Vodou Culture 101: Spiritual Parties
Vodou is demonstrably non-US in that it embraces the idea that you can get serious shit done in the middle of what looks like an absolute rager of a party—there’s people apparently passed out on the floor or whatever furniture you have. There’s people yelling or screaming. There’s people dancing. There’s rum everywhere. There’s loads of people smoking everything from cigarettes to the most macho cigar you can imagine. It’s packed. It’s hot. There’s fire. There’s music playing (or live drummers.) It looks like absolute chaos, with a side of what US majority culture considers really uncivilized behavior. This is one of the reasons that, historically, slave owners banned vodou parties. To them, it looked almost like an orgy, and it was certainly not the kind of calm, quiet behavior they associated with church and civility.
US majority culture likes its business solemn. It likes business conducted by people in an outfit from a certain cost range, preferably very quiet and calm, and while the outcome of a business decision might be to make entire neighborhoods homeless, it’s all very civilized.
The comparison is deliberate. People coming out of the US majority culture tend to have a very strong emotional reaction to encountering spiritual parties which comes right out of the history of slavery and business. They tend to have either a freakout after they leave (and they leave early) or they tend to assume the party is what it looks like and behave like assholes. After all, this is clearly an opportunity for them to act up and not a spiritual experience.
A vodou spiritual party is an interesting mix of Catholic liturgy, individual spiritual experience, and communal group experience. If you are paying attention, you’ll notice that a party opens with Catholic liturgy in whatever language the priest speaks. It opens sometimes with a procession of flags, with salutes from the drummers, and with something that looks a bit like a play. Assuming you speak that language, you’ll recognize prayers to god, the Virgin Mary, a laundry list of saints, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus. Interspersed with that language are others you will not recognize.
After that, prayers and songs in a variety of languages. At my home temple, we alternate Haitian Kreyol, French, Spanish, and English with other, more obscure languages. It is only after a lengthy set of prayers done by one or two priests that anything like a ‘party’ happens. It takes a bit of knowledge of vodou (and languages) to recognize it, but the party takes the form of call and response. The priests call with prayers, gestures, songs, and other physical salutes, and the spirits answer by taking the body of one of the people who has the capacity to do that. The spirit delivers messages, gives treatments, answers questions, and enjoys offerings. Eventually, it leaves and the next spirit gets called. There is a strict order to who gets called and how, and the party continues until all the business is done (and/or no one who can host a spirit is left standing.)
In the midst of chaos, a LOT of business gets done. Specifically, the business of healing, which is messy, loud, emotional, and uncivilized. Financial business gets done as well, people meeting each other and making commitments to work together later. Vodou does not view noise, chaos, or emotional outbursts as preventing business from happening—in fact, sometimes the business results in all of the previous. If the party is chaotic, it is typically successful, because someone is getting helped.
Whether or not someone’s being helped is more important than the comfort of everyone attending.
