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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7B23653

CONWAY, FREDERICK JA^ES PENTECOSTAL I $n! iu THE CONTEXT OF HAITIAN RELIGION ANii health PRACTICE,

THE AMENT[Ai university, PH.D., 1976

UniversiW Micronlm s liitemational 300n zlebhoao , annarboh .miabim

g) COPYRIŒT

by

FREDERICK JAMES CONWAY

1978

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PENTECOSTALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF HAITIAN

RELIGION AND HEALTH PRACTICE

by

Frederick J, Conway

Submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of The American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree

of

Doctor of Philosophy

in

Anthropology

Signatures of Committee:

Chairman: -J.

Dean of the Col/eiCollege

Date —

1978

The American University Washington, D.C. 20016

THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This dissertation could not have been completed without

the assistance, support, encouragement and kindness of a num­

ber of people and institutions. My deepest feelings are ex­

tended to the men and women in Haiti who took time to share

with me something of their often difficult lives. Their gen­

erosity is etched in my memory. The fact that their names

are not mentioned does not diminish the gratitude I feel

towards them.

The field trips which I made to Haiti during the sum­

mers of 1974 and 1975 were supported by grants from the

Antilles Research Program, Yale University. The 1976-1977

field trip was supported by a research grant (MH 07144-01)

from the National Institute of Mental Health and by a doc­

toral dissertation fellowship from The American University.

My earlier graduate training in Anthropology was supported

by a graduate honors award from The American University. I

am deeply grateful for this support.

I am very grateful to the members of my doctoral dis­

sertation committee at The American University, Dr. Katherine

S. Halpern, Dr. Ruth H. Landman and Dr. Geoffrey Burkhart. I

am also grateful for the guidance of Dr. David Rosen of The

American University. Dr. Sidney W. Mintz introduced me to

ii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. anthropology and to Haiti. I appreciate his comments on the

draft of this dissertation as well as his encouragement over

a number of years. I also appreciate the comments of John J,

Conway, Mary M. Conway, Linda K. Girdner and Dr. David W.

Haines, who read all or parts of the manuscript.

In 1976-1977 I worked in collaboration with the Centre

d'Hygiène Familae in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I wish to ex­

press my appreciation for the help of the director of the

Centre, Dr. Ary Bordes, and of his staff, who supported me

especially during my stay at Savanne Palmiste. In 1975 I

worked in collaboration with the Centre de Recherches en

Sciences Humaines et Sociales in Port-au-Prince. I appre­

ciate the consultations of Dr. Jean-Baptiste Romain,

Dr. Jeanne Philippe and Dr. Charles Romain of C.R.E.S.H.S.

Linda K. Girdner joined me for three months in the field

during the summer of 1977. Her insights as a fellow anthro­

pologist were very helpful to me. I also wish to acknowl­

edge the invaluable work of Michel R. H. Romain, a Haitian

ethnologist, who transcribed many of my tape recordings.

I wish to thank Shirley Simpson for her careful and

patient work in typing the manuscript.

My final acknowledgment is to my aunts, Mary M. Kelly

and Catherine M. Kelly. It was through their love, support

and enthusiasm that I was able to pursue graduate training

in anthropology.

iix

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... ii

TABLE ...... vi

ILLUSTRATION ...... vii

Chapter ONE. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

The Problem ...... 1 Related Research ...... 5 A Note on Terms Used in the T e s t ...... 9

TWO. THE SETTINGS AND METHODOLOGY OF THE FIELD RESEARCH ...... 11

A Sketch of Haitian History and Society . . 11 The Research Settings ...... 24 Research Techniques and Kinds of Data O b t a i n e d ...... 45

THREE. THE HAITIAN CONTEXT; VODOUN ...... 54

Introduction ...... 54 The Family L o u a ...... 59 The D e a d ...... 75 Other Supernatural B e i n g s ...... 80 The Vodoun Specialist: Houngan and Mambo . . 86 Characteristics of the Belief System.... 101

FOUR. THE HAITIAN CONTEXT: CATHOLICISM...... 110

Catholicism and Vodoun: The Convergence and Divergence of Belief and Practice.... 110 The Katolik Fran and Folk Catholicism . . . 117 The Catholic Church as an Institution in H a i t i ...... 123 Implications...... 129

FIVE, THE HAITIAN CONTEXT: HEALTH PRACTICE AND BELIEFS ABOUT ILLNESS ...... 135

General Remarks ...... 135 Family Treatment ...... 138 Dokth Fey and F am S a . j ...... 142 Western Medicine ...... 149

IV

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. H o u n g a n ...... 152 Religious Conversion ...... 155 Decision-Making ...... 157

SIX. PROTESTANTISM IN H A I T I ...... 162

Introduction ...... 162 Protestantism and V o d o u n ...... 168 The Range of Protestant Denominations .... 174 Characteristics of the Congregations O b s e r v e d ...... 180 Mission Versus Non-Mission Churches ...... 185 The Structure of Protestant Church Organi­ zations ...... 193 Male and Female Roles ...... 201 Protestant Activities ...... 207

SEVEN. SYMBOLISM, IDEOLOGY AND SPIRIT POSSESSION IN HAITIAN PENTECOSTALISM ...... 216

Images of Power and Confrontation ...... 216 The Mis i o n ...... 225 Trance Behavior and Spirit Possession B e l i e f s ...... 229

EIGHT. PENTECOSTALISM AND HEALTH PRACTICE ...... 237

Illness and Pentecostal Imagery ...... 237 Pentecostalism and Conversion ...... 240 Pentecostalism as a Health Practice ...... 253 When Healing F a i l s ...... 259 Pentecostalism and Conceptions about Illness and Health Practice ...... 262

NINE. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS...... 268

Appendix ONE. LIST OF PROTESTANT CHURCHES MENTIONED IN THE TEXT ...... 274

TWO. GLOSSARY OF SELECTED HAITIAN CREOLE AND FRENCH TERMS ...... 275

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 280

V

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE

1. American Protestant Activity in Haiti ...... 165

VI

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ILLUSTRATION

Figure 1. Guide to Terms Used in the Following Three S e c t i o n s ...... 58

vix

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The Problem

This dissertation is concerned with the description and

analysis of some of the sociocultural features of Pentecos­

talism in Haiti. In order to understand Pentecostalism in

Haiti, it is necessary to understand both something of Pente­

costalism itself and something of the cultural context of

Haiti. Pentecostalism is a form of evangelical, fundamen­

talist Protestantism which is distinguished by belief in

possession by the Holy Spirit, by the occurrence of trance

behavior during religious services, and by the practice of

"divine healing." Several different aspects of the Haitian

cultural context in which Pentecostalism is found are dis­

cussed in this dissertation. The traditional religious sys­

tem, consisting of Vodoun and Catholicism, constitutes one

of the most important elements of this context. The Haitian

body of beliefs and practices concerning health and illness,

of which the traditional religion is itself a part, is an­

other important element. The non-Pentecostal Protestant de­

nominations, with which Pentecostalism is more or less in

competition, form a third element in the Haitian cultural

context.

1

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Pentecostalism is of particular interest in Haiti be­

cause, like Vodoun, it is concerned with relationships be­

tween human beings and spiritual entities which are believed

to possess humans. Spirit possession beliefs and trance be­

havior are among the most distinctive attributes of both

Vodoun and Pentecostalism. Furthermore, in both belief sys­

tems one of the most important manifestations of spiritual

entities (the Vodoun loua spirits or the Holy Spirit in

Pentecostalism) is the treatment of illness.

This study is concerned with the phenomena of trance

behavior and possession beliefs in Haitian Pentecostalism and

Vodoun, particularly as they are related to healing rituals

and other health practices. Regarding Vodoun and Pentecos­

talism as forms of health practice is an important perspec­

tive for studying the functions of religion and of spirit

possession in Haiti. It is a perspective that has been

largely overlooked in the ethnological literature. Haiti

provides an unusual "laboratory" for the study of the rela­

tionship between trance behavior and spirit possession be­

liefs. Pentecostalism and Vodoun in Haiti present two com­

peting forms of trance behavior and possession beliefs that

can be compared not only by the social scientist but by the

actors in the cultural setting themselves. Haiti provides an

unusual context in which to further the anthropological study

of spirit possession that has been advanced by Bourguignon

(1965, 1973) and her students (Goodman et al. 1974). It also

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. provides an unusual and enlightening perspective from which

to examine Pentecostalism as a social movement and as a cul­

tural innovation.

While Pentecostalism in Haiti is the focus of this

dissertation, much of the text is concerned with delineating

the cultural context discussed above. Chapter Two discusses

Haitian history and society in general, as well as the re­

search sites in particular. The third and fourth chapters

describe the traditional religious system. In the following

chapter the range of Haitian health practice alternatives

and beliefs about illness is presented.

Very little is known about Haitian Protestantism in

general. The fact that the growth of Protestantism in Haiti

has been one of the most important social movements there in

the past several decades has been almost entirely overlooked

in the ethnographic literature. For that reason a consider­

able effort is expanded in the sixth chapter to place Haitian

Pentecostalism within the general framework of Haitian Prot­

estantism. The most salient aspect of Haitian Protestantism

is that it is perceived as a foreign religion. This percep­

tion is based in part on the fact that most Protestant con­

gregations are affiliated with foreign, usually North Ameri­

can, mission organizations. The connection--or lack of con-

nection--with foreign sources of material aid and ideological

guidance is an important dimension of Haitian Protestantism

which is discussed in Chapter Six.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapters Seven and Eight are concerned with those as­

pects of Pentecostalism which distinguish it from other Prot­

estant denominations: trance behavior, possession beliefs and

healing activities. It is argued that the images of power

and confrontation created in the Pentecostal ideology and

supported by evidence of spirit possession as seen in trance

behavior form one of the most forceful attractions of Pente­

costalism. One of the activities to which the "spiritual

power" of Pentecostalism is directed is "divine healing." In

this activity, Pentecostalism functions in a manner analogous

to Vodoun. The perceived success of "divine healing" in

turn tends to reinforce the attractiveness of the Pentecostal

ideology, at least for the Haitians who have converted. Four

conversion histories involving "divine healing" are discussed

in some detail. Finally, some suggestions are made about the

relationship between possession beliefs and choices among

health practice alternatives.

In choosing to focus on certain aspects of Pentecostal­

ism in Haiti, one must necessarily pay less attention to

other, equally important, perspectives. For example, the

impact of the economic system on Pentecostalism, and vice

versa, is touched on but is not the focus of the study.

Likewise, historical data are supplied primarily for back­

ground information rather than as a part of a historical or

evolutionary argument. The physiological aspects of "divine

healing" are outside the scope of the research. Missionary

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Protestantism must be studied at its point of origin as well

as where it is received. I hope that further research as

well as further analysis of my own field data can help to

elucidate some of these problems.

Among the principal sources of theoretical inspiration

for this dissertation has been the work of psychological an­

thropologists such as Irving Hallowell and Anthony F. C. Wal­

lace, whose work is concerned with the cognitive aspects of

culture: with what Hallowell (1967) described as the "cul­

turally constituted behavioral environment" and Wallace

(1970) described as the "mazeway." The treatment of spirit

possession, following Bourguignon and her students, reflects

this orientation. Geertz's (1973) concept of "thick descrip­

tion" has been a guidance in the analysis of the field data.

Finally, perhaps implicitly more than explicitly, this is a

dissertation which is concerned with Afro-American, specifi­

cally Afro-Caribbean, culture. The research was conducted

with an awareness of the tradition of anthropological re­

search in the Caribbean area, and it is hoped that the dis­

sertation will contribute to the understanding of Caribbean

religion.

Related Research

The study of Pentecostalism in Haiti touches upon a

number of areas of social scientific research. At the ethno­

graphic level, the dissertation seeks to be a contribution to

the understanding of Haitian religion and cultural change.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Herskovits (1937) and Leyburn (1956) have written the classi­

cal social scientific analyses of Haitian society. Hersko­

vits was concerned in part to show the mingling of African

and European traditions in Haiti, but also to write an un­

biased ethnography of rural Haitian life. Leyburn, writing

in 1941, was interested in understanding the social division

in Haiti between what he considered to be two caste-like

groups. Mintz (1966, 1974) has revised these analyses and

brought them up to date. Wiese (1971) has analyzed certain

aspects of the Haitian system of beliefs about illness, es­

pecially "naturalistic" beliefs. Zuvekas (1978) has pre­

sented a useful compendium of recent research and statistical

data about Haiti.

While Haitian Vodoun has been the subject of many

books, most of them have been inadequate or fanciful at best.

Metraux (1972) has provided a detailed description of many

aspects of Vodoun, especially in urban settings. Bastien

(1966), Courlander (1966) and Nicholls (1970) have analyzed

the political and social aspects of Haitian religion, both

Vodoun and Catholicism. This work has been directed in part

towards understanding the attitude of the Duvalier government

towards religion. Vodoun has also been an important part of

the analysis of the evolution of Haitian land tenure in a re­

cent doctoral dissertation by Murray (1977).

Haitian Protestantism has gone largely undescribed and

unanalyzed. Writers concerned with Vodoun have tended to

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ignore Protestantism because it has attracted only a minority

of Haitians. Yet that minority is now more than ten per cent

and perhaps as much as fifteen per cent of the population;

and Protestantism is still growing in Haiti. Pressoir

(1945) has described the history of Methodism in Haiti in

great detail. However, his work is concentrated much less

on other Protestant denominations. Furthermore, there have

been more than thirty years of Protestant activity in Haiti

since Pressoir's work was published. As we will see in

Chapter Six this activity has increased greatly in the past

two decades. Two more recent theses by students of the Hai­

tian Faculté d 'Ethnologie, Bruno (1967) and Romain (1970),

have made surveys of Protestant groups with an interest in

their social activities. A recent doctoral dissertation on

Vodoun has also touched on Protestantism in Haiti (Brown

1972) .

The study of religion in Haiti brings one inevitably

to an interest in trance behavior and spirit possession be­

liefs. This dissertation is related to psychological and

anthropological research on these phenomena, both in general

theoretical terms and more particularly in relation to Afro-

Caribbean cultural processes. As I mentioned in the first

section of this chapter, the work of Bourguignon (1965, 1973)

and her students (Goodman et al. 1974) has direct relevance

to this study. There are several facets to this work. One

is the relationship between cultural and psychological

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. factors in the channeling of trance behavior and possession

beliefs. Afro-American culture has been an important matrix

for this work, as is seen in the work of Bourguignon herself

as well as that of Henney's work and Pressai (1974). Walker

(1972) has used trance behavior in Afro-American religions as

a means of discussing the relationship between trance behav­

ior and cultural factors in general terms. Henney's (1974)

is particularly interesting in the context of this disserta­

tion because it discusses contrasting types of Pentecostalism

in a cultural setting of Afro-American religion on St. Vin­

cent. Pressai's (1974) work is concerned with the Umbanda

religion in Brazil, which combines Afro-American with other

cultural elements. Mischel and Mischel (1958) and Kiev

(1968) have discussed the therapeutic functions of spirit

possession. Again, though their work has general implica­

tions, it has been based on Afro-Caribbean (and in the case

of Kiev, on Haitian) data.

Apart from a general interest in spirit possession,

the study of Pentecostalism in Haiti also arouses an interest

in Pentecostalism in other settings. The study of Pentecos­

talism has used a variety of approaches. Goodman (1972,

1974) has focused on the linguistic aspects of trance behavior

in Pentecostalism. Galley (1963) and Garrison (1974) have

explored Pentecostalism as an adaptive mechanism for emi­

grants from Caribbean societies, Jamaica for Galley and

Puerto Rico for Garrison. Mintz (1960) has examined the role

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of conversion to Pentecostalism in the life of an individual

Puerto Rican, and by extension in the social history of

Puerto Rico as a whole. Miller (1970) has published a useful

paper on the relationship between Pentecostalism and accul­

turation among the Toda Indians of Argentina. He maintains

that, in spite of appearances, Pentecostals generated more

acculturation than other Protestant groups. Gerlach and

Hine (1968, 1970) have taken another approach in the study of

Pentecostalism. They have viewed Pentecostalism as a socio­

religious movement and have isolated several factors in the

growth of such movements. Gerlach (1974), happily, has spent

a brief time studying Pentecostalism in Haiti, and has used

his Haitian data for cross-cultural comparison.

The work of the authors mentioned in this section is

reflected in the pages to follow. The dissertation touches

on other research which is discussed later in the text. It

is hoped that this dissertation can contribute further to the

research reported in this section, and that future analysis

of my field data will also be useful for comparative work.

A Note on the Terms Used in the Text

The names of the research sites, the churches and the

individuals discussed in this dissertation are pseudonyms.

The pseudonyms of individuals and of the research sites

(Grande Anse and Savanne Palmiste) are written in French or­

thography. The pseudonyms of the Protestant churches dis­

cussed in the text are given in English.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10

Haitian Creole terms are underlined without any further

marker. French terms are underlined and preceded by "Fr."

The orthography used for Haitian Creole terms is taken from

the New Testament with Psalms, published by the Société

Biblique Américaine (Anon. n.d.). This is the longest text

which has been published in Haitian Creole. Some comments

on this orthography are below:

é indicates a mid, front vowel

è indicates a half-open, front vowel

o indicates a mid, back vowel

6 indicates a half-open, back vowel

ou indicates a closed, back vowel

y after a vowel indicates a rising diphthong moving to

a front position

n after a vowel indicates nasalization

Finally, it should be noted that the plural form of Haitian

Creole nouns does not vary from the singular form. Without

a definite article, the word loua, for example, can either

be singular or plural.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER TWO

THE SETTINGS AND METHODOLOGY OF

THE FIELD RESEARCH

A Sketch of Haitian History and Society

In this chapter the setting in which the field research

was conducted and the methodology used are discussed. There

are three sections in this chapter. The second deals with

the locations in which the field work was done. The third

is concerned with the kinds of research methods I used in

the research and the kinds of data which I obtained. In

this first section I wish to present the reader with a very

brief general description of Haitian history and current so­

cial and economic patterns. This section is intended only to

familiarize the reader with Haiti as a nation. The works on

Haiti described in the previous chapter can serve as a fur­

ther guide to its complex and fascinating social history.

Haiti is a singular country by almost any criterion.

On the one hand it has been an isolated society, preserving

its own traditions, maintaining one of the most "African" of

the Afro-American cultures. On the other hand, Haiti was

one of the most "developed" and "Americanized" of all the

New World societies. Columbus discovered the island on his

first voyage. By the mid-sixteenth century the indigenous

11

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12

Tainos were all but extinct and the importation of African

slaves by the Spanish was well under way. The importation

of slaves increased dramatically after the French took pos­

session of what is now Haiti in 1697. By the 1720s sugar,

coffee, cotton and indigo plantations had been established.

Haiti, or Saint-Domingue as it was called during the colo­

nial period, became France's most precious overseas posses­

sion. The wealth of Saint-Domingue was produced, however,

by one of the most brutal slave systems in the New World.

An official census in 1790 counted 452,000 slaves, with

40,000 whites and 28,000 free persons of color (Leyburn

1966:18). The slave population had almost doubled in the

years since 1779. This growth was due not to natural in­

crease, but to importation from West Africa. In those

twelve years 338,000 slaves were imported (Curtin 1969:79).

Towards the end of this period the slave imports to Saint-

Domingue "must have been between one third and one half of

the entire Atlantic slave trade of those years" (Curtin

1969:75). These statistics give witness to the horrendous

treatment of the slaves in Saint-Domingue, where their life

expectancy after arrival was not great.

The colonial system of Saint-Domingue was destroyed by

the Haitian Revolution, which began in 1790. The Haitian

Revolution, though begun by free mulattoes, was the only mas­

sively successful slave rebellion in Afro-American history.

Under the leadership of the generals Toussaint Louverture,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13

Christophe and Dessalines, the Revolution lasted almost

fifteen years, ending with Dessalines's declaration of inde­

pendence in 1804.

The physical aspects of the plantation system, the

estate manors--and more importantly, the sugar factories--

were almost completely demolished in the warfare. Early

post-Revolutionary governments under Christophe and Petion

sought to re-establish the plantation system and export agri­

culture. But the former slaves had no desire to return to

their earlier mode of production and began to establish

themselves as a freeholding "yeomanry," to use Mintz's

(1966:viii) term. They took up land given to them by the

state in return for military services or removed themselves

to the uninhabited mountains. Their agricultural production

was geared towards subsistence rather than export. The

residence pattern which came to dominate was the lakou, a

compound in which an extended family lived and worked. The

former slaves seem to have turned inward, developing new

forms of social interaction and consolidating their belief

system, Vodoun. Leyburn (1966:32) rightly calls the first

half of the nineteenth century "the Formative Years."

The early history of Vodoun is not entirely clear.

Documents from the colonial period, with the exception of

Moreau de Sf.-Méry (1797), do not leave a detailed record of

the religious lives of the slaves. The most detailed report

of Moreau's indicates a focus on the worship of serpents.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14

which is not now emphasized in Vodoun. The other aspects

which Moreau emphasizes, such as trance behavior, ecstatic

dancing and ritual as a form of entertainment are, on the

other hand, very much a part of Vodoun today. Though the

planter class was not interested in the specifics of the

slaves' religion, they feared its political implications and

tried to restrict ritual practice. The planters did not take

these gatherings as seriously as they should have, however.

Stories of the Revolution include many religious leaders

taking military roles, as well as religious ceremonies serv­

ing as points of political coalescence. The general slave

insurrection itself is said to have begun at a religious

ceremony, the Oath of Bois Caiman, in 1791. Part of the

strength of the slaves throughout the Revolution came from

their belief that they were magically immune from the weapons

of the French. This aspect of Vodoun probably lasted through

the intermittent guerrilla warfare of the nineteenth century,

and was a factor in the Haitian resistance to the American

marines in the twentieth century (Schmidt :1971:23).

During the French colonial period, the Catholic Church

was not a prominent institution in Saint-Domingue. The Cath­

olic Church was not allowed to interfere with the running of

the plantation economy. In particular, planters were not

interested in the Christian education of their slaves, whose

participation in the rites of the Catholic Church was re­

stricted to baptism. Although baptism became an important

means by which social relationships among the slaves were

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15

ordered, the tenets of Catholicism did not penetrate their

lives. Nor was Catholicism important to the other classes

of Saint-Domingue society. Leyburn (1966:117) writes;

The rich French colony was not a bright star in the Catholic crown. Undeterred by those who might have been their spiritual guides, the white people fol­ lowed the easy path of self-indulgence. . . . To make a fortune was the prime ambition of every white man. . . . Administrative agents turned public office to their own profit; judges sold justice to the highest bidder; planters drove their slaves to death; and priests dispensed religious solace for a tidy sum. The freed- men, who in everything patterned their lives after social leaders in the white planter class, had no more concern for religion than their models.

Haitian leaders in the early nineteenth century sought

to re-establish the broken relationship with the Catholic

Church. In part they sought to submit the religion of the

people to administrative and thus political control. In

part they sought an alliance with the Vatican which would

help them in their quest for international recognition. The

Vatican, however, was reluctant to become involved in Haitian

affairs, and a concordat was not signed until 1860. In the

meantime, the state of Catholicism in Haiti had seriously

deteriorated from its already low position in the colonial

period. There were few Catholic priests in Haiti at the time,

and many of them were either defrocked or had never been or­

dained. Leyburn (1966:167) says of them:

The seventy men whom some historians mention as priests were on the whole venal and self-seeking, even vicious. Their least concern was to wean the people away from their superstitions, for precisely in these folk beliefs lay the greatest source of gain.

By 1860 the "formative years" had long since passed. Vodoun

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16

had been firmly established as the core of popular religious

belief.

Vodoun itself seems to have changed concomitantly with

the social and ecological changes of the early post-Revolu-

tionary period. Vodoun seems to have become more involved

in the domestic and agricultural aspects of life than it was

in the colonial period, though it may be that colonial ob­

servers simply overlooked these features of the religious

system. The diffusion of a fairly consolidated form of Vo­

doun throughout Haiti seems to have been complete by the

1840s (Leyburn 1966:41). The members of each lakou were

bound by common property and by common family spirits which

were inherited like property. The head of the compound main­

tained a sanctuary where the spirits were worshipped. Re­

ligious practitioners outside the family were occasionally

called in for assistance (Metraux 1972:59-60).

By the second half of the nineteenth century, Haiti

had become divided into two groups which Leyburn calls

"castes": the urban, relatively wealthy, relatively educa­

ted, French-speaking and French-oriented elite involved in

government, landholding and commerce; and the rural masses,

relatively poor. Creole-speaking, oriented toward a uniquely

Haitian "Little Tradition," engaged in manual labor. The

gulf between these two groups was wide and rarely bridged.

Only one important factor mediated it: the military. The

elite controlled the machinery of government but they did not

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control military power. As a result, Haitian rulers tended

to be Black, non-elite warlords rather than members of the

elite--a succession of regional generals, each ousting his

predecessor. Throughout the nineteenth century Haitian life

was disrupted by peasant armies which were often financed by

foreign merchants. The oldest resident of Savanne Palmiste,

where I did the major part of my fieldwork, remembers the

military campaign of 1888. The soldiers of Savanne Palmiste

had backed the loser. President Salomon, and returned home

in defeat. The notion of a government engaged in public

works, never strong, was eclipsed in the course of these

struggles. Nevertheless the works of some presidents, nota­

bly of Hyppolite (1889-1896) stand as a monument to what a

Haitian government can do.

The isolation of the "yeomanry" was probably something

they desired, but the isolation of Haiti as a nation-state

was imposed from the outside. No foreign government recog­

nized the Republic of Haiti until 1825, when France agreed to

acknowledge the sovereignty of what was formerly its most

profitable territory--but at a crippling price; sixty million

francs in indemnities. As we have seen, the Vatican did not

recognize Haitian independence until 1860. The United

States waited until the Civil War to recognize Haiti in 1862.

Although there had been considerable trade between the two

countries throughout the first half of the nineteenth cen­

tury, Southern U.S. legislators could not bear the thought of

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Black diplomats in Washington, which would be an affront to

white superiority and an example to ambitious slaves.

Diplomatic isolation did not mean financial isolation.

Haiti began early to borrow from Europeans and Americans to

support administrations, launch revolutions--and repay debts

to other creditors. This financial instability came to a

head in 1915 when the United States Marines invaded Haiti.

The ostensible reason for the occupation was the political

chaos which preceded it. But beneath the political surface

was an interest in securing Haiti's financial institutions,

especially at a time when Haiti owed substantial sums to

German creditors.

The legacy of the nineteen years of the American occu­

pation was mixed. Mintz is correct in saying (1966:xvii)

that "the occupation was notable for its failure to make any

telling alterations in the economic structure or level of

development of the country." The American forces restored

power to the mulatto elite, but in spite of Leyburn's pre­

dictions this power was lost to the "Black Elite" (Logan

1968:148) in the 1940s and later under François Duvalier.

The roads built under the occupation deteriorated, but the

intellectual ferment caused by the damage to Haitian sover­

eignty and pride has continued. The Occupation caused Hai­

tian intellectuals to look favorably for the first time on

their African origins and on "authentic"--as opposed to im­

ported French--culture. The work of Price-Mars and the

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establishment of the Bureau of Ethnology are among the fruits

of this ferment. So, too, is the ideology of the Duvalier

government.

The Occupation marked not only an intellectual disen­

chantment with France, it marked a financial and commercial

shift as well. The Haitian monetary unit,the gourde, which

had been tied to the French franc,became associated with the

American dollar by a treaty in 1919, still in effect. More­

over, trade patterns shifted in favor of the United States,

especially in the period following the termination of Ameri­

can military control in 1934. (The United States controlled

Haitian finances until 1946.)

Since the Occupation, the United States has also come

to replace France as a cultural metropolis for Haiti. For­

eign education for Haitian students tends to be in the United

States or Canada rather than in France, in contrast to the

pattern a generation or two ago. Many young Haitian stu­

dents, especially from monolingual Haitian Creole backgrounds,

prefer English to French as a second language, which is sur­

prising in a country where French is the official language.

Finally, emigration for political and economic reasons has

been to North America rather than to Europe. It is in this

general context of U.S.-Haitian economic and cultural rela­

tions that we must place the development of Protestantism,

largely supported by U.S. mission groups, in Haiti.

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The orientation of the Duvalier government, like that

of the Estimé government in the mid-1940s, has been in part

a reaction against the hegemony of the mulatto elite which

the Occupation forces tried to assure. The Duvalier govern­

ment, which celebrated its twentieth year in power in 1977,

is not merely the dynasty of a single family, but reflects

the emergence of a relatively new class of urban, moderately

educated. Black wage-earners (Mintz 1966:xxxv). A period of

deep political tension and terror resulted in the departure

of a large portion of the professional class, as well as in

the alienation of foreign governments and the reduction of

economic aid. In the 1970s, there has been a small but sig­

nificant growth in the industrial sector, composed mostly of

light industries such as assembly plants. There has also

been a great increase in foreign aid, and further increases

can be expected in future years.

In spite of some increases in economic activities in

some sectors, Haiti remains a desperately poor country whose

prospects are not encouraging. By almost every criterion

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.

Zuvekas (1978:36), in the latest analysis, estimates that the

per capita personal income for 1975 was $162, at only $96 in

rural areas and $385 in urban areas. Furthermore, "for the

country as a whole, real per capita income in 1975 was no

higher than in 1960 and probably lower than in the mid-1950s

(a boom period); at the same time per capita income in

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Port-au-Prince has clearly increased, implying a decline in

the rest of the country . . ." (Zuvekas 1978:39). Livestock

holdings per household, the "bank of the farmers," have also

declined since the 1950s (Zuvekas 1978:45). These trends are

occurring in a population which is overwhelmingly rural. In

1971 about eighty per cent of Haiti's almost four-and-a-half

million people lived in rural areas, in comparison to a

Latin American average of forty-two per cent (Zuvekas 1978:

4). There are no clear data about economic distinctions

among rural Haitians, but statistics about income distribu­

tion indicate that almost all of them are in the poorest

categories. According to Zuvekas (1978:60), ninety-two per

cent of the employed persons in rural areas are in the lowest

income category of "less than $240." About seven per cent

have an income within the $240-720 range; but only fractions

of one per cent have higher incomes. Thus disparities in

rural income distribution do not appear to be great, though

this may be deceptive because income distribution below the

level of $240 is not known. Furthermore, most rural Haitians

own or at least occupy land. The number of landless labor­

ers, while unknown, is probably very few (Zuvekas 1978:73).

Most agricultural laborers in Haiti are themselves land­

owners. Thus poverty in Haiti does not mean alienation from

the land as it does in other Caribbean and Latin American

countries. On the other hand, conditions in Haiti are so

impoverished that individuals without access to land in rural

areas cannot survive and are forced to emigrate.

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By nutritional, health and educational standards Haiti

is also very impoverished. The U.S. Department of Agricul­

ture's per capita food production index for Haiti shows a

decline in the past decade, from 100 in 1961-1965 to 84 in

1975-76 (Zuvekas 1978:31). Nutritional levels are low. A

study of nutrition in the Fonds-Parisien-Ganthier area in

the mid-1960s (before the development of a nutritional pro­

gram) showed the average caloric intake to be about 1,500

calories or less (Beghin, et al. 1970). (The F.A.O. standard

is about 2,200 calories per day.) It has been estimated that

sixty per cent of Haitian children suffer from malnutrition--

and almost a fourth from second and third degree malnutri­

tion (Zuvekas 1978:51). The infant mortality rate is also

high, largely as a result of umbilical tetanus. The reported

rate is about 146 per 1,000 births; but most infant deaths

are not reported to hospitals (Wiese 1971:38). Influenza,

malaria, tuberculosis, dysentery, syphilis, whooping cough,

amoebic dysentery, measles, typhoid and para-typhoid fever

are the most commonly reported communicable diseases, accord­

ing to the World Health Organization (Wiese 1971:39). Medi­

cal facilities are few. A USAID report indicates that there

are about 0.76 physicians per 10,000 Haitians, with about

eight hospital beds for the same number of people (Zuvekas

1978:56). Most of these facilities are concentrated in Port-

au-Prince, the capital.

Educational levels are low and are complicated by the

linguistic situation in Haiti. French is the official

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language, but is spoken fluently by no more than five per

cent of the population. Perhaps another ten per cent or so

are able to express themselves in and to comprehend French.

The remaining eighty-five per cent are unable to speak or

comprehend French, though they may understand a few words in

a sentence. On the other hand, one hundred per cent of the

Haitian population is fluent in Haitian Creole. The subject

of political debate for more than a generation, Haitian

Creole continues to be excluded as an official language. The

public use of Creole in official matters is increasing, but

all laws, proclamations, identity cards, deeds and titles,

etc., are still printed only in French. Even most of the

radio stations in Port-au-Prince broadcast in French. Most

importantly, formal education is conducted in French, a lan­

guage which most of the beginning students cannot comprehend.

Thus those relatively few Haitian children who are given the

opportunity to attend schools must try to learn to read in a

foreign language. It is not surprising, then, that func­

tional literacy rates are low, perhaps twelve per cent of the

adult population (Zuvekas 1978:58). Thus the majority of

Haitians--and the vast majority of rural Haitians--are ex­

cluded from knowledge about and participation in national af­

fairs. As Mintz (1974:297) has written, "The relationship

between the peasantry and the national government . . . is

mediated through only the skimpiest of institutional arrange­

ments." Poverty and institutional insufficiency form the

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conditions in which contemporary Haitian religion--Vodoun,

Catholicism and Protestantism--is found.

The Research Settings

My first experience with Protestantism in Haiti was

perhaps a telling one. On my first day in Port-au-Prince I

read in a newspaper that a Protestant rally was to be held in

one of the poorer sections of the city that night. I arrived

to find a large, relaxed crowd in a soccer field. A make­

shift stage had been erected and was illuminated by about a

dozen very dim light bulbs. Special permission had been re­

ceived for the use of loudspeakers, but the current was so

weak that they were largely ineffectual. Much of the rally

consisted of singing performances by various local groups and

individuals. But the star of the evening was the touring

American evangelist. Reverend Dawkins, about whom it was said

that he could cure the sick by simply praying over them.

Reverend Dawkins preached at length, sounding very much like

an American radio evangelist. He spoke in short sentences

which were translated by young Haitians who copied his ges­

ticulations as they repeated his phrases. The singing per­

formances were in French. But the translations were into

Haitian Creole, as were hymns that everyone sang together.

I was something of a curiosity--and an object of terror to

the youngest children. I began a conversation with several

young men who said that they were learning English from some

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of the missionaries. One of them suggested that I take them

to the movies the following day. I declined.

I had already learned several important things about

Haitian Protestantism. Its spiritual, administrative and fi­

nancial leaders are foreigners, mostly Americans, whose style

the Haitian hierarchy often tries to emulate. Healing is an

important part of the appeal of Protestantism. Language fac­

tors are important to take into account. And the entertain­

ment aspects of religious services should not be underesti­

mated.

My second encounter with Haitian Protestantism occurred

a few days later, in a yet poorer area of the city. I stum­

bled upon a church with a sign which read "Eglise Evangelique

Tower of Grace Temple USA." I learned from the pastor, Vilme

St. Victor, that the church had had some affiliation with a

Pentecostal church in New York City, but that there had been

no communication with this church in three or four years. He

invited me to a service the following Tuesday evening. When

I arrived a woman was speaking to the pastor about her sick

infant. The pastor took the child in his arms and appeared

to go into trance, saying "hipipipip" over the child. He re­

peated this often during prayers in the service that followed,

Other congregants also "spoke in tongues" during the service.

Certain phrases that the pastor used, such as "Praise the

Lord" and "Jesus Christ," appeared to be in English.

The most dramatic part of the service came when the

pastor said, "Now the children will manifest the gifts of the

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Lord." Eight girls, from about eight to fifteen years of

age, were brought to the front of the church. Most of the

girls wore white dresses and white scarves on their heads.

They began dancing in a circle, stamping their feet on the

dirt floor with greater and greater intensity. Suddenly the

circle opened up like a flower as they leaned backwards and

began twirling and speaking in tongues. Then the women car­

ing for the girls gathered them together again; they began

stamping their feet and twirling. This happened repeatedly

for almost an hour, and was the most dramatic religious serv­

ice I ever saw in Haiti.

Another early encounter with Protestantism took place

the same week in a middle-class parlor. The occasion was a

Bible study session, with a group of thirteen women led by

Pastor Ambroise, the Haitian director of one of the largest

mission congregations in Port-au-Prince. The passage from

the Bible dealt with "false sects, "and the pastor used the

reference to make an attack on the Seventh Day Adventists and

the Jehovah's Witnesses. He also attacked the Methodists for

teaching in a school but making no attempt to convert their

students. French was used on this occasion, and one had the

feeling that it was used rigorously.

My "actual" fieldwork began several weeks later, when

I moved to Grande Anse, a large town on the coast. Although

it is one of the more important urban areas of Haiti, Grande

Anse has a population of only about 15,000. The town has

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been a center for the coffee exporting sector, as well as for

the production of citrus and other essential oils, processed

in small, family-owned plants. Because it is picturesque,

Grande Anse has attracted a certain amount of tourism. But

the town's most important economic function is undoubtedly

as a distribution center. Grande Anse has a large covered

market place where produce is sold as well as a number of

small stores, shops and pharmacies where rural people can

purchase almost all the items they could find in Port-au-

Prince. There is also a weekly livestock market.

Grande Anse is also an administrative center with a

mayor, an army post, a courthouse and a small hospital. The

large Catholic church of St. Joseph towers over the central

area of the town. Its clock tower rings every hour and when­

ever a Catholic dies whose family can afford ten dollars for

the deceased to be so commemorated. There are seven Protes­

tant churches in the town, many of which have "stations" in

the countryside around Grande Anse.

Two or three "élite" families own almost all of the

production plants in the town, and many of the shops and

residences. These families are branches of families which

have become established in Port-au-Prince, but retain their

properties in Grande Anse. Beneath these families in eco- ..

nomic power and social prestige are those who own individual

shops, administrators, doctors, teachers, lawyers, and some

religious leaders. Truck drivers, small shopkeepers.

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successful market vendors and borlettiers ("numbers game"

ticket sellers), tailors, bakers take a more or less equi­

valent place on a scale of social and economic stratifica­

tion, below the professionals, but above the mass of workers,

ordinary market vendors, and house servants, some of whom

supplement their income through agriculture. At the bottom

of the social system are the unemployed, especially the sick

and destitute who live in the poorhouse.

In spite of the large number of Protestant congrega­

tions in the town, the Catholic church clearly dominates.

There are two Catholic churches in Grande Anse : a chapel at

the hospital and the large church, which is administered by

a French-Canadian priest. There is also a Catholic group

headed by a lay worker which has weekly fasting services in

a chapel near the cemetery. The largest Protestant congrega­

tion is part of a national Baptist organization. All of the

other Protestant churches in Grande Anse are part of American

missionary organizations. They are Baptist, Adventist,

Brethren, Nazarene and Pentecostal. Each of these groups is

distinctive. The Baptists have a resident American mission­

ary. The Adventists keep Saturday as their Sabbath and re­

frain from eating pork. The Church of the Gospel is the only

group in the town which permits trance behavior and glosso-

lalia in church services. It is the only Pentecostal church

in Grande Anse, although there is another one a short dis­

tance from the town, called the Crusade of Christ.

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Most of my time in Grande Anse, a total of about four

months in the summers of 1974 and 1975, was spent with con­

gregants of the Church of the Gospel. Although much of my

time was spent in learning Haitian Creole, I was able to in­

terview most of the members of this congregation. However, I

worked principally with two key informants: the pastor of the

church and a woman who was one of the most active church mem­

bers. The pastor is not only the administrator of the con­

gregation at Grande Anse, but is also the District Supervisor

for the rural areas surrounding the town. He is the only

pastor of the Church of the Gospel in the area who is li­

censed with the state and able to perform marriages. This

led him to travel frequently throughout the area. I accom­

panied him on several of these trips, which he called

tournees missionnaires (Fr.). This enabled me to observe

some of the administrative activities of the mission organ-

izacion and to gain an idea of the variation in congregations

within a single Protestant denomination.

The congregation of the Church of the Gospel in Grande

Anse consists of about forty-five members and about twenty

regular attenders who have not been baptized. These latter

are called croyants (Fr.), "believers." About fifty people

can be expected at a given Sunday service, and a smaller

group of about thirty participate in church services on a

more frequent (sometimes daily) basis. The congregation is

almost evenly divided between men and women. The women.

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however, take a more active role in church affairs. Some

religious services, such as the weekly fast, or jènn (Fr.,

1eûne), are almost exclusively attended by women. Most of the

official administrative positions in the church, on the other

hand, are taken by men. The members of the congregation come

from the poorest strata of Grande Anse. The women are street

vendors or servants ; the men are laborers. Many are not

fully employed. Several of the men live in the poorhouse

nearby. Only one member of the congregation could be de­

scribed as coming from a higher social stratum. He was con­

verted by his maid. There are a few teachers and artisans

in the congregation, however.

The stance I took in Grande Anse was as much a part of

the research setting as the social structure of the town it­

self. Partly consciously and partly unwittingly, I became

fully identified with the Church of the Gospel, and people in

the town came to think of me as a missionary in spite of my

attempt to convince them otherwise. Some even called me

"Pastor." I was in something of an ironical position: the

people in the Church of the Gospel knew that I was not a mem­

ber, nor even a Protestant. But those not in the church saw

only that I spent a great deal of time at the Pentecostal

services. More important, perhaps, is the fact that I came

to adopt many of the attitudes of the Pentecostals towards

appropriate behavior and towards Haitian society. I found

myself feeling surreptitious about my drinking and dancing.

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guilty about the occasional cigarette, and positively gleeful

about gambling. I took on a rather negative bias towards

Vodoun which I made an effort to shake off later. Becoming

emotionally involved in the church helped to give me a per­

spective on Haitian Protestantism, but also was one of the

factors which led me to decide to spend the greater part of

my fieldwork in another setting.

I did not spend all of my time with the Pentecostals.

I made some overtures to a woman who was one of the more re­

nowned Vodoun specialists (mambo) in Grande Anse and obtained

some information from her and several of her followers. I

lived with a Catholic family and made a number of Catholic

friends in the neighborhood of the church, where I spent most

of the research time. I also became friendly with a foreign

? isident of the town, who was a very helpful informant.

In some respects Grande Anse was an idyllic research

setting. I was enchanted by the town on my first visit, and

decided promptly that I would settle there. There were diffi­

culties, however. I felt torn by role conflicts and expecta­

tions, not only in terms of Protestants and Catholics, but

in terms of the different social strata in the town as well.

This produced a certain sense of isolation in me.

In June 1975, I spent several weeks studying a Pente­

costal church near Port-au-Prince, in collaboration with the

Centre de Recherches en Sciences Humaines et Sociales of the

Faculté d'Ethnologie. The church was called the Army of the

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Lord. It had been established around 1970 when its founder,

following the instructions he had received in a dream, broke

away from the Church of the Gospel. The church was located

in an urban area along the "Carrefour Road," a very densely

populated area of metropolitan Port-au-Prince. The members

of the congregation were almost all very poor and lived in

overcrowded conditions. They worked as servants, as petty

vendors, and as sometime workers in the handicraft industries

which have recently been established in the Port-au-Prince

area. Most of the population of this area were migrants to

the capital, and it happened that many in this area had mi­

grated from the Grande Anse region. With the help of a re­

search assistant I interviewed many of the members of this

congregation, using a tape recorder. Most of the information

I obtained involved conversion histories. I also had an ex­

tensive interview with a male Vodoun specialist (houngan) re­

siding in the neighborhood. Although I did not spend much

time in this research setting, it became apparent that there

are some differences in the way Pentecostalism functions in

an urban, emergent industrial sector and in a rather stagnant

town. People were using Pentecostalism as a resource some­

what differently in each setting. Another contrast between

the Army of the Lord and the Church of the Gospel in Grande

Anse is that there is more trance behavior and glossolalia in

the former. This difference helped to point out some of the

meaning of such behavior in Haitian Protestantism.

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In 1977 I spent eight months living in Savanne Palmiste,

near the Plaine du Cul de Sac. I was working in collabora­

tion with the Centre d'Hygiène Familiale, a private community

health organization which maintains close ties with the Di­

vision d'Hygiène Familiale of the Department of Public Health

The Centre d'Hygiène Familiale maintains a family health and

family planning service in the area near Savanne Palmiste.

A casual American visitor to Savanne Palmiste might

easily be struck by the timelessness of it all: the women

washing clothes by the spring; young boys riding donkeys; men

heading to or from their fields with long-handled hoes on

their shoulders. Such an impression would be quite errone­

ous. Savanne Palmiste has a marked history, one character­

ized by the powerlessness of the residents against natural

calamities and against outside intervention as well. The

fundamental theme of the history of Savanne Palmiste is wa­

ter. Colonial references to Savanne Palmiste mention the

construction of an irrigation system by the mulatto heirs of

the Frenchman who established the first plantation there.

This irrigation system served Savanne Palmiste until a dis­

astrous hurricane in 1909. The devastation caused by the

storm not only left Savanne Palmiste in poverty for the next

forty years, but resulted in considerable social disintegra­

tion as well. Those whose houses were destroyed by the flood

moved into areas of the village which had been previously un­

inhabited. Most of the farmers saw only one harvest a year

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because they could only plant in the rainy season in June.

Those who owned land in one section of the village, the land

which formed the original plantation, fared better. They

were still able to irrigate their crops from a natural spring.

They became economically dominant in the village, and appar­

ently coexisted on rather hostile terms with their less for­

tunate neighbors. According to the unofficial historian of

Savanne Palmiste there were daily fights about the distribu­

tion of water. Arrests were made almost daily at the spring,

and there were fights at such occasions as cockfights and

dances as well. People who lived in the more prosperous

section of the village refused to take spouses from other

sections. Between 1909 and the 1940s, according to one in­

formant, only one man from the poorer section took a wife

from the wealthier one, and they were forced to leave the

village.

In the late 1940s, the government and an American for­

eign aid organization began the construction of a new irriga­

tion system. The establishment of this system enormously in­

creased the productivity of the village. The amount of arable

land was more than doubled. The number of people in the

once-devastated area almost doubled, as those who had mi-,

grated to Port-au-Prince or to the Dominican Republic re­

turned. The building of the irrigation canals, for which many

local workers were paid, itself brought a kind of false

prosperity to the village. But the increase in crop produc­

tion was real. Even young residents in the village today

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recall the lush verdancy of the plantain trees, the continu­

ous traffic in the market place and the fine store which even

outsiders came to visit. The prosperity reduced the divi­

sions in the village, partly because there was enough water

for all the gardens and partly because the residents were

forced to work together to plan the distribution of it. As

one informant said, "The water (from the project) did not

just put food and money in Savanne Palmiste, it put unity

too, because if it was not for the water from the project, we

would still be bedeviled by fights."

The prosperity came to a sudden halt in 1954 when hur­

ricane Hazel destroyed many of the canals, which had been

built in a gully rather than high along the mountain sides.

Enough water could still be obtained so that the population

was not reduced to its earlier circumstances. But what had

become the most prosperous part of the village was once again

wasteland, fit only for the foraging of goats. Hurricane

Flora in 1963 finished the destruction of the canals. Once

again most gardens were either destroyed or produced only

one crop per year. Both hurricanes destroyed considerable

residential sections of the village, and the inhabitants were

forced to disperse either to unsettled areas or to other resi­

dential sections. This seems to have increased the "unity"

of the village, and there do not now seem to be sharp geo­

graphical divisions in the choice of spouse.

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The 1960s and early 1970s were a time of increasing

poverty, due in part to drier climntic conditions. In 1972

a well was dug and an irrigation punp was installed with the

help of the Evangelical Brethren mission, foreign aid funds

and the Ministry of Agriculture. This has increased agricul­

tural production in the area below the pump, which does not

include those areas which profited most from the earlier ir­

rigation project. In 1977, planning was begun for the recon­

struction of the irrigation project, and the villagers now

anticipate better times ahead. Informants commonly said,

"The only thing we need is water. Once we have water we

won't need any more outside help."

This brief history of the irrigation of the village has

been recounted because it demonstrates the fragility of the

ecological adaptation which has been made there and because

it shows the extraordinary degree of powerlessness the vil­

lagers have in the face of natural disasters and outside

intervention for the better or the worse. In these respects,

Savanne Palmiste is not different from most Haitian villages.

Where Savanne Palmiste does differ is in the degree of out­

side intervention which it has experienced. One might call

Savanne Palmiste a "developed" village in that it has received

far more attention from outside sources than most Haitian

villages. My presence there was but one example of this.

Before the 1930s the village was apparently isolated

from most national institutions. In 1933 the government

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established a rural school. The following year some of the

young people received first communion in the Catholic church,

apparently for the first time in many years. In the 1940s

roads were built through the area. In 1937 Protestantism

came to Savanne Palmiste, through a man who had lived in the

Dominican Republic but who returned to the area after the ex­

pulsion of the Haitians by Trujillo. His organization became

affiliated with the Pentecostal Church of the Light of the

Prophecy in Port-au-Prince. Soon afterwards a group separated

from them and affiliated themselves with a large national

Baptist organization. In the mid-1960s, nutritional and family

health services were established in the area where Savanne

Palmiste is located. The late 1960s saw an increased inter­

est in the village on the part of outsiders. Four new Prot­

estant congregations were established in a period of three or

four years. Two of these congregations were American Pente­

costal mission organizations, the Tabernacle and the Bethes-

da Mission. Both mission organizations built churches which

are used as primary schools during the week. A third Ameri­

can mission organization, the non-Pentecostal Evangelical

Brethren, established a congregation headed by a foreign mis­

sionary who came to reside in Savanne Palmiste. The Evangel­

ical Brethren helped to establish an agricultural cooperative

and provided funding for the irrigation pumps, as was men­

tioned above. The fourth Protestant congregation to be es­

tablished in the late 1960s was the Church of the New Word.

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This congregation differs from the other three in that it is

part of an organization which is entirely Haitian. The

Church of the New Word is Pentecostal, but, as we shall see,

has forms of belief and behavior which contrast with those of

the mission Pentecostal congregations. In the early 1970s

the small dormant Adventist congregation was revived by a

school teacher who was posted in the village. Finally, yet

another American mission, this one from a Baptist organiza­

tion, was established in Savanne Palmiste in January 1977, the

same week I began my fieldwork there. At present there are

eight Protestant organizations in Savanne Palmiste, four of

which can be described as Pentecostal. (A list of all the

Protestant churches studied during the field research can be

found in Appendix One.)

Vodoun is present in Savanne Palmiste in various forms.

Families conduct annual services for the spirits which they

believe they have inherited; these spirits are called loua.

The services for the loua are usually held at Christmas time.

There are several Vodoun specialists (houngan) in Savanne

Palmiste. At least four men act at times as the more tradi­

tional type of houngan in the area, the houngan makout. This

and other Vodoun roles will be described in Chapter Three.

Vodoun, like other aspects of religion in Savanne Palmiste,

has been touched by outside influences. In the early 1950s,

at the height of the prosperous times, a type of houngan new

to the area, a houngan ason, arrived in the person of a man

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named Dieu-fort. Dieu-fort came from another part of the

Plaine, but his mother had been born in Savanne Palmiste.

Dieu-fort established a Vodoun cult center (hounfb) in the

part of the village where his mother's kin lived. He con­

ducted Vodoun initiations. As his professional life flour­

ished, Dieu-fort set up a second hounfb in another part of

the village. Many of his followers remember Dieu-fort--or at

least his professional abilities--with fondness. Most in­

formants, however, maintained that there was a darker side to

Dieu-fort's work, an aspect of his involvement of Vodoun

which led to his mysterious demise in the early 1960s. After

his death a follower and kinsman of Dieu-fort's, Janvier,

took his place as the leader of the hounfb. Janvier's prac­

tice does not have the darker side attributed to Dieu-fort,

much to the relief of the inhabitants of the village. In the

meantime a second man in Savanne Palmiste established himself

as a houngan ason; he is now largely retired from his prac­

tice, however. The practice of these two houngan ason in

Savanne Palmiste is not nearly as extensive as that of simi­

lar Vodoun specialists in other parts of the Plaine. My in­

formants in Savanne Palmiste say that they are relieved by

this. In part because of Dieu-fort's imputed activities they

associate the houngan ason role with evil-doing and bad magic

(ma.i i). They are fond of saying that there is no longer any

evil-doing in the village because they are all "one family"

("mèm moun").

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Savanne Palmiste is not a small village. An unofficial

census conducted in 1972 indicated a population of about

4,100. The village lies on a fairly flat but sloping area

between the mountains and the Plaine du Cul-de-Sac. It is

located near one of the important roads which lead to the

Plaine. The principal occupation of almost all of the inhabi­

tants is agriculture, with a general division of labor be­

tween men, who work the gardens, and women, who help with the

harvest and market the produce. A few individuals engage in

part-time specializations such as carpentry, shopkeeping,

health practice, clothes-making and housebuilding. Only a

handful of the local residents never engage in agricultural

activities. Among these are the three truck drivers who

drive to Port-au-Prince and back six days a week, a several

hours' trip. The village is spread over a large area, with­

out the tight clusters of houses that one sees in other areas

of the Plaine. There are three principal sections (zonn),

each subdivided into smaller areas with names such as "the

Center," "the Littlemarket," "in the Gaya Bushes," "Under the

Palm Tree," and "the Stream." In the "Center" is located the

Catholic church of Saint Louis (with its bell dated "1790")

and the market place. The public school and a clinic are

located near the market place, as are three of the Protestant

churches. The "Center" was once located near a road, but the

road has been moved because of past flooding. There is some

activity in the market place every day, but the principal

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market day is Friday. The market place is not only a collec­

tion point for produce leaving the village but for items

coming in from Port-au-Prince as well. At times so little

home-grown food is available in the village that almost every­

thing in the market has been brought in from other parts of

the Plaine or from Port-au-Prince. There are currently three

stores in the village, very unprepossessing affairs, and about

three other families sell some items in their homes.

Most of the houses in the village are made of wattle-

and-daub with thatched roofs. Some of the houses have corru­

gated iron roofs and painted wood trimming. One, which was

finally abandoned in 1977, is made of concrete and has glass

windows. It is a testament to the prosperity of earlier

times. Almost all of the residential areas are contiguous,

surrounded by the fields. Some houses stand alone, but most

are grouped in family "compounds" (lakou), clusters of houses

owned by brothers and sisters, usually the latter. Generally

speaking the various subsections of the village are inhabited

by kin who also share an area of agricultural land, a "habi­

tation" (abitasion), in which they all share an interest even

though the land has been divided into individually-owned

plots. The owner of a plot on a habitation may only sell it

to a person outside of the kin group after he or she has of­

fered it to all the members of the kin group. Individual

"gardens" are very small, many less than an acre in area.

Many of these gardens are not farmed by their owners, but by

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kin and neighbors who split the harvest on a 3:2 basis with

the owner.

Maize, beans, sweet potatoes, millet, and tomatoes are

the principal crops. Okra, peppers, leeks, and sugar cane

are also grown. The crops are produced for the domestic

rather than the international market. Surprisingly few of

them are subsistence crops. Two weeks after the maize har­

vest in April most families needed to buy corn meal from

Port-au-Prince; they had sold their own crop to pay for debts

which had accumulated. Those fields which are irrigated by

the pumps or the natural spring produce three crops per year.

Non-irrigated fields produce two, one or no crops per year.

Large areas of "bush" (rajé) are used for grazing goats and

some cattle.

There are a small number of professionals in the vil­

lage. These are the teachers, the nurses at the clinic, two

pastors, and two agricultural agents who make weekly visits.

With the exception of two teachers, all of these profession­

als come from outside of the village and reside there only

temporarily. The local chef de section and his police

rurale (Fr.) keep order.

My position as a fieldworker in Savanne Palmiste was

quite different from the one I took (or was given) in Grande

Anse. In Savanne Palmiste I was working in collaboration

with the organization which administered the clinic, though

I made it explicit from the beginning that I did not work at

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the clinic. I found a house which was centrally located and

which belonged to a respected member of the community (one

of the Evangelical Brethren). The house was conveniently

located near the Pentecostal church which interested me the

most, the Church of the New Word. I frequently attended

services at this church, but did not in any way appear to be­

come affiliated with it. My visits to the church were seen

as a neighborly act, and my interest in the services was not

viewed as unusual, as they were a source of entertainment for

others besides myself. I did, in fact, often find the serv­

ices of this church tremendously joyful and at times consid­

ered myself privileged to be able to attend them.

I was not perceived by the villagers as a Protestant,

but ?s a Catholic. I was raised as a Catholic and had no

difficulty in identifying myself as such. I visited most of

the Protestant churches as well as the Catholic church. I

also visited--one might more accurately say courted--the

houngan who lived nearest to me. I attended several dances

at his cult center (hounfb), including a dance for a new ini­

tiate (hounsi). I would not say, however, that my efforts

with this houngan were notably successful. He seemed wary of

me, probably because he associated me with the clinic, which

he may have perceived as a threat to his livelihood. I ob­

tained very little information from him, though several of

his followers were more cooperative. I became friendly with

two of the herbal doctors in the village, one of whom is also

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a houngan. They were very helpful to me, as were the per­

sonnel at the clinic, who had an extraordinary knowledge of

the community. Thus in my eight months at Savanne Palmiste

I became acquainted with representatives of all the health

practitioner roles.

Almost all of the family cult services take place at

Christmas, and I was unable to observe them. I did, however,

attend several vodoun dances at private homes as well as

practice dances in the hounf5 . I did not attend conjuring of

the loua spirits by the houngan, although I obtained several

descriptions of such rituals. In spite of these limitations

I believe that I obtained a general idea of Vodoun in Savanne

Palmiste, and my fieldnotes have been supplemented by the con­

siderable ethnographic literature on Vodoun.

From June through August 1977, I was accompanied by

Linda K. Girdner, an anthropologist whose companionship and

counsel were invaluable. She not only sustained my morale

through some difficult periods, but she extended the circle

of our acquaintances and viewed Haiti from a fresh perspec­

tive which complemented my own.

In PorL'-au-Prince I gained the friendship of an elite

family who provided me not only with a home but with the wel­

come usually reserved for a family member. Not only did they

provide me with a place to relax and talk but also with a

view of Haitian society which I could not have obtained from

my other informants. I also made several friends among the

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foreign residents of Port-au-Prince, and received from them

many insights which can come only through long residence in

Haitian society.

Research Techniques and Kinds of Data Obtained

Participant observation was the principal method used

in the fieldwork. The core of the participant observation

took place within Pentecostal congregations. As I have indi­

cated in the previous section the nature of my participation

in the congregations varied from setting to setting. In

Savanne Palmiste my participation in village affairs as a

whole was much greater than such participation in Grande Anse.

It must be remembered, though, that Savanne Palmiste is no

small hamlet. Its relatively large population of over four

thousand people prevented me from becoming acquainted with

more than a fraction, perhaps five per cent, of the inhabi­

tants of Savanne Palmiste. I decided to eliminate one entire

"zone" of the village from most of my work; it was an area

with minimal involvement in either Protestantism or "organ­

ized" Vodoun.

On the other hand, a fair amount of previous research

material concerning Savanne Palmiste was available. A census

was conducted by the clinic in 1972. The clinic also main­

tained records on births, deaths and some reported illnesses.

A report about Savanne Palmiste was written for a development

organization during the "boom years" of the early 1950s.

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While the report was unrealistically optimistic, it does pro­

vide some statistics which are of interest. These materials

provided invaluable supplementary data.

The observation of Pentecostal services in all three

research settings included notations about "testimony" and

sermons as well as about trance behavior. A tape recorder

was used during some of the Pentecostal services observed,

including fifteen services of the Church of the New Word at

Savanne Palmiste. Photographs were taken by Linda Girdner at

two New Word Church services and two additional services were

partially filmed. I attended a number of Protestant and

Catholic religious services in churches not mentioned in the

previous section. For example, I visited both the "mother

church" of the Church of the New Word (where I had the oppor­

tunity to interview its founder) and a congregation near

Port-au-Prince. In this way I was able to get an idea of

how "typical" the services of this denomination at Savanne

Palmiste are. The same is true for a number of the other

denominations.

Observations were also made of several vodoun rituals.

Some of these observations took place in Grande Anse at a

large well-known hounfb where outsiders were received fairly

regularly. More took place at a hounfb in Savanne Palmiste.

There I observed several weekly "practice" dances (rasanble) .

I also attended a sévis loua for the hounfb (not to be con­

fused with a sévis for the family loua) and parts of an

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initiation (kanzo) ceremony, including the "baptism" that

marks the end of the initiation. Linda Girdner and I were

among the several "godparents" for the initiated woman. In

addition to the rituals which took place in the hounfb at

Savanne Palmiste, I attended a vodoun dance sponsored by a

private individual at which a number of "possessions" oc­

curred. I also attended another dance which was dedicated to

the loua at which no possessions took place. The Haitian

Creole terms in this section will be described more fully in

the next chapter.

In addition to observing religious services and spe­

cialists, I observed a number of health care practitioners at

work. In addition to Vodoun specialists, who are both re­

ligious and health specialists, I observed herbal doctors

(doktb fey), nurses, and physicians. I also interviewed

these specialists about their work and their conceptions of

health and illness. The observation of traditional health

practitioners took place largely at Savanne Palmiste. Modern

medical practice was observed in Savanne Palmiste, Grande

Anse and Port-au-Prince.

These observations were complemented by a series of

interviews in all of the research settings. In Grande Anse

and Savanne Palmiste I preferred to work primarily with key

informants with whom I developed a close rapport. These in­

formants were not chosen for being "typical." Rather they

either struck me as having a particular kind of perspective

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on their own "sistèm," to use the Haitian Creole word which

comes closest to the anthropological concept of culture; or

they had the personality, time and energy to fulfill the key

informant role. I would consider most of the key informants

as friends. They included a Pentecostal pastor, a deeply

committed--one might use the word fanatical--Pentecostal wo­

man, a woman from the "mulatto elite," an herbal doctor, a

young woman who was a "pure Catholic" (katolik fran), and the

unofficial "historian" of Savanne Palmiste. As in the allo­

cation of all research time, some of the choices in the use of :

key informants were difficult. For example, in Grande Anse

I chose to spend a great deal of time with the pastor of the

Church of the Gospel, a man who had only resided in Grande

Anse for two years when I first met him. Time spent with him

meant relinquishing time spent with "local" Pentecostals who

could give me more insight into the growth of their congrega­

tion. But it also enabled me to begin to understand the per­

spective of a pastor who supervised a wide rural area, part

of which I toured with him, and who occupied an important

position in the mission organization.

In addition to extensive interviews with key informants

I conducted interviews with a wide variety of other infor­

mants. These interviews were of several varieties. Most

were formal, that is, both the informants and I understood

that we were in an "interview situation" and that the infor­

mant would be remunerated at the conclusion of the session.

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At the same time, most of the interviews were open-ended,

that is, the informant was free to pursue the topic as he or

she wished. I would occasionally change the subject, especi­

ally when I felt that an informant's talk was turning into a

sermon with more rhetoric than information. (The rhetoric

was, of course, useful information in its own right, but only

up to a certain point.) Some interviews were tape-recorded.

I took written notes during most, but some I recorded in my

notes only after I returned home. Most of the interviews took

place at the homes of the informants. I selected as inform­

ants both Catholics and Protestants. Among the Catholics

were those who "served the loua" and those who did not; the

Protestants were from various denominations, though most were

Pentecostal.

Most of the formal interviews were concerned with con­

ceptions about religion and supernatural beings, health

practitioners, illnesses and forms of therapy, especially

religious conversion. Protestants were asked to give their

conversion history. I do not feel that the Haitians would

be receptive to a questionnaire-type interview (see also

Murray and Chen 1976), but my questioning took the same pat­

tern for each subject matter. In addition, two kinds of

special interviews were conducted: those which involved gene­

alogies and semantic frames. The semantic frame interview is

a technique to determine how people categorize objects and

experiences. Semantic frame interviews were conducted to

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determine the various categories of beings in Vodoun, various

types of illness, the parts of the body, and other domains

such as colors.

In addition to the formal interviews and periods of

formal observation were many informal interviews and conver­

sations. These were invaluable for learning bits of data and

for understanding the concerns of my informants. Fairly

long-term residence in Haiti (a total of fifteen months) was

necessary for this research. Insights came at unexpected

times : a snatch of conversation in a taxicab revealed the

usage of a certain word; a chance meeting revealed that an

important figure in the village, Madame Sélius, was also

known as Madame Yaya, her husband's other name ; a comparison

of church services revealed important features of both which

I had previously missed. The length of my stay in Haiti en­

abled me to attain a certain degree of proficiency in French

and Haitian Creole and left me enough time to use them in my

research.

All of the data about Protestantism in Haiti in this

dissertation were obtained by me, except where I have speci­

fically noted otherwise. I obtained about seventy-five con­

version histories, some sketchy, some very detailed. My in­

formation about Protestants is not based solely on their own

accounts, however. These accounts tend to reflect ideal

norms and some are highly rhetorical in nature. Information

obtained from Catholics and Vodounists helped to balance

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information obtained from Protestants themselves. Gossip

also played a role in evaluating information I obtained and

the reliability of informants. My own observations also

helped me to evaluate the verbal information which I obtained

from informants.

There were two areas in my field research in which I

encountered special difficulties obtaining data. These were

observation of Vodoun rituals, especially healing rituals and

family "services," and decision-making about health practice

alternatives. A physiological study of my informants was

outside the scope of this research. Nevertheless I had ex­

pected to obtain considerable amounts of information about

the precise steps individuals take when they become ill.

Many of the accounts which I received appeared to be highly

normative. Informants seemed to overstate the frequency with

which they visited physicians rather than seek local remedies

for their illnesses. One informant told me that she always

boiled the water she drank--a patently false statement. The

people of Savanne Palmiste probably reacted to me with less

than candor in this regard because they viewed me as being

associated with the clinic in the village. Even though I

dissociated myself as strongly as possible from any kind of

medical role, informants probably were reluctant to say any­

thing which might disparage the clinic in front of me. I do

not wish to exaggerate this point. I obtained several very

detailed accounts of decision-making in cases of illness.

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Many informants were frank with me in their preference for

herbal remedies over Western medicine, or in telling me about

the inefficacy of the latter in certain cases of illness.

But, with the exception of certain Protestants, people were

reluctant to discuss their own personal histories, histories

which may have included secret visits to houngan, for example,

about which even their neighbors knew nothing.

The difficulties I encountered in observing Vodoun

rituals were also something of a disappointment. I was un­

able to be in Savanne Palmiste in December when most of the

annual services for the loua (sévis loua) take place. I was,

therefore, unable to attend any sévis loua and descriptions

of these rituals in Chapter Three are dependent upon secon­

dary sources. Furthermore, my relationship with the princi­

pal houngan ason in Savanne Palmiste was difficult. Janvier

was courteous, even friendly, but he volunteered little in­

formation in an eight-month period. I believe that Janvier

felt threatened by the clinic and the health care changes

which it had brought to the village. Perhaps he was right in

such fears, in spite of the efforts of the clinic personnel

to seek his concurrence. After all, the vaccinations which

the clinic was providing had undercut beliefs in the super­

natural causes of infant illnesses, causes which Janvier was

paid to address. In any case, Janvier did not prove to be a

person through whom I could observe traditional healing and

divination rituals. Therefore, my descriptions of these

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activities in the following chapter depend on informants'

descriptions and secondary sources. Janvier did, however,

generously invite me to attend dances and other ceremonies at

his hounfb, including an initiation ceremony.

In spite of these wants in the data which I personally

gathered, I believe that the case which I present in the fol­

lowing chapters is valid. Descriptions of rituals by my in­

formants correspond to what has been written in other ethno­

graphic literature. I received enough information about what

people do when they become ill to construct a decision-making

model. Furthermore, these two areas were not the core of ray

research. The description and analysis of Pentecostalism was

my principal goal, and virtually all of the data presented

here about Pentecostalism come from my own fieldnotes.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER THREE

THE HAITIAN CONTEXT; VODOUN

Introduction

Vodoun and Catholicism form the traditional Haitian

system of beliefs about the supernatural and of rituals for

dealing with the supernatural. Vodoun is treated in this

chapter; Catholicism is the subject of the following chapter.

To the Vodounist there is little real distinction between

Catholicism and Vodoun. If asked to identify his or her

religion, the Vodounist will respond "Catholic." In fact,

there is no term in rural Haitian Creole which corresponds to

the English Vodoun or "Voodoo." The Haitian Creole word

"vodoun" refers to a specific kind of dance rather than to a

belief system.

When Haitians speak of their religious practices they

do not lump them into as broad a category as "Vodoun." While

on the one hand they speak of themselves as Catholic, on the

other they distinguish among matters concerning the loua

(zafè loua) , matters concerning the dead (zafè mb) and magic

(maj i) . The distinction is a normative one because "serving

the loua" (sévi loua yo) and respecting the dead are held to

be good things to do, while practicing magic is usually bad.

Nevertheless these three areas of belief and practice are not

54

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entirely discrete. They merge at any number of points, per­

haps none more crucial than in the role of the Vodoun spe­

cialist, who must have the ability to deal with all the ele­

ments of what we call Vodoun.

The Vodoun specialist, the houngan or mambo, must have

the spiritual knowledge and power (konesans; Fr., connais­

sance) to deal with the loua, the dead and magic on several

levels. The loua, as we shall see, are spirits whom Haitians

believe they have inherited; the Vodoun specialist must pla­

cate the loua when they are angry, must help to conduct an­

nual rituals for them, and perhaps most importantly must be

able to communicate with them. Likewise, the Vodoun special­

ist must be able to appease the dead and to counter the magic

vAiich a living human has sent on a client.

Vodoun is a complex system of belief, difficult to

present in an orderly fashion. Even Métraux (1972:94) ad­

mitted the futility of describing Vodoun comprehensively.

There is a great deal of autonomy in Vodoun--the houngan and

mambo are not organized into a reticulate group, much less a

hierarchy--which has led to a certain amount of interregional

variation. Nevertheless, for its adherents Vodoun is a par­

ticularly concrete belief system, as we shall see. One res-

son for this is that the loua are believed to make regular

visits to their human charges through spirit possession. The

knowledge individuals have of the loua is based for the most

part on personal, concrete (and necessarily localized)

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experiences with them. Vodoun is not a religion based on a

literate Word: nor is there an overarching mythology.

Mythology in the narrow sense of the word has been dragged down to the level of village gossip ; it is less concerned with the private life of the spirits than with their dealings with the faithful. . . . In other words Voodoo mythology is constantly being enriched by the narration of divine interventions in human affairs, interventions which are in fact "played" by actors, suddenly inspired [Métraux 1959:92-93].

The carriers of the belief system are not very interested in

analyzing, codifying or rationalizing it. One of the con­

tentions of this dissertation is that the very ambiguity of

the belief system is its greatest strength, just as Mintz

(1972:14) sees Vodoun's lack of centralization as one of its

greatest strengths.

In spite of the complexity of the Vodoun belief system,

there are some underlying principles which govern the actions

of individuals involved with it. I have formulated eight

such principles which may help the reader to understand the

remainder of this chapter. In their barest framework, these

principles are as follows:

1. The world is ruled by a God who is good but remote

2. Less powerful than God, but more powerful than humans are

spirits; the most important of these are loua, which have

both good and bad qualities and which can be capricious;

loua can communicate with humans

3. Families inherit loua, which will protect them if prop­

erly treated

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4. There are fearsome preternatural forces in the world,

most of them activated by humans

5. Human beings are dangerous and are all too often more

hateful and avaricious than they appear to be

6. A person needs protection from enemies, which are usually

human; protection comes ultimately from God, but more

commonly from spirits and magic

7. Humans may partially control events through magic; but

magic motivated by evil purposes may rebound against its

perpetrator

8. The destiny of humans after death is unclear, but the dead

are able to interject themselves into the affairs of the

living

The following three sections of this chapter are con­

cerned with delineating the belief system of Vodoun. The

belief system has been divided into three categories: the

family loua, the dead, and other supernatural beings.

Figure 1 is a paradigm which is designed to orient the reader

who is unfamiliar with Vodoun terms. The paradigm reflects

an important division in the Vodoun cosmology: the distinc­

tion between supernatural entities which are related to one’s

family and those which are not. This division is related to

the domestic cult aspects of Vodoun which were alluded to in

the first chapter and which are discussed further in this

chapter. The fifth section of this chapter is concerned with

Vodoun practice, which is approached by means of a discussion

of the Vodoun specialists, houngan and mambo.

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Family Non-Family

Spirit loua loua mistè baka (Fr., mystère) dj ab djab movèz éspri (Fr., mauvais esprit) démon etc.

Deceased Human mb or lé mb baka (Fr., les morts) djab movèz éspri zonbi

Living Human malfèktè malfèktè zonbi lougarôü san pouèl zonbi

Fig. 1. Guide to terms used in the following three sections

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It is important to stress once again that Vodoun is

not a separate religious system--at least as far as its ad­

herents are concerned. The Vodoun cosmology is incomplete

without the overarching cosmology of Catholicism. Together,

but not separately, they form the traditional religious sys­

tem of Haiti. The implications of this duality will become

clearer in the following chapter.

The Family Loua

The family loua are in many respects the focus of Vo­

doun. An informant of Herskovits's described the nature of

the loua as follows (1937:142):

"The loa are occupied with men, their task is to cure. They can make a person work better than he otherwise would. When the loa possess people, they give helpful advice. But they cannot do the things that God does. They can protect a garden, but they cannot make a garden grow, for streams, rain, and thunder come from God."

The most important kind of loua in everyday affairs is the

family loua also known as mistè (Fr., mystères). Each gen­

eration of a family inherits loua from its parents, equally

from mother and father. Logically an individual could trace

the loua back through generations, but as a practical matter

this is not done beyond the grandparents. That is, one dis­

tinguishes among one's mother's mother's and mother's father's

loua (conveniently in Haitian Creole loua mama mama and loua

papa mama) as well as among father's mother's and father's

father's loua.

One behaves towards and is affected by one's family

loua in a manner which is totally different from interaction

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with other spiritual entities. Family loua protect their

"children (pitit), also called their "inheritors" (éritié)

or "servitors" (sëvitè), but they may also make demands of

them, demands which can be capricious. Families have, as it

were, contractual relationships with their loua. They re­

ceive protection from the loua, but must pay for this protec­

tion by "feeding" the loua in periodic rituals. These rit­

uals are called "food for the loua" (man.je loua) or "services

for the loua" (sévis loua). The manjê loua or sévis loua is

the core of the family cult. It is the point at which the

family and its loua renew their contract with each other.

As Métraux (1972:96) puts it.

The good offices of the loa are never obtained for nothing. Whoever is benefited contracts definite "obligations," the most important being the sacrifices and offerings which have to carried out at more or less regular intervals.

There are two kinds of sévis loua. One is usually held every

year; in Savanne Palmiste many of these are held on Christmas

Eve. The second kind of sévis loua is held much less fre­

quently, perhaps once a decade. This type of sévis is much

more elaborate than the annual service. As I was not able to

attend any family services for the loua at Savanne Palmiste,

what follows is based on published ethnographic material and

informants' accounts.

The sévis loua is usually held at the kay loua or kay

misté (house of the loua or house of the mysteries), a sanc­

tuary which is maintained on family property. The kay loua

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looks like a thatch house, except that it contains two rooms

with no interconnecting door and no windows. People in

Savanne Palmiste say that the number and upkeep of the kay

loua have diminished in the past several decades, but during

the summer of 1977 one was being constructed by a successful

midwife. The kay loua is maintained by one or two family

members who "hold the key" to it and keep it clean. Every

Friday they are supposed to dampen the floor and fill a water

jar which is kept inside, so that the loua "may not go

thirsty."

As implied by the site where it is held, the sévis is

an affair for family members. A houngan and a pé savann,

who is a kind of folk Catholic practitioner (a "bush priest") ,

officiate. The sévis begins with a long prayer session con­

ducted by the pé savann. In this session, called the (Fr.)

action de grâce, God and the saints are invoked. Then what­

ever animals are to be sacrificed are brought forward. The

various groups of loua receive particular kinds of sacrifices

and many individual loua have their favorite food and drinks.

If the loua find them acceptable, the animals eat food that is

presented to them. Then at least one family member must be­

come possessed as a definitive sign that the sacrifice is ac­

ceptable. It is essential to the ritual that such a posses­

sion by family loua take place. A sévis loua without a pos­

session would be a calamitous affair because by appearing at

the sacrifice the family loua communicate the most important

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message possible: that they will continue to offer the family

their protection, or at least will refrain from persecuting

the family.

The annual sévis are held almost as a matter of course

for the loua dous (see next page). The more elaborate sévis

are rarely held unless the loua have indicated their displeas­

ure with the family. Herskovits (1937:156) writes:

In the main, large ceremonies are concerned with the task of restraining, or less often of pacifying, deities that have been molesting a family, and of making content those who have been demonstrating their goodwill toward the group.

The large sévis are held only after the family has suffered

misfortune and the loua have made known their desire for a

sacrifice in messages sent through dreams, possession, or

divination.

If the family does not uphold its part of the "bargain,"

its loua may allow misfortune to fall upon it or may send mis­

fortune themselves, usually in the form of making a family

member ill. The misfortune should be alleviated when the

family makes restitution to its loua. Sometimes the loua

seem to almost blackmail their "children" into obedience, as

when a loua "claims" (rëklamé) a family member as his or her

own--to be the subject of special devotions--sometimes even

before that person is born. But the loua of one family have

no claims over people who are members of other families ; they

have no power over other families, whom they can neither

protect nor harm. For the most part, then, loua of other

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families are of little interest to Haitian individuals, ex­

cept when they act as conduits for messages from an indivi­

dual's family loua. There are other kinds of spiritual en­

tities besides family loua which can affect individuals, and

these will be discussed below.

Cutting across the distinction between the loua of one

family and the loua of other families are other categoriza­

tions which stand in apparent contradiction to this primary

one. Each family inherits all twenty-one, or fourteen, or

seventeen nations of loua (depending on the informant).

There are two major groups of nations, with other nations

marginal to these two groups. The two major groups of loua

are the rada and the petro, or more conversationally, the

loua dous (sweet or mild loua) and the loua amè (bitter loua) .

The rada group are seen as coming from Africa (Ginnin), and

"rada" is, in fact, a reference to the Dahomean principality

of Arada (Herskovits 1937:149). It should be noted that the

African geographical terms which abound in Vodoun have not

traditionally been perceived by rural Haitians as actual

geographic locations; recently, however, there has been a

greater comprehension of Africa as an earthly location. The

great loua of the Haitian pantheon are mostly loua rada.

The petro deities, on the other hand, are generally considered

to be Haitian in origin. Moreau de St. Méry (1797:51, 210-

211) described a dance originated by a slave named Don Pedro

in 1768, suggesting that some of the loua in this category

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were created by the deification of historical persons. On

the other hand, many of the loua petro have African identi­

ties. In any case, they are considered to be more dangerous

than the loua rada. The loua petro have been known to kill

even their "inheritors." The petro spirits are also invoked

when a person wishes to perform magic against another, as

Herskovits (1937:270) and Métraux (1972:266) have noted.

In addition to being classed in groups, the loua usually

have distinctive personal characters. They provide a lively

dramatis personae for the spiritual life, from the rich and

flirtatious mulatto beauty Ezili Fréda to the obscenely play­

ful Gédé spirits to the beneficent serpent Dambala. Other

writers (for example Métraux 1972 and Rigaud 1953) have de­

scribed the characters of the principal loua in considerable

detail. Most, if not all, of the loua are conceived as being

discrete beings. Métraux (1972:90) comments:

All that can be said on this subject is that sometimes the same god is conceived in different forms as with our Virgins whose surname and attributes often vary from church to church, and at other times gods of the same name have finally taken a separate identity and have been set up as independent deities each with their own worship.

No one would mistake Ezili Freda for Ezili Grann, an old

woman--or much less for the terrifyingly evil petro spirit,

Ezili Jè Rouj (Ezili Red Eye). On the other hand, Baron

Samdi, the guardian of the cemetery, is conceived not only

as a loua but also as the first male to be buried in a given

cemetery. One informant in Savanne Palmiste also said that

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Baron Samdi was a deified African houngan, without contra­

dicting the other symbolic aspects of this figure.

Loua fami, the family spirits, make themselves known to

humans in four ways, through dreams, possession and divina­

tion, and what Métraux (1972:141-143) calls "epiphany." The

loua appear most frequently in dreams, and for that reason

dreams will be treated here first. The importance of dreams

to Haitians of all social classes cannot be overestimated.

Erika Bourguignon (1954) has analyzed the interpretation of

dreams in Haiti in a way which is very useful here. Haitians

do not rank dreams as a special type of psychological experi­

ence. Instead, "dreams may be classified as 'things I see at

night,' or they may be classified with supernatural visita­

tions" (Bourguignon 1954:262). In the former category

dreams are not distinguished from waking experiences, espe­

cially among children. In the latter category, informants

"do not necessarily distinguish between [supernatural visita­

tions ] that took place in dreams and those that involved

contact with possessed individuals or with other ways in

which the gods may let their wishes be known." Dreams which

are perceived as supernatural visitations "refer almost ex­

clusively to two classes of entities: the dead and the gods,

both of which come in order to convey a message to the

dreamer" (Bourguignon 1954:264). What makes the Haitian

case unusual is the manner in which the dreams are inter­

preted. The dreamer assumes that the dream is a visitation

and perceives the content of the dream as a vehicle for the

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communication rather than as substantive in itself. For

example, if a person appears in a dream that person is in­

terpreted as merely the means by which a loua sends a mes­

sage to the dreamer. Just as one pays little attention to

the human bearer of a loua during possession, so Haitians pay

little attention to the content of their dreams when report­

ing them. Bourguignon (1954:266) describes a dream an in­

formant reported in which Ezili Freda appeared; the dreamer

did not "see" Ezili, however, but rather a dark-skinned man

whom Ezili was using to make herself known. Experience of

supernatural visitations in dreams is thus concordant with

such experiences in waking life.

The interpretation of the dream and hence the experi- ence of it is culturally patterned in such a way that an interpreted version of the dream seems to be exper­ ienced by the dreamer. The reality of the dream world is placed on the same plane as that of waking experi­ ence. In neither case need people be who or what they appear to be. . . . Even on cursory examination of the data it becomes clear that to the Haitian peasant . . . dream phenomena play a significant role in the valida­ tion of the culturally patterned world view. As such, they support the traditional system of perception and evaluation [Bourguignon 1954:268, 262].

Loua appear in dreams to warn their servitors of some

misfortune which may come to them, so that the misfortune may

be averted. For example, a loua may warn an individual that

he or she, or another family member is about to become ill

or the victim of sorcery. The loua use dreams to prescribe

herbal remedies to be used for ill family members. Catholic

herbal doctors (doktè fey) and midwives (fam saj) almost in­

variably attribute their remedies to nocturnal visits from

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their loua. Probably the most frequent messages that are

relayed by loua in dreams are lucky numbers in the weekly

borlèt "numbers" game. No Haitian but a fool would play a

borlèt lottery number without having received it in a dream

or in some other unusual experience (such as the license

plate number of an automobile seen in an accident). Thus

the weekly borlèt game is seen as a supernatural interven­

tion, a perception which is not invalidated by the fact

that the loua are usually incorrect in the messages they send

to the borlèt players.

The appearance of loua in dreams tend to make them con­

crete and familiar. Dream experiences also contribute to

rendering Vodoun a diffuse and locally autonomous belief sys­

tem. For example, loua may appear in a dream to instruct an

individual to perform a ritual in a specific innovative man­

ner. As Bourguignon concludes,

dreams . . . act as channels for the development of idiosyncratic modes of worship and lend support to whatever mythology exists, which itself is largely based on anecdotal material about the gods. This mythological material, in turn, furnishes the basis for the manner in which dreams are experienced [1954: 268] .

Spirit possession, Herskovits rightly notes (1937:143),

is the "most striking element" of Vodoun. He adds that "it

is through an analysis of possession that the clearest un­

derstanding may be reached of the meaning of the loa to

those who worship them. ..." One of Herskovits's major

contributions to ethnology was to demonstrate that ritual

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spirit possession in Haiti and elsewhere is not an uncon­

trolled frenzy but a highly-controlled culturally patterned

form of behavior. Erika Bourguignon, a major student of

cross-cultural phenomena of spirit possession, has contrib­

uted several concepts which are especially useful for the

analysis of the phenomenon in Haiti (1968: 1973). She dis­

tinguishes between trance behavior and possession beliefs

(1968:16). Trance is as yet a fairly ill-defined concept

placed in the category of altered states of consciousness.

The latter are defined by Ludwig (1968:69-70) as :

those mental states . . . which can be recognized sub­ jectively by the individual himself (or by an objective observer of the individual) as representing a sufficient deviation . . . from certain general norms as determined by the subjective experience and psychological function­ ing of that individual during alert, waking conscious­ ness.

Walker (1972) has shown convincingly that trance is an al­

tered state of consciousness which is analogous to hypnosis,

in which certain conscious ego functions are suppressed.

While trance is a form of behavior, possession is a form of

belief about that behavior--a theory of the cause of the be­

havior. Some, but not all, trance behaviors are explained

by theories of spirit possession; much trance behavior in

various cultures is explained by other kinds of theories.

Conversely, a group of people may believe in spirit posses­

sion, but not associate possession with trance behavior. In

Haiti, almost all trance behavior is explained as possession

by spirits. But spirits can possess people outside of trance

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situations, specifically in dreams and in certain cases of

illness.

In Haitian belief, the loua are able to incarnate them­

selves by temporarily appropriating the bodies of human be­

ings. In technical Haitian terms the loua causes the gro-

bon-anj, a part of the soul, to disappear. The loua is said

to "mount" (monte) the head of the person who becomes its

"horse" (choual). In Savanne Palmiste, people are said to

"take on" (pran) a loua. The person becomes "intoxicated"

(sou) , and then, when a full possession takes place, the

character of the loua replaces the personality of the

"horse." Usually a recognizable loua appears. But some­

times, especially with individuals who are just beginning to

have trance episodes, the possession is incomplete, or a

loua bosal appears. A loua bosal is defined as an "untamed"

loua, a spirit which does not yet have full control over the

"horse." In psychological terms, a loua bosal episode is

seen as exactly the opposite--the "horse" does not yet have

control over his or her trance behavior.

From'the point of view of subjective experience, the

individual entering trance usually feels light in the head

and heavy and numb in the legs. Nothing of the episode be­

yond this is remembered--or is supposed to be remembered.

After the trance episode the subject usually experiences a

few moments of confusion and is told what transpired during

his or her psychological absence. Fake possessions are

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frowned upon, so the norm of temporary amnesia is strongly

reinforced. A number of observers (including Bourguignon

1965) have reported that some individuals tend to go in and

out of trance and make a certain amount of pretense about

their possessions. This is especially true of houngan and

mambo. In general Haitians seem to view houngan and mambo

as having firm control over even the loua who are possessing

them, rather than as cheating.

Possession trance usually takes place on ritual oc­

casions, though other incidences can occur. Possession

trance most frequently occurs during the sévis loua and the

vodoun dance. A vodoun is a dance given in honor of the

gods and at which the loua may appear. Vodoun are given

after large sevis loua, and may be held on other occasions

when a family or an individual wishes to repay or appease the

loua. While at a family service it is most inappropriate

for someone outside of the family to be possessed, at a

vodoun the family loua of any of the guests are free to come.

The service itself is entirely religious in nature . . .[while]in contrast to the private character of the service, the dance has all the appearance of a social event. Invitations to it are sent all over the country­ side. People attend for good fellowship, gossip, and the sheer delight of dancing, but in the background one is always aware of a religious element as well [Leyburn 1966:153].

At the vodoun possession trance is associated with

music, especially rhythmic drumming, while at the sévis

trance may be induced by the invocations of the houngan.

Three drums are used in the vodoun. There are different

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sets of drums for the rada and pétro groups of loua, and each

loua has his or her own song accompanied by a characteristic

pattern of drumming. When a person enters the trance, the

others present begin singing various songs to determine the

identity of the newly arrived loua. Individuals are posses­

sed by a limited number of loua, so the identity of each

spirit is fairly easily discovered. When the loua possess­

ing the individual responds to a song, the onlookers learn

its identity. Often the loua is presented with appropriate

accoutrements, such as items of clothing known to be char­

acteristic of him or her. More than one loua may appear at

one time, though only one loua may possess an individual at

a given time. Several loua may "mount" an individual in

succession before the trance episode ends.

The loua often engage the crowd about them. They ad­

dress the crowd, flirting, joking, arguing, accusing or

seeking small gifts. Sometimes, however, a loua may dance

alone, ignoring the others. Always they are greeted solemn­

ly and attended to by those who are officiating. The loua

are believed to incarnate themselves because they like to

dance and be amused, and because they wish to communicate

with humans. They may bring warnings to those for whom they

are family spirits, and they are asked to explain the cause

of illness or misfortune. Often they amuse the crowd.

Herskovits (1937:165-166) recalls a service where a Cédé

loua was diverting the crowd to such an extent with tales of

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family scandal that one of the men officiating became furi­

ous at their lack of attention to the details of the sacri­

fice.

All of this enhances the perception of Haitians of the

reality of the loua, who appear as real characters in a scene

which is at once sacred and filled with joviality. Metraux

(1972:93-94) says:

There is little difference between the supernatural society of the loa and the Haitian peasantry which imagined it. The spirits distinguish themselves from men solely by the extent of their "knowledge," or, which is the same thing, their powers. They are all country people who share the tastes, habits and pas­ sions of their servants. Like them they are fond of good living, wily, lascivious, sensitive, jealous and subject to violent attacks of rage which are quickly over; they love or they detest each other, they fre­ quent or avoid each other, as do their worshippers.

The loua reflect the society in which they were created. By

playing roles with which observers can interact the loua be­

come almost as real as the human personalities in the com­

munity. Thus, the existence of the loua is rarely questioned

in rural Haiti, though the extent of their powers may be.

This sense of reality is supported by the distinction made

between real and faked possessions, and the strong sanctions

against the latter. The possessed individual is not supposed

to remember anything that transpired during the trance epi­

sode. A faked possession would be sharply ridiculed, and

they are probably rare.

The loua are the focus of personal as well as familial

devotions. A person who becomes possessed by loua comes to

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have a special relation with them. This is especially true

of the first loua to possess an individual. This loua is

called the mét tèt (the master of the head) and is the prin­

cipal loua which the individual serves. The relationship

between the individual and the loua is established in a rit­

ual called the lavé tèt (the washing of the head), in which

the loua is "baptized." Through the baptism the loua is

transformed from an unruly and ill-defined loua bosal into a

spirit with a full-blown character. The relationship between

the possessed individual and the loua, especially the met

tèt, is further cemented in the kanzo initiation which will

be described below.

Individuals who are not possessed by loua may also have

special relationships with them. Having been possessed is

not a requirement for the kanzo ceremony. Individuals may

make private arrangements with their family loua. These

usually involve a favor by the loua in return for some pay­

ment by the individual. This payment is often in the form

of penitans, the wearing of special clothes in honor of a

loua or the making of a pilgrimage on the occasion of one of

Haiti's folk Catholic feasts. An individual may sponsor a

vodoun dance for his or her loua, at which possession will

take place, or may sponsor a social dance which does not in­

volve possession. One special kind of penitans leads to

wide community involvement. This is a pledge to form a

rara band to play music before Ash Wednesday and before

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Easter. The rara bands walk from house to house playing

their special kind of music in hope of receiving a small

donation for the entertainment. Large crowds follow the

bands, dancing with them in a highly charged atmosphere.

Every Catholic house in the village is visited, making rara

the only event in the village which draws in the entire com­

munity. In spite of its community-wide appeal the rara band

is established as a part of a pact between the band leader

and his loua. Several informants, both rara leaders and

others, maintained that the founder of a rara band does not

turn a profit; in fact, he may lose money because he must

pay his musicians.

All of these dyadic relationships with spirits are

with family loua and take place under the rubric of general

protection of the family by its loua. Even the kanzo rite

which binds the individual to an extra-familial group, as we

shall see, does so through the agency of the family loua.

Dyadic relationships with family loua are particularly impor­

tant for religious practitioners, especially houngan and

mambo. But they are also important for traditional health

practitioners such as midwives and herbal doctors. While

these two types of practitioners deal with "natural" ill­

nesses (in contrast to the houngan), they nevertheless ap­

peal to the loua to sanction their remedies. Family loua

are seen as protecting not only the family conceived almost

as a corporate group, but also specially chosen individuals

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within the family group. Likewise, family loua may make

special demands on individuals which their families are

spared.

The Dead

The dead rank with the family loua as the most impor­

tant spiritual entities in Vodoun belief. The dead, mo (or

lé m b ; Fr., les morts) , like the loua, are essentialy of two

kinds: those attached to families and those which are unat­

tached. The importance of family dead is reflected in the

elaboration of funeral and mourning rites, as well as in be­

liefs about the dead as a cause of illness. The attention

given to the dead in Haiti is witnessed by the extraordinary

tombs which are found throughout the countryside, either in

family clusters or in village cemeteries. People who live

in wattle, daub and thatch houses make great efforts to pro­

vide ornate stone and concrete tombs for their dead. Some

build their own tomb because they do not trust their survi­

vors to sufficiently divert family resources to the project.

Not all Haitians can afford to be buried in tombs. An in­

creasing number at Savanne Palmiste are buried under a simple

pile or rocks. But a large town like Grande Anse can support

a veritable city of the dead with two-story tombs in classi­

cal and modern styles. The elite no less than other classes

are concerned with their dead. Murray's (1977:534ff) thesis

is that the expense involved with funerals is the key factor

in the selling of land and the circulation of land tenure.

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Death in a Haitian village is often a public matter

and may take place before a large crowd of onlookers. The

death is announced by loud wailing and preparations for the

funeral are begun immediately. If the death took place

early in the morning, the funeral at Savanne Palmiste usually

takes place the afternoon of the same day. Otherwise, the

funeral takes place the following morning after an all-night

wake. The body of the deceased is placed in the back room

of the house and the front room is decorated with white

sheets which are placed on the walls and ceiling. The body

is attended to by a professional bather of corpses. Female

relatives of the deceased sit apart and wail periodically:

"Guoy, Quoy, papa mouin (or mama mouin) , ou kité mouin,"

("My father [or mother] you've left me"), etc. The wake it­

self can be a jovial affair, for it is one of the few oc­

casions rural Haitians have for entertaining themselves.

Raw rum is provided in liberal quantities as are coffee and

sometimes tea. There are also always vendors at wakes who

sell soft drinks, candy and pastries. Older men generally

sit apart from the women and play cards, though none of the

usual betting takes place. A group of men and women sits in

the front room and chants Catholic hymns and songs of their

own devising, which often include local gossip. The singing

is led part of the time by a pè savann, who may also conduct

the funeral if a more official representative of the Catholic

church, such as the sacristan (or rarely, the priest), is

not available.

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At dawn the body is placed in the coffin, which is set

on chairs outside the house during the wake, the wailing be­

gins anew and the funeral service starts. Those who have not

managed to spend the night at the wake arrive and the coffin

is carried very quickly to the cemetery. If it is a "first-

class" funeral the coffin is brought to the church where the

sacristan says the funeral mass over it. At the cemetery

or family plot the coffin is quickly placed in the grave and

the grave is sealed. In a "first-class" funeral orations

(diskou) written in flowery French, usually by urban kin,

are read at the cemetery. Sometimes refreshments are served

at the home of the deceased.

The funeral is followed by a novena of nightly prayers

led by a pè savann. The final night of the novena is at­

tended by neighbors as well as the family of the deceased.

The front room of the house is decorated with white sheets;

the table is covered with a white cloth and a crucifix and

some palm fronds are placed on it. A collection is taken

for the pè savann and the sheets are taken down. The funer­

al ceremonies are now over. The guests are served food and

drinks.

As important as a proper funeral is the observation of

mourning which is required for the immediate kin of the de­

ceased, especially female kin. Mourning (dey; Fr., deuil)

consists of wearing black clothing, usually on Fridays, for

several months after the death or for a year if the deceased

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is one's parent. Mourning can be a cumbersome duty, espec­

ially for a woman who must buy expensive black cloth to make

a dress.

Herskovits (1937:215) noted that the sanctions for the

cult of the dead

derive from the power which the dead wield in the world of the living— power that is held to come directly from God, who has not only given the dead all the rights of the living, but also the right to return to earth as ghosts.

The dead are believed to be able to insist on the obedience

of their survivors in such matters as the construction of a

tomb, the wearing of mourning and sometimes even the selling

of land. In this respect they act much like family loua,

"holding" (kinbé) family members to make them ill or bring

other misfortune. Like the family loua the mb of the family

do not usually kill their victim. To do so would be, as one

key informant pointed out, very stupid because the dead need

the victim to carry out their will.

Interactions between the dead and the living are not

always of this nature, however. As we have seen, the dead

frequently appear to their survivors in dreams to give them

advice or warnings. Survivors advise the dead of all impor­

tant family decisions, and may call upon a houngan to invoke

the dead so that they may ask advice of them. At funerals

people with relatives who have recently died and been buried

in the cemetery will stand in front of their tombs to greet

them and consult them. The mb do not possess living humans as

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loua do, but they may take the form of other creatures in

what Metraux calls "epiphany" (1972:241). This occurred to

one of my key informants. She was in her house with her

father, and a butterfly appeared. Her father greeted it and

then his body began to shake; thus he knew it was "one of his

butterflies which had come to visit him." He told it to stay

if it was good and to leave if it was bad. It stayed, so he

knew that it was a dead relative who was coming for a visit.

But he did not know the identity of the dead person.

As this incident reveals, the dead, like the loua, are

placed in two categories: those belonging to the family

(which are essentially good) and those outside the family

(which are essentially evil). We will see in the next sec­

tion how many of the terms used to describe loua which are

not attached to any family are also applied to unattached

dead souls. The souls of the dead, like loua, may be cap­

tured and sold. ^ which are captured are used exclusively

to harm others. These captured souls are sent (ékspédiê or

ranvouye) upon an enemy to make him or her seriously, often

fatally, ill. Such mb are called zonbi (but are not to be

confused with the "zombies" more commonly known outside of

Haiti).

Evil-doers are also believed to be able to summon the

body or soul of the deceased (there is some confusion about

how this is done) and turn it into a chicken, which is then

eaten, or into an ox or cow, which is then sold for slaughter

or as a draft animal. The former activity seems to be the

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specialty of lougarou, the latter of san pouël (which are

discussed below). "Zombies" (also called zonbi) are people

who have died--or have been poisoned to appear to have died--

and who have been partially resuscitated. These beings exist

in a somnolent state (as long as they are not fed salt) and

work as slaves for their owners. To prevent a deceased per­

son from becoming a zombie, the corpse may be stabbed or

otherwise "killed" to make sure that the death is a real one.

For the wealthier urbanites the same function is performed by

the embalmer's fluid, as one elite informant said.

Ideas about the relations between the living and the

dead are quite elaborate in the Vodoun belief system. But

ideas about the fate of the dead in normal circumstances are

very vague as we will see in the next chapter. There is lit­

tle speculation about the existence of the loua and the dead

in themselves. They are seen as important only to the extent

that they affect the lives of the living. As we have seen,

both the loua and the dead are conceived of as belonging to

families which they may protect and punish; or as being

will-less creatures not attached to families but sent to

harm them.

Other Supernatural Beings

Non-family loua

Not all Vodoun spirits are family loua. Powerful

houngan are somehow able to capture loua which are not at­

tached to any family and sell them to any interested buyer.

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Family loua, on the other hand, cannot be alienated by sale.

Unattached spirits are defined rather vaguely, as if they

existed at the edge of society. This is reflected in the

terms by which they are known, which include loua, baka,

d.iab, movez éspri (Fr. , mauvais esprit) and demon.

Baka is a term used to describe an evil spirit, a cap­

tured and sold loua or a captured and sold soul. The term

also refers to a specific class of spirits which wander the

woods in animal form (Metraux 1972:288). Some evil family

loua, such a Ezili Jè Rouj, are also known as baka. The baka

are often associated with fortuitous or ill-gained wealth,

usually the latter. One kind of baka are the souls of slaves

who buried caches of gold for the whites during the colonial

period. It is said that after a hole had been dug by the

slaves the whites would kill them and bury them with the

coins. These souls are now the guardians of the fortune, and

may give it to a living person whom they favor. More fre­

quently, however, the baka is a party to a contract or angaj-

man (Fr., engagement) by which an individual gains a fortune,

but for a price.

Dj ab is a more diffuse term. The word may mean any

spirit, including a family loua, and does not necessarily

imply that the spirit has a malevolent nature. A person may

describe a favorite family loua as a "djab." Humans may also

be described as djab. Often this is a term of abuse, imply­

ing that the person has made an angajman or is a lougarou

(see below). But even when applied to humans the term is not

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necessarily a pejorative one. It may simply mean a person of

great spiritual force. Movèz éspri (Fr., mauvais esprit), a

term used in Catholic and Protestant churches, means any evil

force, whether spirit or former human.

Loua not attached to a family are conceived of as male­

volent and as being equivalent to the devils or evil spirits

which serve Lucifer in Christian tradition. Vodounists are

careful to distinguish these spirits from the family loua,

which are rebellious, but not fallen angels. The loua, which

are sometimes described as "wild angels" (anj sovaj; Fr.,

anges sauvages) or as "rebellious angels" (anj rébèl), are

said to have rebelled from God, and thus to have gained some

autonomy from Him, but to basically serve him. When the Ca­

tholic priest denounces the family loua as demon, the view of

the average Haitian is that he is mistaken.

To buy a loua is to engage oneself in some very danger­

ous business, according to Haitian belief. An angajman with

a loua almost always ends with the ruin of the buyer or of

the buyer's descendants. In the most frequently heard type

of story, an overly ambitious person goes to a houngan to

purchase a pouin cho (Fr., point chaud), a magical power,

usually a charm or spirit (Métraux 1972:377,, which will im­

prove his or her fortunes. The most powerful pouin cho is a

baka which will give the individual a fortune in return for

human lives, usually from the individual's family. Eventu­

ally the individual is unable to kill enough people to satisfy

the baka, who finishes the story by taking the life of the

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person who made the contract. (One Haitian informant, who

spent several years in New York, explains the Attica prison

massacre as a payment by Nelson Rockefeller to the Devil in

return for his great wealth.)

Loua which are purchased are not so powerful and dan­

gerous as a baka which provides a family with a fortune.

Even though purchased loua may be more powerful than family

loua, they do not seem to be able to act on their own. Peo­

ple are believed to purchase such loua not only for their own

protection but to harm others by destroying their gardens or

by making them ill. A purchased loua, whether used for evil

purposes or not, may become a family loua if the survivors

of the buyer choose to serve it after his or her death.

Most people encounter purchased loua not because a family

member has purchased one, but because a family member or

neighbor is believed to have been made ill by one.

Lougarou and San Pouèl

The most feared kinds of human beings are the lougarou

and san pouèl. Lougarou means "werewolf" in French (Fr.,

loup-garou), but the Haitian concept is different from the

European one. The Haitian lougarou is a person, usually an

older woman, who causes infants to sicken and die. The lou­

garou is believed to be able to turn his or her body into an

insect and to crawl into the house of the sleeping victim.

The lougarou then sucks the blood of the child until it weak­

ens and eventually dies, according to the belief. Then the

lougarou is supposed to repair to the place where the child

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has been buried, dig up the coffin, turn the corpse into

some kind of meat, and devour it. Lougarou are believed to

work in groups, exchanging information about possible victims.

In Savanne Palmiste informants maintained that local lougarou,

some of whom could be identified, victimized children in the

mountains rather than in the village. But occasionally accu­

sations involving local victims have been made.

Exactly why a person would want to become a lougarou is

something of a mystery. Haitians believe that most cases

stem from an angajman, a pouin cho which has proven too strong

for the person, who did not realize that becoming a lougarou

was an inevitable part of the contract. Metraux (1972:301)

reports that most lougarou are believed to begin their prac­

tices unconsciously, though my informants did not mention

this. At first they believe that their night excursions are

dreams; when they realize the truth, it is too late to change

their patterns. Sometimes a woman is accused of attacking

another's child as a lougarou because of jealousy.

Mothers and their children are not left defenseless

against the lougarou. Every Catholic child, at least, is

given a special bath (bing) in preparations made by a houngan

or by a knowledgeable family member. Some informants re­

ported that there are special prayers, known only to a few

people, which will force an attacking lougarou to return to

his or her human form. The lougarou can then be identified

and punished.

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While lougarou (also known as movë zè, Fr., mauvais air)

work alone or in loose confederation with others, the san

pouèl are organized into bands. The san pouèl (or zobop)

groups are believed to be secret societies which engage in

sorcery for the enrichment and protection of the members.

The san pouèl are most dangerous if one meets them in a

chance encounter during one of their nocturnal meetings.

Haitians believe that in such an encounter one is either

forced to join the group or be killed. San pouèl are partic­

ularly known for turning humans into cattle to be used for

pulling sugar cane carts. While lougarou attack only chil­

dren, the san pouèl attack both male and female adults. In

many parts of Haiti people are afraid to leave their homes at

night lest they encounter a band of san pouèl. In some areas

this hampers important activities such as traveling to mar­

ket or irrigating fields. In Savanne Palmiste, for reasons

which will be described below, this is not the case. For the

most part people in Savanne Palmiste feel free to travel

about at night in the village--and they are quite proud that

they have rid their village of "evil-doers."

Metraux emphasizes that one does not know whether one's

neighbors are members of a san pouèl society. "They are often

people of quiet and peaceful appearance. You may live cheek

by jowl with them for years without ever suspecting their

other identity" (Métraux 1972:293-294). This reflects my

fifth general principle listed above, that people are often

more evil than they appear to be. The same could be said of

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lougarou. But when one is confronted by one's quiet neigh­

bor in the guise of a san pouèl there is very little protec­

tion aside from the strength and goodwill of one's family

loua or of Bon-Die Himself.

The Vodoun Specialist: H o u n g a n and Mamb..P

The previous three sections of this chapter have been

concerned with the belief system of Vodoun, in particular

with the family loua, the dead, and other supernatural beings

which Vodounists believe to exist. This section is concerned

with Vodoun practices, especially as seen in the role of the

Vodoun specialist.

The role of houngan or mambo is central to Vodoun be­

cause of the ability of these specialists to communicate with

the loua and because of their expertise in ritual and in

magical operations. A male Vodoun specialist is called a

houngan; a female Vodoun specialist is called a mambo. The

mambo engages in the same activities as the houngan. In

Murray's (1977:520) words,

there is no specialization by sex in termes [sic] of the roles or talents attributed to each. Both are seen as being equally powerful. The strength of these spe­ cialists stems not from their sex, but from their con­ trol over the spirits.

Usually a mambo works with a houngan, but she is not infre­

quently the more powerful of the two. Such is the case with

the best known mambo in Grande Anse. At Savanne Palmiste

there is no specific mambo. Women who are strong in their

dealing with the loua and who help the houngan are called

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"mamaloua," a complimentary term. At Savanne Palmiste, if a

woman is called a mambo it is because she is a "good servi­

tor" of the loua and not because she is a religious practi­

tioner. Because of this I will use the term houngan in the

following discussion. It should be understood that where

"houngan" is used, "mambo" could be substituted.

The essence of the role of houngan is the mediation of

communication between loua and humans through divination.

The houngan is able to control the loua to a certain extent.

He is able to summon them for consultation, to induce them to

appear at a family service, and to chase them away when their

presence is undesired. The ethnographic literature about the

houngan is somewhat confusing. In part this is due to re­

gional variation; in part it is due to differences in the

emphases of various writers. Happily, all sources are agreed

on the fundamental activities of the houngan. Metraux (1972:

75-75) summarizes these activities in terms of the houngan's

income.

The main income of a hungan comes from his fees for treating the sick. A "course of treatment" can bring him in, on average, anything from fifty to a hundred dollars. . . . Treatment of the sick provides the largest and surest source of revenue for a priest, but he also earns money foretelling the future. And then each ceremony brings in, for the priests who organize it, the sort of gain which is difficult to evaluate since even if no fees are collected, there are still various kinds of profit made on the "eatables," the purchase of animals to be sacrificed and on all the different accessories which priests like to enumerate when they discuss a project with a client. . . . In addition, every initiation to the grade of kanzo earns a considerable sum for the hungan who conducts it. . . . Finally hungan earn a lot of money by selling "magic powders" and other talismans, much in demand, for

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ensuring success in business or love affairs, or as a protection against evil spells. They also make "guards" which shelter children from the evil eye, and attacks by werewolves.

Certainly not all rural Haitians pay fifty to a hundred dol­

lars for the treatment of an illness, and only the houngan

ason conducts kanzo ceremonies; but, in general, Metraux's

description holds.

The role of houngan links together the various aspects

of the Vodoun belief system. The houngan gives Vodoun a

second focus, in addition to the cult of the family loua.

The houngan is considered by many Haitians to be essential to

the sévis loua, but he is not the center of the cult. The

houngan officiates at the sevis, helping to invoke the fam­

ily loua by drawing ritual designs on the ground (called

sérémoni in Savanne Palmiste) and by inducing family members

to become possessed. But it is the possession of a family

member, indicating the acceptance of the family offerings by

the loua, which is the sine qua non of the sévis--not the

presence of a houngan.

One of the most important activities of the houngan is

to act as a medium for communication with family loua. The

importance of this means of communication with the spirits

cannot be overemphasized because it is the only means by

which humans can take the initiative in speaking with their

loua. Communication through dreams, possession and the

rarer "epiphany" takes place when the loua wish it. The

flow of communication in dreams is one-way, from the loua to

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the dreamer. Communication in possession is two-way, for

those attending a sévis or vodoun can converse with the loua

who appear. But possession occurs fairly rarely; when a

family or an individual cannot wait for the loua to appear,

the only recourse they have is the houngan. The houngan

can summon his clients' family loua (as well as their dead)

so that they may be consulted. The most frequent consulta­

tions are probably concerned with the causes of illness, but

the houngan may also arrange the date for a sévis with the

loua or seek their advice for the family.

The houngan is also believed to be able to provide his

clients with pouin which will bring them good fortune or which

will protect them from the evil-doings of their enemies. On

the negative side, the houngan is able (if not always ethi­

cally willing) to harm the enemies of his clients. It is be ­

lieved that the houngan can send mb or purchased loua against

a client's enemy, or he can give the client a ouanga, an evil

charm to be used against the enemy. In this way the domain

of maji (magic) is incorporated into the houngan's role. A

houngan who does this is said to be an "evil-doer" (malfékté)

who "serves with both hands." Most houngan would not readily

admit to functioning in this way. But any good houngan

would be expected to know the magical techniques which can

kill people or make them ill--if only to effectively counter­

attack the enemies of his clients. One houngan in Port-au-

Prince told me directly that every houngan had to know how to

kill a person, had to be a malfékté, before he could become a

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houngan. Another in Savanne Palmiste also claimed that he

could kill people, but that he would only use this weapon

against evil-doers who had themselves killed innocent victims,

These powers, which, as we have seen, have their dark

side, are most commonly used to combat illness. In the tra­

ditional Vodoun system, only the loua can reveal the cause of

an illness, and this is most commonly done through divination

by a houngan. In the traditional belief system there are two

kinds of illness: "natural" illnesses, which are called

maladi Bon-Diè ("illnesses sent from God") or maladi doktè

("illnesses for the doctor"); and "supernatural" illnesses.

There are three types of supernatural illness: those caused

by angry family loua, those sent by family dead, and those

"voye pa lorn, " illnesses "sent by man." We have seen above

how evil-doers are believed to be able to send baka and non­

family mo to make other humans ill; we have also seen how

lougarou and san pouèl are supposed to make others ill. It

is the primary task of the houngan to consult with the loua

to determine the cause of a client's illness, and to then try

to cure the illness. The houngan, however, is only able to

treat illnesses which are supernatural. Against illnesses

sent directly by God the houngan has no force. If the ill­

ness was caused by an angry or malevolent family loua, the

houngan can arrange a ceremony to appease or restrain the of­

fending spirit. If the illness was caused by a human evil­

doer the houngan must reach into his arsenal of magical

techniques to find a way to stop the magic of the malfékté.

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If the patient is invaded by non-family mb, they must be

ejected and possibly sent back on to the person who set them

on the victim. If someone has been made ill by a lougarou

the houngan can prepare a bath (bing) which will cause the

lougarou to desist in his or her attacks.

The houngan is able not only to treat illnesses, but

to provide preventive measures. The bing for the lougarou is

such a measure. Every child of a Vodounist is treated with

such a bath as a protection against lougarou. Houngan sell

other protective devices of charms called gad (Fr., garde).

Gad are designed to protect clients against specific evils,

such as a ouanga or a dead soul. Often the gad is said to be

"tied" (maré). The more money the client is willing to pay,

the stronger the gad. Gad not only protect people from ill­

nesses "voye pa lom," but from other misfortunes as well.

Gad may be used to protect things as well as persons. A tree

may have a bright red ribbon tied around it to ward off po­

tential thieves of its fruits; the fear of the consequences

of such an act probably make this a very effective gad. A

special kind of gad called a dj ipopo is used to protect newly

planted fields. While houngan are probably the most common

purveyors of gad, they do not have a monopoly on them. There

are individuals who are able to concoct bing or dj ipopo for

family members or for sale. But the houngan has the broadest

knowledge of different kinds of protective devices.

There are two types of houngan, the houngan makout and

the houngan ason. The houngan makout and the houngan ason

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are distinguished in a variety of ways. The houngan makout

is chosen by his family loua and works with them. The

houngan makout is called the "basket houngan" because he is

said to keep his paraphernalia in a basket. Métraux (1972:

68) says that the term is disparaging, but my informants at

Savanne Palmiste did not use it in that way. Informants said

that houngan makout were once more common than they are to­

day- -that every family had at least one person who had

konesans, that is, spiritual knowledge. This is no longer

the case. There are only about six houngan makout in Savanne

Palmiste, most of them working very quietly for their fami­

lies and neighbors. One informant told me that if you needed

a houngan makout you might have to ask about the neighborhood

to find one, who would then reluctantly agree to work for

you. The houngan makout in general practices very privately.

One houngan makout, Galet, in Savanne Palmiste is well-known;

he is also an herbal doctor (dokth fey). The houngan makout

works in his own house and uses a bell, a candle and cards

for divination. A consultation fee is set traditionally at

$.42, the same as for an herbal doctor. The fee for treatment

depends upon the nature and cause of the illness.

The houngan ason, or "rattle houngan," seems to be a

more recent phenomenon, at least in some parts of Haiti.

The houngan ason acquires his position through initiation at

the hands of another houngan ason after a period of instruc­

tion. The sacred rattle (ason) is the symbol of the houngan

aeon's authority. Most houngan ason work with loua which

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they have purchased as well as with their family loua. For

my informants, the use of purchased loua by the houngan ason

meant the possibility of more effective diagnosis and treat­

ment of illness. The cost of a consultation with a houngan

ason, beginning at one or two dollars, reflects the addi­

tional service provided.

When questioned about the relative effectiveness of the

houngan ason and the houngan makout, informants varied in

their answers. Some felt that the houngan ason, with his

formal technical education and use of both family and pur­

chased loua, had more konesans. Others maintained firmly

that the houngan makout had greater power because he had been

chosen by his family spirits, while the houngan ason himself

chose to take up his lucrative career. (Most houngan ason

themselves, however, would probably say that they had been

chosen by the loua.) The most important service that the

houngan ason can provide which the houngan makout cannot is

initiation through the kanzo ceremony. In fact, the houngan

ason is also called the houngan kanzo for that reason. The

initiation ceremony, which in Savanne Palmiste costs $40,

strengthens the relationship of a person to a family loua

(the mbt tbt) if the initiate has been possessed by a baptized

loua. The most common reason for seeking kanzo is illness.

Métraux (1972:192-193) writes:

Kanzo makes for a more direct contact with the divinity and puts the initiate under the immediate care of a loua. It also acts as a guarantee against the tricks of fate, bad luck and above all, illness. . . . Initia­ tion ceremonies are therefore called "mysteries," but

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their salutary effects primarily concern life on this earth--an aspect of kanzo so important that for some ill people it becomes their one supreme hope, makes them expect a cure or have faith that the illness from which they are suffering will not strike them down again. This conception of kanzo makes sense when we consider how many illnesses are attributed to super­ natural causes. A priest prescribed initiation for his patient to appease the loa, whom the patient may have offended, or to obtain a protector to save him from the persecutions of other loa or of sorcerers. . . . [Kanzo gives those who undergo it] a new life in which they will be dependent upon--but also in the good graces of--the loa. In many cases it is the loa him­ self who insists that his servant should be initiated.

The initiate, called a hounsi or hounsi kanzo, comes to the

cult sanctuary of the houngan ason for a certain period

(ideally of forty days) to receive instruction. At the end of

this period the individual is initiated in a service in which

he or she is passed over a flame. Following this initiation

is a baptismal ceremony in which the new hounsi kanzo is

presented to the community.

By becoming a hounsi kanzo a person strengthens his or

her relationship with a family loua. Beyond this the hounsi

becomes a part of a new social group--the community of hounsi

attached to a particular houngan or mambo. This community is

centered in the houngan's cult sanctuary, the hounfb. The

hounsi group consists primarily of women, for the kanzo ini­

tiation, while it is open to both sexes, is seen principally

as a women's institution. Female hounsi wear white dresses

and dance together around the poto mitan, the middle post of

the sanctuary which is seen as the "ladder" on which the

spirits descend (Métraux 1972:77). Male hounsi do not join

this circle, but dance along the side of it. Those men who do

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become hounsi are often given special roles in the cult group,

such as drummer or laplas, the carrier of the ritual sword.

Being a member of a hounfb provides the hounsi with a

sense of security, of being a member of a group which is

joined together for the spiritual protection of its members.

In this limited sense the hounfb group resembles the san pouël

group of Haitian fantasy (and reality)--the individual no

longer faces dangerous supernatural powers alone. The hounfb

group differs from the san poubl group in that it is legiti­

mate and not harmful. Group unity is symbolized in communal

dancing and in the ritual salutations with which the hounsi

greet each other during ceremonies. The cooperation between

female hounsi is also symbolized in the fact that only a

hounsi can pleat another (female) hounsi's hair. The hounsi

are also bound together in their obedience to and dependence

upon their houngan or mambo. This is symbolized in the pros­

trations they make before their spiritual leaders. But it is

seen materially in the fact that the houngan or mambo must con­

tribute to the hounsi's material welfare, in terms of small

loans of money of help when sick.

General statements about the roles of houngan in Hai­

tian Vodoun may be deceptive because local conditions may

vary greatly. This is the main problem with generalized

descriptions of Vodoun, such as Métraux's Voodoo in Haiti

(1972). His work may approximate the reality to be found in

Grande Anse, where almost all houngan have taken the ason;

but it would be misleading as a guide to the situation in

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Savanne Palmiste. For this reason I present below a brief

history of the role of houngan ason in Savanne Palmiste.

As we saw in Chapter Two, the houngan ason did not

exist in Savanne Palmiste until the brief period of prosperity

in the early 1950s. At that time Dieu-fort, a man from the

Plaine, came to Savanne Palmiste to establish himself as a

tailor. He settled in his mother's brother's lakou. Houngan

ason abound in the village in the Plaine from which Dieu-fort

came, and he was already a hounsi when he arrived. He became

a houngan ason after his arrival in Savanne Palmiste, at the

hands of another houngan ason in the Plaine. His first

hounfb was in his mother's brother's lakou, and he initiated

a number of people, both men and women, from the neighborhood

and from among his mother's kin. Dieu-fort became a success­

ful houngan, and moved to the "Center" of Savanne Palmiste to

establish a second péristil, near the market place.

But there was apparently a darker side to Dieu-fort's

activities. He is alleged to have established a san poubl

group who made the people of Savanne Palmiste afraid to leave

their homes at night. Both people from Dieu-fort's original

neighborhood in Savanne Palmiste, "Gaillard," and outsiders

are said to have been members of the san poubl group. Several

reliable informants insisted that the san poubl group really

existed. One, who lived next to Dieu-fort's péristil in the

"Center," said she made the mistake of being outside her house

one night as the group passed by. The following day Dieu-fort

asked her if she had seen anything. She replied that she

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hadn't, and he let the incident pass.

In the early 1960s, Dieu-fort gathered a group of his

hounsi and brought them to a place on the other side of the

Plaine. He brought them to a large cave with several chambers

in it, one of which was filled with water. The pool was said

to be inhabited by a gro djab. Dieu-fort commanded his hounsi

to follow him in to the dark cave. All but two of them did

so, and all but two others drowned along with Dieu-fort. The

four who survived left the cave and returned with flashlights.

They found the bodies of the others and reported to the police.

The news of the deaths came back to Savanne Palmiste that even­

ing during a festive dance. The shock of the tragedy was pro­

found. The following night, after a police investigation, the

bodies were returned to Savanne Palmiste. It was a very dark,

rainy night, and the bodies were buried in secret, unmarked

graves, with no wake and no public funeral service.

For many in the village, an undesired era was over.

Dieu-fort was a malffektè, an evil-doer who became too involved

with the loua he had purchased. The assumption was made that

Dieu-fort had an anga.jman with the loua in the cave, and had

brought his own most faithful hounsi to sacrifice them to the

spirit. But things had gone too far--as they so often do in

these matters--and the gro djab took not only Dieu-fort's

followers' lives, but the houngan himself. The san poubl

group was disbanded and since that time the residents of

Savanne Palmiste have no longer been afraid to travel at

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night. They pride themselves on having a community which is

relatively free of malfëktè, and they often compare themselves

in this respect to the villages around them.

Shortly after Dieu-fort's death his followers gathered

together for a rasanble, a dance-meeting. On this occasion,

Janvier, the son of Dieu-fort's mother's brother, whom Dieu-

fort had initiated as a houngan ason, became possessed "by

all of Dieu-fort's spirits," who said that Janvier should suc­

ceed Dieu-fort as houngan. Janvier kept the péristil in

"Gaillard," which was a part of his family lakou. Scarcely a

trace remains of Dieu-fort's larger péristil in the "Center."

Today Janvier's services are in demand, but he is not con­

sidérés a great houngan. Almost all of his hounsi, many of

whom he inherited from Dieu-fort, live in "Gaillard" and are

kin. Everyone emphasizes that Janvier serves only his family

loua, that he has no purchased loua, and that he will not en­

gage in evil-doing (malfézans), even for a fee. Gossip al­

leges that Janvier cannot perform great feats without the

help of Wesnert, the son of Dieu-fort's mother's sister, who

is said to have greater influence with the family loua. The

chief of the family loua, the mèt bitasion, of this family is

said to be one of the most powerful loua in Savanne Palmiste.

This loua. General Volonté, lives in a cave near the village

and is fond of giving his devotees money. Wesnert is the

chief of these devotees.

Thus, while Janvier is a houngan ason, he is hardly

the "ideal type." He uses only his family loua, must cooperate

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with other family members to do so, and eschews evil-doing.

His claim to authority is not so much his instruction by

Dieu-fort as the acclamation of Dieu-fort's--and his own--

family loua. In some respects, then, Janvier resembles a

houngan makout. In terms of his practice, however, he does

not resemble a houngan makout.

In the 1950s, another man, Jean, became a houngan ason

at the hands of another houngan ason in the Plaine. Jean has

a péristil in his prosperous-looking lakou in the "Center."

But Jean has no hounsi attached to him and considers himself

to be semi-retired. He treats people for illnesses only

rarely, though he does conduct sévis loua. The two houngan

ason of the village, Janvier and Jean, claim to be on very

good terms with each other (perhaps in part because there is

little competition between them). More competition is seen

to exist between the houngan makout and the houngan ason, and

the two roles are conceived as incompatible; that is, one can­

not be both a houngan makout and a houngan ason at the same

time.

In Kinanbwa, the hamlet studied by Murray (1977) the

situation is quite different. As in Savanne Palmiste, the

role of houngan ason is something new and alien. But unlike

in Savanne Palmiste, the holder of the ason is now held in

higher esteem than the more traditional houngan makout. As

a result,

these initially somewhat distinct types of specialist roles (houngan makout and houngan asson) are now gradually being joined as two stages of the same career. Most

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houngan asson in the area have probably started off as houngan makout. And conversely it is now assumed that a houngan makout who has any success in his craft will eventually "pick up the asson" (prâ asô) by going through the lengthy kanzo rite [Murray 1977:522].

The introduction of the houngan ason in Kinanbwa has had a

very different effect from what has happened in Savanne Palm­

iste, where the two roles remain distinct and the houngan

makout is not held in low esteem. This example should serve

as a caveat about making generalizations about Vodoun--or

about Protestantism for that matter--without specifying the

particular sociocultural environment in which it is found.

Métraux's assumption that the cult sanctuary of the houngan

ason represented Vodoun in its truest form may, in fact, be

true for Port-au-Prince and other urban centers where migrants

are separated from their family cults. For these migrants,

association with the hounfb social group may provide an ele­

ment of social support and prestige in a situation where one

is removed from one's kin group. But in rural areas the fam­

ily cult aspects of Vodoun are still the most important fea­

tures of the folk religion. The role of the houngan ason

and the social organization of the hounfb remain secondary to

the family cult at Savanne Palmiste (and at Kinanbwa as well),

though their importance has become very great in other rural

areas.

The houngan is considered to be a mixed blessing. He

is necessary because without him illnesses could not be diag­

nosed and treated, loua appeased, enemies dealt with. But

the houngan can be expensive and can be a fraud. The houngan,

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who must know evil in order to combat it, is tempted to use

his powers to harm others. No houngan is infallible, but a

person may have no other recourse than to seek his help.

Popular opinion may provide some assurance. A houngan is not

a part of an organized hierarchy and his authority is derived

solely from public perception of his abilities. A houngan

who fails to make plausible diagnoses and to treat illnesses

effectively will quickly lose his reputation. Furthermore,

there are supernatural sanctions against fraud. The loua are

believed to punish a houngan who claims to treat an illness

which is a maladi Bon-Diè which he has falsely diagnosed as

a supernatural illness (Herskovits 1937:223). But in dealing

with a houngan a judicious person exercises a great deal of

caution, as is so frequently the case in social relations in

Haiti. But the houngan can also be a trusted advisor and a

community leader. In past years the urban houngan at least

has been something of a political figure because he has been

able to control the votes of his followers. But the houngan's

control over his community has always been informal. Unlike

the Catholic priest or Protestant pastor the houngan has never

acted as an agent of the State ex officio, even when the

leaders of the State allied themselves with him.

Characteristics of the Belief System

One way to understand Vodoun as a belief system is to

understand what the loua are and are not. In the pages above

we have seen something of what they are, so it is perhaps

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appropriate to begin with what the loua are not. First, they

are not thought of as "gods" in any strict sense of the term.

They are conceived as being more akin to angels or saints in

the Christian cosmology. The body of loua as a whole does not

form a pantheon which controls the forces of nature. In fact,

the loua have very little to do with nature. As Murray says

for Kinanbwa (1977:512)

certain functions and powers are seen as being explicitly outside the domain of the Iwa, such as that of creating life in the womb of a woman. . . . In similar vein [sic] the familial Iwa in Kinanbwa are generally seen as having little power over rain, winds, waters, and the like. The natural disasters of lightning, hurricanes, drought and the like were virtually never attributed to Iwa or lesser spirits. . . .

Loua are not involved in the growing of crops, and people do

not pray to them for rain; the drought which has devastated

parts of Haiti is not attributed to them, at least by Vodoun-

ists.

Nor are the loua universal categories. Each family--or

each set of full siblings--has its o;vn loua, inherited from

mother's parents and father's parents. The characteristics of

the loua in one family are replicated in the characteristics of

the loua of other families--but they are not the same spirits.

We can see this in the attitudes of Haitians towards the

revelations of their loua about the weekly borlèt lottery num­

bers. If my loua suggests to me in a dream that the winning

number will be 46, that means that 1 will have a good chance

of winning if I choose 46; it does not mean that anyone will

have luck with 46. If I am interested in other people's

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dreams about borlèt, it is not because I wish to use their

number, unless I am a relative of the dreamer. Forty-six be­

comes an important number because of my relationship with my

loua ; but there is no claim that my loua can predict the out­

come of the weekly lottery in a manner which is universal and

general.

Another aspect of the loua's lack of universality is

that they exist almost entirely in reference to human beings.

There is no interest in the loua outside of their relation­

ships with people. Several informants were asked what would

happen if a family resolutely refused to serve its loua.

Those who could conceive of such a thing said that the loua

would go away, in effect that they would cease to exist. But

even though the loua are rooted in the family, they are

neither ancestors nor identified with family land. Both of

these statements require qualification. Some loua are indeed

ancestors. One of the most important loua is the mèt bitasi­

on , the first owner of the family land or of the land on

which the village is situated; Baron Samdi is in some respects

an ancestor; one informant said that all petro spirits were

once people. But the loua as a class are not ancestors and

are generally distinguished from lé mb, the family dead. Fur­

thermore, though the loua are inherited bilaterally, much as

land is inherited, it would be a mistake to view them liter­

ally as a symbol for the land. Murray (1977:511) makes an

analogy between the familial nature of the loua and the frag­

mentation of land, but he makes clear that that is his analogy

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and not a part of the Haitian belief system. Informants in

Savanne Palmiste insisted that loua were not tied to the land,

did not reside in the gardens, and would not be angry if family

land was sold.

Having said some words about what the loua are not, it

is appropriate to say some further words about what they are.

First, they are, as we have seen, familial in nature. The

contrast between family loua and family dead on the one hand

and outside loua and outside dead on the other is striking.

Family loua and family dead can be both helpful and perni­

cious, but outside spirits, whether baka. or souls of dead hu­

mans, are always harmful and dangerous. Perhaps this reflects

Haitian attitudes towards human relations. Desperately poor,

the Haitian can be jealous of those who somehow acquire wealth.

In the belief system there is the suspicion that wealth is

illegitimately attained; the individual must thwart the family

loua by making deals with outside spirits which can be injuri­

ous to innocent family members. Ruin is the ultimate fate of

those who go outside of family resources, spiritual and mate­

rial, in search of extraordinary wealth or protection. It is

ironical but appropriate that one family member is the equi­

valent of any other in such matters. It may not be the evil­

doer him- or herself who receives retribution, but another

family member. The belief system enables the Haitian to pro­

ject his or her own greedy impulses onto others, usually in

an exaggerated form. It also enables him or her to give vent

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to jealousy by magically injuring suspected evil-doers. A

person can hire a houngan to summon the image of an enemy

which can then be stabbed, for example.

Even those aspects of Vodoun which are most public in

nature are grounded in the family cult or in the relationship

of individuals to family loua. We have seen that the hounfb

cult association, while it may create a new group, in contrast

to the family, is based on individuals who have become initi­

ated ostensibly to reaffirm and strengthen their relationship

with their family loua. Public dances like the vodoun are

given for private reasons, always relating to family loua.

Even rara, the only village-wide ritual event in Vodoun, is

based on the dyadic relationship between the founder of the

musical band and his loua. Only the san poubl bands and the

congeries of lougarou have no relationship to the family or

family spirits--and they conduct the most evil of human acti­

vities .

The most important aspect of Vodoun, one which under­

lies even its familial aspect, is the explanation and treat­

ment of illness. The Haitian people created in Vodoun a be­

lief system which gave them a sense of certainty about the

cause of illnesses and a sense of having the ability to be

able to do something about them. Murray is in essential

agreement with this point of view. He writes (Murray 1977:

523) :

The houngan has had many faces in Haitian history. But of his many faces, the houngan of . . . Kinanbwa is first and foremost a healer, and the major manifest

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function of the entire voodoo cult in the research region is the prevention, diagnosis, and healing of illness. If one had to sum up domestic voodoo in a sentence, it would have to be described as a folk-medical system in which most illnesses are healed by various types of food offerings to the ancestors or ancestral spirits of the sick person. It is at once a healing cult and an ances­ tor cult, the two conceptually distinct elements func­ tionally joined in the context of a single cult.

In this chapter we have seen some of the ways in which Vodoun

acts as a "folk-medical system," and we will see more in later

chapters. Here I wish to show how Vodoun validates itself as

a system of health practice.

The chief strengths of Vodoun as a belief system are

its flexibility and its concreteness. Vodoun provides a

variety of alternative etiologies and alternative treatments

for illnesses. The richness and density of the belief system

about the causes of illness, while sometimes vague, provide

enough variety to explain very different kinds of illness.

Most important, the belief system explains the failures of the

houngan as well as his successes. An original diagnosis may

have been inaccurate; or the enemies of the patient have

ouanga which are too powerful for the houngan. Equally impor­

tant, Vodoun does not establish roles which claim to be all-

powerful. The effectiveness of the houngan is limited: he can

only treat illnesses sent by loua or other humans; he is power­

less against most illnesses, which are sent by God. But the

flexibility of the belief system provides its adherents with

the hope that if one means of dealing with a misfortune fails,

another may work. Vodounists are inclined to be experimental.

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Because the belief system is concrete, it is believ­

able. Geertz (1972:168) writes that a religion must formu­

late general conceptions and clothe them in an aura of factu-

ality. Vodoun is a religion which is replete with factuality.

It is populated with beings who are important because they

affect people. That people are affected is a fact: people do

get sick, crops fail, children die. Moreover, the houngan,

claiming to use and deal with supernatural beings and magic

does in fact cure people; or rather, people do recover from

an illness after his intervention. The houngan's entire repu­

tation is based on this fact.

But the keystone of the entire belief system is the

loua, possession beliefs about the loua, and trance behavior

associated with those beliefs. Murray, a very perceptive

writer, notes (1977:514) that "the principal sphere of activ­

ity of the ancestral Iwa is in the minds and bodies of their

descendants," (emphasis in original) rather than in outside

natural forces. Thus the loua are not perceived primarily as

the imputed causes of natural events, but are perceived as in­

disputable internal somatic events. The loua appear in dreams

and make themselves apparent in trance-like sensations. The

individual about to be possessed or merely "touched" by a

loua feels "sou," intoxicated. For people who have had these

experiences, the existence of the loua is almost self-evident.

Only a minority of the population has been made "sou" by a

loua ; but the majority has received a message from a loua in a

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dream. And even those who have not become possessed can see

the striking transformation of others while in trance.

Possession can be believed to have taken place without

impressive trance behavior. Murray describes the possession

which takes place at sévis loua as being "less clear" (1977:

508). For the Haitian, the most important thing about posses­

sion is that it is a means of communicating with the loua. As

such it is not even the most effective medium of communication :

invocation of the spirits by the houngan is more direct and

efficient. But in the analysis being made here the importance

of possession is the way in which it validates the entire be­

lief system. Possession associated with the most dramatic

trance behavior is most important. Here the possessed indi­

vidual him- or herself and everyone else present can perceive

the apparent loss of ego. The onlookers perceive the extreme

transformation of the possessed individual's behavior. If

the houngan's calling of the loua into a jar from which they

speak is open to suspicion, the atmosphere of a highly charged

vodoun dance is not. Many anthropological analyses of spirit

possession are centered in the psychic release of the trance

subject. While this is an important element in Vodoun, more

important from a social point of view is the effect of the

trance performance on those who are not possessed. After all

it is they, and not the subject, who see the transformed be­

havior of the individual. Possession trance is not only "the

most striking element in the vodoun cult" (Herskovits 1937 :

143). It is its bulwark.

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Finally, Vodoun reflects the powerlessness of the im­

poverished Haitian. The individual is besieged by powerful

evil forces against which he or she alone is defenseless.

Vodoun provides the fulfillment of strong spiritual powers

which can support and defend the individual from human and

supernatural enemies. Power is one of the most important

themes in Vodoun and it is the dominant theme of Haitian

Protestantism. But the forces summoned in the Vodoun belief

and ritual system are not enough. They cannot combat all

disease and other misfortune. The loua are not omnipotent.

They are subject to a rather distant God, the French Catholic

Bon-Dib. The nature of this subjection is the topic of the

next chapter.

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THE HAITIAN CONTEXT: CATHOLICISM

Catholicism and Vodoun: The Convergence and Divergence of Belief and Practice

It is important to understand just how Catholicism and

Vodoun are combined in Haiti. There are two separate aspects

of this question. The first is Catholicism seen as a set of

beliefs and practices. Some of these beliefs and practices

are part of the traditional religion of Haiti; some are not;

and some have been altered in the process of the consolida­

tion of Vodoun. The second aspect of the question of Vodoun

and Catholicism is the Catholic Church as an institution--a

foreign institution--which has had an important impact on the

political, educational, and social history of Haiti as a na­

tion in the international arena. Both aspects of the Catho­

lic experience in Haiti must be understood if we are to grasp

the nature of religion there.

As was mentioned at the beginning of the last chapter,

there is no word in Haitian Creole for the English word "Voo­

doo," rendered here as "Vodoun." If asked to name his or her

religion, a Haitian who "serves the loua" will answer "Catho­

lic." Vodoun and Catholicism are not seen as two competing

religious systems. Even Haitian Catholics who do not serve

the loua agree that Vodounists are Catholic, but the "pure

110

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Catholics" (katolik fran) maintain that the others are "mêlé, "

that is, mixed up in other things, Herskovits (1937:287),

discussing his own appreciation of religion in Haiti, wrote

Only when it was realized that no dichotomy exists . . . between Catholicism and vodun, but that both are neces­ sary if all the supernatural beings that control man and man's destiny are properly to be worshipped, was a true perspective attained.

There is no dichotomy between Catholicism and Vodoun--at

least for the Vodounist--but neither are the two fully syn­

thesized. One might say that Vodoun has been fitted into a

wider Catholic cosmology. It would also be necessary to say,

however, that Catholicism has been fitted into the world view

of Vodoun.

In the first place, the loua, as we saw at the end of

the last chapter, are subject to the Catholic God, Bon-Diè,

who created them. The loua fit into the Catholic cosmology

as semi-autonomous, perhaps even partially rebellious--but

not Satanic--angels. We have seen that the loua are not able

to create life or act as major natural or physical forces,

but that they are able to affect the bodies of their "inheri­

tors." Their power is manifested in their ability to know

the secret thoughts of humans, to discern the future, and to

heal illnesses. The loua are not intermediaries to God, but

act independently of Him, though not in opposition to Him.

The loua are able to interject themselves into everyday life,

but most events are in the hands of God. Even though God is

generally considered to be fairly remote from human affairs.

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everything in nature and human life comes under His purview.

It is almost considered dangerous in Haiti to refer to a fu­

ture plan or event without saying "si Bon-Diè vie" ("if God

wills") immediately afterward. People turn to supplication

to God only after other means of obtaining ends, such as ap­

peals to the loua or magic, have failed. Nevertheless, the

name of God is frequently on the lips of Haitians. He is the

explanation for most occurrences, fortunate or unfortunate.

Every major Vodoun ritual is placed in the context of

the Catholic cosmological system through the introductory

prayer, the (Fr.) action de grâce. Leyburn (1966:168) writes

The Vodun service regularly begins with a long ritual which the observer who knows both the Creole language and the Catholic liturgy recognizes as being almost entirely Roman. While the Vodun houngan sits quietly by, a special officiant knows as the prêt' savanne (bush priest) reads or pretends to read from the Catho- lic prayer book. For the Pater Noster, the creed, the Ave Maria, the Salve Regina, and the prayers, the wor­ shippers kneel or stand as they would in church. Candles burn, water is sprinkled, the sign of the cross is made, the chants are sung. When the benediction completes this part of the service, the houngan takes over to con­ duct the purely [sic] African rites; yet his first words are "Grâce mise'corde," and many Catholic interpolations appear even in the second part of the service.

The entire cycle of Vodoun rituals takes place within the

framework of the Catholic calendar. The annual sévis loua at

Savanne Palmiste are usually performed on Christmas Eve.

Other Catholic feasts are important. Rara bands play before

Ash Wednesday and from Good Friday through Easter. Between

these two periods, during Lent, there are no services for the

loua and no rasanblê dance practice sessions for hounsi, whidi

are often held on Fridays.

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Baptism is another Catholic element which is used ex­

tensively in Vodoun and which tends to place Vodoun within

the Catholic cosmological system. As Catholics, Vodounists

are baptized. Baptism has important social and political

consequences, as we shall see, but it also makes a person a

human being in an important symbolic sense. The very Creole

word for a human being is "bon krêtiin" (literally, good

Christian). If an infant who has not been baptized dies, it

is buried in the raj ê (bush) and is not accorded a Catholic

burial with a wake and a mourning period. The soul of the

infant becomes a loutin (Fr. lutin, a goblin). The last

stage of initiation for a hounsi is "baptism" by a prêt savann

Drums and other implements used in the hounfb of the houngan

ason are also "baptized" as a way of being consecrated to the

loua. Loua themselves are "baptized" in the lavé tbt cere­

mony. Until a loua is baptized it remains a loua bosal with­

out a "personality." (The African-born ancestors of the

Haitians were also called "bosal" until they were socialized

to "kréol" life. Baptism was one of the most important ele­

ments of this socialization. This aspect of the meaning of

"bosal" was not known to my informants, however.)

The action de grâce, the ritual calendar and the use of

baptism are the three most important elements in the tradi­

tional Vodoun ritual system which tend to place the service of

the loua in a Catholic framework. Other aspects of the tradi­

tional religion show the limits of the Catholic penetration of

the belief system. Métraux (1972:323) writes

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Even while scrupulously observing Catholic rites, the Haitian peasant has remained little touched by the spirit and doctrine of Catholicism; chiefly out of ig­ norance, since such religious instruction as he may have received is rudimentary to say the least. He knows little of the lives of Jesus and the saints. Besides, he feels more at ease with gods and spirits which main­ tain friendly or hostile relationships with him, in the same way as he does with his neighbors.

In no instance is Métraux's statement more true than in the

Haitian cult of the dead. Funeral rites, as we have seen,

are derived almost entirely from Catholic practice. Hymns

and prayers at the wake and during the novena after the fu­

neral are all Catholic, as is the funeral itself. In death

the individual is recognized as a member of the Catholic com­

munity rather than as a member of a particular family with

its particular loua. Even for a hounsi the only major Vodoun

ritual in the funeral is the removal of the mèt têt so that the

individual's relationship to the loua is broken before burial

takes place. The absence of the loua from mortuary rites is

related to the concept that the dead are in some way the

equal of the loua, and certainly not as subject to them as

are the living. If not subject to the loua, then the dead

can only be subject to Bon-Diè Himself, not surprisingly

within the Catholic framework.

Yet in spite of the adherence to Catholic mortuary

rites, the Haitian has little interest in orthodox Catholic

doctrine about the fate of the person after death. The tra­

ditional belief system has little to say about the final

judgment or about heaven, hell and purgatory. A katolik fran

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informant acknowledged that the priest discussed these doc­

trines in his sermons, but she added, "I do not know about

such things myself." The desire to reach heaven is not an

important motivation for the Haitian Vodounist, or even the

katolik fran. Life after death is relevant only as it af­

fects the life of the living.

The syncretism of African-derived spirits and Catholic

saints, which has been much discussed in the ethnology of

Afro-American cults, is less pronounced in Haiti than in

other cultural situations, such as Brazil (Métraux 1972:327).

A number of loua are associated with saints of the Catholic

church, as Herskovits has outlined (1937:278). He argues

that the identification of loua with saints, "Whether ini­

tiated as a ruse . . . or emanating from a reasoned analogy,

would seem in Haiti, at least, to act as a device to achieve

an adjustment between the two conflicting systems" (Hersko­

vits 1937:278). But this form of syncretism is not pervasive:

not all loua are saints; not all saints are spirits. Further­

more, the identification is made in Vodoun terms, not in

Catholic terms. Little is known about the lives of the saints

themselves, and the identification is usually made from

chromolith images of the saints. Thus Saint Patrick is asso­

ciated with the serpent loua, Dambala, because he is always

depicted with a snake. The image of Saint Patrick may be

used to represent Dambala, but there is nothing of Saint

Patrick, as he is known to Catholics of European countries,

in the binomial symbol.

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Furthermore, we have seen that the loua are not essen­

tially unitary. In the Catholic system, there is one Saint

Patrick; in Vodoun, each family has its inherited loua. That

is not to say that the loua do not have general symbolic at­

tributes. It would be possible to speak of the pantheon of

Vodoun as a system of symbolic elements. The cluster of

Lègba spirits or Cede spirits, for example, are part of the

rich symbolic fabric of Vodoun. The position taken in this

dissertation, however, is that the family cult aspect of the

loua is more important than their universal symbolic aspect.

Whether a person "chooses" to be possessed by Dambala or

Ezili may have much to do with the relationship between the

symbolic aspect of the loua and the person's psychology. But

when a person is believed to have been made ill by a loua, it

is considered less important to identify the name of the

spirit than to determine from which grandparent the loua was

inherited. Because of this fragmentation of the spiritual

realm into family units, Haiti has not produced a national or

even a community symbol based on a spirit or a saint. Saint

Louis is the patron saint of Savanne Palmiste, but the com­

munity does not rally around the symbol of Saint Louis in any

significant manner. Likewise Haiti has not produced a na­

tional symbol like the Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe (Wolf

1958). The Virgin of Saut-d'Eau, which is the site of the

greatest annual pilgrimage in Haiti, shares her place with

many other figures, both Catholic and Vodoun. Many of the

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pilgrims make the trip as a pënitans to their personal loua

more than in homage to the Virgin. Catholicism has not pro­

vided a sense of national identity and unity as it has, for

example, in Poland. To be Catholic is not the same thing as

it is to be Haitian. One important reason for this is the

perception of the Catholic Church as a foreign institution,

as we shall see below. The saints and their ministers are

blan (foreign), after all.

The Katolik Fran and Folk Catholicism

I stated at the beginning of the last chapter that vir­

tually all rural Haitians participate in the Vodoun belief

system, even though some reject Vodoun practices. The kato­

lik fran and the Protestant, both of whom have rejected the

service of the loua, the use of the houngan, and magic, con­

tinue to accept as factual most of what Vodounists accept.

Katolik fran and Protestants tend to abbreviate certain

aspects of the Vodoun belief system, for example, combining

family loua and baka into one category, "evil spirits" (movez

espri; Fr,, mauvais esprits). But generally they do not deny

the existence of the loua and the other aspects of the Vodoun

belief system. The katolik fran is a "pure" Catholic by vir­

tue of having formally rejected the family loua, or by being

a member of a family which has done so. It is the rejection

of the loua which defines a person as a katolik fran. Mem­

bers of the elite class do not characterize themselves as

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katolik fran, as there is no presumption that their families

once served the loua.

It would be a serious misapprehension of Haitian re­

ligion to suppose that the katolik fran is an orthodox Catho­

lic. To the contrary, the katolik fran adheres to many be­

liefs and practices not approved by the Catholic Church. It

is useful here to introduce a concept that has not previously

been used in the discussion of Vodoun and Catholicism. This

is the concept of "folk Catholicism." By this term, I refer

to an area of belief and practice which is neither Vodounist

nor orthodox Catholic. Folk Catholicism in Haiti can be de­

fined as those beliefs and practices of which katolik fran

would approve, but which are not orthodox Catholic. This

concept is important for what it tells us about the role of

the Catholic Church in Haiti. I have determined that there

are three degrees of being katolik fran, although Haitians

themselves do not formally make these distinctions. The

first degree involves ignoring the loua; the second degree

involves rejecting them; and the third degree involves mem­

bership in an official Catholic group. Those who have merely

left the service of the family loua to others constitute the

first degree of katolik fran. For example, an informant in

Savanne Palmiste identified herself as a katolik fran. On

further questioning it was learned that she had moved to the

village from Léogane, south of Port-au-Prince, and had nei­

ther seen her kin nor attended a family service for many

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years. The loua had not bothered her, so she ignored them.

But she said that if she became ill she would return to them.

The second degree of being a katolik fran is marked by

a formal rejection of the loua in a public manner. One of

the largest kin groups in Savanne Palmiste is katolik fran

because their ancestor, Antoine, rejected the loua several

decades ago, probably in the early 1930s. At the time An­

toine was the most powerful houngan in the village. One of

his sons became ill and Antoine was unable to cure him with

his family loua; so, very angry, he went to the Catholic

priest in the next village and publicly "threw out" the loua

(jeté loua yo) seeking the protection of the Catholic Church.

Antoine later became the sacristan of the Catholic church in

the village. Two of Antoine's sons have also held the posi­

tion; one of them is currently the sacristan. Antoine's

children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren all consider

themselves katolik fran. They conduct no sévis loua, never

attend vodoun or other public dances sponsored for the loua

or at which the loua appear, and do not consult houngan when

they become ill. They consider themselves superior to kato­

lik "mélê." One of my key informants was a member of this

kin group. She was very proud of her religious affiliation.

But in nine months she never attended the Catholic church,

even on the village feast day. She knew little of orthodox

Catholic doctrine. Her marital situation had not be regular­

ized by the Catholic Church, nor had that of her parents.

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The expression of her religious inclinations took the form of

pilgrimages to various sites on feast days throughout the

year. When she was in her early teens she became "mad" and

was only cured after a pilgrimage to Saut d'Eau, the central

religious site of Haiti. In the village she took part in the

rara festival, as well as in such activities as bathing on

Holy Saturday. On Holy Saturday many people rise early to

bathe at dawn. As they approach the water they cry out as

if mourning, "God is dead," "Jesus is dead." This is a typi­

cal example of folk Catholicism which has nothing to do with

Vodoun and little to do with orthodox Catholic practice.

The pilgrimage is the most public expression of folk

Catholicism. Several ethnographers have described the annual

feast at Saut d'Eau (e.g., Herskovits 1937 :282ff.). I at­

tended another pilgrimage on Good Friday, at the Calvaire

Miracle at Ganthier in the Plaine. The Calvaire Miracle is a

large hill above the town. On top of the hill are two large

crosses (a third toppled over some years ago and has not been

righted) and heading up the hill are thirteen crosses repre­

senting the stations of the cross. From the evening of Holy

Thursday through Good Friday thousands of people come to

Ganthier to walk to the top of the hill. At the first sta­

tion a collection is taken to be given to the priest at

Ganthier. But the priest himself has nothing to do with the

Good Friday pilgrimage, which is the most important event in

the annual cycle of the town. The Catholic Church does not

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support the Calvaire Miracle and has nothing officially to do

with it. The Calvaire Miracle is maintained because of the

patronage of important people in Port-au-Prince rather than

through the Catholic Church.

To say that events like the Calvaire Miracle are a part

of folk Catholicism must be qualified. For many they are a

part of Vodoun, because many of the Catholics who participate

do so at the behest of their family loua. The Calvaire Mira­

cle, like Saut d'Eau and other pilgrimage sites, is available

to Catholics who interpret their participation in different

ways.

A houngan may lead a group of his hounsi to a pilgrim­

age site, as Janvier often does to Saut d'Eau. Making a pil­

grimage may also be interpreted by a katolik fran as his or

her most important annual religious duty. Whether the pil­

grimage would be classified as Vodoun or folk Catholicism

would depend upon the perception and motivation of the indi­

vidual taking part in it.

The degree of the participation of the Catholic Church

as an institution in the event varies. At the Calvaire Mir­

acle, there is none. At Saut d'Eau the Catholic Church has

come to sponsor the feast, after a history of resistance, but

could not be said to have absorbed it into the fold of ortho­

dox Catholic practice. In this sense the pilgrimages are

representative of the complex mosaic--Vodounist, folk Catho­

lic and orthodox Catholic--of Haitian religion.

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The third degree of being katolik fran is membership in

the Apostola (Fr., Apostolat). The Apostola is a group of

katolik fran, sponsored by the Catholic church, who engage in

religious activities. The Apostola was established by the

Catholic Church recently, both in imitation of and in re­

sponse to the activities of the Protestant mission groups.

The Apostola is a group of young Catholics, both men and wo­

men, who play music in the church and engage in catechism

lessons. They meet every Sunday afternoon for prayer and

music practice. The Apostola, who have existed in Savanne

Palmiste as a group since 1972, wear shirts with "MJC" em­

broidered in green on the breast pocket. "MJC" is an abbre­

viation for (Fr.) "Missionaire de Jesus Christ." The Apos­

tola use the drum as a musical instrument, a reform recently

approved by the Catholic Church. Their Creole hymns contrast

sharply with the old French hymns of folk-Catholic ritual.

The Apostola is led by the sacristan and by the catechist.

The priest who serves Savanne Palmiste was somewhat disap­

pointed with the Apostola group at Savanne, which he felt was

not as aggressive in promoting "unmixed" Catholicism in the

village as were Apostola groups in other areas.

In Grande Anse, there was a lay worker who conducted

"fasts" (jènn; Fr., jeûnes) every Friday morning in a small

chapel near the cemetery. This worker, sponsored by the

Catholic Church, led a service which was almost indistin­

guishable from a Protestant fast. People raised their arms

in the air and said, "Blessed be the Lord"; the sermon

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stressed "conversion" to orthodox Catholicism; there was a

healing service. This same worker has started another group

in the countryside near Grande Anse where they have begun to

"speak in tongues." The resemblance to--perhaps one should

say imitation of--evangelical Protestantism is even more

striking among the group at Grande Anse than among the

Apostola at Savanne Palmiste.

The katolik fran consider themselves more correct and

more prestigious than the katolik "mêlé," that is, those who

are Vodounists. They also consider themselves immune from

illnesses sent by loua and resistant to illnesses "sent by

man" and by the dead. Even if they were to become so af­

flicted their appeal would be directly to God, with whom they

have a special relationship because they do not also serve

the loua or practice magic. They do not attend the sévis

loua of family or neighbors, do not dance at vodoun, do not

watch the rasanble of the hounfè group. The katolik fran do

not consult a houngan when they become ill; perhaps this re­

inforces their belief that they are resistant to supernatural

illnesses, for only the houngan can diagnose an illness as

such. More than one informant stated that the katolik fran

and the Protestants are "the same thing."

The Catholic Church as an Institution in Haiti

An overview of the early history of Catholicism in

Haiti was presented in Chapter Two. In order to understand

the place of the Catholic Church as an institution in modern

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Haitian life it may be useful to look briefly at the recent

religious history of the country.

When a concordat was finally signed between the Haitian

government and the Vatican in 1860, the Catholic Church did

not treat Haiti as a country whose religious situation re­

quired a missionary effort. Instead, the Catholic Church re­

established "parishes organized on the pattern of those in

France" (Metraux 1972:336).

The clergy tended to ignore the masses of Haitians and

the problems deriving from their religious beliefs.

While the Catholic Church sought to wean the Haitians away from Vodoun, it followed a rather permissive policy through the years, expectant that exposure to Christian teaching would in time make Vodoun archaic [Courlander 1966:16].

The policy of coexistence with Vodoun underwent sharp

reversals in two periods of Haitian history, at the end of

the last century and in the early 1940s, when the Catholic

Church mounted campaigns against Vodoun. In the latter cam­

paign, called the period of the "rejetés," hounfb and Vodoun

cult objects were systematically destroyed at the direction

of the Catholic clergy. The Catholic Church attempted to

force all Catholics, including members of the elite, to take

an oath forswearing the loua. This angered the peasantry and

outraged the elite, who saw themselves humiliated at the

hands of foreign priests who they believed viewed them as

nothing more than savages (Métraux 1972:341-342). The cam­

paign came at a time when segments of the Haitian intellec­

tual class, stung by the American occupation, had begun a

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re-evaluation of Haitian culture. Young ethnologists, in­

cluding François Duvalier, saw Vodoun as the authentic

Haitian culture which was under attack.

Although the Catholic Church had to retreat from the

extremes of its anti-Vodoun campaign, the Catholic clergy

have remained strict in their opposition. In most churches

outside Port-au-Prince, including the small Catholic church

at Savanne Palmiste and the large one at Grande Anse, parish­

ioners are given cards that indicate that they have rejected

Vodoun. If a parishioner does not take the oath that he or

she no longer serves the loua, he or she cannot receive com­

munion or participate in the other Catholic sacraments. The

oath has not prevented devout Vodounists from taking a card

and receiving communion. The sacristans in many communities

are reluctant to denounce their neighbors and kin.

When the Vatican, in 1860, finally came to peace with

with Haitian government after fifty-five years of schism, it

devoted its energies to the education of the elite rather

than to the conversion of the masses of peasants. The prin­

cipal activity of the Catholic Church was the establishment

of a system of schools in Port-au-Prince and the towns.

Bastien maintains that this constituted a scheme to keep the

Haitian upper class oriented towards France. I have not seen

specific historical documentation to demonstrate that this

was an organized plot, and in any case the Haitian upper

class probably did not need much persuading. Nevertheless,

Bastien's (1966:45) comments are instructive:

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A final point must be made clear in order to understand the subsequent relations between Church, state, and Vodoun. . . . The majority of the Catholic clergy . . . had been of foreign origin and, for linguistic purposes, mostly French. The clergy which was soon to become a political force was entrusted with a secret mission: to create a climate of opinion favorable to a voluntary association of Haiti with France. . . . In order to carry out the scheme, the French clerics concentrated on the education of the upper class. They opened excellent secondary schools where Haitian students were fully in­ doctrinated in the grandeur of France and exposed to insinuations about the backwardness of their country and its incapacity for self-rule. The plan failed and was given up in the late 1890's. But the imported clergy, conservative as usual, main­ tained an informal alliance with the upper class whose education and interests tended to set it apart from the rest of the population. Little wonder that by 1960 the clergy of Haiti openly took the side of the bourgeoisie.

When François Duvalier became president of Haiti in

1957, he took on the Catholic church, basing his first at­

tacks on Catholic educational policy (Nicholls 1970:408-409).

Duvalier rightly saw the Catholic Church as a threat to his

quest for absolute power. The essence of Duvalier's strug­

gle with the Catholic Church was his "insistence that the

hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church should no longer be

foreign-dominated, combined with a determination to secure

the political neutrality or support of the religious bodies

in the country" (Nicholls 1970:413). Duvalier expelled large

numbers of clerics, including the archbishop of Port-au-

Prince. In his conflict with the Catholic Church he also

"openly espoused the popular religion (Vodoun), but we must

consider his action a marriage de raison and not one of love"

(Bastien 1966:59). To say, as some imply, that Duvalier made

Vodoun almost the established religion of Haiti is an

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exaggeration. Nicholls says (1970:414) that "the Duvalier re­

gime has never given official support to the voodoo cult, and

has continued to recognize the Catholic church as the 'estab­

lished' church. . . ." Duvalier crippled the Catholic Church

in a political sense, but he also partly Haitianized it by

naming a Haitian archbishop and other Haitian priests. Mintz

suggests that he may even have inadvertently strengthened the

hand of the Catholic Church in its long-term struggle with

the traditional religion (1966:14). Certainly the Catholic

Church has responded by establishing such groups as the Apos­

tola . Nevertheless, the resources of the Catholic Church in

Haiti are much less than they were twenty years ago.

A number of commentators have asserted that Duvalier

gained control over Vodoun. Such a view is an exaggeration

if it implies that he made every houngan and mambo a politi­

cal agent. Control over Vodoun per se was not as necessary

to Duvalier as control of the Catholic Church as an institu­

tion. Nicholls, a political scientist, writes (1970:414)

that Vodoun

is most unlikely to form the basis of any dangerous political opposition to the regime. . . . Clearly it is easier to achieve [integration into the power sys­ tem of the regime] with a loosely organized national religion than with an international, hierarchically organized church. Both the official and the unoffi­ cial religion of Haiti, however, would seem to have been under the effective control of the government.

As we will see in later chapters, Duvalier also permitted and

encouraged the growth of Protestantism and of Protestant mis­

sion organizations as a means of countering the power of the

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Catholic Church. At the same time he must have felt that the

fragmented and avowedly apolitical Protestant organizations

were no threat to his government. The fact that he fostered

Protestantism, which opposes Vodoun even more strongly than

the Catholic Church ever did, demonstrates that the relation­

ship between Duvalier and religion "should be viewed not as

one of an individual to a faith, but rather it should be ap­

proached from the standpoint of the relations between church

and state" (Bastien 1966:56).

In spite of the decline of its influence, the Catholic

Church as an institution remains very important to most Hai­

tians for two reasons. First, for every Catholic Haitian the

parish rectory is the repository of his birth records. The

birth certificate becomes a baptismal certificate when the

Catholic priest writes in the date of the holder's baptism.

For most Haitians the birth certificate is thus the "batistè,"

the baptismal certificate. A copy of this crucial record is

kept in the parish archives. Murray (1977:153) notes that it

is at the time of baptism that the children of unmarried

parents receive official recognition from their fathers.

Baptism is, of course, also the occasion for the establish­

ment of godparent relations and of co-godparent relations,

which are the foundations of important social networks for

every individual. Furthermore, the Catholic Church provides

marriage, which establishes a couple as legally bound to­

gether, thus enhancing their prestige in their community and

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securing inheritance rights for legitimized children. As

Murray says (1977:154), the local Catholic parish church "is

one final locus--a special locus, it is true--of critical

interaction between the peasant and representatives of the

outside world."

Implications

In the concluding chapter of his seminal ethnography of

Haitian culture, Herskovits (1937:295) discusses what he

calls "socialized ambivalence." It is worth quoting his dis­

cussion of this concept at some length. Herskovits (1937 :

298) quotes the Haitian physician, J. C. Dorsainvil, who

wrote that "it has perhaps been insufficiently remarked to

what an astonishing degree the Haitian people live on their

nerves." Herskovits (1937:294-295) comments:

What, then, of this matter of "living on the nerves?". . . Stated in general terms, an explanation might be sought in the influences which cultures in contact bring to bear upon the individuals who must meet the demands of two traditions which, in many respects, are anything but in accord. As regards the Haitian, it must be recognized that the two ancestral elements in his civilization have never been completely merged. As a result, his outwardly smoothly functioning life is full of inner conflict, so that he has to raise his defenses in order to make his adjustment within the historical and cultural combination of differing modes of life that constitute his civiliza­ tion. . . . Socialized ambivalence, . . . more than any other phrasel ! ! ! described this tendency to manifest those rapid shifts in attitude toward people and situa­ tions that characterize the response of the Haitian peas­ ant to such a marked degree that the same man will hold in high regard a person, an institution, an experience, or even an object that has personal significance to him, and simultaneously manifest great disdain and even hatred for it. . . . I n its broader implication, as a matter of fact, it is entirely possible that this socialized am­ bivalence underlies much of the political and economic

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instability of Haiti, so that, arising from a fundamental clash of custom within the culture, it is responsible for the many shifts in allegiance that continually take place, as it is for the change in attitudes in everyday associa­ tion.

This socialized ambivalence is probably most clearly

seen in attitudes towards language. No language has been

more loved and more despised at the same time as Haitian

Creole. Socialized ambivalence is also present in attitudes

towards Vodoun. Herskovits's comments have a truer ring than

Leyburn's (1966:174) statement that "the Haitian peasant, in

fact, makes a tranquil unity of his two religions, to match

the obvious oneness of his universe." We have seen the am­

bivalence not only of the Haitian's attitudes towards the

loua, but of his or her attitudes towards "serving the loua."

All Vodounists recognize that the loua are subordinate to

Bon-Diè. To serve them rather than Him alone is to have

one's affairs not quite regularized. The problem, for most

Haitians, is not simply that the two religious traditions,

French and Afro-American, clash, but that one--the French--

demands undiluted allegiance.

The Haitian upper class probably suffers more social­

ized ambivalence than other Haitians, because more than any

other group they share both. Or more accurately, they share

neither. They speak French, but they are not French; they

may have light skins, but they are not white. If they have a

religion it is Catholicism; but Vodoun, from which they so

carefully shield themselves, is both fascinating and abhor­

rent to many of them. One elite informant, speaking of the

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mulatto group, said that they are the only "true Haitians,"

because only they, as a group, were created on Haitian soil.

His statement is valid in the sense that this group, more

than any other, is caught by the Haitian dilemma.

In searching for an explanation for the "socialized

ambivalence" of Haitian life, Herskovits mentions the clash

of customs of the two strains, French and African, which have

contributed to the imperfect Haitian cultural amalgamation.

But he seems to omit an important element. Dorsainvil him­

self, in spite of his usual psycho-racial arguments which

Herskovits refuted so effectively, approaches an answer when

he says (1931:60-61):

Ne faudrait-il pas incriminer nos nombreuses révolutions . . . ? . . . Etrange race qui du sein de l'abrutissante servitude, produisit une pléiade d 'hommes qui, par la seule vertu de leur intelligence native, purent s'élever, comme un Toussaint, aux plus hautes situations politiques et sociales dans leur lutte contre la nation la plus intellectualisée de l'Europe du dix-huitième siècle, la nation française?

(Would it not be necessary to bring in [as a cause of the Haitian trait of nervousness] our numerous revolutions . . . ? . . . What a strange race which, from the midst of the most brutalizing servitude produced a group of luminaries who, just by virtue of their native intelli­ gence, were able to raise themselves, like Toussaint, to the highest political and social positions in their struggle against the most intellectualized nation of Europe in the eighteenth century, France?

Dorsainvil's statement suggests the element which Her­

skovits overlooks in his explanation of socialized ambiva­

lence. In Haiti we find not so much the clash of two par­

tially incompatible traditions as the domination of the

French tradition and the debasement of the Afro-Haitian

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tradition. The grotesque inequalities of the slave-based

plantocracy are reflected in the present ordering of tradi­

tions brought to Haiti by the French entrepreneurs and those

brought or developed by their slave laborers. This is seen

clearly in the Catholic/Vodoun cosmology, as Murray suggests

(1976a:76-77):

The persistent social dominance of French symbols has shaped the course of rural Haitian theology. The Chris­ tian God has been exalted, the African loua have been dethroned and weakened. Not only were they transformed into restricted family spirits . . . but the scope of the powers attributed to them has also been curtailed. . . . The social process whereby a colonial slave society was forged from socially dominant and socially inferior cultural traditions has led to the evolution of a folk theology in which the supreme life-giving functions have been allocated to the God of the socially dominant sec­ tor of that society. And, though this God has been in­ corporated into the folk theology. He is far beyond the influence of the African-derived folk rites. Rural Hai­ tian folk ritual can affect only the behavior of African and autochthonous spirits interested in food offerings and similar inducements. But God has nothing to do with such shenanigans. He is majestic, distant, and when prayed to is often contrary ....

Haitian culture is not simply the product of two older cul­

tural traditions; it is an incomplete synthesis of traditions

in which that which is Haitian is usually judged inferior.

Religion is only a part of this synthesis. The fact of Ca­

tholicism, like the fact of French and the fact of light skin

color as factors associated with domination places the aver­

age Haitian in a subordinate position within his or her own

world, and places Haiti as a whole in a subordinate position

within the larger world system. That the loua are subordi­

nate to Bon-Diè is symbolic of this.

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It is curious that many rural Haitians are ignorant of

the historical forces which created this situation. In

Savanne Palmiste today most children attend school and learn

something of Haitian history. But many adults are ignorant

of the fact that their ancestors came from Africa, were

slaves in a French colony, and rebelled against the planters

to establish an independent state. Murray (1977 :183ff.)

found the same ignorance in Kinanbwa. But the historical

events are reflected in the symbolic system.

What could be a better metaphor for Haitian social,

political and economic history than that Bon-Diè is French.

As Murray (1977:512) says, "It is hardly a coincidence that

the Iwa have African names but that God has a French derived

name . . . ." Is it irony or merely a continuation of old

traditions that the only word in the recently-translated

Creole New Testament which has not been transliterated into

the Creole alphabet is "Bon-Dieu" (Société Biblique Améri­

caine, n.d.)? In Haitian religion the worship of God has

always been conducted by foreigners. Ultimate spiritual

power has been their almost exclusive preserve; and as we see

in the Creole New Testament--the work of American Protestants

--the Haitians are not yet deemed worthy of reading the name

of the Supreme Being in their own tongue.

Catholicism and Vodoun are not only the product of and

a metaphor for Haitian foreign relations, they also reflect

internal Haitian social stratification. Casimir (1975), in

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his discussion of nineteenth century Haitian ideology, says

that French cultural traits were used by the elite to main­

tain their dominant social position. He writes (Casimir

1975:43):

The Creole-French culture of Haiti . . . must be seen within the ideological structure of independent Haiti. It is a set of norms, values, and traditions haunted by cultural definitions formulated by African-born peasants, but it is also the formulation of a denial of the peasant way of life, neither including the [peasants] nor improving their lot. The Creole cul­ ture hence could not possibly have played the civilizing role those who espoused it pompously claimed for them­ selves .

This general statement can certainly be applied to Catholi­

cism throughout Haitian history. Catholicism has been one

of the elements which has helped to define not only Haiti's

position in the world of nations, but Haiti's internal social

and economic stratification as well. No one has summarized

the role of Catholicism in this latter aspect better than

Leyburn in his description of the Catholic Church of the Hai­

tian townspeople (1966:130):

For the elite, well groomed, sitting with his missal in a seat bearing his name plate, the psychic elation to be derived from hearing a sermon preached in a lan­ guage which the rabble seated around him does not know must be very great--and very Christian.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER FIVE

THE HAITIAN CONTEXT: HEALTH PRACTICE

AND BELIEFS ABOUT ILLNESS

General Remarks

This is the last of three chapters which describe the

general cultural context in which Haitian Protestantism is

found. In the previous two chapters it was seen that much

of Haitian concern with the supernatural is related to under­

standing the causes of illnesses and their treatment. As we

saw, this is particularly true of Vodoun. In this chapter we

return to Haitian beliefs about illness and health practice

so that this aspect of Haitian culture may be understood more

fully. The significance of Haitian health practice for the

understanding of Haitian Protestantism will be made clear in

subsequent chapters, which are concerned with Haitian Protes­

tantism in general and with Haitian Pentecostalism in parti­

cular .

The data on which this chapter is based are taken from

interviews with and observations of informants in all of my

research settings. Among these informants were representa­

tives of all the health practitioner roles described here.

In this chapter the full range of Haitian health practice will

be described. The chapter begins with some general comments

135

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about Haitian beliefs about illness. Then the various health

practice roles and therapies available to Haitians are de­

scribed. The chapter ends with an outline of a model of the

decisions Haitians make when faced with illness. In other

words, this chapter is concerned with what Weidman has called

"health culture." She describes the concept as being

composed of two subconcepts or analytic components. The first, cognitive structure, includes the values and be­ liefs which provide the blueprints for health action. This component requires us to understand theories of health maintenance and disease etiology, prevention,di­ agnosis, treatment, and cure. The second component refers to the organization of the health care delivery system. This component, which will be recognized as the social system aspect of health culture, requires us to under­ stand the structure and functioning of an organized set of health related social roles and behavior (Weidman 1976:106).

In this chapter the relationships between the cognitive and

social structural aspects of Haitian health culture will be

described and analyzed.

In a recent paper on the crosscultural comparison of

non-Western medical systems, Foster (1976:774) finds that

disease etiology is the primary independent variable "around

which orbit such dependent variables as types of curers, the

nature of diagnosis, the roles of religion and magic, and the

like." Foster finds that there are two kinds of disease eti­

ology, "personalistic" and "naturalistic." In a personalis-

tic medical system, "disease is explained as due to the ac­

tive purposeful intervention of an agent, who may be human

. . . nonhuman . . . or supernatural" (Foster 1976:775; em­

phasis in original). In a naturalistic medical system, on the

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other hand, "disease is thought to stem . . . from such na­

tural forces or conditions as cold, heat, winds, dampness,

and above all, by an upset in the balance of the basic body

elements" (Foster 1976:775; emphasis in original). A per­

sonalistic belief system accounts for more than just illness,

which is seen as a special case of misfortune. In a person­

alistic system, the body of religious and magical belief has

a significant role in the treatment of illness. The princi­

pal role of the curer in a personalistic system is diagnosis,

according to Foster. The diagnosis, furthermore, has several

levels of causality: both the efficient cause, or agent, of

the illness and its instrumental cause, the manner in which

the patient has been afflicted, must be discovered (Foster

1976:778).

A naturalistic system of disease etiology is largely

unrelated to explanations about other kinds of misfortune ; it

is likewise unrelated to the religious and magical belief

system, according to Foster (1976:777). The naturalistic

curer is "a 'doctor' in the full sense of the word, a spe­

cialist in symptomatic treatment . . ." (Foster 1976:779).

The primary interest of the naturalistic curer is the rela­

tionship of the symptoms to "natural" events within the

body.

In Haiti, both personalistic and naturalistic disease

etiologies are used. The houngan makout and houngan ason are

personalistic curers. A variety of naturalistic curers can

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be found as well. There are the herbal doctors (doktè fey),

midwives (fam saj), and various types of Western medical per­

sonnel. In Savanne Palmiste the full range of medical op­

tions is available. There are two houngan ason, five or six

houngan makout, two doktè fey, several fam saj, a clinic with

a nurse, and fairly easy geographic access to Port-au-Prince,

where physicians and the government hospital can be found.

In Grande Anse, the traditional options are available, and in

addition there are several physicians and a hospital in the

town itself.

Family Treatment

Illness in Haiti is usually a public event. If a per­

son is unable to leave home for a few days because of an ill­

ness, the word spreads to family and friends who pass by to

visit, often filling the house. Wiese (1971:95-96) comments:

"Sickness is thought to be a time when one wants and needs

companionship. The sick house is usually the scene of a con­

stant stream of commiserating friends, relatives and neigh­

bors." One important consequence of the public nature of

illness is that the family of the patient is in the eye of

public scrutiny when they act, or fail to act, to deal with

the illness. This does not mean that all the actions a fam­

ily may take in a case of illness are publicly known ; to the

contrary, much of what they do is secret. But if the person

does not recover from the illness, his or her family may be

accused of neglecting their duties. Murray (1977:528) writes:

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. . . for a majority of households the advent of illness is the trigger for a chain of events in which their rel­ atives and neighbors will expect them to spend large sums of money. I was at first puzzled when I heard a women whose child had just died incorporate into her public wails a gourde-by-gourde account of the money she had spent on various houngans, rituals, and remedies. It turned out she was merely protecting herself against ac­ cusations of stinginess toward her now dead child. [Em­ phasis in original.]

In most cases of illness, the family will try its own

remedies before seeking outside help. This implies that the

first assumption made about an illness is that it is a maladi

Bon-Diè. It would be a mistake to conclude from this that

naturalistic explanations necessarily take precedence in Haiti

over personalistic ones. Rather, the assumption that the ill­

ness is "natural" is made because naturalistic treatments are

often less expensive than personalistic ones. Analysis of

the case histories which I obtained in Grande Anse and

Savanne Palmiste shows that Haitians who feel themselves be­

coming ill usually seek the advice of older kin, often but

not exclusively from older female kin. Wiese (1971:95) found

a similar pattern of behavior in the Jeremie area:

In the case of a married adult, it is the spouse and the sufferer's mother or grandmother who are asked for ad­ vice. If the sick person is a child, or unmarried adult, the mother and/or sister are sought.

We will see these patterns in some of the case histories pre­

sented in Chapter Eight.

Every rural Haitian family I became acquainted with

has a knowledge of herbal remedies for fevers, colds, aches

and the like. Their children have a broad knowledge of

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leaves, for it is they who are usually sent to collect them.

This is not the place to make a catalogue of herbal remedies.

Perhaps it is sufficient to say that most Haitians feel that

they are able to treat the most common illnesses without

seeking further help. Not only are remedies known, but the

folk etiologies as well. Every adult, for example, knows

that much illness is caused by upsetting the balance of heat

and cold in the body and in its interaction with the environ­

ment. Wiese, in her dissertation on Haitian indigenous medi­

cal beliefs, states that the maintenance of a balance between

the hot and cold elements in the body is "the basic concept

in rural Haitian health beliefs” (1971:130). This observa­

tion is correct if we limit "health beliefs" to those con­

cerned with naturalistic etiologies. The patterns of heat

and cold are complex, involving foods, times of day, loca­

tions and periods in life (Wiese 1971:87). A disrupted equi­

librium can be restored through herbal teas, avoidance of

certain foods, massage, etc. Some illnesses, such as fevers,

are caused by too much heat. Others are caused by "frédi,"

cold. Frédi can enter the body through orifices and through

"open bones" to cause muscle aches, rheumatism, colds, chills

and other ailments, including tuberculosis.

While illness was diagnosed by the family of the sick

person mostly in terms of his or her symptoms, the conclu­

sion of the diagnosis was not always "natural." For example,

infants who became ill, especially at night, were often

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believed to be the victims of lougarou. At the same time

other factors besides the symptoms may be involved in the

diagnosis. For example, a person may become ill soon after

engaging in a heated argument with a competitor in the mar­

ket place; in such a case, foul play would be immediately

suspected. The symptoms of an illness are not an indication

of whether it is naturally or supernaturally caused. If a

family concludes that an illness has a supernatural etiology

that conclusion is based on factors outside of the symptoms

themselves. Informants were somewhat contradictory on this

point. Some began by saying that an illness in the chest or

stomach was more likely supernatural in origin than hitting

a foot against a rock. But they later concluded that one

could not really tell. In fact one of the most dramatic

cases of a public accusation of witchcraft in Savanne Palmiste

took place after a young boy tripped on a rock. The boy,

who died a few days after his fall, had been running away

from an older man with whom he had been arguing. The older

man was forced to confess that he was a lougarou and had

magically perpetrated the accident to avenge himself upon

the boy's father.

As we have seen in the chapter on Vodoun, it is not al­

ways the human members of a family who make the initial di­

agnosis. The family loua can appear in dreams and indicate

the cause of an illness and the treatment which should be

followed for its cure; they may also warn that an illness is

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imminent. One informant, now a Pentecostal, but once steeped

in the service of the loua, claims that some families have

loua which possess a family member and go out themselves in

search of the correct herbs for the treatment. Other inform­

ants corroborated this, but I observed no case of a person in

trance going out to look for herbs. What my informants prob­

ably were saying is that some people hear the loua speaking

to them inside their heads and follow their instructions

without being fully in trance.

Dokte Fey and Fam Saj

Clearly the folk medical knowledge of the rural Hai­

tian, extensive as it may be, is not sufficient. If it were

there would be no need for specialist health practitioners.

The doktè fey and the fam saj differ from untrained Haitians

in three ways. They have a greater knowledge of herbs and of

human anatomy; they know how to use massage as a means of di­

agnosis and treatment; and they have usually been chosen by

the loua for their work.

There are two dokte fey at Savanne Palmiste. One is a

man, the other a woman. Both had older family members who

were dokte fey before them. In the case of the female dokte

fey, Rosimaine, both her mother and father, and her mother's

mother, were dokte fey. She says that her family has had

dokte fey "since the time of President Boyer," that is, since

time immemorial. Galet, the male dokte fey, is teaching his

daughter to succeed him. Thus the role of doktè fev does not

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seem to be the monopoly of one. sex or another, and there is a

tendency for the role to be inherited. Both Galet and Rosi­

maine acknowledge that they learned much of their profession

at the hands of older kin. But they insist that their knowl­

edge has been received from supernatural sources, from which

they continue to receive guidance. In Galet's case it is the

loua who have chosen and support him. In Rosimaine's case it

is Bon-Diè who has done so--Rosimaine has recently converted

to Protestantism. Her conversion did not apparently affect

her practice. She now receives guidance from "people" who

appear to her in dreams; these people are sent by God, not by

the loua.

A brief description of the doktè fey at work will give

some idea of the nature of his or her interaction with cli­

ents. The scene at Galet's house is similar every morning of

the week except Sunday. Galet's practice resembles an urban

physician's in several respects. He has both a waiting area

and a consultation room. The waiting area is the shelter

built alongside his unkempt house. The consultation room is

the main room of the house. Patients line up in the shelter

shortly after dawn. Galet is popular as a doktè fey, and he

works on a strictly first-come-first-served basis. The pa­

tients are mostly women or children brought by their mothers.

Galet calls the patient into his room and directs her to sit

on a mat on the floor. After a sinp, a making of the sign of

the cross with his hand over the patient. Galet begins to

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slowly rub the arms, legs and torso of the patient with

masketi oil. His hand lingers at the elbow and wrist joints

to feel the patient's pulse. He talks quietly with the pa­

tient, asking her what symptoms she has. After the massage

(manyin, rale, masaj) Galet tells the patient what he thinks

is wrong with her. He may prescribe an herbal remedy for her

which his daughter will prepare; he may prescribe a lotion

(fiksione) which the patient should rub on herself; or he may

himself massage her as a form of treatment. Many of Galet's

patients are young children with stomach problems, gas or

constipation. Galet has a very popular remedy for these ill­

nesses. It is a liquid remedy which his daughter prepares

every day. A large bowl of it is kept on a table in the con­

sultation room, and Galet's daughter pours some of the liquid

into bottles brought by the children's mothers.

Galet is of the same social status as his patients.

His house is one of the poorer looking ones in the village,

and Galet himself dresses in a torn shirt, though no one is

fooled by such appearances. His patients share the same na­

turalistic etiological belief system that he uses and can

thus communicate intelligently with him about their illnesses.

In fact, they can even argue with him about his diagnosis.

It is not necessary to get dressed up to visit Galet, though

some mothers dress their children for the occasion. The cost

of a consultation is 2gdesl0 ($.42), the same reasonable price

asked by a houngan makout. Galet often asks five dollars for

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a complete treatment, but he is unlikely to get more than

three dollars or so except in unusual cases. He frequently

strolls through Savanne Palmiste reminding his patients of

their debts to him. He wishes them a good day and reminds

them that his "affairs aren't going well." The consultation

fee is paid at his house, but payment for treatment may be

delayed.

Doktè fey treat many kinds of illnesses, but three ill­

nesses came up repeatedly in discussions with them. These

are move san (or anba kè) ; san mélê ak lèt; and pèdision.

Both move san (bad blood; also known as "under the heart")

and san mêle ak lèt (blood mixed with milk) occur as the re­

sult of extreme anger or anguish. In move san, a person be­

comes angry and blood rises to his or her head. The blood

must be made to descend back into the rest of the body or the

person may die. According to Rosimaine, "what gives anba kè

is a bad blood, say anger, babbling, swearing because of some

indignation which has happened to the person, who then is in­

dignant and says 'Ay.'" If the blood is not made to descend

it can clot under the heart and suffocate the person. This

suffocation is what one feels when one is so distressed that

the throat feels constricted. Blood mixed with milk is simi­

lar to movè san. It occurs in women who have had children.

When a woman becomes distressed, such as when her child dies,

both the blood and milk of the woman rise to her head and

mingle together. A woman does not have to be nursing for

this to occur. This mingling of blood and milk can kill the

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woman if the two elements are not separated and made to de­

scend, the milk on her right side, the blood on her left.

Both illnesses are treated by bathing the head of the

patient in a cool preparation and providing herbal teas to be

drunk. Both are caused by psychological distress arising

from the frustrations of Haitian life: the loss of a child or

an argument over money, for example. The doktè fey offers

the patient almost as much psychological comfort as physical

treatment. The treatment is a public acknowledgment of the

person's distress. The patients who seek treatment for movè

san are usually women. Patients with san mêlé ak lèt are, of

course, always women. The same is true with those who suffer

from pèdision. Pèdision, which has been carefully analyzed

by Murray (1976a), is the inability to have a child, not be­

cause the woman is sterile, but because she is pregnant with

a fetus which will not grow. The primary symptoms of

pèdision are that a woman does not appear to be pregnant and

menstruates! Pèdision is believed to be caused by both na­

tural and supernatural events.

My informants, both lay women and the two doktè fey in

Savanne Palmiste, believe that pèdision can be caused by

frédi which enters the woman's womb or by a fetus which has

become dislodged within the womb. The doktè fey can remove

the frédi or set the fetus upright through massage. Both the

male and female doktè fey treat cases of pèdision. Move san,

san mêlé ak lèt and pèdision are illnesses which are very

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important to Haitians, particularly to Haitian women. They

are illnesses which can only he treated by the doktè fey and

the fam saj, if they are "naturally" caused, that is. The

Western medical physician, who does not recognize these ill­

nesses, cannot treat them. In some respects, a doktè fey is

seen as an alternative to a physician. A doktè fey is chosen

over a physician because he or she is more convenient, less

expensive, and more likely to respect the patient as a person.

In other aspects of their work, as in the treatment of the

illnesses described above, the doktè fey are seen as special­

ists whose work is not duplicated by other health practition­

ers. Only the doktè fey and the fam saj know the art of mas­

sage that can rid the body of frédi which has invaded it , for

example. The physician does not use the comforting massage

and tends to scoff at folk medical concepts such as frédi and

pèdision. But the physician is required for other kinds of

illness.

The fam saj, or midwife, like the doktè fey, treats only

patients whose condition is the result of natural events.

The fam saj is always a woman and her clients are almost all

women as well. The principal function of the fam saj is to

help women during childbirth and for the first five days after

parturition. Among her talents is the art of massage, and the

midwife may occasionally treat a man for frédi. In fact, the

midwife is coming to replace the doktè fey in many parts of

Haiti, including Port-au-Prince. Savanne Palmiste is unusual

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in having one doktè fey, let alone two. Murray (1977:519)

notes that the fam saj is replacing the doktè fey in the area

where Kinanbwa is located. Even in Savanne Palmiste the main

distinction between the fam saj and the doktè fey is that the

latter has nothing to do with parturition. The fam saj, like

the doktè fey, charges $.42 for a consultation.

Mme Tésius, the "most famous" fam saj of Savanne Palm­

iste, proved a very talkative, indeed a manic, informant.

Like the doktè fey she was chosen for her role by her loua,

which she calls her "mysteries" (mistè) or even just "them"

(yo). At the same time, she was chosen at a point in her

life when she was penniless and had just quit a job as a ser­

vant for a foreign family. Pfaie Tésius receives continuous in­

structions from "them" in the form of dreams and voices which

she hears in the waking state. Mme Tésius is very fond of

her family loua and was the only person in the village to

build a kay loua during the research period. Her friends

call her a mambo, a woman who has obtained power from the loua,

But her professional activities are exclusively "naturalis­

tic." In this her role is parallel to that of the doktè fey.

Though both the doktè fey and the fam saj work with superna­

tural sanction, their work is with illnesses considered to be

natural. This is demonstrated by the fact that Protestants,

who formally reject personalistic treatment of illness, use

the services of both Galet and I-lme Tésius. This is made more

striking by the fact that Galet is also a houngan makout, the.

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most renowned in Savanne Palmiste. His two roles are so dis­

crete that Protestants and katolik fran have no qualms about

seeking his services as an herbal doctor.

Western Medicine

It is impossible to describe the roles of doktè fey

and fam saj without continuously thinking of comparisons with

the Western physician, particularly in terms of the practi­

tioner's social relationship with the patient. While the

doktè fey needs to maintain rapport with patients in his or her

own village, and is in any case a social equal, the physician

usually seeks the greatest possible social distance from the

impoverished patient. The physician (doktè) speaks to rural

or poor urban patients in the same tone of voice that would

be used with a servant. At the same time the physician is

considered to be a necessary evil, for no other practitioner

shares his or her expertise in a wide variety of treatments

for serious illness. The physician's knowledge is symbolized

in the stethoscope, which is used to probe (sondé) the pa­

tient in the same way as the massaging hands of the doktè

fey. Most Haitians would consider themselves cheated if the

physician did not use the stethoscope during an examination;

many physicians use the stethoscope even when they do not

consider it necessary. This is done, for example, in the

hospital clinic at Grande Anse.

The residents of Savanne Palmiste come into contact

with Western medicine at several points. First, the village

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has a clinic staffed by a nurse. The clinic primarily serves

pregnant women and young children, to whom it administers

vaccinations. Men also use the clinic from time to time.

The work of the clinic has been remarkable in the decade or

so of its existence. Infant mortality has been reduced

drastically through the vaccinations, leading to some re-

evaluation of beliefs about lougarou. The clinic distributes

food to undernourished mothers and children and has signifi­

cantly reduced malnutrition in Savanne Palmiste and surround­

ing villages. The nurse at the clinic strives to maintain

rapport with the villagers. She knows and visits practically

everyone in Savanne Palmiste. Where the program of the clinic

has run into difficulty is in the education of the popula­

tion. The nurse gives lessons in hygiene, but is politely

ignored. While the clinic has convinced many families to

build outhouses, it has not convinced them of the necessity

to keep their drinking water clean. The nurse discusses the

germ theory of disease, but most people have assimilated

"mikrob" to "move bèt nan raj ê," "an evil insect in the bush"

which is something akin to a baka.

Beyond the clinic, the people of Savanne Palmiste seek

Western medical help in Port-au-Prince, either at the public

hospital (opital léta) or from a private physician (doktè

privé) . Treatment at the public hospital is less expensive

than at the office of a private doctor, but informants report

that one often has to wait a very long time in order t be

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seen. Given the low level of public health funds in Haiti

conditions at the hospital are very far from ideal. It is

sometimes necessary to make special arrangements with the

hospital personnel in order to expedite treatment. The pri­

vate physician is more expensive, but in the case of a seri­

ous illness the patient is seen almost immediately. Both the

private physician and the hospital charge a fee for consulta­

tion which is separate from any medication prescribed. A

bitter but common complaint of informants at Savanne Palmiste

was that after the consultation they had to go to a pharmacy

to purchase medication which involved further expense.

The residents of Grande Anse have much freer access to

Western medicine. The town has a small hospital which pro­

vides consultations and treatment at affordable prices. Where

a resident of Savanne Palmiste might choose a doktè fey over

a doktè privé because of the expense, a resident of Grande

Anse could obtain Western medical care for almost the same

price. There is in the town a greater valuation of the physi­

cian and of Western medicine. Both townspeople and rural peo­

ple make a distinction between "an vil" (Fr., en ville) and

"dey5"--"in town" and "outside." Going to the doctor in pre­

ference to seeking herbal remedies is a trait of the urban

sophisticate. Grande Anse has several private physicians in

addition to the hospital; some of them are very sympathetic

to their poorer patients.

The role of the physician is reminiscent of that of the

Catholic priest. Each is the official representative of a

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belief system which in part is meshed with traditional Hai­

tian beliefs and in part contradicts them. Moreover, both

the priest and the physician represent belief systems which

demand exclusive allegiance. (Efforts at combining tradi­

tional with Western medical practices, such as those at the

clinic at Savanne Palmiste, are unfortunately rare, according

to Haitian community health organizers.) In other words both

systems tend to place a negative value on Haitian beliefs and

the Haitian carriers of those beliefs. Both the priest and

the physician demand such allegiance of their clients in the

face of the demonstrable irrelevance of much of the "higher"

belief systems to Haitian life as it is perceived and felt

every day. And finally, both the priest and.the physician

relate to their poorer clients as social superiors whose

authority is ultimately foreign.

Houngan

Much has been written about the role of the houngan in

previous chapters, and only a few new perspectives will be

presented here. The houngan is the personalistic curer in

Haiti. As Foster (1976:779) predicts, one of his most impor­

tant functions is as a diagnostician. Vodounists, katolik

fran and Protestants are all in agreement that only houngan

working with loua can determine whether an illness has been

caused by God or by some other agent. Again, as Foster pre­

dicts, the role of houngan forms a link between health prac­

tice and the wider religious belief system with its

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personalistic explanations of fortune and misfortune. As we

have seen in the case of Galet, the personalistic activities

of the houngan are sharply distinguished from the naturalis­

tic practices of the doktè fey. If a houngan offers a patient

an herbal remedy, it is either as a magical potion to counter­

act the agent causing the illness or as a natural remedy to

help restore the body after the agent has been defeated or

controlled. The symptoms of the patient are generally irrel­

evant to the diagnosis of the houngan. In fact the houngan

is supposed to make the diagnosis without knowing anything

about the patient--or even whether the client has come with a

health problem. Haitians often travel to distant houngan

precisely so that any personal knowledge of the patient is

eliminated as a factor in the diagnosis. A good houngan

knows the truth through his loua rather than through ordinary

modes of communication. It is usual, even desirable, for the

patient to send a family member to seek the diagnosis.

Murray (1977:523) comments:

It is a very interesting feature of the folk-medicinal system of rural Haiti that a great number of prelimin- inary diagnoses are made in the absence of the patient. Diagnosis does not always involve the physical examina- tion of the patient by the healer; cures are suggested though the healer making the suggestion may never have laid eyes on the patient. The diagnostic sequence, in short, proceeds along a trajectory of ritual rather than examination of physical symptoms in a large number of cases. [Emphasis in original.]

The diagnosis of the houngan may be that the illness is

a maladi Bon-Diè. In Savanne Palmiste, Janvier, the princi­

pal houngan ason, diagnosed the hernia of Damballa (a man

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named after the loua) as naturally caused. Damballa's kin

then arranged to have him brought to Port-au-Prince on one of

the village's trucks. A crowd of at least fifty family mem­

bers and neighbors saw him off. But it is more likely that

Janvier would diagnose a case of pèdision, for example, as

being supernaturally caused. For if it is a maladi Bon-Diè,

he cannot treat it. Mme Tésius, on the other hand, is prob­

ably more likely to diagnose a case of pèdision as being na­

turally caused; as a fam saj, she can only treat "natural"

illnesses.

If the illuess is diagnosed as having a personalistic

etiology, there are three alternatives. It may be caused by

a loua, by a family ancestor, or by an evil human. In the

first case, the loua must be appeased or otherwise controlled.

The same is true of the family mb. In the third case, the

human agent causing the illness must be magically counterat­

tacked and any supernatural being which he or she has sent

into the patient must be exorcised. In the case of the

houngan ason, kahzo initiation is an important form of treat­

ment. In Port-au-Prince and towns like Grande Anse, Haitians

become initiated for general protection as much as for any

specific reason (Dr. Jeanne Philippe, personal communica­

tion). But in Savanne Palmiste, perhaps because of its par­

ticular history, people seek initiation only in cases of ill­

ness .

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Religious Conversion

At first glance the idea of religious conversion as a

health practice may seem strange. Several factors need to be

taken into account in order to understand why Haitians use

religious conversion as a means of treating illness. Such

behavior is not entirely alien to American culture, where

faith healing is enjoying a growing popularity. But in Haiti

to convert (konvèti) does not carry quite the same meaning as

it does in North America. For the Haitian the doctrinal or

emotional aspects of conversion are not dominant. People do

not generally convert after reflecting on the philosophy of

a religious group or in a moment of ecstasy. Such conver­

sions do take place, but they are not connoted in the word

"konvèti." Rather the words "konvèti" most often means to

have a religious group come and pray over one, with the im­

plication that the person will join the group. People fre­

quently speak of "converting" their spouses or children. In

so saying they do not mean that they convinced the other of

the truth of a religious doctrine. They mean rather that

they called upon a religious group to pray over the person.

Even people who are unconscious can be converted in this way.

Others, who are quite unwilling, but unable to defend them­

selves, may also be converted.

A second element must be understood. The terms "na­

tural" and "supernatural" have been used in describing the

two categories of illness which Haitians report. But the

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English term "natural" has been used with the caveat that the

most common Creole term is maladi Bon-Diè, an illness sent

from God. Thus, even "natural" illnesses have a supernatural

cause, though a more remote one than other "supernatural"

illnesses caused by spirits and humans. It follows that

maladi Bon-Diè can be treated by appealing directly to God as

well as through natural remedies. Conversion in Haiti means

attaching oneself directly to God, seeking only His help and

not that of lesser supernatural beings or of magic. The con­

cept of conversion in Haiti has a strong mechanical aspect,

as was seen in the above paragraph. But there is a moral as­

pect as well. The person must make a firm behavioral commit­

ment to God. This commitment takes a negative form: the con­

vert must refrain from serving the loua, consulting the

houngan or practicing magic. There are other proscriptions

as well; one must give up polygyny, smoking, drinking, danc­

ing, etc. There is the sense, though, that one refrains from

these activities not because life without them is better, but

because Bon-Diè demands it. To disobey Bon-Diè is to risk

losing His protection. This is what makes conversion a dan­

gerous undertaking, especially if the convert fears that hu­

man or supernatural enemies lurk about looking for a crack on

God's protective shield.

Much more will be said in this dissertation about re­

ligious conversion as a health practice. Two further points

will suffice here. First, as has been suggested above.

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conversion is seen as negative rather than as positive. That

is, it is seen as the rejection of Vodoun more than as the

acceptance of a new doctrine. Thus most people, including

Protestants, see the katolik fran and the Protestant as being

"the same thing." Both have given up the loua, and this re­

jection is the essence of their identity as Protestants or

katolik fran, not the label of the new group which they have

joined.

The last point to be made in this section is that con­

version is in some respects analogous to initiation in Vodoun.

The convert resembles the hounsi kanzo in that both have

joined a cult group made up largely of members who have

joined ostensibly as the result of an illness. This resem­

blance is apparent not only to the foreign observer but to

many Haitians as well. Rosimaine, the doktè fey in Savanne

Palmiste who is now a Protestant but was once a kanzo, said,

"It's the same thing." Both the kanzo and the convert seek

greater spiritual power, usually to treat an illness and to

prevent further illness. The difference is that the kanzo

goes deeper into the loua (aprofondi nan loua) while the con­

vert rejects them.

Decision-Making

As I indicated in Chapter Two, extensive precise infor­

mation about decision-making in cases of illness was diffi­

cult to obtain. Informants tended to make general statements

which were dubious. For example, a number of informants

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reported that when they became ill they always went to the

physician first. This is highly unlikely in a rural village

like Savanne Palmiste, and was probably told to me because I

was perceived as a foreigner attached to the clinic. Never­

theless, it is possible to outline some of the criteria which

are used in choosing which forms of health practice are used

and in which sequence they are used.

From the point of view of the actors, the most impor­

tant criteria are economic. While the best possible treat­

ment is often sought, less expensive treatments are chosen

before more expensive ones. Thus family remedies, which are

free, are always applied first. If they do not work, and if

the person remains ill after two or three days, further

treatment is sought. The most important decision to be made

is whether a personalistic or a naturalistic diagnosis will

be sought. Here economic factors are combined with the past

experiences of the actors. If a family has had good experi­

ences with houngan in the past, they may well seek the diag­

nosis of this kind of practitioner. It would be a waste of

scarce resources to spend money on a doktè fey or a physician

if the illness proved to be supernaturally caused. The min­

istrations of a naturalistic practitioner might give the pa­

tient some temporary relief, but unless the efficient cause

of the illness was removed with the instrumental cause, the

person would only become ill again. If a family has found a

reliable houngan who has worked effectively for them, they

will probably use him first.

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On the other hand a person whose experiences with

houngan had left him or her more or less skeptical would

probably urge a sick person to seek naturalistic help. One

informant, a woman who enjoyed attending dances at Janvier's

peristil, but remained skeptical, said that she would to go a

physician before she went to a houngan. She said that the

houngan talks a lot, but the physician gives you medicine to

take. She was impressed by the results of the work of the

clinic in pediatric health care. She said that you can see

the vaccine which the clinic gives to the children, but you

cannot see the "evil thing" (move bagay, e.g., lougarou) that

people say makes the children sick.

Having chosen a personalistic over a naturalistic diag­

nostician and curer, a family must choose whether they will

use the services of a houngan ason or a houngan makout. Eco­

nomic factors enter here: the mako at is less expensive than

the ason. But a comfortable relative of the doktè fey Galet

would probably choose to seek his services over those of

Janvier, the houngan ason, if he or she chose a houngan in

the village itself. Likewise, an impoverished relative of

Janvier would probably choose him over Galet. In the ac­

counts of those who have converted to Protestantism, which

will be discussed in a later chapter, we learn that people

sometimes seek the help of one houngan after another in an

increasingly desperate attempt to find effective treatment

for an illness. If a person is convinced that an illness is

caused by a human or superhuman agent, there is no choice in

the traditional system.

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Having chosen a naturalistic over a personalistic diag­

nostician and curer, a family must choose between the doktè

fey and Western medicine. The choice here will be primarily

economic. Informants reported that the main advantage of the

doktè fey over the physician in many cases was entirely eco­

nomic: herbal remedies are far cheaper than pharmaceutical

ones. On the other hand, if the symptoms of the patient in­

dicate that the illness is one of those which can only be

treated by the doktè fey or the fam saj, then there will be

no choice.

The decision to convert is almost always made after

several other health practice alternatives have been tried

unsuccessfully. This will be discussed at length in later

chapters. Conversion is not mutually exclusive of naturalis­

tic treatments; it may be combined with herbal or Western

medical practice. On the other hand conversion nullifies

the distinction between naturalistic and personalistic ill­

nesses. Because conversion is an appeal to the ultimate

cause, God, it can be effective in the treatment of illnesses

with either naturalistic or personalistic etiologies. The

faithful convert is supposed to ignore such etiological dis­

tinctions. To inquire into them is considered a sign of lack

of faith in most Protestant churches because God can cure any

illness through divine healing (gerizon divinn; Fr., guérison

divine).

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In sum, Haitians are both practical and experimental in

their decisions about the treatment of illness. On the other

hand, many decisions about illness are not consciously made.

Loua may appear in dreams and tell family members how to treat

an illness; herbal remedies may be prescribed; a loua may de­

mand that the patient be initiated--or even be converted to

Protestantism! The decision-making model that does not take

into account these communications attributed to supernatural

beings--whom one dare not ignore--does not accurately portray

Haitian realities.

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PROTESTANTISM IN HAITI

Introduction

In the previous three chapters we have reviewed certain

aspects of the cultural context in which Haitian Protestant­

ism is found. We have looked at Vodoun, Catholicism and

Haitian health practices and beliefs. This chapter provides

an outline of the major characteristics of Protestantism in

Haiti. The chapter is concerned with Protestant denomina­

tions in general, including the Pentecostal ones. Much of

the data were obtained from the study of Pentecostal congre­

gations and mission organizations; much of what was learned

from this study can be generalized to almost all of the Pro­

testant denominations. In this chapter I explicitly state

when Pentecostal practices are different from other Protes­

tant practices. The two chapters which follow this chapter

are more specifically concerned with Pentecostalism.

Most of the early leaders of Haiti, from the time of

Toussaint Louverture onwards, sought to strengthen the State

by establishing Catholicism as the official religion.

Nevertheless, English Protestant teachers were invited by

Henri Christophe to work in his kingdom, and Petion received

the first group of Protestant missionaries in 1816. In the

162

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first half of the nineteenth century Protestantism in Haiti

seems to have been a religion of and principally for for­

eigners. Leyburn (1966:125) says that in the 1840s "it was

estimated that there were only about 1,200 Protestants in

the country, mostly Methodists and Baptists, and these pri­

marily Negroes who had come from the United States to settle

in the republic." There were also a number of Blacks from

British West Indian islands. Mark Bird, the head of the im­

portant Methodist missions for forty years in the nineteenth

century, was criticized for not paying enough attention to

Haitians and for naming as the principal of his school a per­

son who could not speak French (Bruno 1967:50).

In the second half of the nineteenth century there was

much more intensified Protestant missionary work which was

directed toward the Haitians themselves. Jacmel, which was

situated on the London-Kingston shipping line, was a center

of such activity. An English Baptist mission was established

there in 1845, supported by funds from London and Jamaica.

The missionaries were active preachers and attracted the in­

terest of a number of townspeople, some of whom became dea­

cons. By the 1890s the church in Jacmel had 49 baptized

members and considerably more "believers," both in the town

and in "stations" around the town. By the end of the cen­

tury the mission had been taken over by a Haitian pastor,

Nosirel Lherisson. Bruno (1967:58) calls Lherisson a "bon

sociographe" because he realized that his congregation would

grow if he made an appeal to the rural youth. Lherisson

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established a school near Jacmel which gave lessons in car­

pentry, sewing and pottery, as well as in agricultural sci­

ence. Lherisson apparently saw that the future of Protes­

tantism lay more in its potential appeal to the rural popu­

lation than to the middle and upper class urban population,

whose cultural orientation was French and Catholic.

Lherisson traveled widely along the southern coast of Haiti.

By 1930 the Baptist group in Jacmel had fifteen churches

with over three thousand congregants, twelve hundred of whom

were baptized members (Romain 1970:16).

It was not until the middle of the twentieth century,

however, that Protestant evangelists reached all parts of

Haiti. The American occupation of Haiti from 1915 until

1934 had a profound effect on American knowledge of Haiti

and vice versa. Therefore, it is surprising that the occu­

pation did not involve a great increase in American Protes­

tant missionary activity. None of the books written by

Americans about Haiti during the time of the occupation men­

tions Protestantism or mission activity. The Episcopal

cathedral in Port-au-Prince was completed during the occupa­

tion under the guidance of the American bishop (Logan 1968:

182). Three Baptist and Pentecostal mission groups arrived

during the twenties, but their activities did not flourish

for another decade (Bruno 1967:35-38). It was not until the

1940s that large-scale mission work began.

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In Table 1 below, we see that the increase in American

Protestant mission activity which began in the 1940s was

greatly accelerated in the following two decades. The data

used in this table are taken from a Haitian thesis on Prot­

estantism (Bruno 1967) and a directory of foreign Protestant

missions compiled for a mission coordinating group (MARC

1970). The data are undoubtedly incomplete, but they are

probably full enough to give us a rough indication of the

trends in mission development. They do not include the ad­

dition of new American missions in Haiti after 1970; nor do

they tell us about the growth of a denomination once a mis­

sion was established in Haiti.

TABLE 1

AMERICAN PROTESTANT ACTIVITY IN HAITI

Number of U.S. Protestant Mis­ % of Total Decade sions Established in Haiti in 1970

1920s 3 9.0

1930s 2 6.1

1940s 5 15.2

1950s 12 36.4

1960s 11 33.3

Total 33 100.0

The data in the table indicate a dramatic increase in

the number of North American Protestant missions established

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in the 1950s and 1960s. A surprising aspect of this increase

is not revealed in the data. Of the twelve missions to enter

in the 1950s, seven date from 1957 onwards, that is, from the

year in which François Duvalier assumed the presidency of

Haiti. Thus 54.5% of the missions listed entered Haiti just

before or after Duvalier took power. (He did not become

president until October 1957.) For all his identification

with Vodoun, François Duvalier might well be called the

"father of Protestantism" in Haiti. Duvalier's main poten­

tial opposition in the religious sphere was a Catholic Church

dominated by foreigners. In his struggle with this adver­

sary he enlisted both Vodoun and Protestantism in spite of

the fact that the Protestants were more inimical to Vodoun

than were Catholics. At a time when Duvalier was deliber­

ately alienating foreign governments and foreign aid organi­

zations, he welcomed Protestant missionaries, especially

from the United States. The Protestants drew people away

from an allegiance to the Catholic church without themselves

presenting a monolithic front to the government. Because the

missionaries were competing with each other, fiercely at

times, they were not in a position to oppose the government

as a group. Furthermore, as Nicholls (1970:412) points out,

the Protestants have avoided involvement in political affairs

as much as possible. The few missionaries who did voice op­

position to government policy could easily be deported, as

was the case of the Episcopal bishop, an American, in 1964.

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On the positive side, Duvalier saw that Protestant mission­

aries would bring resources into the country. He had been

impressed with the public health work of some of the mis­

sionaries during his public health activities in the 1940s

(Nicholls 1970:412).

Statistics about Protestantism in Haiti are difficult

to obtain and interpret. Bruno (1967:72) explains why this

is so :

II nous est très difficile de fournir des données précises sur 1'importance numérique du Protestantisme Haïtien. Les statistiques sont insuffisantes. D'une part, les églises qui recensent leurs membres--et beaucoup ne le font pas--comptent seulement ceux qui ont été baptisés, laissant de côté des centaines de milliers d'adeptes qui participent pourtant aux dif­ férentes phases de la vie ecclésiastique. D'autre part, il arrive assez souvent qu'en raison de déplace­ ments provoqués par le chômage et la recherche d'un emploi, beaucoup de protestants haitiens sont enregistrés par deux congregations à la fois. [It is very difficult for us to furnish precise data about the numerical im­ portance of Haitian Protestantism. The statistics are insufficient. On the one hand, the churches which take censuses of their members--and many do not do it--count only those which have been baptized, leaving aside hun­ dreds of thousands of adepts who nevertheless partici­ pate in different aspects of the life of the church. On the other hand, it happens rather frequently that Haitian Protestants are registered in two congregations at the same time, because of moves provoked by unemploy­ ment and the search for work.]

Nicholls (1970:412) reports that "in 1955 there were forty-

one separate non-Roman Catholic Christian groups operating

in Haiti, numbering 383,117 members ; thus 12.3 per cent of

the population is Protestant." Bruno (1967:73-74) estimates

that in 1965 there were about 407,664 Protestants in Haiti,

grouped in 747 churches and 2335 stations, served by 231

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pastors. Bruno (1967:74) defines churches as "agglomerations

plus ou moins grandes au sein d'une ville ou d'un bourg"

(more or less large agglomerations in the center of a city

or village) and stations as "agglomerations au sein d'une

section rurale ou d'une habitation" (agglomerations in the

center of a "rural section" or an agricultural center).

More recent statistics on Protestantism in Haiti are

not available. But it is clear that the number of Haitian

Protestants has grown. A director of one of the largest

Pentecostal mission groups in Haiti told me in 1974 that the

number of congregations in his organization had increased by

25% in the previous year. Almost every congregation that

was studied during my fieldwork was established after 1965.

In Savanne Palmiste, for example, six of the eight Protes­

tant groups now active in the village did not exist in 1965.

Likewise the congregation of the Church of the Gospel at

Grande Anse was not established until 1970. There are no

indications that the rapid growth of Protestantism which was

experienced in Haiti in the 1950s and 1960s has diminished

in the 1970s.

Protestantism and Vodoun

In Haitian Creole, Protestants are called "protestan"

or, more commonly, "lévanjil" (from Fr., 1'évangile, "the

Gospel"). The term is applied to Protestants of all denomi­

nations regardless of differences in doctrine or style.

Haitians recognize these differences which are discussed in

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the next section. Nevertheless, for most Haitians, Protes­

tantism is defined in terms of Voudoun. That is, one be­

comes a Protestant because one wishes to give up the prac­

tices of Vodoun. The fine theological distinctions which

separate the various Protestant denominations are not par­

ticularly meaningful to Haitians. That all Protestant or­

ganizations oppose Vodoun and promise protection to those

who reject Vodoun is more significant. At the same time, in

its implacable opposition to traditional Vodoun, Protestant­

ism redefines Haitian religion. The careful distinction

which Vodounists make between the service of the family loua

and magic is eliminated. Protestants make no distinction be­

tween family loua and spirits which are considered to be

evil in Vodoun; all are followers of Satan. Conversion to

Protestantism does not usually involve rejection of the be­

lief system of Vodoun; rather it involves a reorientation

towards it. Most Protestant denominations take the position

that the "evil powers" which they believe to be inherent in

Vodoun are real. They, therefore, do not take the position

that Vodoun beliefs and practices are nothing but silly

superstitions. Instead Protestants agree with Vodounists

that the loua and houngan have real power. Thus Protestant­

ism tends to denigrate the traditional religious system

while at the same time it reaffirms the efficacy of Vodoun

practices.

There is ambiguity in the Protestant attitude towards

Vodoun, however. Converts frequently say of Vodoun, or

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specifically of the houngan or the loua, "pa gin anyin ladann"

("there is nothing in that"). This statement can either mean

that the powers attributed to Vodoun do not exist or that

they have not worked for the speaker. Intensive interviews

usually reveal the latter to be the case. An informant who

feels that she has been cheated by a houngan may be inclined

to say that houngan in general are frauds. But at the same

time she indicates her concern about leaving the protective

fold of the Protestant congregation. If Vodoun "really" had

"nothing to it" the convert would feel less need to adhere

to the strict requirements of Protestantism. In this respect

Protestantism gives rise to surprisingly few skeptics, while

at the same time most Haitians entertain a certain skepticism

about their traditional belief system.

Protestants are the equivalent of katolik fran in that

both have rejected Vodoun practices. Protestants often refer

to katolik fran as fellow bon krétiin, "good Christians." (In

other contexts the term is used to mean the "human body.")

But the Protestants distinguish themselves doctrinally from

the katolik fran on two grounds. First, the Catholics have

images of saints in their churches in spite of Biblical in­

junctions against such images. The images of saints can

easily be confused with ideas about the loua, according to

the Protestants. Secondly, and more importantly, the Prot­

estants base their religion on a literal interpretation of

the Bible, which the Catholics tend to ignore.

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The Biblical authority of Protestantism is distin­

guished from the personal authority which Haitians perceive

to operate in Vodoun and in Catholicism. The houngan or

mambo receives his or her authority from ritual efficacy.

The Catholic priest receives his authority from a position

in an institutional hierarchy; but this authority is per­

ceived as personal in that Catholic congregants receive in­

structions from the priest himself. Protestantism, to the

contrary, claims to receive its authority from the written

word of God which is available to all. In sermons Protestant

preachers sometimes declare: "It is not I who am telling you

this; it is in the Bible." The authority of Protestantism

is perceived as being derived from a text which is objective

and which ideally can be learned by anyone. In practice,

few Haitians can read the Bible.

Because Haitians associate Protestantism with the

literate skills required to read the Bible, they associate

Protestantism with education and more broadly with socio­

economic development. A phrase often repeated by Haitian

informants is "Pei a vinn pi ékléré" ("The country has be­

come more enlightened"). This phrase is used to describe

many changes in Haitian life, from the building of roads to

greater educational opportunities. It is also used to de­

scribe Protestantism, and is so used even by Catholics.

There is an identification of Protestantism with the socio­

economic development of the United States. Several Protes­

tant informants saw their conversion as a contribution to

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Haiti's "development." This was particularly true of inform­

ants in Savanne Palmiste who had joined the Evangelical

Brethren, the missionary group most actively involved in com­

munity and agricultural development. For these informants

Vodoun is a symbol of Haiti's "backwardness." They viewed

their involvement in Protestantism as the key to the develop­

ment of a new kind of community organization in the village.

The idea that Protestantism and community development are

related was reinforced by the fact that one of the two com­

munity agents who worked in the village for the Ministry of

Agriculture was a Protestant. One Sunday during my field­

work he arrived from Port-au-Prince with a mision, that is a

group which spent the morning evangelizing in the village.

They centered their activities in the building which was

used for the community agricultural cooperative, a posture

which further suggested a relationship between between de­

velopment and conversion.

In contrast to Vodoun, Protestantism is seen as a re­

ligion which is not indigenous or autochthonous. In general,

Protestantism is seen as a foreign religion, in particular

as a religion from the United States. This is the case even

where no foreign missionary is directly attached to a congre­

gation. The Haitian members of the administrative hierarchy

of a Protestant mission are perceived as representatives of

the foreign director of the mission. Even when the Protes­

tant organization is entirely Haitian in its personnel and

resources it is perceived as coming from a center of power.

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usually Port-au-Prince, outside of the village.

Finally, Protestantism is perceived as involving a

life style which is contrary to many features of ordinary

Haitian life. Not only traditional religious activities are

spurned, but also other social activities such as secular

dancing, smoking, drinking, and swearing. Unregularized

marriage (plasaj) is forbidden to those who would be bap­

tized in a Protestant church. Most of these activities are

indulged in by men more than by women. Polygyny, for ex­

ample, is not uncommon, but polyandry is unheard of in rural

areas. Undoubtedly this is one reason why fewer men convert

to Protestantism than women.

Some North American Protestant missionaries maintain

that those aspects of Haitian life which Protestantism re­

jects are an important cause of Haiti's poverty: in other

words, that Haiti is poor because it people are sinful. A

corollary of this concept is that the United States is

wealthy because its people are sanctified. One missionary

made this point explicitly. He told me that the United

States was rich because of its religious and family life.

For him the proof of this assertion was that it was the

United States and the United States alone which produced a

Billy Graham. Thus Haiti's poverty vis-à-vis the United

States is rationalized on spiritual grounds. Not all Hai­

tians, however, have accepted this thesis. It was the sub­

ject of debate on one of the dusty truck rides I took from

Port-au-Prince to Savanne Palmiste.

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The Range of Protestant Denominations

While Protestantism is viewed by Haitians as being uni­

tary when seen in opposition to Vodoun, the great diversity

of Protestant beliefs and styles is also perceived by them.

The Protestant denominations represented in Haiti cover the

gamut of varieties of denominations found elsewhere. The

Episcopal Church is very close to the Catholic Church in be­

lief and organizational structure. The Sunday Solemn High

Mass at the Episcopal cathedral in Port-au-Prince is very

elaborate; the incense used almost chokes the congregation.

The Methodist Church is very strict in maintaining the deco­

rum of its congregations. People who begin to tremble with

religious excitement are removed from the church as if they

had become ill. In contrast are the Pentecostal churches, in

which such behavior is approved and even induced. The

Seventh Day Adventists eschew pork and hold their services on

Saturdays; they have attracted relatively few converts at

Savanne Palmiste because their beliefs are too contradictory

to Haitian tastes.

The range of Protestant beliefs systems and practices

in Haiti is best seen as a spectrum. When Haitians view the

range of Protestant denominations they are more concerned

with differences in behavior than in the theological or bib­

lical charters for the behavior. The basis of the spectrum

of the Protestant denominations in Haiti is the manner in

which they view and treat trance behavior or enthusiastic

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behavior, especially during religious services. From the

point of view of those who stress decorum or calm behavior,

denominations at the other end of the spectrum encourage un­

ruliness and are "little better than Vodoun." From the

point of view of those who stress trance behavior as a sign

of sanctification, the other denominations are spiritually

"cold."

The crux of these distinctions is whether or not a

denomination accepts the validity of trance behavior as a

religious experience. Acceptance of the validity of such

behavior is what defines a denomination as Pentecostal. In

Haiti, Pentecostalism is not merely one type of Protestant

denomination among other types. Rather it is the feature by

which Protestant denominations are classified. The denomina­

tions which are designated as "Pentecostal" are distinguished

by the belief that the Holy Spirit can descend on His fol­

lowers as He did on the disciples of Jesus during the feast

of the Pentecost, as described in the Acts of the Apostles

(2:1-4). The Pentecostals believe in the Baptism of the Holy

Spirit as well as Baptism of Water. That is, they believe

that the Holy Spirit can send "gifts" to his followers in

the form of spiritual powers. The most salient of these

powers is the ability to "speak in tongues." In terms of

social science, "speaking in tongues" or glossolalia is a

behavioral manifestation of trance (see Goodman 1972). To

believers "speaking in tongues" is a gift of the Holy Spirit

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whereby the individual acquires the ability to speak in for­

eign or ancient languages in the same manner that the disci­

ples were able to speak to foreigners in Jerusalem after the

ascension of Jesus. Other "gifts" of the Holy Spirit include

the power to heal, to preach effectively, and in some

churches to interpret the "foreign" utterances of oneself or

others in glossolalia. Of these "gifts," glossolalia is the

most salient because it is the surest sign that the indivi­

dual has been "baptized by the Holy Spirit" as a special in­

dication of divine favor.

For most non-Pentecostal denominations, these beliefs

and practices are heretical. Other fundamentalist Christians

believe that such "gifts" were given to the disciples, but

they do not believe that modern individuals can be "baptized

by the Holy Spirit." For non-Pentecostal fundamentalist

Christians the claims of the Pentecostals are the work of

the Devil. Denominations such as the Baptists hold this

opinion very firmly.

In Haiti, a certain style of ritual accompanies Pente­

costal beliefs, Pentecostal religious services are "hot,"

that is, they are characterized by the clapping of hands, the

use of drums, dancing and shouting. These activities are

frowned upon by non-Pentecostal denominations. Some non-

Pentecostal Haitians maintain that because they have "hot"

services the Pentecostals resemble Vodounists. The term

"hot" is also used to describe Vodoun services, and is seen

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by Vodounists as an important element in the summoning of

the loua. But aside from general similarities, Pentecostal

dancing and music are carefully distinguished from those of

Vodoun. The dance steps most commonly used in Pentecostal

services are simple in comparison with the elaborate chore­

ography of the Vodoun service. The Pentecostals call their

Western-style drums sinmbal in contrast to the African-type

Vodoun tanbou. But many other Protestants do not accept

these distinctions and say that the Pentecostal style of

service is a proof that they serve Satan rather than God.

Even among the Pentecostals there is considerable

variation. At an extreme end of the spectrum is a congrega­

tion in a rural area near Grande Anse. I was not able to

attend its services, but heard accounts of them from several

informants who had observed them. The church is called The

Army. The leader of this church claimed to become possessed

by Jesus, the Archangel Gabriel, the Morning Star and the

Dawn. He maintained that because he had the gift of prophecy

he no longer needed the Bible. The leaders of The Army in­

sisted that individuals exhibit trance behavior before be­

coming members of the church. This congregation was drawing

off members from more conventional Protestant congregations

because of the healing rituals which took place in its serv­

ices. For example, sick children were spat upon and the sign

of the cross was made over their heads with a Bible. If one

were to make a typology or religious forms in Haiti, it would

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be difficult to judge whether The Army was an innovative

form of Pentecostalism or an innovative form of Vodoun.

The Church of the New Word, which has a congregation

at Savanne Palmiste, falls between The Army and the more

conventional Pentecostal churches. The Church of the New

Word accepts the authority of the Bible, but adds to it the

"messages" received by members of the denomination who are

"prophets" and "prophetesses." These men and women make ut­

terances often while in trance, which are perceived as com­

munications from the Holy Spirit. The prophet can usually

interpret what was said in the "foreign language." The New

Word Church encourages dancing more than other Pentecostal

churches, and a specific portion of its services is devoted

to public dancing. This is called the "joy" (joua) . At the

core of those who participate in the joua is the "heavenly

army" (lamé sêlès), a group of women who dance in a circle

in the center of the church building or shelter. The women

wear white dresses and usually follow the lead of a prophet

or prophetess. There are striking parallels between this

ritual form and the white-robed hounsi dancing around the

center of the pêristil with their houngan or mambo. This and

other similarities have not escaped the notice of those who

criticize the New Word Church, calling it "a houngan church"

("youn légliz houngan").

The Church of the Gospel, with a congregation at

Grande Anse, is much more "conventional" in imitating its

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parent denomination in the United States. The role of proph­

et and the interpretation of the "tongues" are forbidden.

Congregants stand and shift their feet during songs, but

dancing is not a usual part of the service. Trance behavior

is accepted and encouraged to a certain extent, but it is not

an essential part of ritual. The pastor of the congregation

at Grande Anse is watchful lest influences which he consid­

ers to be non-Biblical enter into the behavior of his con­

gregation.

Complex as the variation in belief and behavior is

among the Pentecostal churches, they may all be placed in

contrast to non-Pentecostal denominations. The Evangelical

Brethren, who have a congregation at Savanne Palmiste, con­

sider their ritual behavior to be very distant from that of

the Pentecostals. The Evangelical Brethren do not clap

their hands or use musical instruments of any kind. They

sing many of the same hymns as the Pentecostals, but use the

original American and European melodies without adding any

Haitian rhythmic interpretations. The service consists of

prayer, a calm sermon and a discussion of a passage of the

Bible. Trance behavior would be considered unthinkable at

an Evangelical Brethren service.

A final note on the meaning of the term "Pentecostal"

is needed. The term is generally used to describe a funda­

mentalist Protestant denomination which believes in "speak­

ing in tongues." The Pentecostal denominations are of

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American origin, having been established in the first de­

cades of this century (Galley 1965). The term has more re­

cently been used to describe "charismatic" movements within

non-Pentecostal congregations. In Haiti the term "Pente­

costal" (Fr., pentecôtiste) is used by educated people in

the same way as in English. Most people do not use the word

"Pentecostal" to refer to churches which practice trance be­

havior, however. Haitians more commonly say that a church

has "manifestations" (manifèstasion), that is to say, pos­

sessions, by the Holy Spirit.

Characteristics of the Congregations Observed

All of the Protestant congregations which I observed

exist in a complex socio-religious environment which includes

other Protestant organizations as well as Vodoun and Catho­

licism. Grande Anse supports no fewer than seven Protestant

organizations in the town itself and two more just outside

the town. Savanne Palmiste, with a population of about a

third that of Grande Anse (4,100 versus 12,000), supports

eight Protestant organizations. To a certain extent, as we

saw in the last chapter, these Protestant organizations com­

pete with each other to attract converts. A study of the

socio-economic characteristics of the whole range of Protes­

tant congregations is outside the scope of this dissertation.

Furthermore it would be difficult to obtain accurately the

kinds of economic data, such as household income, which

would be needed in such a study. Nevertheless, I would

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hypothesize that Protestant churches at different points in

the range of Protestant beliefs and rituals attract differ­

ent kinds of converts. Whether a Protestant church is a

part of a mission organization or not would also be an impor­

tant factor in determining the characteristics of the congre­

gation.

I would further hypothesize that churches at the "calm"

or "cold" end of the spectrum attract more affluent converts

who, among other things, wish to dissociate themselves from

cultural elements which resemble those of Vodoun. Churches

which are "hotter," I would hypothesize, attract converts

who are less able to make an effort towards upward social

mobility and have no reason to discard the exhibition of af­

fect, trance behavior, and the function of entertainment from

their religion. A third hypothesis would be that mission

churches attract converts with greater resources than non­

mission churches. Mission organizations are discussed fur­

ther in the following section.

Of all of the Protestant churches in Grande Anse it­

self, the Church of the Gospel was the only one which was

Pentecostal. Its congregation was composed of people from

the poorer economic strata. Several of the men in the con­

gregation were from the lowest stratum: they lived in the

poorhouse, not far from the church. The Sunday service col­

lection from a congregation of about thirty-five adults

averaged about $2.40. In terms of employment and housing

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the members of the Church of the Gospel congregation were

among the most impoverished elements in the town. Those who

were employed held positions such as laborer and petty ven­

dor. Most of the congregants lived in areas of the town

which were not supplied with running water or with the spo­

radic electric current which served the more affluent neigh­

borhoods of the town. Several informants who attended serv­

ices at the Church of the Gospel commented that they felt

more comfortable there than at other churches in the town

because they did not have to wear expensive clothes. It was

acceptable to come to weekday services barefoot, and on

Sundays sandals would suffice in place of the shoes which

were compulsory at other churches.

In Savanne Palmiste the Church of the New Word, the

"hottest" church in the village, had congregants which

seemed to be poorer than those of the other churches in the

area. Differences in economic status are much less marked in

Savanne Palmiste than in Grande Anse, and because rural in­

habitants tend to conceal their wealth impressions are even

more fallible than they are in the town. Nevertheless, few

members of the New Word Church lived in houses with corru­

gated iron roofs, the clearest sign of some kind of afflu­

ence. Congregants did not wear shoes to services; in fact,

it was mandatory that they be barefoot.

The mission churches in Savanne Palmiste attracted a

wider range of congregant, from very poor to somewhat more

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affluent than those in the New Word Church. The two largest

mission churches, the Tabernacle and its rival, the Bethesda

Church, were both Pentecostal, though somewhat "cooler" than

the New Word Church. One key informant, who was considered

to be the unofficial historian of the village, said of the

various Protestant congregations in Savanne Palmiste that

"those with money prefer to be with others with money and

those without money prefer to be with others without money."

The mission churches tended to attract converts who could af­

ford to send their children to school, especially during the

period when only Protestant children were admitted (a policy

which was altered because of the objections of Catholics).

The non-Pentecostal Church of the Evangelical Brethren,

which is unequivocally the "coldest" Protestant organization

in Savanne Palmiste, has a congregation which is strikingly

different from that of the other Protestant churches there,

especially the New Word Church. The Evangelical Brethren

are generally more affluent and more educated than the aver­

age resident of the village. One of their most striking

characteristics is that they are almost all literate--and

even more striking--literate in Haitian Creole. Men and

women do not usually convert to the Evangelical Brethren

Church as individuals, but with their spouses and children.

Many of the men in the congregation are members of the

"elite" of the village: the leaders in community development,

in agricultural production, in special skills. In part they

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have achieved their positions through the offices of the

mission, which is involved in community development activi­

ties in the village. In part they held "elite" status before

their conversion. The congregation includes shopkeepers,

carpenters, teachers and a number of jitney drivers who spend

their weekdays in the capital. Motivations for conversion

to this church were also strikingly different from those of

other Protestant denominations, as we shall see in Chapter

Nine.

While the Evangelical Brethren congregation is almost

evenly divided between men and women, the Pentecostal congre­

gations which I observed had a preponderance of women. On

an average Sunday the congregation of the Church of the

Gospel at Grande Anse consisted of about twenty women and

about fifteen men. Attendance at the Tabernacle and Bethesda

Churches in Savanne Palmiste varied from a ratio of almost

one-to-one (for a special occasion) to almost two women for

each man. The congregation of the New Word Church at Savanne

Palmiste was almost entirely female. Usually about twenty

women attended Sunday services. The men present were the

deacon, the preacher, the prophet, an aspiring prophet and

one other man, a self-styled evangelist who was something of

a laughing stock. The preponderance of women in the New

Word Church will be discussed further in a later section of

this chapter and in Chapter Eight.

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Mission Versus Non-Mission Churches

The categorization of the various Protestant denomina­

tions in terms of patterns of belief and ritual behavior is

important to the understanding of Protestantism in Haiti, as

we have seen in previous sections of this chapter. Equally

important is an understanding of the missionary aspect of

Haitian Protestantism. Statistical data are not available,

but it is clear from my observations and those of others

that most Haitian Protestant congregations are attached to a

central administrative organization. Most of these organiza­

tions are overseas missions of Protestant organizations in

the United States. In addition there are several Protestant

organizations which are entirely Haitian. One is the Baptist

organization in Jacmel, which was mentioned in the first

section of this chapter. Another is the Church of the New

Word. All of the Haitian congregations which I encountered

that were not affiliated with a larger organization were

looking for the means to do so. The pastor of the Church of

the Gospel at Grande Anse, with whom I traveled fairly exten­

sively in rural areas, was petitioned by a local congregation

for affiliation with the American-based Church of the Gospel.

The leader of this congregation expressed the importance of

"going international."

Every Protestant congregation which I observed in

Haiti had a history of contact with a mission organization

or with a national Haitian church administration. Some con­

gregations are founded directly by a mission organization.

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Such is the case with the Church of the Gospel at Grande

Anse. In the early 1970s the American leaders of the mission

hierarchy decided that they wanted to evangelize in Grande

Anse. They sent a pastor there with a small group of fol­

lowers who preached in the streets of the town and attracted

the attention of both Catholics and dissatisfied Protestants.

The congregation of the Church of the New Word in Savanne

Palmiste began in the same way. A pastor of that church came

to the village and rented a house from a family who were

members of another Pentecostal congregation, the Church of

the Light of the Prophecy. This family formed the core of

the new congregation, which was soon augmented by converts

from Catholicism and by other Protestants. "Stealing from

the church" (volé légliz) is a problem which besets many

communities with more than one Protestant congregation. The

phrase does not refer to stealing from the poor box (for in

any case there is none) but stealing members of a congrega­

tion. This common practice is also called "adultery of the

church" (adilitè légliz).

The history of the Tabernacle, yet another Pentecostal

congregation in Savanne Palmiste, illustrates some of these

processes. The Tabernacle congregation was founded by a man

who came to the village with his wife, who had been born in

Savanne Palmiste but had moved to Port-au-Prince. This man,

whose name is Voltaire, had been made a preacher in a mission

church in Port-au-Prince. He began the congregation in a

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small shelter (tonèl) outside his house. A small congrega­

tion of this type which has not yet built a church is called

a kil (from Fr., culte). One day an American came to Savanne

Palmiste because he wished to establish a mission there.

Fortunately for Voltaire, the Haitian interpreter accompany­

ing the American missionary (who spoke neither French nor

Creole) was a friend of Voltaire's. They had met through

Protestant connections in Port-au-Prince. The interpreter

directed the American to Voltaire's house and a relationship

between them was established. A year or so after they met

the American began to build a new church for the Tabernacle.

The cinder block and corrugated iron church is now the most

imposing structure in the village. It houses a primary

school during the week, enlarged from classes which were

once held in Voltaire's tonèl. The size of the congregation

grew rapidly, with both Catholics converting and Protestants

leaving their less dynamic congregations.

Before meeting the American missionary Voltaire had

built up a considerable local reputation as a religious

healer. The healing activities of the congregation appar­

ently continue much in the same way as they did before it

became affiliated with the mission. But now there are new

conditions. The Tabernacle has been a successful church in

local eyes because it has managed to attract foreign inter­

est. Having some connection with the hierarchy of the mis­

sion is believed to bring material benefits to the members

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of the congregation. This is certainly true. The Taber­

nacle maintains its school, provides inexpensive weddings

and occasionally distributes gifts of food. But at the same

time some have been disappointed by the mission. One man be­

came the deacon partly in hope of obtaining some financial

remuneration. But after a year in the office, and after

having invested in a suit and a pair of shoes, he complained

that he received nothing. He felt that if he could only ex­

plain his problem to the American missionary (who still

spoke only a few words of Creole) it would be solved. There

were other disappointments in the expansion of the church

activities. The growth of the school did not create new jobs

for local residents. The new positions went to people from

outside Savanne Palmiste who were already known to the mis­

sionary.

The first pastor of the Tabernacle, whose administra­

tive authority eclipsed that of Voltaire, was said to have

been a good pastor because he had connections with a variety

of Americans and was able to obtain many gifts for the local

congregation. But he had his own aspirations and used these

same connections to obtain a position in the United States.

The pastor who succeeded him died shortly after assuming his

post at Savanne Palmiste. He had a motorcycle which he used

to travel to and from Port-au-Prince and was killed in an

accident. The current pastor of the Tabernacle is the fourth

to hold the position. He is a young man who took the

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position even before he had completed his biblical studies.

He succeeded his own brother, who was transferred to another

congregation of the expanding Tabernacle mission organiza­

tion. The older brother used his influence with the Ameri­

can missionary to obtain the post he was vacating for the

young man.

Voltaire objected to this nepotism, and was driven

from the church. Exactly how this happened was difficult to

determine. Voltaire himself was the only informant who

agreed to discuss it. He claimed that a group in the con­

gregation who were jealous of him plotted with the young

pastor to tell the American missionary that Voltaire had

consulted a houngan. This tale sounds preposterous, especi­

ally since Voltaire was a healer in competition with the

houngan, but it may be true. In any case, a small group of

loyal followers decided to join Voltaire, abandoning their

impressive church building to hold services once again in

his small tonèl. In a sermon Voltaire promised his new con­

gregation that "with the help of the Holy Spirit" he would

find them an even richer American than the first one he

brought to the village. In an interview he said that he had

a ready-made congregation for any American who might "need a

mission."

In the meantime, another Pentecostal mission entered

the same area of Savanne Palmiste where the Tabernacle was

located. An American missionary came to the village to find

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an appropriate site to build a church. The missionary was

introduced to an important man in the village whose wife was

a prominent member of the Tabernacle congregation. The mis­

sionary decided to rent a house in the compound of this

well-to-do couple and built a tonèl in their yard. This new

congregation, part of the Bethesda mission, thus began in

the same way as the New Word congregation. The Bethesda

church "stole" souls from the Tabernacle, just as the Taber­

nacle had done a few years before. The Bethesda mission has

now built an impressive church building, and its congrega­

tion is growing. The man in whose compound the church was

started is not himself a Protestant. He is an unusual man

whose religion is "development." He explained that people

had left the Tabernacle because they were looking for some

advantage (chache lavantay) in the Bethesda Church. His im­

pression was that they had not yet found the "profit" they

were seeking because the social services promised by the

missionary head of the Bethesda church had not yet fully

materialized. But by aligning themselves with the pastor of

the new church from the beginning they hoped to reap some of

the future benefits. The congregation of the Bethesda Church

was still fairly small, however, because its regulations

were much stricter than those of the Tabernacle.

During a "Sunday school" session I attended in one of

the Pentecostal churches in Savanne Palmiste, the congrega­

tion was memorizing a verse of the New Testament (Matthew

7:8). The verse in question was "He who seeks shall

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find . . . In French this verse is "Celui qui cherche

trouvera . . . Several members of the congregation, mix­

ing French with Haitian Creole, repeated the verse as "Celui

qui chef trouvera . . which translates as "He who is the

boss shall find . . . This underlined a common perception

of the administrative hierarchy of the Protestant organiza­

tion: that it helps those who have rather than those who have

not. We have seen in the history of the Tabernacle at Sa­

vanne Palmiste that a connection with a mission hierarchy

can be very helpful indeed, for everyone from Voltaire him­

self, to the new young pastor, to the teachers in the new

school. We saw in an earlier section of this chapter how

some of the Evangelical Brethren congregants also benefitted

from their mission organization.

In general, no Haitian profits more from the adminis­

trative hierarchy than the pastor himself. Bible school

provides him not only with a fundamentalist religious educa­

tion which establishes him in a profession, but also with

the social skills which will enable him to make successful

contact with foreigners. English is the most important of

these skills. The American head of a biblical seminary in

Port-au-Prince told me that he was contemplating dropping

English from the curriculum. He feared that students would

use this skill to obtain permanent residency in the United

States. He had already sent three young Haitian men to the

United States for further Biblical training and suspected

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that at least one of them would not return to serve in the

mission's work in Haiti. The disappointed deacon of the

Tabernacle at Savanne Palmiste also knew the value of Eng­

lish, and felt cut off from the fruits of his position in

the hierarchy because of his lack of knowledge of English.

As mentioned in an earlier section of this chapter,

Protestantism is viewed in Haiti as a foreign, specifically

as an American, religion. This was not immediately obvious

as I began my fieldwork. The personnel in every congrega­

tion which I observed intensively were entirely Haitian.

The foreign missionary was a somewhat remote figure at the

top of the administrative hierarchy who made occasional

visits to the local congregations. On the surface, Haitian

Pentecostalism appeared to be almost entirely Haitian. That

this was an incomplete view was pointed out to me by a young

Catholic informant in Grande Anse. He drew my attention to

a small plaque at the front of the Church of the Gospel.

The plaque read, in English, "Donated in Memory of Elaine

MacDonald." I had seen the plaque before and to me it was a

curiosity. But to a Haitian it was a symbol of the wealth

and power of an organization which was able to build a

church building which, modest though it appeared to me, rep­

resented an investment far beyond the capacity of the popu­

lation from which the congregation was drawn. The plaque

established the Church of the Gospel as an outpost of Ameri­

can spiritual and material power.

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The image of Protestantism as North American becomes

much more apparent when a foreigner travels to parts of

Haiti outside the capital. The missionary presence is so

pervasive that almost all foreigners in rural areas are taken

for missionaries. Frequently I was approached by Haitians

who thought I was a missionary. Often they proclaimed them­

selves "fellow" Protestants and would demand gifts of money

on that basis. Or they would scold me for stinginess, ask­

ing how could I expect people to join my church if I didn't

give them anything. Like Voltaire they assumed that mis­

sionaries "needed" their congregations and would be willing

to pay for them. They perceived that the mission hierarchy

offered one of the few possibilities for well being, however

remote, and wished to attach themselves to it. The mission­

ary seemed to represent all of the wealth of the United

States, and they identified the development of this wealth

with Protestantism. Missionary Protestantism in Haiti gives

rise less to a "Protestant ethic" of self-help than to the

idea that the way to worldly success is identified with a

direct dependence on the foreign missionary, just as the way

to spiritual power and to health is identified with a direct

reliance on the protection of God.

The Structure of Protestant Church Organizations

Almost all of the Protestant churches which I observed,

Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal, mission and non-mission.

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have a sharply defined hierarchical structure. Almost all

share the same grades in the structure, which are as follows:

1. Licensed pastor (Fr.,pasteur licence)

2. Pastor (Fr., pasteur)

3. Assistant pastor (Fr., sous-pasteur)

4. Preacher (Fr., prédicateur)

5. Deacon (Fr., diacre)

6. Sunday school teacher (Fr., moniteur)

7. Member (Fr., membre)

8. Believer (Fr., croyant)

In addition to this hierarchy there is a group of women

called the "missionary ladies" (Fr., dames missionaires).

Many Protestant churches also have a small group of men, the

"committee" (Fr., comité), who advise the pastor. The Church

of the New Word, as we have seen, adds the roles of prophet

(Fr., prophète) and prophetess (Fr., prophétesse).

There is a great gap between the position of licensed

pastor and the other grades in the hierarchy. The licensed

pastor is a man who has not only been ordained by the church,

but recognized by the state as well. In some respects the

licensed pastor is an officer of the state. The marriages he

performs are legal in the eyes of the state as well as sanc­

tified in the eyes of the church. He keeps birth records for

the children of his congregants, and he may help to repre­

sent people who must appear before the military and civil

authorities. One of my principal informants was a licensed

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pastor. He not only had his own congregation in Grande Anse,

but spent a great deal of his time traveling to congrega­

tions in the countryside surrounding Grande Anse in his capa­

city as district supervisor for the area. I accompanied him

on a number of such trips, the longest lasting ten days. On

these trips his most important official function was to per­

form marriages. But he also performed baptisms, led serv­

ices, and perhaps most importantly, settled disputes between

congregations or congregation leaders. He considered one of

his most sacred duties to be the careful observation of be­

havior during religious services, to insure that undesirable

tendencies had not emerged. For example, he observed the

forms that spirit possession took, the use of musical instru­

ments, testimony. In one congregation, a rattle was being

used as a musical instrument. A far more serious problem

arose in another congregation when a man claimed to have re­

ceived the revelation that he was a prophet and could cure

people. The licensed pastor firmly banned any further such

activities.

Both the licensed pastor and the pastor have attended

a seminary and have been graduated from it. The assistant

pastor is often a seminary student or a recent graduate who

has not yet received a congregation "of his own," but is get­

ting some practical experience. The local pastor usually

directs a fairly large local congregation to which are at­

tached a number of smaller, satellite congregations called

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"stations" stasion, (Fr., stations). Pastors are distin­

guished from their congregations by being educated men.

They can read French, they can write, they are "diplômé."

Nevertheless, even the licensed pastor of the Church of the

Gospel at Grande Anse spoke French only haltingly. He could

read French easily to himself--and even could read some Eng­

lish- -but he read French aloud with some difficulty. The

American superintendent of the Church of the Gospel told me

that he distinguished between two types of pastor: the older,

quieter type and the younger, more dynamic type. This ob­

servation accorded with my own. The district supervisor was

of the "older type." For a time he was joined by a younger

assistant pastor who preached in the streets in a French-like

Creole which the congregants found prestigious.

Most pastors are not very different from their neigh­

bors in social class, occupation or behavior. Even the dis­

trict supervisor of Grande Anse grows much of his own food

on a plot provided by the church. Younger pastors try to

learn a skill like tailoring before they complete their Bib­

lical studies because the money they receive from the church

will not support their families sufficiently. The district

supervisor lived in a two-room house with his wife and nine

children. It would be wrong to suggest, however, that he

was poorer than his neighbors. He owned a horse, a mule and

a bicycle, all of which he used in his travels. He also

owned several pairs of shoes and more than one suit. But

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his wife complained that she did not have enough money for

medical care for herself and her children.

Unlike the pastor, who may be sent by the church or

mission administration to a post away from home, the preacher

and deacon usually are local men. In mission churches they

usually have taken a correspondence course in the study of

the Bible. Formally, the principal function of the preacher

is to deliver sermons, while the deacon is an assistant to

the pastor. In practice, preachers and deacons may fulfill

both functions. Often the preacher or deacon is the head of

a station (stasion, kil), a small religious center, usually

in a simple thatch shelter called a tonèl, which is affili­

ated with a church. In churches, preachers and deacons may

lead services when the pastor is unable to do so. They of­

ten also act as Sunday school teachers, a role which women

are permitted to take as well. Many preachers and deacons

aspire to become pastors. The old preacher of the Church of

the Gospel at Grande Anse confided that he hoped that the

pastor would recommend him for admission to the biblical sem­

inary. In fact, there was no chance that he would be ad­

mitted. On his travels to rural missions, the licensed pas­

tor is sometimes presented with students to be considered

for the ministry. In this aspect of his role he is per­

ceived as a prime link to foreign resources and to one of

the few possibilities for social and economic mobility. One

of the things that scornful Catholics say about Protestants

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is that "they all just converted to they could become pas­

tors . "

All converts to Protestantism fall into two categories;

members and believers. The difference between them is that

the members have been baptized as adults by full immersion

in water. Most of the Protestant denominations in Haiti

practice adult baptism by full immersion. A person does not

receive an identification card indicating that he or she is

a member of a Protestant church until he or she has been bap­

tized. With membership comes the right to receive communion

and to participate in members' meetings. A person is bap­

tized only after several months of religious instruction.

Literacy is not a requirement for this instruction, but the

student must memorize various verses of the Bible. To be­

come a member a person must also "lead a good life." A per­

son living in plasaj, common-law marriage, must be legally

married in the church before becoming a member. The Protes­

tant churches make an attempt to provide inexpensive wed­

dings, in contrast to the Catholic church, which charges a

fee for performing the ceremony. Protestant church members

must also eschew drinking, smoking, dancing, and of course

any connection with the loua, the houngan or the mambo.

It is important to understand that conversion to Prot­

estantism does not mean becoming a member of a Protestant

church organization. Rather it means becoming a "believer,"

a person who takes part in church activities but has not been

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baptized. The category of believer makes Protestantism less

strict than it at first seems to be, particularly with re­

gard to marital status. For example, a woman who has not yet

convinced her husband to marry her legally may consider her­

self a "levan.iil" and may participate in all church activi­

ties except communion and members' meetings. Believers have

access to the direct protection of God, just as members do.

One informant in Savanne Palmiste stated that the Protestant

churches were "easier" than the Catholic Church, an unusual

statement for a Protestant. What she meant was that she was

able to approach God in the Protestant church even though

she had not regularized her marital situation. Her conten­

tion was that the Catholic priest would not grant her direct

access to God until she became married.

In many Protestant churches there is a committee of

men who help the pastor to oversee the activities of the

church. They act as a formal liaison between the local con­

gregation and the pastor as a representative of the larger

administrative hierarchy. In the Church of the Gospel at

Grande Anse the committee has two counselors (Fr., conseil­

leurs ), one of whom is also the treasurer (Fr., trésorier).

The committee checks the pastor's accounts of the income and

expenses of the church. They also consult with the pastor

about any complaints which may arise or about improper be­

havior on the part of any church member.

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The dames missionaires are a part of all Protestant

churches. This is a group made up of the female members of

the congregation, headed by a president. The purpose of the

"missionary ladies'" group is to prepare the reception of any

visiting groups from other congregations. These visiting

groups are called "missions" (mision). The "missionary la­

dies" prepare food for the visitors and see that they have

mats to sleep on in the church. Beyond this overt function,

the "missionary ladies'" group forms a core group for ritual

activities. The "missionary ladies" meet in each other's

homes for fasts and prayer services. In the Church of the

New Word, the "missionary ladies" are the core of the Heav­

enly Army. Ideally, all female members of a congregation

are members of the "missionary ladies'" group. In fact, not

all participate fully, and the president of the group may

have to harangue her sisters to contribute their labor to

the preparation of food for visitors.

Protestants in Haiti refer to fellow Protestants as

"Brother So-and-So" and "Sister So-and-So." They often ad­

dress each other as "brother" (frè) and "sister" (sè) as

well. Occasionally Catholics will also use the fictive kin

appellation when referring to a Protestant as well. Catho­

lics do not, however, use the terms to refer to themselves.

The use of these terms among Protestants is common in many

countries. It should be noted that the use of "brother" and

"sister" is commonly used in greetings in Haiti. Among the

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positions in the hierarchy, only "pastor" is used regularly

in personal reference. When addressing each other, pastors

may also use the more familiar, abbreviated "pas," a term a

lay person would rarely use.

Male and Female Roles

In the previous section we saw that there is something

of a sexual division of labor in the administrative roles of

the Protestant church. In this section male and female

roles in Protestantism, particularly in Pentecostalism, will

be compared with those in Vodoun. In both Protestantism and

Vodoun, both men and women have equal access to supernatural

power. In Vodoun, the loua appear to both men and women in

dreams, possess both sexes, and can be summoned by either

men or women in divination. On the symbolic level, it is

striking that a loua of a given sex may possess a human of

either sex. Ezili, the beautiful coquette, is not concerned

that she possess only a beautiful woman; she is just as

likely to possess a man. Even in dreams, as we have seen,

the loua choose both male and female human figures to repre­

sent them.

In Vodoun, both men and women can attain positions of

the highest authority. There appears to be no functional

difference between the male houngan and the female mambo.

The two roles are equally prestigious. The equality of

houngan and mambo is expressed in the ritual greetings be ­

tween them (Metraux 1972:160): they prostrate to each other

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or kiss each other three times. This is strongly contrasted

with the greeting of houns i to houngan or mambo : the hounsi

kisses the ground three times before the Vodoun specialist.

The reputation of a houngan or mambo is not made by his or

her social characteristics, including sex. It is made

through ability at divination and curing. Nevertheless, it

is true that in rural areas, at least, there are more

houngan than mambo.

Kanzo initiation is also open to both men and women.

It is true that more women than men become hounsi ; but the

ritual is open to both. In the hounfb group made up of

hounsi, women take a more central part in the ritual, danc­

ing together in their white dresses around the central post

while male hounsi dance to the side. Male hounsi, almost as

if by way of compensation, are given special roles, such as

that of drummer or of laplas, the man who carries the cere­

monial sword and other ritual paraphernalia.

Many features of Protestantism, especially of Pente­

costalism, are parallel to those of Vodoun. As with initia­

tion in Vodoun, more women than men convert to Protestantism.

But again just as in Vodoun, men and women have equal access

to supernatural power. God makes no more distinction between

men and women in this regard than do the loua. The prayer of

a man is no more powerful than the prayer of a woman. There

are no restrictions according to sex about who can be bap­

tized. For those Protestants who believe that dreams are

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communications from God, equality of the sexes is the same

as in Vodoun. In the Pentecostal churches, both men and

women may receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit. As in Vo­

doun, possession takes place at the discretion of the deity,

not the human instrument.

Even though access to supernatural power is equally

available to men and women without regard to their sex, wo­

men do participate more fully in the ritual activities of

the church. In the preceding section we saw that the female

members of the church form the "missionary ladies'" group.

In the following section we will see more of their ritual

activities.

There is often a segregation of the sexes in the Prot­

estant churches that one does not find in the traditional

religion. In many Protestant churches, for example, the men

sit on one side of the church, the women on the other. In

the Church of the Gospel the men were called the "Ambassa­

dors" and the women were called the "Sentinels." The col­

lection at Sunday services took the form of a contest be­

tween these two groups. The group which contributed the most

money was given a banner with the word "Offering" (Fr.,

Collecte) embroidered on it. A similar contest was held for

attendance, with a banner embroidered with "Presence" (Fr.,

Presence) as the prize. This ritual segregation of the

sexes also takes place during Sunday school classes.

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Beyond this symbolic segregation of the sexes, Protes­

tantism differs from Vodoun in that it has an administrative

structure, as we have seen. Authority in Protestantism is

not based on personal charisma or reputation as a healer, as

it is in Vodoun. Most authority in the Protestant missions

is dependent on a position in the administrative hierarchy.

The role of pastor, the highest to which a Haitian Protes­

tant can aspire, is closed to women. In the mission churches,

this means that women are all but shut out of the role of

broker in relationships with the North American missionary.

Not only is the role of pastor reserved for men--on biblical

grounds--but also the roles of translator, clerk and adminis­

trator. Even when the foreign mission director is a woman,

her Haitian assistants are men. A woman may be an accom­

plished public orator, as all can see in the way she gives

"testimony," but she is forbidden to preach. A woman may

teach Sunday school lessons, but usually she is not permitted

to sit on the local church committee. As a Haitian sociolo­

gist (and Protestant pastor) has written (Bruno 1967:48):

. . . le sexe determine dans une large mesure le part que nos intéressés prennent à l'administration, ou en d'autres termes, que les femmes protestantes se voient moins dans l'administration que les hommes. [Sex de­ termines to a large extent the part which our subjects take in the administration, or in other words, that the Protestant women see themselves less in the administra­ tion than they see men there.]

If there are more administrative advantages for men

than for women in Protestantism, why then do we see more w o ­

men converting than men? One answer is simple : although

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Protestantism does offer men certain advantageous roles

which are denied to women, the number of these roles is very

few. Only a small minority of the men who convert find a

position, even at the local level, in the administrative

hierarchy. A common figure among Haitian Protestants is the

man who roams from Protestant mission to Protestant mission,

converting himself again and again in search of a position

which will bring him prestige and perhaps some monetary re­

ward as well. The gap between the ritual activities of the

Protestant church, conducted largely by women, and the ad­

ministrative activities, conducted almost entirely by men,

became apparent at a fast which I attended in Savanne

Palmiste. The service was held in the home of one of the

missionary ladies of the Bethesda Assembly, and all of the

participants but three were women (excluding myself). All

of the women sat on mats on the floor, sang rhythmic Creole

songs, spoke in tongues, and prayed over each other. The

three men present were the new pastor, the deacon and a

former school teacher. The pastor, a young man just

graduated from Bible school and very fond of his urbane

French-sounding Creole, had never been to a fast before in

Savanne Palmiste. He looked uncomfortable and out of place

in this setting, and tried to interject melodic French hymns

into the service. The deacon had converted the year before,

following his wife, a Protestant of twenty years' standing.

He became a dea on in the hope of receiving a small salary.

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but had so far been disappointed. The third man, a laughing

stock in the community, was wavering in his allegiance be­

tween this and another congregation, in the hope of being

reinstated as a school teacher or becoming some kind of an

assistant to the pastor. This was the third Protestant

group with which he had been affiliated. The three men stood

together in a corner of the small room. Their attempts to

direct the service seemed drowned in the cacophony of public

prayer and speaking in tongues which emanated from the wo­

men. None of the men sat on the floor. Nor did their shoes

join the pile of sandals that the women had made just out­

side the door of the house.

Like Vodoun, Protestantism offers avenues to spiritual

power equally to both sexes. But administrative power is

denied to women. Whereas in Vodoun women can attain the

highest structural status, in Protestantism they cannot.

The one benefit which women do obtain from the Protestant

legal administration is marriage. In the traditional system,

the Catholic church provides marriage. But the Protestants

have made marriage easily available and inexpensive. As we

have seen, it is not necessary to be a member of a Protes­

tant church to be married in it. Marriage confers prestige

on both men and women, but this prestige is more tangible in

a woman than a man. She has her wedding ring for all the

world to see, and even her mother calls her by her new mar­

ried name. She establishes her own rights to a man's

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property in a society where men may have more than one infor­

mal spouse, but women rarely do. She also acquires legiti­

mate inheritance rights for her children. But beyond this

she obtains access to few opportunities in the administra­

tive structure of the Protestant mission, though she does re­

ceive general benefits such as schooling or medical help if

they are provided. The Protestants affirm that they reach

higher than the Vodounists; they go beyond the earthy, almost

human loua to God Himself. Apparently, however, women cannot

rise to the same heights as men in this endeavor to serve

the male Deity.

Protestant Activities

The regularly scheduled services of the Church of the

Gospel at Grande Anse occupied at least fifteen hours each

week. Three services were held on Sunday. Evening services

were held in the church on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and in a

station on the opposite side of the town on Wednesdays and

Fridays. A morning prayer service was held every day in the

church; on Fridays this service extended into an all-morning

fasting service. Other occasional fasting services were

held in members' homes. Most congregants did not attend

even half of these activities, but some attended almost all

of them. Other Pentecostal churches studied during the

field research had similar schedules, although some were not

as complete as that of the Church of the Gospel. The New

Word Church in Savanne Palmiste, for example, met only three

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times each week, on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Most

Protestant churches in Haiti also conduct meetings of the

church members and Holy Communion services once a month.

In addition to this regular schedule are occasional

special events. Members of congregations make visits or

"missions" (mision) to other congregations or to areas with­

out a large number of Protestants. When a mision arrives at

a church a special service called a "convention" (Fr., con­

vention) is arranged. The convention features singing per­

formances by members of the two congregations. When a mass

baptism of adults is held there is often a convention in­

volving several congregations. All of the Pentecostal de­

nominations practice adult baptism by full immersion in

water, usually in a stream, a pond or the sea.

The standard service of every Pentecostal congregation

I observed followed the same general pattern. The service

begins with a series of hymns sung by the congregation.

Next an introductory prayer is said by a leader of the serv­

ice, followed by more hymns. (As we have seen, in the Church

of the New Word some of these hymn sessions are accompanied

by communal dancing.) Then the congregants get on their

knees for private prayer. Each person prays aloud, often

with hands in the air; the church or shelter is filled with

the cacophony of their voices. The cacophony ends with the

group saying the Lord's Prayer in unison. This is followed

by another series of hymns and the collection. The

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collection is followed by a period in which congregants give

"testimony," either singing a hymn "for the glory of God" or

recounting a problem which God helped to solve or for which

His help is sought. Sometimes congregants recount their

dreams during testimony, because dreams are often seen to be

messages from the Holy Spirit. The period of testimony is

followed by another prayer and the sermon. The service is

concluded by the "benediction" which is pronounced by the

pastor or senior male member of the congregation.

A fasting service (jènn) is like a service, except

that there is no collection or sermon. The fast is con­

ducted in the morning, beginning around seven and lasting

until eleven or twelve A.M. As was mentioned in an earlier

section of this chapter, most of the participants in the

fasting services are women. At the fast some congregants

may pray for others, standing over the person with their

hands on his or her head. Such prayer is often conducted at

the end of regular services as well.

It is striking, in the light of the title of this dis­

sertation, that I have not mentioned healing services in the

roster of Protestant, especially Pentecostal, activities.

In most of the Pentecostal congregations which I observed

there were no services specifically devoted to healing. The

Church of the New Word is an exception here. Occasionally

the prophet conducted a healing service at the end of a regu­

lar Sunday service. The healing service consisted of

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praying over individuals and anointing them with "holy oil"

in the form of inexpensive perfume. The home church of the

New Word Church, where its founder still lives, conducts more

elaborate healing rituals every week. The ritual consists of

a long service followed by the ritual bathing of the heads of

those who wished to participate in the healing service, fol­

lowed by anointment on the forehead. We have seen, too,

that The Army near Grande Anse had it own healing rituals.

Other Pentecostal churches which were observed had

healing activities embedded in other church services. For

many Pentecostals the chief healing activity is simply the

laying on of hands over a person who is ill or who wishes to

be protected from illness. This type of prayer may be con­

ducted by the pastor or by an individual who has the specific

"gift" of healing. These activities will be discussed fur­

ther in Chapter Eight.

In the religious activities described so far most Prot­

estant denominations exhibit a style of worship which is

quite different from that of the Catholic Church. Other

activities of the Protestant churches are parallel to those

of Catholicism, specifically rituals associated with the

life cycle. Weddings and funerals are very similar to those

performed by the Catholic priest or his surrogate, with one

important exception. The Protestant rituals are less elabo­

rate and thus less expensive, a factor making them--and thus

Protestantism--a very attractive proposition. The families

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of a couple who are to be married in a Protestant church are

spared the necessity in preparing an extravagant reception

with alcohol and musicians. Likewise, the survivors of a

Protestant who has died do not have to prepare an elaborate

coffin or conduct a novena followed by a feast.

The Protestant funeral is a good example of how Prot­

estants try to blend in with local life rather than overtly

oppose it. The services of the bather of corpses--usually a

man or a woman who is deeply involved with the loua and is

often suspected of being involved with magic as well--is

used by Protestants as much as Catholics. Protestants are

also buried in family plots or in the community cemetery

alongside their Catholic kin, equally under the sometimes

baleful, sometimes protective eye of Baron Samdi. One ex­

ample will suffice to show how the Protestants, in this ex­

ample a congregation of Pentecostals, in Savanne Palmiste,

accommodated their Catholic kin and neighbors. Lamalle was

a man who became Protestant when he married his wife, who

was a member of one of the local Pentecostal congregations.

His mother, however, was a "mambo" and a close associate of

Janvier, the houngan ason. Lamalle had tuberculosis, but

apparently did not seek treatment at the Savanne Palmiste

clinic. When his illness reached an advanced stage he r -2

in to his mother's entreaties and abandoned his church to

seek the diagnosis and treatment of Janvier. This treatment

failed, and Lamalle died a few days later. Apparently he

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returned to the Protestant fold just before his death,

probably to the great relief of his wife and son, who was

the deacon of the church. Not only was Lamalle granted a

Protestant funeral, but the local head of the congregation

graciously arranged for a Protestant prayer service to be

held nine days after his death in order to console Lamalle's

Catholic relatives.

A number of Protestant denominations, including the

Pentecostals, do not permit the baptism of infants, but they

have allowed for the "presentation" of infants born to con­

gregants. The chief function of the presentation is to pro­

vide the child with a set of godparents, which is such an

important element in Haitian social relations. The naming of

godparents is not a strictly orthodox thing for these Prot­

estant parents to do. But the practice is permitted.

While in ideological terms the Protestants are implac­

ably opposed to Vodoun, they rarely actively oppose the Vo-

dounist activities of their kin. Protestants do not attend

the sévis loua of their families, but they neither intervene

in such rituals nor conduct alternative rituals. In Savanne

Palmiste, at least, the Protestants, like the Vodounists,

take a live-and-let-live attitude toward such activities.

They are hardly in a position to do otherwise because they

are usually dependent upon their Catholic kin for many of

the necessities of life. In the same vein, both urban and

rural Protestants refrain from publicly preaching against

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Vodounists in their own neighborhood. They may hold a

prayer service "in the open air" as an example to their

neighbors, but militancy is avoided. More rigorous evangeli­

zation is conducted by mision who have come in from another

area. The message of the opposition of Protestantism to

Vodoun is delivered but without interpersonal complications.

Finally, this discussion of Protestant church activi­

ties is missing a dimension which one might have expected--

cooperation among congregants in non-church-related activi­

ties such as house-building and the preparation of fields.

I was surprised to observe that in both Grande Anse and

Savanne Palmiste such cooperation simply did not exist at

least among the Pentecostals. In the agricultural village

and the town Pentecostalism does not appear to have pene­

trated and altered economic and social activities other than

worship and healing. Pentecostals continue to mobilize al­

ready existing social networks for assistance in most ac­

tivities. It is important to note, however, that the Prot­

estant congregation does provide a framework which might be

used in future changes in social relations.

Some changes appear to have been effected already in

this way in the Port-au-Prince area. My observations of a

Pentecostal church near Port-au-Prince, the Army of the Lord,

were rather brief. But they provided enough data for some

generalizations and some speculations. The founder of the

Army of the Lord had broken off from one of the largest

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American Pentecostal mission groups and had not yet found

another mission group to sponsor his work. The congregation

was formed very largely of migrants from rural areas. Many

of these migrants had lived in other parts of the capital

before moving to the specific locality where the Army church

was located. What struck me about this congregation was

that several of them had formed households with each other,

living as "brothers and sisters" after they had broken with

their own families. For many this break with relatives in

the capital was a deliberate effort to construct new social

groupings. The solidarity afforded by involvement with the

Pentecostal church enabled these young people to make this

move. One young woman who had moved in with a Pentecostal

"sister" told me that she had repeatedly dreamed that she had

encountered a band of demons who attacked her. Each night

they chased her until she woke up. Finally one night she

was armed with a machete and was able to slay the demons.

When I asked her to describe the demons she said that they

were "disguised" as members of her family. For her, involve­

ment with the Pentecostal group represented an escape from

what she considered to be the restrictions of her family.

It would be interesting to know if Protestant congre­

gational networks will play a role in the expanding indus­

trial sector in Port-au-Prince. The congregation of the

Army of the Lord gave some indication that Pentecostal con­

nections could be useful in obtaining employment. One day

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in a jitney in Port-au-Prince several of my fellow passen­

gers were bitterly complaining that "you can't find a job

unless you show the factory your Protestant membership card."

This potentially important aspect of Protestantism will have

to await further research.

In this chapter we have looked at some of the most im­

portant aspects of Protestantism in Haiti. The two chapters

which follow are concerned with Haitian Pentecostalism in

particular. The focus is on those aspects of Pentecostalism

in Haiti which distinguish it from other types of Protestant­

ism there. Among the most distinctive features of Pentecos­

talism are trance behavior, spirit possession beliefs and

symbols which are not present or are not emphasized in other

Protestant denominations. These features are the subject of

the following chapter.

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SYMBOLISM, IDEOLOGY AND SPIRIT POSSESSION

IN HAITIAN PENTECOSTALISM

Images of Power and Confrontation

As we saw in the section on conversion in Chapter Five,

Protestantism offers the Haitian a haven from the powerful

evil spiritual and magical forces which operate in this

world. Metraux (1972:352) wrote quite accurately that "Prot­

estantism beckons as though it were a shelter, or more pre­

cisely, a magic circle, where people cannot be got at by loa

and demons." Protestantism--and especially Pentecostalism--

creates this image through a series of symbols of power and

confrontation. While Vodoun is a passive ideology, accepted

without the need for proseletyzing and open to other ideolo­

gies, Pentecostalism is an aggressive ideology. At this

point in its history in Haiti, Pentecostalism is engaged in

a jihad against Vodoun, claiming to represent the only truth

and excluding all other ideological elements.

In Gerlach and Hine's (1968, 1970) discussion of Pente-

cistalism as a social movement they isolate several factors

which are relevant to this problem. The first factor is a

dogmatic ideology. Gerlach and Hine (1968:34) "would agree

with Eric Hoffer that 'the effectiveness of a doctrine does

216

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not come from its meaning but from its certitude.'" (1951:

76). The meaning of Pentecostalism within Haitian culture

is certainly important, but the fact that Pentecostalism is

presented as impermeable and uncompromising with respect to

Vodoun is of the utmost importance. The success of Pentecos­

talism as a movement is also dependent on the sense of com­

mitment, by action and experience as well as thought, which

it demands (Gerlach and Hine 1968:32-33). Pentecostalism of­

fers absolute protection, but demands absolute allegiance. A

third important factor, related to the first two, is "real or

perceived opposition" (Gerlach and Hine 1968:36). A sense of

opposition tends to intensify commitment and to unify the lo­

cal group (Gerlach and Hine 1968:37). Gerlach and Hine (1968:

36) found that "where there is no longer much real opposition

from non-participants, a proportionately greater effort is

expended on describing it!"

All of these factors are present in the Haitian Pente­

costal movement. There is some resistance to Pentecostalism,

if not overt opposition; furthermore, there is always the

possibility of covert opposition on the part of Vodounists.

Pentecostals talk about how their enemies try to "probe"

(sonde) them by sending magic against them to test their

spiritual power. Gerlach and Hine (1968:36) write :

Although Voodoo does stand in opposition to a militant Pentecostalism, it is not a unified system. In many areas. Voodoo priests and their followers actively op­ pose the Pentecostals. Their chief weapons are black magic and threat--these the Pentecostals feel strong enough to overcome. Thus Voodoo provides a real and visible opposition against which Pentecostals can strive

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but it is not enough of an opposition to crush them. Pentecostals are, in fact, much more united against Voodoo than Voodoo is against them.

It is my impression that opposition to Pentecostals in Haiti

is more "perceived" than "real." For example, the prophet of

the New Word Church at Savanne Palmiste went on a preaching

tour (mision) to a nearby village. Trou Gaillard. The group

from Savanne Palmiste held a prayer service under a large

tree in the center of the village. The prophet reported that

after they left a local houngan tried to do them harm by rub­

bing out the prints their feet had made in the dust beneath

the tree. He received his information not from an eye­

witness account, but from a dream. On the other hand, some

opposition to the prophet may be real. He reported that

sometime in the past his house had been broken into and his

birth certificate as well as those of his children was stolen,

apparently for the purpose of being used against him magi­

cally. Several months later someone in the village turned

these documents over to the police, saying that they had been

found in the road. The prophet reclaimed the documents after

paying a fine. His conclusion was that "evil-doers" in

Savanne Palmiste had tried to do him in, but were unable to

do so. I was unable to verify this story, though a neighbor

(and fellow congregant) of the prophet confirmed it.

On the ideological level, Pentecostalism creates the

sense of a unified opposition from Vodoun by condensing the

various categories of spiritual beings in Vodoun into one

category. In their terminology at least Pentecostals make no

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distinctions among family loua, baka or mb. All of these

become movèz espri (Fr. mauvais esprit), a new category of

"evil spirit" placed in juxtaposition to the "spirits of God"

(espri Bon-Dib) . This redefinition of the categories of

spirits of Vodoun eliminates the fine distinctions Vodounists

make between loua who can protect a family and other beings

which can attack it. Pentecostals avoid the term loua, al­

though they sometimes use the more ambiguous term djab to

refer to family loua. Pentecostals do recognize that loua

can help a family and do have the power to heal and to reveal

the plans of enemies; but they believe that in the final

analysis the loua, for all their immediate benefits, deprive

their followers of the more powerful protection of Bon-Dib

Himself.

The principal sense of opposition that Pentecostals

feel, however, is not from Vodoun per se, nor even from their

identity as Pentecostals. This sense of opposition is rather

what Haitians call "pbsékision." At first I thought this

term referred to "religious persecution." Later I learned

that it means something closer to "personal harassment."

Pèsékision is a common theme in Haitian social interactions,

particularly in the extremely competitive economic transac­

tions. Converts feel that Pentecostalism gives them some

respite from this Hobbesian war of each against all. We will

return to this theme later in this chapter.

When speaking of their conversion or about the superi­

ority of their religion over Vodoun, Catholicism and other

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forms of Protestantism, Haitian Pentecostals use terms of

power (fbs or pouisans ; Fr. force or puissance). It was very-

striking to me that in the descriptions of Haitian Pentecos­

tals' ideas of moral superiority of their churches were secon­

dary. Even when accounts of conversions were highly rhetori­

cal and almost stereotyped (as in the commonly repeated

phrase "since my conversion my life has changed completely"),

Pentecostalism is not discussed in moral terms. In a sense

the moral disciplines of Pentecostalism are perceived as in­

struments for obtaining pouisans rather than as ends in them­

selves. That is not to say that Pentecostals never speak of

behavior in moral terms. But in interviews they rarely did

so spontaneously. The source of the spiritual power of the

Pentecostal churches is seen as being emitted from the Holy

Spirit. Theologically, this power is a manifestation of the

Holy Spirit, which can take a variety of forms. Thus the

"spirit of God" is the Holy Spirit, that is God Himself,

rather than, for example, an angel. But in common parlance

this distinction is blurred. Even the New Testament (1 John

4:1) speaks of the "spirits of God" in the plural. From the

way they speak, many Haitian Pentecostals seem to categorize

the "spirits of God" as angels or perhaps as another category

of "good" spirit. Members of the Church of the Gospel at

Grande Anse distinguish between the "spirit of God" and the

angels. Yet when they describe "heavenly armies" these are

made up of angels, and the power of these armies is mani­

fested in "speaking in tongues." The same ambiguity is found

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in the Church of the New Word at Savanne Palmiste. The mem­

bers of this church speak both of the "manifestations of the

Holy Spirit" and of the fact that the prophet is possessed by

an angel. If the spirits are seen as angels, then the sym­

bolic content of Pentecostalism is parallel to that of Vodoun;

that is, the angels are roughly of the same cosmological rank

as the loua, the "wild angels." But if the Pentecostals are

in contact with and possessed by Bon-Diè Himself, then the

symbolic structure of Pentecostalism is not at all parallel

to that of Vodoun, but vastly more powerful and all-embracing.

The fact that there is ambiguity and ambivalence about the

source of the Pentecostals' spiritual power is a reflection

of the incomplete efficacy of Pentecostalism in averting mis­

fortune. This subject will be taken up again in the follow­

ing chapter.

The imagery created in the ideology of Pentecostalism

fosters the notion of Pentecostalism as a respite, or perhaps

more accurately as a citadel. Military imagery is pervasive.

Two of the three non-mission-affiliated Pentecostal churches

which I investigated had the word "Army" in their names. The

third, the Church of the New Word, emphasizes a dance perform­

ance where the "Heavenly Army" is represented on earth. Some

of the performers play the role of the human soldiers in such

an army. Others become possessed by the "angels" or "spirits

of God" and are actually perceived as being the "Heavenly

Army" itself. This army practices military drills, following

the gestures of the leader, who may or may not be in trance.

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The prophet of the congregation at Savanne Palmiste referred

to the founder of the church, Bishop St. Louis, as being his

"general."

Other Pentecostal churches use military imagery even

when they do not explicitly use military terminology. The

congregants of the Church of the Gospel at Grande Anse, for

example, believe that they are surrounded by platoons of

"good spirits." A key informant elaborated on this theme in

an interview:

Sometimes when people lie in wait to harm you, they see you pass by, but you are surrounded by an army of gen­ darmes and other people. These are angels who are pro­ tecting you. God has made the person see this to show His power. Then after a day or so the person may come to you and ask why there was an army coming out of your house. God has pushed the person to ask this question. Of course you have seen nothing and do not know what the person is talking about. That is God's way of showing the person how much more powerful the Gospel (or Protest­ antism) is than evil. Many people are converted this way--they tell about it in testimony.

This young woman's fantasy about spiritual protectors is

reminiscent of the Vodounist's image of the protection of

powerful loua. There is no suggestion in Vodoun, however,

that the loua are massed as an army. Nor have the loua the

same kind of cooperation from God that is exhibited in this

passage. Furthermore, in such a case, the loua might warn

their "child" that someone is out to do him or her harm. But

the loua would not appear before the enemy in a show of

strength; nor would they be able to inhibit the actions of

an enemy who was not one of their "heirs."

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The pastor of this congregation told me that sometimes

evil people wish to kill their enemies and go to a houngan to

summon the soul of the enemy. The houngan draws a magic

circle (Fr. table tournante) on the floor of the hounfb.

When the houngan sees the image of the person in the circle,

he directs the client to stab it with a "satanic instrument."

But if the person whose soul is thus summoned has the "power

of God" then no image will come; or the image will appear,

but will be surrounded by a band of children. This is a

group of angels which has come to protect the Pentecostal.

Some images of the power of Pentecostalism place its

source within the faithful person him- or herself. In Vodoun

belief, members of san pouèl groups sometimes use magical

flashlights to kill their victims. In Pentecostal belief,

the faithful church-goers are believed to emit a blinding

light from the center of their foreheads. This light in­

capacitates the san poufel, who find that they can no longer

advance towards the Pentecostal and run away. This is remi­

niscent of a verse from an unwritten hymn used in the New

Word Church at Savanne Palmiste: "What is in my heart sends

Satan away" ("Sa nan kè-m nan voyé Satan ale").

Pentecostals maintain that the mere presence of a spir­

itually powerful congregation or individual is enough to

drive loua away from a hounfb or a family compound. One in­

formant said that the only time Vodounists become angry at

Pentecostals is when loua fail to appear at sévis because

they have been offended by the Protestants or have been

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driven away by them. I was unable to obtain confirmation of

this view from Vodounists or any specific case history data.

If such material could be found it would represent a fasci­

nating acquiescence on the part of the Vodounists and their

loua in the attribution of greater spiritual power to the

Pentecostals. The pastor of the Church of the Gospel at

Grande Anse, whom I considered to be a very reliable key in­

formant, told me that there had been a houngan (probably a

houngan makout) who lived next to the site where the church

building was constructed. After the Pentecostal services be­

gan, this man found that he could no longer summon his loua.

The man quit his profession and Grande Anse. He moved to an­

other town, where he now practices as a "veterinarian." In­

formants living in the neighborhood confirmed that the houngan

had moved away, but were reluctant to discuss the matter

further.

Pentecostals obtain information about their spiritual

power from several sources. First, they see others (and per­

haps themselves) behaving as if they are in a trance state.

Second, they see others (and perhaps themselves) act as if

they have been cured after having been prayed over by Pente­

costals. Third, they hear "testimony" about others' conver­

sions and about the wonders that have happened since conver­

sion. Some testimony is quite spectacular, as when a convert

claims to have been a lougarou or a san pouël who was over­

whelmed by the spiritualforce of Pentecostalism. Fourth,

they receive instruction about the Bible and the nature of

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Pentecostalism in sermons and in Sunday school.

The Mision

No Pentecostal activity encapsulates the themes which

have been discussed in the previous section more than the

preaching tour, or mision. A mision may be a simple visit to

a nearby congregation; or it may be a journey to an unknown

part of Haiti which lasts more than a week. The stated pur­

pose of the mision is evangelization, that is preaching for

the purpose of converting Catholics in the area visited. As

we saw in an earlier chapter, Protestants do not aggressively

evangelize on their own turf. Such an action might arouse

too much real opposition from kin and neighbors, with whom

social relationships cannot be broken without serious conse­

quences. The mision rather takes place in an area where few

people are known. The participants in a mision (misionè ; F r .

missionnaires) always carry a letter of authorization with

them so that they may obtain the protection of the military

authorities and of local pastors. Thus the right amount of

opposition is created to enhance another function of the

mision: to solidify the commitment of the misionè through the

experience of opposition and the vanquishing of opponents

through spiritual power.

Mision are frequently initiated through a dream or

"revelation" of a congregant. Dreams are perhaps even more

important to Pentecostals than to Vodounists. Dreams are

always interpreted as "visions" or "revelations" sent by the

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Holy Spirit or the "good spirits" who like the loua appear in

human guise. Dreams are usually seen as guides to personal

action. Only rarely are they interpreted as guides for the

actions of others, as when one woman in Grande Anse dreamed

that another should take a certain herbal tea for an illness.

The major occasion in which a dream is interpreted as an in­

struction for a group of people is when they are sent on a

mision. The dream provides the journey with a kind of super­

natural sanction. One key informant in Grande Anse said of

the mision:

If you go by yourself, if you go without its being the order of God which sends you, a lot of bad things will happen to you. If when they go to do a mision and it is not the order of God which sends them" they may en­ counter dangers on the road. When it is God who sends you to the place, nothing bad can happen to you. There is nothing, nothing--you can't even fall down. You can't break your foot on a rock when God sends you. You might meet a devil (djab), but it can't do anything. It will run because of you, because the angel which God places before you will protect you and will guide you along the path. It encircles you. So, the power has various sorts of manifestations. There is the heavenly army. . . . You walk along, but you don't see it, you don't see it at all. But if a spirit came it would see the army.

In 1974, the congregation at Grande Anse made its first

mision, a difficult ten-day trip to Morne Rouge. In 1975,

the congregation decided to make a mision to a rural area a

mere two hours' walk from the town. A few days before they

were to do this, a young woman in the congregation, who had

begun speaking in tongues during the 1974 trip, had a revela­

tion in which a pastor appeared to her and told her that they

should return to Morne Rouge that year as well. The pastor

also told her to be sure to bring water with them. They had

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encountered difficulties finding water the previous year.

Finally the pastor gave her a song which they should sing on

the trip. The congregation changed its plans accordingly. A

few days before they were to leave another congregant had a

dream in which several older members were told that they

should go along. These people had decided not to make the

mision, feeling that the trip would be too arduous for them.

After learning of the dream they changed their minds.

I obtained a fairly detailed account of the 1974 mision

from the informant quoted in the paragraph above. The mision

was an intense experience for those who took part in it.

The misionè prayed very frequently, held several all-night

services, prayed over the sick, had visions. They slept in

Pentecostal churches in the Morne Rouge area, preached in

public, experienced some ridicule, and were led to the homes

of ill people to pray for them. Two memorable incidences of

"divine healing" (gerizon divinn) took place. In one, a man

had split his foot in an accident and was unable to walk.

The group prayed over him on a Friday night. On Saturday

night one of the members of the mision group had a dream in

which she saw a star fall out of the sky onto the foot of the

man. Thus they knew that he would be healed. They did not

report this to the man, but on Monday morning he was able to

walk to the church. In the second incident they prayed for a

person who was very ill. Later during the trip they stopped

to rest by the side of the path. One of the members of the

group fell asleep and had a dream in which she saw, according

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to my informant, "one of her guides, a spirit of God who was

her guide, who said, 'The sick person is cured. Continue to

pray for him.'" Thus they saw that the cure had been ef­

fected, even though they did not see the sick person again.

The group converted about fifteen people during their

ten-day trip. The intense excitement of the misionè was

probably a factor in these conversions. Several members of

the Grande Anse congregation were themselves converted on the

occasion of a mision visit. The conversions gave the mision

group a sense of accomplishment which they reported to their

congregation in detail upon their return. Obtaining converts

was the stated purpose of the trip. But more important was

the effect of the mision on its participants and upon their

fellow congregants who participated vicariously through sub­

sequent narrations of the endeavor. Two young women began to

experience trance behavior during the 1974 mision. One, as

we have seen, began to speak in tongues. The other felt

"something enter" her, but did not begin to speak in tongues

until several weeks later when a very vivacious mision group

from Port-au-Prince held a "convention" in the Grande Anse

church. This second young woman was my principal informant

about the mision. She believed that because of the special

dangers they underwent during the journey they needed special

protection from the Holy Spirit. She believed that her own

trance behavior was a sign of that protection. Her comments

on the power of the Holy Spirit were militant:

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You are loaded with a weapon, you're at war. It's like an army which is carrying many weapons. It's like an army which shoots--You shoot with your mouth--You're firing. Just as you are looking at me now you see a thousand before you, you shoot them. . . . It is the Spirit which is shooting, which is manifesting like that. . . . You might even have a vision in which a person, an unknown face which you never saw before, comes to you to arm you, gives you--loads your whole body with weapons.

Trance Behavior and Spirit Possession Beliefs

Spirit possession is the cornerstone of Pentecostalism.

It is belief in the descent of the Holy Spirit and speaking in

tongues which defines Pentecostalism, which makes it distinc­

tive within the range of Protestant denominations. In Haiti,

Pentecostalism exists in a behavioral environment which in­

cludes trance behavior and spirit possession beliefs. Spirit

possession in Vodoun is thus a kind of criterion by which

Haitians may evaluate Pentecostal behavior. Trance behavior

in Vodoun was reviewed briefly in Chapter Three. Trance be­

havior in Pentecostalism will be reviewed briefly here. The

description of trance behavior is based both on informants'

accounts and my own observations. Perhaps the lightest form

of such dissociated behavior takes place when an individual

shouts out such standard phrases as "Glory to God" and "Thank

you. Lord." Some informants reported that at times they ex­

perienced the sensation that they were not speaking voluntar­

ily but that they were pushed to speak by "something outside"

of themselves. Somewhat more dissociated behavior is marked

by twitching, trembling or jumping up and down. This behav­

ior may or may not be accompanied by vocal utterances, such as

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"sssssssss" or "hipipipipip" or longer expressions. The eyes

are closed during such episodes and the facial muscles are

tense. In most Pentecostal churches the most extreme form of

dissociation is marked by glossolalia, trance behavior in

which long utterances are vocalized. These utterances are

usually not comprehensible, although they may include some

French or Haitian Creole words or phrases.

In most of the Pentecostal congregations I observed

about ten per cent of the congregation exhibited trance be­

havior, that is, only about three or four individuals in each

congregation. In the Church of the New Word about twenty per

cent of the congregation, that is, about six individuals, ex­

hibited trance behavior. The behavior in the New Word Church

differed from the picture which I have sketched above, as we

will see below. The significance of trance behavior and

spirit possession beliefs is not to be looked for only in the

individuals experiencing dissociation. Anthropologists have

showm how trance behavior can be psychologically beneficial

in releasing tension in the individual. Here I am concerned

with the meaning of the trance behavior and of the beliefs

attached to it for the group as a whole, as well as with the

individual trance subject.

A variety of different beliefs are attached to the

trance behavior seen in Pentecostal religious services.

First, most Pentecostals distinguish between correct and in­

correct behavior. The trance behavior of the Church of the

New Word in Savanne Palmiste is "incorrect" by the standards

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of most Haitian Pentecostals. The New Word Church congre­

gants can be seen rolling on the floor, grabbing others, in­

cluding children, or dancing rapidly. The prophet's trance

performance is even more "incorrect." The prophet dances on

one foot, twirling his arms and whistling. His eyes are wide

open. He dances with others, spinning them around. This

"disorderliness" is strongly disapproved of by members of

other Pentecostal congregations. The Bethesda and Tabernacle

Churches, for example, hold that trance behavior should occur

"in place," that is, without the individual moving about.

Speaking in tongues is permitted, but whistling certainly is

n o t .

To those who believe, the trance behavior is a "mani­

festation" of the Holy Spirit or the "spirits of God," how­

ever they may be defined. But the trance behavior is subject

to a variety of interpretations, even among Pentecostals. A

"disorderly" trance episode may be considered as a possession

by a loua. Pentecostals believe that it is possible for a

loua to possess a person during a Pentecostal service and to

pretend to be a "good spirit." The pastor of the Church of

the Gospel at Grande Anse considered himself an expert in

spirit possession. He said that it was possible for an en­

tire congregation to be serving a mauvais esprit without

knowing it. It is not possible for the individual concerned

to know whether he or she is possessed by the Holy Spirit or

by a loua. Naturally, the person is reluctant to accept the

latter interpretation. Possessions by loua can sometimes be

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seen in the behavior of the person in trance. For example,

the pastor at Grande Anse would certainly condemn most of the

practices of the Church of the New Word; in fact, he did so

when I described them to him. Likewise, trance behavior in

which the individual stumbles or throws chairs is believed

to be caused by a loua.

The most telling sign of a "disorderly" possession for

the pastor at Grande Anse is when the possessed person claims

to be able to interpret the "tongues" and uses this gift to

attack others in the congregation. The pastor believed

firmly that any criticism of fellow congregants should take

place in private, before the pastor and the comité, as is or­

dained in Matthew 18:15. The pastor was suspicious of any

claims of ability to translate the utterances, though he ad­

mitted that some might be valid. In general, he was opposed

to the communicatory aspects of the trance behavior. For

him--and for the large mission organization which he repre-

sented--possession is important as a sign of spiritual power

but not as a form of communication with the supernatural.

Finally, possession of a person known to have an evil

reputation was deemed to be caused by a loua. In Vodoui there

is no strong relationship between a person's moral behavior

and the propensity of the loua to possess him or her. In

Pentecostalism, however, individual propensity towards trance

behavior presents a problem. Trance behavior is believed to

be a sign of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, indicating the

sanctification of the individual. A person who is publicly

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judged as immoral but who exhibits trance behavior at a Pen­

tecostal service presents the church with a dilemma. In some

cases this is rationalized by saying that the possession is

an encouragement to the person to strive harder to be more

faithful to the church. Certainly no Pentecostal believes

that one must be a perfect saint in order to receive the

Baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is a free gift undeserved

by the recipient. But in some cases the possession must be

condemned as "satanic." My discussions with the pastor about

these matters were largely hypothetical, though he did tell

me that such cases did occur from time to time. In the sum­

mer of 1977, three years after our first discussion on this

subject, the pastor discovered that in one of his congrega­

tions in the mountains a man had declared himself to be a

prophet. This man was claiming to interpret "tongues" and to

diagnose the illnesses of members of his congregation. His

fame was spreading. When the pastor learned of this he for­

bade any further activities of that kind.

To the congregants of the New Word Church all those ele­

ments which the Church of the Gospel would condemn are points

of strength. The "disorderly" possessions are a sign of the

"Heavenly Army" at work. The fact that theirs was the only

church which had prophets was an indication of its greater

spiritual force. The New Word Church congregants believed

that only a church with a weak loyalty to the Holy Spirit

would be content with possessions that did not involve diag­

noses of illnesses and interpretations of glossolalia. On

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the other hand, they were sensitive to gossip and ridicule

about the church. This was a constant theme of the deacon's

sermons : "They despise us and laugh at us ; but when they are

sick and need help, it is to the Church of the New Word that

they always come."

Non-Pentecostals have a variety of opinions about the

trance behavior. Many non-Pentecostal Protestants believe

all Pentecostal trance behavior to be the work of Satan, or

in Haitian terms, of loua. Some, both Protestant and Catho­

lic, believe the behavior to be emotional excitement or his­

trionics. They attach no possession belief to the behavior.

Vodoun specialists tend to agree with Protestants who believe

the possessions to be caused by loua. Several houngan told

me that the trance behavior was caused by nothing more than

loua bosal, the rather weak "untamed" loua, who were playing

games with the Pentecostals, who mistakenly assumed that they

were possessed by the Holy Spirit. One houngan in Port-au-

Prince theorized that the Pentecostals did indeed have con­

siderable spiritual power. But he maintained that this power

came to them in spite of their low-level possessions--because

of their constant appeals to Bon-Diè, appeals which the

houngan make as well. A mambo in Grande Anse told me that

she believed the possessions to be the work of loua blan, a

nation of loua who speak foreign tongues. She claimed that

such loua had appeared at her dances from time to time and

that sometimes other loua came to interpret what the loua

blan were saying. A non-Pentecostal missionary told me with

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chagrin that these spirits are sometimes called loua protes-

tan.

As in Vodoun, trance behavior in Pentecostalism serves

to confirm the belief system by providing an experiential

demonstration of its truth. People see others act in an un­

usual manner, or feel themselves becoming "possessed" by the

Holy Spirit. But in Haitian Pentecostalism there is a dis­

crepancy between the claims of the doctrine and the trance

performance. In a culture with no other trance behavior,

speaking in "tongues" might present an impressive, convincing

performance. In Haiti, however, trance behavior is not un­

usual. Furthermore, the trance behavior of Vodoun is pol­

ished. The loua are depicted as having "complete" personal­

ities. In addition, the trance performance may include extra­

ordinary feats such as touching hot coals without injury and

knowledge of others' personal secrets. In comparison, the

Pentecostal trance performance is paltry: trembling, jumping,

rolling on the floor, and even glossolalia are less than

stunning in the face of the almost theatrical performances of

the loua. If the Pentecostal behavior resembles anything in

Vodoun it is that of the lowly loua bosal, the inarticulate

and as yet "unsocialized" spirits which possess neophytes who

are just beginning to experience trance.

The disjunction between the Pentecostal trance perform­

ance and the Pentecostal claim to possession by the Holy

Spirit or a similar powerful being is great. On the one hand

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the Pentecostals claim to have spiritual power because they

appeal to God alone and to have received the manifestations

as a sign of God's approval. On the other hand, they may be

perceived as having failed to adequately represent possession

by God Himself or by an angel more powerful than the loua.

If the trance performance of the Pentecostals were as supe­

rior in sophistication to that of Vodounists as the Holy

Spirit is superior in power to the loua, then Haitians would

probably flock to the Pentecostal churches. As it is, belief

in the doctrines of the Pentecostals--unlike belief in the ex­

istence of the loua--is a matter of faith rather than an "em­

pirical" conclusion.

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PENTECOSTALISM AND HEALTH PRACTICE

Illness and Pentecostal Imagery

In the last chapter we saw that the Pentecostal belief

system is supported by images of power and confrontation.

We saw that these images are embodied in the activities of

the Pentecostal mision. It is equally true to say that they

are embodied in the Pentecostal treatment of illness. Among

the most common and striking stories told by Pentecostals

are those in which the Pentecostal healer is locked in com­

bat with a houngan or with an "evil spirit" of some type.

These stories are reminiscent of stories about the struggles

of houngan against their clients' enemies. That the confron­

tation of Pentecostalism and Vodoun should take place in the

arena of illness should not be surprising. We have seen in

Chapter Three how the loua act principally in the bodies of

humans, rather than in natural forces outside of humans.

The same is true for the forces mustered by evil people.

For example, a mb is sent to harm the body of an enemy or an

enemy's relative, but is not effective against an enemy's

garden. The forces elaborated in the Vodoun belief system

are manifested in the human body through spirit possession

and illness. In reaction, the Pentecostal ideology in Haiti

stresses spirit possession and the cure of illness.

237

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An example of one of these stories will illustrate

this. Madame Hyppolite, an imposing figure in the market

place at Savanne Palmiste, was very ill at some point in the

mid-1960s. She had lost consciousness and her husband sum­

moned Jean, the less active of the two houngan ason in the

village. Jean came to Madame Hyppolite's home and treated

her there. She had not eaten in several days and was in a

weakened state. Her situation deteriorated and Jean, believ­

ing her about to die, prepared to leave. The family began

the wailing that greets death in the countryside. One of

her sons, however, refused to accept his mother's impending

death and ran to Voltaire, the local Pentecostal healer, who

was conducting a fast in the home of one of the Tabernacle

Church members. Without being able to say a word the boy

took Voltaire's arm and ran with him to Madame Hyppolite's

house. When Voltaire arrived, he saw Jean quickly pack up

his ritual paraphernalia and run off towards home. Voltaire

began to pray over Madame Hyppolite, and sharply struck her

on the neck. The woman began to move and soon opened her

eyes. The family was astonished. She was given tea to drink

and even ate several biscuits. Her husband believed that

she was eating only to be able to make her journey into

death, but Voltaire assured Hyppolite that his wife was

really cured. In fact, in a short while the woman was sit­

ting up, quite recovered. Madame Hyppolite recounted that

she had seen the gro dj ab of her family that had made her

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ill. He was short and dressed in blue. She told her family

that she saw herself approaching the gate of the cemetery

when suddenly she felt herself being hit on the neck and

wrenched back towards life. Several of Voltaire's followers

had come with him to the house and they set about burning

the ritual objects which Jean had left there. Voltaire

claims that Jean, a neighbor, later came to him and compli­

mented him for his curative powers.

It could hardly be said that all conversion histories

are as dramatic as this one, but it is this kind of story

that is most frequently repeated. In a single coup Voltaire

not only defeated what was generally considered to be the

most powerful and dangerous family loua in Savanne Palmiste,

but he showed up the inadequacies of the houngan ason. It

must be remembered though that Voltaire's victory--or rather

the Holy Spirit's victory--comes to naught unless the gro djab

which was persecuting Madame Hyppolite is considered to be a

very real, very powerful spirit. The story is pointless if

Pentecostals really believe, as they sometimes say, that

"there is nothing to the loua." Thus this story tends to

validate the Vodoun belief system even while it denigrates

Vodoun practices. In Savanne Palmiste, no one proclaims the

power of the forces of Vodoun more loudly than the Pentecos­

tals, especially the members of the New Word Church. Vodoun­

ists do not usually talk aloud about lougarou, san pouèl and

other distasteful and frightening subjects. But Pentecostals

preach about them constantly.

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Pentecostalism and Conversion

Haitian Pentecostalism is at this point in its history

a religion of conversion. The vast majority of Pentecostals

in Haiti have converted. I encountered only a few "children

of the promise," that is, individuals who have been "born

into" Pentecostalism. In any discussion of Haitian Pente­

costalism the phenomena of conversion must be taken into ac­

count. Approximately eighty per cent of the conversion

histories which I collected involved an occasion of illness.

This does not mean that eighty per cent of my Pentecostal in­

formants converted because they were ill and sought a cure.

To be sure, such was the case for many. Others converted be­

cause of the illness of a parent or a child. Yet others con­

verted because they anticipated the illness of themselves or

a child. For example, Telimaine converted after a relative

reported having had a dream in which Télimaine's children

were dead but their eyes were still open--a sure sign of

foul play. Têlimaine had noticed that people had been cured

in Voltaire's little group (this was before he had made the

missionary connection) and she felt she could receive protec­

tion there from the dangers which the dream warned her about.

I do not wish to argue here that concern about illness

is the sole motivation for eighty per cent of my informants.

I have no way to know what was transpiring in Télimaine's

mind, consciously and unconsciously, when she converted. I

can only report what she told me when I asked her how she

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came to convert. (It is of interest that she prefaced her

account by saying that she did not convert because of an ill­

ness.) The motivations of converts are undoubtedly very com­

plex. Some probably do convert simply to find treatment for

an illness. Others probably combine this motivation with an

interest in other benefits which they believe Protestantism

can confer upon them. For some, concern about illness seems

to be the "idiom" of conversion, while their motivation ap­

pears to lie elsewhere. For example, the man described in

Chapter Six who became the deacon of the Tabernacle Church

in Savanne Palmiste converted in anticipation of an illness.

He told me that he decided to join his wife, a Protestant of

twenty years' standing, and his children in the Tabernacle

because he did not want the occasion to arise where he became

sick and pressured them to seek help from a houngan. One

might speculate that the possibility for attaining a position

in the church loomed as large in this man's mind as the pos­

sibility of a future supernaturally-caused illness. For this

man it may well be that placing his conversion in the frame­

work of concern about illness diminished the chance that

others would call him an opportunist. Protestants place con­

versions into two categories, those which were "for an ill­

ness" and those which were not. No greater value was placed

on one kind of a conversion than the other. However, a per­

son believed to be motivated solely by the idea of obtaining

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a position or other material benefit in the Protestant Church

would be the subject of gossip.

Motivation for conversion should not be confused with

the opportunities presented by Protestantism which converts

take advantage of. Madame Hyppolite is a perfect example.

From her conversion history she could hardly be said to have

joined the Tabernacle Church out of opportunism. She was

not even conscious at the time of her "conversion” ! Later,

however, she became a powerful member of the church, reflect­

ing her position in the secular life of the village. Later

it was in Madame Hyppolite's lakou that the pastor of the

Bethesda Church first began holding services. Madame Hyppo­

lite is now an important figure in that organization. Like­

wise Télimaine has found a position as a cook for the Prot­

estant agricultural agent who visits the village once a week.

I do not believe that she obtained this position through her

affiliation with the Tabernacle Church. But this man, being

a Protestant, probably would not have chosen a Catholic woman

as his part-time servant, even though he was not, like Téli­

maine, a Pentecostal.

The best way to understand conversion to Pentecostalism

is to review some case histories. Here I will present four f of the more detailed conversion histories which were related

to me. These case histories are not presented as a randomly

selected sample of all conversions to Pentecostalism. Rather,

the conversion histories which I have selected are representa­

tive of the more detailed accounts which I obtained. The

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first of them involves a man who converted to the Church of

the New Word in Savanne Palmiste. He is, in fact, the main

prophet of that congregation, having received his "gift" a

few months after his conversion. The second is the case of

a woman in Savanne Palmiste who converted to Voltaire's con­

gregation when it was still a small gr" The third is a

similar case. The fourth conversion history involves a wo­

man in Grande Anse who converted to a Pentecostal mission,

the Crusade of Christ. The first three case histories are

taken from verbatim transcripts of interviews with the in­

formants. To the extent that it is stylistically possible,

the accounts below are direct translations of the tran­

scripts. The third case was related to me in an interview

during which I took extensive notes.

1. The story of Renol St. Victor:

He converted in 1970 with his wife. His wife had been converted to the Tabernacle Church for some time. Dur­ ing that time she had a baby, but the baby died after a month and a half. Then Madame Renol herself became seriously ill. Rênol called upon the members of the Tabernacle to pray for her. They came and prayed for her once, but they became dissuaded and did not return. Even though he liked the Protestants he began to think of "seducing" his wife away from them and taking her to a houngan. But he decided to call one more Protestant group to "convert" her. He asked the Baptists to come, a small group that lived near his house. They came, but their leader announced that Madame Rênol had a baka sent on her by someone and that they could not fight it. So they left. When all the Protestants' had left, Renol said to himself that he would put his wife in the hands of a houngan. He had not been particularly involved with Vodoun before. His mother had not forced him to attend family services, and while he would watch them and vodoun dances he did not take an active part in either. He had only been to a houngan once, when he first fell in love

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with his wife. There were two other young men who were "speaking with her" and Renol wanted to win out over them. So he went to a houngan to get a pouin. It was a good thing that he did so. Not only did he win his love, but the houngan told him that the other two men were jealous of him and had set out to kill him or Madame Renol. Now he set out to find a houngan again. He went to "thirteen" [i.e., many] houngan, both houngan makout and houngan ason. He left at night and searched them out at their homes in the mountains behind Savanne Palmiste. Not one of them gave him any results. His wife was still as sick as ever. Then he decided to bring his wife back into Protes­ tantism. The Church of the New Word had just been estab­ lished, and had only seven or eight people attached to it, The church shelter was very near Renol's house and he liked their style better than that of other Protestant churches. No one in the church at Savanne Palmiste had yet received the "gifts," but they had been taught to do the "Heavenly Army" by the pastor from the mountains who had established the congregation. He hadn't decided to convert himself as well, but "he left a little word in his heart" that he would not leave his wife to convert by herself, that he had to convert too. So they both converted and "in the name of Jesus" the baka was chased away. His wife has not been sick since.

2. The story of Madame Jacques Pierre-Louis:

She was living at her mother's house when she and her first child saw that it was growing well. Then the child became ill and Jacques, her husband, went to a houngan. The houngan told him to buy a lot of things, so they bought a bunch of things, a bunch of nonsense. They came with the houngan and put an evil gad on the child. She did not yet know that there was a God, because her thinking was under the influence of all those things. The child became very ill and her husband went back to the houngan. But the houngan told him that he could not see what pouin had made the child ill. A few days later Madame Jacques's first child died. Seven months later Madame Jacques's mother gave birth to a little boy. The boy was light-skinned and beautiful. As many people were coming and going in the house, Madame Jacques's mother was afraid that someone would make the child ill with the evil eye [to which beautiful children are especially susceptible]. The mother covered up the little boy with a sheet so people couldn't see him. But the child began to get sick with diarrhea. His mother began to cry and cry. She rose in the middle of the night and said to Domaine, a person

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who was sleeping in the house with them, "Domaine, do you know what I am going to do? I am going to convert be­ cause I see that the child is not as well as it was be­ fore." Domaine replied, "Send for Brother Voltaire." Voltaire came and converted them. Madame Jacques con­ verted along with her mother. But a few days later the child, not yet a month old, died. Some time later Madame Jacques became pregnant again. In the seventh month of her pregnancy she felt a great cramp in her stomach. Because she was Protestant they sent her to the doctor in Port-au-Prince. She went into labor and when it was over asked the nurse what kind of child she had had. The nurse told her that the infant was lost. Madame Jacques went crazy. She had nothing left. She tore at everyone in the hospital. Her hus­ band, still a Catholic, came and brought her back to Savanne Palmiste. He brought her to Dieu-fort, the houngan ason who had preceded Janvier. During the time she was at Dieu-fort's house she did not know anything. When she regained consciousness, she realized that she-- a Protestant--was at the houngan's . She jumped up in the bed and ran out to Brother Voltaire's house. She could not stay at the houngan's . When she arrived at Voltaire's, she saw that the Protestants were praying for her. God saw that if He saved her she would leave the houngan's. So they paid the houngan and she did not go back. Soon afterward she became pregnant again and gave birth to a good, healthy baby. But after a while the infant began crying very loudly as if it were a large child, all through the night. When her mother-in-law saw this she said, "Well, you have to go out [to a houngan] to find out what is wrong with the child." So they went to a houngan who was named Desir. Desir said that he couldn't doanything for the child but he saw that some­ one had sold the womb of the mother to Baron Samdi [a magical practice to prevent a woman from having children by giving her pbdision; for a Vodounist the problem can be remedied by a ceremony in the cemetery in which the womb is bought back from Baron]. Therefore, she had no right to bear a child. When Madame Jacques's mother, who was still a Protes­ tant, heard this she said, "Was it you yourself who took you out of Protestantism? What then makes you no longer a convert? Wait for Jacques to come and then go get con­ verted [again]," Madame Jacques's mother-in-law was there also and she said, "What Jacques is that? Go get Brother Voltaire to convert Madame Jacques now." So Madame Jacques,who was never "not converted," converted again. This time, though, she converted for her own reasons, not because of her mother's problems.

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Sometime later, Madame Jacques was in a fast with some members of Voltaire's group. She received a revela­ tion that she was no longer in the pëdision imposed upon her through Baron Samdi. Now she has several healthy children, for whom she is very grateful.

3. The story of Madame Wilson Noël:

Madame Wilson had been "claimed" by a loua on her father's side, Grann Ezili, since even before she was born. The loua possessed her father and told her mother what name to give the child and who should be its god­ mother. Ever since she was a small child the loua would make her sick. She would feel as if a lot of people were pressing on her chest. She would try to fight the sensation, but it would overcome her and she would lose consciousness. When she would come to recognize people again she still was unable to talk. She would have to write messages in order to communicate with people. [Madame Wilson is one of the very few women in the Church of the New Word who is able to read and write.] Some­ times she would last two days in this state. When she was seven years old her mother brought her to be initiated by Dieu-fort, the houngan ason. The mother was also made a kanzo. Madame Wilson's mother's loua reported to her that there was a person who was try­ ing to harm her and that she should protect herself by becoming a kanzo. The mother decided that Madame Wilson should also be initiated to improve her relationship with the loua. However, Madame Wilson's illness became worse rather than better. In 1970 her father persuaded her to convert to the Tabernacle Church. The father was and is still a staunch Vodounist, but he feared that people would not believe that it was a family loua that was harming his daughter. He feared that gossips would say that he had purchased a gro djab and that now the evil spirit was "eating" his own children. Madame Wilson stayed in the Tabernacle Church for several years. She married in that church. But her ill­ ness did not substantially improve. In 1974 she decided to join the Church of the New Word because she believed they had greater spiritual power. She reported that she had not been ill again since her decision to join this congregation.

4. The story of Marie-Vierge Aline:

Marie-Vierge was living in Port-au-Prince at the time she became ill. She was lying on her bed and did not feel well, so she asked her daughter to make her some tea. The daughter refused, but brought some klérin [raw rum]

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for Marie-Vierge to drink. She drank a bit, then felt a pain in her neck and everything went dark. Other people came in and rubbed some oil on her head. Her sight re­ turned to her but she was unable to control her actions. She made a lot of noise, put her clothes on, ran to the house next door and began beating her head against a wall. In this other house the people performed some magic over her, but the treatment had no result. She had a bad loua in her which was making her do these things. She knew she had a loua because it spoke to her inside her head. The magical treatment was unable to make the loua go away. She went to a doctor who examined her, even took an x-ray. But he could find nothing. This confirmed for her that she had a loua in her body. She knew that it was not a family loua which was "on" her, but rather a baka that someone had sent. The baka told her that it was a relative who had done this. This relative was a person who served the family loua and wanted Marie to do likewise, something she had not both­ ered about before. This relative decided to send a baka on Marie as a means to "tempt" her to serve the louai for only her family loua could help her. But she refused and came to stay with her mother who lived in Grande Anse. Marie-Vierge's mother had made the acquaintance of an American missionary who directed a branch of the Crusade for Christ in a village not far from Grande Anse. This missionary, a Pentecostal, had made a reputation of cur­ ing people. Marie's mother called upon the missionary to come to her house to pray over the sick woman; in this way she was converted. Marie was brought to the mission­ ary's house and stayed there for three months. The mis­ sionary and a Haitian pastor prayed for her every day and conducted a three-day fast for her. After the second month Marie-Vierge was baptized as a member of this church. She eventually recovered from her illness as the mission­ ary and the pastor were able to drive out the evil spirit. Marie-Vierge has not been a particularly faithful Pentecostal since her recovery. She does not attend church regularly and does not obey all the strictures of Pentecostalism. She suffers from headaches almost con­ tinuously now. But she knows that they are a maladi Bon- Diè and takes medicines which relieve the pain.

In some respects these four conversion histories speak

for themselves. Nevertheless, it will be useful to point out

certain aspects of them. First, all of them entailed at

least one episode of illness, and some of them entailed a

series of episodes. Secondly, not everyone who converted was

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ill at the time of the conversion, though they were connected

with a patient. Furthermore, none of the illnesses were be­

lieved to be "natural" illnesses "sent by God." All of them

were serious illnesses believed to have been sent by humans,

or in one case by a family loua. All of the patients were in

some way "possessed"--or as the Haitians put it, held (kinbé)

by a spirit. Thus it may be that all of them, to a certain

extent, played a social role that was expected of them. This

seems clear with at least two of the patients: Madame Wilson

was unable to speak; Marie-Vierge heard voices which con­

firmed the diagnosis.

All of the ill persons were in desperate straits when

help was sought. Madame Jacques had been driven mad by the

repeated loss of children in her family. Madame Rênol's ill­

ness (which may also have been a form of "madness"--Rênol was

elusive on that subject) was also related to the loss of a

child. We saw in Chapter Four that many of the culturally

constituted illnesses in Haiti are related directly to women

who have borne and lost children. Pëdision is the most com­

mon illness related to the inability to have children. Lët

mêlê ak san (which by its very nature is related to maternity)

and movê san are illnesses which women who are anguished by

the loss of an infant can fall victim to easily. An elabo­

rate series of beliefs about the causes of infant illness has

been constructed in a situation of very high infant mortality,

largely caused, as we have seen, by umbilical tetanus. Beliefs

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about lougarou, pëdision, the evil eye (maldjok) and selling

the womb (mët vant) to Baron Samdi all help to explain the

high loss of infants. It is not surprising that illnesses

related to childbirth and infancy are commonly found in con­

version histories. Nothing can be done to bring back a child

which has died, but concepts and therapies can be devised to

give some consolation to the mother--if only by giving her a

suitable explanation for the death that does not involve

negligence on her part--and to give her some reassurances for

the future.

In each of these cases a decision was made to seek the

consultation and treatment of a houngan. Each case also in­

dicates a degree of experimentation in seeking treatment:

physicians, houngan and Pentecostals were all sought out,

sometimes repeatedly, in order to find treatment for the pa­

tient. In every case the Pentecostals were asked to inter­

vene only after other treatments had failed. The case of

Madame Rênol makes a partial exception to this. The Pente­

costals were sought first, but they failed; the houngan was

then sought, and finally the Pentecostals were sought again.

Mêtraux (1972:352) is quite right when he says:

When all the resources of Voodoo--services, baths, in­ fusions, driving out of morts--have been exhausted, a really fundamental remedy--conversion to a Protestant sect--is tried as a last resort. Sometimes it is the hungan himself who realizes the ineffectiveness of the cure prescribed and advises the patient or his family to abandon the laa and "try Protestantism,"

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One of the principal advantages of Pentecostalism to these

converts was that it offered treatment for illness that was

free of charge. At a time in their lives when considerable

sums had already been spent in seeking treatments with phy­

sicians or houngan, this economic factor was at least as im­

portant to these people as all the imagery described in the

last chapter. They simply had nowhere else to turn. Fur­

thermore, conversion, at least for the Haitians in these

case histories who were ill, means simply being prayed over

by a Pentecostal, as I indicated earlier. There was no de­

bate about doctrinal questions before the conversion took

place. Two of the women were unconscious during their con­

versions and "seductions"!

It is clear that the sick individuals themselves were

not the principal decision-makers in these cases. Madame

Renol was urged by her husband to both leave and return to

Protestantism. In fact, her "leaving" Protestantism took

place because her husband sought consultations with houngan

in the mountains. It is not clear that she took any action

on her part. (Madame Renol refused to comment on this ac­

count, so I have no idea of what her feelings were about

these matters. Her husband's story seems to suggest that she

was not in a position to make decisions herself, which is one

reason why I suspect she may have been suffering from some

kind of "madness.") Madame Jacques made her first conversion

to Protestantism because of a decision by her mother; her

"seduction" took place without her acquiescence or even

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awareness. Even her final "reconversion"--which she care­

fully distinguished from the first because she converted for

her own reasons and not because of someone else's problem--

took place at the suggestion of family elders. The fact that

she did not wait for her husband to return before summoning

Voltaire was viewed as unusual--the result of her mother-in-

law's pique at Jacques's futile consultations with the

houngan.

Madame Wilson's conversion took place at the urging of

her father, who wished to avoid the heat of gossip. This

conversion history illustrates an important point: the fam­

ilies of converts do not view the conversion as a wholesale

rejection of the Vodoun ideology but rather as a personal

adjustment in extreme circumstances. Madame Wilson's father

remains a "good servitor" of the loua, "practically a

houngan," as his daughter almost proudly described him. He

certainly has not rejected Vodoun, but believed that his

daughter's conversion was best in these circumstances. As

Metraux said, even houngan sometimes recommend conversion.

In 1975 I met a pastor of the Church of the Gospel who had

himself once been a houngan. His wife had become ill and he

sent her to a fellow houngan for treatment. When this failed

one of the man's own loua appeared in a dream and said that

both husband and wife should convert for a period of three

months. At the end of three months the former houngan and

his wife decided to remain Pentecostals. The loua appeared

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to her in a dream and said, "What a strong man your husband

is! He says he will convert for three months, and then he

stays." The loua thus indicated its acquiescence--and even

admiration--if not its approval of this act of rejection.

In all of these cases the decision to convert was shared

in by people who did not themselves convert. Marie-Vierge's

mother, who led her to the missionary healer, is still a

Catholic. The same is true, as we have seen of Madame

Jacques's husband and Madame Wilson's parents. Renol made

it clear in his account that his decision to join his wife

in the Church of the New Word was an unusual one. If con­

version strengthens a family member in a supernatural strug­

gle with an enemy, so much the better. If conversion set­

tles a problem an individual has with a family loua, that is

not a family matter as long as the sévis for the loua continue

as before. Maintenance of good relations with the family loua

is the responsibility of the family as a whole rather than of

the particular individuals of which the family is made up.

Protestantism--even militant Pentecostalism--has not inter­

fered with this general pattern of family ritual, which con­

tinues as before. This is a further indication that the "op­

position" to Protestantism is more a creation of Protestants

than a deep-seated reaction of Vodounists.

Finally, all of the sick individuals in these four con­

version histories did find some kind of relief after their

conversion to Pentecostalism. Madame Renol's illness was

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cured. Madame Jacques overcame both her madness (at least

partially) and her pèdision; she is now the mother of several

healthy children. Madame Wilson finally escaped the ravages

of the loua which had claimed her even before she was born.

And Marie-Vierge was at least able to have her symptoms re­

duced to headaches which could be defined as a natural ill­

ness and treated with medicine. For all of these women con­

version to Pentecostalism was an effective form of therapy.

Pentecostalism as a Health Practice

We have seen that conversion on the occasion of an ill­

ness is the most fundamental basis for the growth of the

Pentecostal movement in Haiti. But conversion is not the

only point at which Pentecostalism becomes involved with

health practice. If it were, converts might return to Vodoun

practice as soon as the health crisis passed (as indeed some

do). As we have seen, Pentecostals have a variety of acti­

vities which are concerned with health but not necessarily

with conversion. While most Pentecostal congregations do not

have specific services devoted to healing, prayer for the

cure of illness is a part of every service. It is customary

at the end of prayer services for those who are ill to come

forward and be prayed over by the pastor or by a person in

the congregation who is believed to have the gift of healing.

The pastor or healer usually places his or her hands on the

head of the person who is being prayed for. Such prayer is

considered to be not only curative but prophylactic in

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nature. Indeed, most of Pentecostal ritual activity is de­

signed to give its adherents continuous protection against

their enemies, human and spiritual. Pentecostals believe

that those who "fall" or allow themselves to be "seduced"

away from religious activities are particularly susceptible

to attacks by loua or by human enemies. This is a major in­

centive for continued affiliation with Pentecostalism.

We saw in Chapter Seven that some Pentecostal churches,

such as the New Word Church, have services especially devoted

to healing. Furthermore, as we saw in the conversion history

of Marie-Vierge Aline, some churches offer long-term care to

individuals who are believed to have supernaturally-caused

illnesses. The Church of the New Word also provides this

service. During my stay in Savanne Palmiste a young woman

was brought to the prophet for care. She was believed to

have been made mad by two mb which had been sent on her by a

person who was jealous of her mother, a successful trader.

The mother had been a Protestant, but went to a houngan for

a diagnosis and treatment when her daughter became ill. The

houngan's treatment had failed, so the mother brought the

young woman to Savanne Palmiste. The young woman stayed with

the prophet for several weeks. The treatment consisted of

praying over the patient, anointing her profusely with per­

fume, and hitting her body, now occupied by the so that

they would leave it. One of the manifestations of this and

other causes of madness is that the victim (or in this case

the rrô believed to be within her) eats enormous quantities of

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food--a striking symptom of madness in an environment which

is chronically short of adequate nutrition. The young woman

became progressively more rational. (From incoherent mutter-

ings and screeches she reached the point of having extended

conversations with me, marred only by the fact that she was

convinced that I was her long-departed father who had re­

turned from the Dominican Republic.) Her mother, however,

was dissatisfied with her progress and took her back to bring

her to another houngan. As far as I was able to determine

there was no payment for the treatment accorded the young

woman, except for her living expenses. The prophet does not

perform his services for a fee. In fact, he appears to be one

of the poorer members of the community. His house is in one

of the least desirable sections of the village, surrounded by

rocks and far from a water supply; it is almost devoid of

furniture.

The Church of the New Word offers two additional serv­

ices which are related to health. It performs divination, a

feature it shares with other Pentecostal churches which be­

lieve in the "gift of interpretation" of "tongues." The

mission where Marie-Vierge Aline was treated, for example,

practices divination, while the Church of the Gospel does

not. As is so frequently the case with the New Word Church,

divination is practiced in an unusual and creative fashion.

Not only does the prophet interpret what he has uttered in

glossolalia, he also "speaks to God on the telephone," an in­

novation suggestive of a relationship between Pentecostalism

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and technological development. "Téléfoné Bon-Diè" is a

phrase used occasionally in Pentecostal churches to refer to

direct communication with God, The prophet of the Church of

the New Word at Savanne Palmiste dramatizes this metaphor.

He holds an imaginary telephone to his ear and the congre­

gants hear his part of the conversation, full of pauses while

God "talks" to him. Portents of illness are often conveyed

to the congregation in this fashion. The prophet also di­

vines by placing his hands on the torsos of individuals, usu­

ally while possessed by his "angel." This technique reminds

one of the diagnostic massage of the doktè fey. Divination

by the prophet is one of the most important attractions of the

New Word Church. The prophet may inform his patients of the

"efficient cause" or "agent" who is responsible for the af­

fliction, to use Foster's (1976:778) terms. He may tell them

whether the illness has a personalistic or a naturalistic

origin. And finally, he may tell them whether they will live

or die. Families expressed special gratitude for the proph­

et's ability to make such predictions, for it if is learned

than an ill person will die the family can cease its attempts

to find treatment and begin to prepare for the funeral.

The other service which the prophet provides the village

he calls "bay 15d," "giving the order." Occasionally the

prophet roams the village at night, possessed or inspired by

his "angel," giving lougarou and other evil-doers the order

to stop their nefarious activities. The prophet never men­

tions these individuals by name, but he maintains that the

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"good spirit" which comes to him reveals their identities to

him. He knows that they know that he knows their identity.

Even people who have scorn for the Church of the New Word ad­

mit that they appreciate this activity, for the prophet as­

sures them that their children will be safe, at least for

one night.

Pentecostal leaders perceive themselves as health prac­

titioners and even perceive themselves as being analogous to

the houngan and the physician. As in other deeds, the proph­

et of the New Word Church externalizes this theme, which is

present in all the Pentecostal churches which I observed.

When the prophet first received his "gift," he dreamed of a

doctor and a nurse with all of their paraphernalia. They

came to him and gave him a Bible and sent him to preach the

Gospel. Now he has a special uniform which he wears on cer­

tain occasions, such as a Sunday when communion is offered.

This uniform is white, like a doctor's uniform. Embroidered

in green across the back is (Fr. and Haitian Creole) "Docteur

de lame seles" (Doctor of the Heavenly Army); on the front is

embroidered (Fr.) ''Guerison*^lLvine'' (Divine Healing). It is

difficult to imagine a more explicit symbol for his role.

In many ways conversion to Pentecostalism is parallel

to the kanzo ceremony, not in specifics of the ritual but in

function. Some Pentecostal informants recognize the similar­

ities: a group of initiates/converts gathered around their

healer/leader. Again, this is made explicit in the Church of

the New Word: the Heavenly Army, dancing counter-clockwise in

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white dresses around the central post under the leadership of

the prophet is so reminiscent of the houngan ason Janvier

dancing in the same direction around his central post with

his hounsi dressed in white that it is one of the reasons why

people call the prophet's church a "houngan church." The

underlying pattern is present in other Pentecostal churches

as well. Voltaire, for example, agreed that his role was

analogous to that of a houngan and that kanzo initiates were

doing the same thing as Pentecostal converts, except they

were moving in the opposite direction. The hounsi bury them­

selves deeper into the "service of the loua," while the con­

verts reject it outright.

More women than men convert to Pentecostalism, as more

women than men become hounsi. In this and in previous chap­

ters I have tried to indicate some reasons for this. Women

may be more susceptible to the culturally constituted ill­

nesses of Haiti; furthermore, public healing rituals are seen

as more appropriate for women than for men. But it is clear

that the most important variable is the treatment or preven­

tion of illness, not the sex of the individuals involved.

This is demonstrated by the congregation of the New Word

Church in Beltrou, a village near Savanne Palmiste which the

prophet visits regularly. In Beltrou, fears of san pouèl are

much greater than they are in Savanne Palmiste. Several of

these groups of evil-doers are believed to be active in the

area and people are afraid to leave their homes on certain

nights. Men are believed to be frequent victims of the san

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pouèl, who use their deadly flashlight to kill them and then

magically turn them into oxen to pull sugar cane carts. The

New Word Church entered this community in a spectacular way

when the prophet from Savanne Palmiste apparently brought a

man back from the dead. The man, whose jaw had already been

tied in preparation for burial, was believed to be the victim

of a san pouèl group. As a result of this introduction into

Beltrou, the Church of the New Word has enjoyed a great suc­

cess there, attracting converts from both Catholicism and

from the non-Pentecostal churches there. Most importantly,

more men than women have converted to the New Word Church,

and the men take a very active role on the dancing of the

Heavenly Army. In Beltrou it is neither specifically men nor

women who are attracted to Pentecostalism; it is individuals

who seek protection from evil forces which they believe can

make them ill.

When Healing Fails

We saw in the last chapter that one of the greatest

challenges to the Pentecostal ideology is what Gerlach and

Hine (1968:34) call the "ideal-real" gap. Pentecostalism is

portrayed as a "magic circle," but in fact it is not an im­

permeable barrier against misfortune. Conversion may bring

recovery only to be followed by a relapse. This is probably

frequently the case when people convert because of malaria, a

widespread illness in Haiti. Conversion may indeed be accom­

panied by a temporary remission of the illness; but further

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episodes of fever are almost sure to follow. Some converts

may not experience any abatement of their symptoms at all;

yet somehow they may find comfort in their new religion.

Probably most converts become ill again at some point in

their lives, in spite of their protestations of perpetual

good health. How does Pentecostalism deal with these disap­

pointments?

Another way to ask the question is how does Pentecos­

talism deal with what Festinger et al. (1964:24ff.) call cog­

nitive "dissonance"? "Two opinions, or beliefs, or items of

knowledge are dissonant with each other if they do not fit

together--that is, if they are inconsistent, or if, consider­

ing only the particular two items, one does not follow from

the other" (Festinger et al. 1964:25). There is clearly dis­

sonance in Haitian Pentecostalism: conversion and even the

Baptism of the Holy Spirit do not mark the end of one's trib­

ulations in spite of the expectation that they ought to do

so. Festinger et al. (1964:26) maintain that dissonance pro­

duces discomfort, especially when a belief to which an indi­

vidual is firmly committed is disconfirmed. Dissonance can

be alleviated through denial or rationalization. Both of

these are manifested in Haitian Pentecostals. Recurrences of

illness can either be denied or rationalized as "tests" by

God to try the loyalty of the convert. An illness which be­

fore conversion was considered a misfortune to be avoided may

be perceived after conversion as a difficulty to be borne.

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But Festinger et al. (1964:28) point out that rational-

zation and denial cannot eliminate dissonance completely.

"But there is a way in which the remaining dissonance can be

reduced. If more and more people can be persuaded that the

system of belief is correct, then clearly it must, after all,

be correct" (Festinger et al. 1964:24). The authors hypo­

thesize that proselytizing increases after the disconfirma-

tion of a firmly held belief. They demonstrate this in their

study of a group which believed in the imminent arrival of

saviors from outer space. The same processes can be seen in

Haitian Pentecostalism. Haitian Pentecostals take an aggres­

sive stance and proselytize actively. As we have seen this

takes place both during mision and to lesser degree in "open

air" prayer services. More importantly, perhaps, Pentecos­

tals strive to reinforce the beliefs of their fellow congre­

gants. Pentecostals are regularly called upon to give, and

to hear, "testimony" about what "the Lord" has done for them.

Dreams with messages from the Holy Spirit are emphasized more

than they are by Vodounists. Thus the idea that Bon-Diè is

constantly intervening in the daily lives of Pentecostals is

reconfirmed.

The uncompromising stance of the Pentecostals vis-à-vis

Vodoun is also in part a result of cognitive dissonance. The

images of power and confrontation may be produced even more

for those who are already involved with Pentecostalism than

for prospective converts. These images are obviously a cru­

cial factor in attracting converts. But they are produced

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and maintained by individuals who have already committed

themselves to Pentecostalism, individuals who have inevitably

suffered some disappointment in their new religion. It is

the certitude of the Pentecostal ideology which is its great­

est strength, as Gerlach and Hine have noted (1963:35).

Metraux (1972:352) writes that this is the source of the ap­

peal of Pentecostalism:

No doubt it is the challenging attitude adopted by Prot­ estants towards the loa which has finally convinced the peasants that this religion confers upon its adepts a sort of supernatural immunity.

This certitude is supported by a.fairly elaborate symbolic

system and by trance performances, as we have seen in this

and the preceding chapter. These may not have convinced all

Haitians of the unassailable validity of Pentecostalism, but

they have drawn a considerable number away from the tradi­

tional religious patterns. But at the same time the certi­

tude of the Pentecostal ideology is based in its greatest

weakness. The insistence on the veracity of the ideology is

a denial of the gap between its promises and real life. The

aggressive proselytization of the ideology functions to di­

minish the cognitive dissonance of the ideology at the same

time as it provides Pentecostalism with an aura of strength.

Pentecostalism and Conceptions about Illness and Health Practice

Most people who convert to Pentecostalism in Haiti do

so in order to fortify themselves against loua and other hu­

man beings, particularly the latter, who can be much more

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harmful. Because Pentecostalism reinforces the fears engen­

dered by the traditional belief system it tends to support

the premises of that system. But ideally conversion to

Pentecostalism should mean a reorganization of concepts about

illness. Just as Pentecostalism entails a contraction of the

categories of supernatural beings from loua, baka, mb, etc.,

to simply movbz espri, "evil spirit," so Pentecostalism

should entail a contraction of the categories of illness,

natural and supernatural, to simply maladi Bon-Diè in the

literal sense of the term. In other words, Pentecostals are

not supposed to make any distinction between "personalistic"

and "naturalistic" etiologies when considering illness.

Rather, they should go beyond these distinctions to the

"final" etiological agent, God Himself. Pentecostals appeal

to God for a cure rather than attempt to counteract the less­

er spiritual or human agent causing the illness. To maintain

an interest in the lesser causes of an illness is a sign of

lack of faith in the Holy Spirit to cure all illnesses, re­

gardless o.f etiology.

This aspect of Pentecostal belief is stressed in the

Church of the Gospel at Grande Anse and in many other Pente­

costal churches. Regardless of how Pentecostals actually

categorize illnesses, they talk as if there were only one

kind, maladi Bon-Diè. They also behave as if there were only

one category of illness. The congregants of the Church of

the Gospel do not see a contradiction between the work of the

Holy Spirit and the work of the physician. To the contrary

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they sometimes speak of their amusement about the physician's

ignorance of the fact that the Holy Spirit works through him.

They frequently visit the town's hospital, which is near the

church building, in order to pray for the sick there. Pente­

costals from the Church of the Gospel use the hospital clinic

when they become ill. Even the man with the injured foot who

was "cured" during the mision to Horne Rouge went to the

pastor's wife to have his wound dressed as soon as he was

able to walk.

The "secularization" of behavior concerning illness

among these Pentecostals is similar to the situation which

Miller (1970) describes for the Toda Indians of Chaco, Argen­

tina. Miller found that the Pentecostal missionaries dif­

fered from other Protestant missionaries because they "exper­

ienced, or claimed to experience, direct contact with the

supernatural by means of ecstasy" (1970:21). The Pentecos­

tals stressed the intervention of the supernatural in daily

life, while other missionaries assigned supernatural beliefs

to a minor role in everyday existence, restricting interven­

tion to oast events (Miller 1970:14-15). Yet in comparison

with the world view of the Toda, that of even the Pentecostal

missionaries was thoroughly secular. Because the world view

of the foreign Pentecostals appeared to be similar to that of

the Toda, the Pentecostals had a greater impact on the Toda

than other missionaries did (Miller 1970:22). The principal

changes in the situation described by Miller occurred in con­

ceptions about economic life. In Haiti, changes in

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conceptions have occurred in conceptions about illness and

health practice, those domains where Pentecostal mission be­

lief and practice most resemble those of the traditional

order.

But this is not the case for all Pentecostals. Congre­

gants of the Church of the New Word at Savanne Palmiste act

quite differently. The administrator of the village clinic

found them to be the group which was most resistant to West­

ern medical concepts. New Word Church congregants firmly

maintained that the decrease in infant mortality in the vil­

lage was due to the presence of'the prophet who scared off

lougarou rather than to the vaccines administered at the

clinic. What accounts for these differences in attitudes

towards illness among Pentecostals?

The answer to this question lies in how they view

spirit possession. For most Pentecostals possession by the

Holy Spirit is a sign of personal sanctification and of the

spiritual power of the congregation. Other Pentecostals,

including congregants of the New Word Church, add another di­

mension to spirit possession, that of communication with the

supernatural. "The extra-human entity is not merely express­

ing himself but is regarded as having something to say to an

audience" (Firth 1969:xi). The person in trance or otherwise

acting out the spirit possession is a spirit medium as well--

or is accompanied by an interpreter who acts as a medium.

This is clearly how the prophet in the Church of the New Word

is viewed. He not only becomes possessed by a "good spirit"

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in the belief of his congregation, but he transmits messages

from this spirit as well.

It is this more than any other feature which makes the

Church of the New Word similar to, indeed an extension of,

Vodoun. It is not surprising that the urgent messages trans­

mitted by the prophet are the same as those transmitted by

those possessed by loua in Vodoun. The messages are about

the causes of misfortune, for if one knows the cause of a

problem one can hope to redress it. In particular the mes­

sages of the prophet are concerned with the causes of illness.

Nor is it surprising that the messages transmitted by the

prophet, like those transmitted by the houngan or mambo, tend

to emphasize personalistic etiologies of illness. Both health

practitioner roles depend on personalistic conceptions of ill­

ness. The houngan and mambo can only treat illnesses caused

by human agents or loua ; their livelihood depends upon these

notions about etiology. The prophet is not paid for his work,

but like the houngan and mambo, his prestige is built upon

creating situations of dramatic confrontation between his

powers and those of his clients' enemies, especially their

human enemies.

In this sense the New Word Church and Pentecostal

churches like it reinforce the Vodoun belief system by pro­

viding a "last resort" which keeps health practice in essen­

tially the same traditional framework by appealing to the

prophet or healer as a replacement for the houngan. The New

Word Church validates the traditional belief system even as

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it claims to have overcome it. In this respect, it repre­

sents an innovation within the traditional belief system

rather than a restructuring of it. As I have indicated in

earlier chapters, all Pentecostal churches have a tendency

to sustain beliefs in the power of the beings which populate

the Vodoun belief system. But in Pentecostal churches which

reject the communicatory aspects of spirit possession there

is at the very least the possibility for a reordering of

conceptions about illness and health practice and of behavior

in crises of illness.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER NINE

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

This dissertation has attempted to describe and analyze

Pentecostalism in Haiti. Particular emphasis has been placed

on Pentecostalism as a system of belief and practice which is

focused on trance behavior and spirit possession belief. In

order to adequately describe Pentecostalism in Haiti it was

necessary to describe the cultural context in which it is

found. The socio-religious component of this context con­

sists of three features: Vodoun, Catholicism and other Prot­

estant denominations.

Vodoun was seen to be a system of belief and practice

with a variety of cultural functions. It was shown that Vo­

doun is both a family cult grounded in spirits believed to

be inherited in a manner which is analogous to the inheri­

tance of land. Even more importantly, Vodoun was shown to

function as a system of health practice which provides means

for both the explanation and the treatment of illness. The

various non-human beings conceived of in Vodoun were de­

scribed: loua, baka, mb, lougarou, san pouèl. It was shown

that these are divided into two categories, those which are

related to the family and those which are not. The former

are viewed as partially beneficent and partly dangerous; the

latter are viewed as injurious and even deadly.

268

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The function of trance behavior and beliefs about pos­

session by loua in Vodoun were reviewed. It was seen that

trance performances of the loua give Vodoun a character of

concrete factuality. It was seen that the loua and other

supernatural beings in Vodoun act primarily in the minds and

bodies of humans ; they are not, for example, active in natu­

ral forces. The principal activity attributed to the loua

and other supernatural beings is that they make humans ill.

The rituals of the Vodoun specialist, the houngan or mambo,

are designed to placate or exorcise the offending being.

There are two kinds of houngan, the houngan makout and the

houngan ason. The latter can treat people by making the

initiates, hounsi, into a cult group. This represents a new

form of organization in Vodoun.

Vodoun also reflects the powerlessness of the rural

Haitian, for it cannot and does not pretend to be able to

cure all forms of illness. Vodoun was shown to be only part

of the religion of its adherents, conceived as fitting into

a wider framework of Catholicism. Several aspects of Ca­

tholicism in Haiti were discussed, including folk Catholi­

cism, the katolik fran, and the role of the Catholic Church

as an institution in Haiti. In part, Catholicism was seen

as reflecting the powerlessness of the Haitian as an indi­

vidual and of Haiti as a nation. The Supreme Being is con­

ceived of as foreign and in the care of foreigners. The

indigenous deities, the loua, are much less powerful than

God.

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After Vodoun and Catholicism were described, Haitian

health practices and beliefs about illness were reviewed.

Various forms of treatment were described. These were family

remedies, traditional "naturalistic" treatments by herbal

doctors and midwives. Western medicine, the practice of

houngan and mambo, and religious conversion. It was shown

that Haitians have two categories of illness, those with

"personalistic" etiologies and those with "naturalistic"

etiologies. In general there are separate health practi­

tioners and forms of treatment for these different cate­

gories of illness. It was seen that Western medicine is an

important element in the scheme of health practice but not a

dominant one, if only because it is so rarely available in

Haiti. Finally a decision-making model about the care of

illness was constructed.

After the traditional system of beliefs about the su­

pernatural and about health and illness were described, it

was possible to describe Protestantism in Haiti. This de­

scription began from a broad overview of the different types

of Protestant denominations in Haiti. It was seen that the

range of Protestant churches in Haiti can be described along

two coordinates. One involves the cultural content of the

church, whether or not it is "hot" or "cold," that is, wheth­

er or not its congregation practices trance behavior accom­

panied by rhythmic music, dancing and other elements. The

other coordinate involves the degree to which the church is

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involved in a mission organization, especially a foreign

organization. The opportunity structure of the missions and

the formation of congregations were reviewed.

Within the range of Protestant denominations, Pente­

costalism was described in some detail. The nature of the

symbolic system of Pentecostalism and of the place of trance

behavior within that system were reviewed. It was seen that

Pentecostal trance behavior, like that of Vodoun, tends to

validate the belief system by providing a concrete demonstra­

tion of its truth. It was seen that Pentecostalism is pre­

sented to Haitians as an uncompromising and militant ideol­

ogy swathed in images of power confronting the evil forces

in life. But it was also seen that the trance behavior of

the Pentecostals does not come up to the grandeur of their

possession beliefs, which has resulted in a variety of opin­

ions about Pentecostalism, some of them highly skeptical.

Finally, Pentecostalism was analyzed as a health prac­

tice similar in many respects to Vodoun. It was seen that

illness was the major occasion for conversion to Pentecostal­

ism. Conversion is viewed as a health practice in itself;

but it is not the only health practice in which Pentecostal­

ism is involved. Much of Pentecostal activity is viewed as

strengthening congregants in their confrontations with ene­

mies which are both spiritual and human, but more particu­

larly the latter. Four conversion histories were analyzed

in detail to clarify some of these ideas. The question of

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cognitive dissonance in Pentecostalism, which like Vodoun

cannot cure every illness, was raised. It was seen that

much of the aggressive stance of Pentecostalism is a re­

sponse to this dissonance. Finally, the question about

Pentecostalism and changing conceptions of illness and

health practice was raised. It was suggested that Pente­

costal congregations which believe in spirit possession as

a form of communication are less likely to change their

conceptions than congregations which reject such a function

for possession. The former act primarily as an extension of

Vodoun while the latter leave open the possibility that

some change may occur.

It is clear that this dissertation has studied Pente­

costalism in several specific socio-cultural environments.

Considerable variation within the Pentecostal churches was

illustrated by examples from the Church of the New Word, a

national church with no mission affiliation. Variation can

also be seen in the functions of Pentecostalism in the

various research settings, urban and rural. If one thing was

learned from this variation, it is that Pentecostalism must

be studied in its very specific cultural context. That con­

text includes the belief system, the arrangement of social

classes and the structure of opportunities among a particular^

group of people.

It is perhaps less obvious that this dissertation looked

at Pentecostalism at a particular moment of its history in

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Haiti. If anything can be predicted about Pentecostalism

there, it is that Pentecostalism will change in its func­

tions and perhaps in its form as well. Many factors will be

involved in these changes. One of the most important is

that in future generations Pentecostalism will be less a

religion of conversion than of "the children of the promise."

If the economic situation in Haiti improves, the national

Pentecostal organisations may have the resources to expand

at a greater rate than they have been able to do in the past.

If this dissertation has given the reader some idea of

how Pentecostalism affects the lives of real individuals in

Haiti and of how Pentecostalism is a part of wider social

and cultural patterns, then it will have accomplished its

purpose."

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LIST OF PROTESTANT CHURCHES MENTIONED

IN THE TEXT

Name Location Tyje 2 Church of the Gospel G.A. Pentecostal/misSion

Crusade of Christ Near G.A Pentecostal/mission

The Army Near G.A. Pentecostal/non-mission

Church of the New 3 Word S.P.^ Pentecostal/non-mission

Church of the Light of the Prophecy S.P. Pentecostal/mission

The Tabernacle S.P. Pentecostal/mission

Bethesda Mission S.P. Pentecostal/mission

Evangelical Brethren S.P. Non-Pentecostal/mission

Seventh Day, Adventist S.P. Non-Pentecostal/mission

Baptist Mission^ S.P. Non-Pentecostal/mission

Baptist Station^ S.P. Non-Pentecostal/non-mission

The Army of the Lord PauP, Pentecostal/non-mission

Grande Anse. 9 ""Mission" means affiliated with an international mis­ sion organization. 3 Savanne Palmiste.

^No pseudonym given in text.

^Port-au-Prince.

274

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GLOSSARY OF SELECTED HAITIAN CREOLE

AND FRENCH TERMS

abitasion agricultural center, farm.

Fr ., action de grâce prayer session at the beginning of many Vodoun rituals

anba kè "under the heart," an illness.

angajman contract with a supernatural being.

baka supernatural being, usually a non­ family loua.

bing bath, usually a ritual bath; potion for bathing.

bolet (Fr., borlette) legal "numbers" game based on lot­ tery.

Bon-Diè God

bon krétiin human being; good Christian.

Fr., comité committee which helps a pastor.

démon supernatural being, usually an evil loua.

dénié prié final prayer session which marks the (Fr., dernière prière) end of Catholic funeral rituals.

dey mourning; wearing of black clothing in mourning.

d.jab supernatural being, usually a loua; person with supernatural power, sometimes pejorative.

d.i ipopo object believed to supernaturally protect a garden.

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doktè physician.

doktë fey herbal doctor.

doktè privé private physician.

éritié heir; person who has inherited a loua.

fam saj midwife.

gad charm for magical protection.

gérizon divinn religious healing, usually Protes­ (Fr., guérison divine) tant .

gro d,jab powerful loua.

hounfb Vodoun cult center for houngan ason; group of initiates which serves in the center.

houngan male Vodoun specialist.

houngan ason initiated male Vodoun specialist, symbolized by rattle.

houngan makout non-initiated male Vodoun special­ ist, symbolized by basket.

hounsi person initiated into a hounfb group.

.1 ènn (Fr. , jeûne) fasting service.

loua joy; dance ritual in the Church of the New Word.

kanzo initiation ceremony which makes a person a hounsi; hounsi.

katolik Catholic.

katolik fran "pure" Catholic who does not prac­ tice Vodoun.

katolik mélé "mixed" Catholic who does practice Vodoun, pejorative.

kay loua "house of the loua" ; cult center for the service of family loua.

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kil (Fr., culte) small Protestant congregation; meeting place for such a congrega­ tion.

kinbé to hold; to make a person sick, refers to family loua or family m b .

konésans (Fr., connais­ supernatural knowledge of healing sance) and divination.

konvèti to convert ; to be prayed over when sick, with the implication that one will convert.

lakou yard; extended family household.

lamé sêlès "Heavenly Army"; dance group and ritual in the Church of the New Word.

lèt mélé ak san "milk mixed with blood," an illness.

lévanj il Protestant; the Gospel.

loua (also loa, Iwa) Vodoun Sj Irit.

loua bosal "untamed" Vodoun spirit, appears to possess individuals during their first trance episodes.

loua fami Vodoun spirit believed to be inheri­ ted by a given family, as opposed to loua not attached to that family.

lougarou person believed to kill others supernaturally, especially infants.

ma.ü evil supernatural practices.

maladi illness.

maladi Bon-Diè illness believed to be sent from God; "natural" illness.

maladi doktë illness believed to be responsive to treatment by a physician; "natural" illness.

maladi voyé pa 15m illness believed to be magically sent by another person; a form of "supernatural" illness.

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malfèktè evil-doer, especially one who en­ gages in maji.

mambo female Vodoun specialist.

manifèstasion spirit possession in Pentecostal churches.

manj é loua "feeding of the loua" ; ritual for family loua.

mët tèt principal loua of a person who be­ comes "possessed by loua."

met vant womb.

mikrob germ.

mision Protestant preaching tour.

misionè participant in a Protestant preach­ ing tour.

mb (lé m b ; Fr., les dead person or soul, usually of a morts) family member.

mové bagay evil supernatural being.

move san "bad blood," an illness.

movèz éspri evil supernatural being; term used (Fr., mauvais espri) especially by Protestants and "pure" Catholics.

mistè (Fr., mystère) loua, Vodoun spirit,

opital léta public hospital

ouanga object used to harm another magi­ cally.

pèdision illness in which a fetus is believed to be unable to grow.

pénitans act of devotion to a loua.

péristil public ritual area of a hounfb cult center.

pétro one of several "nations" of loua.

pitit child; "inheritor" or "server" of a loua.

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plasaj common-law marriage.

poto mitan central post of a péristil, around which ritual participants dance.

pouin (also pouin cho) "hot point," an object with or con­ centration of supernatural power conferred by a loua.

pe savann folk Catholic ritual specialist.

protéstan Protestant.

rada one of several "nations" of loua,

ra.jê uncultivated land.

rara dance festival held on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, etc.

rasanble dance practice in a hounfb.

san pouèl supernatural group of evil humans ; member of such a group.

sévis religious service, Vodoun or Protes­ tant.

sévis loua ritual for family loua.

sévité "servitor," Vodoun adept.

sinbal drum used in Catholic or Protestant churches.

sondé to probe

sou intoxicated; in a light trance.

stasion small Protestant center, usually affiliated with a church.

tanbou drum used in Vodoun services.

tonél thatch shelter, often used for re­ ligious services.

voaoun kind of dance dedicated to the loua and during which "possession" by loua usually takes place.

zonbi soul of a dead person, usually cap­ tured for evil purposes; body of a person placed in a somnolent state and forced to work for another.

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