Vodou has been shunned for centuries and is becoming increasingly powerful as Haitians seek solace from ongoing gang violence

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The Vodou faithful sing, their voices rising above the gunfire erupting miles away as frantic drumbeats drown out their troubles.

They pause to drink rum from small brown bottles, spinning in unison as they sing in Haitian Creole, “We don’t care if they hate us, because they can’t bury us.”

Publicly shunned for centuries by politicians and intellectuals, Vodou is transforming into a more powerful and accepted religion across Haiti, where believers were once persecuted. They increasingly seek comfort and protection from violent gangs that have murdered, raped and kidnapped thousands of people in recent years.

The violence has left more than 360,000 people homeless, largely closed Haiti’s largest seaport and shuttered its main international airport for two months. Basic goods, including food and life-saving medicines, are declining; nearly 2 million Haitians are on the brink of famine.

More than 2,500 Haitians were killed or injured from January to March alone, an increase of more than 50% from the same period last year, the UN said

Amid the widening chaos, scores of Haitians are praying more or visiting Vodou priests known as “oungans” for urgent requests ranging from locating loved ones who have been kidnapped to finding crucial medication needed to to keep someone alive.

‘The spirits help you. They are always there,” says Sherly Norzéus, who has been initiated to become a “mambo” or Vodou priestess.

In February, she invoked Papa Ogou, the god of war and iron, when 20 armed men surrounded her car as she tried to flee the community of Bon Repos.

Next to her were her three children and the two children of her sister, who died during childbirth.

“We’re going to burn you alive!” she remembered the gunmen shouting.

Gangs had invaded their neighborhood before dawn, burning houses under relentless gunfire.

“I prayed to Papa Ogou. He helped me out of the situation,” Norzéus said.

When she opened her eyes, the gunmen indicated she was free to leave.

Vodou was at the root of the revolution that led to Haiti becoming the world’s first free black republic in 1804, a religion born in West Africa and brought across the Atlantic Ocean by enslaved people.

The syncretic religion, which combines Catholicism with animist beliefs, has no official leader or beliefs. There is a single God known as ‘Bondye’, Creole for ‘Good God’, and more than a thousand spirits known as the lwa – some of which are not always benevolent.

During Vodou ceremonies, treats are offered ranging from papayas and coffee to popcorn, lollipops and cheese puffs. A ceremony is considered successful when a Vodouist is possessed by an lwa.

Some experts consider it a religion of the exploited.

“Vodou is the system that Haitians have developed to deal with the suffering of this life, a system that aims to minimize pain, avoid disasters, alleviate losses and strengthen both the survivors and the survival instinct,” wrote the Haitian sociologist Laënnec Hurbon. in a recent essay.

Vodou began to take shape in the French colony of Saint-Domingue during funeral rites for enslaved people and dances called “calendas” that they organized on Sunday evenings. It was also practiced by slaves known as Maroons who fled to remote mountains and were led by François Mackandal, a Vodou priest.

In August 1791, some 200 slaves gathered overnight in Bois-Caiman in northern Haiti for a Vodou ceremony hosted by Dutty Boukman, a noted enslaved leader and Vodou priest. They sacrificed a pig, drank its blood and swore to keep a threatened uprising against slavery secret, according to a surgeon present at the ceremony.

After a thirteen-year revolution, Haiti became independent, but Vodou remained suppressed.

The country’s new leaders condemned Vodou worship, as did the Catholic Church.

Catholic leaders in 1941 demanded that parishioners take an oath renouncing Vodou.

According to journalist Herbert Nerette, thousands of Vodou followers were lynched and hundreds of symbolic spaces destroyed in what became the most violent attack against the religion in Haiti’s history.

But Vodou persisted. When François Duvalier became president in 1957, he politicized religion during his dictatorship and appointed certain oungans as its representatives, Hurbon wrote.

In 2003, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Salesian priest who became Haiti’s first democratically elected president, recognized Vodou as one of Haiti’s official religions.

Despite formal recognition, Vodou remains shunned by some Haitians.

“If you say you are a Vodouist, they stigmatize you,” said Kadel Bazile, a 42-year-old civil engineer.

Until recently, Bazile was a practicing Catholic. But when he lost his job and his wife left him almost two years ago, a friend suggested he try Vodou.

“What I find here is spirituality and brotherhood. Being here is like being with family,” he said while attending a May 1 ceremony honoring Kouzen Zaka, the lwa of the harvest.

He identifies most with Erzulie Dantor, the divinity of love, represented by a Black Madonna with scars on her right cheek.

“That’s the spirit that lives in me,” he said. “She’s going to protect me.”

As the ceremony began, Bazile smiled and moved to the beat of the drums as dancers twirled nearby, their long earrings swaying to the beat.

Vodou is attracting more believers given the rise in gang violence and government inaction, said Cecil Elien Isac, a fourth-generation oungan.

“Every time the community has a big problem, they come here because there is no justice in Haiti. You find it in the ancestral spirits,” he said.

When Isac opened his temple in Port-au-Prince years ago, about eight families in the area became members. Now he has more than 4,000, in Haiti and beyond.

“We have a group of intellectuals who have joined,” he said. “It used to be people who couldn’t read or write. Now it is more visible.”

This turnaround is credited to thinkers like Jean Price-Mars, whose 1928 book, “Thus Spoke the Uncle,” visualized Vodou as a religion, “without making the Haitian elites blush,” wrote sociologist Lewis Ampidu Clorméus.

“Until the 1920s, Haitian Vodou was widely regarded as a series of superstition, witchcraft and ritual cannibalism,” wrote Clorméus. “Talking about Vodou was an embarrassment to Haitian intellectuals.”

Vodou has since become a key ingredient in Haiti’s rich cultural scene, inspiring music, art, writing and dance.

It is unknown how many people currently practice Vodou in Haiti, but there is a popular saying: “Haiti is 70% Catholic, 30% Protestant, and 100% Vodou.”

Vodou also has numerous lwas, although Ogou Je Wouj – the god of the red eyes – has become more important to Haitians given the lack of security in the country, says Erol Josué, singer, oungan and director of the Haitian National Bureau of Ethnology.

Ogou Je Wouj is a manifestation of the god of war and is believed to wield a machete.

“They want power in their bodies and in their minds,” Josué said of those who seek the god.

While spirits give believers energy and hope, Vodou priests warn against performing miracles.

“We pray, but we also take precautions,” Isac said. “There are many LWAs to protect you from kidnapping, but if you walk through certain areas, no LWA will protect you.”

On a recent afternoon, hundreds of Haitians gathered on a steep hill and squeezed into a small church to celebrate St. George, a Christian martyr believed to have been a Roman soldier revered by Catholics and Vodouists alike.

They offered him money and prayers in the hope that they would survive Haiti’s deepening crisis.

“It’s very important to be here,” says Hervé Hyppolite, a chef who practices Christianity and Vodou. “You will find strength, courage and also protection.”

Around him was a sea of ​​people dressed in khaki and red, the colors of the saint. Some held candles while a handful of women danced nearby,

“St. George!” shouted the priest leading the celebration. The crowd shouted in response, “We need you!”

Josué, the singer and oungan, noted that some young people who become Vodouists try to change traditional prayers or certain practices, but he said oungans and mambos do not embrace this urge.

“We make them understand that these ghosts are a symbol of the resistance of the Haitian nation,” he said. “There is a lot of content in Vodou that could lead to a renaissance of Haiti.”

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Associated Press reporter Evens Sanon contributed to this report.

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Associated Press religion reporting receives support through the APs cooperation with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.