Voodoo is practiced by the Ewe people of eastern and southern Ghana, and southern and central Togo; and the Kabye people, Mina people, and Fon people of southern and central Togo, southern and central Benin.
ㅤㅤIt is also practiced by some Gun people of Lagos and Ogun in southwest Nigeria. All the which belong to Gbe speaking ethnic groups of West Africa, except the Kabye.
The Differences
ㅤㅤIt is different from the African traditional religions in the middle of these countries and is the main source of religions with similar names found among the African Diaspora in the New World such as:
- Haitian Voodoo;
- Puerto Rican Vodú;
- Cuban Vodú;
- Dominican Vudú;
- Brazilian Vodun;
- Louisiana Voodoo.
ㅤㅤAll of these closely related faiths are syncretized with Christianity to various degrees and with the traditional beliefs of the Kongo people and Indigenous American traditions.
Voodoo Cosmology
ㅤㅤVodun cosmology centers around the vodun spirits and other elements of divine essence that govern the Earth, a hierarchy that range in power from major deities governing the forces of nature and human society to the spirits of individual streams, trees, and rocks, as well as dozens of ethnic vodun, defenders of a certain clan, tribe, or nation.
Culture
ㅤㅤVoodoo is the center of cultural life, similar in many ways to doctrines such as the intercession of saints and angels that made Vodun appear compatible with Christianity, especially Catholicism, and produced syncretic religions such as Haitian Vodou.
Practitioners
ㅤㅤAdherents also emphasize ancestor worship and hold that the spirits of the dead live side by side with the world of the living, each family of spirits having its own female priesthood, sometimes hereditary when it's from mother to blood daughter.
Highest God
ㅤㅤPatterns of worship follow various dialects, spirits, practices, songs, and rituals. A divine Creator, called variously Mawu or Mahu, is a female being who in one tradition bore seven children and gave each rule over a realm of nature - animals, earth, and sea - or else these children are inter-ethnic and related to natural phenomena or to historical or mythical individuals.
ㅤㅤThe Creator embodies a dual Cosmogonic principle of which Mawu the moon and Lisa the sun are respectively the female and male aspects, often portrayed as the twin children of the Creator.
Comments
Post a Comment