[music playing] NARRATOR: For centuries an
ancient system of belief has fascinated and
mystified the world-- voodoo. From Africa to the Caribbean,
from Brazil to the United States, today, as many as 50
million true believers practice forbidden rituals which
the uninitiated find beyond their comprehension. Voodoo-- where did
voodoo originate? What is the purpose
of voodoo dolls and what is the
source of their power? What is the secret that makes
the creation of zombies, the so-called living dead,
scientifically possible? And how did voodoo change
the course of history? [ominous music] Discover the unexpected answer
to these and other mysteries as we explore the myths and
explore the even more startling realities of voodoo. [music playing] New Orleans, cradle of jazz,
gateway to the unexpected. Here, a voodoo would enter
the American consciousness. [music playing] In the early 1800s,
New Orleans was a place of mysterious new beginnings. For slaves, arriving from
West and Central Africa and the Caribbean, had brought
with them a religion which fascinated the
people of New Orleans even as it terrified them with
its seemingly alien rituals. [music playing] Vodou-- the word means spirit in
Fang, a West African language. Rooted in the ancient beliefs of
the peoples of West and Central Africa, it was brought by
slaves to the Americas. [music playing] Enriched by contact
with Catholicism, vodou would swiftly take root,
a religion of ancient power clunged to by the powerless
of the slaves of a new world. [music playing] Vodou would soon be
popularly known as voodoo. [music playing] It rapidly became perhaps the
world's most baffling, feared, and misunderstood religion. [music playing] If you bring together all
the religions of the world, they would argue day and
night you can introduce voodoo and bring unity to that
whole group of people, because they will all be
unified against the voodoo. It's believed that it is evil. NARRATOR: What is the magic
and purpose of voodoo? And how did it journey
from Africa to take root in the United States? Perhaps the answer lies
buried here in New Orleans, in the tomb of Marie Laveau,
in a site visited by voodoo practitioners to this day. It bears witness to the woman
who would introduce voodoo to the American people. A powerful figure as feared,
and as mysterious as a religion she practiced. Scholars believe that Marie
Laveau, a voodoo priestess, achieved renown in New
Orleans while practicing the unlikely profession of
hairdresser for the city's elite. Her clients, rich and
poor, black and white, sought her counsel. They paid her handsomely for her
voodoo spells and love charms, amulets made, it was said,
from such bizarre ingredients as gunpowder and dried dog dung. Marine Laveau brought
voodoo from the shadows into the mainstream
New Orleans life. Scholars have long
been intrigued that while she was
the best known voodoo practitioner of her day, Laveau
was also a devout Catholic. It was said that marine Laveau
attended mass every day. Some historians have raised
an intriguing question. When she combined her Roman
Catholicism with the practice of voodoo, was Marie
Laveau deliberately seeking to make the African-derived
religion more palatable to the
people of New Orleans? To this day, the true
character of Marina Laval remains a source of
fierce controversy. Some describe her as a
formidable, even ruthless woman, while others portray
her as a selfless servant of the people. She did a lot of
work for the poor. She felt the hungry. She visited prisoners
in jail all the time. As she was very empathetic
to the needs of the less fortunate. NARRATOR: In 1852,
Marie Laveau was observed paying regular visits
to two men jailed for murder. On the day of their
scheduled execution, the sky darkens menacingly. It is said, that as if by magic,
the executioners' nooses slip off the necks of the
prisoners, saving their lives. Could Marie Laveau's
voodoo powers have played a role in the
prisoners' strange reprieve? We will never know. [thunder crashing] But as a result of
the bizarre incident the state legislature ends
public executions in Louisiana forever. In old age, Marie Laveau
kept her mystery alive. Some scholars believe when she
was too old to practice voodoo herself, she had her
daughter take over for her, assuming her name,
even her identity, to continue the dynasty. And together,
mother and daughter put a stamp on New Orleans,
which has ever since then been considered the voodoo
center of North America, as opposed to the Caribbean. So it's really to these two
women, mother and daughter, both named Marie Laveau, that
we can attribute the importance of voodoo in not just Louisiana,
but in all of of the Southern United States. NARRATOR: Although Marie
Laveau life remains a source of intense debate, on one thing
at least historians agree, the original Marie Laveau died
in 1881, buried in one of New Orleans Cities Of The Dead. In New Orleans, we call our
cemeteries cities of the dead because if you've been in any
of them, they have street names. I mean, they're absolutely
massive, and they're beautiful. Some people come here just
to see the cemeteries. And in cemeteries where there
are voodoo practitioners, it's a very common sight to
see an offering left in front of a tomb. NARRATOR: To a tourist,
these X's on her tomb might resemble graffiti. To voodoo practitioners,
however, they hold a much more profound
significance, a testimony to their conviction that Marie
Laveau's spirit can somehow bring them good luck
from beyond the grave. There is a very popular
and powerful ritual that is done at the
grave of Marie Laveau. And that ritual is to make an x
on the grave with a red brick, to knock three times, and
to make a wish and pray. NARRATOR: By
popularizing voodoo, Marie Laveau bequeathed
a disturbing legacy, one which would persist over
a century after the death. The image of voodoo as
devil worship and witchcraft was intensified by racist
attitudes at the time. Voodoo became the cult
America loved to hate. The biggest misconception
about you is that it is evil. That is what the
average person thinks, if you asked what is voodoo? Is a form of satanism,
it's devil worship. It's evil. NARRATOR: Perhaps the
ultimate expression of voodoo's sinister reputation. What is the voodoo doll,
a popular tourist souvenir sold in New Orleans to this day. What is the real
purpose of voodoo dolls? Are these exotic
figures intended to possess supernatural powers? Surprisingly, beneath
the distorted legends there rests a factual basis
for the voodoo doll myth, in the reality of carved wooden
figures from Africa called bochio. In works of this sort,
known as bochio, which means literally empowered
figure, or empowered cadaver, took human form. And then were wrapped
with various cords of powerful vegetable
materials, pegs would be inserted
into parts of them. For example, this peg
into the mouth which was intended in part
to silence those who might speak against one. The so-called voodoo doll
probably comes from a type of power figure prevalent
among Congo people. And it has a medicine bundle
in the interior of the figure. And when you want to make an
oath, or make a strong request, you take a piece
of metal, a nail, and drive it into
the power center. Because slave owners fear
the powers of such bochio, slaves were forbidden from
carving figures in wood. Ownership of bochio
was prohibited. And for a slave to possess
one meant certain death. So the slaves developed
the more secret way to express their beliefs,
rag dolls, figures that could be more easily concealed. The voodoo doll would come
to symbolize something both powerful and sinister. But are these enigmatic
figures inherently evil? I can make a doll of
myself, use it as a focus, to help me to center and
to channel my energies. And direct my energy to certain
parts of my body for healing. But no, I do not use voodoo
dolls for jabbing them with little pins, and
invoking spirits of darkness to cause harm to my fellow man. Even though people do it, that
is not one of the main staples of voodoo. There's an old Haitian saying
that says everything is poison, nothing is poison. Use something in a positive
way, and it's good for you. Use it in a negative way,
and it will kill you. NARRATOR: Some experts believe
that voodoo dolls, or bochio, have actually served as an
early form of psychotherapy for members of the community. How might this
have been possible? Bochio were critical in
terms of local traditions of psychotherapy. There is a sense of transferring
onto the object whatever concerns one is facing. And many of them have bottles,
or have holes in the surface so that one can in fact enclose
feelings into the objects, so they become
encapsulated in the figure. There is little doubt
but that they give to one an enormous sense of power, and
an enormous sense of security. [music playing] NARRATOR: The mystical powers
of voodoo belief culminate in voodoo ceremonies, remarkable
rituals rarely witnessed by the uninitiated, and
even more rarely understood. [music playing] Zombies, corpses brought
back from the dead to serve the evil
will of their masters. As depicted in a
Hollywood horror movies, tales of the undead seem as far
fetched as legends of vampires and werewolves. Zombies. Yes. They are my servants. Do things they can do alone. NARRATOR: Are zombies
merely a Hollywood creation or do they exist
in voodoo belief? A zombie by voodoo
belief is a living dead. It's an individual man or
woman who has been killed, buried, and then magically
resuscitated from the grave by a sorcerer, and then led
away to face an uncertain fate, a fate that almost has always
had to involve slavery. NARRATOR: While scientists
remain skeptical, voodoo practitioners
in Haiti had always considered the threat of
being turned into a zombie a fearsome reality. Whether zombies exist
or not is not really the important question. The important question I think
is whether people believe that zombies exist. And in that particular
case, the answer is yes. NARRATOR: On one day in 1980,
in a remote corner of Haiti, The question of the
existence of zombies suddenly changed from a realm
of legend and speculation to scientific fact. For after years of
absence, this man suddenly appeared in a small
village in Haiti to tell his sister
astonishing news. He insisted he was Clairvius
Narcisse, whose death had been officially recorded on this
death certificate years before. Skeptical doctors sent the
fingerprints of the man, along with those of a corpse
on the death certificate, to Scotland yard in
London for analysis. The results were remarkable. The fingerprints of the
corpse and the live Narcisse matched perfectly. The man who had
been declared dead and buried in this cemetery
was now undeniably alive. In this extraordinary
interview, Narcisse described the journalists
the experience of burial as one of the living dead. When they took
him to the cemetery, does he recall being
put inside a coffin, and then being buried? [speaking french] He heard everything, when
he was put in the coffin, and he was put under
and he was showing you-- A scar. A scar here. It was a nail from his coffin. How long was he in the coffin,
and what did he feel, and think while he was in there? [speaking french] He was suffering
from the nail. That's the only thing
he could remember. NARRATOR: Within hours
after his seeming death, Narcisse was exhumed
by a voodoo priest, and put to work on the
priest's plantation as a form of penal servitude. [speaking french] There were 151 zombies working
for that specific sorcerer. And how long did he have
to work there as a slave? [speaking french] He stayed for two years. NARRATOR: What made possible
this seemingly miraculous incident of death
and Resurrection, the creation of a
true life zombie? The Haitian doctors arrived
at a startling theory. It was possible that a poison
could exist that would bring someone to a state of apparent
death so profound that it could fool a Western-trained
physician, at least in the primitive
medical conditions of rural Haiti. So with that idea,
they came to Harvard and asked me to go down to
look for the so-called formula, this preparation. Little did I know that it would
consume four years of my life. NARRATOR: What Wade Davis
ultimately discovered in Haiti astonished him. A folk preparation of a powerful
nerve poison called tetrodoxin, found in the puffer fish, a
poison 1,000 times stronger than cyanide. So deadly, in fact, that a
lethal dose could balance on the head of a pin. Surprisingly, in Japan
this same species of fish has long been eaten
as a costly delicacy, after the poison has
been carefully removed. Because of this bizarre
culinary tradition, Japanese scientists have
been able to closely study the poisonous effects. It brought on peripheral
paralysis, dramatically lower metabolic rates, and
yet consciousness was retained until death. We found case after case in the
Japanese medical literature, and popular literature,
in the newspapers, of individuals who'd been
nailed to their coffins by mistake, who'd
succumbed to this fish. We found that by
folk custom in Japan, if you were exposed
to the fish, you were laid out by your
grave for three days to make sure you're really dead. This suddenly made
us realize that there could be an absolute material
basis to the zombie phenomenon. NARRATOR: Wade Davis's
astonishing discovery that zombification
was medically possible left an even more
intriguing question. Why would anyone administer
the nerve poison tetrodoxin to transform a
victim into a zombie? Remember that
the fear in Haiti is not of zombies, as
movies would imply, but of becoming a zombie. And it became clear that
this social sanction of zombification was
somewhat analogous to the electric chair. Its power as a social sanction
depends, or a punishment, depends not on how often it
occurs, but that it can occur, and apparently has occurred
at rare moments in Haitian history. NARRATOR: Scholars consider
zombies and authentic but relatively minor
aspect of voodoo. But some believe that
opponents of voodoo have had an ulterior motive
for exaggerating the importance of the zombie phenomenon. I have a Haitian
friend who tells me that it's the enemies
of voodoo particularly, the Protestant missionaries,
who seem to be obsessed with this question of zombies,
because it's a way of beating voodoo over the head. Yeah, it's a way
of saying, well, if you're a religion of zombies,
you must by definition then be an evil religion. NARRATOR: Zombies are
not the only means in voodoo belief for
the living to possess the souls of the dead. There is another ritual which
is more frequently practiced by voodoo initiates. To outsiders, it remains a
baffling, ancient mystery. What's more common
much, more common is, the idea of capturing somebody's
spirit or soul, of putting that-- and putting that spirit
or soul in a bottle, and making that spirit
or soul work for you. And that kind of a zombie
is called an astral zombie, a zombie from the stars. NARRATOR: If the souls of the
dead are revered in voodoo, the body is no less sacred. And yet surprisingly,
the bones of the dead are sometimes used
in voodoo ceremonies. The practice has shocked
and mystified outsiders, but what is its true purpose? Well another sensational
thing about some of the dark practices
that are indeed part of the umbrella
of the voodoo faith is the use in ritual practice
of human remains, human bones and so on. Always for a
ritualistic purpose. And so any culture
that uses human remains is essentially saying dust
to dust, ashes to ashes. And that's a profound
philosophical statement in any culture. [music playing] NARRATOR: In voodoo,
ceremonies are intended to evoke the presence
of deceased ancestors, maintaining contact with loved
ones after they are gone. [music playing] The desire to be close to
one's family, even in death, manifests itself in
a way which might seem bizarre to
American sensibilities. [music playing] We want to come
back in your family, because these religions
are very family-oriented. Where I lived in Sierra
Leone, oftentimes bodies were buried literally under
the living room of the house, so that the dead
would be right there. NARRATOR: In, voodoo, the
Judeo-Christian concepts of heaven and hell seemed
surprisingly irrelevant. Instead the soul will have an
altogether different destiny, a unique form of reincarnation. Heaven as the other
side of the mirror. It's just beyond, what's
visible but it's not out there. Hell doesn't exist at all. There is no place of eternal
damnation after death. Souls migrate after death,
souls go under the water. [music playing] And if the family initiates
the right rituals for that soul after death, the soul will
then migrate into the body of future generations
of that family, so that there's a circle
of life and death. [music playing] NARRATOR: At the Temple
Of The Serpents in Benin, once the Kingdom of
Dahomey in West Africa, worshippers pay homage to
a powerful voodoo deity. [music playing] Outsiders might view the
Python with fear or revulsion, but for voodoo
initiates, this creature is an object of
reverence, a source of positive spiritual power,
and a link with their ancestors. But how can a snake
possess spiritual power? According to
Judeo-Christian belief the serpent was present
at the dawn of mankind as the very embodiment of evil. In the Bible, it is the
serpent, which seduces Eve into taking the apple, the
serpent, which is the most loathsome of creatures. WOMAN: The Lord
said to the serpent, cursed are you above all cattle,
and above all wild animals. Upon your belly you
shall go, and dust shall you eat all the days
of your life, Genesis 3:14. NARRATOR: In startling
contrast with the Bible, the snake in voodoo
embodies tremendous power for good, a harmonious blending
of male and female energies. The vision of pythons in this
religion is quite different from the snake in the
Judeo-Christian religion. In the Judeo-Christian religion,
we have the evil little snake in the Garden of Eden. And it's Slithering
horizontally on the ground. These snakes are
saints, and they stand. They are shown standing,
bridging heaven and earth under god. NARRATOR: During slavery,
when Africans were forced to practice voodoo in secret,
they concealed their worship of the snake god Damballa
by honoring the image of St. Patrick, who is said to have
banished snakes from Ireland. Today, Damballa continues to
be viewed as a god who bestows health and prosperity. But what is the source of
the serpent's ancient power? The repository of all
spiritual wisdom and voodoo is Damballa Wedo,
the serpent god. And the serpent god also
brought the falling rain that fertilized the Earth. And when the rain
fell, a rainbow was reflected,
because Ayida Wedo, and Damballa Wedo, the serpent
god, fell in love with Ayida, and their love entwined them
in a cosmic helix from which all life was fertilized. NARRATOR: The snake is
only one of many animals with religious
significance in voodoo. At this special market
in Benin, initiates come to purchase the
remains of animals they believe possess magical
powers as aphrodisiacs, medicines, or as amulets to
cast spells on their enemies. But sure the animal would be
killed for ritual purposes? [music playing] What do outsiders it
seems a barbaric practice is to voodoo initiates a
profound religious sacrament. People get very concerned
about animal sacrifice because they think it's somehow
the wanton brutalization of life. But in the voodoo practice,
it's nothing of the sort. The word sacrifice doesn't
mean to kill, or to brutalize, it comes from the Latin
meaning to make sacred. NARRATOR: Is animal
sacrifice really so alien to the
Judeo-Christian tradition? The Bible itself contains
numerous references to the practice. WOMAN: Abraham lifted
up his eyes and looked, and behold behind him was a ram. In Abraham went up
and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt
offering instead of his son. Genesis 22:14. There is animal sacrifice in
a lot of major world religions. You soon know early on in
Bible that the Lord says sweet unto my nostrils
of this animal that has been roasted on
an altar, in his name. So it's nothing mysterious. The sacrifice of animals
is at the very core of the Judeo-Christian
tradition. NARRATOR: Scholars have
long been fascinated by the extreme importance of
animal sacrifice in voodoo. Animal sacrifice
is central to voodoo, but it's central
to Haitian life. Chickens are killed in a
voodoo ceremony in the same way they're killed in a market. It really fascinates
me how animal sacrifice in the African
diaspora religions raises moral judgment
among Westerners. And yet, we eat chicken that
is killed in much less humane ways, much less humane ways. But still, we feel that it's
barbaric to kill animals. Well, we've constructed a
society in which others do that for us. NARRATOR: The controversy
over animal sacrifice reached its climax in 1993, with
one of the strangest cases ever to reach the United
States Supreme Court. In Hialeah, Florida,
devotees of santeria, voodoo's Cuban-based
system religion shocked the community by
sacrificing chickens and goats in their rituals. The Hialeah City Council
passed an ordinance making such a public ritualistic
animal sacrifice a crime. When the case finally
reached the Supreme Court, the verdict was unanimous. The religious practice
of animal sacrifice was protected under the
constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion. [music playing] The 1993 Supreme Court decision
may have legalized animal sacrifice, but it
did nothing to make voodoo or its sister religion
of Santeria more acceptable to a nation which still
fears and mistrusts them. [music playing] Beginning in the 16th
century, millions of slaves were taken into forced
exile in the new world on a terrible ocean voyage where
a quarter of them would die. They longed for the land from
which they had been torn, clinging to the
spiritual beliefs they had preserved from Africa. Their voodoo had evolved in
the distant past, centuries before the birth of
Christ, its origins lost in the mists of time. Its spiritual source, the
primeval forests of Africa. In the West, voodoo is
often described as a cult, but to do so would be
erroneous in many respects. A cult is generally considered
to be some sort of religion, religious power
outside of a norm. In Africa, voodoo is the norm. It was the god of the kings. It was the god of the people. NARRATOR: To the
ancient Fon people, this sacred forest
near Weida in Benin was a place of wonder,
mystery, and peril. Here the faithful believe
the life force resided, an all-knowing God too
powerful and remote to speak to humanity. And here, too, lived a multitude
of other voodoo deities who actively shaped the lives
and fortunes of human beings. Among those deities were a Ogun,
god of iron and war, Guede, god of sexuality, Ayida Wedo,
the great mother goddess. How many voodoo gods exist? The question remains
a perplexing mystery. When you ask how many
gods there are generally, you'll be given a number such
as 201, or 2,001, the one on at the end of the number
being more than you can ever imagine, plus add
another one to it. Some say 400, some say 1,600. Some say too many to count. I'm of the too many to
count family of scholars, in any case. Because I think the
spirits are constantly being reborn, or born again, or
devised to meet new situations. NARRATOR: For centuries,
the people of West Africa have refused to enter this
sacred forest in Benin after dark, fearing the potent
supernatural forces they believe abide there. Could there be any truth
to those ancient legends? Some scholars believe
that these ruins provide an intriguing
clue to the secrets of this sacred forest. For voodoo practitioners insist
that what took place here was due to forces
far more powerful than mere superstition. In the early 20th century,
a French diplomat in Benin, defying the warnings
of voodoo initiates, decides to build an estate in
the heart of the sacred forest. No sooner does he move in
than it is reported that he witnesses terrifying
apparitions, and hears strange sounds
from the surrounding forest. In a matter of
weeks, he is forced to abandon his estate forever
grateful to have escaped with his life. [spooky sounds] Was this, as many west Africans
believe the revenge of voodoo gods? Or merely proof that
the French envoy was the victim of his own
hyperactive imagination? According to voodoo
belief, gods do not only reside in Africa's forests. Mystical power can
reside in any object, no matter how surprising
or unexpected. [music playing] In a small village
outside Abomey, Benin, worshippers believe that this
haystack has been animated by powerful deities. Is the haystack whirling
from spiritual forces, or from a human
dancer hidden within? To the worshippers, what matters
most is that the whirling haystack is a sign
the gods have been summoned, that they are present
in all their awesome energy. [music playing] Tragically, not even the
power of their belief in their ancient gods would
protect the peoples of Africa from the all too
human evil of slavery. Men, black and white,
trafficking in human flesh would forcibly exile millions
from their beloved land. The very strength of
their belief in voodoo, which had sustained the peoples
of Africa for centuries, would be ruthlessly
exploited by slave traders to break their spirit. In a cynical ploy to weaken
the slaves' psychological bond to their homeland before
they were shipped away, slave traders forced
their captives to perform magical
voodoo rituals. They compelled the slaves to
walk around a tree they named the Tree Of Forgetfulness. The slaves were convinced
this ceremony would rob them of their memories of home. Incredibly, despite the
efforts of a slave trader to deprive them of their
identities and their heritage, the slaves ancestral
beliefs endured. The culture was preserved by
the particular group of people who were brought from
those areas to Haiti. That was mostly young men. Now, the thought of American
culture being preserved by a random group of
18-year-old young men may give us some idea of
how partial the cultural preservation can be. NARRATOR: Though they
had no religious texts or sacred artifacts to
cling to, somehow the slaves preserved the memories of
their religion in their minds and in their hearts. The physical hardships and
emotional hardships of slavery were absolutely extraordinary. Not only in terms of just
the numbers of people who died in the course of the
ships coming to the Americas, but also the enormous
difficulties that were faced here. And voodoo provided
a sense of strength, even in those extraordinarily
difficult contexts. NARRATOR: Worshipping
in secret, the slaves were dispersed throughout the
Caribbean and the Americas. With their sacred forest
only a distant memory, they created a symbolic
tree trunk, the Potomitan, a central pole around which
their voodoo rituals churned. A powerful focal point for
the gathering of the deities. [music playing] And you're going constantly
around the Potomitan, the tree that brought the
goodness of great god almighty down to the Earth. [music playing] So the Potomitan zigzags all
this positive force from God from heaven down, but
also simultaneously from our ancestors up. So it's where the
two worlds meet. NARRATOR: Surprisingly,
however, voodoo has done more than
profoundly influence individual human lives
through its mystical rituals. [music playing] The Caribbean island of
Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere,
and ironically the focal point of voodoo in the new world. Here, voodoo has been
more than a source of mystical spiritual renewal. It has proven itself a potent
political force as well. But how could this ancient
religion change history? For the 300 years
after Columbus, when slaves were brought
to the Caribbean in chains, their African-based religion
was viewed as a threat by slave owners. They feared the slaves would
draw on the voodoo magic to avenge the atrocities
that had been committed against them. On the plantations, one of the
few ways that the slaves were able to demonstrate and
maintain their ancient practices and tradition was
through spirituality. And in that sense,
you know, voodoo was always seen as something
that could threaten. Because why? Because it was demonstrating
the possibility of freedom, spiritual freedom, and
indeed political freedom. There were many places
where people struggle to overcome that, and to
revolt against slavery. There's only one place
where that was successful, and that place was Haiti. And in Haiti, the voodoo
was the primary tool that the people used to
successfully free them from slavery. NARRATOR: One early
prophet of freedom in Haiti was Mackandal, a former
slave from West Africa. Arrested in 1758
for the possession of forbidden poisons,
he was condemned to be burned at the stake. The day of his
scheduled execution, Mackandal is said to
have miraculously leaped free of the flames. Many believed he had used
his voodoo powers to escape. Though Mackandal would
eventually be captured and put to death, his legend
endured inspiring slaves to continue to seek
freedom, escaping into the forests of Haiti. What grew up in Haiti was
not just the voodoo religion, it was a voodoo civilization. And in the same
sense that we speak the Christian-Judeo
civilization, or a Buddhist civilization, you can speak
of a voodoo civilization. By the time of the
Haitian Revolution in 1791, thousands and thousands
of former slaves had fled and built their own way
of life, which included serving the spirits, which is to say,
practicing what we call voodoo. A sense of solidarity and
a sense of anger arose. NARRATOR: Ironically, it would
be the French Revolution that would inspire the
Haitian slaves to rebel against their
French slave owners. In 1791, Boukman, a former
slave and a voodoo priest, gave the historic signal
to launch a slave revolt with the beat of voodoo drums. [music playing] Drums that sounded the death
knell of slavery in Haiti. [music playing] What gave them their power? What gave them
their inspiration? The gods of Africa. The gods of Africa, who were
reclaiming their own, who were reconstituting their
families, who were refusing to serve anymore under slavery. Must be remembered that the
initial act of rebellion was in fact a voodoo ceremony. [music playing] On a night in 1791, Boukman
performed the ritual sacrifice of a black pig. His followers all
drank its blood, and swore their
allegiance, vowing to shed the blood
of their oppressors until the slaves were freed. Decades of hatred burst
forth in a single night, in a revolutionary spiral
that sent the plantations up in flames. Flames that were seen
all the way to Bermudez. NARRATOR: It would be for
another former slave, Toussaint Louverture, to lead
the people of Haiti to independence from the French. Though Louverture himself
die in the struggle, his followers won their freedom. In one of the most astonishing
military victories in history, the ill-equipped slaves defeated
the might of Napoleon's forces, considered the
finest in the world. What was the secret
of the slaves triumph against seemingly
impossible odds? Did they, as some
have suggested, draw upon a supernatural
voodoo powers? They fought with such
terror and ferocity was because they knew that
in victory, lay freedom. In capture awaited tortures
of the most heinous sort. And in death awaited only a
return to the mythical homeland of Guinea, of Africa. They created an independent
black republic in the middle of slave-owning societies. That sent a ripple of terror
throughout all of the slave owners throughout the
whole Western hemisphere. What if that were to happen in
Brazil, in the rest of Central America, or in the Caribbean,
or in the United States? NARRATOR: Fearing
the spirit of freedom would prove contagious terrified
slave owners on a neighboring islands isolated the
fledgling nation of Haiti. And voodoo drums were
considered so dangerous that they were banned
throughout the Caribbean. Tragically, though Haiti
would win independence in 1884 the Haitian people would be
subjected to harsh tyranny at the hands of
their own countrymen. The very belief in voodoo
which had spurred them to win their independence would
be used by their rulers to oppress them. Over a century and a half
later, when Francois Duvalier was elected President
of Haiti in 1957, he harnessed voodoo beliefs for
his own malevolent purposes. I have been elected
president for life. It is not my desire, but it is
the will of the Haitian people. You know, someone like
Duvalier, when he first came into office before a lot
of what was corrupt about him was revealed, he was
a popular candidate. And they dubbed him Papa Doc. They called him father as
a recognition of his power, in the same way that they
call a voodoo priest father, and a voodoo priestess mother. NARRATOR: From behind his
facade of presidential grandeur, Papa Doc Duvalier
circulated gruesome rumors to terrify the people. It was said that he
could read goat entrails, and that he slept in a tomb to
commune with voodoo spirits. Duvalier saw to it that his
secret police, the dreaded Tonton Macoute, were
trained voodoo practitioners to intimidate his
enemies into submission. Papa Doc cynically manipulated
the beliefs of the Haitian people by cloaking himself in
the symbolic trappings of one of the most feared of
all voodoo gods, Baron Samedi, the guardian
of cemeteries, a dreaded harbinger of death. Part of the power of
Francois Duvalier, Papa Doc, was that Francois duvalier
consciously used these symbols. So when funds why Duvalier
spoke to the nation, he spoke to the nations
through his nose, just the way the Baron Samedi does
during a voodoo ceremony. He wore somber black clothes. You never see a picture
of Francois Duvalier, except he's in a black suit. He's got a black
Homburg on his head. He's looking just
as mean and nasty as the Baron Samedi can look. NARRATOR: Finally, after
a reign of terror lasting almost 15 years, a tyrant
who had modeled his image on the voodoo spirit of
death would only leave office when death itself claimed him. [music playing] In 1947, an experimental
filmmaker and actress from New York came to Haiti
to film voodoo ceremonies. Her name was Maya
Daren, and her camera would chronicle these
extraordinary images of spirit possession, some
of the earliest ever recorded on film. The phenomenon has long
mystified scientists and scholars. Witnessing this
moment, Maya Daren said she felt like she was on
the threshold of the unknown. Maya Daren would soon
cross that threshold, and undergo the experience
of spirit possession herself. Later, she would describe
the startling moment of inner transformation. WOMAN: It was a white darkness,
its whiteness of glory, and its darkness terror. Mara Daren. NARRATOR: Spirit possession
transformed Maya Daren's life forever, for she abandoned
her film completely to become a voodoo practitioner herself. To this day, spirit
possession remains one of the most astonishing and
mysterious aspects of voodoo. For the initiated, it is the
miraculous defining moment of voodoo belief. But what exactly is possession? Voodoo centers on
trance possession, and that means that the
personality and consciousness of the priest or
priestess is set aside, and that of the spirit
takes over their body and their voice. [music playing] The spirits are said to ride
the person they possess, and the person they possess
is said to be a [non-english],, or a horse, ridden
by the spirits. NARRATOR: The spirit possession
is the climactic moment in a voodoo ritual, and in
the rituals of its sister religions, the
African based faiths have come from play in
Brazil, and santeria in Cuba. But what actually happens
to the one possessed? In their
understanding, the spirit takes over the voice and
the body of the person. And then when you
talk to that person, you're talking to the spirit. Based on the idea that you
actually receive the spirits in your body directly. And that's what I think
makes it so impressive, and that's of course why the
Haitians say that you white people go to church
and speak about god, but we dance in the
temple and become God. NARRATOR: Spirit possession
is the transcendent experience in voodoo, and all its sister
African-based religions throughout the world. In Brazil, the outer
trappings of a religion known as Candomble may
differ from voodoo, but this spiritual revelation of
possession is just as profound. The age-old experience
of possession remains at the outer
limits of modern scientific understanding. What actually takes place
during this mystical moment? The question continues to spark
controversy among scholars. Spirit possession is not
some form of pathology, as some of our psychologists
have tried to suggest, but rather it's the
divine presence, it's that moment
of divine grace. [music playing] NARRATOR: According
to voodoo belief, the novice and the priest
will react differently when their bodies are
possessed by a deity. Possession requires training,
that very perilous ego exchange that goes on and it
requires some training. Generally, ordinary
people who have not been through initiation are
not possessed in ceremonies. [music playing] Do I believe that
spirit possession is real? Of course I believe it's real. It by definition exists,
and by definition is a perfectly benign practice. It's just the pure expression
of spiritual faith. NARRATOR: Today in
the United States alone, there are hundreds of
voodoo priests and priestesses known as houngans and mambos. This home in Philadelphia is
the place where ceremonies are performed by a voodoo priestess
named Gro Mambo Angela Novanyon Idizol. [singing] For her, a moment of
spiritual possession can be an intense and
sometimes frightening ordeal. [music playing] It gets a little scary. And it's just a thing of losing
all control of your body. [music playing] You start to lose your eyesight. Things start to get dark. It seems like the sun
starts to go down. You're still conscious,
but you have no control. When the trance is
particularly deep, nothing is remembered,
even if it's a two- or three-hour possession. It's really best understood as
one kind of consciousness being set aside, and another
one taking its place. Each possession,
it may feel the same when I start to possess. And some feel a
little different. If it feels different, then I
go oh god, this is the big one. This is it. I'm going to die this time. NARRATOR: Although an individual
will remember nothing of what he did while possessed
by the deity, during the period
of his possession, the others in the group
will have profited by communing with the god. After the deity had departed,
the one who has been possessed can find that the
moment of awakening is in itself an
awe-inspiring experience. Then when a
possession is over, it's like I was asleep, like
I went into a deep sleep, and I'll come out of it. Sometimes, I'll yawn,
and I can't stop yawning. And I'll say wait a
minute, let me wake up. Let me wake up. And tell everybody else,
they'd be like let her wake up. She don't know
what just happened. You know? We've been here for
nine hours, she just don't know what happened. NARRATOR: Voodoo
initiates are said to display extraordinary
abilities during the period of possession. I've seen people like they're
the tips of their fingers with just a little
bit of kerosene, and the flames leap to the
left hand as a candelabra, and then the flames leaped to
the right hand as a candelabra, then it leaped to
the other hand. And the fire dancers
from hand to hand, because this is part of
their spiritual control. [music playing] NARRATOR: As if to prove the
strength of their own belief, these voodoo initiates
fearlessly undergo a trial by fire. [music playing] [singing] Voodoo can boast no
cathedrals like Catholicism, no Torah like Judaism,
no Quran like Islam. Instead, the crowning
achievement of voodoo is the mystical grandeur of
its rituals, which both summon and celebrate the gods. [music playing] In each voodoo ceremony, such
as at this one in Benin in West Africa, drums serve as a potent
force to attract the deities. [music playing] There's always a
battery of drums. Of course, each
one of the drones has a separate rhythm,
a separate invocation. It's almost like a spiritual
telegraph to the spirits, in calling them forth to
bless us with their presence. [music playing] NARRATOR: Voodoo drums are
considered by believers to be sacred objects, possessing
such an enormous power that only the initiated are
permitted to touch them. As the drums cast their
rhythmic spell on the dancers, they summon the gods. [non-english speech] But who are these deity at the
ceremonies designed to satisfy? Where the gods of
other religions may be models of the
divine perfection, the voodoo gods are remarkable
for a surprisingly different reason. I think the most
characteristic feature of these gods is
their humanness. Some are very strong
and aggressive, others are very
cool and soothing. And the whole gamut of human
identities and personalities that one finds are also
evidenced in the gods. NARRATOR: In keeping with
this surprisingly human view of their deities, these
altars built by initiates in the United States are heaped
with offerings to satisfy their distinctive appetites. Perhaps no aspect of voodoo
seems more alien to an outsider than the startling
array of gifts that these altars,
dedicated to the gods known in Haitian voodoo as Loa. Each Loa have their own drink. Sum like champagne white,
some like champagne pink. Some like white wine,
some like red wine. Some light rum. Each one of them, they
have their own color, their own fruit,
foods, and drink. So that's why you see
the altar decorated in the different colors. NARRATOR: Among the most popular
and powerful of the Loa to whom offerings are made
is Ogun, god of iron. As with other Loa,
a birthday party is held every year
in Ogun's honor. He comes last and stays the
longest because we have food for him, and drink for him. He loves cigars. He likes rum. And we have cake and some
of his food upstairs. So when he comes, we
will sing our hearts out, and we'll do everything to make
it an entertaining experience for him. NARRATOR: As part
of the celebration, these birthday cakes have
been baked for the day. The color of their icing
has been carefully selected to please the god for
which it is intended. After the ceremony,
the cakes will usually be shared among the worshippers. [non-english speech] Another aspect of voodoo ritual
both baffles and disturbs outsiders. Four Catholic crosses, like
these on display at the UCLA Fowler Museum Of
Cultural History, are used in voodoo ceremonies. Is their use intended
as a form of blasphemy? One can easily be misled into
supposing that somehow this is some dark appropriation
of Catholic imagery, perhaps for purposes
of a black mass. That's really not the function
of the cross or crucifix at all. With that cross or
crucifix functions as is a representation
of the crossroads, the conjunction of the
natural and the supernatural, the visible and the
invisible, which is one of the oldest
symbols in African religion. NARRATOR: When as part
of their subjugation, the slaves were forced
along with the natives of the new world to
adopt Catholicism, they used the
Saints to represent their own African gods,
and adopted the elements of Catholic ritual
which appealed to them. They knew a gorgeous
thing when they saw it, and much of splendor
of voodoo art is because of the appreciation
of the splendor that was inherited through
the Catholic church, and through the images
that were appropriated from the Catholic church. [music playing] NARRATOR: Voodoo also
boasts rituals however, which seem totally
foreign to Christianity. Voodoo is as a religion
without a scripture. The tradition of voodoo is
preserved in rituals, in song, in music, and in dance. [music playing] The body is central. It's a medium of
carrying messages. It's a problem-solving medium. A problem can be stated in
voodoo in terms of music and solved in terms of dance. [music playing] And there's a lot of
very graceful twirling. Hollywood thinks voodoo
is [grunting noises].. Whereas this is something
out of Baryshnikov. Elegant athletic twirling,
I twirl to the left, you twirl to the right. And this balancing, you're in
one world, and I'm in another. That takes an incredible
round of applause and choreographic know-how. So another reason why voodoo
is very beautiful to behold, it is one of the most
strictly choreographed arts. I mean, move over Bolshoi. [music playing] NARRATOR: One of the most
surprising aspects of voodoo here is that each
group of worshippers feels free to develop
their own unique ceremony. Among this particular group
in Cotonou, Benin for instance it is believed that the
colon possesses powers of spiritual renewal. Partaking of it becomes a
profound act of communion with nature. Despite the astonishingly
diverse world of voodoo practices, all
share a profound concern with healing the
body and the spirit, through the benign
intercession of voodoo gods during ancient ceremonies. In the United
States alone, there are an estimated million
and a half practitioners of voodoo and other
African-based religions. [music playing] The spiritual leader of this
Philadelphia congregation is the voodoo priestess Gro
Mambo Angela Novanyon Idizol. If you are a priestess,
then you should be a servant. You should serve the people,
and the highest service to me is the healings. Healing is the
center of voodoo. It's really not an exaggeration
to say that every bit of voodoo ritualizing is directed
toward healing. And by that I mean it's directed
toward healing relationships between people, between
people and the spirits, or between people
and their ancestors. [music playing] NARRATOR: A voodoo
priestess, or mambo, must combine the skills
of a medical doctor, a psychotherapist, a minister,
a teacher, and a mother. The question has
fascinated scholars. Why, in sharp contrast with
the religion that's practiced in Africa, are as many as 50%
of all voodoo congregations in the new world
headed by women? That's a quite amazing
statistic, because it certainly doesn't apply in the African
countries that contributed to Haiti's slave population. So something happened in
the new world experience, and particularly in
the urban centers that gave more spiritual
power to women. NARRATOR: Often,
members of the community come to a mambo for
assistance as a last resort. [music playing] Roseanne O'Conner
came to mambo Angela with an urgent request for help. Could the powers of voodoo
somehow succeed where modern medicine has failed? My husband and I very
deeply want to have a child, and I'm 42 years old,
and it's very impossible, and it will be a
miracle when it happens. Because I've been told
over and over again I will not be able to have one. Could voodoo help Roseanne
O'Conner achieve her dream? Along with her husband, she
would accompany mambo Angela and a group of other
voodoo devotees on a pilgrimage to Haiti,
in search of a miracle. But why here? Haiti is the poorest country
in the Western hemisphere. Only one in five
Haitians can read. AIDS is rampant, and despite
American intervention, political chaos threatens. Surprisingly, however,
to voodoo initiates, this troubled land is a holy
place, a place of healing. One of the extraordinary
things about the voodoo faith, particularly in Haiti,
is that it's grown and it's been
nurtured by people who live in a world of such
scarcity that they have no choice but to adorn their
lives with their imagination. [music playing] NARRATOR: Before their
pilgrimage can reach its destination, Mambo
Angelo must visit a market in the capital city
of Port-au-Prince to purchase exotic
herbs urgently needed for the well-being of her
congregation in Philadelphia. Rare substances obtainable
and nowhere else. She will buy over
140 sacks of herbs, some considered so secret and
powerful that she will not even reveal their names. Herbs is a very big
part of all African based, simply because we believe the
earth is where we come from, the Earth is where
we go back to. And in each tree, bush,
plant, it has a spirit. And it's a good spirit,
a healing spirit. NARRATOR: The day of the
pilgrimage begins with Mambo Angela and her group
visiting the Catholic Church of Saut-d'Eau to
pray for success. It has been said
that Haiti is 80% Catholic, 20% Protestant,
and 100% voodoo. Instead of viewing Catholicism
as conflicting with voodoo, initiates see it as
enhancing voodoo's power. Saut-d'Eau, the
sacred waterfall. What Lourdes is to
the Catholic faith, these cascading
waters are to voodoo. [singing] Initiates believe that
this waterfall is blessed by the goddess Erzulie Danto,
who is their counterpart to the Virgin Mary. Mambo Angela and her
followers are convinced that thanks to this blessing,
these waters can heal the body and revive the soul. So we went there
to pray and ask if God would allow us to use
the water on these two people to be blessed so that
they can conceive and have a baby, a baby that they've
been trying to have for years. NARRATOR: For Roseanna O'Conner,
who has never been here before, the ritual is a transcendent
spiritual experience. As I was able to sit there
in Saud d'Eau, and have been bathed by the waters of the
Loa, and feel that spiritual cleansing, and know that
it's part of the work that's cleaning me, that will be
able to open up having to do-- to have this opening for
the conception of a child, was just an overwhelming
experience to me. NARRATOR: For
Roseanne O'Conner, it is a long-awaited moment of
communion with divine energies. [singing] At this moment Mambo Angela is
herself apparently possessed by a supernatural force. [singing and chanting] This seemingly overwhelming
act is perceived as possession by Damballa, the serpent
god, a positive omen that this powerful voodoo
deity has heard their prayers. [singing] Later, Roseanne, Mambo
Angela, and the others prepare the sacred herbs
they will take back with them to Philadelphia. [singing] According to voodoo belief,
Roseanne O'Conner's pilgrimage. Will not bring about
an instant miracle it will only pave the way for
the healing process to begin. Whether or not Roseanne
will ever attain the miracle she seeks is too soon to say. But for now at least, she finds
her sense of hope renewed. [music playing] That night, the Mambo
Angela holds a ceremony to honor the voodoo
deities, where members of her group
from Philadelphia dance side by side
with local initiates. [music playing] If the miracle does take
place, voodoo initiates believed that Damballa,
the serpent god, will have been a powerful force
in helping to bring it about. [music playing] In the West African
town of Cotonou, a voodoo priest named Agendeyo
puts on sacred amulets, preparing to perform one
of the most important, and to the uninitiated, one
of the most mysterious of all voodoo rituals. Divination, the use
of sacred objects, to unlock the secrets
of human destiny. Using necklaces
of shells believed to hold special
powers, the priest will seek to divine profound
meaning in a complex ceremony that has been practiced
for centuries. [non-english speech] The way the shells
fall as he throws them will determine
his interpretation of their message. The Fa or Ifa
system of divination is one of the most
complex in Africa. It involves 256
distinct signs, each with its own large vocabulary
of proverbs and narratives. Those who divine
using the Ifa system go through years and
years of training. [non-english speech] NARRATOR: Although he consults
a book for added insight, the key to the shells meaning
will lie in the voodoo priest's own body of knowledge,
passed down orally over countless generations. [singing] Half a world away
in Los Angeles, divination is practiced by
initials of a Cuban sister religion of voodoo
called santeria. Santeria is practiced
by hundreds of thousands of devotees in the United States
alone, initiatives like Ysamur Flores-Pena. Flores-Pena is a santero,
a santeria priest who has undergone
years of training to prepare him to
perform divination. Divination tells us why we
came to the world, what we came to achieve in the world. And divination is central
because it tells you the origin of your
maladies, what ails you. And how to solve it. NARRATOR: For his
clients, divination is a path to
self-knowledge, a strategy to gain practical insights
into how to lead one's life. But do his clients
believe it is also a way to forestall the future? We don't want to find out if
we are going to hit the lotto, or if we are going
to be millionaires, and if that isn't your path,
that's perfectly all right. Because your problem is
not where you're going, the problem is how to get there. And that's what divination
does, it's a map. It's not a form
of fortune telling, what's going to happen to
me five years from now, or 20 years from now. But how to deal
with the present, to make the present
compatible with a life that will be positive,
and possible, 10 or 20 years down the line. You can come to
me for divination, and I can tell you
what to do, and what you should do to achieve
what you want to achieve. You decide to do
or not to do it. My responsibilities
stops by telling you. NARRATOR: Today, Victor Lozano
visits Flores-Pena for advice, for he believes his life
has reached a crossroads. The other thing that
I've been indecisive about was the fact that I want to
go back to graduate school. You have four path to take. You have to exercise
discretion, and common sense, which is the least
come of the senses. NARRATOR: These 16 shells are
considered the mouthpieces of the deities,
known as Orishas. Flores-Pena
interprets the pattern in which the shells fall. Don't move just
because you got to move, because they're
good move or not. So what you need to
do is get your head, your inner self, the reason you
got in here, in tune with you, so you can be shown
what path to take. Then, you'll pick the right
one, and then you move. NARRATOR: One of the
most surprising aspects of divination is that the
problems seldom turns out to be what the client had expected. Guided by the pattern
of shells, Flores-Pena tells ancient
parables in the belief that it will help his clients
solve today's problems. Says the dog has four legs,
and can only follow one path. Because if each one of
the four legs of the dog wanted to go its way,
it would stretch itself and goes nowhere. So it's not doing
that, you know, you want to do your promotion. You want to do school. You want to do all the things,
you cannot do all at once. You've got to do one by one. NARRATOR: Does belief in
the powers of divination mean the individual is
powerless to change his destiny? We say that the only two
things that we cannot change are the day you come into the
world, and the day you go. Everything in between
can be tampered with. So you have a destiny. You have a blueprint, so
to speak, of the things that you are supposed to achieve
when you come to the world. How you go about it
is your decision. If you achieve those, or
you don't achieve that, is your responsibility. NARRATOR: Through divination,
according to santeria belief, the many deities send messages
to individuals telling them how to lead their lives. The faithful find
comfort in the conviction that the gods take an
interest in their fate. Voodoo first entered the
American consciousness in New Orleans. Today, the city
bears witness to what some believe is an enduring
cultural legacy of voodoo. [music playing] For scholars are fascinated
by a tantalizing question, was voodoo the inspiration for
the art form we know as jazz? [music playing] Surprisingly, scholars suggest
that voodoo has sparked another distinctive form
of musical expression which has flourished
in the United States. [heavy rock playing] Where do you think
rock and roll comes from? You think it comes from,
you know, the Puritans? Forget it. Rock and roll came
out of voodoo, and it came out of the movement. It came out of the great
serpent god slithering across those stones. That's where rock
and roll comes from. And that's one of
the great expressions of American culture. NARRATOR: Historians
even believe that one of the most popular
American entertainers of all time may have drawn upon
voodoos African-based roots for his inspiration. And that little kid up in
Tupelo, Mississippi, Elvis Presley when he hung
around at the outskirts of black churches, and heard
that kind of music which is also sacred music
as well as secular, picks it up and develops
his own adaptation of this African music, just
as others have appropriated African religion custom
for their own purposes. [music playing] NARRATOR: Voodoo and its
African-derived sister religions have influenced
the world with their music, and adapted to the cultural
influences of the places where they have practiced. It's different in Brazil. It's different in Haiti. It's different in Cuba. It's different and New Orleans. It's different in West Africa. And the nuances, the
subtleties, the colors of the different areas
that voodoo is practiced are incorporated into it. NARRATOR: Despite
their differences, voodoo that is African-derived
sister religions share a core of tolerance. For they do not believe that
theirs is the only true faith. We don't assume to convince
anyone that we are right. People come to us and they
either join the family, or they remain as visitors,
coming as they please. And that basic respect
is the only thing that we ask anyone to grant us,
the same respect we give them. NARRATOR: The inherent tolerance
of African-derived religions is in keeping with their
ancient code of healing, a message perhaps more
vital now than ever. For at a time when
humanity threatens the world with
environmental disaster, the ancient religion of
voodoo focuses on restoring and replenishing the Earth. Everything that is
powerful is within the Earth. The green blade is mightier
than the iron blade. Nature gives you
everything you need. If you poisoned the
water, you'll thirst. If you poison the
ground, you'll starve. And if you poison the
air, you cannot breathe. NARRATOR: Beyond its
concern for the Earth, voodoo makes a strong
statement of personal moral responsibility. It's a way of life. Is the way to teach
you the difference between right and wrong, and
accepting whatever repercussion for whatever you do, whether
it's good, whether it's bad, it's life. My priesthood has even
made me more responsible, because I do realize
that everything I think, everything that I
say, everything that I do has an effect. It's a religion where
people try to find a way to live a decent life, and they
try to find problems, answers to their problems. They try to find solutions
to their problems. And so voodoo is a way of
life, like all religions. [music playing] NARRATOR: Despite its
fundamentally benign character, the persecution of voodoo and
its African-derived system religions continues,
proof perhaps that humanity fears and hates
what it does not comprehend. And yet, this system of belief
which at first might seem foreign and threatening
to outsiders contributes to the world's
spiritual treasurers. Voodoo enriches the world not in
spite of its sometimes baffling mysteries, but because of them. Voodoo, a religion emerging
at last from the shadows, throbbing with the rhythms, the
mystery, and the magic of life itself. [music playing]
