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SYSK Selects: What's the deal with Voodoo? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. I've got my voodoo doll out because it's Saturday.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: It's time for a Saturday Select and I went with
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: What's the Deal with Voodoo? From July six two. Uh.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: You know, I picked this one because I just remember
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: being a very interesting episode. Voodoo is. Um. Well, we
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: we talk all about it, not just in a pop
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: culture way because voodoo is so often misinterpreted on TV
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Sitcom's Go Figure, but we get into the real voodoo
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and in the history of it and what's behind it.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: All very interesting stuff. So here we go, July six,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: What's the Deal with Voodoo? Welcome to Stuff you Should
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as always
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. How you like your chair?
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I hate this chair? Dude? Do you realize that, in
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: like the last eight podcasts, we've just complained at the beginning.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: We're probably so tired of it. Yeah, So let's let's instead, Chuck,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: instead of complaining as is our usual way these days,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: let's go back in time. Oh yes, I'm going to
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: take us back. You're ready, okay, Chuck? Um, this is
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: August little place that we now know of as Haiti,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: and what's just happened is a slave uprising. Actually, what
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: is the only successful slave uprising in the world. Good
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: for them, Yeah, that's what I say. What happened was
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: what happened was in earlier in August of a group
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: of slave leaders and maroon leaders and maroons were runaway
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: slaves who've made it to the hills and we're basically
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: staging guerrilla warfare against um plantations and white colonists. They
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: got together and there was a ceremony that was performed
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: in a place called Alligator Woods or block came in.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I've been there, have you really? Oh? Wow, Well we're
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: about together now, right. There's this voodoo ritual that took place,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: and all of the leaders basically pledged their support and
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: dedication to this rebellion. And a week later, all hell
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: breaks loose. Okay, um this thousands of slaves revolt. They
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: murder every white person they can find. Apparently they paraded
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: around from like settlement to settlement with a white human
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: baby impaled on a steak, I might draw the line there,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: but burned every plantation they could find and just basically
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: held a slave uprising you know, it's like you can
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: only hold somebody down for so long before they, you know,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: turn on you. The human spirit wants to be free, exactly, Chuck. Uh.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: And that's essentially what happened that the Haitian slaves rose up.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: They were unsuccessful actually in but historians say this is
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the point that started at all. And by eighteen o
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: four Haitia was a free republic. Awesome, yeah, um, But
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: that that meeting in the woods that started it all.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: The voodoo ceremony that instance, and other slave rebellions that
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: were kind of based around voodoo UM have kind of
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: given the religion a bad rap among whites lots of
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: things since then. It's kind of weird to think of,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: but our conception of voodoo is almost entirely hollywood ized,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: fictionalized um and fear based based on this um kind
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of collective white distant memory um of well, this is
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: this is what you know voodoo is. It's babies impaled
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: on steaks. What happens when you let people practice voodoo? Right, Chuck? Actually,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: the um that slave revault is successful slave rebellion um
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: is what Pat Robertson was talking about famously. After the
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Haiti earthquake when he said a long time ago, and
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: people in Haiti don't like to talk about it, but
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: they made a pact with the devil um to get
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the French out and they said, we'll give you our
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: souls if uh, you'll get the French out, and the
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: French got out. And then so basically he was saying,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: you know, the it's devil worship. Voodoo is devil worship,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: and the successful slave rebellion is proved positive of it,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: and that's why the earthquake happened in his opinion. And
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: then Haiti they were probably like, who's this devil you
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: keep talking about? We don't believe in that, dude. This
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: is gonna be a lot of debunking going on today.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Let's debunk dude. Let's start talking about voodoo. Okay, let's now, okay,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Voodoo is a religion. A lot of people think it's
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: just a bunch of hocus pocus, which is more like
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: who do which we'll get to later. But voodoo is
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: an actual religion. There is a there's one God. It's
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: very It depends on where you are if you're talking
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: voodoo and um. Even generationally speaking, there's a lot of differences. Yeah,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: because there's no definitive holy text. It's a normal tradition. Yeah.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: And it's a very subjective religion too, right, it's like
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: a very personal um and it governs your day to
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: day life. And it um also has it's different, has
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: a different impact on every every person, right, Yes, it does. Yes. Uh.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: So there's like I said, there's one supreme God and
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: depending on where you are to be different name. Uh,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: if you're talking Haitian voodoo, we're basically going to cover
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: like African and Haitian in parts, I would say, won't
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: you Yeah, okay, so Haitian voodoo, you're gonna all this
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: supreme god bandhi. But in voodoo, you can't talk directly
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: to the main god. You have to go through one
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: of the spirits called the loa, right, and there are
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: many loa. Now I'll have different functions, but it is hierarchical,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: it is. And they're based on dead ancestors ancestral spirits, yeah,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: which it turns out to be and we'll get to
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: that more in detail. But that's a big, big part
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: of voodoo, is uh, the ancestry and dead people basically
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: spirits of the dead people, right, And you're talking about
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: comparing it to say Christianity or Judaism or something like that.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: It's much it's much easier to compare um like a
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: pagan religion like voodoo, to a pagan religion like um Druidism, right,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: than it is to compare either one to Christianity or Judaism. Um.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Although there are some similarities there are, especially in Haitian voodoo,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: but in African voodoo, Um, it's it's much more difficult
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: to compare it. And so answer all just still kind
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: of put it in this um context of of ways
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: we can understand like gods, right, but they're not gods.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: You can't like to to voodoo practitioners. They're not God's
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: their ancestral spirits. The spirit world is as real as
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: this world. So we may hear their call them gods accidentally,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: but that's that's just as close as we can come.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: You could compare them to a Greek or Roman gods, right.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: They have different personalities that represent different things, but it's
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: kind of that shared pagan worldview that different parts of
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: the natural experience are associated with different gods. Yes, right,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: good point. Thanks. Uh. It's basically so white Christians can
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: understand exactly what we're talking about, um so uh. African
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and Haitian voodoo in in both cases you have it's
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: really not a bunch of evil doing and and spells
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: cast upon one another. It's mainly used for for good
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: and to be a better person. In fact, you're you're
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: counted on as a practice or voodoo to be a
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: good community member and you know, a stand up guy
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: or gal. Right Yeah, And I remember we said that
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: it was a personal and subjective religion. Um So when
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: you're practicing voodoo, when you are um uh interacting with it,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: say like a voodoo priest or priestess, right, um, you're
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: seeking advice, guidance and you're living your life by that, right. Yeah.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: So there's actually I guess kind of the whole um
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: evil aspect does exist bo bo um in African tradition,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: right yeah. African voodoo, Yeah, that's the dark side of
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: African Vodoo is called bo right, and voodoo practitioners a
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: voodoo priest is called a hogun right yeah. An African
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: voodoo priest, right yeah, And an African and Haitian voodoo
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: priestess is called a mamba, right, yes, mamba um So
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the mamba and the Hogun are not charged with um
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: carrying out bow, which is evil spells hexes um basically
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: magic that does harm, right, right, And they do use
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: voodoo dolls they do. Yeah, but um, this is not
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: to say and this is where it kind of gets
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: a little prickly, like a little hinky um where the
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: voodoo priests and priests is may not actually practice bow,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: this black magic, but um, they're familiar with it, they
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: have a working knowledge of it. But so so they
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: can oppose people who practice bo. Yes, you have to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: understand something to fight it. That's the belief they're right, right, Sure, Okay,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: so Chuck, let's talk a little more about ceremonies and
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: some of the characteristics and traits that make voodoo voodoo.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: All right, are we going to Africa? Are we in
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Haiti at this point? Let's do Africa first. I mean,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: this is the cradle of voodoo, right, yeah, like six
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: thousand years ago. That's where the word comes from. It
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: comes from the Faun language, which was the kingdom of
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Fun and that means sacred spirit or deity, right, And
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I think it was like northwest northwest Africa. Northwest it's
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: north central West Africa. So it's West Africa. We're talking. Ghana,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Benin and Togo are like the the areas where these
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: ancient kingdoms of Fawn and Congo, Congo with the k
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: um We're located. And this is the cradle of voodoo. Yeah.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: And I actually got a stat for you. Um they
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: say that thirty million people in in Togo, Ghana and
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: was it Benin, Yeah, still practice voodoo today. And just
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: to gauge where that falls and world religions, it's about
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: double the number of Jewish people in the entire world. Wow,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: is it really? Yeah? Well there, I mean stats vary
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: because depending on if you're like an active practice practitioner
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: of Judaism or if you're just like born Jewish. But yeah,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: it's about double, so it ranks. It's also um an
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: official religion in Beni. Yeah. They say six of the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: bull of that country follow voodoo. Still right, so this
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: is a an established religion. Um. But one of the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: founding um or foundational tenants of voodoo is that you
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: can communicate with the spirits, and you communicate with the
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: spirits to find out, you know, what you should do
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: from them. Then the almighty deity. Yeah, the Supreme God
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: right there, the medium, right um. One of the one
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: of the other founding tenants of voodoo is you communicate
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: with these people, not in your head, not through prayer,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: but by these the loa um actually possessing someone who
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: then gives commands or says, you know, what are you doing?
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Why aren't you you know, um, spending more time with
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: your wife, things like that. Right Yeah. We said that
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: it's different in African and Haitian and all over the
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: world and in different time periods, but that's one of
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: the main through lines and all voodoo is possession, spirit, intrusion, possession,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: right um. The person who's being possessed at the time
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: is known as the horse, and the whatever loa is
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: is possessing him or her is known as the rider.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Right Yeah, that's in Haitian voodoo. How did I get
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: ahead of us? No, that's right, we can, we can
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: kind of jump around. Okay. Well that's really one of
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: the big bridges. Um. That's really the bridge between Haitian
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: voodoo and African voodoo. Right is that spirit possession exists.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: That's how you find out what you should do in
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: your day to day life, right um. Back in Africa,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: on the African side. Um, some other commonalities between the two.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Because again um, or maybe not again, but possibly the
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: first time Haitian Haitian voodoo is African voodoo with creolized yes. Right, yeah,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: so let's get back to talking about African voodoo. I
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: did screw us up, and I apologize, Chuck, apologize to
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: our fans. I'm so sorry, fans, Please forgive me. You
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: never owe me an apology, buddy. Um. So the answer,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the ancestral spirits make up the lowa. Right. Um. You
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: can take any object and consecrate it and it becomes
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: a ritual, sacred object. Right, which is where the dolls
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: come in, which, as you said, are not used for
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: um harm Right. Well, they can be by the if
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: you're talking bow, but it's definitely not like you see
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: in the movies, right or the Brady bunch um during Yeah, Um,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: the there's a lot of ceremonial dance. Um. Spirits are
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: in vogue through music, percussion, that kind of thing. Um.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I know that in both Haitian and African voodoo there
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: is a gatekeeper, um. And his name in Haitian tradition
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: is papal Legba. Right, I love that name. Yeah, um.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: And papal Legba is the gatekeeper between the spirit world
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: and the human world, right, and he's invoked at the
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: beginning of every ceremony because you have to get him
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to open the gate so you can absolutely start communicating
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: at the low and so things can be people can
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: be possessed. Right. And actually Papalaba is also a one
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: of the black men at the Crossroad, who um bears
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: a striking resemblance to our friend Mashamn. Oh really yeah, interesting, Yeah,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the Crossroad a k a. The Christian Cross in Haitian tradition. Yeah, right,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: we should go ahead and talk about that. Probably if
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: some of this sounds familiar, if you're thinking, Papa Legba
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: sounds sort of like St. Peter and the crossroads sounds
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: sort of like the Christian Cross, is a very good
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: reason for that. It's because once again we go back
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: to our friend Christopher Columbus Hispaniola and the fact that
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: they brought slaves over to Hispaniola to work on the plantations.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: They brought voodoo with them, and the problem there was
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Columbus said, no, no, no no, no no. If you're going
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: to be a slave over here, you have to be
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: converted to Christianity. So that was the code noir. The
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: French actually did that one to be baptized, forced conversion.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: So what they did was in order to keep practicing voodoo,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: they incorporated and this or my mind was blown. I
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: didn't know they did this. They incorporated parts of Catholicism
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: to kind of mask the fact that they were practicing
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: voodoo and it got all mixed up in what's called syncretization. Yeah,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: so Catholicism and voodoo working together, right crazy, So even today, Um,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: they're a lot of the loa there. Well, there was
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of ready um uh similarities between these ancestral
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: spirits and Catholic saint. It's right. So like St. Peter
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: is associated with papal Legba because St. Peter's the guy
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: who's outside the gates to heaven. Papal Legba is the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: gatekeeper to the spirit world, so they associate him with him. Um,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: there is a god who is um pretty powerful. He's
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: a warrior protector god called Ogu and he's associated with St. James,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: who was a warrior protector sat. So it's it wasn't
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: It's not a leap all the time, but sometimes it's
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: a stretch like St. Patrick, remember drove out the snakes
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: from Ireland. He's associated with snakes in the Haitian tradition. Um.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so when you when you look at the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: underlying um tenants, the really overarching narrative of being able
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: to communicate with spirits, invoking spirits through percussion, percussion, song, dance,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: I'm being possessed and objects being able to be consecrated
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and and become sacred. Um. Then that's voodoo across the board.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: The voodoo were familiar with. Um, that's Haitian voodoo, which
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: is kind of mixed up with Catholicism. Yeah. I said
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: that they even incorporated uh Catholic hymns and prayers. Yeah. Crazy, Yeah,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: who knew, Tracy Wilson, Yeah she did. Um. So, Josh,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: you brought up rituals that they would perform to invoke
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the gods. And one of the tenants of voodoo is
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the gods will give you advice at all, but you've
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: got to take care of the gods the spirits. Yeah.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: And one way that you can do this is by
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: animal sacrifice to appease the god, you know, the spirit. Yeah.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Now this is um again. This is another ticklish aspect
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: of voodoo, isn't it? You know? I mean this is like, oh,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: they sacrifice animals, they're they're evil. It's like, well you
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: got the sacrifice animals part right right? You know, well
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: they used to sacrifice humans, do did they? Yeah, it's
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: been like at least a hundred years since any of
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: that's gone on in Africa? They say, huh so, chuck,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: there's actually um with the animal sacrifices. Um. There, there's
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: actually a process, as you can imagine, there's a process
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: where so you're you're going to sacrifice the chicken, right um.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: And this chicken is washed and leaves to be consecrated,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: and then it's fed from this ritual dish. And if
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: it refuses to eat, then that means that the loa
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: has rejected that sacrifice, and the animal is set free.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: If it eats, then it's like, okay, you're dead. Always
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: eat though apparently I guess they don't. But but it's
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: not just chickens. I think this applies to the goats, pigs, whatever,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: sacrifice right um. And so if it eats, then it's like, okay,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: you're dead. If it's a goat or a pig, it's throat,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: it's slip. If it's a chicken, its neck is broken,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: but it's quick. It's a quick death. It's not you know,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: tortured or anything like that. The blood is mixed in
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: this um calabash like a big chalice bowl um with
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: rum and syrup and salt, and then people will either
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: take a sip or they'll they'll um make a cross
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: on their crucifix on their head in blood. Right, So
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: that's the blood sacrifice. That's where the blood sacrifice ritual
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: stands today. Oh really they still do it that way
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: because Haitians still practice voodoo like uh, like right out
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: in the open. So yeah, it's not some like Westerners
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: might think it's like some weird hidden thing, but it's
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: not like that at all. Uh. You also talked about
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: um when they invoke or when you're possessed. There's I know,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: there's a dance called the Dance of the hooded uh
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: a gun gun And apparently what happens is when someone
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: is like the spirit overtakes them and they're possessing and
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: they're dancing around. If you touch them, you die, that's
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: what they say. So you gotta like stand in the
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: circle and witness all this in some part but you know,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: they're running all over the place, so you gotta like,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: you know, keep your distance. And um. They're also if
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: while you're possessed, you are imperview is to pain, you
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: can't be injured. Good point. And today I was reading
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: an article from I think two thousand two or two
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: thousand four, um, and this guy was talking about witnessing
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: a a voodoo ritual in West Africa, yeah, recently. And
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: these guys were, um, we're possessed by Ugu remember the
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: warrior protector spirit um. And they were cutting themselves with
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: their knives, blood lighting, um, and weren't wincing or anything
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: like that because apparently one aspect of it is like
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: you can't feel pain while you're possessed. Interesting. Yeah, well,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: and since you brought that up, we should probably go
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: ahead and talk about why Westerners view voodoo as some
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: sort of evil, awful thing, right, in addition to the
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: slave uprising right, Well, yeah, exactly. One of the reasons
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: you just mentioned was a lot of the there's a
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: lot of self injury that goes on, like yeah, and
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: so Westerners see that and they think those people are
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: crazy look at them. Well, not just that, but blood
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: making a real all of parents anything dealing with death.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: The fact that they believe that death is like you know,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: not necessarily a bad thing, and that the spirits are
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: are still living among us, guiding us. That's not where
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Westerners aren't typically down with that either. Now, Westerners don't
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: have a stomach for real blood, which is why wine
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: is used in place of it or as a metaphor
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: for it. And like the Christian tradition, and death is
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: something that we don't like to think about or talk
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: about in the West either. Again, though in the voodoo
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: tradition and in a lot of other traditions, Um, death
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: is just a part of the natural order of things,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: and it's certainly not the end. I think in the West,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: it's kind of viewed even by the religious in some
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: cases as the end, and we don't really like to
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: think about that, you know. That's a good point. Um.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: The other thing Tracy mentioned in here was from nineteen
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: fifteen to nineteen thirty five, the Marine Corps occupied Haiti,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: and during this period there were a lot of books
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: and movies all of a sudden being written about uh
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and portrayed like Haitian voodoo as these you know, crazy
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: blood letting people, so those became really popular. One of
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: them was called White Zombie. Around the same time it
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: had spread uh to New Orleans, and kind of who
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: do became popular. Right in the nineteenth century, there were
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: two women named Marie la vau and Um. One was
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: they were the most powerful women in UM in voodoo
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: culture in the US UM and the one was the
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: mom and the one was the daughter. Mom retired and died,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the daughter disappeared. No one knows what happened to her, UM.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: But after the second one disappeared, UH, the the followers
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: split into factions, and one of the factions became who
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: do and you do became very powerful. And who do
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: is a mix of bow black magic with voodoo and
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: or in the who do tradition, I guess, And so
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: now we have who do? And that is what most
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: people think of when you think of voodoo in the US,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: you think of New Orleans. And then what we're actually
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: thinking of is who do not voodoo. They should have
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: named it something else. They should have, you know, like
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: um Chimmy Chongga or something exactly um UM. So these
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: misconceptions still abound. UM. There was a paper in nine
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: four that apparently this physician who wrote it, A researcher
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: who wrote it still takes flak four. Um. But it
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: was titled Night of the Living Dead to colon. Do
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: necromantic zombieists transmit ht LV three slash l a v
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: during voodooistic rituals? So basically, do necrophiliacs who are into
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: zombieism and our voodoo practitioners started, are they the reason
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: for the spread of aids in Haiti? Well, actually, there
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: is a certain element of public health too, That's what's
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: gonna say. That's like, that's one of the real concerns,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: just not all these Western misconceptions of like taboos. Um.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Real concerns are that there is blood letting and that
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: they freely bleed on one another and or sharing you know,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: the blood of an animal sacrifice, people drinking that that
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: that can be bad stuff. Yeah, so that's a real
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: health concern. Um. Another really practical concern is a lot
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: of and we failed to mention this the priests and
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: priestess is one of their main gigs is to practice
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: folk medicine on on the practitioners of voodoo. Right, because
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: again we said everyday life, like voodoo is part of
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: your everyday life. If you were and right here, and
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: some of these folk practices kind of fly in the
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: face of real medicine. So that's sort of a concern
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: here and there. I think we should replace the word
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: reel with Western. Yeah, you're right, Yeah, you're definitely right,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: because I believe in a lot of like Eastern medicine. Sure,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I might look into voodoo, might clear up my sinuses. Yeah. Uh.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: And like we said, um, death is a big, big
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: part of it, and just the culture of fear that
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: it creates is something that is a big turn off
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: for a lot of well, it creates a culture of
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: fear in the in the West, it is. But again
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: there's I think even informed, um educated people have misconceptions
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: about voodoo because it's been harangued so long in this
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: country that people in the US just really don't understand
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: what what it is that's going on down there, and
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: there's so many misunderstandings. Yeah, they see angel heart, but
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: even beyond that, like even if even if you don't
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: think it's who do you're You're like, okay, well they're
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: turning people into zombies. We did the how zombies work thing,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: and it's real down there. Um, but that's not voodoo.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: That's bo right, yeah, exactly. Um, So it's kind of
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: it makes me Um sad for voodoo, I guess a
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: little sad for voodoo. It makes me sad for the mombas.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: It's definitely Um has a stigma about it, and until
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: I read all about it, I probably fell into that
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: same trap. But then you start realizing, aside from like
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: spiritual possession and a couple of the other things, like
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: you know, it's not so different than other religions when
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: you look at it, and I think Buddhist actually, I
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: think there are times when Buddhism when there is spiritual
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: possession going on there too. Christianity. Now, yeah, there's a
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: good example in this article of um spirit possession happening
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: in the Buddhist tradition, right, Yeah, that's where I heard it. Yeah,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: all right, there was Um in nineteen fifty nine. The
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Dalai Lama was Um speaking with an oracle that was
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: possessed Um, and the oracle gave him advice on how
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: to escape the Chinese army successfully that spirit possession. But
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: it's Buddhism and they don't sacrifice chickens. I think that
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: that's kind of it. There's a lot of blood and
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: death in voodoo and people are afraid of it, right, Um.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: But I read it or saw a thing on NPR
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: today where one guy went down and spent some time
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: with with the voodoo um practitioners, and I think Haiti
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and he said, maybe his Ira Glass people are crazy.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: That's that's more Woody Allen than Ira Glass Um. But
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: he basically like in the dark Side, even the bow
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: to the concept of heaven and hell and Western religion
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: and he he said, quote, the whole point is to
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: manifest the darkness so that goodness can overwhelm it. And
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: it's the same in Voodoo as it is in Christianity.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: And you know, actually I said that Christianity they don't
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: believe in like possession at all. Not quite true. Oh yeah,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: some some like Southern Baptist and Pentecostal believe that the
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: spirit can overtake you in such a way. So I
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: was not quite right there. But again, think about how
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: those people are looked at from the same people who
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: look at voodoo as you know, unseemly. Yeah, good point.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: But what what's going on now though, is there's there's
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: sort of an outright war from on voodoo by missionaries
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: still going there to convert them from what they say
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: as a cult, right or associated with the devil. Well, yeah,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: they associated with Satan, which is ridiculous because nothing about
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: voodoo has anything to do with Satan. I don't even
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: believe it exists. Yeah, so this is Western Christians kind
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: of just putting all their stuff on them. Lots of
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: hang ups. Yeah we uh Anglo Saxon descendants really like
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: to hang our hang ups on other people. Right, Yeah,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: let's let's stop that. Well, I mentioned Angel Hart. We
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: should mention the movies real quick. Angel Hart, great movie.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Who do Surpent in the Rainbow? Great movie? But again
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: that was Wade Davis, the anthropologist, and he's done a lot,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: That's who that was. Yeah, he's done well, it was
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: bull Bill Pullman playing him. But um, he's done a lot.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Actually to a cloud voodoo to continue these misconceptions rather
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: than hear them up. Really yeah, but he's made a
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: lot of money along the way. Good point. And then
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: of course Live and Let Die. We like to talk
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: about Bond. That some voodoo in that best bond ever.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Roger Moore, God, it's so true. Roger Moore was awful. Dude, Dude,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Roger Moore was great. I grew up with Roger Moore,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: so I like, like, I have a certain affinity for
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: some of those films, some of his earlier ones. But
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: it got to the point where it was just like
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: a cartoon of himself. He was never the butt kicker
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: like Connery was, or the New Guys whatever, Dalton or
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: who's a name that Greig? All right, Well, if you
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: want to learn more about James Bond and Voodoo, you
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: can type James Bond and Voodoo into the handy search
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: bar how stuff works dot Com. If doesn't work, which
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: I can pretty much guarantee it won't, just type voodoo
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: try that one. And since I said handy search bart
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com, it's time for listener mail. Josh,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this ghost prisons for reels? Did you
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: read this one from Will h? Hey, guys, just thought
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I would drop a line about my interaction with your
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: recent ghost prisons topic, which we have yet to get
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of flag for. We've gotten zero flak. I'm
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: ready for some flat to come. Aren't way about some way?
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: People stopped listening a long time ago? Chuck, I have
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: met on several occasions a man by the name of
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I'll go ahead and say his name, mom Do Habib,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: who was very prominent in the Australian media for being
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: an Australian citizen held at Gitmo or Jitmo, Gitmo, Gitmo, alright,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: because Guantanamo. It's not Jouantanamo Guantanamo. Through my conversations with him,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: it was clear that he had not only been tained
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: at Guantanamo, but also it was a subject to extraordinary rendition.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: He was captured by the US and Pakistan sent to Egypt,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: where he was held for six months and tortured. The torture, however,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: was ineffective because of the misadministration of drugs by US agents,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: which rendered him almost above feeling for most of the time,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: so like they doped him up so much he couldn't
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: even feel the torture, basically almost as if he was
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: under the power of a voodoo's spell or under the
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: power of morphine. Right after six months, he was dumped
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: back in the pantis Pakistan before getting picked up again
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: and taken to Gitmo. It was apparently common policy for
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the US to first torture then imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: in order to use the torture findings. However, mainly due
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: to the tireless campaigning of his wife, he was released
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: from Guantanamo and returned to ODZ. However, judging from the
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: times I have met him, the experience will never leave him.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: In regards to the tortured, I forgot all about it.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: But you want to come over for a bobby, for
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: a slab of b for a stubby. In regards to
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: the perception that Obama is better in terms of this stuff,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: it is unfortunately not the case. We'll say that Gitmo
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: has been replaced by a Bogram airbase in Afghanistan, in
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: prison even further from the public eyes. Keep up the
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: great work, guys. Hope this finds you in good health.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: There is no way to end that softly. It's gonna
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: stop here. And yeah, keep up with great work. So
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: that comes from Will and he says peace right on Will,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Peace to you two, my friends. So, uh, what do
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: you want to call for, Chuck? I don't know? Something interesting?
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: How about if you are a practitioner of voodoo. That
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: is excellent, Chuck. We want to hear from you, yes,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: please do let us know. Um, if you're a practitioner voodoo,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: we would love to hear from you. Let us know
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: what's going on and what we got glaringly wrong or omitted,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: because this one could like this one could use filling out.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I think a little more. What are they called voodoos?
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Voodoo practitioners, voodooists, voodooists? You know the line in Blazing Sales,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Now go do that voodoo that you do so well? Yes,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Late Harvey corman Um. You can also follow us on Twitter,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: s y s K podcast. We have a Facebook page
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: that we like to hang out on sometimes. It's called
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: stuff you should know. Website in parentheses and you can
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: send us that email if you are into voodoo at
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: page