Tag: rituals

A current trending topic among friends and colleagues is the discussion of sacrifice and its place in religious practice. Far more eloquent people than myself have said some excellent things. I’ve been asked to share my own thoughts, and I’d like to offer an excerpt on this topic from a book I wrote a couple of years ago as my response. It’s still as relevant now as it was then, or when I was asked to speak on a panel about the topic at PantheaCon last February. It’s a long read, but I think it will be helpful.

Excerpted from HAITIAN VODOU, Chapter 3: Sacrifices in Vodou

Getting back to Haitian Vodou, we address perhaps the largest confusion and/or controversy that outsiders to the tradition will confront: the nature of sacrifice, and particularly animal sacrifice. The Lwa of Haitian Vodou request, and are given, many things as offerings or gifts as part of their ceremonies and service. Some Lwa want special candles or tangible objects like perfume, mirrors, or drums. Some Lwa might demand various drinks, from cool water to fiery kleren (pronounced kleh-REN, a high-proof, raw rum). Still other Lwa want various kinds of foods including fruits, vegetables, fancy pastries, breads, candies, and specially prepared dinners. Very few of our Lwa are vegetarians, and most of our Lwa eat meat, just as most Vodouisants eat meat. Remember that the practice of vegetarianism, or other decisions about what to eat or not eat, are generally considered luxuries in a country where food shortages and famines are far too frequent.

There’s a Haitian proverb:

mambo (houngan) pa travay pou gran mesi
“Mambo (Houngan) doesn’t work for a big thank you.”

This means not only that good mambos or houngans aren’t doing spiritual work for the adulation of the millions, or for the show of it – but also that they don’t work for free.

There is a distinct difference between charging for one’s time/effort/materials and the prices I see some people charging for their services. I have seen variances of hundreds of percent. I know a houngan who charges less than $50 for a reading that takes him the better part of a day to prepare for; I know another who spends considerably less time, charges several hundred – and gets it.

Is there a difference between charging and overcharging, or is every Vodouisant who asks to be paid for his or her work a bad person?

You get what you pay for, and what you pay for something is not always in money, whether in Haiti or anywhere else.

I cannot attest to knowing a single initiate, “good” or “bad,” who works for absolutely nothing in return, even if that payment is non-monetary in origin.  Everything costs something to somebody.  There is no such thing as free when it comes to the spirits.  If it doesn’t cost you in dollars, it’s going to cost you attention, work, effort or maybe even responsibility.  It WILL cost you something, period.

This is not a bad thing at all.  It is the way the entire universe works.  The Lwa themselves cut deals with people and each other, and sometimes those deals are sealed with money.  If Metres Mambo Ezili Freda tells me that the work I want her to do for me is going to cost me a party I have to pay for in her honor, does that mean she’s a fraud too?  After all, the grocery store isn’t going to accept my undying love and thanks in return for all that champagne and cake…

What I have learned over the years is the sign of a good mambo or houngan that can be seen in the way they price their services is that the good ones ALWAYS work with each individual and that individual’s personal circumstances.

If you really need work done but you cannot afford it, ethical Vodouisants will arrange payment plans,  scale down the work or accept lesser payment.  Sometimes they’ll let you pay for work later, or pay for it in forms that aren’t monetary, if their own finances allow it, and sometimes if they don’t, if Spirit tells them to.

Additionally, during the entire process, they will be honest and up front with you about costs.  If something is going to cost more than it was estimated, they’ll explain why and quickly. You won’t suddenly be told after you have invested in a reading or a work that suddenly it’s now going to cost you another (insert ridiculous amount here), or suddenly that there are MORE problems than the original reading/work revealed that (surprise!) require yet more money.

Just like if you were shopping for a dentist or a guy to fix your plumbing, you have to be savvy.  Ask any potential Vodouisant you are considering to hire to do magical work on your behalf for estimates on that work.  Comparison shop.  Talk to their clients, both the satisfied ones and the unsatisfied ones.   The “good” mambos and houngans sort themselves out fairly quickly if you do this for yourself.

Enough rant for one night, but this is a subject that irritates me on both its extremes:  the one extreme where people think that the more you pay for something the better it must be AND the other extreme, where money is evil and anyone who wants or needs it must also be evil.

People should not assume that just because they paid $2000 for something it’s guaranteed to work when only Bondye can guarantee anything, or, conversely, that a houngan who can barely feed his kids is “bad” if he asks for $50 to spend the next three days working on your problem.  Both extremes are far from the truth.

Discussion on the PantheaCon sacrifice panel is beginning. Here are two blogs that discuss it:

“A libation without a prayer is a spilled drink” by John Beckett

PantheaCon 2014: A Reflection” by the Anomalous Thracian (See his own website for the uncensored/uncondensed versions here)

Additionally, there’s been some more information on something being fishy in Denmark, notably that neither kosher nor halal have been conducted in the recently-made-illegal manner in Denmark for some time, and some Jewish and Muslim Danes are beginning to wonder if this is just a sneaky way to discriminate against them instead. Additionally, Denmark’s institutional concern for animal rights doesn’t appear to extend to zoo animals.

I’ll keep gathering information. Currently I’m trying to find out if the panel was recorded as it seemed to be, and if that will be made public. I also had a very long follow-up interview with the Coru that will be appearing somewhere soon, along with thoughts from other panel participants, and I’ll post links to that once I have them.

An older version of the website surfaced long enough for me to grab the articles off from it and export them to this blog. Now you can read what I had to say about U.S. aid to Haiti after the 12 January 2010 earthquake, and various shenanigans that kept it from getting to its destination, as well as some small snippets of news. Enjoy!

In the meantime, I’ve just returned from the PantheaCon religious conference, where I offered a demonstration of part of a Vodou ceremony for the Lwa Danbala, and where I was asked to speak on Coru Cathubodua‘s excellent panel concerning sacrifice. There’s already been some conversation about this panel around the Internet, and I expect there may be more as more people get home and start getting their thoughts together. I have a few more things to say, too, but first I could use some sleep.

I haven’t forgotten about you! It’s Lent, and closer and closer to Holy Week, that time of year when our Lwa go anba dlo and rest and prepare for the rest of the year. This evening I covered up all our altars in the badji so that they can be rejuvenated over the holy time. We’ll be having a huge party on Miracle Saturday (Easter Saturday) going into Easter Sunday – as the Resurrection occurs in the Catholic faith, so too do the spirits return to the world and make it new. Ayibobo! You’ll see lots more on this and the rest of the imamou.org page after Lent’s over.