Sex In Vodou
COPYRIGHT 1999 - Mambo Racine Sans Bout
No reproduction without consent of author
Sex in Vodou is an interesting topic! On the one hand, Vodou encourages fertility, and
Haitian culture tolerates male polygamy. On the other hand, and paradoxically, Vodou forbids sex
in a variety of ceremonial contexts - Vodouisants may observe sexual abstinence on the night
sacred to their personal lwa, and before and after certain ceremonies. Following initiation, new
initiates are required to abstain from sex for forty one days!
Furthermore, among Vodou lwa the most explicitly sexual behavior is reserved for the lwa of the Dead - Baron, his wife Maman Brigitte and their
children the lwa Gede. The sexual
mimicry of these "animated
cadavers", who can feel nothing at all, is cartoonish, sometimes even grotesque, and at the same
time wildly funny. Their signature dance, the banda, is an excruciatingly accurate,
spare-nothing mime of sexual intercourse with exaggerated gestures and a staccato rhythm.
One of my initiates asserted to me that he had been told that two people dancing the
banda
together during a Vodou service must avoid looking each other in the eyes to prevent becoming
sexually aroused. I had never heard anything like that, but on the premise that there is always
more to learn, I mentioned this to my partner Houngan, Yabofe (pronounced YA-bo-fay) Bon
Houngan.
Yabofe laughed! He said, "Ooomph, AH, oomph oomph AH!", mimicking the
characteristic banda rhythm. "That's no way to have sex, when you have sex for real you want
things sweet, and nice. Besides, you don't do the banda
with a partner, you do it by yourself! The only time you see one person winding up on another is
when one of them has a lwa in their head!"
Yabofe reflected, "When we have a dance, we are serving the lwa. When a lwa comes, it can do
what it wants, but we ourselves are serving the lwa. You don't come to a Vodou dance to look
for someone to have sex with! In fact, men are not supposed to have an erection while they are
dancing, not at ALL, not even if they are dancing that banda...", and here Yabofe broke
up laughing again at the idea of making love banda style.
A Vodou dance is indeed for the service of the lwa! Big dances, where several congregations
come together, provide opportunities for new encounters, and the dancing itself provides the
opportunity for men and women to display health and strength, as well as talent for song and
movement. But "playing to" a particular person, or advancing an agenda other than the
service of the lwa, is immediately discouraged.
At a Vodou dance, men generally wear normal civilian clothing, trousers or jeans, and nice shirts.
Women wear dresses, usually with full skirts, and head kerchiefs. The Houngans or Mambos
present may be dressed more richly, or in clothes more resembling African styles. Men seldom
remove their shirts, unless it has grown quite late and everyone is more or less soaked in sweat
from several hours of dancing. Even so, unless a man is in his "home" peristyle, shirts usually
remain on. The exceptions are the drummers, who in many cases are professional musicians
who are not members of the congregation. Drummers often play shirtless, because they are the
first to ruin their clothes with perspiration, owing to their exertions playing the drums.
Outside of religious activity, the magical work of Houngans and Mambos very often includes
doing sex-related magic. Clients often wish to attract a particular lover or to ensure the fidelity of
a spouse. There are probably more different types of wanga, or spells, for love and
for sex than for any other purpose!
For example, one very simple wanga involves filling a clay pot with certain particular food items
and then wrapping it tightly with a cloth and then again with string, while invoking for influence
over the desired person. The person working the magic rubs the clay pot, and then contrives to
rub the head of the desired person, thereby making the person suceptible to the influence and
control of the person working the magic.
There are very effective herbal baths to attract love and sex, there are wanga for fertility and for
fidelity, as well. Even the sex organs themselves may be utilized in minor ways to ensure the
success of love wanga. All of these wanga are the property of the Houngan or Mambo who
knows how to do them, and are performed for a fee.
A general tendency to encourage fertility plays a major role in determining sexual attitudes. Even
homosexual men are
expected to father children. This high value placed on fertility plays into Haitian men's advantage
in polygamy, and many Haitian men are not above enforcing this advantage by violence. Thus
women venerate Erzulie
Dantor, who is a strong black woman, a mother, who uses knives and
protects women from domestic violence and sexual abuse. Erzulie Dantor is also the object of
particular veneration by lesbian
women, and Dantor herself is sometimes said to be a lesbian. She is invoked by market
women to protect their businesses and ensure a profit; or in any other context in which women's
own income gathering activities or other independant work is involved. Interestingly, Erzulie
Dantor has two husbands! One is the foundational Petro lwa Ti-Jean Petro, the other is the
master magician Simbi Makaya.
Childless women in Haiti are the object of concern to a much greater extent than childless women
in the United States. Lack of economic opportunities for women makes the role of "mother" one
of the few available to majority class Haitian women, and one of the few ways in which they can
hope to provide themselves with some small security in old age. Childlessness is sometimes
considered to be a reasonable grounds for a man to put a woman out of the house, or to conduct
relatively open relationships with other women in the hope of impregnating one of them. Childless
women often seek help from medsin fey (herbalists), Mambos, or Houngans. Interestingly,
in the case of an infertile couple, the woman and not the man is invariably presumed to be "at
fault", and any magical intervention is directed at her and not at the man.
These interventions are usually conducted under the patronage of Baron, and women
wishing to become pregnant are escorted to the cemetery and presented to the Cross of Baron,
where further ceremonies take place depending on the guidance of the presiding Houngan or
Mambo and any lwa who may appear through the mechanism of possession.
Likewise, a woman deprived of the use of a man, for example if her husband emigrates to the
United States and does not return for a very long period of time, may be excused for bearing
children in her husband's absence. Excused by the community at least - in Haiti, if the woman is legally
married she can be imprisoned if convicted of adultery! (Men convicted of adultery, by the way,
pay only a small monetary fine.) If the woman is not married, she may be abandoned by her absent
man, but she will not be severely condemned by the community. Here, the fertility principle
overrides the proprietary rights of the man.
The Vodou festival of Saut d'Eau, held every July 14, 15, and 16 at the waterfall of Ville
Bonheur, near the town of Mirebalais on Haiti's central plateau, is in many ways a fertility festival.
The waters of the falls are sacred both to the lwa of primal creation Damballah and Ayida Wedo,
and to the lwa of love and luxury Erzulie Freda. When the "serpent" of the hissing falls is visited
by mist-diffracted sunlight which produces the rainbow of Ayida Wedo, these two lwa are thought
to be making love! The water is believed to promote fertility, and couples wishing to bear
children often attend the festival specifically for that reason. Women enjoy some degree of sexual
license during this festival, for the purpose of procreation.
A famous Houngan of Bel Air, in Port-au-Prince, the late Dieu Bon, once took a young woman to
Saut d'Eau. The young woman then astonished Dieu Bon by having sexual relations with a whole
series of men! Dieu Bon lamented to me, "If she had gone and had fun with one or two, I
wouldn't have said anything. Let her have her fun, it's Saut d'Eau! But so MANY!" This
episode was immortalized in song by Wawa, who sang "Dyebon te genyen yon ti fanm, korve
bare nan bobo l, ah hey, a yo!", meaning, "Dieu Bon had a little woman, a work crew got
stuck in her vagina, a hey, a yo!"
Vodou has no moral injunction against sex before or without marriage. Houngans and Mambos
are not legally competent to perform marriages in Haiti, so when Vodouisants wish to marry
formally, they usually marry in the Roman Catholic church. If they are such notable Vodouisants
that the local priest refuses to marry them, they obtain an "act civil" from the local Juge-de-Paix,
justice of the peace.
Houngans and Mambos conduct marriage ceremonies between humans and lwa! People
marry lwa because of a personal affinity for a particular lwa, or because the lwa requests the
marriage. In a marriage to a lwa, the desired lwa is invoked and possesses a person
present. In the house in which I was first initiated, the lwa must be of the opposite sex from
the person, and the lwa must appear in the head of a person of the appropriate sex. For instance, if
a man is to marry Maitresse Erzulie Freda, Freda must possess a woman, and that woman will
then be the vehicle for Freda's participation in the marriage ceremony. The ceremony itself is
conducted according to Roman Catholic liturgy by an uninitated ceremonial specialist called a
pere savan, who is able to read and recite Catholic liturgy.
A person married to a lwa must abstain from sex on the night sacred to that lwa. Often they wear
the colors of that lwa, and serve that lwa particularly well in other regards. In return, the person is
protected, aided financially, and nurtured spiritually by that lwa.
In the congregation where I work in Haiti, we have a running joke, a pun on the Creole words
Gine (Guinea) and gigit (gigit is a not-terribly-vulgar colloquial term for 'penis').
We were joking one day about people who mix up sexual activity and Vodou service, like this,
Some unscrupulous, predatory Houngans and Mambos including at least one very well known in the United States sometimes try to take advantage of clients or intiates. They may attempt to pressure the client or initiate into sexual intimacy. This is never necessary or recommended, and such a Houngan or Mambo is disreputable and vicious. For more information on this issue see Initiates, Initiators, and Sexual Impropriety.
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