WEBVTT - What's the deal with Voodoo? 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:07.480 It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:16.479 from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.759 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as always is 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.640 Charles W. Chuck Bryant. How you like your chair? I 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:25.799 hate this chair? Dude? Do you realize that, in like 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:29.880 the last eight podcasts we've just complained at the beginning. 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.800 We're probably so tired of it. Yeah, So let's let's instead, Chuck, 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:36.720 instead of complaining as it is our usual way these days, 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:42.319 let's go back in time. Oh yes, I'm gonna take 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:51.760 us back. You're ready, okay, chuck um. This is August, 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:56.240 little place that we now know of as Haiti, and 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:01.560 what's just happened is a slave uprising. Actually, what is 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:08.040 the only successful slave uprising in the world. Good for them? Yeah, 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.080 that's what I say. What happened was what happened was 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:17.080 in earlier in August of a group of slave leaders 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:20.760 and maroon leaders and maroons were runaway slaves who made 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.920 it to the hills, and we're basically staging guerrilla warfare 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:29.920 against um plantations and white colonists. They got together and 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:33.520 there was a ceremony that was performed in a place 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:37.120 called Alligator Woods or block came in. I've been there, 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:41.320 have you really? Oh wow, Well we're about together now, right. 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:45.240 There's this voodoo ritual that took place, and all the 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:50.160 leaders basically pledged their support and dedication to this rebellion, 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:56.320 and a week later all hell brake slurs. Okay um 0:01:56.440 --> 0:02:01.040 this thousands of slaves revolt. Uh, they or every white 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:05.080 person they can find. Apparently they paraded around from like 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.760 settlement to settlement with a white human baby impaled on 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:12.080 a steak I might draw the line there, but burned 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.600 every plantation they could find and just basically held a 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:19.880 slave uprising. You know. It's like you can only hold 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:24.359 somebody down for so long before they, you know, turn 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:28.079 on the human spirit wants to be free, exactly. Chuck uh. 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:33.480 And that's essentially what happened the the Haitian slaves rose up. 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:39.120 They were unsuccessful actually in but historians say this is 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:41.720 the point that started at all and by eighteen o 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:46.720 four Haitia was a free republic. Yeah. Um, But that 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:50.040 that meeting in the woods that started it. All, the 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:56.920 voodoo ceremony, that instance and other slave rebellions that were 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:00.920 kind of based around voodoo um kind of given the 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:06.440 religion a bad rap among whites since then. It's kind 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:10.679 of weird to think of, but our conception of voodoo 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:19.120 is almost entirely hollywood ized, fictionalized um and fear based 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:27.040 based on this um kind of collective white distant memory 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.800 um of well, this is this is what you know. 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:34.519 Voodoo is, it's babies impaled on steaks. What happens when 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:38.680 you let people practice voodoo? Right, Chuck? Actually, the um 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:43.960 that slave revoult the successful slave rebellion um is what 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.880 Pat Robertson was talking about famously after the Haiti earthquake 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:50.200 when he said, a long time ago, and people in 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:52.400 Haiti don't like to talk about it, but they made 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.640 a pact with the devil um to get the French out, 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.240 and they said, we'll give you our souls if uh 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:01.280 you'll get the itch out, and the French got out. 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:06.119 And so basically he was saying, you know, the it's 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:10.040 devil worship. Voodoo is devil worship, and the successful slave 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:12.280 rebellion is proof positive of it, and that's why the 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.040 earthquake happened in his opinion, And then Haiti. They were 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:18.320 probably like, who's this devil you keep talking about? We 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:20.560 don't believe in that, dude. This is gonna be a 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.680 lot of debunking going on today. Let's debunk dude. Let's 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:30.160 start talking about voodoo. Okay, let's write now. Okay, Voodoo 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:32.240 is a religion. A lot of people think it's just 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:35.320 a bunch of hocus pocus, which is more like who 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.840 do which we'll get too later. But voodoo is an 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.120 actual religion. There is a there's one God. It's very 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:44.320 it depends on where you are. If you're talking voodoo 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:49.799 and um even generationally speaking, there's a lot of differences. Yeah, 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:54.160 because there's no definitive holy text. It's a normal tradition 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:57.520 and it's a very subjective religion too, right, it's like 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:01.240 a very personal um and it governs your day to 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:05.880 day life. And it um also has it's different, has 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.840 a different impact on every every person, right, Yes, it does. Yes. Uh, 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.520 So there's like I said, there's one supreme God, and 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:14.920 depending on where you are to be different name. Uh, 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.280 if you're talking Haitian voodoo, we're basically going to cover 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:22.279 like African and Haitian in parts, I would say won't you. Yeah, Okay, 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.799 so Haitian voodoo you're gonna call this supreme god Bandhi. 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:29.520 But in voodoo, you can't talk directly to the main God. 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:31.960 You have to go through one of these spirits called 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.960 the loa, right, And there are many loa now, all 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.200 have different functions, but it is hierarchical, it is, and 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:42.760 they're based on dead ancestors ancestral spirits, yeah, which it 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:44.560 turns out to be, and we'll get to that more 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.080 in detail. But that's a big, big part of voodoo, 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:51.520 is uh, the ancestry and dead people basically spirits of 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:53.960 the dead people. Right. And you're talking about comparing it 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:58.520 to say, Christianity or Judaism or something like that, it's 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:02.640 much it's much easier to compare um like a pagan 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:08.360 religion like voodoo, to a pagan religion like um Druidism, right, 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:13.080 than it is to compare either one to Christianity or Judaism. Um. 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.600 Although there are some similarities there are, especially in Haitian voodoo, 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.440 but in African voodoo, um, it's it's much more difficult 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:25.200 to compare it. And so anthropologists still kind of put 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.480 it in this um context of of ways. We can 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:32.760 understand like gods, but they're not gods. You can't like 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:37.360 to to voodoo practitioners. They're not gods. Their ancestral spirits. 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.120 The spirit world is as real as this world. So 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:44.240 we may hear their call them gods accidentally, but that's 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:46.520 that's just as close as we can come. You could 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:49.960 compare them to a Greek or Roman gods, right, they 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.840 have different personalities to represent different things, but it's kind 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:56.719 of that shared pagan worldview that different parts of the 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:02.440 natural experience are associated with different gods. Right, good point. Thanks. Uh. 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.160 It's basically so white Christians can understand what we're talking about. 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:11.000 Um so uh, African and Haitian voodoo in in both 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.400 cases you have it's really not a bunch of evil 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.280 doing and and spells cast upon one another. It's mainly 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:21.280 used for for good and to be a better person. 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.080 In fact, you're you're counted on as a practice or 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.960 a voodoo to be a good community member and you know, 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.280 a stand up guy or gal. Right, yeah, and I 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.240 remember we said that it was a personal and subjective religion. 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:39.200 Um So, when you're practicing voodoo, when you are um uh, 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:44.560 interacting with it's say like a voodoo priest or priestess. Right, Um, 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:50.120 you're seeking advice, guidance and you're living your life by that, right. Yeah, 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:54.080 So there's actually I guess kind of the whole um 0:07:54.680 --> 0:08:01.080 evil aspect does exist bo bo um in afri Can tradition, 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.440 right yeah. African voodoo, Yeah, that's the dark side of 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.880 African vodoo is called bo right, and voodoo practitioners a 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:12.840 voodoo priest is called a hogun right yeah, an African 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.240 voodoo priest, right yeah, And an African and Haitian voodoo 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:20.720 priests this is called a mamba, right, yes, mamba. Um. 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.960 So the mamba and the ho gun are not charged 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:28.160 with um carrying out boat which is evil spells hexes 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:31.960 um basically magic that does harm right, right, And they 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:36.000 do use voodoo dolls, they do. Yeah, but um, this 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:37.880 is not to say and this is where it kind 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:42.880 of gets a little prickly like a little hinky um 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:47.640 where the voodoo priests and priests is may not actually 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:52.320 practice bow this black magic, but um, they're familiar with it, 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.480 they have a working knowledge of it. But so so 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:59.160 they can oppose people who practice boes You have to 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:03.840 understand something to fight it. That's the belief. They're right, right, sure, Okay, 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.640 So Chuck, let's talk a little more about ceremonies and 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:10.240 some of the characteristics and traits that make voodoo voodoo. 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:12.880 All right, We're going to Africa. Are we in Haiti 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.160 at this point? Let's do Africa first, Okay. I mean 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.120 this is the cradle of voodoo, right, yeah, like six 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:20.320 thousand years ago. That's where the word comes from. It 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.400 comes from the Fawn language, which was the kingdom of Fawn, 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:28.200 and that means sacred spirit or deity, right, and I 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:34.720 think it was like northwest northwest Africa. Northwest it's north 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:39.160 central west Africa, so it's west Africa. We're talking. Ghana, 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:43.280 Bending and Togo are like the the areas where these 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:46.559 ancient kingdoms of Fawn and Congo, Congo with the k 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:51.200 um we're located. And this is the cradle of voodoo. Yeah. 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:53.160 And I actually got a stat for you. Um, they 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:56.720 say that thirty million people in in Togo, Ghana and 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:00.800 was it Benin Yeah, still practice vood you today And 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:03.839 just to gauge where that falls and world religions, it's 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:07.560 about double the number of Jewish people in the entire world. Wow. 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:10.160 Is it really Yeah, well there, I mean stats very 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.400 because depending on if you're like an active practice practitioner 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.000 of Judaism or if you're just like born Jewish. But yeah, 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.800 it's about double so it ranks. It's also um an 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.920 official religion and beneath yeah, they say that of the 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:27.720 people of that country follow voodoo still, right, so this 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:32.800 is a an established religion. Um. But one of the 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:37.400 founding um or foundational tenants of voodoo is that you 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.040 can communicate with the spirits, and you communicate with the 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:43.320 spirits to find out, you know, what you should do 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:49.040 from them, then the almighty deity, yeah, the Supreme God 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:53.400 right there, the medium right um. One of the one 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:56.400 of the other founding tenants of voodoo is you communicate 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:58.440 with these people not in your head, not through prayer, 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:05.679 but by the the loa um actually possessing someone who 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:08.920 then gives commands or says, you know, what are you doing? 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:12.040 Why you aren't you you know, UM spending more time 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:15.160 with your wife, things like that, right. Yeah, we said 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:17.720 that It's different in African and Haitian and all over 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:19.920 the world and in different time periods, but that's one 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:26.760 of the main through lines and all voodoo is possession, spirit, intrusion, possession. Right. Um. 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:29.040 The person who's being possessed at the time is known 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.959 as the horse, and the whatever loa is is possessing 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:36.440 him or her is known as the rider. Right. Yeah, 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:39.400 that's in Haitian voodoo. How did I get ahead of us? No, 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:41.439 that's right, we can, we can kind of jump around. Okay, 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:46.200 Well that's really one of the big bridges. Um. That's 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:50.120 really the bridge between Haitian voodoo and African voodoo. Right 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.960 is that spirit possession exists. That's how you find out 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:58.360 what you should do in your day to day life. Right. Um. 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:02.280 Back in Africa on the African side. Um, some other 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:06.040 commonalities between the two. Because again um, or maybe not again, 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:11.080 but possibly the first time Haitian Haitian voodoo is African 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:17.000 voodoo with creolized yes, right, yeah, so let's get back 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.080 to talking about African voodoo. I did screw us up, 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:23.160 and I apologize, Chuck, apologize to our fans. I'm so sorry, fans, 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.320 Please forgive me. You never owe me an apology, buddy. Um. 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:30.760 So the answer the ancestral spirits make up the lower right. Um. 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:33.480 You can take any object and consecrate it, and it 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:38.040 becomes a ritual sacred object, right, which is where the 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:40.760 dolls come in, which, as you said, are not used 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:44.200 for um harm. Right. Well, they can be by the 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.560 if you're talking bow, but it's definitely not like you 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.679 see in the movies, right or the Brady bunch Um 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:57.480 during Yeah, um, the there's a lot of ceremonial dance. Um. 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:03.600 Spirits are in vogue through music, percussion, that kind of thing. Um. 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.960 I know that in both Haitian and African voodoo there 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:12.520 is a gatekeeper um. And his name in Haitian tradition 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:16.000 is papal Legba. Right, I love that name, yeah, Um. 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:20.920 And papal Legba is the gatekeeper between the spirit world 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.400 and the human world. Right. And he's invoked at the 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.079 beginning of every ceremony because you have to get him 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:29.720 to open the gate so you can start communicating at 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:33.000 the low and some things can be people can be possessed. Right. 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:36.000 And actually papal Legba is also a one of the 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:39.800 black men at the Crossroad, who um bears a striking 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:43.880 resemblance to our friend masham Oh really yeah interesting. Yeah. 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:48.320 The Crossroad a k a. The Christian Cross in Haitian tradition. Yet, right, 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:50.720 we should go ahead and talk about that. Probably if 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:54.000 some of this sounds familiar, if you're thinking Papa Legba 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:57.319 sounds sort of like St. Peter, and the crossroads sounds 0:13:57.320 --> 0:13:59.079 sort of like the Christian cross there's a very good 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.120 reason for that. It's because, once again we go back 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:06.719 to our friend Christopher Columbus Hispaniola and the fact that 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:10.880 they brought slaves over to Hispaniola to work on the plantations. 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:15.160 They brought voodoo with them, and the problem there was 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:18.760 Columbus said, no, no, no no, no, if you're going to 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:20.320 be a slave over here, that you have to be 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.400 converted to Christianity. So that was the code noir. The 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:29.160 French actually did that one go to be baptized, forced conversion. 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:32.320 So what they did was, in order to keep practicing voodoo, 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:34.960 they incorporated and this or out. My mind was blown. 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:36.840 I didn't know they did this. They incorporated parts of 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.520 Catholicism to kind of mask the fact that they were 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:44.120 practicing voodoo and it got all mixed up in what's 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:50.160 called syncretization. So Catholicism and voodoo working together right crazy. 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:55.160 So even today, um, there a lot of the loa 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:59.920 there well, there was a lot of ready um uh 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:06.240 similarities between these ancestral spirits and Catholic saints. Right. So 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:09.760 like St. Peter is associated with papal Legba because St. 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:12.800 Peter's the guy who's outside the gates of heaven. Papal 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:15.560 Legba is the gatekeeper to the spirit world, so they 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.720 associate him with him. Um, there is a god who 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:23.640 is um pretty powerful. He's a warrior protector god called 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:27.080 Ogu and he's associated with St. James who was a 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:30.880 warrior protector saint. So it's it wasn't It's not a 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:34.680 leap all the time, but sometimes it's a stretch. Like St. Patrick, 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.960 remember drove out the snakes from Ireland. He's associated with 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:43.200 snakes in the Haitian tradition. Um. But yeah, so when 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:47.840 you when you look at the underlying um tenants, the 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.440 really overarching narrative of being able to communicate with spirits, 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:56.760 invoking spirits through percussion, percussion, song, dance, I'm being possessed 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:01.000 and objects being able to be consecrated it and and 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:06.240 become sacred. Um. Then that's voodoo across the board. The 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:11.520 voodoo were familiar with. Um, that's Haitian voodoo, which is 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.960 kind of mixed up with Catholicism. Yeah. I said that. 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:19.480 They even incorporated uh, Catholic hymns and prayers. Yeah, crazy, Yeah, 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:25.880 Tracy Wilson, Yeah she did. Um. So, Josh, you brought 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:28.800 up rituals that they would perform to invoke the gods. 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.280 And one of the tenants of voodoo is the gods 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:33.840 will give you advice at all, but you've got to 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.080 take care of the gods the spirits. And one way 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.560 that you can do this is by animal sacrifice to 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.040 appease the god, you know, the spirit. Yeah. Now this 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:46.480 is um again. This is another ticklish aspect of voodoo, 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:48.560 isn't it. You know? I mean this is like, oh, 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:51.880 they sacrifice animals, They're they're evil. It's like, well, you 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:55.800 got the sacrifice animals part, right, right, you know, well 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:58.840 they used to sacrifice humans too, did they. Yeah, it's 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.040 been like at least a hundred years since any of 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.600 that's gone on in Africa. They say, huh so, Chuck, 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:11.720 there's actually um with the animal sacrifices. Um. There there's 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.600 actually a process, as you can imagine, there's a process 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:18.760 where so you're you're going to sacrifice a chicken, right, Um? 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:22.720 And this chicken is washed and leaves to be consecrated, 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:26.000 and then it's fed from this ritual dish. And if 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.160 it refuses to eat, then that means that the loa 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:32.960 has rejected that sacrifice, and the animal is set free. 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:38.760 If it eats, then it's like, okay, you're dead. Apparently 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.720 I guess they don't. But but it's not just chickens. 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:46.360 I think this supplies to goats, pigs, whatever sacrifice, right, um. 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.080 And so if it eats, then it's like, okay, you're dead. 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:51.280 If it's a goat or a pig, it's throat, it's slip. 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.280 If it's a chicken, its neck is broken, but it's quick. 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:57.359 It's a quick death. It's not you know, tortured or 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.480 anything like that. The blood is mixed in this um 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:06.040 calabash like a big chalice bowl, yeah um, with rum 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:10.320 and syrup and salt, and then people will either take 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:14.119 a sip or they'll they'll um make a cross on 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.760 their crucifix on their head in blood. Right. So that's 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.719 the blood sacrifice. That's where the blood sacrifice ritual stands today. 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:24.919 Oh really they still do it that way because Haitians 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:28.320 still practice voodoo like uh like right out in the open. 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:31.240 So yeah, it's not some like Westerners might think it's 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:33.240 like some weird hidden thing, but it's not like that 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:36.600 at all. Uh. You also talked about UM when they 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.040 invoke or when you're possessed. There's I know, there's a 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:42.480 dance called the Dance of the hooded uh a gun 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:46.240 gun And apparently what happens is when someone is like 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.240 the spirit overtakes them and they're possessing and they're dancing around. 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:54.000 If you touch them, you die, that's what they say. 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:55.800 So you gotta like stand in the circle and witness 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:57.879 all this and jump part. But you know they're running 0:18:57.880 --> 0:18:59.639 all over the place, so you gotta like, you know, 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:04.160 keep distance and um. They're also if while you're possessed, 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.800 you are impervious to pain, you can't be injured. Good point. 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.520 And today I was reading an article from I think 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:14.120 two thousand two or two thousand four UM, and this 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:18.520 guy was talking about witnessing a a voodoo ritual in 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:24.080 West Africa recently. And these guys were um were possessed 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:28.080 by Ugu remember the warrior protector spirit um and they 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:32.320 were cutting themselves with their knives, blood lighting UM and 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.360 weren't wincing or anything like that, because apparently one aspect 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:39.160 of it is like you can't feel pain while you're possessed. Interesting. Yeah, well, 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:40.680 and since you brought that up, we should probably go 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:45.119 ahead and talk about why Westerners view voodoo as some 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:48.080 sort of evil, awful thing, right, in addition to the 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:51.919 slave uprising, right, Yeah, exactly. One of the reasons you 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:54.679 just mentioned was a lot of the there's a lot 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:58.879 of self injury that goes on, like, yeah, and so 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.240 Westerners see that and they think those people are crazy 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.760 look at them. Well, not just that, but blood making 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:08.439 a real appearance, anything dealing with death, the fact that 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:10.920 they believe that death is like you know, not necessarily 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:13.200 a bad thing, and that the spirits are are still 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:17.560 living among us, guiding us. That's not where Westerners aren't 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:19.840 typically down with that either. Now, Westerners don't have a 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:23.000 stomach for real blood, which is why wine is used 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.040 in place of it or is a metaphor for it. 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.840 And like the Christian tradition, and death is something that 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:30.879 we don't like to think about or talk about in 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:34.760 the West either. Again, though in the voodoo tradition and 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:37.440 in a lot of other traditions, um death is just 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.520 a part of the natural order of things, and it's 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.360 certainly not the end. I think in the West, it's 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:47.000 kind of viewed even by the religious in some cases 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.560 as the end, and we don't really like to think 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:52.359 about that. You know. That's a good point. UM. The 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:56.159 other thing Tracy mentioned in here was from nineteen fifteen 0:20:56.200 --> 0:21:00.159 to nineteen thirty five, the Marine Corps occupied Haiti and 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.159 during this period there were a lot of books and 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.119 movies all of a sudden being written about UH and 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:10.280 portrayed like Haitian voodoo as these you know, crazy blood 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.040 letting people, right, so those became really popular. One of 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:18.720 them was called White Zombie. Around the same time it 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:22.840 had spread UH to New Orleans and kind of who 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.640 do became popular? Right. In the nineteenth century, there were 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:29.600 two women named Marie La Vaux and Um. One was 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:34.160 they were the most powerful women in UM in voodoo 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:39.240 culture in the US UM and the one was the 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:42.640 mom and the one was the daughter. Mom retired and died, 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:46.160 the daughter disappeared. No one knows what happened to her UM. 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:52.480 But after the second one disappeared, UH, the the followers 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:56.680 split into factions, and one of the factions became who do, 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:59.040 and you do became very powerful. And who do was 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:04.919 a mix of bow black magic with voodoo or in 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:08.040 the voodoo tradition, I guess. And so now we have 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:09.960 who do and that is what most people think of 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:12.000 when you think of voodoo in the US, you think 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:14.480 of New Orleans. And then what we're actually thinking of 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:19.120 is who do not voodoo? Something else, you know, like 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:23.760 um chimmy chonga or something exactly. Um um. So these 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:28.440 misconceptions still abound. Um. There was a paper in n 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:32.840 four that apparently this physician who wrote it, a researcher 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:36.000 who wrote it still takes flak four um. But it 0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:40.000 was titled Night of the Living Dead to colon do 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:45.280 necromantic zombieists transmit ht LV three slash l a v 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:52.040 during voodooistic rituals? But basically, do necrophiliacs who are into 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:57.120 zombieism and our voodoo practitioners started, are they the reason 0:22:57.200 --> 0:23:02.240 for the spread of AIDS in Haiti? Well, actually there 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:06.320 is a certain element of public health to what's going 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:08.880 to say, that's like, that's one of the real concerns. 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:13.800 It's not all these Western misconceptions of like taboos. Um. 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:16.240 Real concerns are that there is blood letting and that 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:20.080 they freely bleed on one another and or sharing, you know, 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:23.359 the blood of an animal sacrifice, people drinking that that 0:23:23.520 --> 0:23:25.440 that can be bad stuff. Yeah, so that's a real 0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:29.160 health concern. Um. Another really practical concern is a lot 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:31.000 of and we fail to mention this the priests and 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:33.960 priestess is one of their main gigs is to practice 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:38.440 folk medicine on on the practitioners of voodoo. Right, because 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:41.240 again we said everyday life, like voodoo's part of your 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:43.520 everyday life if you were right here, And some of 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:45.520 these folk practices kind of fly in the face of 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:48.400 real medicine. So that's sort of a concern here and there. 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:51.640 I think we should replace the word reel with Western metal. Yeah, 0:23:51.640 --> 0:23:54.520 you're right. Yeah, you're definitely right, because I believe in 0:23:54.600 --> 0:23:56.800 a lot of like Eastern medicine, I might look into 0:23:56.840 --> 0:24:03.439 voodoo might clear up my sinuses. Yeahsietic uh. And like 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:06.480 we said, um, death is a big, big part of it. 0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:10.159 And just the culture of fear that it creates is 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:12.520 something that is a big turn off for a lot 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:15.080 of Well, it creates a culture of fear in the 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:18.639 in the West, it is, but again, there's I think 0:24:18.680 --> 0:24:25.280 even informed, um educated people have misconceptions about voodoo because 0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:29.760 it's been harangued so long in this country that people 0:24:29.760 --> 0:24:33.199 in the US just really don't understand what what it 0:24:33.359 --> 0:24:39.760 is that's going on down there, and there's so many misunderstandings. Yeah, 0:24:39.880 --> 0:24:42.320 they see angel heart, but even beyond that, like even 0:24:42.359 --> 0:24:44.960 if even if you don't think it's who do you're 0:24:45.000 --> 0:24:47.760 You're like, okay, well they're turning people into zombies. We 0:24:47.800 --> 0:24:52.160 did the how zombies work thing and it's real down there. Um, 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:57.040 but that's not voodoo. That's bo right, yeah, exactly. Um, 0:24:57.119 --> 0:25:01.480 So it's kind of it makes me um sad for voodoo. 0:25:01.600 --> 0:25:03.760 I guess a little sad for voodoo. It makes me 0:25:03.800 --> 0:25:06.800 sad for the Mamba's. Well, it's definitely um has a 0:25:06.800 --> 0:25:09.160 stigma about it, and until I read all about it, 0:25:09.520 --> 0:25:12.240 I probably fell into that same trap. But then you 0:25:12.280 --> 0:25:15.200