Cody AnthonyENG 498

Dr. Preussner11/26/12

Tell My Horse She is Free: Role of Vodou Symbolism in Their Eyes Were Watching

God

Zora Neal Hurston’s most popular novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was

written during the seven weeks that the author lived in Haiti, researching and

participating in Haitian Vodou practice. Her research into Vodou became later published

in 1938 as Tell My Horse, a year after her novel was written, yet little scholarship

currently exists that relates Their Eyes Were Watching God to Vodou symbolism and

meaning.

In order to understand how Vodou functions within Their Eyes Were Watching

God, it’s essential to first establish a basic understanding of Vodou spiritual belief and

how it functions in Haiti. For most outsiders, Vodou represents a fear of the unknown

associated with images of dark magic, witchcraft, malignant spirits, blood drinking, and

human sacrifice. This popular portrayal of Vodou spiritual practice has persisted since the

American occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934, when the media portrayed these images

in order to effectively marginalize and exploit African diasporic religions and categorize

all people of African descent within a subordinate category based on a concept of racial

Otherness (Dayan, 13).

Due to this wide-spread misconception, Vodou has remained consistently

misunderstood and misinterpreted among the Western world. Keeping with contemporary

scholarship, I have adopted the less common Africanized spelling within the context of

this study (as opposed to Voodoo) in order to draw critical focus on the religion’s African

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descent and to separate Vodou spiritual practice from its more common prejudicial

interpretation. “Vodou” derives itself from “Vodoun”, belonging to the Fon tribe of West

Africa, and translated literally means “spirit” (Dayan, 13). Joseph Murphy summarizes

Vodou best when he says, “Vodou is a dance of the spirit: a system of movements,

gestures, prayers, and songs in veneration of the invisible forces of life” (10). Vodou is a

complex religion of performative spiritual action, syncretically infusing elements of

various African diasporic religions along with certain rites from French colonial

Catholicism. Throughout daily life, the devoted Haitian community performs ritualized

services to the loa (the sacred African spirits revered by Vodouisants) and in exchange

for their faithful service the loa responds to the needs of the community. Vodou

cosmology contains thousands of loa, and a loa can contain any number of multiple

aspects, or personalities, that address differing community needs. The spirits themselves

are not abstract entities as in Western religion, but rather are tangible, invisible forces that

actively govern community life. When the loa wish to address their community, they

“mount” one of their subjects as a rider mounts a horse, speaking and acting out their will

for the community through the body of their “horse.” “Tell my horse,” is a commonly

spoken loa expression indicating that the devotee is under possession and that his actions

and words belong to the loa riding him, rather than to the devotee (Tell My Horse, 221).

It is within the spirit of Vodou that Zora Neal Hurston finds herself while writing

Their Eyes Are Watching God, as she experiences firsthand the transformative power that

the Vodou spirit possesses during ritualized Vodou ceremony. Hurston draws specifically

on two powerful spirits that are integral to Vodou faith, permeating throughout all aspects

of the religion and likewise throughout her entire novel: the spirits of resistance and

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healing. In Vodou teaching, these two spirits can be seen embodied in the two primary

aspects of the loa: the Rada and Petro sects. Karen Brown acknowledges in her case study

of Haitian spirituality that “First, healing is the primary business. In fact, it is not an

overstatement to say that spirituality and healing are synonymous” (2). All Vodou

ceremony is a healing rite in some respect. The Rada aspects of the loa are known as the

benevolent forces of life, descended directly from West Africa (Tell My Horse, 116).

These loa are merciful guardians of the universe and associated with images of healing,

rebirth, and rejuvenation for the community as they reunite displaced African

descendants with the cultural values of their homeland. The Petro aspects of the loa,

however, are contradictory opposites; they are aggressive, vengeful spirits that didn’t

begin in Africa, but rather emerged during the Haitian Revolution. Murphy notes as well

the cultural significance of the Petro rite, stating that “it was at such a Petro ceremony

that Haitian slaves began their role in the revolution.” This spirit of cultural resistance

continues to live on in Vodou, and gives Vodou its “critical force and fearsome edge” as

seen by outsiders to the faith (11).

We’ve now established how the spirits of Vodou relate specifically to African

descendants in Haiti, but how does that same Vodou spirit function in Their Eyes Were

Watching God, an African-American novel written at the peak of the Harlem Renaissance

and centered around African-American community values? Dayan reminds us that

“When the gods left Africa, they taught their people how to live the epic of displacement.

No longer simply identifiable in terms of parentage or place, they would come into the

heads of their people and there urge a return to a thought of origin” (16). It’s important

to remember that the loa, much like Hurston herself, do not limit their service to Haiti

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alone, but rather serve all African diasporic communities as a common people who share

a similar cultural experience. Haiti is a successful example of how the spirits of healing

and resistance present in Vodou create a powerful transformative catalyst that empowers

black communities. J.N.K. Mugambi notes that “every culture has made an impact on

world history, and has done so only after it has discovered and affirmed ‘its roots’ and

traced them to antiquity (111). In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Vodou symbolism

traces the plight of African-Americans back to their African cultural roots, and with the

spirits of healing and resistance . reawaken the “African” in African-American cultural

identity.

Simultaneously, Zora Neal Hurston does not fail to recognize either in her inter-

textual fusion of Vodou symbolism the Vodou spirit’s potential for dynamic

transformation in the political lives of women. Political resistance is a major part of

Vodou, and in Haitian communities has always been a vehicle for women’s social

empowerment, manifesting itself primarily in the loa Ezili, the goddess of love, feminine

strength, and beauty (Mama Lola, 254). Vodou imagery manifests itself within Their

Eyes Were Watching God primarily in the invocation of Ezili, who possesses and

empowers Janie in moments of difficult social struggle. Ezili remains present but largely

invisible throughout the most of the text (much like the loa themselves in daily communal

life) until she becomes invoked performatively by Janie’s actions in moments of social

need. For the remainder of this study, we will now identify those aspects of Ezili invoked

in Janie and analyze the way that the symbolic Vodou imagery creates a spirit of cultural

and political transformation for the lives of women and African Americans. We will

identify both the Rada and Petro aspects of Ezili in the text: Ezili Freda and Ezili Danto.

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Ezili Freda functions primarily as an African-American cultural healer, while Ezili Danto

functions specifically as a defender of woman’s rights to autonomy and self-

determination.

Since healing is the primary business of Vodou, it makes sense that the

benevolent Rada spirit Ezili Freda would be the one invoked most throughout the novel.

In terms of physical appearance and manner, Janie most often reflects aspects of Ezili

Freda. Ezili Freda is the loa of unconditional love and perfect feminine beauty, the

potential lover of all Haitian men, and a source of jealousy for all women (Smith, 6).

When we as readers are first introduced to Janie, she is described in very overt, sexual

language from the perspective of the male observers in the community.

The men noticed her firm buttocks like she had grape fruits in her pockets; the great rope of black hair swinging to her waist and unraveling in the wind like a plume; then her pugnacious breasts trying to bore holes in her shirt. They, the men, were saving for their mind what they lost with the eye (2).

Similarly, Hurston’s description of Janie closely parallels the description of Ezili Freda

given by ethnographer Alfred Métraux in his classic study Voodoo in Haiti:

At last, in the full glory of her seductiveness, with hair unbound to make her look like a long haired half-caste, Ezili makes her entrance…She walks slowly, swinging her hips, throwing saucy, ogling looks at the men or pausing for a kiss or caress (111).

Both Janie and Ezili Freda contain perfect female attributes that incite the men’s desires

and women’s jealousies; both have straight, long black hair; and interestingly both are

perpetually youthful mulatta women. Although Janie does not seek to solicit male

attention, we can interpret Janie’s overt sensuality as a sudden channeling of Ezili Freda.

Likewise, we also witness a sudden blossoming desire for love in the second chapter, ripe

with sexually charged metaphors of springtime and flowers.

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She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! (11).

Flowers are a common gift presented to Ezili Freda by Vodouisants seeking a spiritual

union with the goddess (Tell My Horse, 121). The recurrence of flower imagery and

sexualized springtime metaphors before each of Janie’s marriages indicates the

invocation of Ezili Freda, whose presence continues to serve Janie and can be seen within

the text at each of these moments. As with Ezili Freda, the flowery goddess of sweet and

delicate fineries, Janie conceptualizes love throughout the novel in sexually symbolic

imagery indicating a new season of growth and rebirth (Collins, 141). For Janie, the

sexual reawakening as Ezili Freda is the first initiative step in her own personal quest for

self-determining love, and like Ezili Freda she seeks this ultimate aim through a series of

non-lasting, childless marriages with different men.

Just as all Vodou ceremonies begin with songs, dances, and prayers in honor of

Legba, the keeper of the crossroads, so to does the novel begin with an invocation of him

(Lamothe, 161). Legba is the medium between the spiritual and physical worlds, and

must be summoned first to prepare the way for other loa who wish to present themselves

in service to their followers. Janie conjures the power of Legba when she walks “down to

the front gate” (11), searching the horizon and contemplating the pear tree. Both the gate

and the horizon symbolize Legba’s ceremonial presence, while the pear tree symbolizes

the great Vodou tree Loko. All Vodou ceremony takes place beneath the shade of this

great symbolic tree, whose roots reach deep below into Ginen, the ancestral African

home of the loa. It’s through these roots that the loa are drawn into the living world

(Murphy, 38). Legba’s presence signals a potential opportunity for transformation in

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Janie’s life, brought to her through her initiation into a spiritual union with Ezili Freda.

This opportunity for transformation is not solely limited to Janie, however, as the

imagery of Vodou ceremonial and the great tree Loko also implicitly indicates a strong

community presence.

On a deeper symbolic level, the Vodou loa with their roots in Ginen represent the

collective unconscious of Africa, and a connection to the loa symbolizes a reconnection

to an African cultural identity. Janie’s Nanny addresses the main problem for all African-

Americans when she says “You know honey, us colored foks is branches without roots”

(16). Janie’s plight then, by extension of symbolic allegory, is also the plight of all

African-Americans, and the invocation of Vodou ceremony is an address to the African-

American community. Janie is uprooted from her cultural home, just like all children

born from the African Diaspora. Yet the transformative spirit of Vodou continues to

follow Janie and dwell within her head, as referenced by the recurrent imagery of the pear

tree and flowers invoking ceremony with Legba and Ezili Freda. Vodou, therefore,

symbolizes a potential opportunity for African-American cultural transformation, a

reemergence of an empowering cultural identity with its roots traced back to antiquity

(Mugambi, 111).

Once Janie is initially reborn as a devoted initiate of Ezili Freda and begins her

personal quest through life, each new reappearance of the goddess signals a major

transformation that improves Janie’s standard of living and initiates her into the next step

towards self-fulfillment. For African-Americans, it’s understood that each new step in

Janie’s journey represents a collective step towards cultural healing and a unified

African-American self. This transformative healing power is accessible to the African-

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American community if they choose to walk in the footsteps of Janie and opens

themselves to the promise of cultural identity embodied in the African loa.

Janie’s first possession by Ezili Freda instantly triggers several major

transformations. Janie is suddenly no longer seen as a young girl, as Nanny realizes

“youse got yo’ womanhood on yuh” (12). This transformation from young girl to young

woman leads to further transformation, as Janie is thrust into her first marriage with

Logan Killicks. Janie’s marriage, while not a satisfying relationship, releases Janie’s from

the fenced-in confines of Nanny’s house and frees her from the constraints of Nanny’s

ideological trappings. Nanny still harbors a slave-driven ideology where “The white man

is the ruler of everything” and African-Americans are “the mules of the world” (14).

Symbolically, Nanny’s house represent’s the damaging confines of southern plantation

culture from which African-American culture began. Because of Janie’s initial

transformation by Ezili Freda, her basic survival is no longer threatened and she can live

without the perpetual fear of violence that Nanny harbors. This vision of African-

American culture reflects the present condition as Hurston views it, while continued

transformations by the loa reflect a prophetic African-American vision of the future as

Hurston would someday hope to see it.

When Janie’s first attempt at love fails she turns her attention once again to the

horizon, calling up Legba and re-channeling the spirit of Ezili Freda. Opportunity

presents itself again as Janie meets Jody Stark on the road, who promises the horizon to

her in a marriage of silk, Ezili Freda’s favorite fabric (28). In Janie’s second marriage,

she embodies most Ezili Freda’s spirit, who symbolizes in Haitian culture a rising out of

lower class status into a position of authority and wealth (Mama Lola, 248). By

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channeling the spirit of healing present in Ezili Freda, African-American cultural identity

is growing closer to self-fulfillment in the novel. Not only is the community moving up in

class, but it is beginning to move away from marginalization in Eatonville, where

African-Americans have their own stores and are elected into leadership positions. Janie

gains financially sustainability and economic power, though she has yet to fully reach

self-determination and emotional satisfaction. Eatonville still has its problems; Hicks

summarizes the African-American condition in Eatonville best when he says, “Us talks

about the white man keepin’ us down! Shucks! He don’t have tuh. Us keeps our own

selves down” (39). Janie is still isolated from a sense of cultural community and finds

herself stifled in Eatonville under the oppression of white Euro-centric cultural values

still embraced by both Jody and the black community as a whole.

In Janie’s third and final channeling of Ezili Freda, she finally realizes a

transformation that integrates a wholly unified African-American self. This cultural

awakening occurs when Janie finds her perfect union in Tea Cake Woods. The name

“Woods” connects Tea Cake with the symbol of the tree and he is described by Janie as

wearing “the sun for a shawl” (193), another invocation of Legba who traverses the sky

with the sun at his back (Desmangles, 110). Legba is also husband to Ezili Freda, whose

eventual union with the goddess is implicitly foreshadowed throughout the course of

Janie’s possessions. The sweet name Tea Cake suggests that Janie’s desires for self-

determining love are fulfilled in final marriage, yet why is it that Janie finally succeeds

with Tea Cake in fulfilling her dreams? In Janie’s final marriage, Tea Cake is the “horse”

of Legba who offers Janie a spiritual marriage to the African Diaspora. Janie and Tea

Cake’s relationship indicates a perfect melding of African-American culture with ancient

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African cultural traditions (Smith, 11). Janie finally finds community acceptance on the

Muck where her and Tea Cake live and participate in ritualized song and dance among

both African-Americans and Afro-Caribbean immigrants, suggesting that an acceptance

of African cultural values is the only solution for community healing. The loa can work

to heal all peoples of African descent in the healing spirit of a community reconnected to

its ancient cultural roots.

The Petro loa Ezili Danto appears much less prevalently in Their Eyes Were

Watching God than her Rada counterpart Ezili Freda, yet her important role within the

text is by no means diminished. In contrast to Ezili Freda, Ezili Danto is the goddess of

motherhood and defender of woman. She dresses plainly and loves to work, often using

her identity as single mother “to flout the authority of the patriarchal family” (Mama

Lola, 229). Ezili Danto’s aggressive and violent nature reveals itself in moments of crisis;

like a mother protecting her children she will always “rush to the side of the person in

trouble” (Mama Lola, 229). Ezili Danto manifests herself in Janie’s life specifically

during peak moments of crisis brought upon by woman’s disenfranchised position within

the patriarchal system. Through the channeling of Ezili Danto, Janie is politically

empowered and gains a revolutionary spirit enabling her to resist masculine authority

while still embracing the virtues of female identity.

Ezili Danto does not make her presence known in the novel until Janie reaches her

first moment of true crisis in her marriage with Jody Starks. Hurston writes that “The

years had taken all the fight out of Janie’s face. For a while she thought it was gone from

her soul” (76). Ezili Danto, unable to stand back any longer and witness the verbal and

emotional abuse inflicted upon Janie, begins empowering Janie with strength needed to

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overcome Jody’s abuse. Jody forces Janie to wear a head scarf, effectively hiding her hair

and masking her attractiveness. Ezili Danto subverts this display of patriarchal authority,

however, as the head scarf (or moshwa) is a symbol for the goddess (Smith, 10) and

allows Ezili Danto an opportunity to enter the head of Janie, granting her sustained

endurance and a new revolutionary spirit against the patriarchal oppression of the men in

Eatonville. Janie’s mind begins to build itself in defense to Jody while she imagines

herself in the store “under a shady tree with the wind blowing through her hair and her

clothes” (77). The tree recalls Legba and the Vodou spirit once again, this time in

resistance to Jody’s oppression, subverting the value of the physical labor he continues to

impress upon her.

The Petro rage of Ezili Danto eventually culminates in an open mockery of

women among the men of Eatonville, with Jody attacking the very image of Janie’s

feminine sexual identity. When Janie makes a mistake cutting a plug of tobacco for Steve

Mixon in the store, Mixon, Jody, and the other men comment:

“Looka heah, Brother Mayor, whut yo’ wife done took and done.” It was cut comical, so everybody laughed at it. “Uh woman and a knife—no kind of uh knife, don’t b’long tuhgether.” There was some more good-natured laughter at the expense of women. Jody didn’t laugh. He hurried across from the post office side and took the plug of tobacco away from Mixon and cut it again. Cut it exactly on the mark and glared at Janie. “I God Almighty! A woman stay round uh store till she get old as Methusalem and still can’t cut a thing like a plug of tobacco! Don’t stand dere rollin’ yo’ pop eyes at me wid yo’ rump hangin’ nearly to yo’ knees!” (78).

At this moment in the text, the rage of Ezili Danto breaks loose in response to the public

debauchery of both feminine sexual identity and woman’s physical and mental

capabilities. Ezili Danto relates particularly well to the masculine use of public space as

means of politically defrauding women of their rights. Karen Brown writes in Mama Lola

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that “Ezili Danto fought fiercely beside her ‘children’ in the Haitian slave revolution”,

but that “In that war, she was going to talk, to tell something, and then they [Haitian men]

cut out her own tongue because they don’t want her to talk” (229). She was made

speechless by her own people who feared she would utter their secrets; now when she

possesses someone the only sound she can make is “dey-dey-dey” (229). Ezili Danto’s

presence, while previously implicit in the text, suddenly transforms into political action

as Janie summons a voice against Jody and the men of Eatonville that previously she’d

never used nor even knew that she could possess. Janie takes advantage of the public

arena, telling Jody,

Naw, Ah ain’t no young gal no mo’ but den ah ain’t no old woman neither. Ah reckon Ah looks my age too. But Ah’m a woman every inch of me, and Ah know it. Dat’s a whole lot more’n you kin say. You big-bellies round here and put out a lot of brag, but tain’t nothing to it but yo’ big voice. Humph! Talkin’ bout me lookin’ old! When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life (79).

Within this passage, Janie suddenly transforms into a woman who not only has

discovered she has a voice, but also knows how to use this voice politically in her own

defense. Janie identifies the power of voice in her recognition of the authority that Joe’s

“big voice” embodies, then subverts that same authority with her own by deconstructing

the male-constructed idea of the phallic image as a symbol of dominant superiority. In

doing so before the entire town, Janie “robbed him of his illusion of irresistible maleness

that all men cherish” (79) and effectively broke down Jody’s hierarchy of established

dominance in the community, as they envied his things but “pitied the man who owned

them” (79). Janie’s speech contains its own symbolic significance as well, as the

invocation of Ezili Danto’s voice suggest that the female Vodou spirit has finally healed

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enough to share her secrets. In the contemporary political climate, women can finally be

free to speak.

After Janie’s initial political transformation, Ezili Danto continues to fight for

Janie rights to autonomy and self-determination, with each invocation growing

increasingly more aggressive and violent. The gender dynamic within the text sees a

political shift as well, as Janie is made stronger while Jody continues growing physically

weaker. Danto’s maternal rage seals Jody’s fate; she cannot be appeased until the man

pays with his own life in retribution for the crime of using the “ruling chair” (87) to

manipulate and control Janie’s life and the lives of others who live in Eatonville.

Janie become a free woman after Jody’s death and begins actively making her

own life decisions. She has the financial backing to do as she chooses in life, and now

sees through the lies of the men in Eatonville who only wish to manipulate Janie for her

money. Janie chooses her final marriage with Tea Cake Woods, embodying Ezili Danto

further as Janie makes her first self-determining act within the novel. Janie’s relationship

with Tea Cake on the Muck represents the possibility for gendered equality: a bee to

Janie’s blossom (106). Janie and Tea Cake partake in everything equally; they fish, hunt,

drive, and play checkers together. In the bean fields, Janie chooses to work side-by-side

with Tea Cake in her denim overalls, conjuring once again the image of Danto who loves

to work in heavy overalls.

Although Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship represents both a perfect spiritual

union and an opportunity for gendered equality, Hurston reminds us that this vision is

still fraught with obstacles and peril. Tragedy befalls in that Tea Cake cannot completely

remove himself from the social realities that he lives in. When Mrs. Turner expresses a

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desire to set Janie up with her brother, Tea Cake’s fear and male insecurity takes over as

he slaps Janie around to show Mrs. Turner and everyone on the muck “who is boss”

(147). Tea Cake’s behavior is met with approval by the other men on the Muck when

Sop-de-Bottom says, “Lawd! Wouldn’t ah love tuh whip uh tender woman lak Janie! Ah

bet she don’t even holler. She jus’ cries, eh Tea Cake?” (148). In this tragic scene Tea

Cake suddenly becomes symbolic of male patriarchal force as previously represented by

Jody with the Muck reminiscent of Eatonville, which once again upsets Ezili Danto and

incites her lethal rage.

The final display of Ezili Danto’s political fury manifests itself in a heavy storm

developing over the Muck. Brown writes that

Danto’s anger can exceed what is required for strict discipline. At times, it explodes from her with an irrational, violent force. Ezili Danto has connections with water…Thus Danto’s rage can emerge with the elemental force of a torrential rain, which sweeps away just and unjust alike (231).

The growing storm that approaches the Muck parallels in many ways the Biblical story of

the Great Flood from the Book of Genesis. The wicked that Ezili Danto wishes to punish

is the symbol of man who uses patriarchy to dominate and control women’s lives, but in

her irrational fury noone, man or women, is entirely safe. As in the Biblical story, the

storm is a warning and a message to all of patriarchal society. For those who ignore the

rights of women, there will be destruction.

Symbolically, this parallel with the Biblical myth calls forth another deity for

comparison with Ezili Danto: the image of the Christian God. In the midst of the storm,

Janie, Tea Cake, and the others of the Muck “sat in company…Their souls asking if He

meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but

their eyes were watching God” (160). Just as everyone ignores the warnings of a

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masculine God in the Biblical story, all the men of the Muck, with Tea Cake as their

spokesman, ignore the warnings of the goddess represented by the fleeing Native

Americans and native animals. Instead of appeasing the enraged defender of womanhood,

they insult her further by turning to the Christian God, the ultimate patriarchal symbol,

and idolizing the example of the white patriarchal authority which refuses to

acknowledge Ezili Danto as a real threat to them. Janie is guilty of wrongdoing as well,

for she betrays the goddess’ trust by deferring to Tea Cake’s authority rather than heeding

her own private warnings. Danto is most sensitive to personal betrayal by her own

people, and in the spirit of revolution unleashes the destructive fury of the hurricane

against everyone on the Muck.

Noone escapes the punishment of Ezili Danto, “who must sometimes turn the

world upside down to protect and provide for her children” (Mama Lola, 232). While

fleeing from the storm, Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid dog and slowly descends into a state

of dementia. Métraux writes that madness is nearly always a supernatural punishment

(99). Janies punishment for her betrayal of the goddess is the most cruel; she is made to

choose between death or shooting Tea Cake, the only man she’s ever loved, in defense of

her own life. In choosing her life over Tea Cake’s, however, Janie is also the most

rewarded, for she leaves the Muck as a fully integrated woman with full self-autonomy

and agency in her life. Because Tea Cake’s death was out of her control, Janie is also

allowed the feel of Tea Cake’s presence, the memory of their love, and the hopeful

promise for gendered equality. Out of the chaos of revolution, new hope is reborn.

In studying Their Eyes Were Watching God through a Vodou lens, we’ve now

gained both an in-depth understanding of the Vodou spirit and how that spirit functions

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within Hurston’s text. The invisible presence of the loa has been made visible, opening

the novel up to an entirely new interpretation based on a web of symbolic Vodou

meaning. At the heart of the Vodou spirit is the power to transform. In applying this spirit

to literature through the loa Ezili Freda and Ezili Danto, we observe the everyday,

personal story of Janie Crawford transform into a potential roadmap for African-

American cultural healing and female self-autonomy. At the end of the novel, Zora Neal

Hurston reminds the reader again by leaving Janie’s story in the hands of Pheoby that the

lessons Vodou has to teach are beneficial for the individual, but are meant for the entire

community. In embodying the spirit of Vodou, individuals embody the potential of gods.

We become the vehicles of our own transformation and empower ourselves to make the

changes necessary to better our society. Our journeys become mythic stories, left to

inspire a whole generation.

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