Stuff You Should Know - What's the deal with Voodoo?

Episode Date: July 6, 2010

Voodoo is a religion found in parts of Africa and Haiti that's often misunderstood. In this episode, Josh and Chuck separate the faction from the fiction as they explore how Voodoo really works. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Josh Clark with me as always is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. How do you like your chair? I hate this chair. Dude, do you realize that in like the last eight podcasts we've just complained at the beginning? I know. We're probably so tired of it. Yeah.

Instead, Chuck, instead of complaining as is our usual way these days, let's go back in time. Oh, yes. I'm going to take us back. You ready? Okay. So Chuck, this is 1791, August 1791, little place that we now know of as Haiti. And what's just happened is a slave uprising, actually what is the only successful slave

uprising in the world. Good for them. Yeah. That's what I say. What happened was, what happened was in earlier in August of 1791, a group of slave leaders and maroon leaders and maroons were runaway slaves who'd made it to the hills and were basically staging guerrilla warfare against plantations and white colonists. Right.

They got together and there was a ceremony that was performed in a place called Alligator Woods or Bois Cayman. I've been there. Have you really? No. Oh, wow. We're about to go there now. Right?

There's this voodoo ritual that took place and all the leaders basically pledged their support and dedication to this rebellion and a week later, all hell breaks loose. Okay. The thousands of slaves revolt. They murder every white person they can find. Apparently, they paraded around from settlement to settlement with a white human baby impaled on a stake. I might draw the line there, but burned every plantation they could find and just basically

held a slave uprising. You can only hold somebody down for so long before they turn on you. The human spirit wants to be free. Exactly. That's essentially what happened. The Haitian slaves rose up. They were unsuccessful actually in 1791, but historians say this is the point that started it all.

By 1804, Haiti was a free republic. Awesome. But that meeting in the woods that started it all, the voodoo ceremony, that instance and other slave rebellions that were kind of based around voodoo have kind of given the religion a bad rap among whites since then. It's kind of weird to think of, but our conception of voodoo is almost entirely Hollywood eyes theorized, fictionalized, and fear-based based on this kind of collective white distant memory of, well, this is what voodoo is.

It's babies impaled on stakes. What happens when you let people practice voodoo. Like actually that slave revolt, the successful slave rebellion is what Pat Robertson was talking about famously after the Haiti earthquake when he said a long time ago, and people in Haiti don't like to talk about it, but they made a pact with the devil to get the French out and they said, we'll give you our souls if you'll get the French out and the French got out. So basically he was saying that it's devil worship, voodoo is devil worship and the successful

slave rebellion has proved positive of it, and that's why the earthquake happened in his opinion. And then in Haiti they were probably like, who's this devil you keep talking about? We don't believe in that dude. This is going to be a lot of debunking going on today. Let's debunk dude. Let's start talking about voodoo. Okay.

Let's do it. Right now. Okay. So voodoo is a religion, a lot of people think it's just a bunch of hocus pocus, which is more like who do, which we'll get to later, but voodoo is an actual religion. There's a, there's one God. It's a very, it depends on where you are if you're talking voodoo and even generationally speaking, there's a lot of differences.

Yeah. Because there's no definitive holy text, it's an oral tradition and it's a very subjective religion too, right? It's like a very personal and it governs your day to day life. And it also has, it's different, has a different impact on every, every person. Right? Yes, it does. Yes.

So there's, like I said, there's one supreme God and depending where you are, there'd be a different name. If you're talking Haitian voodoo, we're basically going to cover like African and Haitian in parts, I would say, won't you? Yeah. Okay. So you're going to call this supreme God, bondyee, but in voodoo, you can't talk directly to the main God.

You have to go through one of these spirits called the loa. Right. And there are many loa. And they all have different functions, but it is hierarchical. It is. And they're based on dead ancestors, ancestral spirits. Yeah. Which it turns out to be, and we'll get to that more in detail, but that's a big, big

part of voodoo is the ancestry and dead people, basically, spirits of the dead people. Right, and you were talking about comparing it to, say, Christianity or Judaism or something like that. Yeah. It's much easier to compare, like a pagan religion like voodoo to a pagan religion like Druidism, right? Right. Than it is to compare either one to Christianity or Judaism.

Although there are some similarities. There are, especially in Haitian voodoo, but in African voodoo, it's much more difficult to compare it. So anthropologists still kind of put it in this context of ways we can understand, like gods. Right, right. But they're not gods. You can't, like two voodoo practitioners, they're not gods, they're ancestral spirits.

The spirit world is as real as this world. So we may hear their column gods, accidentally, but that's just as close as we can come. You could compare them to Greek or Roman gods, right? They have different personalities that represent different things, but it's kind of that shared pagan worldview that different parts of the natural experience are associated with different gods. Yes. Right?

Good point. Thanks. It's basically so white Christians can understand what we're talking about. So African and Haitian voodoo, in both cases, you have, it's really not a bunch of evil doing and spells cast upon one another. It's mainly used for good and to be a better person. In fact, you're counted on as a practitioner of voodoo to be a good community member and you know, a stand up guy or gal.

Right. Yeah. And remember we said that it was a personal and subjective religion. So when you're practicing voodoo, when you are interacting with, let's say, like a voodoo priest or priestess, right? You're seeking advice, guidance, and you're living your life by that, right? Yeah. So there's actually, I guess, kind of the whole evil aspect does exist.

Bo. Bo in African tradition, right? Yeah. African voodoo. Yeah. That's the dark side of African voodoo. It's called Bo. Right.

And voodoo practitioners, a voodoo priest is called a hogan, right? Yeah. An African voodoo priest, right? Yeah. And an African and Haitian voodoo priestess is called a mamba, right? Yes. Mamba. So the mamba and the hogan are not charged with carrying out Bo, which is evil spells,

hexes, basically magic that does harm, right? Right. And they do use voodoo dolls. They do. Yeah. But this is not to say, and this is where it kind of gets a little prickly, like a little hanky, where the voodoo priests and priestesses may not actually practice Bo, this black magic. But they're familiar with it.

They have a working knowledge of it. But so they can oppose people who practice Bo. Yes. You have to understand something to fight it. That's the belief there, right? Right. Sure. Okay.

So Chuck, let's talk a little more about ceremonies and some of the characteristics and traits that make voodoo voodoo. All right. Are we going to Africa, or are we in Haiti at this point? Let's do Africa first. Okay. I mean, this is the cradle of voodoo, right? Yeah.

Like 6,000 years ago, that's where the word comes from. It comes from the fawn language, which was the kingdom of fawn. And that means sacred, spirit, or deity. Right. And I think it was like Northwest Africa. Northwest, it's North, Central, West Africa. So it's West Africa. So we're talking Ghana, Benin, and Togo are like the areas where these ancient kingdoms

of fawn and Congo, Congo with the K, were located. And this is the cradle of voodoo. Yeah. And I actually got a stat for you. They say that 30 million people in Togo, Ghana, and what is it, Benin? Yeah. Still practice voodoo today. And just to gauge where that falls in world religions, it's about double the number of

Jewish people in the entire world. Wow. Is it really? Yeah. Wow. I mean, stats vary because depending on if you're like an active practitioner of Judaism or if you're just like born Jewish. But yeah, it's about double.

Wow. So it ranks. It's also an official religion in Benin. Yeah. They said 60% of the people of that country follow voodoo. Right. Still. Right.

So this is an established religion. But one of the foundational tenets of voodoo is that you can communicate with the spirits and you communicate with the spirits to find out what you should do from the almighty deity. Yeah. The supreme God, right? They're the medium. Right. And one of the other founding tenets of voodoo is you communicate with these people not in

your head, not through prayer, but by the loa, actually possessing someone who then gives commands or says, you know, what are you doing? Why aren't you, you know, spending more time with your wife? Things like that. Right. Yeah. We said that it's different in African and Haitian and all over the world and in different time periods.

But that's one of the main through lines in all voodoo is possession. Spirit and intrusion. Possession. Right. The person who's being possessed at the time is known as the horse. And the whatever loa is is possessing him or her is known as the rider. Right. Yeah.

That's an Haitian voodoo. Oh, did I get ahead of us? No, that's right. We can we can kind of jump around. Okay. Well, that's really one of the big bridges. That's really the bridge between Haitian voodoo and African voodoo. Right.

Yeah. Is that spirit possession exists. That's how you find out what you should do in your day to day life. Right. Right. Back in Africa, on the African side, some other commonalities between the two because again, or maybe not again, but possibly the first time, Haitian voodoo is African voodoo with it creolized.

Yes. Right. Yeah. So let's get back to talking about African voodoo. I did screw us up and I apologize, Chuck. Apologize to our fans. I'm so sorry, fans. Please forgive me.

You never owe me an apology, buddy. So the ancestral spirits make up the loa, right? You can take any object and consecrate it and it becomes a ritual sacred object, right? Yeah. Which is where the dolls come in, which as you said, are not used for harm. Right. Well, they can be by the, if you're talking bow, but it's definitely not like you see in the movies or the Brady Bunch.

I mean, there's a lot of ceremonial dance, spirits are invoked through music, percussion, that kind of thing. I know that in both Haitian and African voodoo, there is a gatekeeper and his name in Haitian tradition is Papa Legba, right? Yeah, I love that name. And Papa Legba is the gatekeeper between the spirit world and the human world, right? And he's invoked at the beginning of every ceremony because you have to get him to open the gate so you can start communicating with the loa and so people can be possessed, right?

And actually, Papa Legba is also one of the black men at the Cross Road who bears a striking resemblance to our friend, Moshamun. Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. It's a Christian cross. In Haitian tradition, yeah.

Right. We should go ahead and talk about that probably. Some of this sounds familiar. If you're thinking Papa Legba sounds sort of like Saint Peter and the Cross Road sounds sort of like the Christian Cross, there's a very good reason for that. It's because once again, we go back to our friend Christopher Columbus, Hispaniola, and the fact that they brought slaves over to Hispaniola to work on the plantations. They brought voodoo with them and the problem there was Columbus said, no, no, no, no, no.

If you're going to be a slave over here, you have to be converted to Christianity. That was the Code Noir. The French actually did that one. Oh, really? Yeah. They had to be baptized. Yeah. Forced conversion.

So what they did was, in order to keep practicing voodoo, they incorporated, and this is where out, my mind was blown. I didn't know they did this. They incorporated parts of Catholicism to kind of mask the fact that they were practicing voodoo and it got all mixed up in what's called syncretization. Yeah. So Catholicism and voodoo working together, crazy. So even today, there are a lot of the Loa, well, there is a lot of ready similarities

between these ancestral spirits and Catholic saints, right? So St. Peter is associated with Papa Legba because St. Peter is the guy who's outside of the gates of heaven, Papa Legba is the gatekeeper to the spirit world. So they associate him with him. There is a God who is pretty powerful, he's a warrior protector God called Oghu, and he's associated with St. James who was a warrior protector saint. So it's not a leap all the time, but sometimes it's a stretch like St. Patrick, remember drove out the snakes from Ireland?

He's associated with snakes in the Haitian tradition. But yeah, so when you look at the underlying tenants, the really overarching narrative of being able to communicate with spirits, invoking spirits through percussion song dance, being possessed and objects being able to be consecrated and become sacred, then that's voodoo across the board. So if voodoo we're familiar with, that's Haitian voodoo, which is kind of mixed up. With Catholicism. Right.

Yeah, it's said that they even incorporated Catholic hymns and prayers. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. Who knew? Tracy Wilson. Yeah, she did. So Josh, you brought up rituals that they would perform to invoke the gods.

And one of the tenants of voodoo is the gods will give you advice and all, but you got to take care of the gods, the spirits. Yeah. And one way that you can do this is by animal sacrifice to appease the god, you know, the spirit. Yeah. Now this is, again, this is another ticklish aspect of voodoo, isn't it? You know, I mean, this is like, oh, they sacrifice animals.

They're evil. It's like, well, you got the sacrifice animals part, right? Right. You know? Yeah. Well, they used to sacrifice humans, too. Did they? Yeah, it's been like at least 100 years since any of that's gone on in Africa, they say.

Huh. So. And actually, with the animal sacrifices, there, there's actually a process, as you can imagine, there's a process where say you're going to sacrifice a chicken, right? Okay. And this chicken is washed in leaves to be consecrated, right? And then it's fed from this ritual dish. And if it refuses to eat, then that means that the loa has rejected that sacrifice and

the animal is set free. Oh, really? So if it eats, then it's like, okay, you're dead, right? Chickens always eat, though, from what I understand. Apparently, I guess they don't, but it's not just chickens. I think this applies to goats, pigs, whatever, sacrifice, right? And so if it eats, then it's like, okay, you're dead. If it's a goat or a pig, it's throat, it's slit.

If it's a chicken, its neck is broken, but it's quick. It's a quick death. It's not, you know, tortured or anything like that. Right. So it is mixed in this calabash, like a big chalice bowl with rum and syrup and salt. And then people will either take a sip or they'll make a cross on their crucifix on their head in blood. So that's the blood sacrifice.

That's where the blood sacrifice ritual stands today. Oh, really? They still do it that way. Physicians still practice voodoo right out in the open, so it's not like Westerners might think it's like some weird, hidden thing, but it's not like that at all. You also talked about when they invoke or when you're possessed, I know there's a dance called the Dance of the Hooded Igungun. And apparently what happens is when someone, like, the spirit overtakes them and they're

possessed and they're dancing around, if you touch them, you die. That's what they say. So you've got to stand in the circle and witness all this and take part, but they're running all over the place. So you've got to keep your distance. And also, while you're possessed, you are impervious to pain. You can't be injured. Yeah, good point.

And today I was reading an article from, I think, 2002 or 2004, and this guy was talking about witnessing a voodoo ritual in West Africa recently. And these guys were possessed by Ugu, remember the warrior-protector spirit? And they were cutting themselves with their knives, blood-lighting, and weren't wincing or anything like that because apparently one aspect of it is you can't feel pain while you're possessed. Interesting. Yeah.

Well, and since you brought that up, we should probably go ahead and talk about why Westerners view voodoo as some sort of evil, awful thing. Right. In addition to the slave uprising, right? Yeah, exactly. One of the reasons you just mentioned was there's a lot of self-injury that goes on. And so Westerners see that and they think, those people are crazy. Look at them.

Well, not just that, but blood, making a real appearance. Anything dealing with death, the fact that they believe that death is not necessarily a bad thing and the spirits are still living among us, guiding us, Westerners aren't typically down with that either. But Westerners don't have a stomach for real blood, which is why wine is used in place of it or is a metaphor for it and like the Christian tradition. Of course. And death is something that we don't like to think about or talk about in the West either.

No. Again, though, in the voodoo tradition and in a lot of other traditions, death is just a part of the natural order of things and it's certainly not the end. I think in the West it's kind of viewed even by the religious in some cases as the end and we don't really like to think about that. No. That's a good point. The other thing Tracy mentioned in here was from 1915 to 1935, the Marine Corps occupied

Haiti and during this period, there were a lot of books and movies all of a sudden being written about and portrayed like Haitian voodoo as these crazy bloodletting people. So those became really popular and one of them was called White Zombie in 1932. And at the same time, it had spread to New Orleans and kind of voodoo became popular. Right. In the 19th century, there were two women named Marie Laveau and one was, they were the most powerful women in voodoo culture in the U.S. In New Orleans.

And one was the mom and one was the daughter. The mom retired and died. The daughter disappeared. No one knows what happened to her. But after the second one disappeared, the followers split into factions and one of the factions became voodoo and voodoo became very powerful and voodoo is a mix of bo, black magic with voodoo or in the voodoo tradition, I guess. And so now we have voodoo and that is what most people think of.

When you think of voodoo in the U.S., you think of New Orleans and then what we're actually thinking of is voodoo, not voodoo. They should have named it something else. They should have. You know. Like Chimichanga or something. Right. Exactly.

So these misconceptions still abound. There was a paper in 1984 that apparently this physician who wrote it, or researcher who wrote it, still takes flak for. But it was titled, Night of the Living Dead 2 colon. Do necromantic zombieists transmit HTLV3 slash LAV during voodooistic rituals? So basically, do necrophiliacs who are into zombieism and are voodoo practitioners, are they the reason for the spread of AIDS and Haiti? Well, actually, there is a certain element of public health to voodoo.

That's one of the real concerns. It's not all these western misconceptions of taboos. Real concerns are that there is bloodletting and that they freely bleed on one another. Or sharing the blood of an animal sacrifice. People drinking that. That can be bad stuff. Yeah. So that's a real health concern.

Another really practical concern is a lot of, and we failed to mention this, the priests and priestesses, one of their main gigs is to practice folk medicine on the practitioners of voodoo. Because again, we said everyday life, like voodoo is part of your everyday life if you are an adherent. And some of these folk practices kind of fly in the face of real medicine. So that's sort of a concern here and there. I think we should replace the word real with western medicine.

Yeah, you're right. Yeah. You're definitely right. Thanks. Because I believe in a lot of like Eastern medicine. Sure. I might look into voodoo. Might clear up my...

Sinuses? Yeah. Sinuses. Sinuses. And like we said, death is a big, big part of it. And just the culture of fear that it creates is something that is a big turn off for a lot of... Well, it creates a culture of fear in the West.

It is. But again, there's, I think even informed educated people have misconceptions about voodoo because it's been harangued so long in this country that people in the U.S. just really don't understand what it is that's going on down there. There's so many misunderstandings. Well, they think it's voodoo. Yeah. They see Angelheart.

But even beyond that, like even if you don't think it's voodoo, you're like, okay, well, they're turning people into zombies. We did the how zombies work thing and it's real down there. But that's not voodoo. That's bo, right? Yeah, exactly. So it's kind of, it makes me... Sad for voodoo?

I guess a little sad for voodoo. It makes me sad for the mambas. Well, it's definitely has a stigma about it. And until I read all about it, I probably fell into that same trap. But then you start realizing, aside from like spiritual possession and a couple of the other things, like, you know, it's not so different than other religions when you look at it. And I think a Buddhist actually, I think there are times when Buddhism, when there is spiritual possession going on there too.

Right. Christianity now. There's a good example in this article of spirit possession happening in the Buddhist tradition, right? Oh, really? Yeah. So that's where I heard it? Yeah.

All right. There was, in 1959, the Dalai Lama was speaking with an oracle that was possessed and the oracle gave him advice on how to escape the Chinese army successfully. Right. So that's spirit possession, but it's Buddhism and they don't sacrifice chickens. Right. I think that that's kind of it. There's a lot of blood and death in voodoo and people are afraid of it.

Right. But I read it or saw a thing on NPR today where one guy went down and spent some time with the voodoo practitioners and, I think, Haiti, and he said- Wade Davis? No. Maybe his ira glass. People are crazy. That's more Woody Allen than ira glass.

But he basically likened the dark side, even the bow, to the concept of heaven and hell in Western religion. And he said, quote, the whole point is to manifest the darkness so that goodness can overwhelm it. And it's the same in voodoo as it is in Christianity. And actually, I said that Christianity, they don't believe in like, possession at all. Right. Not quite true.

Oh, yeah. I mean, like Southern Baptist and Pentecostal believe that the spirit can overtake you in such a way. So I was not quite right there. But again, think about how those people are looked at from the same people who look at voodoo as, you know, unseemly. Yeah. Good point.

Yeah. But what's going on now, though, is there's sort of an outright war on voodoo by missionaries still going there to convert them from what they say is a cult. Right. Or associated with the devil. Well, yeah. They associate it with Satan, which is ridiculous because nothing about voodoo has anything to do with Satan.

Right. They don't even believe in Satan. Well, Satan doesn't exist. Yeah. So this is Western Christians kind of just putting all their stuff on them. Lots of hangups. Lots of hangups. Yeah.

We Anglo-Saxon descendants really like to hang our hangups on other people. Right? Yeah. Let's stop that. Well, I mentioned Angel Heart. We should mention the movies real quick. Angel Heart. Great movie.

Voodoo, Serpent in the Rainbow. Great movie. But again, that was Wade Davis, the anthropologist. And he's done a lot too. Oh, that's who that was? Yeah. Well, it was Bill Pullman playing him. But he's done a lot actually to cloud voodoo to continue these misconceptions rather than

clear them up. Oh, really? Yeah. But he's made a lot of money along the way. Yeah. Good point. And then, of course, Live and Let Die, we like to talk about Bond. I love that one.

There's some voodoo in that. Best Bond ever, Roger Moore. Oh, God. It's so true. Roger Moore was awful, dude. Dude, Roger Moore was great. I grew up with Roger Moore, so I like, like, I have a certain affinity for some of those films, some of his earlier ones.

But it got to the point where it was just like a cartoon of himself. He was never the butt-kicker like Connery was, or the new guys. You know, whatever. Dalton, or who's the new guy, Craig? All right. If you want to learn more about James Bond and voodoo, you can type James Bond and voodoo into the handysearchbar at HowStuffWorks.com. If that doesn't work, which I can pretty much guarantee it won't, just type voodoo.

Try that one. And since I said handysearchbar at HowStuffWorks.com, it's time for listener mail. Josh, I'm going to call this Ghost Prisons for Reels. Did you read this one from Will? Uh-uh. Hey, guys, just thought I would drop a line about my interaction with your recent Ghost Prisons topic, which we have yet to get a lot of flak for. We've gotten zero flak.

I'm ready for some flak to come our way though, somewhere. Oh, people stopped listening a long time ago, Chuck. I have met on several occasions a man by the name of, I'll go ahead and say his name, Mamdu Habib, who was very prominent in the Australian media for being an Australian citizen, held it Gitmo, or Jitmo. Gitmo. Gitmo? Mm-hmm.

Oh, right. It's Guantanamo. Mm-hmm. Guantanamo. Through my conversations with him, it was clear that he had not only been tamed at Guantanamo, but also was a subject to extraordinary rendition. He was captured by the US and Pakistan, sent to Egypt, where he was held for six months and tortured.

The torture, however, was ineffective because of the misadministration of drugs by US agents, which rendered him almost above feeling for most of the time. So like they doped him up so much, he couldn't even feel the torture, basically. Almost as if he was under the power of a voodoo spell. Or under the power of morphine. Right. And ketamine. After six months, he was dumped back in the Pakistan before getting picked up again and

taken to Gitmo. There was apparently common policy for the US to first torture, then imprison in Guantanamo Bay in order to use the torture findings. However, mainly due to the tireless campaigning of his wife, he was released from Guantanamo and returned to Oz. However, judging from the times I have met him, the experience will never leave him. In regards to the... I wouldn't think so.

No, you don't get it. I was tortured. I forgot all about it. But you want to come over for a bobby? Yeah, alright. No, for a slab of beer. Yeah, for a stubby. In regards to the perception that Obama is better in terms of this stuff, it is unfortunately

not the case as well. I wouldn't say that. Gitmo has been replaced by a Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, a prison even further from the public eyes. Keep up the great work, guys. Hope this finds you in good health. There is no way to end that softly. It's just like, we're just going to stop here and keep up the great work.

So that comes from Will and he says, peace. Right on, Will. Peace to you too, my friend. So what do you want to call for, Chuck? I don't know, something interesting. How about if you are a practitioner of Voodoo? That is excellent, Chuck. We want to hear from you.

Yes, please do let us know. If you're a practitioner of Voodoo, we would love to hear from you. Let us know what's going on and what we got glaringly wrong or omitted. Because this one could use filling out, I think, a little more. What are they called? Voodoers? Voodoo practitioners. Voodoists?

Voodoists. You know the line in Blazing Sails? Now go do that Voodoo that you do so well. Yes. The late Harvey Corman. Yes. You can also follow us on Twitter, S-Y-S-K Podcast. We have a Facebook page that we like to hang out on sometimes.

It's called Stuff You Should Know, website and parentheses. And you can send us that email if you are into Voodoo at StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Want more HowStuffWorks? Check out our blogs on the HowStuffWorks.com homepage. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?

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