Berlin Sketches: Haitian Voodoo in Berlin

So, you can't stand the heat and are desperate for some place to cool down?

Visit the Haitian Vodou exhibition in the ethnological museum at Berlin-Dahlem! It's nice and cool, but you have to bring your own pins and needles.

Apparently the whole sticking-needles-into-dolls-thingy to harm your enemies is nothing but a big fat myth initially told by an American fiction writer and later spread all over the world through Hollywood industry.

Isn't that a shame!

After the discovery of the island of Hispaniola by Columbus in 1492 (where nowadays the states Haiti and the Dominican Republic are situated) and the subsequent annihilation of the natives within the very short period of 25 years, the western third of the island became a French colony in 1697.

To sustain the forestry and sugar-related industries, slaves were imported to Haiti from Western and Central Africa. They brought their deities with them, but were not allowed to practice their cult. Over time, this fact led to the blending of traditional beliefs with Roman Catholic liturgy.

One century later Haiti's nearly half million slaves revolted and independence was declared in 1804.

Voodoo (also: Vaudou, Vodoun, Vodou etc.) designates the sacred, the power coming from the invisible world to influence the here and now. I found it translated as "spirit" or "god".