The Spirits and The Law

Rereading Ramsey's The Spirits and the Law: Vodou and Power in Haiti has been an enlightening experience. Ramsey's text, epic in scope, expertly weaves together the tale of the Haitian state's relationship with Vodou and popular religious practices. In her clearly well-researched narrative, Ramsey coherently reveals the contradictory and ambivalent relationship between laws issued by the state and the power of Vodou as a site of resistance, compliance, and alternative sources of political organization. Ramsey takes from the colonial era to the mid-20th century (with a short epilogue on how Vodou was incorporated into the Duvalierist state as a source of revenue and subordinated to the control of Papa Doc, much like the military and nearly every institution in Haitian society) to define how Vodou and 'sorcery' (les sortilèges) on how Vodou's relationship related to intellectual, religious, national, political, and legal identities that, despite their contradictions, belie the truth of Derrida's claims about the nature of laws (which are meant to be enforced, or always have the potential to be enforced, can have an affirming effect rather than negate, and how the law functions as a form of 'civilizing' and 'policing' in French legal legacies). 

One of the most interesting themes in the text is the malleable, problematic definitions of Vodou (or, 'le vaudoux' that equated the popular religious practice with sorcery). Since the colonial era, legislation was passed to curb the effects of slave assemblies and African-derived religious practices, but it was rooted in how Vodou could be a tool for political power and organizing by slaves, as well as an attack on the ideological underpinnings of the faith (African religious thought was reduced to 'fetishism' by Europeans). This relation of the state in Saint Domingue to popular religious practices continues to rear its ugly head in Haiti to this day, a point Ramsey emphasizes. Indeed, Vatican anti-superstition campaigns, the state's attempts to eradicate Vodou and sorcery with fines and prison time and Haitian legal codes (the Code Penal of 1835 being key here, as well as parts of the Code Rural, likely to limit the amount of dances and maximize rural labor) copying France's legal codes indicate an attempt to 'civilize' the country, promote a better image in a European-dominated world, and undermine popular religious practices to 'uplift' the population. 

However, given that anti-superstition campaigns (such as that of Geffrard in the 1860s, the US Occupation targeting of Vodou and 'sorcery' based on Haitian legal precedent, or the Church's campaigns in the 1890s and 1940s) tend to reinforce belief in sorcery (according to Ramsey) and would actually gain support from Vodouizan (who defined sorcery as something outside of the Vodou traditions), these laws and campaigns clearly had a contradictory relationship with practices they were designed to destroy. Clearly, some Vodouizan saw the anti-sorcery laws as aligned with their own religious practices, and in fact, Haitian Catholics sometimes joined in the Vatican's anti-superstitious campaigns while retaining their own Vodou faith because Vodou and 'superstition' and 'sorcery' are fundamentally different things. Political elites and Church authorities who ignored the distinction nevertheless faced resistance by subaltern actors throughout Haitian history. 

As another ironic twist of fate, sometimes Church-led anti-superstition campaigns, particularly that of the 1940s targeting the mélange (a mixture of African and Catholic beliefs and rituals), could be suicidal as rural Haitian communities then stopped frequenting the churches in a form of religious boycott. Perhaps for this reason, the accompanying political or religious suicide that could accompany these campaigns as Vodouizan resisted led to early terminations of their stated goals (the main examples Ramsey uses being Geffrard's and those of the Church, largely due to popular resistance, etc.). As Ramsey explains, the 'Bizonton Affair' and international reputation likely led to Geffrard's temporary tightening of restrictions against sorcery and African-derived traditions, which ultimately came to a premature end due to a lack of enough power or centralization to enforce it for long (my guess and something hinted at by Ramsey, too) and perhaps due to the perception by Western powers that barbarism reigned in the 'Black Republic' despite these various campaigns. 

This curious, paradoxical effect of state repression of popular religious practices still not overturning the overwhelmingly racist views of Europe and the United States (somehow confirming Haitian retention of 'African savagery') must have shaped Haitian elite attitudes toward enforcing politically unpopular legislation. Moreover, during the US Occupation, American fascination with 'voodoo' and racial stereotypes from Occupation literature, travel accounts, and hunts of cacos and 'bandits, only further linked Haiti with racist views of Vodouizan and Haiti in general by US viewers.

Undoubtedly clarifying the malleable nature of 'sorcery' and Vodou in Haiti throughout history, Ramsey then prioritizes weaving the relationship of Vodou to the state and political power through deep analysis of Haitian and foreign sources, especially intellectual history and ideological currents. Thanks to Ramsey, many 21st century readers now can learn how the late 19th century Haitian lawyer, Duverneau Trouillot, wrote the first ethnography in Haiti in his elucidations of Haitian Vodou (categorizing and explaining it). Of course Firmin, Janvier, Price-Mars, Roumain, Lamothe, Jaegerhuber, Lorimer Denis, François Duvalier, and other important literary, political, and intellectual giants in Haitian history feature prominently in Ramsey's narrative. 

Perhaps due to a paucity of sources, subaltern voices are not at the forefront, but clearly Vodou and popular religious practices have a unique power structure where the oungan (or mambo), communities, and political elites themselves were sometimes tied together in reaffirming ways. For instance, the case of future president Oreste Zamor being accused of hosting a Vodou ceremony, or Hyppolite being known as an advocate for one Vodou temple shows how Vodouizan were politically active, within their own temples, secret societies, and patronage networks with elites or established, formal politicians. Clearly, Freemasonry, the military, and Vodouizan communities could foster interdependent social networks and centers of political activity. 

The intellectual giants of Haiti who sought to foster cultural nationalistic notions of Haitian identity in the 20th century (during and after the US Occupation) and apologists for Haiti and the black race of the 19th century (Firmin, Janvier, etc.) could easily find some value in Vodou, or at least refuted the mythology around the concept. Indeed, according to Ramsey, Firmin, in his classic rebuttal to the scientific racism sweeping across the West, argued for a sophisticated belief system that separated Vodou and African religions from European notions of 'fetishism.' Janvier defended Haiti against her detractors by emphasizing the common people. Price-Mars further explained Vodou in ethnographic and scientific terms. Last but certainly not least, the wave of indigeniste, noirist, and folkloric movements of 20th century valorized Vodou and peasant cultural practices in a variety of ways, including nationalism, economic gain, music, intellectual hybridity, and promoting the cultural particularity of the nation during the wave of pan-Americanism during the Lescot years. 

Dance troups, performance ensembles, radio, classical music, marketing, the creation of the Bureau d'Ethnologie headed by Roumain, a flowering of Haitian literature endowed with peasant characters, rural to urban migration, the dissemination of Protestantism, etc, all contributed to a 'new' perception of Haitian Vodou where penal prohibitions of the faith were decreasingly enforced, despite Vincent's decree in 1935 or Lescot supporting the Vatican's anti-superstition campaign with troops. Foreign anthropologists and scholars also added some legitimacy to Vodou (Herskovits, Hurston, etc.) through a scholarly approach. Even if Haitian elites endeavored only to exploit Vodou as folkloric material while limiting actual religious practice on the stage (or abroad during performances for US audiences), Vodou within Haitian society seemed less stigmatized and, at least during the Duvalier years, more openly acknowledged (despite the Duvaliers  enforcing the articles of the Code Penal a few times), albeit through manipulation and subordination to dictatorship. 

Besides her excellent overview of relations between the state (and its laws) and popular religious practices, sometimes mistakenly lumped with witchcraft and savagery, Ramsey's work is a call to action for additional comparative scholarship on parallels in Haitian, Cuban, and Brazilian suppression of popular religious practices (although Ramsey states that Cuban and Brazilian reasoning was rooted more in criminology). And, as previously noted on this blog, an in depth, historical monograph examining peasant practices and resistance in Haiti would be very much appreciated, particularly in episodes where popular religious practices were key to social struggle. Examples abound in Haitian history, but a few alluded to by Ramsey include the Piquets, the Haitian Revolution, Macandal, Soulouque's decision to declare himself emperor (a Marian apparition apparently!), popular Catholicism and Haitian peasant resistance to anti-superstition campaigns, and perhaps the caco (kako) uprisings against US Occupation. Thus, further examination of specific examples of how Vodou as power figured into Haitian history is needed.

Overall, Ramsey's book is a stunning success of accessible, yet highly academic, first-rate writing that challenges one's preconceived notions of Vodou and Haitian history. Vodou, adaptable given its diverse roots and influences, has survived over 200 years of prohibition, racist denigration, false association with witchcraft, and Duvalierist subordination, ample proof of its resiliency. Ramsey's articulate monograph places this relationship in a broad context that encompasses literary, cultural, intellectual, political, and international relations, as well as regional history, Afro-Atlantic religion, and US imperialism. Vodou's troubled relationship with the state, as a result of all the aforementioned issues, is much more than a simple binary view of Haitian society, as can be seen in the case of numerous Haitian governments of the different intellectual currents that categorized, romanticized, criticized, undermined, ignored, praised, practiced, and prohibited Vodou as the vicissitudes of Haiti in the world at large changed.