

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 0738731633

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Haitian Vodou is a fascinating spiritual tradition rich with ceremonies and magic, songs and prayers, dances and fellowship. Yet outside of Haiti, next to no one understands this joyous and profound way of life. ln Haitian Vodou, Mambo Chita Tann explores the historical roots and contemporary practices of this unique tradition, including discussions of: Customs, beliefs, sacred spaces, and ritual objects Characteristics and behaviors of the Lwa, the spirits served by Vodou practitioners Common misconceptions such as "voodoo dolls" and the zombie phenomenon Questions and answers for attending ceremonies and getting involved in a sosyete (Vodou house) Correspondence tables, Kreyol glossary, supplemental prayer texts, and an extensive list of reference books and online resources Well-researched, comprehensive, and engaging, Haitian Vodou will be a welcome addition for people new to Haitian spirituality as well as for students, practitioners, and academics.


Book of Vodou Prayers

Book of Vodou Prayers

Author: Mambo Vye Zo Komande Lamenfo

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2019-09-04

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 9781495403101

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The Sosyete du Marche's Book of Vodou Prayers is a compilation of prayers and invocations for service work, private practice, and every day meditation. In here you will find an alphabetical collection of invocations; prayers for calling specific Lwa into your service; and works that you can use for daily prayer. Mambo Vye Zo Komande LaMenfo has spent over 25 years collecting material for her personal service work. Now, she share her efforts with everyone. A very handy little tome that every Vodouisant should have on their altar!


A Day for the Hunter, a Day for the Prey

A Day for the Hunter, a Day for the Prey

Author: Gage Averill

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2008-04-15

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 9780226032931

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The history of Haiti throughout the twentieth century has been marked by oppression at the hands of colonial and dictatorial overlords. But set against this "day for the hunter" has been a "day for the prey," a history of resistance, and sometimes of triumph. With keen cultural and historical awareness, Gage Averill shows that Haiti's vibrant and expressive music has been one of the most highly charged instruments in this struggle—one in which power, politics, and resistance are inextricably fused. Averill explores such diverse genres as Haitian jazz, troubadour traditions, Vodou-jazz, konpa, mini-djaz, new generation, and roots music. He examines the complex interaction of music with power in contexts such as honorific rituals, sponsored street celebrations, Carnival, and social movements that span the political spectrum. With firsthand accounts by musicians, photos, song texts, and ethnographic descriptions, this book explores the profound manifestations of power and song in the day-to-day efforts of ordinary Haitians to rise above political repression.


Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou

Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou

Author: Donald Cosentino

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13:

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This abundantly illustrated anthology brings together sixteen essays by artists, scholars and ritual experts who examine the sacred arts of Haitian Vodou from multiple perspectives. Among the many topics covered are the ten major Vodou divinities: Vodou's roots in the Fon and Kongo kingdoms of Africa and its transformation in the experiences of slavery, and the encounter with European spiritual systems; Vodou praxis, including its bodily and communal disciplines, the cult of St. James Major (Ogou), and the cult of twins.In the final section, essays by Elizabeth McAlister, Patrick Polk, Tina Girouard, and Randall Morris look at Vodou arts and artists, Oleyant, and the legacy of ironworker Georges Liautaud.The Envoi, by Donald J.Cosentino, is devoted to the Gedes, spirits of death and regeneration.


Secrets of Voodoo

Secrets of Voodoo

Author: Milo Rigaud

Publisher: City Lights Books

Published: 1985-06

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 9780872861718

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Secrets of Voodoo traces the development of this complex religion (in Haiti and the Americas) from its sources in the brilliant civilizations of ancient Africa. This book presents a straightforward account of the gods or loas and their function, the symbols and signs, rituals, the ceremonial calendar of Voodoo, and the procedures for performing magical rites are given. "Voodoo," derived from words meaning "introspection" and "mystery," is a system of belief about the formation of the world and human destiny with clear correspondences in other world religions. Rigaud makes these connections and discloses the esoteric meaning underlying Voodoo's outward manifestations, which are often misinterpreted. Translated from the French by Robert B. Cross. Drawings and photographs by Odette Mennesson-Rigaud. Milo Rigaud was born in Port au Prince, Haiti, in 1903, where he spent the greater part of his life studying the Voodoo tradition. In Haiti he studied law, and in France ethnology, psychology, and theology. The involvement of Voodoo in the political struggle of Haitian blacks for independence was one of his main concerns.