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*Part II: From Persecution to Voodoo Resilience*
In Haiti, voodoo is the only faith rooted in African soil; originating from the Kingdom of Dahomey (Benin - West Africa). The word _Vodun_ means "spirit" in the Fon language.
Each ethnic group is blessed with its spirits: the Fon are accompanied by Legba and Erzulie, the Yoruba introduce Ogou, and the Kongo exhibit the dead. It is not black magic or witchcraft, but a religion of healing and protection, emphasize many initiated followers.
Around 1697, in the sugar plantations of Saint Domingue, in the basin of Taino-Arawak heritage, Creole voodoo begins and shapes itself. Forced to practice Catholicism, the captives accommodate themselves with religious syncretism.
In politics, voodoo also relays the secret network of the enslaved. On August 14, 1791, at the Bois-Caïman ceremony, Dutty Boukman, a voodoo priest, seals the revolutionary pact that will lead to Haiti's independence in 1804.
Some voodooists, faithful sympathizers and initiates, have reproached the fathers of independence for persecuting voodoo after having used it in the memorable revolution to appear less barbaric or more evolved/civilized.
All penal codes (1826, 1835, 1860) have anathematized voodoo as fetishism.
From 1957 to 1986, under the government of the Duvaliers, father and son, voodoo was purposefully instrumentalized. Dr. François Duvalier imposed himself as Baron Samedi, in order to esoterically control the population, feeding political detractors.
In 1987, the new constitution grants legal freedom to all confessions. And, in 2003 under President J-B Aristide, the religion of voodoo is sworn in by the State. Houngans or mambos can now celebrate legal marriages and baptisms.
It is an oral cult, having no Holy Book. Everything is transmitted through initiation in the lakou with songs, dances, drums, rituals, the vévès drawn on the ground, and medicinal plants. It conflicts with the formal Christian school system that swears by the written word.
As a religion, voodoo has no cosmopolitan pontifex maximus or universal leader. Although it is still practiced in the former Kingdom of Dahomey—its birthplace (Benin) where the state confession is at 17%—in Togo, Southeast Ghana, and Southwest Nigeria, it lacks a unified international pyramid structure and does not receive tithes from abroad. It is a confession with a system of autonomous lakous, each provided with a sacred temple or peristyle with a poto-mitan erected in the center, surrounded by small family houses and ancestral graves.
On state territory, Haitian voodoo is represented by a spokesperson, supreme spiritual leader, the national ATI and the KNVA-(Konfederasyon Nasyonal Vodou Ayisyen) created by the first ATI (National King in 2008) Max Gesner Beauvoir, a biochemist trained in the United States and at the Sorbonne, acclaimed in 2005 and deceased in 2015.
Each houngan - bòkor or mambo works in autarky. There are therefore no agencies or responsible managers to finance and administer multipolar school domains.
With the Concordat signed between Haiti and the Vatican in 1860, the Haitian state pays and allows the Catholic Church to organize and regulate the national education ministry.
In the 20th century, there were many landings of American evangelistic missions (Baptists, Adventists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons...). These reformists and evangelicals were to establish schools as tools for education, evangelization, progress, and development.
While voodoo has been banned and/or persecuted for nearly 200 years: “Code Noir, anti-superstitious expeditions of 1939-1941 where temples-hounfò, sacred drums (Assôtor) were burned.”
Evolving with the prevailing prejudices, what was thus reproached to voodoo by western Christians?
According to Christian doctrine, voodoo has a negative reputation, according to three cardinal motives:
Idolatry
Christianity teaches exclusive monotheism, serving and worshiping only the Almighty Creator God. Voodoo serves and venerates a supreme God-Bondye, but also intermediate spirits (the Loas - Orishas), with altars, statues, and offerings; thereby meddling in idolatry, forbidden by the first Judeo-Christian commandment.
Occultism
Practices of divination (magic), possession, communication with the dead, charms, curses, and zombification are classified in the Bible as "occult arts" (Deuteronomy 18:10-12). They are therefore considered spiritually dangerous and incompatible with the Christian faith.
Spiritual Incompatibility
In Christian theology, there are only two spiritual sources: God and fallen spirits. The spirits invoked in voodoo, not coming from God, are thus interpreted as deceiving or demonic.
Catholicism is historically very severe, but in Haiti and Benin, there has been a high rate of syncretism. A myriad of pilgrims practice two spiritual confessions by associating the Loas with Catholic Saints. The Vatican officially considers this incompatible.
Among Protestants, the position is more absolute. Voodoo is viewed as a religious practice to be abandoned upon Christian conversion and is the subject of prayers (fasting, vigil) for “deliverance”.
This doctrine has sketched and propagated in Western culture the image of “witchcraft and black magic,” while many fervent faithful and initiates defend this ancestral confession of healing, protection, and community bonding.
Voodoo was only recognized as a full-fledged religion in 2003 by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former Catholic priest.
Loa servants could not devise a plan to consolidate large-scale school infrastructures since they had to constantly or frequently hide and live in marronage.
Catholic and Protestant schools use writing to teach the handwritten and printed knowledge of the Bible and other books. They instruct and train, educate and evangelize.
Whereas voodoo is transmitted orally in the lakou through initiation, with dances, songs, drawing vévès (doors of the Loas) on the ground, and knowledge of medicinal plants.
The idea of a “public voodoo school” of Christian design does not correspond to the voodoo way of teaching.
In Haiti, Christian academies often receive funding from the state and their overseas parent houses.
Haitian voodoo, a legal cult since 2003, previously received no financial or real estate support. It only benefited from private contributions from local followers. The population counts about 60,000 active houngans and mambos in Haiti according to the national ATI Max G. Beauvoir (2005-2015).
Efforts to facilitate public access to voodoo teaching have been considered and began in 2003. As early as 1997, a group of researchers -Kosanba- even attempted to teach it at the university level as an intellectual discipline, distancing and separating it from the occult contour associated with witchcraft and zombification, which many want to absolutely dissociate from its medicinal, philosophical, and cultural dimensions.
Some voodoo organizations like the KNVA through certain prominent houngans in Haiti (P-au-P) and in Benin have set up community schools, not named “voodoo schools” to avoid discrimination and welcome people indiscriminately.
Little known and not widespread in the country, by 2026: These schools belong to the (peasant movement in Papaye) MPP, the Kolektif in Gros-Morne, and the lakou Souvenance schools, in Gonaïves.
The centuries-old bans and persecutions faced by voodoo have given rise to religious syncretism, which has likely hindered and slowed the process of establishing voodoo schools in Haiti. By this clever stratagem, each Catholic Saint is represented by a Loa, its voodoo double.
In official reports, it is often necessary to avoid confusions or muddles:
“Population of 54% Catholics, with 2% voodooists, most of the time, is inaccurate. In practice, it is both 54% Catholics and voodooists.”
Official:
- 2.1% declare themselves as voodooists in the CIA World Factbook census
- 1% of women and 3% of men in the 2016-2017 Haitian Health Ministry survey.
Practical:
- The CIA itself estimates that about 50% of the population practices voodoo, in addition to their Christian religion.
- Other sources report nearly 90% of the population who practice voodoo in one way or another, often combined with Catholicism.
Obtaining after the basic hounsi kanzo grade (fire rite) the title of houngan asogwe or mambo asogwe priestess requires on average seven years of initiation in a lakou; similarly for a Catholic priest, it takes 6 to 8 years of training in the Seminary after completing high school, to then be ordained by a bishop.
As for the reformed or evangelical pastor, they must succeed at the Protestant theological faculty, the bachelor's then the master's in theology over five years; followed by an internship in the parish and consecration by the Protestant Church.
Epilogue
Not imbued with the gnosis that probes, reveals the mysterious phenomena and issues of religious faith, the basis of this inquiry highlighted by the Catholic priest and relayed by the publicist comedian seems to rest much more on the political history of Haiti and the structural organization of religions than it appears to be indexed to theology.
The Orthodox Christian Church, structured differently from the Roman Catholic Church, does not depend on a hierarchical “Pope” or a central pyramid authority.
The Orthodox Christian Church is a federation or communion of 15 independent, autocephalous churches (self-managing) led by Synods.
The Holy Synod plays the role of the supreme authority. Each autocephalous church is governed by its own Synod of bishops.
The head of each Church is a Patriarch, Metropolitain, or Archbishop. Ex: Patriarch of Moscow for Russia, Patriarch of Serbia, etc.
The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, is not the head of the orthodox, as is the Pope. He is primus inter pares meaning first among equals. An honorific primacy, convening pan-orthodox councils.
No unified authority system has existed since the 1054 rupture with Rome.
Jean Stanley A. BARRATTEAU
*Bibliographic References:*
Code Noir (1685). _Royal edict of Louis XIV on the policing of the islands of French America._
Republic of Haiti & Holy See (1860). _Concordat between Haiti and the Vatican of March 28, 1860._
Aristide, J-B. (2003). _Presidential decree of April 4, 2003 recognizing voodoo as a full-fledged religion in Haiti._ Le Moniteur.
Métraux, A. (1958). _Haitian Voodoo._ Gallimard.
Hurbon, L. (2004). _The Religious Phenomenon in the Caribbean._ Karthala.
Beauvoir, M. (2008). _The Great Sacred Collection of Voodoo._ Éditions Pradel.
Laurent, G. & Dorsainvil, J-C. (1942). _Anti-superstitious campaigns of 1939-1941. Catholic Diocese of Haiti._
CONEHQ / KNVA - (2003-2026). _Reports on community schools of lakou._
Hurbon, Laënnec 1987.
_Understanding Haiti, essay on the State, nation, culture._ Karthala.
Delisle, P. (2003). _Catholicism in Haiti in the 19th century. The dream of a black Brittany (1860-1915)_. Paris: Karthala.
François, M. (2024). _The preponderance of the Catholic clergy in Haitian society during the second half of the 19th century_. Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l'Ouest.
Hurbon, L. (1993). _The Mysteries of Voodoo_. Paris: Gallimard, Discoveries n°190.
Hurbon, L. (1972). _God in Haitian Voodoo_. 2nd ed. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose.
Hurbon, L. (1987). _The Imaginary Barbarian_. Paris: Cerf.
Beauvoir, M. G. (2008). _Constitution of the KNVA - Konfederasyon Nasyonal Vodou Ayisyen and the national ATI._
Price-Mars, J. (1928). _Thus Spoke the Uncle_. Port-au-Prince. 0512
Romain, C-P. (1986). _Protestantism in Haitian Society._
Corvington, G. _History of School in Haiti_ - regarding the Brothers of Christian Instruction and Baptist missions after 1915-1934.
Clorméus, L. (2012).
_The Catholic Church in the face of religious diversity in Port-au-Prince (1942–2012)._
