In Voodoo, the place in Africa where the spirits abide is the astral ,-ily of lEe; and in Haiti the place where the Voodoo ancestral spirits have come to dwell since the days of slavery is La Ville Aux Camps.
111 He, therefore the dty of the Voodoo spirits' origin, resides the to
tality of magic powers personified by the mystcre Danbhalah. So it is natural that for a person to acquire the magic powers of Voodoo, l itllally enacted in the prise d'asson or "asseD-taking" ceremony, the
\'(lIIdidate for the Voodoo priesthood must go and take the asson at I ft'� in Africa by traveling logically via the line of the center-post that traverses the asson's magic circle.
The center-post is therefore called by its analogical surname of l'IIIJa Loko Ati-sou Poun'goueh, so named because the recipient must traverse the waters of the abyss (poun'goueh) in order to reach Africa
;11 the vertical direction of the celestial city, Miitre Grand Bois. There
fore, by analogy and homophony, the future houn'gan is taken by l ht' interest of the initiating houn'gans to increase the elaborateness
"f I he essential ritual by multiplying its complexities, thereby lining I I t .. ir own purses.
Since our purpose is to describe the true. original. revealed Voodoo,
\\,,' shall omit all discussion of these complexities-even though their
\pl·ctacular charm is certainly undeniable-in order to set forth the
38
secret of the original ceremonial. This is the requisite ceremonial for creating a new houn'gan, that is to say. for conferring upon him supernatural powers by means of the assaD, provided, of course, that the houn'gans participating as initiators are true descendants of the authentic line whose lirst member was Dan Goo himself, lord of the astral.
The future houn'gan presents himself to an older houn'gan, the authentic representative of the ancestors or of the serpent-ancestor, and requests that the office of houn'gan be conferred upon him. If the candidate is already a houn'gan's apprentice, and is accordingly a member of his cum'phor, he requests his teacher to confer the asson upon him. The older houn'gan requests the assistance of two other houn'gans-the oldest he can find-by virtue of the esoteric prescrip
tion that holds that three masons together form a regular lodge. How
ever, he may be assisted by six houn'gans, thus fonning a solar or per
fect lodge.
The houn'gan in charge requires the candidates to spend a period of purification in a chamber adjoining the oum'phor proper, called the d;evo, the chamber from which initiates into the voodoo cult make their entrance. The period of purification is determined, or should be, in principle, by the occult number of the mystere whose "point" the hooo'ior, or candidate, is couche, or "put to bed." If the candidate is couche upon the "point" of Legba, the period is seven days; if of Erzu
lie, six days. The cooche of the hauo'ror corresponds to the prostra
tion of the cardinals at St. Peter's, in Rome. The cardinals lie prostrate (cooche) for a ceremony in the course of which they receive the cardi
nal hat. In Haiti, a houn'ior "put to bed" upon the "houn'gan-point,"
remains twenty-one days in the d;evo, which corresponds to the vir
tues of the Solar Seven multiplied by the Three of the Holy Trinity.
After the purification in the d;eoo, the houn'gan, in a kind of litany of the saints, invokes all the Voodoo mysteres, the assisting houn'gan giving the responses. Part of the initiation ceremony follows:
First houn'gan:
I'IliESTS AND PIUESTESSES
1 )10-13. passee . The water has been passed through . I )jo-h\ passee . The water has been passed through .
40 SECRETS OF VOODOO
The future honn'gan is then possessed by a loa. The officiant con
tinues:
Ce Ian Guinin IlOUS ye . We are in Africa .
Drunk with the loa who has "mounted" • him, the future hOlln'gan
• The person who is "mounted" is called Ii cMl;al, or "I>or:;e" of the gu<l.
replies:
�Ia'p suive Oll, Papa moin . . . ( I will follow you, my Father . . . ) The future hOlln'gan is obliged to recline upon the ground. entirely naked and wearing no jewelry of any kind. Sometimes his head is shaved. He prays to the Voodoo spirit for the remission of all his sins, and swears an oath to consecrate himself as a priest to the service of thc 10as and never to reveal anything whatever about the initiation.
The oldest houn'gan sprinkles him with holy water and raw clairin, and leads him to the pe. There he is at 1M. Totally possessed by the gUiding spirit, he staggers, supported by the old houn'gan, who makes him bow down before the stone of the jle from which the mystere Dan Gbe To bestows upon him the asson and the bell.
Outside the cI;ew the battery of drums, appropriate to the rite in which the ceremony is heing performed, resounds. The chorus of hOlln'sihs sings the ritual chants "st'llt" by the hounguenicon. At this point the newly initiated, "mounted" hy the spirit, takes over the ser
vice. He is now a houn'gan, because, having "passed through the water" he went to He, where Dangbe delivered to him the asson at the request of the old houn'gans, the custodians of the Voodoo tradi-tion.
For various rcasons, Dan-G-Be sometimes refuses to give the asson.
In such (:ases tht, petitioncr frequently uses the assoll anyway, de
spite the Spirit's refusal. Nevertheless, he is a false hOlln'gan, and there are certain operations in which he is slI(.'ccssfui only hecause he em
ploy!; devices sto\{'n from authentic houn'gans. The Voodoo tradition holds that such a candidate "did not go under the water" (li pas te aIM en bas d'leau ) .
In the Voodoo tradition, Moses had a Pethro asson and related its secrets to the rahbis. The name of the Voodoo asson is knheleth-a-dam, 1coheleth-a-clom, koheletll-a-dorl, or koheleth-a-dan. The Voodoo
tra-PRIESTS AND PRIESTESSES 41 clition explains the initiatory formula through the general meaning of the book of Ect:lesiastes ( 12, 13 ) : "Fear God, and keep his command·
ments." The formula is Coeieth, Co·Le·Th, Co.Le·Tha, or Koheieth ( the Preacher ) . lnasmuc;h as the hook of Ecclesiastes is the Second Book of Solomon or the Second Book of \Visdom. Voodoo tradition ('onsiders it the magic of the Temple of David, a Negro king, of Solomon, his son, and the hasis of the magic tradition of the oum·phor.
The koMthadan or Voodoo assoll reveals by its authority that man is dependent not upon himself but upon the superhuman occult forces called by Voodoo initiates mysteres, (lnf!,els, ,tllints, or loas, according to the region in which the Voodoo religion is practiced.
The following is the best explanation of the entire formula:
coeleth: cabalistic wisdom or diSCipline; the tradition of the t:lergy and the church; (I.: Grand Master; the square or alpha;
dan: the serpent, traditionally represented hy Danbhalah.
For this reason the serpent in the universal tradition is the animal that initiates man and wom,Ul, like the serpent that descended from til(' tree of knowledge to initiate Eve and Adam, (whose name is found in thE" a-dam of the formllla kohe1eth-a·dam ) , the same serpent that descends from the center·post of the peristyle to initiate the houn'sih.<:anzos. thl" houn'iors, thE" houn'gans, the mam'has, the houn'
�l1eui<.'ons, and others.
The formula indicates also the assembly or gathering of Voodoo initiates in the peristyle of the oum'phor, referred to in a ritual chant t hat calls them together at the beginning of the ceremonies:
I .a fanmi semble; en e 0;
42 SECRETS OF VOODOO
E Agoueto, Goueto, �a hin'de; E Agoueto, Goueto, that's the call;
na hin'de Marassah Do-sou, we shall call the Marassah 00-sou,
Do-sah, Do-goueh. Do-sah, and Do-goueh.
E Agoueto! Ou �a hin'de you vrail E Agoueto! You can really call them!
In closing this chapter a word must be said about one of the most extraordinary facts concerning Voodoo. If the officiants at an initia
tion are themselves unable to give correct and complete instruction to an apprentice, the mysteres themselves give the instruction by
"mounting" someone, who then instructs the initiate verbally. Other
wise the mysteres send him dreams or visions when necessity arises.
A great many houn'gans are created in this supernatural manner. It is the loas themselves who initiate them and give them the asson.