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Louis Elneus
Founder of HLD
Richard Jeanty
Author & Entrepreneur
Leslie Demangles
Author & College Professor
Danielle Legros-George
Haitian Poet & Autor
Margaret
Papillon
Haitian Author
Myrtelle Cherry
Haitian Artist & Painter
Carole B. Joseph
Mass Bay Community College President
Gashford Guillaume
Mozayik Drummer
Pascale Auguste
Haitian Association Against Cancer
Andy Jacques
Haitian Fashion Designer
Phillip J. Brutus
State Representative
Yvecar Momperousse
Haitian Student Alliance
The
Maroons
Haitian Writers & Poets
Evans Thesee
Founder HaitianConnection.com
Abdias Charles
Founder of Repair Haiti.org
Mecca AKA Grimo
Haitian Hip Hop Artist & Activist
Fania Simon
Writer, Lecturer & Activist
Nadege Fleurimond
Owner of Fleurimond Catering
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Leslie Desmangles was born in Haiti and is currently a professor of religion and international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. The talented professor has written many academic papers and journals for various publications in the United States. He is currently working on a book that analyzes foods in Haitian religious life. |
Recently, Prodg president, Bleky Seide recently caught up with Leslie and
they chatted about his well known book, “The Faces of the Gods”, a cleverly written piece that provides
a scholarly understanding of Vodou. This book takes into account the tremendous variety of religious forms as
well as outside influences on the religion. |
Bleky Seide: What long and winding road led you to your current position?
Leslie Demangles: I studied at the Feller Collegiate Institute, and the
Mc Gill Conservatory of Music in Montreal, Canada. I graduated from Eastern University in Pennsylvania with a degree in music,
and then attended Palmer Theological Seminary where I earned a Masters of Divinity degree, and then attended Temple University
where I was awarded a Ph.D. degree in Anthropology of Religion with a concentration in African and Caribbean Studies. I have
taught at Ohio Wesleyan University, DePaul University in Chicago. I am currently a Professor of Religion and International
Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut where I have been since 1978.
BS: It's been more than 10 years since you released "The Faces
of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti" are you planning to write another book?
LD: Since the release of "The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman
Catholicism in Haiti", I have worked on a number of projects. I have published many academic papers in scholarly
journals, in encyclopedias and in anthologies in the United States and abroad. I was associate editor of the
Encyclopedia of African and African American Religions published by Rutledge in 2001. Currently I am working
on a book on the ritualistic use of foods in Haitian religious life.
BS: Describe The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism
in Haiti and what was the message you were trying to convey?
LD: Vodou, the African derived religion of Haiti, is a by-product of the contact between Roman Catholicism, African and Amerindian religions. The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti analyze Vodou as a New World phenomenon, born out of the oppressive conditions of slavery and the necessary adaptation of slaves to a New World environment. It analyzes the mythology and rituals of Vodou, focusing particularly on the inclusion of West African and European elements in Vodouists' beliefs and practices. It describes the relationships of Vodou to Roman Catholicism as a juxtaposition of two religious traditions in the religious lives of Vodouists.
The book relies heavily on Haitian religious history to describe the ways in which the maroon communities contributed to
the preservation of West African religious traditions in Haiti.
BS: In writing this book, how did you go about doing your
research? Who did you speak to? And was it mostly done in Haiti?
LD: I conducted 12 years of intermittent field research in Haiti and parts of West Africa. I interviewed scores of "religious specialists" (houngans mambos, prèt savann) and devotees. For the historical details included in the book I consulted the records at the library of colonial history (Bibliothèque Nationale Outre Mer) and the Archives Nationales in Paris, France. I worked with original sources, various diaries, letters and documents written by those who lived in the 17th and 18th centuries in Saint Domingue as colonial Haiti was called. Moreover, I also conducted part of my field research in West Africa, particularly in Whydah in Benin and in Nigeria where I studied the Fon and Yoruba religious traditions that are in part the bases for many of the Vodou beliefs and rites. My research then was conducted on three continents and in many countries, and it could not have been possible without two substantial grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a generous grant from Trinity College where I currently teach.
BS: The book offers a historical perspective to Vodou in Haiti, but it also attempted to
connect it to European and African religious traditions, what is the correlation (if any) between Vodou deities and the Roman
Catholic saints?
LD: It describes the Vodou spirits (lwas) and the Catholic saints as a symbiosis, a word that is used in its anthropological and etymological rather than its biological denotations. From the Greek, the word symbiosis derives from sun, with, and bios, life. In its linguistic denotation and anthropological sense, symbiosis means literally juxtaposition, that is, the occurrence of two religious systems that coexist in time and in space without completely fusing with one another. Just as in a stained glass window the various parts are juxtaposed to form a whole, so too in Vodou the parts of African and Catholic traditions are juxtaposed in space and in time to constitute the whole of Vodou. The personae of the Catholic saints and the rituals offered to them in time were "transfigured into" an aggregate of African spirits and the practices tended to them. In essence the book describes the mythological character of the Vodou lwas and explains how this juxtaposition occurred.
BS: Talk to me about the African and European influence on Vodou in Haiti?
LD: The African worldview is very much present in Vodou beliefs. In Vodou many of the spirits or lwas are said to exist in "Vilokan", a mythological city that is believed to be in Dahomey or in Guinea, both of which are countries in West Africa. In Vodou there are several "nations" or pantheons of lwas, each of which belongs to a different sect of Vodou. Among them are the Rada and the Congo nations, both of which correspond not only to regions of West Africa, but to the ethnic groups living in these regions. These sects, the Rada and Congo nations use African names. The term Rada itself derives from the word Whydah, the name of an important city and a historically important religious center of Benin. In addition, many of the rituals, such as the rites of initiation, and many parts of the rituals related to burial (such as the rite of reclamation of the soul a year after a person's death), and the rite of initiation present amazing parallels with similar rites in Benin. There is a formidable tenacity of African religious traditions in Haitian religious beliefs and practices that slavery as an organized and brutal institution for 300 years could not destroy. It is this aspect of cultural memory that fascinates me about Haitian culture in general.
Roman Catholicism too is an important part of many Haitians' religious lives. Many Vodouists follow the church's
cycle of rituals by being baptized, confirmed, and married in the church. Funeral masses as well as services
celebrated in remembrance of a deceased member of a family are also important to events in Vodouists' lives.
Vodouists revere the Catholic saints and tend offerings to them. Many observe the days dedicated to them by
attending pilgrimages and, as is often the case in many Haitian towns, by participating in sacred processions
in their honor. Elizabeth Macalister has referred to the transfer from one religious system to the other as
"code switching", which means that the degree to which one moves from one religious system to the other
depends upon the nature of the need in Haitians' religious lives. It is this ability to code switch that
The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti describes as a religious symbiosis, or the
coexistence of two religious traditions.
BS: What is your stance on Vodou? Do you believe in the practice?
Have you yourself had any experiences outside of your research?
LD: It is not important that anthropologists of
religion be identified with the religious traditions that they study. What is important is that they
make a concerted effort to understand the beliefs and practices of those whom they study and about
whom they write. An accomplished scholar's goal is to be respectful of the religious traditions of
others and to describe these traditions from an epic perspective, that is, from the point of view of the believers.
BS: Being that "Gods" in plural, what are the differences of
those Gods that you referred to?
LD: Vodou has often been described wrongly as a polytheistic religion. Vodou is in fact monotheistic. Vodouists believe that there is one God who has many names but is most often referred to as Bondye or Grand Mèt. Vodouists believe that Bondye is such a complex spirit that he cannot be grasped by the human mind. Bondye has manifested himself in multifarious ways through the personae of more than 100 spirits or lwas who are identified with various aspects of the cosmos and are directly involved in the devotees' lives. Hence, when a devotee reveres a lwa, he or she pays homage to Bondye.
I am reminded of the writings of the Jesuit priest and scholar Jean Danielou who studied Hinduism.
Discussing the nature of God with a Hindu scholar in India once, Danielou insisted that it was important
to consider the oneness of God. The Hindu scholar noted that the difference between the number one and one
thousand was the difference between the temporal and the eternal. According to that argument, the number
one thousand was closer to infinity than one and therefore there is no reason to believe that God should
be limited to one, a number that was furthest away from infinity. The scholar with whom Danielou spoke
insisted that God "was one thousand". Hence, like the Hindus, Vodouists hold the highest reverence for
Bondye and insist that he is a complex cosmic being whose multifaceted "faces" are represented by the
diverse personae of more than one hundred lwas. But these lwas are merely manifestations of Bondye.
BS: Did you write the book for the purpose of disseminating information or was it
for personal gain?
LD: I wrote it primarily for the academic community, but I wanted it to be accessible to the general public as well. I made an effort then not to be too theoretical but theoretical enough that it would make a significant contribution of Haitian Studies.
In the popular media Vodou is wrongly associated with witches and sorcerers who, filled with hatred attempt to inflict diseases
or even death on other persons by making wax dolls of them and perforating these with pins. Such depictions demean the
devotion of Vodouists and do harm to the richness of Vodou's mythology and to Haitian culture in general.
One of my goals has been to "demystify" Vodou and present it as a religion in its own right. It's a religion that,
through a complex system of myths and rituals, relates the life of the devotees to the deities who govern that life.
Like many religions of the world, Vodou is a system of beliefs and practices that gives meaning to life: it uplifts the
spirits of the downtrodden and instills in its devotees a need for solace and self-examination, and relates the profane
world of humans to that of incommensurable divine entities called lwas who govern the cosmos.
BS: What can you tell young Haitians living in America without a dream?
LD: I would tell them not to forget their Haitian ancestral culture.
They should know Haiti's history, and the accomplishments of many Haitian writers and scholars. By the middle of the 20th
century, Haiti had produced more writers and scholars than any other black country in the world, and young Haitians
living in the Diaspora should be aware of these scholars' works. It is also important that young Haitians living in
the Diaspora embrace the professions and share their skills with their compatriots living in the homeland.
BS: Thank you Professor for sharing your thoughts with our readers.
Good luck on your next book.
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