Many people see Haiti as a scattered set of frightening stereotypes that hardly add up into one whole: zombies, voodoo, tonton macoutes, Papa Doc and his son Baby Doc, poverty, civil war, permanent cyclones - and again zombies. All these terrible words have done their job - until now Haiti remains one of the least visited countries in the world, although the climate is favorable for tourism. Of course, not least of all, this happens simply because all these stereotypes are not idle fairy tales.
Today this ancient African religion has several names. In Haiti, what is most familiar to us, it goes by the name "voodoo". In the USA and Cuba, she is called "Santeria", in Brazil - "Macumba". She continues to enjoy popularity in her homeland - in West Africa, for example, in Nigeria, Senegal and Benin.
It is believed that there are now about fifty million adherents of the voodoo cult around the world. Let this figure be exaggerated, one thing is clear that this exotic, as it seems to us, cult is flourishing. We are not dealing with a pathetic group of sorcerers, but with a popular folk religion.
Surely, if tourism was developed in Haiti, then the first item in all guidebooks and tourist routes would be a visit to a voodoo ceremony.
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Dressed in colorful costumes, armed with terrible staffs and knives, the ordinary Haitian unemployed would demonstrate a colorful dance and scare anemic Germans and relaxed French to a pulp with their feigned frenzy and pagan cruelty.
Naturally, children would not be allowed to such events, the entrance would be paid, there would be a double tariff for amateur filming, and for some money there would be an opportunity to watch how a red rooster or some other small animal is slaughtered.
Returning home, satisfied Europeans would excitedly tell their loved ones about the horrors they had to endure on the "wild" island. All of this would actually mean one thing: the end of voodoo.
The voodoo temple here looks like an ordinary residential building. He can stand far from the road, and carefree children can run and graze cows in his yard.
Only a few Ungans (“priests” whose duty it is to conjure the loa - spirits) hang over the cult buildings drapes - colorful flags embroidered with sequins and multi-colored threads, which indicate that ceremonies are performed here. And which ones - God knows …
Establishing their religion three centuries ago, the Haitians did so in complete secrecy. All external manifestations were of necessity "encrypted" and brief. Perhaps that is why even a simple, well-known Vevey - a complex geometric pattern that personifies a deity - is still drawn only during especially important events (usually with chalk on the ground), and after their completion it is immediately erased.
The term "zombie" came to Haiti through slaves taken out at the beginning of the 18th century from the West African state of Dahomey (present-day Benin and Togo). The exact origin of the word is still unknown. According to one version - this is a distorted "nzambi", which in the African language Bantu means "small deity" or "soul of a dead man." On the other hand, it is a modified West African dialect "zhambi", which means "ghost".
There is also a theory that the word "zombie" was once called a huge black snake from African beliefs, the eternal enemy of the sun, light and joy. It is worth noting that zombification is especially characteristic of Petro voodoo - a special trend of voodoo that originated directly in Haiti and whose followers make up less than 5% of all voodooists worldwide.
The zombie phenomenon - not cultural, but scientific - tried to study a variety of people. Botanist and anthropologist Wade Davis visited Haiti in 1982. The purpose of his journey was to uncover the mystery of the zombie technology. Four years later, Davis published The Serpent and the Rainbow.
It is still believed that in it Davis is as close as possible for a European to unraveling the zombie. Participating and observing the rituals, he described the recipe for "zombie powder", which, however, he himself considered not very accurate - due to the lack of information and the mystery surrounding the zombie issue.
Of course, even Haitian magicians are unable to revive the dead, but rumors, nevertheless, are not at all groundless. Once in the "walking dead" turned apostates who decided to leave the secret society "Bisango". These days, the "hired sorcerers" in Haiti are so sophisticated in dealing with enemies.
They say that "Death in Haiti is just the beginning."