Glenville Ash­by

Re­cent­ly, West In­di­ans braved the cold as they con­gre­gat­ed in the bel­ly of Harlem, New York. This was no post Oba­ma vic­to­ry par­ty. Rather, it was an or­a­to­ry and ex­hi­bi­tion on that mys­ti­fy­ing spir­i­tu­al art that has gripped the�mind of the layper­son and stoked the imag­i­na­tion of Hol­ly­wood's most cre­ative di­rec­tors. On a brisk Sat­ur­day evening, voodoo re-emerged, cap­ti­vat­ing and over­whelm­ing the trans­fixed au­di­ence.

The con­fer­ence, held at Casa Frela Gallery, was mi­nus the dra­mat­ic dis­plays and histri­on­ics of a Shango (Orisa) feast. There was no blood, spir­it pos­ses­sions, danc­ing, drum­ming or cer­e­mo­ni­al sac­ri­fice. Yet, it proved equal­ly elec­tri­fy­ing. Cen­ter­ing on the his­to­ry of Voodoo and its en­dur­ing sig­nif­i­cance as a lib­er­at­ing in­stru­ment for all peo­ples, the con­fer­ence fea­tured Tony Savi­no's awe-in­spir­ing Be­yond the Moun­tains, which�evoked the es­o­teric qual­i­ty of the voodoo feast of St Yuves. His pho­tos of a de­cap­i­tat­ed head of a bull and a trance in­duced devo­tee danc­ing with a knife pressed against his throat were in­deed haunt­ing. But, it was�renowned an­thro­pol­o­gist Dr Hen­ry�Frank�who en­thralled the au­di­ence. In more ways than one, Dr Frank's de­meanor, wit and knowl­edge elicit­ed eerie com­par­isons to Dr Er­ic Williams and leg­endary Shango prac­ti­tion­er Pa­pa Niza.

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Voodoo shapes his­to­ry

To Dr Frank, voodoo and its loas (gods) have played an in­te­gral role in the fab­ric of Caribbean con­tem­po­rary so­ci­ety. Its sig­nif­i­cance to the free­dom fight­ing ef­forts of Si­mon Bo­li­var and the un­fold­ing of Amer­i­can his­to­ry with the pur­chase of Louisiana from the French, can­not be over­stat­ed. The im­pact of a voodoo rit­u­al on the eve of the slave up­ris­ing in 1791 and sub­se­quent in­de­pen­dence of Haiti in 1804, is laud­ed by Dr Frank as one of the wa­ter­shed mo­ments in Caribbean his­to­ry. The in­vo­ca­tion of Ogun to aid in the re­sis­tance against French troops on the is­land was cel­e­brat­ed as proof of the close­ness that Caribbean peo­ples en­joy with the Voodoo gods.

Hol­ly­wood cor­rupts Voodoo

By the end of the evening Dr Frank con­tin­ued to hold sway....im­pugn­ing Hol­ly­wood for its cor­rup­tion of Voodoo. "Don't con­fuse voodoo with sor­cery. The hougan (voodoo priest) is not a bukor, or obeah­man," he as­sert­ed.

He elu­ci­dat­ed about the types of pos­ses­sion unique to each is­land, cit­ing dif­fer­ences be­tween African spir­its which he called ra­da and is­land-based spir­its or petro. Fur­ther, he em­pha­sised the�su­prema­cy of spir­i­tu­al work per­formed in Haiti, when com­pared to oth­er places, even Benin, in West Africa. He high­light­ed the syn­cretism of Ro­man Catholic saints with African gods–an in­ge­nious un­der­tak­ing by slaves; and the el­e­va­tion of women in the voodoo faith. ?But, Dr Frank's provoca­tive lec­ture was al­so punc­tu­at­ed with mo­ments of lev­i­ty. "Switch off your cell­phones when I am lec­tur­ing. The spir­its will not be pleased with you!" And when me­chan­i­cal noise sud­den­ly erupt­ed from a road­side project, Dr Frank jok­ing­ly ques­tioned the tim­ing of the work and promised that the spir­its will "fix them."

More ques­tions than an­swers

Amid the learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, many ques­tions re­main unan­swered. Such ques­tions have been fod­der for many who have de­nounced voodoo and some­how have at­trib­uted all of Haiti's prob­lems to its spir­i­tu­al in­dul­gence. Of course, a more sober opin­ion will raise the is­sue of the is­land's unique so­cio-po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry. But this evening was more about the vi­tal­i­ty and com­plex­i­ty of Voodoo and its sto­ried roots.

The con­fer­ence at Casa Fela Gallery was mean­ing­ful in many dif­fer­ent ways. To PhD stu­dent Lizette Cruz, it was an op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn the com­mon­al­i­ty of in­dige­nous re­li­gious ex­pres­sion. Present al­so was Texas-born Mark Schoofs who rep­re­sent­ed the grow­ing gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of Harlem. He was most in­trigued by the colours and artistry of the re­li­gion.�For me, the ex­pe­ri­ence brought back scenes of yes­ter­year when I was ini­ti­at­ed by Moth­er Rod­ney in a stir­ring af­ter­noon of drum­ming and singing, as I pre­pared for nine days of "mourn­ing." I was then, and still re­main a child of Ogun. As I left the build­ing in­to the bit­ing cold, I could not help but feel the pres­ence of the loas, ever so watch­ful. Yes, in New York, as they were in Trinidad. lenville Ash­by is a�jour­nal­ist and PhD can­di­date at Eu­clid In­ter­gov­ern­men­tal Uni­ver­si­ty in Wash­ing­ton DC. His ar­ti­cles have ap­peared in mag­a­zines and news­pa­pers in New York and abroad.