Rituals of the Hattean Voodoo
The Voodoo ceremonial is far from being unified and of it variants of any kind can be found in each region or town of Hattea, even if the dominant type out of the « Pol'o-middo Island » is the « Teetotaller's Ritual », in a version very much dedicated to the Giddies, which exported well. One constant feature is, among all these variants however, dance, everywhere. Moreover, the Ritual always follow more or less the same pattern as follows: Greetings, Display of the Standards, Invocations to the Lwa, Libations, Veve, Sacrifice and Offerings and, at last, the Ride. We will from now on go into more details about each of those steps.
Greetings
Any Voodoo Ceremony starts with unfinishable series of Greeting Dances: in such a way every participants not only greet each other but also the artifacts of the cult and finally also the Pol'o-middo of the Sanctuary, representing its Lwa. The complete sequence is supported by loud drummings and stridents wind instruments.
Particularly if remarkable people are invited or it the « Mount(s) » is / are prepared for a powerful and terrible Lwa such as Eshoo or Baron Saturday, the Greetings can last for an eternity…
Greetings to the Lwa are accompanied by libations: water is sprayed in the entrance of the Hoomfo and of its Peristyle, as well as against the Pol'o-middo and in the four cardinal directions (the Kard's Four). Such « soaking » (no misread, please!) greetings are conducted at the beginning of course, notably to invite Eshoo and the spirits to the Ceremony, but they are also repeated several times while implementing the rites.
Display of the Standards
Each Hoomfo has two Standards in own property. Their design as well as the related Ritual remind one of the army and the military parades, however in the opening of the Voodoo Ceremony after the Greetings, perverted by qn outburst of frenetic dances.
The Servants of the Lwa, two Hoontsy, carry the Standards, shake them in all directions and mark the Kard's Four during that dance, then they post at the main entrance of the Hoomfo and hold them so as to form like a door, especially to welcome the special guests of the Ceremony.
The Standards are then placed next to the Pol'o-middo, where they remain until the end of the Ceremony. They are afterwards carefully stored.
Invocations: Criole Chant or « Language » Chant
Prayers, screams, supplications are an integral part of the ritual of a Voodoo Ceremony and they are spelled or sung, usually in Criole (the Criole being well and high-tuned to yell) or in the local tongue of the place where the Ceremony is organised. The language generally has, by the way, only very little a significance even if the words of the Hattean Criole have well exported outside together with the Voodoo: the Rituals conducted in other languages did not display worse results, which shows the the Lwa have no problem talking all sort of languages! (Even if it remains clear that the Giddies, for instance, are in a better mood if they are addressed to in Hattean Criole.)
Indeed, the true language of the Voodoo is none of those « lay » tongues anyway, not even the Hattean Criole; the true language of the Voodoo is what is called « the » Langage. The Language is a secret tongue, known of only the Hoongan, Mambo and Bokor, who are initiated, and it is the tongue of the Lwa (It remains, however and as strange as it is, that the Giddies prefer to speak Criole…), which they are thus the only one to understand and to be able to interprete. It is a language with unique features in the Known World and therefore some say that it would be the tongue of the mythical Breamlands but we cannot bring here any evidence to support that idea…
Drawing the Veve
Veve are stylised drawings which symbolise the Lwa and are drawn during the Ceremony to invite them to come: one can see them as gates which make it easy for the Lwa to enter in the Peristyle of the Hoomfo. Most of them are drawn while spelling the invocations to the Lwa. For instance, a typical Veve for Agweh represents a ship for deep sea navigation, for Pedalambdalo two moving snakes from the South to the Pol'o-middo, for Arzully an illuminated heart like a needle-point laced table mat would be, etc.
Those drawings, as well as the said gates, are not intended to last; they are, in the litteral sense, thrown on the ground in the form of lines made of flour or seeds, much more rarely of blood.
In the most important Ceremonies - notably a new initiation or a great sacrifice – the one or several Veve can be extremely ornated and easily fill in detailed motives a surface of a hundred square meters!
Sacrifice and Offerings
A usual equivalent for the word « Ceremony » in the Voodoo Ritual is the term « Course » and, de facto a Voodoo Ceremony is a Course offered to the Lwa, a true feast for the most powerful of them or when the prayer addressed to them is of a certain importance; for instance: for a successful expedition at sea, one will easily (even if not always with ease) offer to Agweh on its Veve a crate of dried cod and a big box of biscuits, the whole being soaked in rum until he has enough of food and drink, which can be evaluated from the condition of the Mount he will have chosen for the occasion…
We will not make here a complete list of the preferred meals or courses of the various Lwa because it would be impossible to finish. Only one or two additional examples should give you, Friend Game Master, enough ideas: Eshoo likes to be served a great variety of meals in which, however, all the meat should be cured without exception; Foolbagga would not bother coming if one does not prepare him at least some big piece of haut goût wild, to the point of being a bag of vermin, the whole served on a basket of rotten vegetables soaked, for instance, in a fermented mango juice turned to vinegar; Baron Saturday for his plate appreciates the sacrifice of a black billy goat in the full strength of life and which would have fully and carefully been ointed with hot peppered rum (Yeah, that won't be an easy one, aye that won't be!); and so on and so forth…
Sacrifice and Offerings are most often laid on the Veve motives of the respectively (and respectfully) served Lwa, prepared as a meal passing to his or her taste. As for alcohol, it is generally aspersed on the Offerings and also on the Veve motives.
Thus we discussed and understood why the adepts of the Voodoo often speak of a Course to designate their Ceremonies.
Music and Dances
Music and dancing are the key and omnipresent element of Voodoo Ceremonies, of which they beat and mark the procedings, all in changes and breaks, brought in the sequence to cut faster, even frenetic, or on the contrary slower phases - but at any rate ensuring there'll be no rest!
The minimum orchestra of a Voodoo Ceremony comprises at least three drums - but is usually far from being limited to that! - with a skin stretched over a carved wooden trunk: the one named Assoto is the biggest and can measure up to two meters in height, the Mummy reaches a height of a good meter and the Tinitoob is the smallest and most frenetic. The rhythms are all crazy but the Tinitoob is by far the craziest one. However, the lead of the ensemble is generally taken by the Mummy while the Assoto builds the rhythmic basement, so to speak. Some flutes or other wind instruments may complement the craziness of the whole in bigger Ceremonies.
The musicians are professional ones and they generally aren't initiated to the Voodoo mysteries. They started to play while they still were children, especially in the break times of ceremonies, then they became, step by step, masters of their instrument; there's no other way!
There is an incredible variety of dances, of which some are more specific to a Lwa, such as for instance the obscene Banda of Baron Saturday or the Giddy-jumble of the whole family, the heavy Borreye of Cousin Zakka, the ondulating Yanvalou of Pedalambdalo, etc. Regarding the dances which – that's an important point – helps saying good bye to the Lwa? (Well that means to invite them to leave and go back to their dimension…) There is the Amazon and the Crab-by-step for instance, having in common the important side step, which usually helps for that purpose! At last, one finds the dances which are used for the interludes in the Ceremonies, such as the Swing (do not mistake for Swine, another variant of the Baron Saturday's Banda!). In total, the list of Voodoo lay or ritual dances is without an end, thus we'll stop here for now.
The Ride
Music and dance lead adepts in the course of the Ceremony to trance, that is, to the arrival of the one or several (usually) expected Lwa into the limits of the Hoomfo, that is, in other words again, to the « Ride » of the « Mount » by the Lwa: from that point on, the Mount, even if he or she was dead exhausted, like finds a new limitless source of energy and starts dancing the dance the Lwa wants to dance and the orchestra follows the new move. It even happens sometimes that the dead stand up and dance by the same way but rarely in the course of a Voodoo Ceremony in a Hoomfor, rather in a Zombie Ritual conducted in the Den of a Bokor or directly in a cemetery…
Conversely, at the end of a Ceremony, music and dance (the dance of the adepts which are not ridden) try to change the pace to indicate that it is the end and invite the Lwa to leave… who sometimes need another bunch of prayers or more but that's another story and a question of skill and experience of the Hoongan or the Mambo in charge!
One would have understand it, it is extremely rare that the Lwa appear by themselves or even through the appartition of, let's say, an animal for instance. Indeed, they interfere with that dimension of existence almost exclusively through the possession of an adept, which is called figuratively the « Ride », the adept becoming the « Mount » as we already mentioned here or there.
At that moment and for all the duration of the Ride, the Mount seems to have energy without an end and he or she acts strictly according to the personality and will of the Lwa: the speech (often in Language) will be the speech of the Lwa, the gestures and acts entirely those of the Lwa, which the Mambo or the Hoongan will then have the opportunity to try to interprete.
In order for the Ride to happen and for the Lwa to be satisfied with it - otherwise beware! – it must be ensured that the favourite objects of the Lwa are at hand in the perimeter of the Hoomfo. Generally, the Mount will take them as soon as the Ride starts and he or she will use them as the Lwa intends to, for instance offering the hot peppered rum to the Assembly in the case of Baron Saturday…
When the Ride comes to an end, that is when the Lwa goes back to the own plane of existence, the Mount generally collapses and falls into a sort of sleep or even of coma for at least several hours and up to several days, depending on the intensity and the importance the Ceremony had. But he or she will, from that time on, be honoured as such by the adepts and that even more since the following saying often applies: « Mount of a night, Mount every night! » moreover always with the same Lwa for some. Well in that case one has to do with it the best he or she can and, let us hope, have some affinities with the said Lwa!