Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou

Connecting four centuries of political social and religious history with fieldwork and language documentation <i>A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou</i> analyzes Haitian Vodou's African origins transmission to Saint-Domingue and promulgation through song in contemporary Haiti. <p/>Split into two sections the African chapters focus on history economics and culture in Dahomey Allada and Hueda while scrutinizing the role of Europeans in fomenting tensions. The political military and slave trading histories of the kingdoms in the Bight of Benin reveal the circumstances of enslavement including the geographies ethnicities languages and cultures of enslavers and enslaved. The study of the spirits rituals structure and music of the region's religions sheds light on important sources for Haitian Vodou. Having royal public and private expressions Vodun spirit-based traditions served as cultural systems that supported or contested power and enslavement. At once suppliers and victims of the European slave trade the people of Dahomey Allada and Hueda deeply shaped the emergence of Haiti's creolized culture. <p/> The Haitian chapters focus on Vodou's Rada Rite (from Allada) and Gede Rite (from Abomey) through the songs of Rasin Figuier's <i>Vodou Lakay</i> and Rasin Bwa Kayiman's <i>Guede</i> legendary <i>rasin </i>compact discs released on Jean Altidor's Miami label Mass Konpa Records. All the Vodou songs on the discs are analyzed with a method dubbed Vodou hermeneutics that harnesses history religious studies linguistics literary criticism and ethnomusicology in order to advance a scholarly approach to Vodou songs.