WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: What's the deal with Voodoo? 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:04.920 Hi, everybody. I've got my voodoo doll out because it's Saturday. 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:07.320 It's time for a Saturday Select and I went with 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:12.600 What's the Deal with Voodoo? From July six two. Uh. 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:14.240 You know, I picked this one because I just remember 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:18.880 being a very interesting episode. Voodoo is. Um. Well, we 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:20.799 we talk all about it, not just in a pop 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:25.279 culture way because voodoo is so often misinterpreted on TV 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:28.880 Sitcom's Go Figure, but we get into the real voodoo 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:30.840 and in the history of it and what's behind it. 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:34.000 All very interesting stuff. So here we go, July six, 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:43.280 What's the Deal with Voodoo? Welcome to Stuff you Should 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:52.280 Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:55.120 to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as always 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.760 is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. How you like your chair? 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:01.560 I hate this chair? Dude? Do you realize that, in 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.800 like the last eight podcasts, we've just complained at the beginning. 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:09.679 We're probably so tired of it. Yeah, So let's let's instead, Chuck, 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:12.640 instead of complaining as is our usual way these days, 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:18.000 let's go back in time. Oh yes, I'm going to 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:25.480 take us back. You're ready, okay, Chuck? Um, this is 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:31.440 August little place that we now know of as Haiti, 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:37.240 and what's just happened is a slave uprising. Actually, what 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:42.679 is the only successful slave uprising in the world. Good 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.000 for them, Yeah, that's what I say. What happened was 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:51.279 what happened was in earlier in August of a group 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:55.640 of slave leaders and maroon leaders and maroons were runaway 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:58.320 slaves who've made it to the hills and we're basically 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:04.840 staging guerrilla warfare against um plantations and white colonists. They 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.120 got together and there was a ceremony that was performed 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.919 in a place called Alligator Woods or block came in. 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:16.080 I've been there, have you really? Oh? Wow, Well we're 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:20.160 about together now, right. There's this voodoo ritual that took place, 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:23.440 and all of the leaders basically pledged their support and 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:29.120 dedication to this rebellion. And a week later, all hell 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:35.680 breaks loose. Okay, um this thousands of slaves revolt. They 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:40.000 murder every white person they can find. Apparently they paraded 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.520 around from like settlement to settlement with a white human 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.160 baby impaled on a steak, I might draw the line there, 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:51.120 but burned every plantation they could find and just basically 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.840 held a slave uprising you know, it's like you can 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:59.360 only hold somebody down for so long before they, you know, 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:04.000 turn on you. The human spirit wants to be free, exactly, Chuck. Uh. 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:09.400 And that's essentially what happened that the Haitian slaves rose up. 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:15.040 They were unsuccessful actually in but historians say this is 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:17.639 the point that started at all. And by eighteen o 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:22.240 four Haitia was a free republic. Awesome, yeah, um, But 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.440 that that meeting in the woods that started it all. 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:32.520 The voodoo ceremony that instance, and other slave rebellions that 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:36.360 were kind of based around voodoo UM have kind of 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.400 given the religion a bad rap among whites lots of 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:43.480 things since then. It's kind of weird to think of, 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:50.840 but our conception of voodoo is almost entirely hollywood ized, 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:58.320 fictionalized um and fear based based on this um kind 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:05.640 of collective white distant memory um of well, this is 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.600 this is what you know voodoo is. It's babies impaled 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:14.000 on steaks. What happens when you let people practice voodoo? Right, Chuck? Actually, 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:18.840 the um that slave revault is successful slave rebellion um 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.960 is what Pat Robertson was talking about famously. After the 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:25.680 Haiti earthquake when he said a long time ago, and 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:27.640 people in Haiti don't like to talk about it, but 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.800 they made a pact with the devil um to get 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.480 the French out and they said, we'll give you our 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.359 souls if uh, you'll get the French out, and the 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.839 French got out. And then so basically he was saying, 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.960 you know, the it's devil worship. Voodoo is devil worship, 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.599 and the successful slave rebellion is proved positive of it, 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.000 and that's why the earthquake happened in his opinion. And 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:52.760 then Haiti they were probably like, who's this devil you 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.920 keep talking about? We don't believe in that, dude. This 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.000 is gonna be a lot of debunking going on today. 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:04.880 Let's debunk dude. Let's start talking about voodoo. Okay, let's now, okay, 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:08.080 Voodoo is a religion. A lot of people think it's 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:10.960 just a bunch of hocus pocus, which is more like 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:14.640 who do which we'll get to later. But voodoo is 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.760 an actual religion. There is a there's one God. It's 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:19.720 very It depends on where you are if you're talking 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:25.719 voodoo and um. Even generationally speaking, there's a lot of differences. Yeah, 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:30.400 because there's no definitive holy text. It's a normal tradition. Yeah. 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.440 And it's a very subjective religion too, right, it's like 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:37.200 a very personal um and it governs your day to 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:41.800 day life. And it um also has it's different, has 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:45.800 a different impact on every every person, right, Yes, it does. Yes. Uh. 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.440 So there's like I said, there's one supreme God and 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:50.840 depending on where you are to be different name. Uh, 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:54.200 if you're talking Haitian voodoo, we're basically going to cover 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.040 like African and Haitian in parts, I would say, won't 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:00.320 you Yeah, okay, so Haitian voodoo, you're gonna all this 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.640 supreme god bandhi. But in voodoo, you can't talk directly 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:06.400 to the main god. You have to go through one 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:09.560 of the spirits called the loa, right, and there are 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.839 many loa. Now I'll have different functions, but it is hierarchical, 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:18.320 it is. And they're based on dead ancestors ancestral spirits, yeah, 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.240 which it turns out to be and we'll get to 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:22.240 that more in detail. But that's a big, big part 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.880 of voodoo, is uh, the ancestry and dead people basically 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.239 spirits of the dead people, right, And you're talking about 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:33.360 comparing it to say Christianity or Judaism or something like that. 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:38.040 It's much it's much easier to compare um like a 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:44.280 pagan religion like voodoo, to a pagan religion like um Druidism, right, 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:49.000 than it is to compare either one to Christianity or Judaism. Um. 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.520 Although there are some similarities there are, especially in Haitian voodoo, 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:56.360 but in African voodoo, Um, it's it's much more difficult 0:06:56.360 --> 0:07:00.800 to compare it. And so answer all just still kind 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:04.120 of put it in this um context of of ways 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.800 we can understand like gods, right, but they're not gods. 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:11.960 You can't like to to voodoo practitioners. They're not God's 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.800 their ancestral spirits. The spirit world is as real as 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:19.320 this world. So we may hear their call them gods accidentally, 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.000 but that's that's just as close as we can come. 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.320 You could compare them to a Greek or Roman gods, right. 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.560 They have different personalities that represent different things, but it's 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:32.560 kind of that shared pagan worldview that different parts of 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:36.440 the natural experience are associated with different gods. Yes, right, 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:40.320 good point. Thanks. Uh. It's basically so white Christians can 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:45.000 understand exactly what we're talking about, um so uh. African 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:48.200 and Haitian voodoo in in both cases you have it's 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.320 really not a bunch of evil doing and and spells 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:55.640 cast upon one another. It's mainly used for for good 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.040 and to be a better person. In fact, you're you're 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:00.800 counted on as a practice or voodoo to be a 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.760 good community member and you know, a stand up guy 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:07.080 or gal. Right Yeah, And I remember we said that 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:11.480 it was a personal and subjective religion. Um So when 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:16.440 you're practicing voodoo, when you are um uh interacting with it, 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:21.080 say like a voodoo priest or priestess, right, um, you're 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:26.040 seeking advice, guidance and you're living your life by that, right. Yeah. 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:30.360 So there's actually I guess kind of the whole um 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:37.040 evil aspect does exist bo bo um in African tradition, 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:40.400 right yeah. African voodoo, Yeah, that's the dark side of 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.800 African Vodoo is called bo right, and voodoo practitioners a 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:48.760 voodoo priest is called a hogun right yeah. An African 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:52.160 voodoo priest, right yeah, And an African and Haitian voodoo 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:56.959 priestess is called a mamba, right, yes, mamba um So 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:01.319 the mamba and the Hogun are not charged with um 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:05.600 carrying out bow, which is evil spells hexes um basically 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.200 magic that does harm, right, right, And they do use 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:12.280 voodoo dolls they do. Yeah, but um, this is not 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:14.080 to say and this is where it kind of gets 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:21.200 a little prickly, like a little hinky um where the 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.440 voodoo priests and priests is may not actually practice bow, 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:28.559 this black magic, but um, they're familiar with it, they 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.679 have a working knowledge of it. But so so they 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:35.079 can oppose people who practice bo. Yes, you have to 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:39.760 understand something to fight it. That's the belief they're right, right, Sure, Okay, 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:42.560 so Chuck, let's talk a little more about ceremonies and 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:46.160 some of the characteristics and traits that make voodoo voodoo. 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:48.400 All right, are we going to Africa? Are we in 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:51.079 Haiti at this point? Let's do Africa first. I mean, 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:54.040 this is the cradle of voodoo, right, yeah, like six 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:56.240 thousand years ago. That's where the word comes from. It 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.040 comes from the Faun language, which was the kingdom of 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:03.880 Fun and that means sacred spirit or deity, right, And 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:10.120 I think it was like northwest northwest Africa. Northwest it's 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:15.079 north central West Africa. So it's West Africa. We're talking. Ghana, 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:19.200 Benin and Togo are like the the areas where these 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.480 ancient kingdoms of Fawn and Congo, Congo with the k 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:27.080 um We're located. And this is the cradle of voodoo. Yeah. 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:29.079 And I actually got a stat for you. Um they 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.679 say that thirty million people in in Togo, Ghana and 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.920 was it Benin, Yeah, still practice voodoo today. And just 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.079 to gauge where that falls and world religions, it's about 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:43.480 double the number of Jewish people in the entire world. Wow, 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.080 is it really? Yeah? Well there, I mean stats vary 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.319 because depending on if you're like an active practice practitioner 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:51.920 of Judaism or if you're just like born Jewish. But yeah, 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:55.719 it's about double, so it ranks. It's also um an 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:59.800 official religion in Beni. Yeah. They say six of the 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.640 bull of that country follow voodoo. Still right, so this 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:08.719 is a an established religion. Um. But one of the 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:13.320 founding um or foundational tenants of voodoo is that you 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:15.960 can communicate with the spirits, and you communicate with the 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:19.280 spirits to find out, you know, what you should do 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:24.959 from them. Then the almighty deity. Yeah, the Supreme God 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:29.320 right there, the medium, right um. One of the one 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.319 of the other founding tenants of voodoo is you communicate 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:34.360 with these people, not in your head, not through prayer, 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:41.600 but by these the loa um actually possessing someone who 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:44.840 then gives commands or says, you know, what are you doing? 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:48.120 Why aren't you you know, um, spending more time with 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.280 your wife, things like that. Right Yeah. We said that 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:53.760 it's different in African and Haitian and all over the 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:55.960 world and in different time periods, but that's one of 0:11:55.960 --> 0:12:01.439 the main through lines and all voodoo is possession, spirit, intrusion, possession, 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.640 right um. The person who's being possessed at the time 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:08.079 is known as the horse, and the whatever loa is 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.720 is possessing him or her is known as the rider. 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:14.679 Right Yeah, that's in Haitian voodoo. How did I get 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:16.200 ahead of us? No, that's right, we can, we can 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.600 kind of jump around. Okay. Well that's really one of 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:24.240 the big bridges. Um. That's really the bridge between Haitian 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:28.440 voodoo and African voodoo. Right is that spirit possession exists. 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.120 That's how you find out what you should do in 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:35.360 your day to day life, right um. Back in Africa, 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:39.520 on the African side. Um, some other commonalities between the two. 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:42.719 Because again um, or maybe not again, but possibly the 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:51.880 first time Haitian Haitian voodoo is African voodoo with creolized yes. Right, yeah, 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:54.280 so let's get back to talking about African voodoo. I 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:57.200 did screw us up, and I apologize, Chuck, apologize to 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:00.560 our fans. I'm so sorry, fans, Please forgive me. You 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:03.000 never owe me an apology, buddy. Um. So the answer, 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.880 the ancestral spirits make up the lowa. Right. Um. You 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.000 can take any object and consecrate it and it becomes 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:14.400 a ritual, sacred object. Right, which is where the dolls 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.000 come in, which, as you said, are not used for 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.560 um harm Right. Well, they can be by the if 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:23.720 you're talking bow, but it's definitely not like you see 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:29.760 in the movies, right or the Brady bunch um during Yeah, Um, 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:34.640 the there's a lot of ceremonial dance. Um. Spirits are 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:39.520 in vogue through music, percussion, that kind of thing. Um. 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:43.880 I know that in both Haitian and African voodoo there 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:48.440 is a gatekeeper, um. And his name in Haitian tradition 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.920 is papal Legba. Right, I love that name. Yeah, um. 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:56.840 And papal Legba is the gatekeeper between the spirit world 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.360 and the human world, right, and he's invoked at the 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.000 beginning of every ceremony because you have to get him 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:05.560 to open the gate so you can absolutely start communicating 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:07.600 at the low and so things can be people can 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:11.719 be possessed. Right. And actually Papalaba is also a one 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:15.240 of the black men at the Crossroad, who um bears 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:19.880 a striking resemblance to our friend Mashamn. Oh really yeah, interesting, Yeah, 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:24.280 the Crossroad a k a. The Christian Cross in Haitian tradition. Yeah, right, 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:26.440 we should go ahead and talk about that. Probably if 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.920 some of this sounds familiar, if you're thinking, Papa Legba 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:33.240 sounds sort of like St. Peter and the crossroads sounds 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.000 sort of like the Christian Cross, is a very good 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.040 reason for that. It's because once again we go back 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:42.680 to our friend Christopher Columbus Hispaniola and the fact that 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:46.800 they brought slaves over to Hispaniola to work on the plantations. 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:51.080 They brought voodoo with them, and the problem there was 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.600 Columbus said, no, no, no no, no no. If you're going 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:56.240 to be a slave over here, you have to be 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:59.320 converted to Christianity. So that was the code noir. The 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:05.080 French actually did that one to be baptized, forced conversion. 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:08.240 So what they did was in order to keep practicing voodoo, 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:10.920 they incorporated and this or my mind was blown. I 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.520 didn't know they did this. They incorporated parts of Catholicism 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:16.880 to kind of mask the fact that they were practicing 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:22.600 voodoo and it got all mixed up in what's called syncretization. Yeah, 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:47.360 so Catholicism and voodoo working together, right crazy, So even today, Um, 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:50.960 they're a lot of the loa there. Well, there was 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:57.640 a lot of ready um uh similarities between these ancestral 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:01.920 spirits and Catholic saint. It's right. So like St. Peter 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.160 is associated with papal Legba because St. Peter's the guy 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.160 who's outside the gates to heaven. Papal Legba is the 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:12.360 gatekeeper to the spirit world, so they associate him with him. Um, 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:16.240 there is a god who is um pretty powerful. He's 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:21.040 a warrior protector god called Ogu and he's associated with St. James, 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:25.160 who was a warrior protector sat. So it's it wasn't 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.240 It's not a leap all the time, but sometimes it's 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:30.720 a stretch like St. Patrick, remember drove out the snakes 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:36.360 from Ireland. He's associated with snakes in the Haitian tradition. Um. 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.920 But yeah, so when you when you look at the 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:45.960 underlying um tenants, the really overarching narrative of being able 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:50.200 to communicate with spirits, invoking spirits through percussion, percussion, song, dance, 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:54.920 I'm being possessed and objects being able to be consecrated 0:16:55.320 --> 0:17:00.800 and and become sacred. Um. Then that's voodoo across the board. 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:06.200 The voodoo were familiar with. Um, that's Haitian voodoo, which 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:09.640 is kind of mixed up with Catholicism. Yeah. I said 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:14.200 that they even incorporated uh Catholic hymns and prayers. Yeah. Crazy, Yeah, 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:20.040 who knew, Tracy Wilson, Yeah she did. Um. So, Josh, 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.000 you brought up rituals that they would perform to invoke 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:26.280 the gods. And one of the tenants of voodoo is 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:28.360 the gods will give you advice at all, but you've 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:30.560 got to take care of the gods the spirits. Yeah. 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:33.480 And one way that you can do this is by 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:37.360 animal sacrifice to appease the god, you know, the spirit. Yeah. 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.680 Now this is um again. This is another ticklish aspect 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.320 of voodoo, isn't it? You know? I mean this is like, oh, 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.639 they sacrifice animals, they're they're evil. It's like, well you 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:50.560 got the sacrifice animals part right right? You know, well 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.600 they used to sacrifice humans, do did they? Yeah, it's 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:55.800 been like at least a hundred years since any of 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:59.359 that's gone on in Africa? They say, huh so, chuck, 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:06.480 there's actually um with the animal sacrifices. Um. There, there's 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.360 actually a process, as you can imagine, there's a process 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:13.520 where so you're you're going to sacrifice the chicken, right um. 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:17.480 And this chicken is washed and leaves to be consecrated, 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:20.760 and then it's fed from this ritual dish. And if 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.920 it refuses to eat, then that means that the loa 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.760 has rejected that sacrifice, and the animal is set free. 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:31.639 If it eats, then it's like, okay, you're dead. Always 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:35.840 eat though apparently I guess they don't. But but it's 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:38.919 not just chickens. I think this applies to the goats, pigs, whatever, 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:43.440 sacrifice right um. And so if it eats, then it's like, okay, 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:45.640 you're dead. If it's a goat or a pig, it's throat, 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:47.960 it's slip. If it's a chicken, its neck is broken, 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.359 but it's quick. It's a quick death. It's not you know, 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:54.679 tortured or anything like that. The blood is mixed in 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:59.840 this um calabash like a big chalice bowl um with 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:04.840 rum and syrup and salt, and then people will either 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:08.760 take a sip or they'll they'll um make a cross 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:12.240 on their crucifix on their head in blood. Right, So 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.639 that's the blood sacrifice. That's where the blood sacrifice ritual 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:18.400 stands today. Oh really they still do it that way 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:22.480 because Haitians still practice voodoo like uh, like right out 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:25.440 in the open. So yeah, it's not some like Westerners 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:27.639 might think it's like some weird hidden thing, but it's 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:30.720 not like that at all. Uh. You also talked about 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.439 um when they invoke or when you're possessed. There's I know, 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:36.760 there's a dance called the Dance of the hooded uh 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:40.440 a gun gun And apparently what happens is when someone 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.159 is like the spirit overtakes them and they're possessing and 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:48.280 they're dancing around. If you touch them, you die, that's 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:49.760 what they say. So you gotta like stand in the 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:52.119 circle and witness all this in some part but you know, 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:53.840 they're running all over the place, so you gotta like, 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.840 you know, keep your distance. And um. They're also if 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:01.040 while you're possessed, you are imperview is to pain, you 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.080 can't be injured. Good point. And today I was reading 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.280 an article from I think two thousand two or two 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:10.680 thousand four, um, and this guy was talking about witnessing 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:16.040 a a voodoo ritual in West Africa, yeah, recently. And 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:20.159 these guys were, um, we're possessed by Ugu remember the 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:24.040 warrior protector spirit um. And they were cutting themselves with 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:28.320 their knives, blood lighting, um, and weren't wincing or anything 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:30.719 like that because apparently one aspect of it is like 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:33.920 you can't feel pain while you're possessed. Interesting. Yeah, well, 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:35.440 and since you brought that up, we should probably go 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:39.919 ahead and talk about why Westerners view voodoo as some 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:42.840 sort of evil, awful thing, right, in addition to the 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:46.520 slave uprising right, Well, yeah, exactly. One of the reasons 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.280 you just mentioned was a lot of the there's a 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:53.480 lot of self injury that goes on, like yeah, and 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:55.639 so Westerners see that and they think those people are 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.280 crazy look at them. Well, not just that, but blood 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.600 making a real all of parents anything dealing with death. 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:05.119 The fact that they believe that death is like you know, 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:07.440 not necessarily a bad thing, and that the spirits are 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:11.480 are still living among us, guiding us. That's not where 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.400 Westerners aren't typically down with that either. Now, Westerners don't 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:17.280 have a stomach for real blood, which is why wine 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:19.440 is used in place of it or as a metaphor 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:22.919 for it. And like the Christian tradition, and death is 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:25.280 something that we don't like to think about or talk 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:29.000 about in the West either. Again, though in the voodoo 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:31.760 tradition and in a lot of other traditions, Um, death 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:34.920 is just a part of the natural order of things, 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.919 and it's certainly not the end. I think in the West, 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:41.280 it's kind of viewed even by the religious in some 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:44.080 cases as the end, and we don't really like to 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.040 think about that, you know. That's a good point. Um. 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:50.560 The other thing Tracy mentioned in here was from nineteen 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.080 fifteen to nineteen thirty five, the Marine Corps occupied Haiti, 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:57.840 and during this period there were a lot of books 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:00.800 and movies all of a sudden being written about uh 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:04.720 and portrayed like Haitian voodoo as these you know, crazy 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:07.800 blood letting people, so those became really popular. One of 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:13.480 them was called White Zombie. Around the same time it 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:17.639 had spread uh to New Orleans, and kind of who 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:21.400 do became popular. Right in the nineteenth century, there were 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:24.359 two women named Marie la vau and Um. One was 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:28.960 they were the most powerful women in UM in voodoo 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:34.040 culture in the US UM and the one was the 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:37.400 mom and the one was the daughter. Mom retired and died, 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:40.920 the daughter disappeared. No one knows what happened to her, UM. 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:47.240 But after the second one disappeared, UH, the the followers 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:51.320 split into factions, and one of the factions became who 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:53.560 do and you do became very powerful. And who do 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:59.160 is a mix of bow black magic with voodoo and 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:02.240 or in the who do tradition, I guess, And so 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:04.080 now we have who do? And that is what most 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:06.440 people think of when you think of voodoo in the US, 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:08.840 you think of New Orleans. And then what we're actually 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:10.919 thinking of is who do not voodoo. They should have 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:13.880 named it something else. They should have, you know, like 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:18.520 um Chimmy Chongga or something exactly um UM. So these 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:23.360 misconceptions still abound. UM. There was a paper in nine 0:23:24.080 --> 0:23:27.600 four that apparently this physician who wrote it, A researcher 0:23:27.640 --> 0:23:30.760 who wrote it still takes flak four. Um. But it 0:23:30.800 --> 0:23:34.760 was titled Night of the Living Dead to colon. Do 0:23:35.040 --> 0:23:40.040 necromantic zombieists transmit ht LV three slash l a v 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:46.800 during voodooistic rituals? So basically, do necrophiliacs who are into 0:23:46.880 --> 0:23:51.920 zombieism and our voodoo practitioners started, are they the reason 0:23:51.960 --> 0:23:57.119 for the spread of aids in Haiti? Well, actually, there 0:23:57.240 --> 0:24:01.000 is a certain element of public health too, That's what's 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:03.640 gonna say. That's like, that's one of the real concerns, 0:24:03.680 --> 0:24:07.320 just not all these Western misconceptions of like taboos. Um. 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:11.000 Real concerns are that there is blood letting and that 0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:14.800 they freely bleed on one another and or sharing you know, 0:24:14.920 --> 0:24:18.040 the blood of an animal sacrifice, people drinking that that 0:24:18.280 --> 0:24:20.120 that can be bad stuff. Yeah, so that's a real 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:23.879 health concern. Um. Another really practical concern is a lot 0:24:23.920 --> 0:24:25.760 of and we failed to mention this the priests and 0:24:25.800 --> 0:24:28.720 priestess is one of their main gigs is to practice 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:33.160 folk medicine on on the practitioners of voodoo. Right, because 0:24:33.200 --> 0:24:35.760 again we said everyday life, like voodoo is part of 0:24:35.840 --> 0:24:37.920 your everyday life. If you were and right here, and 0:24:38.040 --> 0:24:39.879 some of these folk practices kind of fly in the 0:24:39.960 --> 0:24:42.679 face of real medicine. So that's sort of a concern 0:24:42.760 --> 0:24:44.680 here and there. I think we should replace the word 0:24:44.760 --> 0:24:48.280 reel with Western. Yeah, you're right, Yeah, you're definitely right, 0:24:48.560 --> 0:24:50.880 because I believe in a lot of like Eastern medicine. Sure, 0:24:51.000 --> 0:24:57.679 I might look into voodoo, might clear up my sinuses. Yeah. Uh. 0:24:57.800 --> 0:25:00.720 And like we said, um, death is a big, big 0:25:00.800 --> 0:25:03.200 part of it, and just the culture of fear that 0:25:03.280 --> 0:25:06.439 it creates is something that is a big turn off 0:25:06.920 --> 0:25:09.399 for a lot of well, it creates a culture of 0:25:09.440 --> 0:25:11.840 fear in the in the West, it is. But again 0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:18.960 there's I think even informed, um educated people have misconceptions 0:25:18.960 --> 0:25:23.119 about voodoo because it's been harangued so long in this 0:25:23.280 --> 0:25:26.280