American Voudou: Journey Into a Hidden World (35 page)

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Authors: Rod Davis

Tags: #Body; Mind & Spirit, #General, #Religion, #Ethnic & Tribal, #Social Science, #Ethnic Studies, #African American Studies, #test

BOOK: American Voudou: Journey Into a Hidden World
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Page 227
17
Sacrifice
The issue of sacrifice has been one of the most difficult for those wishing to approach or understand voudou, but to the true believer, it is the essence of the religion. From the point of view of the voudou priest, ebo is a necessary fulfillment of Ifa divination. It is the way in which humans seek direct interventionor direct noninterventionin their particular fates. Sacrifice placates Elegbaor any of the other orisha, or the ancestors, who may affect our lives. Sacrifice is a way of honoring the gods while seeking their assistance. It is karma's hedge against chaos.
Ebo is at once a bribe, a tithe, a token of fealty and a eucharist. To seek divination and then fail to pay the gods their dueebowould be to welsh on the deal, and to risk either losing a good fate or falling into a bad one. Sacrifice is among the holiest of obligations of the voudou worshiper. Omission of sacrifice could be one of his or her most dangerous failures. The voudou gods are not Christian angels. They are angry, brave, jealous, vengeful, generousvery human in emotional response, as were the gods of the Greeks or Romans. They take offense and they reward devotion.

 

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Without sacrifice, divination is meaninglessyou have not lived up to your part of the bargain. A worshiper simply can't have one without the other. "The purpose of divination is to learn the hidden factor," Dr. Afolabi Epega, a Nigerian chemist and babalawo I met in the Bronx, once told me. "Then you know how to plan to omit future problems. Sacrifices will help you forestall the bad. The foreknowledge of it also will make you get more cautious. With the necessary precautions, maybe things would be different. If you made the proper sacrifice, then maybe you could avoid it. You see, faith can be multiplied. That's why we practice this."
The apataki are saturated with cautionary tales of misfortune for those who fail to perform ebo and thus offend the dieties. In Greek mythology, self-pride resulted in hubris, punishment by the gods. I'm not sure the orisha are that concerned with self-pride. But they are notoriously tough on disrespect. The ancient parable of the fall of Corn, narrated for me by Chief A. S. Ajamu, formerly of the village, is a classic caution against failure to pay one's dues:
Cornyabado in Yorubawanted to come to the earth. Of course, before going to the earth you go to get divination to find out what it's going to be like, to find out if there's anything you need to do before you come there. So Corn, like anyone else, went and got divination from a babalawo named Peta. The babalawo told him that he was to sacrifice to Esu before he went. But Corn felt like his destiny was based on what he wanted to come to the earth for, and he didn't see any sense in making a sacrifice, so he rushed on. He was eager to get to earth.
After he got there, people were amazed by his colorsgold colors, beautiful. They were so

 

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amazed by his colors that they began to plant the seed in the ground and they were further amazed when it began to grow, how pretty it was.
They planted it very close together. The old people used to tell us to put a whole lot of seeds together. Why? Because the minute they pop up and the seed bursts open and the first little green shoot comes up there's a bird that loves to come down the row and just 'Chit, chit, chit, chit.' Watching their pattern, you usually find out that they miss every other one so you can still have corn. So you plant some for the birds, and some for yourself.
So Corn noticed that that happened, and that wasn't so bad, and so he went ahead and people were amazed at how pretty it was as it grew with its silk on it, and they found all different kinds of uses for every part of it. Eventually, of course, they began to grind it. That was kind of rough. Then they began to cook it. Then they began to scrape it off the cob and do all kinds of things with it andCorn began to see then why he should have made sacrifice.
"But the final straw was that when people couldn't think of anything else to do with it, they began to pop it. So of course when they put the heat to it, that was the last straw, and we are told that even today that when people go to pop corn you hear Corn screaming out the name of the babalawo, 'Peta, peta, peta, peta.' That's what he's saying, because Corn remembers his divination in heaven.

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