Trees in Vodou

An Arbori-cultural Exploration

Bibliographic Data

ID12901505
AuthorsAndrew Tarter (0000-0003-0844-7192, University of Florida, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume9
Issue1
Pages87-112
Publication date2015-05-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal for the Study of Religion Nature and Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-4907 • E-ISSN: 1749-4915
PublisherEquinox Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1558/jsrnc.v9i1.19582
OpenAlexW2269432306
LanguageEN
Citations received7

Trees are an important dwelling place for the spirits of the Vodou pantheon. I describe arboreal rituals dedicated to the veneration of tree-residing spirits, taboos against cutting sacred trees, con?icting taboos against planting certain trees, and a ceremony for removing a spirit from one tree and placing it in another. After discussing common folk beliefs about particular tree species, and examining associations between these species and individual spirits, I suggest that a rapid decrease of trees in Haiti mandated the ceremony for removing a spirit from a tree and placing it somewhere else. Consequently, as tree diversity dwindled into the handful of primary species utilized in rural Haiti today, a large pantheon of spirits had to be funneled into an increasingly limited number of trees. Accordingly, Vodou practitioners had to facilitate spirit ?exibility with regard to which trees they inhabit

Agroforestry · Arboreal locomotion · Archaeology · Biology · Ceremony · Combinatorics · Diversity (politics · Ethnology · Geography · Legend · Sociology · Tree (set theory · Tree planting · Veneration · African Botany and Ecology Studies · Anthropology · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · History · Mathematics · Ecology · Forestry

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