Vodou harmonizes the head-pot, or, Haiti's multi-soul complex

Bibliographic Data

ID4373175
AuthorsKyrah Malika Daniels (0000-0003-1895-1966, Departments of Art History, African & African Diaspora Studies, and Theology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume52
Issue3
Pages359-383
Publication date2022-07-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligion (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0048-721X • E-ISSN: 1096-1151
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0048721x.2021.1963877
OpenAlexW3188031041
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited23

Haiti’s multi-soul complex proves a deeply enigmatic aspect of Vodou cosmology. This essay examines Haitian concepts of personhood and ‘plural soul’ philosophy in relationship to Vodou’s figurative mystic vessels, specifically the body-pot and head-pot. I introduce several African philosophies of multiple souls to contextualize Haiti’s multi-soul complex as a legacy of African indigenous thought regarding plural personhood. I argue that the physical body and head serve as primordial sacred vessels in Vodou, ‘filled’ with a collective of many soul-selves (i.e., gwo bon anj, ti bon anj, lwa mèt tèt, etc.). Drawing from historical and ethnographic research, I investigate a person’s ‘private souls’ and the ‘plural/public spirit pantheon’ to explain the dynamics between inner soul-selves and communal guiding spirits. Ultimately, a person’s sacred body-pot and divine head-pot reveal how Haitian devotees exist as a multitude of souls, as Vodou initiation harmonizes relationships between their private soul-selves and the community’s public spirits

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Indigenous · Multitude · Mysticism · Personhood · Plural · Sociology · Soul · Theology · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Gender Studies · Philosophy

Tools

Open DOI