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Are we really starting the freakout over "Haitian Voodoo" already?

As thousands of Haitian refugees arrive at our Southern border, there's a lot to know--including myths about poorly understood religious practices.

By Ashley HerzogPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 6 min read
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Are we really starting the freakout over "Haitian Voodoo" already?
Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash

That was fast.

Those were the only words that came to mind when I saw Ann Coulter's weekly column pop up in my Twitter feed. I was a big Coulter fan in college--with some readers of my weekly column in the school newspaper calling me "Little Ann Coulter"--but she's a one-issue woman now. She admits it, even declaring that she wouldn't care if Trump personally performed abortions in the Oval Office as long as he built the wall. When I was in college, she was writing hefty intellectual treatises like "Godless," in which the highbrow moral and philosophical arguments were easier to digest because of Coulter's raucous humor. It was an important book for me as a student who was raised in a devoted Irish Catholic family, now trying to survive on a Godless campus. My philosophy 101 professor even had us write essays answering the question, "Does God exist?" Knowing it was a setup to make religious students--not only Christians, but Jews and Muslims--look like idiots, I took up the challenge, using Coulteresque tactics. Although my professor was clearly an atheist himself, he was so impressed with my freshman 101 attempt at making the case for God he called me "an independent thinker" and gave me an A.

Thanks, Ann! Unfortunately, her leather miniskirt days appear to be over. She's a cranky old lady now, and her columns are often identical to stuff you'd find on white supremacist forums. I knew we were in for a doozy when I saw this.

Yes, there's a lot to worry about when tens of thousands of people are coming across the border with no vetting whatsoever. It doesn't matter which country they're from--it's a recipe for chaos. I'm with former President Obama on this issue: open borders are unsustainable and dysfunctional. Obama didn't hesitate to say so last week, and neither will I. But of all the reasons I see to get control of our Southern border, the fear of Haitian refugees casting spells on me is not one of them.

Haiti's population is almost entirely black, made up of West African slaves imported to the former French colony before they fought a war of independence in 1804, becoming the first black republic in the world. Haiti is also 90 percent Roman Catholic. These black Catholics, however, retained some of the traditional beliefs of West Africans. Among their faith traditions is Vodou, misspelled among English speakers as "Voodoo." An article in a Montreal newspaper described Haitian Vodou as a hybrid of African and Christian rituals and practices.

Vodou...is a belief system that blends West African religions with elements of other faiths, including Catholicism. From its black roots, it takes worship of ancestral spirits and gods that slaves brought to the New World...the prayers and hymns are borrowed from Catholicism.

Modern Vodou is less focused on ancestor worship and other African practices than it was in the past, placing more emphasis on reverence for Catholic saints. Contrary to myths spread by horror movies and undercover racists trying to convince Americans that black people are casting spells on them, Vodou is not "Satan worship." Also, you've probably heard a little about "voodoo dolls," or effigies of a person the Vodou practitioner sticks with pins in the hopes of causing the human person pain. I still see casual references to Voodoo dolls on TV and Internet memes. Voodoo dolls must scare a lot of people, maintaining a strong grip on the imagination.

Anyway, they're not a thing.

NOT from Haiti.

Any basic primer on Haitian Vodou, as well as New Orleans Voodoo and other forms practiced by descendants of black slaves, will inform you that voodoo dolls are a myth. If they were ever used by Vodou believers at all, it was a little-known practice that never gained widespread acceptance and died out quickly. Does the above image look like a creepy Voodoo doll to you? Yeah, it's from Cornwall in the United Kingdom. According to Wiki:

A humanoid figurine with pins stuck into it: this was one method by which cunning folk battled witches using magical means. Artifact at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Cornwall, England.

There’s a little-known reason Americans make cult classics out of movies like “The Blair Witch Project” and still have a fear of Satanists and occult practices: America was founded by people from countries where people actually practiced that kind of witchcraft. While most cultures in the world have ancient beliefs involving magic, these beliefs lasted well into the modern age in the British Isles. When I was writing my first novel about my Irish ancestors who immigrated to America in the 1800s, I emphasized that they were religious Catholics with a strong attachment to archangels and patron saints. However, they still had an indigenous faith system that includes belief in fairies, evil spirits, and a creature known as the “bean sidhe” or banshee. They sincerely believed that if they heard the wail of a banshee, someone was about to die.

Personally, I think the wail of the bean sidhe was probably just the goats and ponies during mating season, or maybe the Irish setter dogs barking at a fox. But you never know. We all have our superstitions and our folk beliefs, and if Haitian refugees are bringing some here, that is not unusual. It’s also not alarming. Coulter made sure to note that Haitians do strange things in Vodou ceremonies—something about throwing chickens in the air.

At least they’re not psychologically toying with people by claiming to put a hex on them. Coulter’s ancestors did that. The more sinister folk beliefs that Americans associate with occult horror movies like “Blair Witch,” those come strictly from England and Scotland. Despite the right-wing nostalgia for the “Anglo character,” these cultures were considered backward and barbaric by strangers who encountered them, starting with the Romans. The Romans were particularly dismayed by the Scots, who not only preferred to go naked and tat themselves up with full-body tattoos, but were such savage warriors they worried they were man-beast hybrids. The Romans noted in their writings that “the savages of Strathclyde cannot be tamed.” Later, many of these same Britons and Scots practiced witchcraft and thought they could cast spells on people.

Coulter’s surname, as well as my grandmother’s surname Masterson, both descend from the same region near Strathclyde, Scotland. When King Henry forcibly converted his subjects from Catholicism to Anglicanism so he could marry his mistress Ann Boleyn, Ann’s people complied and mine did not, refusing to leave the Catholic Church. My ancestors went to Ireland as “Gallowglasses,” or mercenary fighters protecting Irish Catholics from the Anglican onslaught. The Coulters probably mouthed all the right beliefs while secretly engaging in hokey folk practices condemned by the Vatican—including curses and, yes, Voodoo dolls.

I don’t want unvetted illegal immigrants moving in next door to me, whether they’re from Haiti or somewhere else. But if they are vetted, I’m not worried. I’m definitely not worried about Vodou. Folk beliefs don’t scare me, whether it’s the wail of the banshee or Vodou. It’s easy to be afraid of something when you can’t even spell it and have no idea what it is.

But me, I’m not afraid. To any Haitian immigrant who went through the proper asylum process and is now living in my town: see you at church on Sunday.

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Ashley Herzog

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