Trees in Vodou

An Arbori-cultural Exploration

Authors

  • Andrew Tarter University of Florida

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v9i1.19582

Keywords:

Vodou, spirits, religion, Haiti, nature, ethnobotany, anthropology, deforestation

Abstract

Trees are an important dwelling place for the spirits of the Vodou pantheon. I describe arboreal rituals dedicated to the veneration of tree-residing spirits, taboos against cutting sacred trees, con?icting taboos against planting certain trees, and a ceremony for removing a spirit from one tree and placing it in another. After discussing common folk beliefs about particular tree species, and examining associations between these species and individual spirits, I suggest that a rapid decrease of trees in Haiti mandated the ceremony for removing a spirit from a tree and placing it somewhere else. Consequently, as tree diversity dwindled into the handful of primary species utilized in rural Haiti today, a large pantheon of spirits had to be funneled into an increasingly limited number of trees. Accordingly, Vodou practitioners had to facilitate spirit ?exibility with regard to which trees they inhabit.

Author Biography

  • Andrew Tarter, University of Florida
    Andrew Tarter's research is funded by the the National Science Foundation, the Wenner Gren Foundation, the Fulbright Program, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is a PhD Candidate in cultural anthropology, at the University of Florida.

References

Awuah-Nyamekye, Samuel. 2012. ‘Belief in Sasa: Its Implications for Flora and Fauna Conservation in Ghana’, Nature and Culture 7.1: 1-15. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/nc.2012.070101.

Azeez, I.O., O.S. Ikponmwonba, Labode Popoola, and T.O. Amusa. 2010. ‘Land Use Activities among Forest Environments Dwellers in Edo State, Nigeria: Implications for Livelihood and Sustainable Forest Management’, International Journal of Social Forestry 3.2: 164-87.

Balzano, Anthony. 1986. ‘Socioeconomic Aspects of Agroforestry in Rural Haiti’, University of Maine Agroforestry Outreach Research Project. Reproduced by US Department of Commerce. Washington, DC.

———. 1989. ‘Tree-Planting in Haiti: Agroforestry and Rural Development in a Local Context’ (PhD dissertation, Rutgers University).

Beckett, Greg. 2001. ‘Master of the Wood: Moral Authority and Political Imaginaries in Haiti’, PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 27.2: 1-19. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/pol.2004.27.2.1.

Benson, LeGrace. 1992. ‘Kiskeya-Lan Guinee-Eden: The Utopian Vision in Haitian Painting’, Callaloo 15.3: 26-734.

———. 2006. ‘How Hougans Use the Light from Distant Starts’, in Michel and Bellegarde-Smith 2006: 155-79.

Bourdy, G. et al. 2000. ‘Medicinal Plant Uses of the Tacana, an Amazonian Bolivian Ethnic Group’, Journal of Ethnopharmacology 70: 87-109. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0378-8741(99)00158-0.

Brown, Karen McCarthy. 1991. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn (Berkeley: University of California Press).

———. 2006. ‘Afro-Caribbean Spirituality: A Haitian Case Study’, in Michel and Bellegarde-Smith 2006: 1-26. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780312376208.

Campbell, Michael O’Neal. 2005. ‘Sacred Groves for Forest Conservation in Ghana’s Coastal Savannas: Assessing Ecological and Social Dimensions’, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 26.2: 151-69.

Churches, Christopher E., Peter J. Wampler, Wanxiao Sun, and Andrew J. Smith. 2014. ‘Evaluation of Forest Cover Estimate for Haiti Using Supervised Classi

Published

2015-05-18

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Tarter, A. (2015). Trees in Vodou: An Arbori-cultural Exploration. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 9(1), 87-112. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v9i1.19582