A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou
eBook - PDF

A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou

Rasin Figuier, Rasin Bwa Kayiman, and the Rada and Gede Rites

  1. 288 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou

Rasin Figuier, Rasin Bwa Kayiman, and the Rada and Gede Rites

About this book

Connecting four centuries of political, social, and religious history with fieldwork and language documentation, A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou analyzes Haitian Vodou's African origins, transmission to Saint-Domingue, and promulgation through song in contemporary Haiti.Split into two sections, the African chapters focus on history, economics, and culture in Dahomey, Allada, and Hueda while scrutinizing the role of Europeans in fomenting tensions. The political, military, and slave trading histories of the kingdoms in the Bight of Benin reveal the circumstances of enslavement, including the geographies, ethnicities, languages, and cultures of enslavers and enslaved. The study of the spirits, rituals, structure, and music of the region's religions sheds light on important sources for Haitian Vodou. Having royal, public, and private expressions, Vodun spirit-based traditions served as cultural systems that supported or contested power and enslavement. At once suppliers and victims of the European slave trade, the people of Dahomey, Allada, and Hueda deeply shaped the emergence of Haiti's creolized culture. The Haitian chapters focus on Vodou's Rada Rite (from Allada) and Gede Rite (from Abomey) through the songs of Rasin Figuier's Vodou Lakay and Rasin Bwa Kayiman's Guede, legendary rasin compact discs released on Jean Altidor's Miami label, Mass Konpa Records. All the Vodou songs on the discs are analyzed with a method dubbed "Vodou hermeneutics" that harnesses history, religious studies, linguistics, literary criticism, and ethnomusicology in order to advance a scholarly approach to Vodou songs.

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Yes, you can access A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou by Benjamin Hebblethwaite in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Media & Performing Arts & Ethnomusicology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. A TRANSATLANTIC HISTORY OF HAITIAN VODOU
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. CONTENTS
  6. Foreword
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Introduction: Rada and Gede in Transatlantic History
  9. Chapter 1: The African Political Roots of Haitian Vodou: The Aja-Fon and Gedevi-Yoruba Kingdoms and the Slave Trade
  10. Chapter 2: The African Spiritual Roots of Haitian Vodou: The Religious Cultures of the Aja-Fon and Gedevi-Yoruba
  11. Chapter 3: The Rada Rite in Haiti: Rasin Figuier’s Vodou Lakay
  12. Chapter 4: The Gede Rite in Haiti: Rasin Bwa Kayiman’s Guede
  13. Chapter 5: Chains and Rainbows over the Atlantic
  14. Notes
  15. Discography and Bibliography
  16. ABOUT THE AUTHOR