Background information

VODOU SHRINE

Made by: Collected and assembled by Phil Cope with the assistance and guidance of Pierrot Bara

Materials: Wide variety including paper, cloth, glass, plastic, sequins, wire

Museum number: N/A

This vodou altar has been created with guidance from priests in Haiti. In Haiti every altar is dedicated to one, or more usually a group, of spirits and contains their images and offerings to them. This altar is dedicated to spirits including La Sirene, Baron Samdi, Papa Zaka and Ezulie Danton (see below for more details).

Haiti forms part of a large island in the Caribbean near Cuba. From the sixteenth century Europeans brought African slaves to Haiti in one of the most horrible and inhumane episodes of history. In a process similar to the development of carnival traditions in Trinidad (see Midnight robber's headdress) Catholic and traditional African beliefs mixed to form Haitian vodou. This process of mixing continues today and altars in Haiti include images from American popular culture such as Darth Vader and Fred Flintstone.

The first rebellion by slaves, against the French, was a vodou ceremony. This was followed by victories over other European countries attempting to invade and the setting up of an independent state in 1803. Since then there has been continuing turmoil in Haiti which has left it an economically deprived country.

Vodou ceremonies are officiated by a priest or priestess and involve the drawing of symbolic patterns on the floor; parading flags representing the spirits; rhythmic beating of drums and animal sacrifice. This is intended to attract the spirits and bring on states of possession among the worshippers, who go into a trance and communicate with the spirit world.

Guinea in Africa is seen as the birthplace and home of the spirit world. Many Africans who were captured as slaves were transported from the Guinea coast, so it was their last link with their lost home in Africa. It is from here that the vodou ceremonies attempt to attract the spirits to communicate with the living.

An altar in Haiti that was being used would constantly change as offerings and parts of the altar were added and removed. This represents the changing relationship with the spirits that develop in the same way that our relationships with other people change over time. Many of the objects included in the altar, such as the dolls and bottles, are recycled. This is partly because of the poverty in Haiti but also because of the belief that spirits are everywhere, including within things that have been discarded. A vodou altar contains much complicated and changing imagery and symbolism. Some aspects of this altar include:

Offerings to spirits in the form of money, perfume, cigarettes and strong liquor.

Links with Christianity in the form of pictures of Saints who are associated with spirits, such as St Michael (with wings and a sword) who is associated with the spirit Legba, the chief of all spirits.

Coffin shaped bottles with skulls suitable for containing both alcoholic and ancestral 'spirits'. These, along with the skull and snake stick, represent Baron Samdi the spirit chief of the graveyard.

The straw hat, clothing and bag together form a separate small altar to Papa Zaka who is associated with farming.

Erzulie Danton, the goddess of beauty and love, is represented by the dolls heads in bottles.

The sequin flags are typical of flags representing spirits that would be paraded during a ceremony to encourage the presence of that spirit. The flags are symbolic of La Sirene, the goddess of the sea, who is linked with the sirens of Greek mythology.

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