A Brief Comparative Analysis of African Traditional Religions, VouDou, Santería, Candomblé and Pajelan?a in the New World

I consider myself very lucky to have grown up in Miami with Haitians, Cubans, Brazilians, Jamaicans and the rest of the Latin and Caribbean World. It was an opportunity for me to learn Spanish, Portuguese and Haitian Creole, which was not too difficult for me since French is my second language.

At an early age I was entranced with the different religious and spiritual practices of the African Diaspora in the New World. So in addition to learning different languages I took advantage of the opportunity and began to study as many aspects of African spiritualism in the Western Hemisphere as I could - and living in Haiti and some countries in Latin America further enhanced my knowledge.

So how did African Spiritual practices begin in the New World?

As the #slave trade began in earnest to the New World in 1501, the #African Diaspora brought their indigenous religious traditions to their new domiciles. In most cases, they were prohibited by the colonialists from maintaining their traditional forms of worship, thus leading to what is referred to as “syncretism,” that essentially entailed applying a Christo-Religious veneer or fa?ade over their religious practices and icons, in order to avoid detection and escape harsh punishment from the brutal plantation owners.

?It should be noted that #ATR [African Traditional Religion] religious practices are ambiguous, as they can be used for either good or evil.

?These entities or “spirits” that Westerners are not familiar with, are not necessarily inherently good or evil. They are selected like “spiritual tools” so to speak, a screwdriver can be used as a deadly weapon, or for a much-needed repair within one’s household. One selects the tool for the job and that “tool” can be used in a positive or negative fashion.

?Thus, the practitioners of ATRs – in #Africa and in the Western Hemisphere, view these entities as “task-specific.” If one’s wife is having issues with child-birth, one would not “harness the energy” of an entity (#orixa, #orisha, #loa, or #lwa) that would be used for protection against an enemy, but rather an entity with feminine and/or healing properties.

Orixas can also be assigned to an individual based on their birth-date, color preferences, location where they were born, or behavior – to name just a few factors.

The African Diaspora’s arrival in the New World more than 500 years ago facilitated the evolution of Diasporic African Traditional Religious systems syncretized with Christianity and indigenous practices, which vary depending upon the locale and ethnic groups involved in the practices.

I am going to briefly examine New World Hybridized ATR Religious Systems step-by-step.

I would like to start with Haiti, because it is such an outlier with respect to New World ATRs.

Haiti

?Haitian #VouDou (or Voo Doo) is quite unique as it is a syncretism of various religious and spiritual approaches, which combine ATR, Christianity, remnants of indigenous (#Arawak and #Taino) spirituality, in addition to Freemasonry.

In Haiti, there are two VouDou paths to employ for protection, overcome an illness or to accomplish a specific task: they are #Petro in French or #Petwo in #Creole and #Rada.

?The “Petwo” rite in #Haiti employs “solar entities,” which are masculine – “hot,” and normally quite dangerous to employ for spiritual work. Petwo “Lwas” (African entities in Haitian Creole) are very difficult to control, and are often used for purposes of violence, curses and financial gain.

?The patron “Lwa” of Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier in Haiti was actually Baron Samedi, a fearsome Petwo energy who is in charge of graveyards and the dead. Baron Samedi has close parallels to “#Omolu” in Nigeria, and Nana Buruku within the Afro-#Cuban pantheon.

?It is frequently suggested in Haiti that the karmic toll for employing Petwo Rite energies for spiritual work is devastating, often brining bad luck, poverty, sickness or death to the person who chose to work with the Petwo entity. The polar opposite of the “Petwos” and “Solar Rite” in Haiti is the “Lunar Rite” or “Rada” Rite.

?The entities employed for spiritual work within the Rada Rite are equated with “Lunar” versus “Solar,” i.e. – Feminine versus Masculine. They are known as more gentle and pacific entities to work with. They might be employed for health issues, child-birth, to bless a marriage, or to bless a harvest. Once again, these Lwas or Orixas are individually used to accomplish certain spiritual tasks.

“Veves” versus statues and figurines

One of the unique attributes of Haitian VouDou is the general lack of statuettes for worship. In Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Brazil and Mexico to name a few countries hosting diasporic and hybridized ATR practitioners in the New World, the utilization of statues and figurines is commonplace.

?In Haiti, more often than not, spiritual entities are depicted via geometrical sketches made on the ground, usually under a large pavilion with a center-post (which spiritually equates to the axis of the world and a “support” of the heavens) referred to as a poteau-mitan.

?The #veves also often incorporate Freemason imagery, as a result of the French colonial presence in Haiti.

?The diagrams for entities belonging to the rather dangerous Petwo Rite are often created with #gunpowder mixed with dust from smashed red bricks, while those engaging in more pacific Rada Rites usually use white chalk or lime for their spiritual graphics.

#Zoolatry in VouDou

?One of the most unique aspects of ATR in Haiti is the adoption or the harnessing of animal energies; for example the twin snakes, known as either brother and sister or husband and wife depending on the region in Haiti. They are referred to as #Damballa (Petwo – Solar – masculine - aggressive) and Ayida-Weddo (Rada – Lunar – Feminine - passive).

If one examines Santería in Cuba or Candomblé in Brazil, there is no adoption of animal energies. In my opinion, there could be exceptions found in Northeastern #Brazil where a syncretism of ATRs, Christianity, and indigenous local beliefs led to a spinoff of the more popularly followed #Candomblé found in Bahia, Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, referred to as #Pajelan?a.

?In that case, using a shaman in Pajelan?a to harness a jaguar spirit before a hunt is plausible, but I am not so certain as to the purpose of seating a serpent spirit in the saddle (head) of a human “horse,” which is how they refer to this process in Haitian Creole.

?In Haiti, an invocation of either serpent – masculine or feminine, which is seated on the “horse,” AKA the VouDou acolyte or practitioner (horse is chwal in Creole), often results in the practitioner adopting the behavior of a snake and climbing trees adjacent to the pavilion or locale where the ceremony is taking place.

Each entity (Lwa in Haitian Creole) has certain food, musical (percussion) and color preferences – in Haiti and also with respect to New World ATR practitioners, which is also still reflected to this day in Nigeria.

The entity-specific color combinations are often displayed by the strands of beads (referred to as #eleke) worn by adherents in Nigeria, Cuba, Brazil, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. So quite frequently one can identify the orixa associated with an ATR practitioner by the colors of his or her beads. This is not so common in Haiti however.

The twin serpents prefer to eat raw eggs and often take a lot of coaxing to descend from their respective trees. Now in cases where animalistic entities like these are summonsed to “sit on a horse” (their human “carriage” or medium), I do not see any aspects of an ATR-Christian #syncretism, but rather extreme zoolatry when these specific entities are called to interact with a human host.

That being said, there are also anthropomorphic Haitian Lwas, which mirror those of their Afro-Caribbean and New World counterparts. One example is the ever-so-elegant Goddess of Salt Water:

?Haiti – Mami Wata or La Sirene

Cuba (and Trinidad) – Yemayá

Brazil – Yemanja

Nigeria – Yemanjá

Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic

Cuba is well known for #Santería, but most people are unfamiliar with “Palo Monte,” "Palo Mayombe" or “Palo Monye.” Cuban Palo Monte and Palo Monye, practiced in Cuba’s principally African-descendant barrios, in some respects parallel Haiti’s Petwo Rites, in that Palo Monte is pure ATR; it totally lacks the Christian syncretism that helped forge Santería on the rest of the island, as well as offshoots of Santería in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Those practicing Palo in Cuba often speak a language in their barrios based on a mélange of words from #Yoruban and #Dahomey dialects. It is referred to as "#Nanigo." Nanigo may also generally refer to a religious society, spirit dancers and African rhythms as well (Afro-Cuban 6/8 rhythm).

?In my opinion, #Christianity had a greater impact on Cuba and the Dominican Republic (DR) than it did Haiti with respect to ATRs. It appears as though the Christian influence on the ATRs in Cuba and the DR, which were settled by the Spanish, and the impact of the French on ATRs in Haiti was different, with the African diaspora in the Dominican Republic and Cuba seemingly demonstrating more tolerance for the adoption of Christian syncretism with respect to their ATR practices.?

?As a side note, ATR is known as “Shango” in Trinidad and Tobago and as “#Obeah” or “#Obia” in Jamaican Patois. Practices vary from island to island.

?Brazil

?Brazil covers a huge geographic area and is a melting-pot of cultures, so African Traditional Religions in #Brazil have evolved in multiple directions, geographically and ethno-linguistically. The closest point in the Western Hemisphere to West Africa is #Salvador, Bahia, the birthplace of ATRs in the New World. In Brazil, the most commonly known ATR hybridized with Christian practices is referred to as “#Candomblé,” this is an Afro-Christian or Afro-Luso-Christian (African-Portuguese-Christian) hybridized pantheon.

So basically, from Fortaleza, Brazil southward, there were millions of African immigrants practicing Candomblé. But the further to the north one moves in Brazil, the greater the indigenous Native American population becomes. Thus, in the Northeastern Brazil, in the Amazon region, there was a hybridization of indigenous practices, and ATRs brought in by Africans, who often escaped the Portuguese-run plantations and fled to rural #quilombos; colonies which were established in the Brazilian outback by escaped #slaves; and in many cases they integrated with the indigenous population, which was also oppressed by the Portuguese colonialists. Quilombos were more common in central N.E. Brasil than the Amazonas.

?In N.E. Brazil (Amazon regions), the indigenous #shamanism mixed with Christianity and (frequently) ATRs is referred to as #Pajelan?a. The theological and spiritual focus of ATRs and hybridized religious practices are greatly dependent upon the locale and the ethnic groups involved in ritual practice.

?ATRs in the New World are essentially groups of hybridized spiritual and religious beliefs, resulting from different ethno-linguistic groups importing their own belief systems into previously uber-localized and insulated pantheons and practices, which had, up until that point, been relatively impervious to external spiritual and/or religious influences.

?Conclusion

Within ATRs, spiritual “locks” have very specific “entity” or “energy” keys, which hypothetically need to be utilized in order to open up just a few doors per key. A car key will not open the front door to one’s house, nor can a safety deposit box key be utilized to start one’s car.

?There are also similarities in Christianity, where both angels and saints have been endowed with specific strengths and powers, meant to be summonsed upon by Christians - but only in certain circumstances.