What's in a name? That
which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet;
- William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet
Maya Deren in Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods
of Haiti sets up a dualism, which is at once an essential aspect of the
origins of Vodoun, while at the same time, a perpetuation of misconceptions
about it and its adherents. This arises in her discussion of the bokor
or sorcerers and the differences between religion and magick. In the microcosm
of this argument the lineaments of the convergence of the African and Carib
Indians, the birth of Vodoun, not to mention Haiti as a nation, can be seen.
Yet, there also seems to be a rejection of the individualist or outsider, as
much as a disavowal of the more antisocial aspects of the Petro nachon. Oddly
enough, in attempting to decipher the Carib Indian influence on Vodoun, establishing
a sound lineage for both Petro and some of the purported activities of the bokor,
she reinforces stereotypical notions of the Vodoun boogie-man and our fear of
him.
As she states in a note, the Petro and Rada rites of Vodoun do not easily lend
themselves to a good: evil polarity (64). There is a strong case to associate
the Petro rites with Carib Indian influences from the mainland, primarily the
Aztecs. She cites the shamanistic and decentralized quality of the Carib Indian
practices as contributing to an adoption of more magickal qualities than the
"divine or royal authority" evident in Dahomean practices. At the same time
she draws the distinction between the passive security of the later with the
"aggressive, imperialistic (?), and active, assertively dynamic" of the former
(66). She goes on to describe the Carib Indians in terms of their cannibalism
and often bloody practices, which, although factual, lends itself to a negative
perception that much of the magickal or shadowed aspects of Vodoun are unappealing
to the Western mind. A perception based on the drawing of a distinct and contrary
dualism between dark and light.
She would have us believe that the individual magickian and the lwas
are at odds with one another, this is seen in her depiction of the malevolent
magick of the bokors. In fact she goes so far as to suggest that those
who choose to participate in what, for all intents and purposes, are Carib Indian
traditions: zombieism and the use of baka, or malevolent animal spirits,
would likely be abandoned by the great lwa (77). Yet, at another point,
while discussing the Ghedes, specifically Baron Samedi, she states that "the
malevolent bocor may take the shape of an animal, or men may be transformed
into terrible bakas" (113). One would suspect that Ghede then is not
one of the "great lwa", yet he as Baron Cimitieri, with his fellow Ghedes,
Carrefour and Grand Bois conspire to make up the "patron trinity of magicians"
(101-102, 112). As a note concerning their placement between the Rada and Petro
nachons, like one of the other Ghedes, Simbi, they are "separate and independent
of both and their rites usually come after the Rada and before the Petro ceremonies"
(112). In her appendix she connects Ghede, with the Carib Indian tradition of
the theft of zemis, or souls, to make zombies, as well as the Arawak
origin myth of a hermaphroditic figure who demands cassava, a common element
in possession by Ghede (282-283).
It is important to recognize she has little or no knowledge of the connections
Masonry, and consequently Ceremonial Magick, had in the development of Vodoun,
particularly the Petro rites she gives little attention to. As she admits in
discussing Masonic handshakes among houngan, and the use of Masonic symbols
in vèvès "it would require an advanced member of the Order to recognize
the actual degree that these things had been incorporated (134?135). As a student
of the tradition, and by no means an 'advanced member', I noticed a correlation
between the use of one of the words used in both the Vodoun and Masonic salutations
of the quarters. The word Adonai, which is Hebrew for "Lord", is identical,
in both language and placement, with the name used to charge the South in a
central banishing ritual used in most Ritual Magick (315:2). Two other sources
in my research corroborate the influence of French Masonic lodges on the Haitian
revolution and consequently the development of techniques used both by bokor
and houngan in Vodoun.
This is further exasperated by her discussion of magick as the acts of the solitary
practitioner, or bokor, and in contradistinction to religion as the collective
worship in most honfours. She is confirmed in her misunderstanding that
magick is both at odds with nature and concerned solely with selfish motives
of aggrandizement. She suggests that "secrecy is a clue to its (magick) character",
instead of recognizing that this secrecy is born out of wholesale persecution
in most cultures (76). "Magic is an individual action undertaken because the
cosmos is not believed to be benevolent ... it is not based on a confidence
in the character of cosmic forces ... it is dedicated to the means by which
... those forces may be ... focused to some personal end" (76). "The magician
sees himself as separate from, in competition with, or even bitterly opposed
to the collective and cosmic good" (76). West African spirituality is among
a minority of religious expressions where the individual members of a collective
or social group can access the divine in the same manner that the person of
power or magician does. In Haitian Vodoun, the houngan, as any 'technician
of the sacred' must by necessity be versed in both the religious practices of
the collective, as well as the individualistic magickal rites in order to protect
themselves, and their fellows in the collective, against its (magick) effects.
Like Elegba's vévés this dualism that Maya Deren would split in the Western
tradition is merely the mirror's reflection, two aspects of a unity, which resists
separation. As she states, "most houngans and mambos very openly
"serve with both hands"; it is the sensible thing to do" (68).
Her assertion that in magic there are no rites, designed to develop the person,
is one of the more glaring mistakes in her analysis of this dualism (200). "Magic
refers to power, which is amoral in nature, the primary emphasis of religion
is moral discipline and development" (200). Masonry and Ceremonial or Ritual
Magick has at its core the ideal of perfecting the individual aspirant. "The
best condition for magical action is not the primitive community with its collective
emphasis, but the modern community with its individualistic emphasis" (200).
Yet one can see in the development of religious and spiritual disciplines the
world over, solitary or small collectives of individuals, knowledgeable in areas
largely inaccessible to the collective, directing the propitiation of the spiritual
essences for the advancement and harmony of themselves, and consequently their
fellows. The honjour is a collective space where communal worship of
the lwa takes place, but at the center of that activity is one individual
with the power to recognize the spirits and guide their interaction with the
collective.