Vodou Culture 101: Initiation
Vodou is very much a religion of secrets, specifically of the ability to keep secrets. It is also an invite-only religion, and the degree of involvement any particular person can have is not up to them. It is up to the spirits who have a far better ability to see the character and capacities of the person than a human being might.
It’s easiest to think of initiation as a combination of secrets and permission that identifies the kind of involvement the person has in the society, house, or community. A priest, for instance, has a combination of secrets and permissions that allow them to be responsible for the care of both people and the spirits themselves. Those responsibilities take up the majority of many priests’ days, and put them on call 24/7 for the people of the society, house, or community.
My lineage is a kwa-kwa (tcha-tcha) lineage from Haiti. The kwa-kwa lineage is a family lineage and the oldest of the types of vodou in Haiti. Being initiated into it makes me an adopted member of a Haitian family. I’m looking forward to, at some point, visiting the extended family that adopted me. Because this is a family lineage, the purpose of the initiation is to serve the family and the family’s community. Part of the reason I talk about service as much as I do is because the initiation is intended to help us manage the spiritual lives of families and communities.
The kwa-kwa lineage has two initiations, unlike its more famous cousin, the asogwe lineage. The first is a hounsi, which is someone with enough knowledge to serve their spirits and assist priests, but not a position of community leadership unless they earn it via knowledge, wisdom, or personal development. The word means “bride of the spirits,” and refers to the fact that the spirits have to choose the person to assist. Literally, the spirits have to reveal themselves to the person. Hounsi are not necessarily married to a spirit, but it’s not unusual for them to be married to a spirit, which gives them additional responsibilities and permissions associated with that spirit. Hounsi may or may not be able to possess. They serve the spirits either way. A hounsi is not a ‘lesser’ or transitional initiation. For many, it is the only initiation they need, and it confers a lot of perks and protections without heavy responsibilities. In terms of initiations and living in the non-vodou world, this is an ideal amount of initiation. You can still work a 9-5 job with this initiation.
The second, and the initiation I have, is a priest. A priest is someone with the knowledge necessary to serve and assist, who is also expected to be a community leader and to be generally available to the community they serve. In a way, it’s also like a marriage but the amount of responsibilities is much, much higher for priests than for hounsis. It’s a good day for me if I get to bed at a reasonable hour and sleep 8 hours, and a lazy day if I manage that and three meals. A priest is on call for the community, but also for the spirits themselves—we are able to directly get messages from the spirits and do, on topics ranging from ourselves to the well being of community members. We’re also support for each other. There are not many priests, even in a large and well established vodou community like the one I’m a part of, and we provide each other with knowledge, emotional support, physical support, and oversight.
Even a priest sometimes needs someone to give them a hug and a kind word. This is a hard, hard job.
A priest almost always has the capacity to possess, but some possess much less often than others. This does not make them less effective priests, it simply means they don’t need to be possessed to do their work. It is extremely difficult for a priest to have a 9-5 job. Between the spirits and the community, we are responsible for answering calls that may come at any time, and sometimes are urgent and involve calming someone down (i.e. my partner is being arrested, my mother is dying, etc.) Most jobs frown on a worker taking off without warning to talk someone down out of a manic episode or leaving to go sit with someone whose parent is dying in hospice, let alone a worker who might be possessed by a different intelligence without warning.
People in the US majority culture often focus, thanks to movies and media, on the magical portion of vodou. Vodou does have an extremely effective magical tradition, but it’s primarily communal. Initiation is a set of knowledge and skills which is designed to make certain parts of serving the community easier.
