When the slaves were transported to the new world they took with them the traditions from Africa. Because the slaves were brought in from many different parts of Africa the tradtions would become mixed and give birth to entirely new traditions such as Macumba, Umbanda, Condonble, Palo Alto and Hoodoo. Hoodoo for example is typically an extraction of Louisianan slave religion mixed in with American Indian practices (typically called Amerindian) and Catholicism (in particular Saint worship). Hoodoo (also known as Lucky Hoodoo) was born in the plantations among the slaves. A trademark cry of the Hoodoo slave was as follows;
"My knee bones am aching
My body's rackin' with pain
I 'lieve I'm chile of God rebon,
And this aint my home,
Cause heaven's my aim
and Hoodoo's my salvation song."
When slaves escaped the plantations they would run to the surrounding forests and meet up with groups of Indian who would take them in. Here, an amalgamation of beliefs would occur and the traditional spirits of Africa would be mingled with the spirits of the Indians (typically called Caboclos).
In the plantations, any slave caught practicing Vodou would be severely lashed and so the slaves were forced to hide their traditional practices within Hoodoo. This Hoodoo sometimes appeared just like Catholic devotion but for the slaves there was no mistaking which spirits they were calling. An old slave, Mose Hursey, would later write (original spelling);
"On Sunday they had meetin', and sometimes they'd preach and pray and sing and we'd see the old African spirits too. I heard them and I saw them git up with a powerful force. Many of us used to cry cause them spirits they were sad, they reminded us of home. These were the old spirits, we called them Hoodoo but avybody knew who they really were."
she then writes;
"one day an old slave by the name Jim Nelson was forced to lead a prayer in one of them churches. He became excited and started calling on them old Hoodoo spirits. The Negroes sobbed and shouted and swayed, then the white master he come and put the lash on old Jim and he died right there."
So as can be seen, the black man's religion was not tolerated. In fact the whites believed that the slaves had no soul so had no right to possess a religion. Pastor Monroe wrote;
"The black man is a type of monkey and shows no evidence of possessing a soul. I many times think that it is a wasted effort that we even try to give them the word of God because clearly there is nothing there to receive it."
Many of the Hoodoo slaves went on to become legendary, among them Father John (a very old slave who was said to possess healing powers and was a master herbalist). Another was Maputo, a slave that led a rebellion against plantation owners. He evaded capture and bullets numerous times which led to the legend that he was protected by the Hoodoo. He was later asked what protected him. He replied;
"I got me an old prayer from an old powerful man in Africa and he told me that this prayer would protect me: 'Negative forces out, bad luck be gone. Positive forces in. Lucky Hoodoo spirits be everywhere in my body, Lucky Hoodoo spirits feel my mind with powerful success.' And I believe and I'm always protected." [source: 'The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South' by Albert J. Raboteau]
The Vodou Paradigm
Before we get near describing possession we must first cover some basic ground. In Vodou the dead are not really dead! They live on 'in the waters'. These waters are commonly called 'the shadow realms' and its from here that the spirits can be summoned and whereby the 'crisis of possession' can take place.
Is there a parallel view of this shadow realm in science or are we purely stuck in religious ground? Well, actually there are parallels.
Much of physics works in the shadow world of symbols. The quantum physicist uses (numeric) symbols to wield mighty universal forces and is in fact on a path of continual discovery by using these very symbols. But so does the Shaman, so does the Priest, so does the Yogi, so does the Buddhist monk and so does the Witchdoctor. Each has their own symbology, their own self-discovered doorway into the 'shadow realm'.
And what is this 'shadow realm'? Well we can take a Biblical interpretation which fits perfectly;
"But your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise; awake and sing, you who lie in the dust. For your dew is a dew of light, and the land of shades gives birth." (Isiah 26:19)
or we can take it from a scientific perspective;
"Many would hold that, from the broad philosophical standpoint, the outstanding achievement of twentieth century physics is not the theory of relativity...or the theory of quanta...or the dissection of the atom...it is instead the general recognition among physicists that things are not what they seem; it is the general recognition that we are not yet in contact with the ultimate reality." (Sir James Jeans).
or we can take it from a tribal/shamanic perspective;
"If the earth is a sphere, then the abyss below the earth is also its heavens; and the difference between them is no more than time, the time of the earth's turning. If the earth is a vast horizontal surface reflecting invisibly, even for each man his own proper soul, then again, the abyss below the earth is also its heavens, and the difference between them is time. The time of an eye lifting and dropping. The sun-door and the tree-root are the same thing in the same place, seen now from below and now from above and named, by the seer, for the moment of seeing." (Maya Deren)
1929 French Nobel Prize winner, Louis de Broglie concludes it beautifully in his book 'Physics and Microphysics';
"Hence, this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is, in a sense, the whole. Only that this whole cannot be surveyed in one single glance. This as we know is what the Brahmins expressed in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet so simple and so clear: 'tat tvam asi', this is you."
Modern psychology too has entered the 'shadow realms' by discovering that our senses don't perceive everything in the universe around us. Our five senses have their limitations, their boundary conditions, even after they have reached their full development.
The visual perception of an object is preceded by visual sensation, a reflection of the object on our retina. That contact produces energy or waves that reaches the cerebral cortex as information which is then recreated into the image of the object in front of us. Many disturbances can take place between those two space-time events, the sensation and the perception. People affected by Daltonism for example cannot see red and green. The red appears black and the green is gray.
So reality is partly real and partly constructed by our conscious minds in order to make sense of the world. So this reality is partly true and partly false.
In children, because of the immaturity of the neurons, the distinction between self and an external object or person is not evident. There is a syncretism between the subject and the object. According to Jean Piaget, there is an absorption of the 'I' into the 'other' because of indifferentiation between subjective and objective. For the very young child, dreams are as real as the events of daily life and he/she accords them the same validity. From ages two to seven, he recognizes the coexistence of two disparate realities - that of games and play and that of the real world. From the age of seven up he/she begins to loose this ability to naturally tap into the 'shadow realm'. One wonders if this is what is meant when Jesus says, 'except ye be as children you shall never see the Kingdom of Heaven'.
In vodou the matter of the 'shadow realm' is fully understood because it is experienced. Via trance induction, the vodouist is able to create a door into this 'shadow realm' and actually, for a moment, creates a bridge between our 'normal' world and the quantum world.
What he encounters in that 'shadow realm' is incredibly fascinating and even a quick study of vodou shows that it is a 'shadow realm' populated by beings. Whats particularly interesting is that these beings are us, they are the dead, no longer in the physical realm but now dwelling in a quantum reality.
"Yet with you I shall always be...whom else have I in heaven?" (Psalms 73:23-25)
The beings that dwell in this 'shadow realm' are , for the lack of a better term, spiritual beings. A more correct observation would probably call them shadow-matter entities. Beings from a parallel-type universe that is only accessed via death, ecstasy or via trance.
When the vodou drummer beats his drum, he ceases to be just a drummer beating a rhythm, he is actually the energy necessary to propel the dancer into the 'shadow realm'. He knows (via old secret traditions passed from drummer to drummer) the key rhythms by which he can rip time.
I feel like I've made a heck of a lot of broad statements above without providing evidence. Where is the evidence that this quantum world of the dead actually exists? Well, it just so happens that there is such evidence. Please be patient with me though as it takes a bit of explanation to get there.
We are all familiar with Newton's concept of gravity wherein the earth is a kind of attractor that makes us fall down when we trip. But Newton was wrong, gravity is not the result of a magnetic pull at all. Einstein and later Oskar Klein both demonstrated successfully that gravity is actually just curves in space that make us stumble and makes things fall, it is this same force that takes the planets into orbits around the sun. What's incredible is that later experimental physicists proved Einstein and Klein to be totally correct.
What physicists such as Theodore Kaluza discovered was that matter in fact distorts space-time by creating smooth curves in it. Kaluza went as far as to call gravity the 'fifth dimension'. But there was more to be discovered. In 1950 scientists discovered that at the subatomic level gravity was composed of either strong or weak forces. By 1975 they had discovered what these forces did. The strong force maintains the attraction that binds together quarks in sets of three to form protons and neutrons in the atomic nuclei. The weak force is the power at work in certain kinds of radioactive decay, such as the transformation of a neutron into a proton. Those forces when combined transform into light.
This energy is carried across the space between two particles via quanta or bundles of energy. These point-like bundles were also nicknamed messenger particles. In 1977 it was discovered that the 'photon' was the messenger particle for the electromagnetic force which glued the particles, the 'gluton' was the strong force messenger and the 'weakon' was that of the weak force messenger. On a massive scale scientists termed this force graviton to explain the gravity between massive objects.
Soon after, scientists began coming up with supergravity theories that quite simply state that there are more dimensions in reality than the five already known. This was followed by the Superstring Theory in 1982 which argued that instead of points these messenger particles are actually strings connected to each other. Using this model, physicists quickly uncovered up to 10 additional dimensions, all hidden in a quantum reality.
From here it was almost a simple jump into the next discovery, that of the 'shadow realm'. This 'shadow realm' may be new to science as it grasps to understand it, but for the Shaman there is no difficulty in comprehending it. he has been working with these realms for thousands of years.
Just think of the 'Dream Time' of the Aboriginies, same thing.
It gets stranger however because the concept of hidden dimensions is completely connected with that of shadow matter. According to subatomic physicists we may be sharing our reality with another world made up of 'invisible shadow' or 'dark matter'.
Swiss physicist Fritz Zwicky, calculated that gelaxies in large clusters were moving so fast that the gravity provided by their visible stars was insuficient to hold the galaxies together. A new 'glue' was discovered; Dark Matter. Today, it is a shared belief among scientists that about 90% to 99% of the Universe is composed of Dark Matter.
This dark matter is a singularity in the reality of the Universe. We know now that our Universe is full of that shadow matter. Our own Milky Way is full of it but we remain unaware of it. We cannot see it because we see mainly by means of electromagnetism, and the shadow matter does not emit light. It's also been discovered that this shadow realm passes through matter so that it is for us impossible to feel it. The way we know this stuff even exists is because we have been able to detect it by the gravitational fields it exerts in the galaxies. Dark Matter is not theory, it is now proven fact!
Black Holes, although fascinating in themselves, are not technically part of dark matter, although they may certainly lead there. Black Holes still emit some light or as Stephen Hawking put it, "Black Holes aint that black." Scientists believe that dark matter is something far stranger, some unknown form of matter left over from the earliest moment of creation. They suspect that this matter is not made of atoms at all but is in fact made of quantum particles that dwell in other dimensions.
Before we get to describing possession itself, there's one more problem we need to face. How do we know vodou possession is not some form of mental illness? This is a serious question that has been argued by some prominent writers on psychology.
Possession trance is characterized by a transient alteration in identity whereby one's normal identity is temporarily replaced (possessed) by a spirit, ghost, deity, or other person. Descriptions of possession trance are found in a variety of cultures and have been most studied in India. The current psychiatric classificatory system, include this disorder under the rubric of dissociative disorders. However, possession-like states are common in other psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, mania, OCD and depression. Possession states along with religious and mystic experience are also known to occur during hyperactivity of the limbic system and with temporal and frontal lobe lesions. So is this perhaps what is happening here? Is the 'crisis of possession' in vodou no more than a revealing of latent mental illness?
The answer quite smple is no. In 1972 the University of Michigan sent two psychiatrists to Haiti in an attempt to explain possession from a psychiatric perspective. Dr Margaret Clarke an Dr Phil Nixon applied all the known psychiatric tests in their attempt to uncover the truth about possession. They concluded;
"There is nothing to suspect that the experience called 'the crisis of possession' is in any way related to mental illness. Quite the opposite, we found sufficient evidence to show that it definately is not"
They then say;
"There may indeed be some cases of mentally ill people playing at or being mistaken for possession but this does not detract from the fact that possession does, from our professional observations in the field, appear to be real. We must then also come to the logical question and ask, what exactly is real?"
Maya Deren was the first Western scholar to experience possession. From here she said, "I was no longer an anthropologist, I had opened the door and stepped through."
She describes possession as utterly terrifying and much of her chapter on possession describe her desperate attempts to get away from the experience.
It starts when she is dancing around the center pole with all the other dancers. Her left leg is suddenly 'rooted to the earth' and becomes unable to move. She tries desperately to move away from the drums and their constant pulse but begins to feel all her muscles tingle with pain, her body begins to dance again but not longer under her control.
Suddenly the pain stops and;
"I realize that it is no longer myself who I watch. Yet it is myself...We two are made one again, joined by and upon the point of the left leg which is rooted to the earth."
Now an ecstatic feeling begins to replace what was once pain and Deren finds herself unable to hold on. From here she describes entering a parallel world wherein she occupies two mirror selves. One of the parallel selves watching the other. She sees this other self slowly begin to flicker, leaving gaps of 'white darkness' that begin to get greater and wider. She says;
"It is a greater force which I cannot sustain or contain, which surely will burst my skin. Its too much, too bright, too white for me..."
Other anthropologists who have seriously studied vodou have come to a similar conclusion. The experience itself is valid. Something is happening while the crisis is taking place. The first serious studies of Voodoo commenced in the 1940's and was published in such books as 'The Crisis of Possession in Voodoo' by Dr. Luis Mars. Travelling through Haiti as an anthropologist, Mars attempted to explain the crisis of possession but in the end admits that he is unable. Of particular interest is this comment;
"The crisis of possession is not some made up fantasy, it exists! It forgot to obey science in its ruthless need for explanation."
Then came 'Secrets of Voodoo' by renowned sociologist Milo Rigaud;
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0872861716/ref=sib_dp_pt/105-4204322-6823654#reader-link
Rigaud concludes that possession is "...of definite quality and reality. I have never seen anything in all my years studying primitive culture that comes anywhere near the reality of this experience."
The Drums
So now we have established the phenomenon called 'possession' is possible, we have to now examine how to get there. Here is where the science of rhythm comes in.
In Vodou, drumming is a very definite science. Vodou has very particular drumming for very particular purposes but basically the rhythms are broken down into three categories or families. These are called;
Rada: believed to be derived from Nigeria
Petro: believed to be a 'new world' developed and founded in the year 1768 by one "Don Pedro"
Congo: believed to be derived from Angola and the Congo
For a sampling of vodou drumming I have uploaded a very rare album called 'Drummers Of The Societe Absolument Guinin - Voodoo Drums' . This album provides examples of the 3 different styles of drumming. You can download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?nv12vobatns
In Vodou, the beat is more than just musical, it serves as the gate by which the spirits come down to communicate. I was told by a Mambo that the Vodouist does not listen to the beat but instead keeps his focus on the little silences in between, it is through these little spaces that the spirits come through and take possession.
Another interesting feature of Vodou ceremony is that practitioners 'feed' the drums (usually with rice, yam and rum). The reason for it is that they believe the drums have a life of their own and the more they are fed and nurtured the better the drum will sound. So for the Haitian, when he hears an amazing piece of drumming, he does not compliment the drummer for his virtuosity. Instead he/she will say something like; "Oh that drum is speaking sweetly tonight". The virtuosity is in the drum, not the drummer.
Haitians have a great admiration for talented drummers of course, and their talents are greatly sought after. In order to participate in a Vodou ceremony however, the drummer needs more than just talent, he needs lots of stamina! Some ceremonies are known to last 3-5 days, and the drumming is fairly much non-stop.
The Dead
Haitians have a fascinating relationship with their dead.
The ancestors, 'zanset yo' in Haitian Kreyol, are ever with the Haitian. He/she lives, breathes and acts with the awareness of their presence. The national anthem of Haiti begins, "For the country, and for the ancestors, we walk united...".
In the countryside of Haiti, each family compound includes a family graveyard. The tombs of family members are as elaborate as the family can afford. Some resemble small houses built above ground, with the crypt below. The structures built for wealthy families may even comprise a small 'sitting room', complete with a picture of the deceased and good quality chairs. When a newcomer enters the family compound for an extended visit, courtesy requires that her or she make a small libation of water at the tombs, so that the ancestors will welcome the person. Family members and guests may also, at any time, make an 'illumination'. Candles or beeswax tapers are lighted, placed on the tombs, and illuminated, and a short prayer is said.
In the city, the law requires burial in the city graveyard. Again, structures may be quite elaborate, and large padlocks and other security devices are used to prevent grave robbers from making off with the metal coffin findings, bones, or other articles of the dead person.
The bones of dead individuals are considered to have great magical powers, particularly if the dead person was a Houngan or Mambo (vodou priest or priestess), or in any other way notable or distinguished.
A Vodouist is buried with Roman Catholic ceremony, and a wake is held for nine nights after the death. The ninth night is called the 'denye priye', the 'last prayer'. After the 'last prayer', the Catholic part of the death ritual is closed.
At some point either before or after the Roman Catholic ceremony, the Vodou ceremony of 'desounin' is held. In this ceremony, the component parts of the person's soul and life force, and the primary spirit (known as the lwa) in the head of the person, are ritualistically separated and consigned to their correct destinations. The 'desounin' of a well known and highly respected Houngan might sometimes be attended by hundreds of white robed, weeping mourners. It is at this time that the inheritor of any 'family lwa' liberated from the deceased is usually revealed, as the chosen individual becomes briefly possessed.
One year and one day after the death of the individual, the ceremony 'retire mo nan dlo', 'take the dead out of the water', may be performed. The spirit of the dead person is called up through a vessel of water, under a white sheet, and ritually installed in a clean clay pot called a 'govi'. The voice of the dead individual may speak from the govi, or through the mouth of another person briefly possessed for the purpose. The govi is reverently placed in the djevo, or inner room of the temple.
Nothing is more important in vodou than connecting with the ancestors. According to vodou your ancestors are the gateway into this world.
The Path to Possession
Vodou follows a very strict formula for getting to the stage of possession, first come the 'veves' which are drawn on the ground using cornflour;
http://i54.tinypic.com/ofrbxl.jpg
These are the signatures of the particular entities being called and are used as beacons to attract their presence. Each spirit has a particular veve that calls them when danced upon.
After these have been carefully blessed then a solemn silence comes over the Peristyle (the temple). This is the time for prayer between the self and God. You have to remember that contrary to popular misconception vodou is actually monotheistic. They believe in one God, but much like the Jews believe that this deity is too far removed from our understanding. Too Tao-like in its make up.
After the prayers to this far away God are complete, comes the drumming and with it starts the dancing while the Mambo and the Hougan begin their prayers to the spirits. In vodou this is the stage where a very mysterious thing happens. The veves that were carefully drawn earlier are now being scattered by the dancers feet. This is the stage where these signatures take on life and begin to summon the spirits.
Who the spirits choose to possess is up to them, anyone can be taken. But it's always been said that the spirits possess those they like to see dance.
The Loa
The Loa are the 'spirits' of Vodou. These are the 'beings' that possess the dancer and bring messages from the other world. I will cover just three main Loas here.
Papa Legba (also known as Exu in Brazil and Elegua in Cuba)
Papa Legba is the old man at the crossroads. He is the first loa to be addressed in any ceremony because it is he who opens the door to the spirits. Other names for him include Exu (in Brazil), Eshu (in Nigeria), Eleggua, Old Man Legba, Papa Happy Tales and many others. his veve is the crossroads;
http://i51.tinypic.com/25kn04h.gif
When he possesses he is straight away recognized by the things he requests. He asks for a rocking chair, a pipe, and a walking stick. Anthropologists, among them Alfred Merteaux, have noted the sudden appearance of dogs in the peristyle (temple) when Legba arrives, dogs are sacred to Legba and he seems to attract them by his mere presence.
Legba sits on his rocking chair and begins to rock back and forward. Someone trully possessed by Legba will have their eyes wide open but their pupils will be turned upwards so that only the white of the eye can be seen. It is from this sitting position that Legba begins telling stories. He is the old grandfather and we crouch at his feet to hear his tales.
The stories he tells are fascinating, they are very child-like and beautiful. The types of stories someone might tell a child at bed time. There's a simple beauty about them.
Sociologist Michelle Beauvoir writes in her book 'The Waters of Return; Science and Magic in Voodoo' that;
"So humble and benevolent is Papa Legba that He never needs sacrifices of pigs, or bulls or big fiesta to be done in His honor. He is happy with a modest cup of coffee, a fistful of grilled or roasted corn or peanuts, some tobacco that He smokes in a noticeably simple pipe made of little bamboo and corncob. He goes about constantly throughout the "great road of Life", that is why He is also called "Mèt Gran Chemen" or the Master of the great Road. He stops here and there at the entrances of every Hounfo, just the time to distribute graciously His thoughtful advises to Hougans and Manbos."
Despite the seriousness of his duties and given his great age, Legba is always amiable. He is much loved by the people who greet him as "Papa". Every day belongs to Legba. He loves Red, but as he is served in both Rada and Petro rites, his colors then become Red and White. His symbols include a pair of crossed keys, a walking stick or cane, and crutches or the crossroads, where he, like Exu, is said to reside.
This is Legba's song:
http://youtu.be/R1JIcAwrb88
Erzulie
Erzulie is love, she is the personification of that most treasured of human qualities. But there is a quality of hurt in her love, of a sorrow that can never be healed or a pain that's impossible for us to fully understand. Her veve is heart shaped;
http://i56.tinypic.com/hrg2lz.jpg
When she possesses she is immediately recognizable by her soft feminine voice (even men possessed by her speak in this voice). She speaks in a very high class manner (anthropologists have been facinated to watch a possessed peasant, unable to read or write, speak in the finest French) and is very formal and lady-like in her movements. Her first words are usually about love. When I saw her, her first words were 'just be gentle with one other, just be gentle.' I first noticed her arrival by the sudden drop in temperature, everyone in the room noticed it and all kind of jumped at the same time at the suddeness of its arrival.
From here she performs a beautiful dance, although she is the spirit of love this dance is in no way sexual. In fact the first thing you notice is that it has an innocence about it. Maya Deren reports, "I can honestly say that when I saw it, it was the first time in my life that I felf a feeling of shame surge inside me, like I was too dirty to even be watching it. There was a purity about it that convinced me that I was watching something wonderous."
When she tires of her dance Erzulie will flirt. She is a terrible flirt as it is said she loves the attention of men. She speaks of love to them, wiggles her hips at them and basically tries to seduce them. To the women she can be a snob, she will will mostly ask, 'is there a man in your life?' if the woman says 'no' Erzulie replies with her customary shrug-off 'oh well maybe next time.'
But the women, who might otherwise resent her flirtatious nature in fact love her, she is one of the favorite spirits of women vodouists. The reason for this is very simple and it is demonstrated in her next phase of possession.
Suddenly, from the midst of her flirtation she will begin asking over and over, 'where is he?' The Hougan and Mambo, long trained in how to deal with all the spirits, reply to her that he is not there (whoever this mystrious 'he' is). Her questions become more desperate and she begins to weep. These are the famous tears of Erzulie, forever inconsolable. These tears, once started can never be stopped. Deren describes it;
"Inevitably then - and this is a classic stage of Erzulie's possession - she begins to weep. Tenderly they would comfort her, bringing forward still another cake, another jewel, pledging still another promise. But it would seem that nothing in the world would ever, could ever, answer those tears. In their real reasonable world there is no grief like this...With her knees drawn up, the fists clenched, the jaw rigid and the tears streaming from her tight-shut eyes, she is the cosmic tantrum - the tantrum not of a spoiled child but of some cosmic innocence which cannot understand - and will not understand - why accident should ever befall what is cherished, or why death should ever come to the beloved."
When she leaves, the possessed person remembers nothing and is usually shocked to find him or herself soaked in tears.
Damballah
http://i54.tinypic.com/i586lu.jpg
Damballah Wedo is the serpent loa. He is seen as a large snake who, during possession, slithers on the ground and flickers his serpentine tongue. Unlike some of the other loa who are represented by snakes, Damballah Wedo and his wife, Ayida Wedo are snakes and their muted possession performance exemplifies this fact.
While Damballah and Ayida have manifested differently in Haiti, they both come directly from ancient Dahomey (present day Bénin). According to Herskovits (1967) in ancient Dahomey all snakes were called “Da”. In Dahomey, Damballah specifically manifests as a serpent spirit named Dambada, “who represents the spirits of the old, old ancestors who are not known” (Herskovits 1967), while Ayida Wedo is known as Aido Hwedo, a male rainbow serpent, whose name means “you were created before the earth and before the sky” (1967).
The name Damballah is itself of great interest. 'Dam' is the Hebrew word for 'blood' represented by the letter Daleth. In Genesis we have the first human Adam or 'Ah-dam', the 'ah' is the letter Aleph which means 'air' or 'breath'. So Adam literaly means 'breathing blood'. The name Damballah can be broken as Da = serpent Dam = blood Allah = God. The serpent mentioned here is best understood in reference to the serpent of Kundalini which brings wisdom.
In Haiti Damballah is known to be a very wise and pure loa. Ayida Wedo, a female spirit in Haiti, manifests as a magnificent rainbow and often follows her husband in possession. A song used to entice Damballah into possession says:
Vye Dambala m asire,
Le a rive pou m ale o!
Vye Dambala m asire,
Le a rive pou m ale o!
Mwen se petit papa vye Dambala,
Kote m pase m siyen nom mwen.
Old Dambala, I am assured,
The time has come for me to go, oh!
Old Dambala, I am assured,
The time has come for me to go, oh!
I am the child of papa old Dambala,
Where I pass I sign my name
This is Damballah's song:
http://youtu.be/82594b93qZs
Conclusion
The crisis of possession is a unique experience in many Shamanic cultures but it finds its greatest focus in Vodou. Unlike our Western perception of possession (negative and evil), in Vodou the experience is sought and wanted. The experience is wanted not for personal gain (the possessed person remembers nothing) but for the good of others. The crisis of possession brings many gifts to those that witness it including healing, advise and wisdom. It involves no drugs and no intoxication of any kind, it stands alone as the greatest mystery of the Vodou tradition.
