Читать книгу Real Zombies, the Living Dead, and Creatures of the Apocalypse - Brad Steiger - Страница 49

A male priest of Vodun, is called a “houngan” or “hungan;” his female counterpart is a “mambo.” The place where one practices vodun is a series of buildings called a “humfort” or “hounfou.” A “congregation” is called a “hunsi” or “hounsis,” and the hungan cures, divines, and cares for them through the good graces of a “loa,” his guiding spirit.

The worship of the supernatural “loa” is the central purpose of vodun. They are the old gods of Africa, the local spirits of Haiti, who occupy a position to the fore of God, Christ, the Virgin, and the Saints. From the beginning, the Haitian Voodoo priests adamantly refused to accept the Church’s position that the “loa” are the “fallen angels” who rebelled against God. The loa perform good works and guide and protect humankind, the hungans argue. They, like the saints of Roman Catholicism, were once men and women who lived exemplary lives and were given a specific responsibility to carry out to assist human spirituality. Certainly there are those priests, the bokors, who perform acts of evil sorcery, the left-hand path of vodun, but rarely will a hungan resort to such practices.

The loa communicates with its faithful ones by possessing their bodies during a trance or by appearing to them in dreams. The possession usually takes place during ritual dancing in the humfort. Each participant eventually undergoes a personality change and adapts a trait of his or her particular loa. The adherents of Vodun refer to this phenomenon of the invasion of the body by a supernatural agency as that of the loa “mounting its horse.”

There is a great difference, the hungan maintains, between possession by a loa and possession by an evil spirit. An evil spirit would bring chaos to the dancing and perhaps great harm to the one possessed. The traditional dances of vodun are conducted on a serious plane with rhythm and suppleness but not with the orgiastic sensuality depicted in motion pictures about Voodoo or in the displays performed for the tourist trade.

All vodun ceremonies must be climaxed with sacrifice to the loa. Chickens are most commonly offered to the loa, although the wealthy may offer a goat or a bull. The possessed usually drinks of the blood that is collected in a vessel, thereby satisfying the hunger of the loa. Other dancers may also partake of the blood, sometimes adding spices to the vital fluid, but most often drinking it “straight.” After the ceremony, the sacrificed animal is usually cooked and eaten.

The traditional belief structure of the Yoruba envisioned a chief god named Olorun, who remains aloof and unknowable to humankind, but who permitted a lesser deity, Obatala, to create the Earth and all its life forms. There are hundreds of minor spirits whose influence may be invoked by humankind, such as Ayza, the protector; Baron Samedi, guardian of the grave; Dambala, the serpent; Ezli, the female spirit of love; Ogou Balanjo, spirit of healing; and Mawu Lisa, spirit of creation. Each follower of vodun has his or her own “met tet,” a guardian spirit that corresponds to a Catholic’s patron saint.

In Haiti and in New Orleans, Papa Legba is the intermediary between the loa (also referred to as “lwa”) and humanity. He stands at a spiritual crossroads and gives (or denies) permission to speak with the spirits of Gine; he translates between the human and “angelic” and all other languages of the spheres.

A Voodoo High Priest is called a “houngan” or “hungan” (art by Ricardo Pustanio).

Papa Legba is also commonly called Eleggua and is depicted as an old man sprinkling water or an old man with a crutch accompanied by dogs. He is also known as Legba or Legba Ati-Bon in other pantheons. In any vodon ceremony, Legba is the first loa invoked, so that he may “open the gate” for communication between the worlds. The dog is his symbolic animal, moving with him between the worlds and across the waters of the Abyss.

When it comes to the protection of one’s domicile, Voodoo practitioners place representations of Papa Legba, similar to those of St. Michael and St. Peter, beside the back and front doors of their homes. Legba will keep evil from entering the home unchecked.