Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Religion Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Vodou

Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Religion

Haiti’S Pact With The Devil?: Bwa Kayiman, Haitian Protestant Views Of Vodou, And The Future Of Haiti, Bertin M. Louis Jr. Aug 2019

Haiti’S Pact With The Devil?: Bwa Kayiman, Haitian Protestant Views Of Vodou, And The Future Of Haiti, Bertin M. Louis Jr.

Anthropology Faculty Publications

This essay uses ethnographic research conducted among Haitian Protestants in the Bahamas in 2005 and 2012 plus internet resources to document the belief among Haitian Protestants (Haitians who practice Protestant forms of Christianity) that Haiti supposedly made a pact with the Devil (Satan) as the result of Bwa Kayiman, a Vodou ceremony that launched the Haitian Revolution (1791–1803). Vodou is the syncretized religion indigenous to Haiti. I argue that this interpretation of Bwa Kayiman is an extension of the negative effects of the globalization of American Fundamentalist Christianity in Haiti and, by extension, peoples of African descent and the …

Go to article

The Color Of Christ In Haiti, Elizabeth Mcalister Dec 2013

The Color Of Christ In Haiti, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

Haiti is an officially Roman Catholic country, and the popular religion
of Vodou incorporates many Catholic elements. Why, then, is Jesus
Christ relatively deemphasized in both traditions, while Mary and
the countless saints and spirits have a greater presence in the religious
lives of most Haitians? This article delves into the Roman Catholic
and Kongolese Catholic history of Haiti to explore why Jesus Christ
is a relatively remote figure and why he is represented as white in a
Black-majority country.

Go to article

Review, The Spirits And The Law: Vodou And Power In Haiti, Gina Ulysse Jun 2013

Review, The Spirits And The Law: Vodou And Power In Haiti, Gina Ulysse

Gina Athena Ulysse

Book review, Kate Ramsey, The Spirits and The Law: Vodou and Power in Haiti (UChicago 2011).

Go to article

Humanitarian Adhocracy, Transnational New Apostolic Missions, And Evangelical Anti-Dependency In A Haitian Refugee Camp, Elizabeth Mcalister Apr 2013

Humanitarian Adhocracy, Transnational New Apostolic Missions, And Evangelical Anti-Dependency In A Haitian Refugee Camp, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

This article addresses religious responses to disaster by examining how one network of conservative evangelical Christians reacted to the Haiti earthquake and the humanitarian relief that followed. The charismatic Christian New Apostolic Reformation (or Spiritual Mapping movement) is a transnational network that created the conditions for post-earthquake, internally displaced Haitians to arrive at two positions that might seem contradictory. On one hand, Pentecostal Haitian refugees used the movement’s conservative, right-wing theology to develop a punitive theodicy of the quake as God’s punishment of a sinful nation. On the other hand, rather than resign themselves to victimhood and passivity, their strict …

Go to article

Tapping The Wisdom Of Our Ancestors: An Attempt To Recast Vodou And Morality Through The Voice Of Mama Lola And Karen Mccarthy Brown, Claudine Michel Sep 2007

Tapping The Wisdom Of Our Ancestors: An Attempt To Recast Vodou And Morality Through The Voice Of Mama Lola And Karen Mccarthy Brown, Claudine Michel

Trotter Review

In this essay, I demonstrate that morality is culture-specific and contextual. To illustrate this point, I focus on Vodou, a religion that has been almost entirely misrepresented in the West, foremost because of its African origins, and that is perceived as having no legitimate basis for morality. I attempt to interpret morality in Vodou by presenting a model of ethics construction based on the true meaning of the religion rather than on the exotica of its myths and ritualizing. My analysis is based on the fact that Haitians seem to have turned to their ancestral religion and to their African …

Go to article