Hi, everybody. I've got my voodoo doll out because it's Saturday. It's time for a Saturday Select and I went with What's the Deal with Voodoo? From July six two. Uh. You know, I picked this one because I just remember being a very interesting episode. Voodoo is. Um. Well, we we talk all about it, not just in a pop culture way because voodoo is so often misinterpreted on TV Sitcom's Go Figure, but we get into the real voodoo and in the history of it and what's behind it. All very interesting stuff. So here we go, July six, What's the Deal with Voodoo? Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as always is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. How you like your chair? I hate this chair? Dude? Do you realize that, in like the last eight podcasts, we've just complained at the beginning. We're probably so tired of it. Yeah, So let's let's instead, Chuck, instead of complaining as is our usual way these days, let's go back in time. Oh yes, I'm going to take us back. You're ready, okay, Chuck? Um, this is August little place that we now know of as Haiti, and what's just happened is a slave uprising. Actually, what is the only successful slave uprising in the world. Good for them, Yeah, that's what I say. What happened was what happened was in earlier in August of a group of slave leaders and maroon leaders and maroons were runaway slaves who've made it to the hills and we're basically staging guerrilla warfare against um plantations and white colonists. They got together and there was a ceremony that was performed in a place called Alligator Woods or block came in. I've been there, have you really? Oh? Wow, Well we're about together now, right. There's this voodoo ritual that took place, and all of the leaders basically pledged their support and dedication to this rebellion. And a week later, all hell breaks loose. Okay, um this thousands of slaves revolt. They murder every white person they can find. Apparently they paraded around from like settlement to settlement with a white human baby impaled on a steak, I might draw the line there, but burned every plantation they could find and just basically held a slave uprising you know, it's like you can only hold somebody down for so long before they, you know, turn on you. The human spirit wants to be free, exactly, Chuck. Uh. And that's essentially what happened that the Haitian slaves rose up. They were unsuccessful actually in but historians say this is the point that started at all. And by eighteen o four Haitia was a free republic. Awesome, yeah, um, But that that meeting in the woods that started it all. The voodoo ceremony that instance, and other slave rebellions that were kind of based around voodoo UM have kind of given the religion a bad rap among whites lots of things since then. It's kind of weird to think of, but our conception of voodoo is almost entirely hollywood ized, fictionalized um and fear based based on this um kind of collective white distant memory um of well, this is this is what you know voodoo is. It's babies impaled on steaks. What happens when you let people practice voodoo? Right, Chuck? Actually, the um that slave revault is successful slave rebellion um is what Pat Robertson was talking about famously. After the Haiti earthquake when he said a long time ago, and people in Haiti don't like to talk about it, but they made a pact with the devil um to get the French out and they said, we'll give you our souls if uh, you'll get the French out, and the French got out. And then so basically he was saying, you know, the it's devil worship. Voodoo is devil worship, and the successful slave rebellion is proved positive of it, and that's why the earthquake happened in his opinion. And then Haiti they were probably like, who's this devil you keep talking about? We don't believe in that, dude. This is gonna be a lot of debunking going on today. Let's debunk dude. Let's start talking about voodoo. Okay, let's now, okay, Voodoo is a religion. A lot of people think it's just a bunch of hocus pocus, which is more like who do which we'll get to later. But voodoo is an actual religion. There is a there's one God. It's very It depends on where you are if you're talking voodoo and um. Even generationally speaking, there's a lot of differences. Yeah, because there's no definitive holy text. It's a normal tradition. Yeah. And it's a very subjective religion too, right, it's like a very personal um and it governs your day to day life. And it um also has it's different, has a different impact on every every person, right, Yes, it does. Yes. Uh. So there's like I said, there's one supreme God and depending on where you are to be different name. Uh, if you're talking Haitian voodoo, we're basically going to cover like African and Haitian in parts, I would say, won't you Yeah, okay, so Haitian voodoo, you're gonna all this supreme god bandhi. But in voodoo, you can't talk directly to the main god. You have to go through one of the spirits called the loa, right, and there are many loa. Now I'll have different functions, but it is hierarchical, it is. And they're based on dead ancestors ancestral spirits, yeah, which it turns out to be and we'll get to that more in detail. But that's a big, big part of voodoo, is uh, the ancestry and dead people basically spirits of the dead people, right, And you're talking about comparing it to say Christianity or Judaism or something like that. It's much it's much easier to compare um like a pagan religion like voodoo, to a pagan religion like um Druidism, right, than it is to compare either one to Christianity or Judaism. Um. Although there are some similarities there are, especially in Haitian voodoo, but in African voodoo, Um, it's it's much more difficult to compare it. And so answer all just still kind of put it in this um context of of ways we can understand like gods, right, but they're not gods. You can't like to to voodoo practitioners. They're not God's their ancestral spirits. The spirit world is as real as this world. So we may hear their call them gods accidentally, but that's that's just as close as we can come. You could compare them to a Greek or Roman gods, right. They have different personalities that represent different things, but it's kind of that shared pagan worldview that different parts of the natural experience are associated with different gods. Yes, right, good point. Thanks. Uh. It's basically so white Christians can understand exactly what we're talking about, um so uh. African and Haitian voodoo in in both cases you have it's really not a bunch of evil doing and and spells cast upon one another. It's mainly used for for good and to be a better person. In fact, you're you're counted on as a practice or voodoo to be a good community member and you know, a stand up guy or gal. Right Yeah, And I remember we said that it was a personal and subjective religion. Um So when you're practicing voodoo, when you are um uh interacting with it, say like a voodoo priest or priestess, right, um, you're seeking advice, guidance and you're living your life by that, right. Yeah. So there's actually I guess kind of the whole um evil aspect does exist bo bo um in African tradition, right yeah. African voodoo, Yeah, that's the dark side of African Vodoo is called bo right, and voodoo practitioners a voodoo priest is called a hogun right yeah. An African voodoo priest, right yeah, And an African and Haitian voodoo priestess is called a mamba, right, yes, mamba um So the mamba and the Hogun are not charged with um carrying out bow, which is evil spells hexes um basically magic that does harm, right, right, And they do use voodoo dolls they do. Yeah, but um, this is not to say and this is where it kind of gets a little prickly, like a little hinky um where the voodoo priests and priests is may not actually practice bow, this black magic, but um, they're familiar with it, they have a working knowledge of it. But so so they can oppose people who practice bo. Yes, you have to understand something to fight it. That's the belief they're right, right, Sure, Okay, so Chuck, let's talk a little more about ceremonies and some of the characteristics and traits that make voodoo voodoo. All right, are we going to Africa? Are we in Haiti at this point? Let's do Africa first. I mean, this is the cradle of voodoo, right, yeah, like six thousand years ago. That's where the word comes from. It comes from the Faun language, which was the kingdom of Fun and that means sacred spirit or deity, right, And I think it was like northwest northwest Africa. Northwest it's north central West Africa. So it's West Africa. We're talking. Ghana, Benin and Togo are like the the areas where these ancient kingdoms of Fawn and Congo, Congo with the k um We're located. And this is the cradle of voodoo. Yeah. And I actually got a stat for you. Um they say that thirty million people in in Togo, Ghana and was it Benin, Yeah, still practice voodoo today. And just to gauge where that falls and world religions, it's about double the number of Jewish people in the entire world. Wow, is it really? Yeah? Well there, I mean stats vary because depending on if you're like an active practice practitioner of Judaism or if you're just like born Jewish. But yeah, it's about double, so it ranks. It's also um an official religion in Beni. Yeah. They say six of the bull of that country follow voodoo. Still right, so this is a an established religion. Um. But one of the founding um or foundational tenants of voodoo is that you can communicate with the spirits, and you communicate with the spirits to find out, you know, what you should do from them. Then the almighty deity. Yeah, the Supreme God right there, the medium, right um. One of the one of the other founding tenants of voodoo is you communicate with these people, not in your head, not through prayer, but by these the loa um actually possessing someone who then gives commands or says, you know, what are you doing? Why aren't you you know, um, spending more time with your wife, things like that. Right Yeah. We said that it's different in African and Haitian and all over the world and in different time periods, but that's one of the main through lines and all voodoo is possession, spirit, intrusion, possession, right um. The person who's being possessed at the time is known as the horse, and the whatever loa is is possessing him or her is known as the rider. Right Yeah, that's in Haitian voodoo. How did I get ahead of us? No, that's right, we can, we can kind of jump around. Okay. Well that's really one of the big bridges. Um. That's really the bridge between Haitian voodoo and African voodoo. Right is that spirit possession exists. That's how you find out what you should do in your day to day life, right um. Back in Africa, on the African side. Um, some other commonalities between the two. Because again um, or maybe not again, but possibly the first time Haitian Haitian voodoo is African voodoo with creolized yes. Right, yeah, so let's get back to talking about African voodoo. I did screw us up, and I apologize, Chuck, apologize to our fans. I'm so sorry, fans, Please forgive me. You never owe me an apology, buddy. Um. So the answer, the ancestral spirits make up the lowa. Right. Um. You can take any object and consecrate it and it becomes a ritual, sacred object. Right, which is where the dolls come in, which, as you said, are not used for um harm Right. Well, they can be by the if you're talking bow, but it's definitely not like you see in the movies, right or the Brady bunch um during Yeah, Um, the there's a lot of ceremonial dance. Um. Spirits are in vogue through music, percussion, that kind of thing. Um. I know that in both Haitian and African voodoo there is a gatekeeper, um. And his name in Haitian tradition is papal Legba. Right, I love that name. Yeah, um. And papal Legba is the gatekeeper between the spirit world and the human world, right, and he's invoked at the beginning of every ceremony because you have to get him to open the gate so you can absolutely start communicating at the low and so things can be people can be possessed. Right. And actually Papalaba is also a one of the black men at the Crossroad, who um bears a striking resemblance to our friend Mashamn. Oh really yeah, interesting, Yeah, the Crossroad a k a. The Christian Cross in Haitian tradition. Yeah, right, we should go ahead and talk about that. Probably if some of this sounds familiar, if you're thinking, Papa Legba sounds sort of like St. Peter and the crossroads sounds sort of like the Christian Cross, is a very good reason for that. It's because once again we go back to our friend Christopher Columbus Hispaniola and the fact that they brought slaves over to Hispaniola to work on the plantations. They brought voodoo with them, and the problem there was Columbus said, no, no, no no, no no. If you're going to be a slave over here, you have to be converted to Christianity. So that was the code noir. The French actually did that one to be baptized, forced conversion. So what they did was in order to keep practicing voodoo, they incorporated and this or my mind was blown. I didn't know they did this. They incorporated parts of Catholicism to kind of mask the fact that they were practicing voodoo and it got all mixed up in what's called syncretization. Yeah, so Catholicism and voodoo working together, right crazy, So even today, Um, they're a lot of the loa there. Well, there was a lot of ready um uh similarities between these ancestral spirits and Catholic saint. It's right. So like St. Peter is associated with papal Legba because St. Peter's the guy who's outside the gates to heaven. Papal Legba is the gatekeeper to the spirit world, so they associate him with him. Um, there is a god who is um pretty powerful. He's a warrior protector god called Ogu and he's associated with St. James, who was a warrior protector sat. So it's it wasn't It's not a leap all the time, but sometimes it's a stretch like St. Patrick, remember drove out the snakes from Ireland. He's associated with snakes in the Haitian tradition. Um. But yeah, so when you when you look at the underlying um tenants, the really overarching narrative of being able to communicate with spirits, invoking spirits through percussion, percussion, song, dance, I'm being possessed and objects being able to be consecrated and and become sacred. Um. Then that's voodoo across the board. The voodoo were familiar with. Um, that's Haitian voodoo, which is kind of mixed up with Catholicism. Yeah. I said that they even incorporated uh Catholic hymns and prayers. Yeah. Crazy, Yeah, who knew, Tracy Wilson, Yeah she did. Um. So, Josh, you brought up rituals that they would perform to invoke the gods. And one of the tenants of voodoo is the gods will give you advice at all, but you've got to take care of the gods the spirits. Yeah. And one way that you can do this is by animal sacrifice to appease the god, you know, the spirit. Yeah. Now this is um again. This is another ticklish aspect of voodoo, isn't it? You know? I mean this is like, oh, they sacrifice animals, they're they're evil. It's like, well you got the sacrifice animals part right right? You know, well they used to sacrifice humans, do did they? Yeah, it's been like at least a hundred years since any of that's gone on in Africa? They say, huh so, chuck, there's actually um with the animal sacrifices. Um. There, there's actually a process, as you can imagine, there's a process where so you're you're going to sacrifice the chicken, right um. And this chicken is washed and leaves to be consecrated, and then it's fed from this ritual dish. And if it refuses to eat, then that means that the loa has rejected that sacrifice, and the animal is set free. If it eats, then it's like, okay, you're dead. Always eat though apparently I guess they don't. But but it's not just chickens. I think this applies to the goats, pigs, whatever, sacrifice right um. And so if it eats, then it's like, okay, you're dead. If it's a goat or a pig, it's throat, it's slip. If it's a chicken, its neck is broken, but it's quick. It's a quick death. It's not you know, tortured or anything like that. The blood is mixed in this um calabash like a big chalice bowl um with rum and syrup and salt, and then people will either take a sip or they'll they'll um make a cross on their crucifix on their head in blood. Right, So that's the blood sacrifice. That's where the blood sacrifice ritual stands today. Oh really they still do it that way because Haitians still practice voodoo like uh, like right out in the open. So yeah, it's not some like Westerners might think it's like some weird hidden thing, but it's not like that at all. Uh. You also talked about um when they invoke or when you're possessed. There's I know, there's a dance called the Dance of the hooded uh a gun gun And apparently what happens is when someone is like the spirit overtakes them and they're possessing and they're dancing around. If you touch them, you die, that's what they say. So you gotta like stand in the circle and witness all this in some part but you know, they're running all over the place, so you gotta like, you know, keep your distance. And um. They're also if while you're possessed, you are imperview is to pain, you can't be injured. Good point. And today I was reading an article from I think two thousand two or two thousand four, um, and this guy was talking about witnessing a a voodoo ritual in West Africa, yeah, recently. And these guys were, um, we're possessed by Ugu remember the warrior protector spirit um. And they were cutting themselves with their knives, blood lighting, um, and weren't wincing or anything like that because apparently one aspect of it is like you can't feel pain while you're possessed. Interesting. Yeah, well, and since you brought that up, we should probably go ahead and talk about why Westerners view voodoo as some sort of evil, awful thing, right, in addition to the slave uprising right, Well, yeah, exactly. One of the reasons you just mentioned was a lot of the there's a lot of self injury that goes on, like yeah, and so Westerners see that and they think those people are crazy look at them. Well, not just that, but blood making a real all of parents anything dealing with death. The fact that they believe that death is like you know, not necessarily a bad thing, and that the spirits are are still living among us, guiding us. That's not where Westerners aren't typically down with that either. Now, Westerners don't have a stomach for real blood, which is why wine is used in place of it or as a metaphor for it. And like the Christian tradition, and death is something that we don't like to think about or talk about in the West either. Again, though in the voodoo tradition and in a lot of other traditions, Um, death is just a part of the natural order of things, and it's certainly not the end. I think in the West, it's kind of viewed even by the religious in some cases as the end, and we don't really like to think about that, you know. That's a good point. Um. The other thing Tracy mentioned in here was from nineteen fifteen to nineteen thirty five, the Marine Corps occupied Haiti, and during this period there were a lot of books and movies all of a sudden being written about uh and portrayed like Haitian voodoo as these you know, crazy blood letting people, so those became really popular. One of them was called White Zombie. Around the same time it had spread uh to New Orleans, and kind of who do became popular. Right in the nineteenth century, there were two women named Marie la vau and Um. One was they were the most powerful women in UM in voodoo culture in the US UM and the one was the mom and the one was the daughter. Mom retired and died, the daughter disappeared. No one knows what happened to her, UM. But after the second one disappeared, UH, the the followers split into factions, and one of the factions became who do and you do became very powerful. And who do is a mix of bow black magic with voodoo and or in the who do tradition, I guess, And so now we have who do? And that is what most people think of when you think of voodoo in the US, you think of New Orleans. And then what we're actually thinking of is who do not voodoo. They should have named it something else. They should have, you know, like um Chimmy Chongga or something exactly um UM. So these misconceptions still abound. UM. There was a paper in nine four that apparently this physician who wrote it, A researcher who wrote it still takes flak four. Um. But it was titled Night of the Living Dead to colon. Do necromantic zombieists transmit ht LV three slash l a v during voodooistic rituals? So basically, do necrophiliacs who are into zombieism and our voodoo practitioners started, are they the reason for the spread of aids in Haiti? Well, actually, there is a certain element of public health too, That's what's gonna say. That's like, that's one of the real concerns, just not all these Western misconceptions of like taboos. Um. Real concerns are that there is blood letting and that they freely bleed on one another and or sharing you know, the blood of an animal sacrifice, people drinking that that that can be bad stuff. Yeah, so that's a real health concern. Um. Another really practical concern is a lot of and we failed to mention this the priests and priestess is one of their main gigs is to practice folk medicine on on the practitioners of voodoo. Right, because again we said everyday life, like voodoo is part of your everyday life. If you were and right here, and some of these folk practices kind of fly in the face of real medicine. So that's sort of a concern here and there. I think we should replace the word reel with Western. Yeah, you're right, Yeah, you're definitely right, because I believe in a lot of like Eastern medicine. Sure, I might look into voodoo, might clear up my sinuses. Yeah. Uh. And like we said, um, death is a big, big part of it, and just the culture of fear that it creates is something that is a big turn off for a lot of well, it creates a culture of fear in the in the West, it is. But again there's I think even informed, um educated people have misconceptions about voodoo because it's been harangued so long in this country that people in the US just really don't understand what what it is that's going on down there, and there's so many misunderstandings. Yeah, they see angel heart, but even beyond that, like even if even if you don't think it's who do you're You're like, okay, well they're turning people into zombies. We did the how zombies work thing, and it's real down there. Um, but that's not voodoo. That's bo right, yeah, exactly. Um, So it's kind of it makes me Um sad for voodoo, I guess a little sad for voodoo. It makes me sad for the mombas. It's definitely Um has a stigma about it, and until I read all about it, I probably fell into that same trap. But then you start realizing, aside from like spiritual possession and a couple of the other things, like you know, it's not so different than other religions when you look at it, and I think Buddhist actually, I think there are times when Buddhism when there is spiritual possession going on there too. Christianity. Now, yeah, there's a good example in this article of um spirit possession happening in the Buddhist tradition, right, Yeah, that's where I heard it. Yeah, all right, there was Um in nineteen fifty nine. The Dalai Lama was Um speaking with an oracle that was possessed Um, and the oracle gave him advice on how to escape the Chinese army successfully that spirit possession. But it's Buddhism and they don't sacrifice chickens. I think that that's kind of it. There's a lot of blood and death in voodoo and people are afraid of it, right, Um. But I read it or saw a thing on NPR today where one guy went down and spent some time with with the voodoo um practitioners, and I think Haiti and he said, maybe his Ira Glass people are crazy. That's that's more Woody Allen than Ira Glass Um. But he basically like in the dark Side, even the bow to the concept of heaven and hell and Western religion and he he said, quote, the whole point is to manifest the darkness so that goodness can overwhelm it. And it's the same in Voodoo as it is in Christianity. And you know, actually I said that Christianity they don't believe in like possession at all. Not quite true. Oh yeah, some some like Southern Baptist and Pentecostal believe that the spirit can overtake you in such a way. So I was not quite right there. But again, think about how those people are looked at from the same people who look at voodoo as you know, unseemly. Yeah, good point. But what what's going on now though, is there's there's sort of an outright war from on voodoo by missionaries still going there to convert them from what they say as a cult, right or associated with the devil. Well, yeah, they associated with Satan, which is ridiculous because nothing about voodoo has anything to do with Satan. I don't even believe it exists. Yeah, so this is Western Christians kind of just putting all their stuff on them. Lots of hang ups. Yeah we uh Anglo Saxon descendants really like to hang our hang ups on other people. Right, Yeah, let's let's stop that. Well, I mentioned Angel Hart. We should mention the movies real quick. Angel Hart, great movie. Who do Surpent in the Rainbow? Great movie? But again that was Wade Davis, the anthropologist, and he's done a lot, That's who that was. Yeah, he's done well, it was bull Bill Pullman playing him. But um, he's done a lot. Actually to a cloud voodoo to continue these misconceptions rather than hear them up. Really yeah, but he's made a lot of money along the way. Good point. And then of course Live and Let Die. We like to talk about Bond. That some voodoo in that best bond ever. Roger Moore, God, it's so true. Roger Moore was awful. Dude, Dude, Roger Moore was great. I grew up with Roger Moore, so I like, like, I have a certain affinity for some of those films, some of his earlier ones. But it got to the point where it was just like a cartoon of himself. He was never the butt kicker like Connery was, or the New Guys whatever, Dalton or who's a name that Greig? All right, Well, if you want to learn more about James Bond and Voodoo, you can type James Bond and Voodoo into the handy search bar how stuff works dot Com. If doesn't work, which I can pretty much guarantee it won't, just type voodoo try that one. And since I said handy search bart how stuff works dot Com, it's time for listener mail. Josh, I'm gonna call this ghost prisons for reels? Did you read this one from Will h? Hey, guys, just thought I would drop a line about my interaction with your recent ghost prisons topic, which we have yet to get a lot of flag for. We've gotten zero flak. I'm ready for some flat to come. Aren't way about some way? People stopped listening a long time ago? Chuck, I have met on several occasions a man by the name of I'll go ahead and say his name, mom Do Habib, who was very prominent in the Australian media for being an Australian citizen held at Gitmo or Jitmo, Gitmo, Gitmo, alright, because Guantanamo. It's not Jouantanamo Guantanamo. Through my conversations with him, it was clear that he had not only been tained at Guantanamo, but also it was a subject to extraordinary rendition. He was captured by the US and Pakistan sent to Egypt, where he was held for six months and tortured. The torture, however, was ineffective because of the misadministration of drugs by US agents, which rendered him almost above feeling for most of the time, so like they doped him up so much he couldn't even feel the torture, basically almost as if he was under the power of a voodoo's spell or under the power of morphine. Right after six months, he was dumped back in the pantis Pakistan before getting picked up again and taken to Gitmo. It was apparently common policy for the US to first torture then imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay in order to use the torture findings. However, mainly due to the tireless campaigning of his wife, he was released from Guantanamo and returned to ODZ. However, judging from the times I have met him, the experience will never leave him. In regards to the tortured, I forgot all about it. But you want to come over for a bobby, for a slab of b for a stubby. In regards to the perception that Obama is better in terms of this stuff, it is unfortunately not the case. We'll say that Gitmo has been replaced by a Bogram airbase in Afghanistan, in prison even further from the public eyes. Keep up the great work, guys. Hope this finds you in good health. There is no way to end that softly. It's gonna stop here. And yeah, keep up with great work. So that comes from Will and he says peace right on Will, Peace to you two, my friends. So, uh, what do you want to call for, Chuck? I don't know? Something interesting? How about if you are a practitioner of voodoo. That is excellent, Chuck. We want to hear from you, yes, please do let us know. Um, if you're a practitioner voodoo, we would love to hear from you. Let us know what's going on and what we got glaringly wrong or omitted, because this one could like this one could use filling out. I think a little more. What are they called voodoos? Voodoo practitioners, voodooists, voodooists? You know the line in Blazing Sales, Now go do that voodoo that you do so well? Yes, Late Harvey corman Um. You can also follow us on Twitter, s y s K podcast. We have a Facebook page that we like to hang out on sometimes. It's called stuff you should know. Website in parentheses and you can send us that email if you are into voodoo at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page

Hi, everybody. I've got my voodoo doll out because it's Saturday. It's time for a Saturday Select and I went with What's the Deal with Voodoo? From July six two. Uh. You know, I picked this one because I just remember being a very interesting episode. Voodoo is. Um. Well, we we talk all about it, not just in a pop culture way because voodoo is so often misinterpreted on TV Sitcom's Go Figure, but we get into the real voodoo and in the history of it and what's behind it. All very interesting stuff. So here we go, July six, What's the Deal with Voodoo? Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as always is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. How you like your chair? I hate this chair? Dude? Do you realize that, in like the last eight podcasts, we've just complained at the beginning. We're probably so tired of it. Yeah, So let's let's instead, Chuck, instead of complaining as is our usual way these days, let's go back in time. Oh yes, I'm going to take us back. You're ready, okay, Chuck? Um, this is August little place that we now know of as Haiti, and what's just happened is a slave uprising. Actually, what is the only successful slave uprising in the world. Good for them, Yeah, that's what I say. What happened was what happened was in earlier in August of a group of slave leaders and maroon leaders and maroons were runaway slaves who've made it to the hills and we're basically staging guerrilla warfare against um plantations and white colonists. They got together and there was a ceremony that was performed in a place called Alligator Woods or block came in. I've been there, have you really? Oh? Wow, Well we're about together now, right. There's this voodoo ritual that took place, and all of the leaders basically pledged their support and dedication to this rebellion. And a week later, all hell breaks loose. Okay, um this thousands of slaves revolt. They murder every white person they can find. Apparently they paraded around from like settlement to settlement with a white human baby impaled on a steak, I might draw the line there, but burned every plantation they could find and just basically held a slave uprising you know, it's like you can only hold somebody down for so long before they, you know, turn on you. The human spirit wants to be free, exactly, Chuck. Uh. And that's essentially what happened that the Haitian slaves rose up. They were unsuccessful actually in but historians say this is the point that started at all. And by eighteen o four Haitia was a free republic. Awesome, yeah, um, But that that meeting in the woods that started it all. The voodoo ceremony that instance, and other slave rebellions that were kind of based around voodoo UM have kind of given the religion a bad rap among whites lots of things since then. It's kind of weird to think of, but our conception of voodoo is almost entirely hollywood ized, fictionalized um and fear based based on this um kind of collective white distant memory um of well, this is this is what you know voodoo is. It's babies impaled on steaks. What happens when you let people practice voodoo? Right, Chuck? Actually, the um that slave revault is successful slave rebellion um is what Pat Robertson was talking about famously. After the Haiti earthquake when he said a long time ago, and people in Haiti don't like to talk about it, but they made a pact with the devil um to get the French out and they said, we'll give you our souls if uh, you'll get the French out, and the French got out. And then so basically he was saying, you know, the it's devil worship. Voodoo is devil worship, and the successful slave rebellion is proved positive of it, and that's why the earthquake happened in his opinion. And then Haiti they were probably like, who's this devil you keep talking about? We don't believe in that, dude. This is gonna be a lot of debunking going on today. Let's debunk dude. Let's start talking about voodoo. Okay, let's now, okay, Voodoo is a religion. A lot of people think it's just a bunch of hocus pocus, which is more like who do which we'll get to later. But voodoo is an actual religion. There is a there's one God. It's very It depends on where you are if you're talking voodoo and um. Even generationally speaking, there's a lot of differences. Yeah, because there's no definitive holy text. It's a normal tradition. Yeah. And it's a very subjective religion too, right, it's like a very personal um and it governs your day to day life. And it um also has it's different, has a different impact on every every person, right, Yes, it does. Yes. Uh. So there's like I said, there's one supreme God and depending on where you are to be different name. Uh, if you're talking Haitian voodoo, we're basically going to cover like African and Haitian in parts, I would say, won't you Yeah, okay, so Haitian voodoo, you're gonna all this supreme god bandhi. But in voodoo, you can't talk directly to the main god. You have to go through one of the spirits called the loa, right, and there are many loa. Now I'll have different functions, but it is hierarchical, it is. And they're based on dead ancestors ancestral spirits, yeah, which it turns out to be and we'll get to that more in detail. But that's a big, big part of voodoo, is uh, the ancestry and dead people basically spirits of the dead people, right, And you're talking about comparing it to say Christianity or Judaism or something like that. It's much it's much easier to compare um like a pagan religion like voodoo, to a pagan religion like um Druidism, right, than it is to compare either one to Christianity or Judaism. Um. Although there are some similarities there are, especially in Haitian voodoo, but in African voodoo, Um, it's it's much more difficult to compare it. And so answer all just still kind of put it in this um context of of ways we can understand like gods, right, but they're not gods. You can't like to to voodoo practitioners. They're not God's their ancestral spirits. The spirit world is as real as this world. So we may hear their call them gods accidentally, but that's that's just as close as we can come. You could compare them to a Greek or Roman gods, right. They have different personalities that represent different things, but it's kind of that shared pagan worldview that different parts of the natural experience are associated with different gods. Yes, right, good point. Thanks. Uh. It's basically so white Christians can understand exactly what we're talking about, um so uh. African and Haitian voodoo in in both cases you have it's really not a bunch of evil doing and and spells cast upon one another. It's mainly used for for good and to be a better person. In fact, you're you're counted on as a practice or voodoo to be a good community member and you know, a stand up guy or gal. Right Yeah, And I remember we said that it was a personal and subjective religion. Um So when you're practicing voodoo, when you are um uh interacting with it, say like a voodoo priest or priestess, right, um, you're seeking advice, guidance and you're living your life by that, right. Yeah. So there's actually I guess kind of the whole um evil aspect does exist bo bo um in African tradition, right yeah. African voodoo, Yeah, that's the dark side of African Vodoo is called bo right, and voodoo practitioners a voodoo priest is called a hogun right yeah. An African voodoo priest, right yeah, And an African and Haitian voodoo priestess is called a mamba, right, yes, mamba um So the mamba and the Hogun are not charged with um carrying out bow, which is evil spells hexes um basically magic that does harm, right, right, And they do use voodoo dolls they do. Yeah, but um, this is not to say and this is where it kind of gets a little prickly, like a little hinky um where the voodoo priests and priests is may not actually practice bow, this black magic, but um, they're familiar with it, they have a working knowledge of it. But so so they can oppose people who practice bo. Yes, you have to understand something to fight it. That's the belief they're right, right, Sure, Okay, so Chuck, let's talk a little more about ceremonies and some of the characteristics and traits that make voodoo voodoo. All right, are we going to Africa? Are we in Haiti at this point? Let's do Africa first. I mean, this is the cradle of voodoo, right, yeah, like six thousand years ago. That's where the word comes from. It comes from the Faun language, which was the kingdom of Fun and that means sacred spirit or deity, right, And I think it was like northwest northwest Africa. Northwest it's north central West Africa. So it's West Africa. We're talking. Ghana, Benin and Togo are like the the areas where these ancient kingdoms of Fawn and Congo, Congo with the k um We're located. And this is the cradle of voodoo. Yeah. And I actually got a stat for you. Um they say that thirty million people in in Togo, Ghana and was it Benin, Yeah, still practice voodoo today. And just to gauge where that falls and world religions, it's about double the number of Jewish people in the entire world. Wow, is it really? Yeah? Well there, I mean stats vary because depending on if you're like an active practice practitioner of Judaism or if you're just like born Jewish. But yeah, it's about double, so it ranks. It's also um an official religion in Beni. Yeah. They say six of the bull of that country follow voodoo. Still right, so this is a an established religion. Um. But one of the founding um or foundational tenants of voodoo is that you can communicate with the spirits, and you communicate with the spirits to find out, you know, what you should do from them. Then the almighty deity. Yeah, the Supreme God right there, the medium, right um. One of the one of the other founding tenants of voodoo is you communicate with these people, not in your head, not through prayer, but by these the loa um actually possessing someone who then gives commands or says, you know, what are you doing? Why aren't you you know, um, spending more time with your wife, things like that. Right Yeah. We said that it's different in African and Haitian and all over the world and in different time periods, but that's one of the main through lines and all voodoo is possession, spirit, intrusion, possession, right um. The person who's being possessed at the time is known as the horse, and the whatever loa is is possessing him or her is known as the rider. Right Yeah, that's in Haitian voodoo. How did I get ahead of us? No, that's right, we can, we can kind of jump around. Okay. Well that's really one of the big bridges. Um. That's really the bridge between Haitian voodoo and African voodoo. Right is that spirit possession exists. That's how you find out what you should do in your day to day life, right um. Back in Africa, on the African side. Um, some other commonalities between the two. Because again um, or maybe not again, but possibly the first time Haitian Haitian voodoo is African voodoo with creolized yes. Right, yeah, so let's get back to talking about African voodoo. I did screw us up, and I apologize, Chuck, apologize to our fans. I'm so sorry, fans, Please forgive me. You never owe me an apology, buddy. Um. So the answer, the ancestral spirits make up the lowa. Right. Um. You can take any object and consecrate it and it becomes a ritual, sacred object. Right, which is where the dolls come in, which, as you said, are not used for um harm Right. Well, they can be by the if you're talking bow, but it's definitely not like you see in the movies, right or the Brady bunch um during Yeah, Um, the there's a lot of ceremonial dance. Um. Spirits are in vogue through music, percussion, that kind of thing. Um. I know that in both Haitian and African voodoo there is a gatekeeper, um. And his name in Haitian tradition is papal Legba. Right, I love that name. Yeah, um. And papal Legba is the gatekeeper between the spirit world and the human world, right, and he's invoked at the beginning of every ceremony because you have to get him to open the gate so you can absolutely start communicating at the low and so things can be people can be possessed. Right. And actually Papalaba is also a one of the black men at the Crossroad, who um bears a striking resemblance to our friend Mashamn. Oh really yeah, interesting, Yeah, the Crossroad a k a. The Christian Cross in Haitian tradition. Yeah, right, we should go ahead and talk about that. Probably if some of this sounds familiar, if you're thinking, Papa Legba sounds sort of like St. Peter and the crossroads sounds sort of like the Christian Cross, is a very good reason for that. It's because once again we go back to our friend Christopher Columbus Hispaniola and the fact that they brought slaves over to Hispaniola to work on the plantations. They brought voodoo with them, and the problem there was Columbus said, no, no, no no, no no. If you're going to be a slave over here, you have to be converted to Christianity. So that was the code noir. The French actually did that one to be baptized, forced conversion. So what they did was in order to keep practicing voodoo, they incorporated and this or my mind was blown. I didn't know they did this. They incorporated parts of Catholicism to kind of mask the fact that they were practicing voodoo and it got all mixed up in what's called syncretization. Yeah, so Catholicism and voodoo working together, right crazy, So even today, Um, they're a lot of the loa there. Well, there was a lot of ready um uh similarities between these ancestral spirits and Catholic saint. It's right. So like St. Peter is associated with papal Legba because St. Peter's the guy who's outside the gates to heaven. Papal Legba is the gatekeeper to the spirit world, so they associate him with him. Um, there is a god who is um pretty powerful. He's a warrior protector god called Ogu and he's associated with St. James, who was a warrior protector sat. So it's it wasn't It's not a leap all the time, but sometimes it's a stretch like St. Patrick, remember drove out the snakes from Ireland. He's associated with snakes in the Haitian tradition. Um. But yeah, so when you when you look at the underlying um tenants, the really overarching narrative of being able to communicate with spirits, invoking spirits through percussion, percussion, song, dance, I'm being possessed and objects being able to be consecrated and and become sacred. Um. Then that's voodoo across the board. The voodoo were familiar with. Um, that's Haitian voodoo, which is kind of mixed up with Catholicism. Yeah. I said that they even incorporated uh Catholic hymns and prayers. Yeah. Crazy, Yeah, who knew, Tracy Wilson, Yeah she did. Um. So, Josh, you brought up rituals that they would perform to invoke the gods. And one of the tenants of voodoo is the gods will give you advice at all, but you've got to take care of the gods the spirits. Yeah. And one way that you can do this is by animal sacrifice to appease the god, you know, the spirit. Yeah. Now this is um again. This is another ticklish aspect of voodoo, isn't it? You know? I mean this is like, oh, they sacrifice animals, they're they're evil. It's like, well you got the sacrifice animals part right right? You know, well they used to sacrifice humans, do did they? Yeah, it's been like at least a hundred years since any of that's gone on in Africa? They say, huh so, chuck, there's actually um with the animal sacrifices. Um. There, there's actually a process, as you can imagine, there's a process where so you're you're going to sacrifice the chicken, right um. And this chicken is washed and leaves to be consecrated, and then it's fed from this ritual dish. And if it refuses to eat, then that means that the loa has rejected that sacrifice, and the animal is set free. If it eats, then it's like, okay, you're dead. Always eat though apparently I guess they don't. But but it's not just chickens. I think this applies to the goats, pigs, whatever, sacrifice right um. And so if it eats, then it's like, okay, you're dead. If it's a goat or a pig, it's throat, it's slip. If it's a chicken, its neck is broken, but it's quick. It's a quick death. It's not you know, tortured or anything like that. The blood is mixed in this um calabash like a big chalice bowl um with rum and syrup and salt, and then people will either take a sip or they'll they'll um make a cross on their crucifix on their head in blood. Right, So that's the blood sacrifice. That's where the blood sacrifice ritual stands today. Oh really they still do it that way because Haitians still practice voodoo like uh, like right out in the open. So yeah, it's not some like Westerners might think it's like some weird hidden thing, but it's not like that at all. Uh. You also talked about um when they invoke or when you're possessed. There's I know, there's a dance called the Dance of the hooded uh a gun gun And apparently what happens is when someone is like the spirit overtakes them and they're possessing and they're dancing around. If you touch them, you die, that's what they say. So you gotta like stand in the circle and witness all this in some part but you know, they're running all over the place, so you gotta like, you know, keep your distance. And um. They're also if while you're possessed, you are imperview is to pain, you can't be injured. Good point. And today I was reading an article from I think two thousand two or two thousand four, um, and this guy was talking about witnessing a a voodoo ritual in West Africa, yeah, recently. And these guys were, um, we're possessed by Ugu remember the warrior protector spirit um. And they were cutting themselves with their knives, blood lighting, um, and weren't wincing or anything like that because apparently one aspect of it is like you can't feel pain while you're possessed. Interesting. Yeah, well, and since you brought that up, we should probably go ahead and talk about why Westerners view voodoo as some sort of evil, awful thing, right, in addition to the slave uprising right, Well, yeah, exactly. One of the reasons you just mentioned was a lot of the there's a lot of self injury that goes on, like yeah, and so Westerners see that and they think those people are crazy look at them. Well, not just that, but blood making a real all of parents anything dealing with death. The fact that they believe that death is like you know, not necessarily a bad thing, and that the spirits are are still living among us, guiding us. That's not where Westerners aren't typically down with that either. Now, Westerners don't have a stomach for real blood, which is why wine is used in place of it or as a metaphor for it. And like the Christian tradition, and death is something that we don't like to think about or talk about in the West either. Again, though in the voodoo tradition and in a lot of other traditions, Um, death is just a part of the natural order of things, and it's certainly not the end. I think in the West, it's kind of viewed even by the religious in some cases as the end, and we don't really like to think about that, you know. That's a good point. Um. The other thing Tracy mentioned in here was from nineteen fifteen to nineteen thirty five, the Marine Corps occupied Haiti, and during this period there were a lot of books and movies all of a sudden being written about uh and portrayed like Haitian voodoo as these you know, crazy blood letting people, so those became really popular. One of them was called White Zombie. Around the same time it had spread uh to New Orleans, and kind of who do became popular. Right in the nineteenth century, there were two women named Marie la vau and Um. One was they were the most powerful women in UM in voodoo culture in the US UM and the one was the mom and the one was the daughter. Mom retired and died, the daughter disappeared. No one knows what happened to her, UM. But after the second one disappeared, UH, the the followers split into factions, and one of the factions became who do and you do became very powerful. And who do is a mix of bow black magic with voodoo and or in the who do tradition, I guess, And so now we have who do? And that is what most people think of when you think of voodoo in the US, you think of New Orleans. And then what we're actually thinking of is who do not voodoo. They should have named it something else. They should have, you know, like um Chimmy Chongga or something exactly um UM. So these misconceptions still abound. UM. There was a paper in nine four that apparently this physician who wrote it, A researcher who wrote it still takes flak four. Um. But it was titled Night of the Living Dead to colon. Do necromantic zombieists transmit ht LV three slash l a v during voodooistic rituals? So basically, do necrophiliacs who are into zombieism and our voodoo practitioners started, are they the reason for the spread of aids in Haiti? Well, actually, there is a certain element of public health too, That's what's gonna say. That's like, that's one of the real concerns, just not all these Western misconceptions of like taboos. Um. Real concerns are that there is blood letting and that they freely bleed on one another and or sharing you know, the blood of an animal sacrifice, people drinking that that that can be bad stuff. Yeah, so that's a real health concern. Um. Another really practical concern is a lot of and we failed to mention this the priests and priestess is one of their main gigs is to practice folk medicine on on the practitioners of voodoo. Right, because again we said everyday life, like voodoo is part of your everyday life. If you were and right here, and some of these folk practices kind of fly in the face of real medicine. So that's sort of a concern here and there. I think we should replace the word reel with Western. Yeah, you're right, Yeah, you're definitely right, because I believe in a lot of like Eastern medicine. Sure, I might look into voodoo, might clear up my sinuses. Yeah. Uh. And like we said, um, death is a big, big part of it, and just the culture of fear that it creates is something that is a big turn off for a lot of well, it creates a culture of fear in the in the West, it is. But again there's I think even informed, um educated people have misconceptions about voodoo because it's been harangued so long in this country that people in the US just really don't understand what what it is that's going on down there, and there's so many misunderstandings. Yeah, they see angel heart, but even beyond that, like even if even if you don't think it's who do you're You're like, okay, well they're turning people into zombies. We did the how zombies work thing, and it's real down there. Um, but that's not voodoo. That's bo right, yeah, exactly. Um, So it's kind of it makes me Um sad for voodoo, I guess a little sad for voodoo. It makes me sad for the mombas. It's definitely Um has a stigma about it, and until I read all about it, I probably fell into that same trap. But then you start realizing, aside from like spiritual possession and a couple of the other things, like you know, it's not so different than other religions when you look at it, and I think Buddhist actually, I think there are times when Buddhism when there is spiritual possession going on there too. Christianity. Now, yeah, there's a good example in this article of um spirit possession happening in the Buddhist tradition, right, Yeah, that's where I heard it. Yeah, all right, there was Um in nineteen fifty nine. The Dalai Lama was Um speaking with an oracle that was possessed Um, and the oracle gave him advice on how to escape the Chinese army successfully that spirit possession. But it's Buddhism and they don't sacrifice chickens. I think that that's kind of it. There's a lot of blood and death in voodoo and people are afraid of it, right, Um. But I read it or saw a thing on NPR today where one guy went down and spent some time with with the voodoo um practitioners, and I think Haiti and he said, maybe his Ira Glass people are crazy. That's that's more Woody Allen than Ira Glass Um. But he basically like in the dark Side, even the bow to the concept of heaven and hell and Western religion and he he said, quote, the whole point is to manifest the darkness so that goodness can overwhelm it. And it's the same in Voodoo as it is in Christianity. And you know, actually I said that Christianity they don't believe in like possession at all. Not quite true. Oh yeah, some some like Southern Baptist and Pentecostal believe that the spirit can overtake you in such a way. So I was not quite right there. But again, think about how those people are looked at from the same people who look at voodoo as you know, unseemly. Yeah, good point. But what what's going on now though, is there's there's sort of an outright war from on voodoo by missionaries still going there to convert them from what they say as a cult, right or associated with the devil. Well, yeah, they associated with Satan, which is ridiculous because nothing about voodoo has anything to do with Satan. I don't even believe it exists. Yeah, so this is Western Christians kind of just putting all their stuff on them. Lots of hang ups. Yeah we uh Anglo Saxon descendants really like to hang our hang ups on other people. Right, Yeah, let's let's stop that. Well, I mentioned Angel Hart. We should mention the movies real quick. Angel Hart, great movie. Who do Surpent in the Rainbow? Great movie? But again that was Wade Davis, the anthropologist, and he's done a lot, That's who that was. Yeah, he's done well, it was bull Bill Pullman playing him. But um, he's done a lot. Actually to a cloud voodoo to continue these misconceptions rather than hear them up. Really yeah, but he's made a lot of money along the way. Good point. And then of course Live and Let Die. We like to talk about Bond. That some voodoo in that best bond ever. Roger Moore, God, it's so true. Roger Moore was awful. Dude, Dude, Roger Moore was great. I grew up with Roger Moore, so I like, like, I have a certain affinity for some of those films, some of his earlier ones. But it got to the point where it was just like a cartoon of himself. He was never the butt kicker like Connery was, or the New Guys whatever, Dalton or who's a name that Greig? All right, Well, if you want to learn more about James Bond and Voodoo, you can type James Bond and Voodoo into the handy search bar how stuff works dot Com. If doesn't work, which I can pretty much guarantee it won't, just type voodoo try that one. And since I said handy search bart how stuff works dot Com, it's time for listener mail. Josh, I'm gonna call this ghost prisons for reels? Did you read this one from Will h? Hey, guys, just thought I would drop a line about my interaction with your recent ghost prisons topic, which we have yet to get a lot of flag for. We've gotten zero flak. I'm ready for some flat to come. Aren't way about some way? People stopped listening a long time ago? Chuck, I have met on several occasions a man by the name of I'll go ahead and say his name, mom Do Habib, who was very prominent in the Australian media for being an Australian citizen held at Gitmo or Jitmo, Gitmo, Gitmo, alright, because Guantanamo. It's not Jouantanamo Guantanamo. Through my conversations with him, it was clear that he had not only been tained at Guantanamo, but also it was a subject to extraordinary rendition. He was captured by the US and Pakistan sent to Egypt, where he was held for six months and tortured. The torture, however, was ineffective because of the misadministration of drugs by US agents, which rendered him almost above feeling for most of the time, so like they doped him up so much he couldn't even feel the torture, basically almost as if he was under the power of a voodoo's spell or under the power of morphine. Right after six months, he was dumped back in the pantis Pakistan before getting picked up again and taken to Gitmo. It was apparently common policy for the US to first torture then imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay in order to use the torture findings. However, mainly due to the tireless campaigning of his wife, he was released from Guantanamo and returned to ODZ. However, judging from the times I have met him, the experience will never leave him. In regards to the tortured, I forgot all about it. But you want to come over for a bobby, for a slab of b for a stubby. In regards to the perception that Obama is better in terms of this stuff, it is unfortunately not the case. We'll say that Gitmo has been replaced by a Bogram airbase in Afghanistan, in prison even further from the public eyes. Keep up the great work, guys. Hope this finds you in good health. There is no way to end that softly. It's gonna stop here. And yeah, keep up with great work. So that comes from Will and he says peace right on Will, Peace to you two, my friends. So, uh, what do you want to call for, Chuck? I don't know? Something interesting? How about if you are a practitioner of voodoo. That is excellent, Chuck. We want to hear from you, yes, please do let us know. Um, if you're a practitioner voodoo, we would love to hear from you. Let us know what's going on and what we got glaringly wrong or omitted, because this one could like this one could use filling out. I think a little more. What are they called voodoos? Voodoo practitioners, voodooists, voodooists? You know the line in Blazing Sales, Now go do that voodoo that you do so well? Yes, Late Harvey corman Um. You can also follow us on Twitter, s y s K podcast. We have a Facebook page that we like to hang out on sometimes. It's called stuff you should know. Website in parentheses and you can send us that email if you are into voodoo at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page