LANDS OF THE
AFRICAN DIASPORA
Cultural
During the Atlantic slave trade, Europeans transported more than Africa’s people from their native lands to the plantations of the Americas. They transported cultures, worldviews, and religious beliefs millennia old. Out of self-preservation and pressure from their un-Christian-like Christian masters, children of the African diaspora disguised their native spiritual traditions under the guise of mystic Catholicism. Over the centuries, the religions blended together to create unique new faiths that mirrored the traditional faiths of both slave and master, though with a dominant undercurrent of West African practices. Three in particular rose to great prominence and can count among them legions of openly LGBT+ worshippers: Vodou, Santería, and Candomblé.
VODOU
Between dolls with pins in their eyes, zombies, and associations with the macabre, Vodou (alternately spelled Voodoo or Vodoun) is one of the most sensationalized religions around. Most of its morbid undertones come from the fact that it is an ancestral religion because revering one’s ancestors involves revering the dead. There are different types of Vodou such as Haitian Vodou, Louisiana Voodoo, and the Vodou still practiced in Africa, but in general the New World versions are the Creole offspring of West African tribal religions and French Catholicism.
In and of itself, Vodou is very welcoming to the queer community, and in some Caribbean cultures where anti-LGBT+ sentiment is societally strong, the practice of Vodou acts as a safe and welcoming space for queer people to be themselves. There are no legal protections for LGBT+ people in the Vodou capital of Haiti, and in the other Vodou Mecca of Louisiana, the protections are minimal and often not enforced outside of New Orleans. In these geographies of where Vodou is most widely practiced, being outwardly queer often comes at the risk of repercussions ranging from being fired from your job to being the victim of varying degrees of hate crimes. The Vodou community, however, is an accepting and tolerant oasis in a sea of discrimination, and oftentimes it is the only place wherein queer Haitians and Louisianans can be themselves.
Because of this, many LGBT+ people are drawn to the inclusionary, come-as-you-are nature of Vodou; consequently, Vodou has a disproportionately high number of openly queer practitioners in comparison to other religions.73 One’s sexuality and gender expression is never judged by moral standards since there is an inherent understanding that you are as the Divine made you, and the inherent perfection of the Divine means that the Divine doesn’t make mistakes. Therefore, you—however you are—are not a mistake. Moreover, procreation is not a focal point of the religion as it is in pure Catholicism, meaning all forms of non-procreative sex are neither taboo nor seen as unnatural. On the contrary, even the Vodou divinities themselves take pleasure in homoerotic acts of sexuality, but more on that in a bit.74
One of the more well-known parts of Vodou involves the invocation of a spirit (known as a lwa) into one’s own body. This is usually done during a heavily rhythmic type of freeform dance ritual, and sometimes a lwa of one gender will inhabit the body of a human of the opposite gender. At this point, the possessed dancer begins to think, behave, and act like the lwa within them. A masculine man inhabited by an effeminate lwa will begin to act effeminate, an effeminate woman inhabited by a masculine lwa will begin to act masculine, and never are the man or woman’s personal sexuality and gender identity called into question because in that moment, through the ecstasy of the dance, the lwa is in control; the human’s body is just a vessel. As a side note, it’s important to know that Vodou doesn’t label its lwa with LGBT+ labels, though humans often recognize LGBT+ traits in their character.
Not all, but a number of Vodou practitioners also believe in a form of reincarnation wherein the body is ephemeral, but the soul is eternal. To them, the soul is a genderless thing, and each person, regardless of their current sexuality and gender, has been many things from many past lives. A flamingly gay white homosexual male today may once have been a Kinsey 1 heterosexual Asian female at one point or maybe a bisexual black woman or even a gender-fluid pansexual tribesperson in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. Thus one’s outward appearance, labels, and personal desires do not define the true soul of a person, making them null and void in conversations regarding right and wrong. They are just facts of life, all subject to change during the next transmigration of the soul.75
Vodou Takeaway:
Invocation of Opposite Gender Deities
The Vodou practice of spirit possession is an obvious magical takeaway activity. Now, until you learn more about Vodou traditions or already have a relationship with them, don’t go invoking Vodou lwa in a Vodou way. Start with your own magical tradition. Specifically, if your faith involves a pantheon of deities of different genders, invoke a deity of the opposite gender to which you personally identify. But do so, of course, in the manner of your own tradition with which you’re familiar.
It is one thing to talk, act, and empathize with other genders, but to totally lose control and allow another gender to take the reins and make you think, feel, and act like them is a whole ’nother thing. So, for your next magical activity, do an invocation ritual of a deity who is the stereotypical epitome of the gender opposite your own. Try it out, see what it’s like, and rather than just get in touch with another gender, allow that other gender to get in you.
SANTERÍA
Santería is similar yet very different from Vodou in a number of ways. They are similar in the sense that they are both Caribbean in origin, created from the mix of colonial Catholicism and West African traditional religions, and believe in a pantheon of spiritual beings who are often called upon to possess a devotee during ritual dance. Their predominant differences, however, come from the specific branches of their religious roots, from which their other differences evolved naturally. Specifically, while Vodou is more of a mix of French Catholicism and African spirituality from the Dahomey tradition, Santería is more of a mix of Spanish Catholicism and African spirituality from the Yoruba tradition.
Rather than the lwa of Vodou, Santería’s spirits are known as orishas. The Yoruba slaves who once lived under colonial Spanish rule in the Caribbean disguised their orishas as Catholic saints, having each orisha correspond to a specific saint. Through the years, the traits, mythologies, and sphere of spiritual domain that each orisha and saint possessed blended together to form the unique spiritual tradition known today as Santería, which is still popular in their native Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries as well as in the US and Latin American cities with large Spanish-Caribbean immigrant populations.
From the outside, Santería has all the trappings of sensationalism: divination with deceased ancestors, possession, heavy use of drumbeat dance rituals, trances, and, most notoriously of all, animal sacrifice. Added to all this is the fact that Santería also has a statistically large percentage of LGBT+ practitioners in comparison to other religious traditions. The reasoning for this is very similar to the reasoning for the same social phenomenon found in Vodou: Santería places a higher emphasis on the genderless soul of a person rather than their physical body or bodily appetites. This allows for a nonjudgmental and welcoming come-as-you-are attitude to pervade the faith. Moreover, the queer community within the larger machista Caribbean/Catholic cultural society of the islands finds refuge in their religious community of Santería because they can safely and openly be themselves, find others like themselves, and meet other open-minded people. Queer identity is also found in the myths and lore of their orishas.
One example of this is the Santería origin story of homosexuality itself. According to legend, it developed naturally between two male orishas in response to their mother’s attempt to hide her own shame. As the story goes, Yemaya (the orisha of the moon, ocean, feminine mysteries, and the mother deity to all the orishas) was tricked into having sex with her son Shango (orisha of thunder, lightning, fire, and war) in front of his two brothers Abbatá and Inlé (the orishas of healing and the medical profession). Embarrassed and horrified over anyone finding out about this, she banished Abbatá and Inlé to live at the bottom of the sea, away from the rest of the world, and just for good measure she caused Abbatá to become deaf and she cut out Inlé’s tongue. Despite their inability to communicate to one another, they were still able to understand each other empathically. And together, in their mutual loneliness and suffering, the two developed a deep bond that grew into romantic and sexual passion, thus giving birth to homosexuality in the world.76
Other than the obvious origin story, this myth also contains much deeper reflections of gay society. The bonds of being outcasts, rejected by their family, their inability to fully express themselves, and punishment for actions beyond their control all are common themes in the lives of the queer community as a whole. Moreover, it also hints at the natural empathy of LGBT+ persons for others who suffer. The other connection lies in Abbatá’s symbol of intertwining snakes, which, while having associations with the medical caduceus, also has strong homoerotic undertones. Abbatá’s spiritual role as Inlé’s nurse also has a gay undercurrent to it, owing to stereotypes of male nurses being gay. Nevertheless, the specifics of these two lovers vary depending on the preference of the individual practitioner. Preferences range from people seeing Inlé as an androgynous being to people hetero-normalizing their relationship by seeing Abbatá as a full-on female.77
According to some Santería practitioners, one cannot be a solitary practitioner. To them, and to many, Santería is a communal religion. Due to the large percentage of queer practitioners in Santería, exposure to them allows the non-LGBT+ practitioner majority to interact with them and come to see the queer community as good, ordinary people just like them. This creates a societal snowball effect wherein more and more people become more and more accepting, and they, in turn, raise their children to be more socially liberal, leading to even greater acceptance within Santería. Furthermore, many leaders within Santería are openly queer; as leaders, they direct the course of the religion to become even more accepting and open-minded.78
Nevertheless, like most religions, Santería is a far from utopian ideal of perfect acceptance. Despite around 30–50 percent of practitioners being LGBT+ individuals and the majority of all practitioners being women, the hierarchical structure of Santería prevents queer people and women (in most lines) from rising to the highest leadership roles of being a Babalawo (the highest-ranking level in the priesthood). Also, gay men are restricted from playing the sacred drums known as the batá. Lastly, the religion maintains a strict division of labor between the sexes, and when one’s sexual orientation, expression, and identity don’t line up with conventional gender roles, one’s hierarchical place within the religion can become complicated and subject to the discretion of regional leadership. But despite these limitations, the LGBT+ community is generally greatly accepted within Santería and experiences much more freedom than in many other religions in our modern world.79
Santería Takeaway:
Sacredness of Community
Santería is a very communal faith, and the togetherness aspect is highly revered. More than just helping each other and always being there for each other, the Santería community holds sacred their communal interactions with one another. So, for your next magical activity, get out there and help your community. Magical intentions, words, and correspondences are all great, but what do they amount to if we don’t act upon them? Volunteer, get involved in activism, help out a literal neighbor. The more we interact with society in a positive and beneficial way, the more society sees us as positive and beneficial. After all, a helping hand is often the most powerful spellwork one can do for the greater good.
CANDOMBLÉ
To round out our tour of African diasporic religions, we’ll sail out of the Caribbean and dock at the South American nation of Brazil, which has the dubious double dishonor of not only being the number one destination for most of the African slaves taken to the New World (about 40 percent of the slave trade total), but it also was the very last nation in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery altogether. The sheer number of slaves combined with the extended timeline of legalized slavery created a unique and lasting spiritual and cultural fusion among the Brazilian people. Nowadays, Brazil is a country with one of the largest populations of people of African descent, second only to Nigeria.80
Of all the eclectic spiritual traditions to emerge from this unique history, Candomblé is one of the largest and most well-known. It shares similar characteristics with its northern cousins Vodou and Santería, but Candomblé is more a result of West African traditions melding with Portuguese Catholicism and the various native religions found in Aboriginal Brazil. Like Vodou and Santería, though, Candomblé also places high emphasis on a spiritual pantheon of orixás (their spelling of orishas), as well as ritualistic drumming, freeform dance, and spirit possession. It also has a very strong queer following.
It is important to note that Candomblé was not always accepting of the queer community. Originally, its strict rules and hierarchies placed severe, prejudiced limitations on anyone LGBT+. But in the early 1900s a separate branch of the religion known as caboclo developed and rapidly gained in popularity due to its preference for bawdier, more irreverent orixás and lack of restrictions toward its LGBT+ members. Consequently, the rise in popularity of caboclo forced more mainstream Candomblé to become less strict and more open to its queer adherents. Still, though, the caboclo branch of the religion, due to its history, is known as the “queer” version of Candomblé and the title itself carries with it an understood nuance of queerness. 81
Candomblé’s modern popularity among the queer community is very similar to the community’s affinity for Vodou and Santería. It is a welcoming and tolerant place to express one’s true self in an otherwise intolerant and discriminatory cultural society, their sexual identity and gender expression is reflected in both mythology and spiritual deities, and there is no perceived morality over sexual orientation or identity.
In Candomblé there does not exist the common duality of good and evil. Rather, each person is embedded with their own personal destiny to fulfill, and the destiny of one person might require a different moral code than the destiny of another. Of course, this is tempered by the additional cosmic reciprocity belief that what you do to others will eventually come back to you, so this is by no means a spiritual tradition that condones a “to hell with the consequences” type of mentality. But all in all, there is an atmosphere of nonjudgment among the faithful, stressing the importance of letting people express themselves in the ways most correct for them, which include sexuality and gender identity. Granted, not all members are tolerant, but as a whole Candomblé is much less intolerant than many of the modern world’s major religions. 82
Queer Candomblé practitioners are often members of a “house.” These houses are similar to drag queen houses wherein everyone comes together and forms a close family-like bond, often under the leadership of a more experienced “mother” or “father.” In Brazilian society these Candomblé houses have been at the forefront of LGBT+ rights movements in both advocacy and mobilization. They have even been known to go out of their way to implement HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns and assist those already infected by providing references and treatment information. Because of their efforts, Brazil nowadays has some of the most progressive legal protections for the queer community in the world, although culturally there still exists a tremendous amount of discrimination and intolerance. 83
Besides houses, Candomblé excels in another highly evolved gay mainstay: reading, as in reading a fellow queen to filth. In fact, in the 1980s, gay anthropologist Jim Wafer studied the gay culture of the followers of Candomblé, and he was particularly fascinated with their own form of stylized and playful verbal abuse among one another that they call baixa. According to his studies, gay Candomblé practitioners have two distinct forms of baixa; one form is used in secular public settings and the other is used only in private rituals during festivals. The main difference is in the vocabulary and types of reads one does. The secular version is akin to common reading as we know it in contemporary gay culture, but the religious version purposely makes use of orixás, ritual inside jokes, and mentions of house politics. While similar, each type of baixa developed its own rhythmic flow and spoken artform that are distinct from one another. Wafer makes a final note about baixa, stating that it is very much a gay-centric thing since it is mutually understood between gay Brazilian men and those familiar with the community. 84
Candomblé Takeaway:
Sacredness of Queer Community
Now, I know what you’re saying: “But Tomás, this was the activity from a few pages ago.” And yes, it is, but with a different focus: this is the sacredness of our own queer community. You see, Santería has made great strides in Spanish-Caribbean society of bringing the queer and non-queer communities together, breaking down barriers, and showing how we can all get along. But what our Candomblé brothers and sisters do really well is take action to support their own sacred queer community. Through their establishment of taking in runaways to form houses, HIV/AIDS activism, and developing their own forms of verbal communication, they are bringing the queer Brazilian community closer together and looking out for one another.
As LGBT+ people, we often throw around the word “community” as if we meant it, but taking a look around, fragmentation and in-fighting is everywhere. It’s nice to say that we are a community and then all show up together at a Pride event, but how are we paying tribute to our sacred queer community the other fifty-one weeks of the year? Don’t just say it, show it.
So, for your next magical activity, help out your queer tribe. Volunteer at your local LGBT+ center, start a queer support group on Facebook, blog about your experience as a queer spellworker; the options are endless. Regardless of how you do it, show your magical devotion to the community through action because if all you’re doing is lighting a candle and sending good intentions for your queer tribe, how are you different from those who, in response to a call for aid, say things like “my thoughts and prayers are with you”? Remember, direct action gets satisfaction; as a global minority group, we need to help each other out with actions, not just words. Helping hands are holier than lips that pray.
Deities & Legends
Babalú-Ayé
Known as Babalú-Ayé in Santería and as Obaluaiê in Candomblé, he is the orisha of disease and healing. In addition to being both greatly feared and greatly respected, he is one of the most popular orishas due to myriad accounts of his miraculous healing intercessions. While not necessarily considered a queer entity in and of himself, since the birth of the HIV/AIDS epidemic he has been adopted by the LGBT+ community. To many in the community, Babalú-Ayé is seen as the preeminent orisha for people suffering from HIV/AIDS, and queer-specific petitions to him for his healing powers are numerous. And although he is an orisha, he, too, suffers from physical lameness and a diseased body. This suffering grants an understanding of solidarity between him and mortals since, unlike other deities, he can directly empathize with their sickness and pain.
Beyond the HIV/AIDS connection, the LGBT+ community holds him especially sacred for his kindness to the outcasts of the world. Legends tell of how he is the orisha who goes to help those isolated by contagious and communicable diseases when no one else would for fear of being infected themselves. His sacred color is also purple, which has internationally understood connections within the queer community. 85
The most common offering to him are grains, and he has strong earth element correspondences. When using a vessel to present or hold offerings, though, it is traditional for the lid of the vessel to have holes in it, symbolizing the impossibility of forever shielding yourself from sickness. Additionally, his vessels are never left stationary. They are traditionally kept moving to various locations in accordance with Babalú-Ayé’s mythological stories wherein movement and staying active are taught to be the best forms of healing because they prevent stagnation and keep the body healthy, preventing the body from getting sick in the first place. In spellwork, devotees pray to him to both cure loved ones of diseases and punish their enemies with diseases. 86
Baron Samedi
Baron Samedi is arguably one of the best-known of the Vodou lwa in pop culture thanks to his eccentric personality and caricaturized depiction in popular movies such as Dr. Facilier in Disney’s The Princess and the Frog and as the aptly named Baron Samedi in the James Bond classic Live and Let Die. As the patron lwa of death, graves, cemeteries, healing, smoking, drinking, and obscenities, he is one of the most transgressive deities of any religion.
Appearance-wise, he is often depicted as having a skeletal-thin frame, with a glass of rum or a cigar in his gloved hand and wearing a dapper purple frock coat and top hat. He sometimes complements this by adding into the mix some feminine essentials such as a skirt and pumps. Particularly, he is known for his disregard of tact and decorum as well as for his lascivious debauchery, but he does it all with an urbane air of suaveness.
Sometimes he is seen as a transgender lwa but always with an unabashed preference for anal sex. His fluid ability to go beyond the binary of man/woman, straight/gay, masculine/feminine, earth/underworld, living/dead makes him a popular lwa to the queer community and those who feel the need to transgress boundaries without shame or who feel they don’t fit into a singular category of labels.87
In devotion, cemeteries are places sacred to him, and he often asks that his devotees wear the colors black, white, or purple. For offerings, he has a preference for heavy smoky things such as black coffee, grilled nuts, cigars, and dark rum. He is mostly petitioned for hexes and harmful magic but is also petitioned for the prevention of death during life-threatening illnesses, during dangerous moments, and in response to being fatally hexed. According to tradition, it is said that one can only die if Baron Samedi digs your grave. Because he is a capricious, spur-of-the-moment kind of personality, he may choose not to dig your grave, thus letting you live through whatever is going on with you, if petitioned to do so, or if he just doesn’t feel like digging your grave for any reason whatsoever. 88
Erzulie Fréda & Erzulie Dantor
Erzulie is a family of Vodou lwa, of which two members are sometimes directly associated with the queer community: Erzulie Fréda and Erzulie Dantor. Erzulie Fréda can be most likened to the Greek goddess Aphrodite and is the lwa of love, beauty, jewelry, dancing, luxury, flowers, and male homosexuals. Gay men are said to be under her divine protection, and it is not uncommon for men to claim that their sexual orientation was directly the result of having invoked Erzulie Fréda to possess them during ritualistic dance. She is also known to be very flirtatious toward all genders, and someone of whom she is in possession often will be seen flirting with others regardless of their regular sexual orientation. Befitting a love deity, her sacred symbol is that of a heart, her sacred color is pink, and she prefers romantic offerings such as perfume, desserts, jewelry, and sweet-flavored spirits. 89
Erzulie Dantor, in comparison, is the lwa of women, children, and lesbians. She is often depicted as a black-skinned Virgin Mary with scars on her face and a well-endowed bosom, holding a black-skinned Jesuslike child. Her sacred colors are usually blue and gold, while her preferred offerings are Florida water, pork, rum, and especially chocolate liqueur. 90
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74. Elizabeth A. McAlister, Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).
75. Rev. Severina K. M. Singh, “Haitian Vodou and Sexual Orientation,” in The Esoteric Codex: Haitian Vodou, ed. Garland Ferguson (Morrisville: Lulu Press, Inc., 2002), 50–53.
76. Randy P. Conner, “Gender and Sexuality in Spiritual Traditions,” in Fragments of Bone: Neo-African Religions in a New World, ed. Patrick Bellegarde-Smith (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2005).
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78. Scott Thumma and Edward R. Gray, Gay Religion (Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 2004).
79. Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, “Sexual Discussions in Santería: A Case Study of Religion and Sexuality Negotiation,” Journal of Sexuality Research & Social Policy 3:3 (2006), http://www.academia.edu/1953070/Sexuality_discussions_in_Santer%C3%ADa_A_case_study_of_religion_and_sexuality_negotiation (accessed Nov. 1, 2016).
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83. Andrea Stevenson Allen, Violence and Desire in Brazilian Lesbian Relationships (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
84. Jim Wafer, The Taste of Blood: Spirit Possession in Brazilian Candomblé (Philadephia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991).
85. “Babalu Aye,” Association of Independent Readers & Rootworkers, June 20, 2017, http://readersandrootworkers.org/wiki/Babalu_Aye (accessed Aug. 18, 2017).
86. David H. Brown, Santería Enthroned: Art, Ritual, and Innovation in an Afro-Cuban Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
87. Tomás Prower, La Santa Muerte: Unearthing the Magic & Mysticism of Death (Woodbury: Llewellyn, 2015).
88. “Baron Samedi—A Loa of the Dead,” Kreol Magazine, http://www.kreolmagazine.com/arts-culture/history-and-culture/baron-samedi-a-loa-of-the-dead/ (accessed June 12, 2017).
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