Rada vs Petwo: The Complexities of the Nasyons of Haitian Vodou
Haitian Vodou is a religion born at a crossroads of culture. Through the 17th and 18th centuries, West and West-Central Africans were taken from their homelands to work the plantations of the Caribbean. Their beliefs merged not only with each others, but with those of the European slave owners. According to Hein Vanhee, by the time of the Haitian Revolution, Vodou, or Vaudoux (as it was spelled in accounts of the time), was the name for a large number of African-based spirit-possession cults across Haiti.[1] These varying practices account for the diversity in variations within Vodou, including the much-referenced contrast between the Rada and Petwo pantheons of Vodou spirits.
Like New Orleans Voodoo, Cuban Santeria, and many other creole religions across the New World, Haitian Vodou’s roots can be traced back to West and West-Central African religious traditions via the Atlantic Slave Trade[2]. The religions the slaves were bringing from their homelands morphed and fused with each other, as well as with Catholicism, the dominant religion of the Spanish (who owned the island of Hispaniola) and later the French (after the island was split into today’s Haiti and the Dominican Republic).[3] [4] Although the common explanation is that slaves used Catholic saints to disguise their worship of their own spirits, Karen McCarthy Brown has a different theory – that instead it was “an end run around the oppressors, a direct appeal to the gods before whom the masters knelt.”[5]
Plantation conditions in Haiti were notoriously bad, eventually leading to the Haitian Revolution of 1804, the first large-scale slave revolt in the Americas and the only slave rebellion in history to lead to the formation of an independent state[6]. However, because Haiti went directly from a slave colony to independence, much of the colonial power structures stayed in place. The white ruling class was replaced with a light-skinned mixed-race elite, and while slavery was abolished, the majority of the population was still an uneducated black peasantry[7]. This strong class dichotomy persists in Haitian society to this day.
While Ina Fandrich argues that Haiti and Haitian Vodou’s West African roots are primarily the Fon/Ewe of Dahomey (now Benin) rather than the Yoruba of today’s Nigeria, she also concedes that the two groups’ geographical and cultural proximity (after centuries of being neighbors and occasional rivals), along with the minority presence of Yoruba in Haiti, have rendered the subject rather a moot point.[8] The Yoruba religion features semi-deity spirits called orishas, who act as mediators between the mortal world and the Supreme Being. Orishas are categorized as being either hot or cool, and are thus associated with the characteristics of that particular group. However, as Andrew Apter writes, “any orisha can serve in both capacities” depending on the need.[9] In Haiti, the orishas became the lwas, varying pantheons of vodou spirits. There are many nasyons (Haitian Creole for ‘nations’) of vodou spirits worshiped across Haiti, each with their own characteristics, but, like the orishas, falling into two camps – the hot (including the Kongo and Makaya nasyons) and the cool/sweet (including the Ginen and Nago nasyons)[10].
In Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s urban capital, these two categories (hot and cool/sweet) have been condensed and simplified into two opposing nasyons: Rada (sweet) versus Petwo (hot)[11]. Rada spirits and worship are usually described to have West African (Yoruba, Fon) roots while Petwo are described to be Central African (Kongo) in origin, though Katherine Smith writes that “the reduction of African influences in the New World to a putative Yoruba-Kongo dyad denies the geographic distance between and historical complexity of the diverse ethnic groups forced across the Atlantic,” quoting Stephan Palmié (2002) in calling this simplification the “theme-park approach.”[12]
Described as sweet and cool, and associated with the directional right, the Rada pantheon are considered to be direct from Africa (called Ginen, from Guinea).[13] In Haiti, Ginen is more than the mythologized Africa of pre-slavery, it is a standard of moral behavior. “Someone who is “Ginen” follows family ways, is morally upright, and does not meddle in a neighbor’s affairs.”[14] As such, Rada spirits have a moral superiority over Petwo spirits, though often work in less expedient and powerful ways. They are served with sweets, perfume, rum, water, and whatever the individual lwa in question prefers.[15] Rada are usually served and recognized individually, often inherited through family, with the worship of a certain lwa or set of lwas being passed across generations.[16] Because such lwas are considered part of the family, they intercede and work on practitioners’ behalf out of familial obligation, are served food to be eaten with fingers (only done with close family), and tend to be lenient and understanding when a payment or tribute cannot be delivered on time.[17] [18]
In contrast with the Rada pantheon of spirits, Petwo spirits are treated as less distinct from each other, often worshiped as a group rather than individually.[19] Unlike the Rada’s supposed direct connection to Ginen, Petwo are seen as a creole invention, and are associated with hot (both heat and spice) and the left.[20] The Petwo pantheon are served with spicy foods and fiery alcohol, often intensified with pepper or gunpowder. Their methods of work are less pure than the Rada, but they work quickly and are often more effective.[21] Unlike the familial Rada, Petwo are associated with strangers and work on contract.[22] As such, when they are offered food, the offering includes silverware to eat it with, as eating with fingers is reserved for the family.[23] Petwo are fierce and expect payment on time, with severe consequences for failure. They are commonly worshiped en masse, with sharp and quick dance movements (compared to the slower, calmer dancing for the Rada), as well as loud whip cracks, police whistles, and other callbacks to slavery and revolution.[24] As McCarthy Brown writes: “The Petwo ethos is one of urgency and excitement, tinged with danger.”[25] Altars to Petwo often feature chains, to this same end, or silverware.[26] Petwo spirits tend to be described as lower-class, and oversee matters of revenge and revolution – Bois Caïman, or Bwa Kayman, the Vodou ceremony popularly believed to have launched the Haitian Revolution, was a Petwo ceremony.[27] [28]
According to Smith, however, the main point of difference between Rada and Petwo is in the realm of the dead.[29] Rada oversee natural deaths, when a soul travels to heaven, which is under the sea, for “a year and a day” before returning to earthly relatives[30]. Petwo, on the other hand, are associated with unnatural and/or violent deaths – Bawon Samdi, for example, is in change of judging whether a soul died of natural causes.[31] “The unnatural dead remain suspended on earth until the hour of their natural expiration arrives. Some believe that this final hour is predetermined by God for each individual, while others believe that all humans share Judgment Day as a final hour. Whichever the case, until the soul reaches the moment of natural expiration, their soul may be used for ‘work.’”[32] The labor force of the unnaturally dead, Smith argues, is why Petwo are so much more effective in their work.
That being said, the Rada/Petwo divide isn’t as simple as good-but-weak/dangerous-but-strong. Smith makes note of the fact that Rada aren’t necessarily ‘good’: “in quotidian life Rada spirits can be capricious and jealous. Georges René described his relationship with one spirit, Freda, saying, ‘You have to be careful with these blan [white] spirits. They’re more dangerous (than Petwo) because they will kill you with a smile.’”[33] After all, family is not necessarily loving, and familial obligation is not always a pleasant burden. In the same vein, family is often a found group rather than having blood ties, and Smith notes this as well, writing that “the fact that so many who serve the lwa elect to establish familial relations with djab achte [contract spirits outside of the Rada/Petwo dichotomy] and Petwo spirits demonstrates that the status of outsider or foreigner can be mutable.”[34]
Defining a lwa as either Petwo or Rada (or merely as either hot or cool/sweet) isn’t a simple matter. In the same way that Yoruban orishas can act as either hot or cool depending on the situation, Haitian lwas have numerous aspects and forms they can appear or exist as, all of whom can be considered as individual personalities and called upon individually as the situation demands. For example, Bawon Samdi, mentioned above, is an aspect of Gede, the lwa of sex and death.[35] Although Gede himself can be called upon, sometimes the Bawon, or other aspects of Gede (including Bawon Kriminel and Gede Avadra), are needed instead. While Gede is considered to be cool and Rada, that designation has no bearing on his aspects – Gede Avadra is also Rada, but Bawon Samdi and Bawon Kriminel are Petwo.[36]
One of the lwas whose aspects exemplify the Rada/Petwo divide is Ezili (also known as Erzulie). Her aspects include Ezili Danto, Ezili Freda, Lasiren, Labalen, and Gran Ezili[37] [38], though as Donald J. Cosentino writes (in regard to a found-object sculpture tribute to the lwa):
“These female spirits of love, all aspects of Ezili, are bound together in the sculpture in a non-hierarchical fashion. These Ezilis, dark and light, fan out like a hand of playing cards, with their “messenger spirit” tied around the neck of the largest doll. This work makes concrete the idea that many Ezilis can walk together on similar paths. The very question of how many Ezilis there are in the Vodou pantheon suddenly becomes a rather irrelevant question when one stands in front of this powerful work…”[39]
Out of Cosentino’s infinity of Ezilis, her two main (or at least most popular) aspects, Ezili Freda and Ezili Danto, exemplify not only the Rada/Petwo divide, but also the divide in the Haitian social structure.
Ezili Freda, the main Rada aspect of Ezili, is depicted as a flamboyant, wealthy, light-skinned creole woman with extravagant tastes.[40] The lwa associated with love, beauty, and wealth, she demands small, expensive gifts from her followers.[41] She often arrives at ceremonies weeping inconsolably at her inability, despite her many lovers, to find true love.[42] As such, she is given handkerchiefs (usually lace) along with the other things she enjoys: sweets, perfume (particularly Anais-Anais), jewelry, and other such luxurious tokens.[43] Ezili Freda (like most aspects of Ezili) is associated with several manifestations of the Virgin Mary, including Our Lady of Lourdes and Our Lady of Sorrows.[44] [45] Cosentino quotes Maya Deren: “She is the divinity of the dream…the [lwa] of the impossible perfection which must remain unattainable.”[46]
Ezili Danto, in contrast, is the main Petwo aspect of Ezili. She is described as a dark-skinned, lower-class single mother, hard-working and hard-drinking.[47] [48] Her love is fierce and protective, and she watches over overworked and abused women and mothers, as well as fighting for the poor, downtrodden, and oppressed. She likes cigarettes, rum, and pork,[49] and is associated with the Black Madonna (especially Our Lady of Częstochowa) and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.[50] The child Ezili Danto holds in these forms is not considered to be the baby Jesus, but instead Danto’s daughter Anais.[51] [52] She is associated with revolution and protection.
While both aspects of Ezili, Ezili Danto and Ezili Freda are described in very opposite terms. Ezili Freda is light skinned and rich, occupied with romance and dreams, and demands luxury and excess. Ezili Danto is dark skinned and lower class, rough and fierce, and protects the overlooked and abused. Their contrasting aspects are an interesting manifestation of the Haitian class divide, as well as yet another example of the Rada/Petwo dichotomy.
Though Ezili Danto is a Petwo spirit, by all accounts, she seems to be one of a very few that are talked about individually in any capacity. While it makes sense to have the nasyon associated with strangers treated en masse (the anonymity of a crowd), it makes much less sense to have a lwa so closely associated with motherhood as Ezili Danto is in such a nasyon. This, along with numerous other ambiguities in the system, show that these definitions of Rada and Petwo, and these understandings of Vodou, are not so clear-cut as that. What does seem to hold true, though, is the association of the Rada with stability, and Petwo with revolution and change – two forces that require balance for not only a healthy life, but a healthy nation; balance Haiti itself could use.
Sources:
Apter, Andrew. “On African Origins: Creolization and Connaissance in Haitian Vodou.” American Ethnologist 29, no. 2 (2002): 233-260. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3095167
Brown, Karen McCarthy. “Serving the Spirits: The Ritual Economy of Haitian Vodou” in Cosentino, Donald J., ed. Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1995, pp. 205-225.
Conner, Randy P. “Gender and Sexuality in Spiritual Traditions.” In Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick ed. Fragments Of Bone: Neo-African Religions In A New World. University of Illinois Press, 2005: 143-166. Accessed via Google Books.
Cosentino, Donald J. “Lavilokan.” African Arts 29, no. 2 (1996): 22-22. http://search.proquest.com/docview/220973977?accountid=13701.
Cosentino, Donald J. “On Looking at a Vodou Altar.” African Arts 29, no. 2 (1996): 67-70. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3337370.
Cotter, Holland. “Dazzling and Devout Voodoo Energy.” New York Times, Oct 09, 1998. http://search.proquest.com/docview/431059496?accountid=13701.
Fandrich, Ina J. “Yorùbá Influences on Haitian Vodou and New Orleans Voodoo.” Journal of Black Studies 37, no. 5 (2007): 775-791. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40034365.
Houlberg, Marilyn. “Sirens and Snakes: Water Spirits in the Arts of Haitian Vodou.” African Arts 29, no. 2 (1996): 30-30. http://search.proquest.com/docview/220956464?accountid=13701.
Lawal, Babatunde. “From Africa to the Americas: Art in Yoruba Religion.” In Lindsay, Arturo, ed. Santería Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996: 3-38.
Leslie, G. Desmangles. “Our Lady of Class Struggle: The Cult of the Vigin Mary in Haiti.” Transforming Anthropology 10, no. 2 (2001): 44-44. http://search.proquest.com/docview/205518672?accountid=13701.
Metz, Helen Chapin, ed. Dominican Republic and Haiti : Country Studies. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 2001. Accessed December 15, 2012. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/httoc.html
Obejas, Achy. “Demystifying Voudou Co-Curator Shares Her Passion for the Oft-Misunderstood Religion.” Chicago Tribune, Feb 02, 1997. http://search.proquest.com/docview/418341930?accountid=13701.
Pagel, David. “ART REVIEW; in the Vodou Spirit; Religion and Politics Mingle Freely in Haitian Ritual Flags, a Fabulous Array of which Hang at the Fowler Museum.” Los Angeles Times, Aug 17, 2004. http://search.proquest.com/docview/421935174?accountid=13701.
Smith, Katherine. “Dialoging with the Urban Dead in Haiti.” Southern Quarterly 47, no. 4 (2010): 61-90,217. http://search.proquest.com/docview/807440195?accountid=13701.
Vanhee, Hein. “Central African Popular Christianity and the Making of Haitian Vodou Religion.” In Heywood, Linda M., ed. Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora. Cambridge U. Press, 2002. P. 243-264.
[1] Hein Vanhee, “Central African Popular Christianity and the Making of Haitian Vodou Religion,” in Heywood, Linda M., ed., Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora (Cambridge U. Press, 2002), 248.
[2] Ina J. Fandrich, “Yorùbá Influences on Haitian Vodou and New Orleans Voodoo,” Journal of Black Studies 37, no. 5 (2007): 781-2, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40034365.
[3] Ibid, 776.
[4] Helen Chapin Metz, ed, Dominican Republic and Haiti : Country Studies. (Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 2001), accessed December 15, 2012, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/httoc.html.
[5] Karen McCarthy Brown, “Serving the Sprits: The Ritual Economy of Haitian Vodou” in Cosentino, Donald J., ed. Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. (Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1995), 215 .
[6] Metz, Dominican Republic and Haiti, chap 6.
[7] Ibid, chap 6.
[8] Fandrich, “Yorùbá Influences,” 782-3.
[9] Andrew Apter, “On African Origins: Creolization and Connaissance in Haitian Vodou,” American Ethnologist 29, no. 2 (2002): 236, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3095167.
[10] Katherine Smith, “Dialoging with the Urban Dead in Haiti,” Southern Quarterly 47, no. 4 (2010), http://search.proquest.com/docview/807440195?accountid=13701.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] McCarthy Brown, “Serving the Spirits,” 213.
[16] Smith, “Urban Dead.”
[17] McCarthy Brown, “Serving the Spirits,” 212-3.
[18] Smith, “Urban Dead.”
[19] McCarthy Brown, “Serving the Spirits,” 213.
[20] Smith, “Urban Dead.”
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid.
[23] McCarthy Brown, “Serving the Spirits,” 213.
[24] Ibid, 213.
[25] Ibid, 214.
[26] Ibid, 220.
[27] Smith, “Urban Dead.”
[28] Vanhee, “Central African Popular Christianity,” 253.
[29] Smith, “Urban Dead.”
[30] Donald J. Cosentino, “Lavilokan,” African Arts 29, no. 2 (1996), http://search.proquest.com/docview/220973977?accountid=13701.
[31] Smith, “Urban Dead.”
[32] Ibid.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Cosentino, “Lavilokan.”
[38] Marilyn Houlberg, “Sirens and Snakes: Water Spirits in the Arts of Haitian Vodou,” African Arts 29, no. 2 (1996), http://search.proquest.com/docview/220956464?accountid=13701.
[39] Cosentino, “Lavilokan.”
[40] G. Desmangles Leslie, “Our Lady of Class Struggle: The Cult of the Vigin Mary in Haiti,” Transforming Anthropology 10, no. 2 (2001), http://search.proquest.com/docview/205518672?accountid=13701.
[41] Cosentino, “Lavilokan.”
[42] David Pagel, “ART REVIEW; in the Vodou Spirit; Religion and Politics Mingle Freely in Haitian Ritual Flags, a Fabulous Array of which Hang at the Fowler Museum,” Los Angeles Times, Aug 17, 2004, accessed December 17, 2012, http://search.proquest.com/docview/421935174?accountid=13701.
[43] Cosentino, “Lavilokan.”
[44] Donald J. Cosentino, “On Looking at a Vodou Altar,” African Arts 29, no. 2 (1996), http://www.jstor.org/stable/3337370.
[45] Randy P. Conner, “Gender and Sexuality in Spiritual Traditions,” in Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, ed., Fragments Of Bone: Neo-African Religions In A New World, (University of Illinois Press, 2005): 146. Accessed via Google Books.
[46] Cosentino, “Lavilokan.”
[47] Ibid.
[48] Conner, “Gender and Sexuality,” 146.
[49] Achy Obejas, “Demystifying Voudou: Co-Curator Shares Her Passion for the Oft-Misunderstood Religion,” Chicago Tribune, Feb 02, 1997, accessed December 17, 2012, http://search.proquest.com/docview/418341930?accountid=13701.
[50] Conner, “Gender and Sexuality,” 146.
[51] Pagel, “ART REVIEW.”
[52] Obejas, “Demystifying Voudou.”
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