Boundaries are zones of passage where the flesh (and the fantasy) of sovereignty is fashioned, desires colliding with profound anxieties around the fate of crossing wayfarers in the hands of the figures policing the frontiers. In Haiti, Petwo Vodou is a religion born in the boundary-land, emerging from the encounter between French Catholicism and the Kongo beliefs of Central Africa, among others. In its practice, Vodou Oungan’s (priests) and Manbo’s (priestesses) are quintessential border agents, employed to manage flows between the tactile realm of the patient and the depths of the spirit world. Guided by images from a Petwo Healing and Gad Feast near Arcahaie, Haiti in July 2011, this essay explores boundaries as negotiated zones of both recombination and displacement, where new forms surface under the scrutinizing eye of the border patrol.
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- Petwo Vodou is a religion born in a boundary-land, inspired by the encounter between French Catholicism and Kongo practice. In Petwo Vodou, the Oungan and Manbo are quintessential border agents, employed to manage flows between the tactile realm of the patient and the depths of the spirit world. Here, an Oungan looks out from his Badji, the veritable customs office through which these passages are secured. Photo courtesy Alissa Jordan
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- Illness is an ever-present boundary between life and death in many places in rural Haiti. This zone is impregnated with potent visceralities, where desires and hopes blend with profound anxieties about the fate of the infirm. In this boundary-land the patient is held captive until the living and the dead might negotiate the terms of her release. In the sound recordings one of online, a choir of voices chants near this patient. Photo courtesy Alissa Jordan
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- The Oungan holds two girls so spirits can cross over to ride them. Photo courtesy Alissa Jordan
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- The Oungan traces the vèvè of a Simbi spirit around the central pole of a Vodou temple (peristil) during a Gad Feast in Archaie, Haiti. The symbol is meant to lure the desired spirit from the watery world of Ginnen into a frontier between the visible and invisible world. The ground becomes a boundary-land of vibrant potentialities, where ancestors, spirits, and the living collide and form new combinations. Photo courtesy Alissa Jordan
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- The women are ridden by the Lwa as the tanbous play on. Photo courtesy Alissa Jordan
Illness is a heavily trafficked boundary between life and death in rural Haiti, an unpredictable frontier where living flesh can easily slip away into the watery underworld of Ginnen. The patient is a temporarily stateless body, detained while the living and the dead work to negotiate the terms of her release. The family of the patient supplies sacrifices and materials, like the hazy, flapping chicken, passing from their hands to the Oungan (the Priest), and then to select Lwa(spirits of Ginnen). In turn, each actor takes their cut of these border bribes. The Oungan drinks freely of the raw rum and takes cash dues, while Lwa are enticed with sacrifice and song. By the next morning, the patient is discharged from this fretful limbo, and her family rejoices in their rural courtyard.
Later that week, a Gad Feast is celebrated in a peristil near the coast. Young practitioners seek out their patron Lwa’s protection, guided through this process by a Oungan. The Oungan in the photograph traces a vèvè (a Lwa’s symbol) around the central pole, the poto mitan. As the vèvè is written into the earth floor, the Oungan tries to lure the desired spirit into this waxing frontier. The soil around the poto mitan is yet another commuter’s station, where ancestors, spirits, and the living crash into one another, producing novel and transitory combinations.
Though boundaries invite relocations, they are also theatres of displacement. Before new creations can emerge, the flesh of old ones must be emptied and revalued. In the midst of the dance, a Oungan guides two young girls through this process, seeking to evict them from their bodies so patron Lwa might enter. After the fierce embrace, the girls are released and begin their frenzied dance, showing they are “ridden by the Lwa.”
The tanbou beats pound out, and other dancers join them in exile. In a flurry of color and movement, new bodies wind across the frontier. According to practitioners, these women’s forms no longer hold their consciousnesses; instead, each is a new and semi-divine being—a triumphant chimera of the borderlands, where invisible ancestral forces have momentarily occupied their corporeal vessels, in a pastiche of skin and spirit.
Please click on the following links to listen to this essay’s audio.
Listen to the Feeding the Lwa, Seremoni A Komanse audio hereMP3 File: “Seremoni a Komanse”
Sung by: Oungan and Crowd at Gad Feast
Area: Near Archaie
Recording by: Alissa Marie Jordan
Date of Recording: July 2011
Listen to the Kafou O audio hereMP3 File: “Kafou o”
Sung by: Ivelyn and Muriel
Area: Near Archaie
Recording by: Alissa Marie Jordan
Date of Recording: July 2011
Translation by: Alissa Marie Jordan
Kreyòl Lyrics:
Kafou o, ou pa vini wè m.
Ou pa pase wè m, Kafou,
Gen maladi lakay la.
Kafou o, peyi a danjere.
Kafou o, peyi a danjere.
Kafou o, ou pa vini wè m.
Ou pa pase wè m, Kafou,
Gen maladi lakay la.
English Lyrics:
Master Crossroads o, you don’t visit me.
You don’t visit me, Master Crossroads,
There is illness in the house.
Master Crossroads o, the land is dangerous.
Master Crossroads o, the land is dangerous.
Master Crossroads o, you don’t visit me.
You don’t visit me, Master Crossroads,
There is sickness in the house.
Listen to the Fulame audio hereMP3 File: “Foulame”
Sung by: Ivelyn, Muriel, and Manbo
Area: Near Archaie
Recording by: Alissa Marie Jordan
Date of Recording: July 2011
Translation by: Alissa Jordan
Kreyòl Lyrics:
Foulame gade m bezwen yon jenn divinò
Pou m Foulame
M pral voye rasin-o
M ap Foulame-o
Foulame m bezwen yon jenn woungan
Pou m Foulame
(Li Foulame, Foulame)
M bezwen yon gen woungan
Kap Foulame
Ala m bezwen yon jenn divinò
Pou m Foulame
Ala m bezwen yon jenn divinò
Pou m Foulame (Manbo: Koulame)
Pral voye rasin-O!
Map Foulame
Foulame, ban m! ban m!
M bezwen yon jenn woungan
Pou Foulame
Ti Foulame!
M bezwen yon jenn manbo
Pou m foulame
Gade m bezwen yon jenn manbo
Pou m foulame
Ala m bezwen yon jenn manbo
Pou m foulame
M pral voye rasin o,
pou m Foulame o!
Foulame, m bezwen yon jenn boko
Foulame m bezwen yon jenn gangan
Pou m Foulame
Foulame, Foulame!
M bezwen yon jenn gangan pou m Foulame
Gade m bezwen yon jenn manbo pou m foulame
E gade, m bezwen yon jenn manbo pou m Foulame
M pral voye rasin-O! Map Foulame.
English Lyrics:
(Provisional Translation: “Raise me to life again”), hey look, I need a young seer
For me to raise myself to life again
I’m going to send out roots, O!
I’m going to raise me to life again
Raise me to life again, I need a young vodou priest
For me to raise myself to life again
He raises me to life again, raises me to life again
I need a young vodou priest
That raises me to life
But I need a young seer
For me to raise me to life again
But I need a young seer
For me to raise me to life again
Going to send out roots-O!
I’m restoring me to life again!
Raise me to life again, give me! give me!
I need a young vodou priest
To raise me to life again
My little resurrection!
I need a young vodou priestess
For me to raise me to life again
Look here, I need a young vodou priestess
For me to raise myself to life again,
But I need a young vodou priestess
For me to raise myself to life again,
I’m going to send out roots o!
For me to raise myself to life again o!
Raise me to life again, I need a young witch doctor
Raise me to life again, I need a young vodou priest
So I can raise myself to life again
Raise me to life again, raise me to life again!
I need a young vodou priest so I can raise me to life again!
Look, I need a young manbo so I can raise myself to life again
And look, I need a young manbo so I can raise myself to life again,
And look, I need a young manbo so I can raise myself to life again,
I’m going to send out roots-O! I’m raising myself to life again.
Alissa Jordan is a PhD student at the University of Florida, with an MA from the University of Chicago. Her research interests include theories of time, security, and states of exception in Haiti and Haitian Petwo Vodou practice. In her spare time, she enjoys incorporating research interests into artistic creations.