Much of the Christian world's fear of voodoo is thought to stem from those revolutionary rituals, as the war for independence entailed a degree of savagery and bloodletting never before directed at colonial masters. The religion's adherents, though, contend that voodoo has been miscast as evil or subversive, mainly due to exaggerated images presented by entertainment media.
Rituals do entail efforts to commune with spirits, which possess or "mount" those seeking guidance or favor. Sacrificial offerings of slaughtered fowl, leaves, baked goods or beverages are brought to the ceremonies to help summon the desired spirits.
At Adely's temple in this seaside village an hour west of Port-au-Prince, candle wax encrusts bottles, a loaf of bread and leaves left behind after a recent ritual. Pigeons, which are also kept around for certain sacrifices, peck at the food offerings strewn on the temple floor. In his "secret society" enclave, a coffin-like box stands at the front of the room like an altar, a red shroud showing the contours of the human skull and crossed bones that it covers. Deep in the tropical tangle of chest-high weeds and banana trees, the temple is the spiritual center of a traditional farming village known as a lakou.
A few miles closer to Carrefour, a more urbanized temple serves those who stream in from the capital for seasonal ceremonies. Here, too, voodoo community leaders applaud the political changes allowing them to take what they see as their rightful place in daily life.
"Voodoo is a social action that we've been forced to conduct in shadows," says Elie Duverger, a houngan who practices with his sister at a converted bar on a back road. "This decree allows us to emancipate our culture, to practice in the open."
Duverger's temple, or perestil, fills a cavernous building flanked with small chapels for private offerings to the spirits. The walls are adorned with bas-relief images of Christian saints and their partner voodoo symbols, a legacy of the years when Haitians' embrace of their African spiritual roots had to be cloaked in the more accepted icons of the Catholic religion.
Like many voodoo practitioners, Duverger regards the absence of formal doctrine as an asset, a simplicity that allows the religion to conform to local needs and interests.
"There are no laws or rules, only a kind of lore that is passed from one generation to another through the calling of the spirits," says the houngan. "Voodoo is more flexible than other religions because it is whatever its believers want to make it."
