Vodou Culture 101: Obedience

One of the really difficult cultural adjustments that vodouizans from US majority culture have to make concerns obedience. In the entry on godchildren, I wrote that the godchild is expected to be obedient to the godparent. Because this is something that is often viewed in the US majority culture as a particularly negative or exploitative, it’s worth exploring in more depth.

Sometimes, a godparent does exploit this relationship. Doing so has consequences, among them that the godchild leaves the godparent, the godparent’s house, and the godchild tends to publish their experiences. Because vodou is a community religion, this can have a profound effect on the ability of the godparent to attract future godchildren, retain their godchildren, and among other priests. The lwa (spirits) do not view this particularly favorably, either. There are very few people who have permission to participate in vodou, and exploiting or abusing one of those few is a harm done to one of the lwas’ children.

The intention for this article is to help readers identify honorable or fra-Ginen (positively aligned) godparents on the issue of obedience.

This is important: a godparent/godchild relationship is an initiatory relationship. Anyone claiming to be your godparent who has not performed an in-person ritual to formalize that relationship is not your godparent and is scamming you. Initiations have to be performed in person and require a really intensive number of rituals.

It is assumed, in vodou, that the godparent is in possession of wisdom, information, knowledge, and skills that the godchild does not have—which is the point of a mentoring relationship. Because of this, the advice given by a godparent will not always make sense to the godchild, and may even seem like nonsense. It may involve doing something the godchild thinks is silly or pointless. It may contradict the godchild’s common sense, or seem as if it is bound to fail because of the godchild’s previous experience. In vodou culture, obeying that advice no matter how strange is simply part of the relationship.

As my godfather would say, the test of advice is how it turns out.

This can be tricky to evaluate. If the purpose of the advice is character growth, expect it to result in trials and tests of character at some point in the process. If the purpose of the advice is something else, it probably won’t result in a trial or test soon after. Both should, in the long term, result in greater peace, happiness, contentment, personal empowerment, etc. If you’re obeying the advice and it does not result eventually in positive change, it is a sign that something is wrong with the godparent. They may not, for instance, actually have passage (permission from the spirits) to work with you, or the relationship might be intended to provide them with a life lesson. Either way, it is rarely worth it for the godchild to stay if the advice they’re getting does not result in positive change over time.

The relationship is not an easy one. It can be extremely challenging: can hurt the godchild’s feelings, can be expensive, can cause upheaval in the godchild’s life, can even sometimes frighten the godchild. The tests and trials of character are themselves often painful. A godparent can and does challenge the godchild, sometimes unpleasantly and often publicly, without the US majority culture’s concessions to personal dignity or embarrassment.

However, the point of a godchild/godparent relationship is that positive change. Without it, there is something seriously wrong with the relationship.