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Introduction
by Denise Alvarado
The making of Voodoo dolls, poppets,
fetishes, and ritual effigies has taken place since antiquity. Though the
practice is ancient, their present use remains similar. In order to understand
how to use your Voodoo doll or poppet, it is useful to understand them in their
historic context. Much can be learned from studying the ancient cultures and
mystics who held the esoteric knowledge that forms the very foundation of modern
day magick, Voodoo, and witchcraft.
The practice of sticking pins in dolls has history in
European folk magic, but its exact origins are unclear. How it became known as a
method of cursing an individual by some followers of what has come to be called
New Orleans Voodoo, which
is a local variant of
hoodoo, is a mystery.
Some speculate that it was used as a means of self defense to intimidate
superstitious slave owners. This practice is not unique to New Orleans voodoo,
however, and has as much basis in European-based magical devices such as the
poppet and the
nkisi or bocio
of West and Central Africa.
These are in fact power objects, what in Haiti would be
referred to as pwen, rather than magical surrogates for an intended
target of sorcery whether for boon or for bane. Such voodoo dolls are not a
feature of Haitian religion, although dolls intended for tourists may be found
in the Iron Market in Port au Prince. The
practice became closely associated with the Vodou religions in the public mind
through the vehicle of horror movies and popular
novels.
There is a practice in Haiti of nailing crude poppets
with a discarded shoe on trees near the cemetery to act as messengers to the
otherworld, which is very different in function from how poppets are portrayed
as being used by voodoo worshippers in popular media and imagination, i.e. for
purposes of sympathetic magic towards
another person. Another use of dolls in authentic Vodou practice is the
incorporation of plastic doll babies in altars and objects used to represent or
honor the spirits, or in pwen, which recalls the aforementioned use of
bocio and nkisi figures in Africa. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo)
About 80% of the population of Benin, West Africa,
about 4½ million people, practice Vodun. (This does not count other ancestral
religions in Benin.) In addition, many of the 20% of the population that call
themselves Christian practice a syncretism of Christianity and Vodun not
dissimilar from Haitian Vodou. In
Togo about half the population practices
indigenous religions, of which Vodun is by far the largest, with approximately
2½ million followers; there may be perhaps another million among the Anlo-Ewe of Ghana (13% Anlo-Ewe and
38% indigenous beliefs overall out of a population of 20 million.)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo)
Prior to hurricane Katrina, about 15%of the population
in New Orleans practiced Voodoo.
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VOODOO
