Voudoun Fire: The Living Reality of Mystical Religion

xix+167 pages with maps, figures, illustrations, figures, drawings, photographs (some in color), plates (some in color), glossary and appendix. Quarto (11" x 8 1/4") bound in original publisher's pictorial wrappers. Color photographs by Gloria Rudolph. illustrations by Matthew Wood and Nan Bruno. First edition. Haitian Vodou is an African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. It arose through a process of syncretism between the traditional religions of West Africa and Roman Catholicism. Adherents are known as Vodouists. Vodou focuses on the veneration of deities known as lwa (or loa). These are often identified both as Yoruba gods as well as Roman Catholic saints. Various myths and stories are told about these lwa, which are regarded as subservient to a transcendent creator deity, Bondyé. An initiatory tradition, Vodouists usually meet in ounfò, temples run by priests known as oungans or priestesses known as manbos, to venerate the lwa. A central ritual involves practitioners drumming, singing, and dancing to encourage a lwa to possess ("ride") one of their members. They believe that through this possessed individual, they can communicate directly with a lwa. Offerings to the lwa include fruit and the blood of sacrificed animals. Several forms of divination are utilized to decipher messages from the lwa. Healing rituals and the preparation of herbal remedies, amulets, and charms, also play a prominent role. Condition: Corners bumped, edge wear else very good.