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Information on african dance origins

Overview of african european and south american dance religions

Voodoo curses', pin-sticking dolls, flesh-eating zombies and devil worship... if any religion has been deliberately maligned, it's Vodou. In fact, the anti-Vodou propaganda machine has been so effective that many people don't even know that Vodou is a religion and not simply a system of harmful magic. This entry provides some very basic information about the sophisticated religious tradition that became an integral part of the African diaspora. The terminology of Haitian Vodou will be used throughout, except when referring to specific traditions.

A Traditional African Religion

Vodou (also spelled Voudoun, Vodun, and Voodoo in various parts of the world) is a traditional African religion that spread from West Africa across the world with the slave trade. The word Vodou appears to derive from the Fon word for 'spirit', describing the concept of a world alive with spirit and energy, and anthropologists estimate the religion to be 6-10,000 years old.

The benevolent but distant Creator God Papa Bon Dieux (Good God), or Bondeye in Haitian Creole, allows spirits (the lwa/loa - pronounced 'low-a') to work directly with humans in a capacity similar to angels or saints in Christian beliefs. Some of the loa may be ancestors (Ghede or Guede - pronounced 'Gay-day'), the older being from Africa (the Rada), others added in the New World (the Petro) and others of more uncertain origin, but it is the loa who communicate with humans through Vodou's characteristic possessory trance, usually induced by singing and dancing and the complex rhythms of the accompanying drums. It is believed that each person has a met tet ('master of the head'), a loa who acts rather like a patron saint or guardian angel. Adherents of Vodou gather on a regular basis to praise Papa Bon Dieux and the loa, and to make offerings, pray, and sing and dance in their honour.

If this sounds rather unlike the dark, frightening, and even evil 'Voodoo' of Hollywood notoriety, that is because Vodou has been the victim of an extremely successful smear-campaign since slave traders first realised that the indigenous African religious beliefs were the locus of slaves' self-definition and rebelliousness. Determined to ensure obedience and to humiliate and strip their slaves of any sense of self, slave owners took to smashing and destroying all Vodou altars, offerings, and ritual gear, and often murdered Vodou priests (Houngans) and priestesses (Mambos). Most slave owners forcibly baptised their slaves, and others beat their slaves (even to the point of death) if they caught them practising any religion whatsoever. The concept of Africans as barbarous savages, inherently morally inferior to Europeans; the idea that any religion other than Christianity derived from the Devil; scriptural sanction for the slave trade; and the realisation that the most effective way to break a people is to destroy their most cherished beliefs all resulted in the indescribably vicious treatment of African slaves by their European owners, and continuous attempts to destroy Vodou.

In Haiti, it was indeed a Houngan who led the slave rebellion in 1791 that finally defeated the French and led to independence for the island. Vodou has remained an integral part of Haiti's troubled history and culture; it was in danger of being stamped out after the fall of the repressive Duvalier regime, but was rescued and is flourishing once more.

The beliefs, practices and cosmologies of Africans brought to the Americas were often similar to those held by indigenous American peoples. Many indigenous peoples took in runaway slaves; many of the indigenous peoples were themselves enslaved and lived with Africans in captivity. It is highly likely that there was a mutual cultural and religious influence, but because of the overlap in worldview and religious practices, it's almost impossible to ascertain who influenced whom, how, and to what extent.

A Religion in Disguise

Most of the slave owners in the Caribbean and Latin America were Roman Catholics, and so their African slaves shrewdly took to disguising their faith as reverence for the Christian saints based on the similarities between them and the loa: thus, the serpent Damballah is represented by the iconography of St Patrick; the loa associated with water and love, beautiful Erzulie, is represented by the iconography of the Virgin Mary; the trickster Legba, who holds the keys to the gate between the worlds is represented by the iconography of St Peter.

As is the way of all religions, when transplanted to new lands and new circumstances, the paths of Vodou diverged, becoming the separate but related traditions of:

* Candomble Jege-Nago (or Candomble) in Brazil * Obeah in Jamaica and Trinidad-Tobago *

Santeria (also called Regla de Ocha, Lukumi, or La Regla Lucumi) in Cuba and other Caribbean islands, Argentina, Venezuela, Columbia, and Mexico, where the loa are called orisha

* Vodou in Haiti and other Caribbean islands * Dahomean or West African Vodun in Africa *

Louisiana Voodoo, which developed a less overtly religious form, though this has been changing as more people become more deeply interested in the religious aspects.

Of course, within these basic groups many different approaches are taken - in some, a genuine syncretism of Vodou, Catholicism, and the indigenous beliefs of the country has occurred; in others, only some aspects of local beliefs and Christianity or Islam have been blended in. Vodou in its many forms has spread across the world - wherever there is an African population, there is Vodou.

In many places, practitioners of Vodou are also members of other religions. Across Africa, due to colonial influences, most people identify as Christian or Muslim but practice the religion of their ancestors (there is a joke that the African population is 30% Christian, 20% Muslim, and 100% Vodou!); in the Caribbean and the Americas, many practitioners (vodouisants in Haiti, voodooiennes in Louisiana parlance, and vodoun, vodun or voudou elsewhere) are also practicing Catholics. However, not all adherents of Vodou engage in any other religious practice, and the African nation of Benin recognises Vodun as its official religion.

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