Subject: Re: Fouye Bel Pawol - FOUYE! VODOU
Dear Woodring,
Thank you again for your E-mail dated 06/09 and I am happy to give you the permission(s) that you are looking for. Furthermore, I am glad to offer you the Vodou expertise to review some of the problems Fouye.com may come across when interacting adequately with the Haitian community.
...
A Lwa is a vital and fundamental Energy or Force of the Universe that has the power of intervening in the affairs of humanity.
That means God. How does He or She do it is The mystere.
A galipot is a spirit that has been fabricated by some kind of sacrifice by a human person for his or her own service or for the service of somebody else who has paid for it. The spirit involved is not of the same sanctity as The Great Spirit of God that generically the Vodouists name Houn or Lwa or even Muo (pronounced Mo as they do in the Ibo region of Nigeria, Africa).
A bacca is the spirit of an animal, which is of course of a lesser degree of spirituality, that has been capted through a sacrifice by a human being to be put at his own service.
What is involved here is a pure question of technicality, not ethics, except when the sacrificial animal in question is a human being.
I must immediately add that in my 20 to 30 years experience as a Vodouist in Haiti who went all around the country doing research, I have never encountered something that could involve a human sacrifice.
That is why I had to conclude that these were done only in time of war. For instance, the war of Independence, the American occupation ...
etc.
A Shanpwel or Sanpwel is someone who belong to one of the many secret societies that we have in Haiti such as, Vlenbendeng, Bizango, Macori, Sendenden..
etc. What make these different is that the roots of the Sanpwell are of the Taino or Carib Indian origins.
One should know that the Ciampualla, who existed also in Cuba and in Mexico, gave the toughest time
possible to the invasion of their country by the army of Cortes, at the time of the Spanish invasion.
To find out more about Houngan, Manbo, boko and Zombi, please read The "Serpent and the Rainbow" or in French, "Le Serpent et L'Arc en Ciel" by E. Wade Davis.
(the book, not the movie).
This part is fairly well documented.
"Depi you moun mouri...
"
what is involved here is nothing else but the concept of death.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition people live only once and this is limited to the existence of the body.
This is a purely materialistic approach to humanity that limits what we know about people to his or her body.
In a spiritual context, which is the one of Vodou, people are body, mind and Soul and certainly more soul than body.
People are viewed as spiritual entities that continuously exist in a perishable envelop.
And, of course, Spirits that are part of the essence of God, cannot dye.
That is why he or she might have departed but by some other unexplainable means, unknown means, "Yo."
"We can't deny that something bad exists within the Haitian community...
"
This is right, Woodring, this is true.
That bad thing is ignorance regardless of the size of our diplomas acquired from foreign Universities which seems to have left us with a "mentalite de colonize," a colonized mental attitude.
"...
Vodou will always have a bad name."
Kite Jouda yo pale, it was a thousand time worst at the beginning of the 19th century.
In the meantime, one may witness that there are no Institutions of Higher learning in the US, France,
Germany of great and famous reputation that do not have today a Department studying Vodou.
May be this happened by magic?
Your questions, dear Woodring, has been very much appreciated and I am glad that I was able to find the time to answer them.
In the meantime, I wish the Spirits of Our Ancestors remain with you always.
Max Beauvoir
