The drums of Vodou 9780941677165, 0941677168, 9780941677264, 0941677265, 9780941677455, 0941677451

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Performance in World Music Series

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Lawrence Aynesmith, Series Editor

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* The Drums of Vodou. Lois Wilcken, featuring Frisner Augustin. * The Music of Santeria: Traditional Rhythms of the Bata Drums. John Amira and Steven Cornelius.

* Salsa!: The Rhythm of Latin Music. Charley Gerard with Marty Sheller. * Drum Gahu: The Rhythms of West African Drumming. David Locke.

* Drum Damba: Talking Drum Lessons. David Locke, featuring Abubakari Lunna.

* Kpegisu: A War Drum of the Ewe. David Locke, featuring Godwin Agbell. * Xylophone Music from Ghana. Trevor Wiggins and Joseph Kobom.

* Synagogue Song in America. Joseph A. Levine.

THE DRUMS

OF VODOU

Lois Wilcken featuring Frisner Augustin

White Cliffs Media Company Tempe, AZ

© 1992 Lois Wilcken Cover photo of Frisner Augustin © Chantal Regnault, used by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or trans-

mitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without

written permission from the publisher, or in the case of photocopies, the Copyright Clearance Center. White Cliffs Media Company 2121 S. Mill Ave., Suite 206 Tempe, AZ 85282

Distributed to the book trade by

The Talman Company.

Printed on acid-free paper in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Wilcken, Lois, 1949-

The Drums of Vodou

/ Lois Wilcken, featuring Frisner Augustin

pcm. — (Performance in world music series ; no. 8) Includes bibliographical references and index. Discography: p. 125. Filmography: p. 125.

ISBN 0-941677-26-5 (cloth: alk. paper) : $39.95 ISBN 0-941677-16-8 (pbk.: alk. paper) : $19.95 ISBN 0-941677-45-1 (spiral: alk. paper) : $29.95

1. Folk music — Haiti — History and criticism. 2. Drum.

3. Musical meter and rhythm. 4. Folk dancing — Haiti. 5. Voodooism — Haiti. I. Title. II. Series ML 3565.W54 1992 781.7'96 — dc20 92-368 CIP

Contents Acknowledgments — 7 Foreword — 9

Preface — 11

Chapter One: Social and Historical Context— 17

The Histoncal Context of Vodou — 17 Revolution and the Making of a Vodou Culture — 18

Buming the Drums: Anti- Vodou Campaigns — 19

The Folkloric Movement — 20 Vodou Drumming in New York — 21

The Religious Context — 21 The Belief System — 21

The Servants, the Temple, the Rites — 25 Summary — 28

Chapter Two: The Instruments — 29 Physical Characteristics — 29

Drums — 30

The Rada Battery — 32 The Petwo Battery — 33 The Kongo Timbal — 35

Rare and Obsolete Drums — 36 Vodou Drums in New York — 38 The Ogan, or Iron Gong— 40

Sacred Rattles: The Ason and the Tchatcha — 41 Miscellaneous Instruments — 42

The Lanbi: Conch Trumpet of the Sea God — 42 Petwo Sounds: The Whistle and the Whip — 43 Spiritual Charactenstics — 44 Outd, the Spirit of the Drums — 44 Rituals for the Drums — 45 Baptism — 46

The Journey to Ife — 46 The Role of Drums in Spirit Possession — 47

Summary — 48

Chapter Three: The Rhythms — 49 General Features — 49

Pulse and the Time Span — 49

Meter, Polymeter, or None of the Above — 51

6

The Drums of Vodou Tempo — 51 Form — 52

The Cyclical Nature of Vodou Rhythm — 52 Breaking the Cycle: The Kase —52 Technique and Timbre — 53

Tuning — 54

Notating the Vodou Rhythmic Patterns — 55

Analysis of the Rhythms — 59

Yanvalou —59

Transcriptions of the Rhythms — 62

Chapter Four: Song and Dance — 92

Song — 92 Spiritual Considerations — 92 The Origins of Songs — 92

Song Specialists and the Choir — 93 The Sacred Texts — 93

Physical Characteristics — 94

Scale — 95

Phrasing — 95

Call-and-Response Form — 96 Meter — 98

Dance — 102

Origins of the Dances — 102 Classification — 103 Ritual Function — 104

Descriptions of the Dances — 104

Summary — 108

Chapter Five: On Becoming

a Master Drummer— 109

Excerpt from Interview with Frisner Augustin

Chapter Six: Conclusion — 113 Notes — 117

Glossary —120

Notes on the Spelling of Kreyol Words — 122 Bibliography — 123

Discography — 125

Filmography — 125 Index — 126

Acknowledgments A Haitian proverb says, Yon sel dwet pa manje kalalou (One

person cannot do it alone). Various people contributed to this

book. I will mention a few and trust that others are aware of my tacit gratitude.

Above all, lacknowledge Frisner Augustin, my longtime friend and informant. For this book he worked with me on general content, answered questions, granted the interview for Chapter Five, and recorded the accom-

panying cassette. | thank my other informants, particularly Jean Alphonse,

Steve Deats, Jean Paul Joseph, Jocelyn Louis, Carole Jean Louis, Paul New-

man, and Steve White.

I am indebted to my teachers in ethnomusicology. Among them are

Gage Averill, Dieter Christensen, Barbara Hampton, Cynthia Schmidt, and

Philip Schuyler. Many thanks to Karen Brown, a scholar of religion, for her challenging questions about rhythm. Members of the Center for Ethnomusicology at Columbia University helped with processing the music examples. They are Michael Largey, Peter

Manuel, and Ming Tsao. Robert Martin provided additional help with music software, and Chantal Regnault contributed the cover photo. I thank Larry Smith and the staff of White Cliffs Media Company for their comments and suggestions on editorial and production issues. Finally, Mr. Augustin and I acknowledge

Ezili Danto, our source of

spiritual help and inspiration. Mési anpil, gwo manbo nou. Lots E. Wilcken

Brooklyn, New York, 1992

Foreword

D rums are accorded special treatment in Haitian religion, as they are throughout Afro-Caribbean cultures. They are sacred symbols—indeed they are often regarded as a kind of poto mitan (central pillar) of the African cultural inheritance—but they are also sacred media, used in ceremonies to call the lwa-s (deities of Haitian Vodou). Knowledgeable drummers are essential for a successful ceremony; many Vodou ceremonies fall apart for lack of good drummers. The success of a book such as this one is also dependent upon the participation of a master

drummer, and here we are indebted to Frisner Augustin for choosing to share so much introductory knowledge in this fashion. The book is as interactional as the music, bringing together the talents of Augustin with those of Lois Wilcken, a researcher with a long acquaintance with Vodou dance,

music and ceremony. Their decade-long collaboration brings a particular

richness and complexity of viewpoints to the book.

Musics of African descent are typically governed by principles of interaction. Soloists and choirs “converse” in call-and-response fashion; gestalt-

like composite patterns emerge from the intricate interlocking of numerous percussion instruments; each instrument has its own pitch range and sonority; master drum patterns function as signals and cues, alerting musicians and dancers to changes and breaks in the fabric of the music; and drummers and dancers respond to each other’s constantly-shifting improvisations. The complexity that outsiders find so baffling in these musics is not rooted in the difficulty of any one vocal melody or percussion part,

but in the cumulative interactive patterning. The authors of this book have accepted the challenge to explicate Haitian sacred drumming for interested outsiders. One of the implicit assumptions of this book is that the discipline and respect required to study musical even in a rudimentary fashion—is powerful pedagogical process and a musical culture. The notion of

performance—that is, to learn to play transformative . . . that it can activate a deepen the potential for understanding performance has been at the center of 9

10

The Drums of Vodou

debates on competing models for ethnomusicological research, but while ethnomusicologists debate the necessity of “learning to play” for musical understanding, it is indisputable that the performance of non-Western musics has dramatically increased within the leisure and intellectual pursuits of many in the technologically advanced countries. For some, this book may be their first introduction to Haitian religious music, a gateway into a complex philosophical system and sacred tradition. One can only hope that those drawn to performance of Haitian music

will use the opportunity to become increasingly aware of Haitian social,

political and cultural realities. Many of these realities are addressed by the

sections of this book that cover history, ritual functions, and the cultural context of the drumming. As more Haitians settle abroad, and as Haiti is incorporated further into the global economy, it is more important than ever

to dispell the many derogatory myths and stereotypes that have been per-

petuated about Haiti and Haitian Vodou. This volume represents a noble

collaboration that will be of value to researchers, musicians, and to those

who love and respect Haiti. One, Réspé

Gage Averill

(Honor, Respect).

Wesleyan University Music Department

Preface J anuary 3, 1981. It was cold, blustery, and threatening to snow any minute. I came out of the subway on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, my new conga drum in tow, hoping to avoid the big flakes that were sure to fall. On Broadway and Ninety-ninth Street, I found my destination, a hotel in the middle of Manhattan's Haitian enclave. Frisner Augustin lived here, and he was about to give me my first lesson in Vodou drumming.

Since September, | had been attending the rehearsals of an established

Haitian folkloric group. They were a good group, but they lacked a regular drummer, and in the performances I had seen so far, a dancer and an American student accompanied on drums. I had a hunch this wasn’t what [ was after, and a new acquaintance had told me last night, “Ah, you should be studying with Frisner Augustin!” Augustin, he assured me, was a true

master drummer. I immediately set up a time for a class. He wasn’t there at the appointed time, so I waited in the hall outside his room. I was still nonplussed by what many of my new friends called “Haitian time,” a category radically distinct from precise clock time. I

would give much thought later to how Haitian time works on the level of the drum pattern, whose strokes always seem to fall a fraction of amoment after the anticipated, as if holding back ever so slightly. Now, just as I was thinking about giving up, Augustin appeared. He didn’t say much at first and seemed more interested in examining my very ordinary conga. But then, I was just as absorbed in the extraordi-

nary

appearance

of

his

small

room.

From

every

wall

and

corner,

chromolithic images and petite statues of the Vodou spirits stared at me: Ezili, Danbala, Ogou, Marasa, Géde . . . Although I didn’t know their names

yet, the candles that flickered on the floor beneath them told me that I was

in the home of what Haitians call a sévité (servant) of the lwa (Vodou spirits).

I breathed a very satisfied sigh of relief. I had arrived at the place I'd set out

for three months ago.

The lesson centered around a rhythm called yanvalou, which accom-

panies a dance by the same name. Augustin starts a new student with it be11

12

The Drums of Vodou

cause it is the dance that opens a Vodou ceremony, and not because it is the most simple of rhythms. As I struggled to get the different kinds of strokes just right, the master stopped me and, pointing around the walls of his

room, said, “When you play the Vodou drum, relax, and let these people

help you.”

A couple of hours later, I was back on Broadway, headed for the subway,

full of a new experience. I hardly noticed that it had begun to snow. Frisner Augustin was born on March 1, 1948, in the L’H6pital Général

(General Hospital) of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital. His father was an itinerant carpenter, his mother a factory worker, but it was his grandmother who raised him. Rose Laguerre came from Jacmel, a town south of Port-auPrince and provincial by comparison. According to Augustin, Rose was a

skillful healer who used both herbs and spiritual knowledge to help her family. She passed her intimacy with the Vodou spirits on to her offspring.

The family lived in a neighborhood that inhabitants of Port-au-Prince call déyé simityé, literally, “behind the cemetery” because of its location with

respect to the capital’s largest graveyard. From many of the houses in this neighborhood, you can see the tops of pastel-colored mausoleums jutting above the walls of the cemetery. The neighborhood itself is a labyrinth of corridors, some so narrow you have to squeeze through them. By Port-auPrince standards, it is not the poorest; by North American standards, déyé simityé is seething with poverty. Only a handful of people have running water; many are undernourished. But despite meager resources, the people behind the cemetery construct and maintain a number of Vodou temples. It was in these temples that Augustin trained as a drummer. Rose Laguerre’s youngest child, Catelus, was a drummer who played not only for the spirits but for tourists as well. A folkloric movement had flowered in Port-au-Prince in the 1940s, and dance troupes now played in the big hotels that served the tourists. Catelus drummed for several groups, and he traveled with them as well. His uncle’s travels excited Augustin and inspired him to learn. As a teenager, he was playing for the professional troupes, and he traveled to Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. These gains

were offset by the ascendancy of Francois Duvalier to the presidency.

Tourism

took

a nosedive

as Papa

Doc

imposed

brutal repression

throughout the country. Now, when folkloric artists traveled, they didn’t

come back. In 1972, Augustin came to New York with a dance band and decided that it would not be in his interests to return to Haiti. After establishing a base in New York and securing residency in the United States, Augustin carved outa living for himself driving a taxi, drum-

Preface

13

ming for the folkloric troupes that played in festivals for Haitians in New

York,

and

teaching.

The

diaspora

mushroomed

under

the economic

“reforms” of Baby Doc Duvalier, and the new immigrants established

Vodou houses in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan. Augustin

was perhaps the first to drum for them, and he took his students along with him. Such was the situation when I became his student.

I was bom April 8, 1949, in Staten Island, New York. My father was an

auto

mechanic

and

my

mother

a homemaker,

but both were musically

talented and had entertained aspirations toward careers in music. My father still played weekends in a dance band, and the family did some informal music-making around a Webcor tape recorder that my father borrowed. My

parents could harmonize and modulate their way through the popular

repertoire of the day, and it is to them that I owe my love for music. As I grew up, I went through various phases of musical taste: Broadway, rock, classical. After a three-year bout of Beatlemania as a teen, I entered Hunter

College to study for a bachelor’s degree in music.

The college music curriculum emphasized the masterpieces of European art music, but that did not supplant my interest in the grass roots. It was the era of the Vietnam war. Like many in my generation, I questioned the hegemony of major powers over Third World societies and recognized the oppressive, and repressive, effects of that hegemony on all of us. Through music composition, I explored expressive culture as a means of

freeing the spirit. During the mid-seventies, I finished a master’s degree in music composition and cultivated an interest in music, altered states of consciousness, and healing. Just as a new decade was about to open, I turned to Third World societies for more.

I began to take courses in ethnomusicology. For a course in African

music, I had written 2 term paper on music and spirit possession among the Shona of Zimbabwe, using a source on spirit possession that included data on Haitian Vodou. At the same time, I was aware of the substantial Haitian population in New York through a friend interested in Haitian art music, and several Haitians she introduced me to assured me that Vodou rituals

were happening in New York. When I had to select a subject for field work in the fall of 1980, I chose the drums of Vodou. These, then, were the forces that led me to Frisner Augustin’s class in 1981. We have written this book simply because there is no other like it. In the

scholarship of Vodou music, little is said of the drum patterns, and transcriptions, where they do exist, are usually flawed. The few studies that

14.

The Drums of Vodou

notate them accurately are concerned with specific issues and use a few pat-

terns by way of example. No study to date compiles and classifies all of the

major rhythms.

We would be presumptuous to say that the music presented here is the definitive Vodou drumming. There is no such thing in Haiti. The reader should keep in mind that Vodou music is regional; the patterns played in

Port-au-Prince, in Jacmel, in Cap Haitien, in Leogane, etc., vary widely. Cer-

tain principles of organization are the same everywhere, but the details change as you travel through the country. The regional version we present is characteristic of Port-au-Prince and its vicinity. Some point out that the Port-au-Prince style of drumming amalgamates all Haitian styles. In recent decades, the capital has attracted migrants from all corners of the country as a result of soil erosion and the appropriation of land by agro-industry for export crops. This claim for a synthetic Port-au-Prince drumming style lacks substantiation but merits consideration. Furthermore, although the Statistics are not available, it appears that a plurality, if not a majority, of

Haitians living in New York City are from the capital. The rhythmic patterns described in the following pages, then, are familiar to anyone follow-

ing Vodou music in New York. We do not include the music of kanaval and rara (Lenten and Eastertime

festivals, respectively) within the scope of this book. Together, they constitute a cycle of performances that has a religious dimension, but they are distinguished enough from Vodou to deserve a study of their own. Likewise, we do not deal with secular folklore, dance band music, art music,

and music of the Catholic and Protestant churches in Haiti. Although the subject of this book is commonly known as “voodoo,” we prefer to use the more accurate spelling here because “voodoo” conjures up

stereotypes that we hope to debunk. Mr. Augustin and I offer the reader the combined perspectives of a prac-

titioner raised in the culture of Vodou and a researcher trained in the notation and analysis of musical patterns. Each of us reaches into the domain of the other—Mr. Augustin in his role as teacher and myself as a participant in Vodou ceremonies—and we hope that this is the spark that ignites the content. Behind us are the /wa-s, the recognized authors of Vodou music. With

all respect and humility before them, we invite you to come with us on this journey into the drums of Vodou. Lois Wilcken

THE DRUMS

OF VODOU

Chapter One Soctal and Historical Context Au music has meaning that goes beyond the sound itself. If music is culture, as some scholars argue,’ then it embodies the ethos, the values, and the historical experience of the people

who make it. Any study of Vodou music would not make sense

without placing it first in its proper context.

Vodou music has a history that is central to the very dramatic story of the Haitian people. Drum patterns, like the spirits they represent and evoke, are rooted in the practices of enslaved people who labored in the sugar cane

fields during the colonial period. The way the rhythms and dances are ordered ina ritual has something to do with the structure of slave society in

what was then called St. Domingue. This chapter, then, looks at the histori-

cal processes that gave birth to the music culture of Vodou, and at the belief system that gives it meaning.

The Historical Context of Vodou From early in its evolution, Haitian Vodou has included a political dimension along with the religious. All observers, both from outside and within,

claim that Vodou played a critical role in Haiti's struggle for independence. Since independence, Vodou has been a matter of controversy and a thorn in the side of the elites who hold the reins of power. More than one Haitian

president has exploited Vodou leaders and Vodou imagery to maximize his

own power (the latest being Francois Duvalier). Despite persecutions and negative stereotyping, the faith of Vodou servants remains a significant

force in the life of the nation.

17

18

The Drums of Vodou

Revolution and the Making of a Vodou Culture The modern history of Haiti began when the voyages of Christopher

Columbus brought the Spanish into contact with the Taino Arawaks on the island they called Hispaniola. The impact of this contact on the indigenous population is well documented: within two generations, the Amerindian population was nearly annihilated by disease and enslavement. A few Tainos managed to survive in mountain enclaves. The Spanish replenished its lost work force with indentured servants and slaves from Africa. From the beginning, Africans resisted, and many ran off into the mountains,

where they joined forces with Taino survivors. The Indians introduced the African maroons (refugees) to the island’s medicinal herbs and to their

religious ideas and practices. Some of these practices may have been musi-

cal, and it is likely that the tchatcha (rattle) used in Petwo rites is of Taino

origin. In time, the indigenous survivors and their mestizo offspring blended into the growing African population.

In 1697, the western third of Hispanola was ceded to France in the Treaty of Ryswick, and France methodically cultivated a sugar industry over the

next decades. In order to maximize profits on the production of cane sugar,

French merchants expanded the slave trade in what they now called St.

Domingue. Maroon colonies swelled as the slave labor force did, and they became hotbeds of political resistance. The creolized religious cults that coalesced during the eighteenth century among maroons and plantation slaves included a political dimension. That they represented a threat to the planters is substantiated in the writing of Moreau de St-Mery, who in 1789

warned that the “Vaudoux” constituted a “terrible weapon” in the hands of the slaves. Similarly, Drouin de Bercy noted the revolutionary drive of the Don Pedro cult, from which today’s Petwo rite evolved.? The political, economic, and social fabric of this most lucrative French

colony began to unravel after the storming of the Bastille in Paris in 1789. A class of afranchi (freed men and women), mostly of mixed African and

European descent, demanded equal rights as French citizens, and the white establishment responded with violence. In the chaos that followed, the slaves seized their opportunity to revolt. In August 1791, on the plantation of Le Normand de Mézy in the northern plains, the maroon priest Boukman conducted a ceremony to finalize plans for a massive uprising. To the beat of the drums, Boukman’s followers sacrificed a pig, took an oath of loyalty to their leader, and called on the spirits to help them. A week later, the conch shells sounded, signalling the first and only successful slave insurrection in

modern history.

Social and Historical Context

19

Thirteen tumultuous years followed, during which the struggle to end

Slavery turned into a war for independence from France. The afranchi, many

of whom were wealthy, joined forces with the slaves. In 1803, Napoleon’s

army suffered its first defeat in St. Domingue, and on January 1, 1804, the

colony declared its independence and renamed itself Haiti, after an Arawak

word for “mountainous.” A civil war followed, and in 1820, the afranchi emerged at the helm of the fledgling nation. Burning the Drums: Anti-Vodou Campaigns Haitian society is characterized by a dichotomy between the elites who are literate and of mixed African and European descent, and the masses who transmit their culture orally and are of almost exclusively African descent. In reality, the society is made more complex by the presence of black elites and a small but growing middle class, but the most pronounced split is between the mulatto elites and the masses. Cultural symbols reflect their

differences: elites speak French and worship in the Catholic Church; the masses speak KreyOl and serve the Vodou spirits.

Despite its critical role in the revolution, Vodou went underground after

independence. The elites who came into power understood European racial theories and prejudices. They argued that Haiti was “civilized” and out-

lawed Vodou by decree. The government signed an agreement with the Vatican in 1860 that encouraged missionaries to proseletyze among the

peasantry. Since that time, the Church together with the state has sponsored several violent and widespread persecutions of Vodou, such as the one Métraux witnessed. I was in Haiti in 1941 and I remember seeing in the back-yards of presbyteries vast pyramids of drums, painted bowls, necklaces, talismans—all waiting for the day fixed for the joyous blaze which was to symbolize the victory of the Church over Satan.

In the twentieth century, fundamentalist Protestant sects have swelled

the ranks of anti-Vodou activists. The religion of the peasants and pro-

letarians has survived repression; in fact, it has distinguished itself for its

resilience and

its adaptive

abilities. To the exasperation of Church

authorities, peasants converted by force have no difficulty following two

faiths, and Catholic practices permeate Vodou without destroying its essence. Since the 1940s, bowing to the tenacity of African traditions, many parishes have brought the drum into Sunday worship. The relationship between the established Church and Vodou, however, remains complex and politically charged.

20

The Drums of Vodou

The Folkloric Movement

At the turn of the twentieth century, the United States repeatedly invoked the Monroe Doctrine to expand its economic interests throughout Latin America. Like most of her neighbors, Haiti experienced military invasion.

The United States occupation of Haiti, led by marines, lasted from 1915 until

1934. In the occupation’s early years, guerilla forces that traced their lineage

to the maroon colonies of the eighteenth century put up a militant resistance

but lost their lives by the thousands to the invaders’ more sophisticated

weapons.

Haitian intellectuals were equally as incensed as the peasantry by the invaders’ blow to Haitian sovereignty. In the years prior to the aggression,

a literary group had formed to explore what it meant to be Haitian and to

re-evaluate Haiti’s African legacy. This movement was stimulated by the

occupation. Where military resistance failed, cultural resistance took over.

The nativist movement aimed to instill pride in Haitians by valorizing the African past. For the first time, some elites considered Vodou as a national

treasure. After the end of the occupation, a black middle-class wing of the nativist movement took it in another direction by joining forces with the

Pan-African black power movement known as négritude. One of its proponents became president of Haiti during the 1940s. The folkloric dance company evolved during this decade. The Haitian government now actively supported research into the culture of the peasantry and considered Vodou as the heart of that culture. At the same

time, Haiti was investing in its new tourist industry. The government estab-

lished La Troupe Folklorique Nationale in 1949 to represent Haitian culture

internationally. The folkloric troupes presented choreographed renditions

of traditional Afro-Haitian dances, accompanied by drum ensembles pat-

terned after the Vodou battery. Their costumes were stylized peasant garb. Among

other things, the folkloric troupes provided skilled traditional

drummers with a means of making a living. The careers of Ti Roro, Alphonse Cimber, and Frisner Augustin followed from the folkloric movement.

The terrorism of the regime of Francois Duvalier (1957-72) caused

tourism to plummet, and folkloric artists were among the many thousands who fled the country. Three of the four choreographers who launched the national dance company emigrated to New York, where each established his own troupe. The death of Papa Doc and the proposed economic reforms of his son effected a comeback of tourism, but the recovery was short-lived. At the present time, tourism is not a viable industry in Haiti. Young people continue to join folkloric companies, but many use their visas to flee.

Social and Historical Context

21

Vodou Drumming in New York

The folkloric singers, dancers, and drummers who left Haiti during the years of duvalierist rule became a factor in the immigrant population’s struggle to form a cohesive community in the diaspora. In New York City, a form of entertainment called the festival evolved during the 1970s, and folkloric troupes shared the program with popular dance bands, vocalists,

and comedians.

It was not uncommon

to see two or three troupes ona

single program. The troupes made a statement about Haitian cultural identity that worked for people who felt isolated from mainstream American culture. As one entrepreneur put it, We usually have a great number of Haitians who have been here a long time and who are nostalgic of Haiti, and when they have a chance, [they want] to see one of those shows that remind them of home...

The drummers Louis Celestin, Anathan Charles, and Frisner Augustin

appeared frequently in Haitian festivals in New York.

Today’s Haitians, particularly those of the second generation, feel less isolated from mainstream society and look increasingly toward the larger society for their cultural identity. That the larger society not only misunderstands but actively slanders Haitian Vodou—consider Hollywood’s zombi films—is a significant factor in some Haitians’ ambivalent feelings about

their African roots. Folkloric troupes stay active, however, by cul-

tivating American audiences, often through educational institutions.

Immigrants who serve the /wa-s, on the other hand, are in the business

of affirming their African heritage. They keep the spirits alive in Brooklyn,

Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx. In New York, rituals happen most often

in crowded basements, hardly allowing space for dance. Servants do not live together and see one another from day to day, as in Haiti, and this may

limit cohesion. But the energies of skilled drummers offset these obstacles and give the spirits reason to dance.

The Religious Context The Belief System

Vodou believers say that the cosmos is divided along two axes. A horizontal

axis, whose metaphor is the surface of the sea, separates the living from the

dead, that is, the spirits of all those who have lived and all those who are yet to live reside beneath the sea, or anba dlo. Like an umbilical cord, a vertical

axis intersects the horizon, creating a nexus between the spiritual and

22

The Drums of Vodou

physical worlds. Some believers say that this is the serpent Danbala, who rises out of the cosmic sea and arches toward the sun, giving life to matter through the energy of his undulations.

At birth, each of us confronts the cosmic mirror (another metaphor for

the horizon, or the surface of the sea), and the reflection he/she sees there

is the spirit that lives within throughout life. This image in the mirror, the gwo bon anj (big good spirit), is a kind of spiritual double. A ti bon anj (little good spirit) is appended to the larger spirit and serves as the individual’s conscience. The cosmic sea is the home of all spirits, including the !wa. These are ancestral deities who have become abstracted over many generations, to the point where they represent major life principles. The special power of the

lwa is their ability to manifest in living form. When a collective of worshippers meets certain conditions, the !wa passes through the physical /spiritual nexus, displaces the spirit within a living person, and becomes that person’s

animating force. This is spirit possession. Because a person’s conscious Self

is displaced during possession, he/she recalls nothing of the episode after

the lwa has departed. Spirit possession is therefore a kind of collective remembering, a summoning into the present of ancestral wisdom. The Vodou !wa-s, or spirits,

are classified by their ancestral origins

and by the principles they represent. Each ethnic group that comprised

the slave population of St. Domingue had its own gods, but the principles they stood for were often the same from one African nation to another. Nearly every group, for example, had a spirit that represented the feminine principle (love). Many had a spirit of power, a spirit of herbs, or a spirit of rivers and lakes. As Vodou coalesced during the colonial period, devotees thought of themselves as a confederation united to destroy the slave system. Their rituals became series of saluta-

tions to the spirits of one another’s nations. The form of today’s Vodou ceremony preserves the idea of the confederation.

The relative prominence of the nations within a community of worshippers varies throughout Haiti. In some regions, for example, the Ibo

nation was predominant during slavery, and rituals in these regions today focus on the Ibo spirits. In Haiti’s Department of the West, where Port-au-Prince is located, the Rada nation predominates. The word Rada is a corruption of Allada, a city in the former kingdom of Dahomey. Vodou ceremonies in Port-au-Prince begin with rites for the Rada nation. At the conclusion of these rites, worshippers go on to salute other nations of lwa-s.

Soctal and Historical Context

23

Each nation of spirits has its own special character. The following summary attempts to capture the essence of each group. Their ordering here follows the order of worship observed in ceremonies in Port-au-Prince. Rada. These are the most revered spirits, so strongly associated with Africa that they are also called Jwa Ginen. (Ginen is understood as the place

of racial origin and is even a kind of Vodou paradise.) The Rada spirits are strong but benevolent. Relationships between them and their servants are

balanced. Their elements are commonly water and air. In Port-au-Prince,

more individual spirits are known in the Rada group than in any other. The

most prominent Rada /wa-s are Legba, guardian of crossroads and entran-

ces; Marasa, twin spirits who represent childhood; Loko, patron of priests and priestesses and a healer; Ayizan, guardian of the marketplace; Danbala, source of energy and life; Ayida, the female aspect of Danbala; Agwe, master of the sea; Lasirén, mistress of the sea and music; Ezili Freda Daome,

spirit of love and femininity; and Agaou, deity of thunder.

Djouba. The spirits in this group are cultivators, therefore, their element is earth. They personify peasants, whom they imitate in speech, mannerisms, and appearance. Like farmers, the Djouba Iwa-s wear denim blue

(jeans and a tunic for male detities, a dress for females) and straw hats. In

their straw satchels, called makout-s, they carry a bottle of white rum and

their favorite pipe. The principal /wa of this group is Azaka, whom servants affectionately call Kouzen (Cousin) Zaka. There is also a Kouzin (female

cousin). The Djouba nation seems to have come to Haiti by way of Marti-

nique.

Nago. This nation represents power. Most of its members appear as sol-

diers, but some are politicians. Their elements are fire and iron, their color

is red. They are closely associated with the Yoruba people of present-day

Nigeria, who worship Ogou, a blacksmith, and many of the Nago /wa are

various aspects of Ogou: Ogou Féray, Ogou Badagri, Ogou Balendjo, etc. The Ogou-s wield machetes and drink dark rum. Their rites are replete with military imagery. Servants call them Papa Ogou, because when they manifest, they give fatherly counsel and support. Ibo. These !wa are also associated with a nation that lives in present-day

Nigeria. Their chief attribute is pride, even arrogance, and they are difficult to satisfy. The suicide rate of the Ibos enslaved in St. Domingue was so high that colonial planters asked the metropolis to remove them from the slave market. The Ibo spirits preside over the kanari,a clay pot that lodges the soul

24

The Drums of Vodou

of an initiate. The best known /wa in this group is Ibo Lele (Ibo the Chatterer).

Kongo. This nation originates from a broad area comprising the Congo Basin and Angola. The Congolese slaves had a reputation for marronage (desertion), although they were stereotypically gracious and loved to dance

and sing. In fact, the music played for the Kongo spirits is popular in secular

contexts as well as sacred. In Vodou temples, dolls representing these spirits

sit on altars, attired in multi-colored costumes. Individual spirits go by such

names as Kongo Zando, Kongo Savann, and Rwa Wangol.

Petwo.° The origins of this group are contested. Filmmaker Maya Deren promoted the idea that the nation had no direct source in Africa but rather evolved from the contact between escaped slaves and surviving Tainos. ?

Other writers believed that the Petwo group was named after Don Pédro, a slave-priest of mixed Spanish and African blood.® Whatever their origins, the Petwo Iwa-s are the most aggressive of the pantheon, and they are as-

sociated with the slave uprisings of 1791. They are quick and demanding,

but they offer their servants strong protection. The color of the Petwos is

red, their element is fire, and they favor the use of potent magic. Jean Petwo

is one of the best known deities of this group, but perhaps the favorite is

Ezili Danto, a love spirit who carries a dagger.

Géde. These are the spirits of death, the eternal figures in black. A Géde

[wa whitens his face and wears sunglasses in imitation of the human skull.

Heis the god of eroticism, too. As Deren puts it, “he is amused by the eternal

persistence of the erotic and by man’s eternally persistent pretense that it is something else.” ? The dance of the Géde-s is thus provocative and sexually

explicit. Although they are associated with death, these spirits straddle both life and death and govern their cycle. They are knownas healers and protectors of children. The lesson of the Géde-s is that life and death are confounded. Although they are tricksters who dress like vagabonds and

beg for money, they are also history—the knowledge of the dead and the ex-

perience from which the living learn. The various manifestations of the

Géde spirits include Baron Samedi, Gede Nibo, Baron Lakwa, and Géde Zarien. Their colors are black, white, and purple, and their chief symbol is

the cemetery cross.

In summary, the major nations of lwa-s celebrated in Port-au-Prince are Rada, Djouba, Nago, Ibo, Kongo, Petwo, and Géde. Ona more general level,

the nations are grouped into two major branches, each of which takes its

name from one of the nations within it. The Rada branch includes the Rada

Social and Historical Context

25

and Nago nations, and the Petwo embraces Ibo, Kongo, Petwo, and Géde.

Djouba is variously classified by different servants and seems to have characteristics of both branches, but Frisner Augustin places it on the Petwo side. While some sources consider Kongo a separate branch, most servants

I know do not. As one Vodou priest in New York insisted, “Kongo is Petwo,

Kongo is Petwo.”! The critical factor that distinguishes the Rada and Petwo branches is

temperament. The /un-s of the Rada branch are generally formal, hierarchical, and temperamentally balanced. On the Petwo side, spirits are informal, communal, and even dissolute. These are differences of degree. We will see how the classification of the Vodou Iwa-s into branches and nations is reflected in instrumentation and rhythmic patterns. The Servants, the Temple, the Rites

In rural Haiti, the traditional social unit of Vodou is the lakou (courtyard),

an extended family physically located in a compound of residences. There are some lakou-s in Port-au-Prince, but urbanization and labor migration in the twentieth century have scattered families, and the more common Vodou

unit in the city is the susicte (society). Although most society members are not biologically tied, they recall traditional blood relationships by referring

to one another in familial terms. The leader of a society, for example, is

“Papa” or “Maman” to all of its members. Each servant has a role to play in

the society, and the nature of that role is determined by his/her place in the hierarchy.

An uninitiated person who is possessed by spirits is called bosal (wild, untamed). Through initiation, this individual is “tamed” and acquires the first level of konnesans (knowledge). The initiation of an ousi (servant) is

called a kanzo (“fire ordeal,’”” so named because of a test of endurance in-

itiates must pass). The first grade of initiation is thus oust kanzo. In general,

ousi-s are responsible for song, dance, and such tasks as preparing the

sacrifice, assisting in libations, and wiping the brows of sweating drummers. In time, an initiate studying for the priesthood may achieve the grade of oudjénikon (song leader) or laplas (master of ceremonies, a priest's righthand person). The priesthood, too, is stratified into grades, the highest being priz de zye, literally, “taking of the eyes,” because the individual can now see into the future. There is no hierarchical difference between an ougan (male priest) and a manbo (female priest). In other words, a woman may achieve the highest degrees of knowledge and authority in Vodou.

26

The Drums of Vodou

Our chief concern is the tanbouiné (drummer). Of all Vodou personnel,

he (female drummers are extremely rare) goes through the most extensive

craft training. The drummer must know a vast repertoire of drum patterns corresponding to the nations of !wa-s and to ritual activities. He must be able to recognize hundreds of Vodou songs and rejoin with the proper rhythm. Most important, he must know how to respond during spirit pos-

session. The drummer is a key agent in spirit possession. The entire collec-

tive is careful to prevent the possession of drummers themselves because of the disruption it would create in the ritual flow. Not all drummers are initiated, but the ensemble is governed by a /wa called Outo. The physical Vodou church is the tanp (temple), or kay (house; this may also refer to the social unit). The largest room in the temple is the peristil

(peristyle, or dance floor). A column symbol of the vertical cosmis axis) dancing takes place around it. The wall of the peristil, where the master

called the poto mitan (centerpost, and a is the focal point of the peristi! because drum ensemble usually sits along one drummer can best observe the unfold-

ing of events. The oufo (altar chamber) is a niche created in a comer or side

of the peristil by placing a canopy overa

table laden witha lavish assortment

of ritual paraphernalia—statues, candles, bottles of liquor, perfumes, cakes,

candies, flowers, a crucifix, etc. Other accoutrements of the /wa, particularly their clothing, are kept in the djevo-s, antechambers that also serve as initia-

tion rooms. Servants hold Vodou rituals for a variety of reasons and occasions.

Knowing the function of a particular ceremony is essential to understanding the form that it takes. For example, an initiation ceremony follows

a different format from a ceremony that marks the feast day of a lwa.

Regionalism is also a factor in ritual diversity. But beneath these variations

lie a basic design and ritual patterns. Again, I remind the reader that we are

looking at Vodou in Port-au-Prince and New York. Several categories of ritual behavior occur in all ceremonies, and song and drumming always accompany them. Servants learn formulaic greetings when they are initiated. These consist of pirouettes, curtsies, and hand-

shakes and vary according to the relative ranks of the servants who are greeting each other. For example, a servant greets her equal in one way, and her superior in another. There are also formulaic greetings between Iwa-s and servants. Even ritual objects are “greeted” by orienting them toward the four points of the compass (representing the four cardinal points generated by the intersection of the cosmic axes).

Social and Historical Context

27

Another category of ritual activity is the pouring of libations. This usual-

ly occurs at the beginning of rites for a specific lwa, ora specific nation. The

manbo or ougan, accompanied by an ousi with a candle, pours a little water three or four times around the poto mitan, and three times on the floor in

front of the drum ensemble.

The ko drapo (flag corps) performs an elaborate orientation of ritual objects that reflects the importance of the military in Haitian life and history.

Every society owns at least two satin flags on which representations of the lwa-s are stitiched in a dazzling array of sequins. Entering the peristil backward from a djevo, two oust with flags draped around their shoulders flank the laplas, who waves a machete. They orient these objects toward the doorway, the altar, the poto mutan, and the drum battery. The flag parade takes

place during Rada rites, and it has its own repertoire of songs. Trase veve (tracing the sacred diagram) is another category of ritual activity. Vodou vere’-s, or diagrams, have the power to evoke spirits. A servant of relative high rank traces the véeve on the floor of the peristyle, often at the base of the poto mitan, or in front of the altar. The vévé artist holds a plate of fine cornflour in one hand, and traces with the other by sifting the flour (farin) between pinched fingers. Vévé-s feature geometric designs (some of them taken from freemasonry) and objects and animals symbolic of spirits.

Sometimes, they are traced prior to a ceremony, sometimes during Rada rites. Like the flag parade, trase véeve has an accompanying song repertoire. These categories of behavior are superimposed over the ritual order,

which I discussed above in relation to classification of the [wa-s. To reiterate, the order of nations saluted in Port-au-Prince is Rada, Djouba, Nago, Ibo,

Kongo,"

Petwo, and Gede. The relative attention servants give a nation

depends on the purpose of the ceremony. If, for example, they are celebrat-

ing the birthday of St. Jacques Majeur, a Nago spirit, then Nago rites are more extended than usual and include a break for the sharing of food. The ceremony that elevates a servant to the priesthood elaborates rites for Loko, a Rada patron of priests. Ceremonies for the dead focus on the bwoule zen (burning of the sacred cooking vessels), which warm the dead and neces-

sarily take place during rites for the Petwo (fire) spirits. The matter of animal sacrifice is sensitive and often misunderstood. In Haiti—even in urban centers—people slaughter animals in their homes as a normal part of meal preparations (most Haitians do not enjoy the luxuries

of supermarkets and refrigeration). Often, a family buys an animal several

days in advance of a meal in order to feed and care for it. This care comes

back to the family members in the nourishment the animal gives. In Vodou

28

The Drums of Vodou

temples, sacrificial animals are treated with care and respect. Just as they transfer their material life to humans, they transfer their spiritual life to the lwa-s. This is why servants often call a ritual manje lwa (banquet of the spirit). Through ritual banqueting, the life of the !wa is maintained.

The !wa central to the event determines the species, color, and gender of the sacrificial animal. For example, servants sacrifice white animals (usually

doves or chickens) for water spirits, red bulls for Ogou, black pigs for the

Petwo lwa, and black goats for Géde. Most often, the sacrifice passes prior to the public ceremony. It is swift, and the servants immediately prepare the

animal for the meal. The congregation shares the meal later, when the lwa comes through possession.

Summary Vodou drumming is part of a tradition that enslaved Africans utilized in their struggle to survive and resist slavery. As such, it had both political and

religious dimensions. After the Haitian revolution, the drum remained a

symbol of the African heritage, as the burning of sacred drums by Christian

sects demonstrated. A folkloric movement following the United States occupation of Haiti elevated the status of the drum, but anti- Vodou forces continued to make it a symbol of controversy. In recent decades, Haitians

fleeing the Duvalier dictatorship brought the drum to places like New York.

Vodou servants use symbolic objects and behavior to express their beliefs. Drums and the rhythmic patterns they sound belong to this set of symbols: instrument types correspond to the nations of spirits, and the pat-

terns signify either nations or specific !wa-s. The chapters that follow detail these relationships and also show how the manipulations of instruments and rhythms during ritual express spiritual beliefs.

Chapter Two The drums and iron are the focus of all activity of the dance, especially since those who are possessed dance facing the drums, in whose beat is heard the voice of the gods. Hence the spectators cluster most closely about them, for anything of significance which happens must happen here. Melville Herskovits

The Instruments The instruments of the Vodou batiery have a double nature.

They are physical matter shaped according to the principles and patterns of tradition and of the circumstances into which they are born, and they are non-material, spiritual entities that

speak through matter. Sacred instruments share this double nature with people.

This chapter is organized around the concept of the double nature of instruments. First, we present physical descriptions of the drums, rattles, and other assorted instruments that enliven Vodou rituals. Following that, we

explore the invisible life of these voices of the gods.

Physical Characteristics We have classified and ranked the Vodou instruments according to their relative weight in calling down the spirits. The center of gravity is the drum

ensemble, so we give the weight of our attention to drums. The ogan, or iron, 29

30

The Drums of Vodou

which is sometimes dispensed with in rituals, is nonetheless an important anchor for the music (even when absent), so we treat it accordingly. The significance of sacred rattles used by priests and others of high status merits another section. Finally, we look at assorted sound makers that add to the

sonic texture of a Vodou experience. Drums

A Haitian Vodou drum is essentially a hollowed-out log with an animal skin stretched over one or both openings. Its metamorphosis, then, begins with

a tree. Drum makers used to favor mahoghany, but Haiti has lost most of its

magnificent mahoghany forests, and other types of wood have substituted

(oak, gum, and various fruit trees). Generally, drums beaten with mallets re-

quire harder wood than those played with hands. Anthropologist Harold Courlander reported that some drum makers believe that when the wood is cut at the right stage of growth and at the right phase of the moon, it is more resistant to destruction by insects.

Drum makers burn and gouge out the core of the log. Burning is

preferred to chiseling for several reasons. It destroys insects that can be destructive later on if left to survive in the wood. It renders the inner surface of the drum more smooth than that of the chiseled drum. And it gives the druma pleasant scent. Drum makers who are pressed for time chisel out the

core in lieu of burning it.

A drum maker uses cowhide or goatskin (often from a sacrificial animal)

to cover his instrument. He soaks the skin ina solution of water and ash for about forty-eight hours, then shaves it. If he wants to save time, he may boil the skin before shaving it. The drum maker treats the skin with beeswax and tafya (Caribbean rum). The method by which he fastens the skin to the drum varies according to each drum’s related spirit. Descriptions of these methods follow. Some drums are made entirely in the countryside for the use of peasant drummers. In the city, drummers buy their instruments from people who specialize in covering them, but the coverers must acquire the drums from the countryside. Urban drum coverers either travel outside the city and return with a truck load of instruments, or they wait for peasant drum makers to come to the city and set up their wares in the urban marketplaces.

The addition of a drum coverer into the equation may seem superfluous, but drummers in Port-au-Prince prefer styles of covering that differ somewhat from those of the countryside.

The Instruments

Petwo drum set.

Raada dria set.

Bas and lanb1.

ASOon. Plate 2.1

Vodou musical instruments.

31

32

The Drums of Vodou

The outside of the drum is shaped with a machete. Drums were once carved on the outside, and the National Bureau of Ethnology in Port-au-

Prince has several beautiful specimens from the nineteenth century. Some Vodou societies also possess antique drums. Today, drum makers and drummers paint their instruments, usually with vévé, or other symbols of the spirits. Courlander speculates that the art of carving drums (a tradition rooted in West Africa) died out because anti-superstition campaigns and drum-burning durin ing the United States occupation made drums expendable and functional.” Today’s drum makers sometimes carve designs into the collar, that is, the narrow opening at the lower end of conically-shaped drums. Each Vodou drum is part of a set (jé). Descriptions of rare and obsolete drums in the ethnographic literature (see Rare and Obsolete Drums below) suggest that each nation once had its own special set. Most likely for practical reasons, Vodou societies in Port-au-Prince have reduced the number of drums in actual use. Frisner Augustin recalls that the society that initiated him in Port-au-Prince possessed one Petwo set and two Radas (one of the Rada sets serving as a spare), plus a timbal for use in Kongo rites. The following descriptions of drum sets illustrate how drums double and triple their functions. They also show how the details of Vodou drums, and their methods of playing are symbolic of the spirits they call. The Rada Battery

In the region of Haiti we are looking at (Port-au-Prince and vicinity), the Rada drums are played for all the spirits of the Rada branch, which includes the Rada and Nago nations. They come down from the Arada and Yoruba rites of West Africa and resemble drums seen today in Benin, Nigeria, and Togo. The Cuban Arara drum is similar in construction to the Haitian Rada drum. The Rada battery comprises three drums, commonly called the maman,

the segon, and the boula. * They are conically shaped, that is, they taper off at the bottom. The maman is the largest drum at three or four feet high and produces the lowest pitch. The segon, which means “second,” is approximately two feet high and of medium pitch, while the boula produces the highest pitch at a height of perhaps 18 to 20 inches. Often the segon and the boula appear to be the same size. Rada drums are made of hard wood. Their cowhide heads are fastened to the body with hard wood pegs called kon-s or pikét-s, fixed at intervals of perhaps two or three inches around the circumference of the head. Outside of Port-au-Prince, drum makers inter-

lace the pegs to insure proper tension, but people who cover drums in the

oe

_

The Instruments

33

city prefer not to interlace them. Driv ing the pegs into the body of the instru-

ment or loosening them tunes the heads.

Vodou drum batteries sometimes incorporate the bas, a hand-held frame

drum also called the tanbourin. Denis and Paul call it the tambour de Basque, and Courlander agrees that its roots are possibly in the Pay Basque. Hence, the derivative bas. | suspect that the name may also be related to the instrument's characteristic low pitch. The goatskin head is fixed by laces tightly webbed behind the head. The player holds the instrument by the web while playing with the other hand. The bas is most closely associated with the kanaval and rara festivals, but we have seen it in both Rada and Petwo battenes. In lieu of a bas, a drummer may play its pattern on a low-

pitched Rada, Petwo, or (in New York) conga drum. The master, or lead, drummer plays the maman witha stick in his right

hand (if he is right-handed) and the other hand free. This stick, or bagét, is

straight, hooked, or mallet shaped. A twisted stick called the bagét Ginen (stick of Africa) 1s the most traditional but also the most rarely seen today. The segon player uses a bowed stick called an adjida (ora straight stick in lieu of the bowed variety) in his right hand (if he is right-handed), and his other

fre. In New York, we have seen segon players dispense with sticks hand is altogether. The boula player uses two straight sticks. All the Rada sticks should be made of hard wood to withstand the hours of beating they take. The drummers sit on benches or chairs while playing, although the master drummer sometimes plays standing, with his instrument braced by

a cord around his thigh. He sometimes beats his stick against the side of the drum above the pegs. Drummers tip the maman and the segon to keep the mouths of the drums open, but the boula sits flat on the floor of the temple, so that its sound is muted. The boula is the first to strike up when the oudjénikon has begun a round of songs, but it is the maman that signals the ensemble to stop playing, usually at the command of the officiating priest. The Petwo Battery

Both symbolically and structurally, the Petwo battery is in binary opposi-

tion to the Rada. In the Port-au-Prince region, Petwo drums serve the spirits of the Petwo branch, which includes the Djouba, Ibo, Kongo, Petwo, and Géde nations. Just as their blazing temperament distinguishes Petwo spirits from their Rada cousins, so do physical features distinguish Petwo drums from Rada. The traditional Petwo battery consists of two drums. Courlander described a pair of slightly different size and tone called the baka and ti baka. Denis and Paul, as well as Dauphin, also specify two drums, but Denis and

34

The Drums of Vodou

Paul call them maman and piti. Drummers play both of these instruments with hands. Port-au-Prince batteries add a small drum called kata to the Petwo set. Because it is beaten with two sticks as in Rada rites, drummers say that the kata makes the music more “hot.” Interestingly, Courlander

reported the use of an “assot” (a wooden board or bench beaten with sticks) with the Petwo drums, and this may be the prototype of the Petwo kata

drum. In one of the first Vodou ceremonies I attended in New York, a par-

ticipant was beating out the kata pattern (also called kata) with two sticks

against a metal folding chair. When

the kata appears with the other

Petwo drums, as in Port-au-Prince, the other two are called maman and

segon. The Petwo drums are conically shaped and made from a softer wood than the Rada. As in the Rada set, the drum played by the master drummer (the maman) is the largest and deepest pitched, the kata is the smallest and highest pitched, and the remaining drum (the segon) lies between the other two, in terms of size and pitch.’ Drummers never play the maman and the segon with sticks. In fact, when you ask a drummer for the chief difference between Rada and Petwo playing, he will probably refer to playing with hands before he says anything else. Drummers say that playing Petwo is therefore “more relaxed.” Remember that the Petwo spirits are less formal

than the Rada, even if more demanding.

Drum makers cover the soft wood body of the Petwo drum with a

goatskin that has been processed in the manner of the cowhide for Rada drums. Goatskin is thinner than cowhide, so the resulting tone differs from that of the Rada drum. Acleaner and crisper cracking sound is possible with goatskin, and this sound is significant in Petwo drumming (see Petwo Sounds below). Petwo drums are single-headed, but a radically different

method of tuning distinguishes them from the Rada. The drum maker places one hoop (preferably from the liana vine) around the head of the drum, and another around the base, then anchors cords to each in crisscross fashion. Denis and Paul observed Petwo drums that did not use a hoop at the bottom but anchored the cords in orifices carved into the base instead. The drum maker places clasps called ralba-s® at the cords’ junctures. A drummer can then tune his instrument by hauling the ralba-s down, away from the head. With the exception of the kata, which sits flat on the ground, drummers tilt Petwo drums slightly, just as they do Rada drums. Bands that parade the streets during secular or semi-secular festivals (such as rara at Eastertime)

use Petwo drums supported with shoulder straps, and it is not unusual to

_

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The Instruments

35

see master drummers play their instruments strapped around them in this fashion while interacting with temperamental spirits during Petwo rites. The Kongo Timbal Deren speculated that the Petwo nation has assimilated the rituals and deities of other nations “whose character was compatible with the Petro ethos...” In the region including Port-au-Prince, the Kongo spirits belong to the Petwo branch, although they retain something of their own identity.

The Vodou instrumentarium mirrors these categorical relationships. Ethnologists offer evidence of a unique Kongo battery. On the basis of shared structural features, Courlander believed that the Petwo drums area vanant of Kongo drums. Denis and Paul had a similar view and said that only the practice of anchoring cords in orifices at the collar of the drum rather than in a lower hoop distinguished the Petwo drum from the Kongo. The Kongo battery, they wrote, consists of majé (major), mwayen (middle),

and mminé (minor) or timbal. Dauphin likewise counts three Kongo drums, which he calls maman, outd, and timbal. In Port-au-Prince, drummers use

two Petwo drums and the Kongo tmbal. In New York, where the Haitian timbal is usually not available, the master drummer lays a conga drum

horizontally on a chair or a bench and plays it in the manner of a timbal,

described below. He may also play a snare drum. Unlike the conical drums described above, Kongo drums are cylindrical. Courlander said that they are about three feet high, but we believe that he could not have been including the timbal in this statement. Kongo drums share a number of features with Petwo drums. They are made from a soft wood and covered with goatskin. Except for the timbal, they use the same system of tuning that Petwo drums do, and these same two drums are played by hand. The timbal is singular among the Kongo battery, and the fact that it is double-headed makes it unique among all Vodou drums. It is the shortest of the drums, and some players call it the ka (quarter) because its length is about a quarter of a meter (nine or ten inches). The timbal does not employ ralba-s, but it does use criss-crossed cords anchored to hoops at both ends of the drum. Tuning the instrument involves retying the cords. The drummer carries the timbal with a shoulder strap and beats it with two sticks. Visually, it reminds one of the military snare drum.

The timbal is the principal drum of the Kongo battery. Denis and Paul call

the other two the krie (cry) and the rale (pull) and characterize their musical

function as accompaniment to the timbal. The master drummer plays the

timbal, even when the other two of the battery are Petwo drums. This prac-

36

The Drums of Vodou

tice maintains the unique character of the Kongo nation within the Petwo branch. The joyful and sociable character of Kongo spirits might explain why the timbal is popular in such secular contexts as carnivalesque festivals and Saturday-night dances.

Rare and Obsolete Drums

Dozens of different cultural and linguistic groups comprised the slave population of colonial Haiti, but a fewer number of drum types has come down to the present day. Furthermore, the number of drum categories seems to be declining even as ethnologists write about them. We have noted the tendency of Vodou societies in Port-au-Prince to economize on drum sets by designating multiple functions to each. Many drums are becoming

rare and obsolete over time. Observers have passed on a few brief notes about Nago drums. On the island of La Gonave (roughly, fifteen miles off the coast of mainland Haiti), Courlander saw what he called a survival of the Yoruba bata drum. This drum was double-headed, but drummers did not play both heads; rather, they held the drum under one arm and played the forward head in the manner of the Yoruban dundun.’° In Leogane, a small city just west of Port-au-

Prince, Courlander saw a drum made like the Rada drum but mounted on

a three-legged stand for use in Nago rites. In Port-au-Prince, where the Nago nation is part of the Rada branch, only Rada drums are used in Nago rites. As in Rada rites, the maman and segon players use sticks. The Djouba drum is nearly as rare as the Nago. Reports about it vary.

Courlander described the Djouba drum as wide and squat, with a goatskin

head fixed and tuned by a system of cords and hoops. The master drummer

laid the instrument on its side, sat astride it, and pressed his heel against the

head to mute it or change the pitch. Meanwhile, a second drummer sat be-

hind the master and beat the body of the instrument with sticks. This latter

part was called kata. Elsewhere, according to Courlander, drummers used the Kongo timbal in Djouba rites. Denis and Paul claimed that the conicallyshaped Djouba drum was not made from a hollowed out log, but rather from planks (sometimes from salting barrels) held together by iron hoops. In their version, a cord system without ralba-s held and tuned a cowskin

head. The master drummer laid the drum on a bench and played it in the manner of the Kongo timbal (although with hands), while a kata player beat the body of the instrument with sticks. Dauphin’s description of the Djouba drum agrees with that of Denis and Paul. As previously noted, drummers in Port-au-Prince use Petwo drums in Djouba rites. The master drummer

The Instruments

37

By his drum on the floor, straddles it, and plays its head with hands and eet.

Vodou servants commonly associate the Djouba rites with Martinique,

as reflected in their frequent application of the term matinik to the rites, the

dance, the music, and Ethnology of the State congregation that was Port-au-Prince, by an

the spirits themselves. The library of the Faculty of University of Haiti holds a term paper about a Vodou established in the mid-nineteenth century in Belair, immigrant from Martinique named Civil Blain. |

found the congregation—which calls itself Lakou Blain—extant in 1991. Members of the lakou perform a ritual called the Danse Notable, which

Barosy (author of the term paper) describes as a rather serious version of the bright and vivacious djoula dance. The dance is accompanied by a single drum

called

the adoumaya, and

lakou members

claim that Civil Blain

brought it from Martinique himself. Barosy described a drum measuring about two and one-quarter feet (69 cm) in height, single-headed yet resembling the Kongo timbal in its cylindrical shape. It is made of hard wood but covered with goatskin, using the cord system of tuning. (Informants told Barosy that the goatskin head had been replaced three times as of 1964.) The

drummer, who must be a member of the lakou, lays the adoumaya ona white sheet placed on the the earth floor of the temple, sits in straddle position on a small cushion placed on the drum, and plays its head with hands only. Lakou members regard the drum as sacrosanct and cover it with a white sheet when they are not using it. Because Lakou Blain shields its patrimonie from the public domain, its adoumaya is probably the only one of its kind in Haiti. The ethnographic literature does not mention drums for the Ibo nation, and we have never heard of a set in Port-au-Prince. Drummer Steve White, a student of Frisner Augustin’s, has seen a drum called ibo on Haiti's southem peninsula.’ The battery it is part of illustrates the regionality of Vodou instruments. The main instrument of the set is a small cylindrical

peg-tuned drum called the /égéde. Comparing it to the Cuban quinto, White says that it has a characteristically “dead” sound, and that drummers favor slapping the head in playing. The middle drum of this set is called boula, the same name used for the smallest drum of the Rada set in the capital. A bas, played between the legs, accompanies légéde and boula with a virtuoso display of timbres (unlike the relatively unadomed bas part of Port-au-Prince). The optional accompaniment to the set is the ibo drum, a very tall, slightly conical instrument with a goatskin head. White noted cords but did not recall exactly how the tuning worked. The fact that it is called tbo does not

38

The Drums of Vodou

seem to be related to the nation of spirits, although it might have been in the

past. Most interestingly, melody and harmony instruments, like the banjo

and the violin, play along with the drums, sometimes taking the call part in

call-and-response singing. White observed these instruments in L’Asile, about seventy miles southwest of Port-au-Prince.

The National Bureau of Ethnology published a monograph by its founder, Jacques Roumain, on the amazing asoto drum. Is Measuring no less than six feet in height, we might call it the giant of the drum pantheon. Physically, it is a Rada drum, although its shape is more cylindrical than conical, and it has large orifices in the collar for the emission of sound. But the asoto is not primarily for playing. Roumain emphasized its metaphysical significance. What distinguishes the Rada drums from the Ass6to(r) is that they are

strictly the sacred, indispensable accessories of the cult, which, with

song, exalted revelry, the noise of the rattle, and the repeated beating of the gong, bring the divine personality of the wa into the disaggregated self of the possesed. They are the servants, the instruments of the deity, whereas the Asséto(r), dressed in its sacrificial skin [kerchiefs], is also, and above all, the powerful Afro-Haitian god: Assoto

Micho Tokodun Vodoun.

Roumain’s monograph describes the service held for the asoto. Celebrants salute the Rada spirits, sacrifice a bull, parade the society’s flags, and prepare food offerings for the spirit of the drum. The ceremony culminates in the beating of the asoto with sticks by seven initiates in alternation until its head is split. According to dancer Lavinia Williams, Haiti's National Folkloric Troupe created a staged version of this ritual. The asoto is a rare drum, and most societies do not own one. Folkloric dancer André Germain brought an asoté to New York, where he gave it as a gift to a folkloric drummer. It has never fulfilled its sacred function there.! Vodou Drums in New York

Throughout its history, Vodou has responded dynamically and creatively to

challenges from the outside, particularly those forces that would destroy it.

We include Vodou music practices in this statement. Using the same drum sets for spirits of different nations might account for the growing obsolescence of certain drums, but it lightens the burden of economic restraint. The stresses of the migration and the often hostile climate of New York similarly demand creative solutions.

_

__

The Instruments

39

Some Vodou rituals in New York simply dispense with drums. There are many reasons for forgoing the drums. Early in the migration (most agree

that the migration began in the 1960s with Papa Doc) there were few if any

qualified drummers in New York, and congregations clapped to keep time. Karen Brown tells us that Mama Lola, a priestess whose society is based in

her apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, does not use drums out of deference for her neighbors, who would complain of the high level of sound." Participants clap hands as they sing. I have seen instances where the organizing priest(s) simply could not pay a drum ensemble.!® During

busy seasons, such as November (when the popular Gade spirits are celebrated), priests and priestesses who are not quick enough to reserve an

ensemble have to do without, or postpone their rituals.

The full drum ensemble is generally desired, but the sound level gives

rise to problems. Neighbors do complain of noise, although this is not the rule (especially in communities where most of the neighbors are attending the ritual). A more serious problem resulting from the drums’ high decibel level is one of balance with the vocals. Temples in New York are usually small rooms that are more enclosed than their counterparts in Haiti. Often, itis difficult to hear singing voices above the instruments. In a ceremony for Géde in November 1991, for example, the officiating priest stopped Augustin’s ensemble and asked the musicians to play with less volume. This is not easy to do. As energy builds up, so does the volume. But as an evening wears on, the problem typically fades. More people arrive, adding more body to the singing, singers become warmed up, and the drummers

play with hands (rather than mallets and sticks) after Nago rites. The most formidable problem facing Vodou drummers in New York is obtaining the proper instruments. The manufacture of conventional Vodou drums is rare in the United States. A former graphics designer named Morty Sanders probably has the know-how, but he specializes in making instruments used in Santeria (an Hispanic Caribbean counterpart of Vodou).!? Interested travelers purchase drums in Haiti, but they are obliged to remove the heads before entering the United States. Federal regulations have mandated the seizure of covered drums ever since investigators linked one death from the lethal anthrax bacterium to a Haitian leather product. Drummers Louis Celestin and Frisner Augustin have covered (or recovered) Vodou drums in New York. Augustin points out that traditional

Haitian drums do not thrive in New York’s climate. Cold temperatures

slacken the heads, and pitch tends to slide downward, even as musicians

are playing. “You don’t feel as if you are beating the drum,” Augustin says.

40

The Drums of Vodou

The difficulty in obtaining traditional Vodou drums, and their poor performance in New York’s climate, have necessitated the substitution of Latin conga drums. Congas are plentiful in New York. Metal screws tighten the head for a more secure tuning than the Haitian drums are capable of. The Western snare drum has served as a substitute for the Kongo timbal. Its shape is similar to the timbal’s, but its body is metal, and its manner of tuning is the same as the conga’s. The sounds of the conga and the snare are, of course, very different from the sounds of Rada, Petwo, and Kongo drums.

Haitians in New York are not happy with the difference, but they are sympathetic and flexible. Given

the frequent appearances of spirits in New

York temples, it seems that they, too, have accepted the substitutions.

The Ogan, or Iron Gong In his very esoteric book on Vodou, Milo Rigaud explicates the meaning of the word ogan, a combination of 0 (“magic circle,” for obvious reasons) and gan (the word for | “chief” among the Fon of West Africa). Thus, “chief of the magic circle.” 2° Some use the Southeast Asian word“ gong” for this instrument, for reasons unknown. The Yoruba used a similar instrument they called eganran, and present-day Ewe employ a gankogut. In both form and musical function, these are likely relatives of the ogan. The ogan also goes by

the name fé, derived from the French, which derives from the Latin for

“ron,” the element that is the material of both the instrument and the stick that beats it. Even though the ogan is not always physically present in the Vodou drum ensemble, musicians and dancers feel its rhythmic pattern. The

master drummer may incorporate the pattern into his own in the instrument’s absence. The ogan plays what J.H. Kwabena Nketia calls the “time line” in African music,”

that is, the guide line or reference for the

other instruments as they caper around the basic pulse and each other. In

any case, the ogan is a chief of sorts. It is the most steady and unchanging of all the rhythmic patterns, and a mistake on the ogan is more painfully notice-

able than a mistake on a drum. Such a mistake will render the music gaye (mixed up), or even egare (lost). The material of the ogan might also influence

the way servants feel about it. Iron is solid and strong, and it is the element of the powerful Nago spirits. At the Bureau of Ethnology, Denis and Paul examined antique specimens that seem to have been forged, and Courlander believes that the instrument was forged in Haiti until village forges disappeared. These specimens consist of two iron triangles joined at the sides, hollow inside and

ee

ee

The Instruments

41

covered at the base. They have iron handles affixed to the base. In some

specimens, a metal stick is chained to the handle. More recent versions of the ogan are the hoe blade struck with a metal stick or a stone, any appropriately sized iron machine part struck with a metal stick, and the cow

bell. People of limited means have been very inventive, and found objects are acceptable, as long as they sound like iron. The ogan belongs to the Rada battery. Véve-s for the Rada ensemble include a representation of it. But Vodou musical practice in Port-au-Prince

and New York includes the ogan in rites for all the nations. Its function as

time line is the same in all of these rites.

Sacred Rattles: The Ason and the Tchatcha Only members of the priesthood and those on the point of entering it are entitled to use the sacred rattles (ason and tchatcha). To “take the ason” means

to become a priest. The rattles have functions and meanings that are not

musical, yet, they are an essential thread in the fabric of Vodou music. To

bolster her argument that elements of Amerindian worship merged with African practices, Maya Deren points out that rattles in Africa lacka musical function, while the Taino rattles did not.~ The argument is moot, but Rouse found that the Arawaks used a rattle identical to the tchatcha, in form if not

in function.” The ason is the instrument of the Rada spirit Danbala. Traditionally, it is a round or pear-shaped hollowed-out gourd, with a mesh of snake vertebrae surrounding it (because Danbala appears as a serpent). Most of us have only read about the snake vertebrae. Multi-colored plastic beads seem to have replaced them. The handle of the gourd is either a natural extension of the sphere or oval, or the maker adds a handle.“ He passes a string through the end of the gourd handle, then ties the string around the handle of a small clappered bell. The player holds the handle of the bell between his/her fourth and fifth fingers, and holds the handle of the gourd in the palm of the hand with the other fingers. When the player shakes the ason, the mesh strikes against the outer surface of the gourd and the clapper strikes the inside of the bell. The ason is part of the Rada battery. The priest uses it to set the tempo and to signal the ensemble to stop playing, sometimes by pointing the ason downward. Its pattern is simple, in most cases corresponding to the basic slow pulse of the music. A priest, then, is roughly analogous to an orchestral conductor when he/she plays the ason.

42

The Drums of Vodou

In Port-au-Prince, the ason may accompany Nago rites as well as Rada,

but rites for other nations either dispense with a rattle or use the tchatcha.

The word tchatcha is onomatopoeic. Denis and Paul said that it is also the

nickname of a tree whose pods contain seeds that cause a rattling sound

when excited by the wind. (Dauphin calls this tree the “flamboyant.”) The

tchatcha recalls the ason but is morphologically different. The maker empties a spherical calabash, fills it with pellets of licorice seed or gravel, and attaches a handle. Some people like to paint the tchatcha, and several antique specimens are covered with blue or red cloth. Servants associate the tchatcha primarily with Petwo rites, and I have seen it used as well in rites for Gede. Karen Brown makes the interesting observation that the beads that surround the ason are ordered and interdependent, while the pellets inside the tchatcha are discrete and move independently of one another. This opposition exemplifies the antithetical characters of these two branches of spirits. Denis and Paul described rattles used in Kongo rites, but I have never seen these in Port-au-Prince. The tchatcha kongo is an empty calabash witha

serrated stick running through it. The player moves the calabash along the stick to produce sound. Technically, this is a scraped idiophone and not a rattle, but it is incorporated into the joukoujou, a composite instrument. The joukoujou starts with the tchatcha kongo and adds a transverse bar across the top. One calabash filled with pellets is attached to each of the three branches

of the cross formed by the transverse bar. Again, this instrument is not con-

ventional in Port-au-Prince rituals, but I have seen folkloric companies use

it on stage.

Miscellaneous

Instruments

Several instruments, or sound makers, are not considered integral to the Vodou battery. Nonetheless, they contribute to the sonic texture of the

ritual, and they signify attributes of the spirits whose music they thread. The Lanbi: Conch Trumpet of the Sea God

The conch shell is used as an instrument of music worldwide. Simply boring a hole into the tail of the shell transforms it into a trumpet. The player’s lips vibrations generate the sound, whose fundamental frequency is determined by the size of the shell. A player may control timbre by placing one hand in the bell. Haitians have discovered a wealth of applications for the conch shell, which they call lanbi, a word used for both the shell and the

The Instruments

animal that lives aphrodisiac).

inside

it (whose

meat

is considered

43

a powerful

One set of applications is related to the lanbi’s convenience as a means

of calling people together for action. In the countryside, it summons a konbit (labor cooperative) to a work project, and it convokes public assemblies.

Rural Haitians who live scattered over the mountainsides use it to announce accidents or deaths, and to wam of floods and other types of emergencies. The lanht served most dramatically before and during the revolution, when slaves used it to summon uprisings. For this reason, it is a symbol of freedom. The artist Albert Mangonés immortalized it in his bronze sculpture “Marron Inconnu” (“Unknown Maroon”), which stands in the heart of Port-au-Prince. The statue depicts the kneeling figure of a slave, his leg iron broken, blasting a call for insurrection from the lanbi. In other contexts, the Jann is clearly an instrument of music. It plays in wakes and rara processionals. We include it here because Vodou servants sound the Jani dunng rites for Agwe, spirit of the ocean in the Rada nation,

and for his wife Lasirén, a mermaid and patroness of music. The sound of the lanbi, with its proliferous meanings, stirs the imagination and adds breadth to the Vodou soundscape. Petwo Sounds: The Whistle and the Whip

Deren described the temperament of the Petwo nationas “cosmic rage.” She believed that the brutality of the Africans’ displacement and their subjection to slavery shaped an aggressive world view and set of behaviors. The famous ceremony at Bwa Kayman, where a congress of slave leaders made final plans for the insurrections of 1791, was probably a Petwo ritual. Today’s Vodou rites utilize symbols of slavery and defiance to summon

the Petwo spirits. Among them are the fwet kach (whip) and the siflet (whistle), both reminders of slave teams. In an ingenious twist of symbolic meaning, Vodou servants transform the former tools of oppression into instruments of liberation. Only Dauphin discusses the siflet. The traditional version, he writes, is a section of bamboo stem into which a bevel and an embouchure are incised. The more recent version is the metal whistle with a ball inside. Players can imitate the sound of the metal whistle on the bamboo by flutter-tonguing. A priest or the master drummer blows into the whistle when so inspired during Petwo rites. None of the literary sources refers to the fwét kach as an instrument of music. It might be more appropriate to call ita sound effect device. We mention it here because it may explain the frequency of slaps in Petwo drum-

44

The Drums of Vodou

ming. As the priest or the /aplas plies the whip, the master drummer cracks the palm of his hand against the goatskin head of the Petwo drum. The emo-

tional impact on listeners cannot be exaggerated. The shrill of the whistle and the crack of the whip against the temple floor are not in synchronization with the drumming, rather their irregularities heighten the feelings of dissolution and communality characteristic of the Petwo

ethos. By taking control of these symbols, Vodou

servants transcend oppression, a force still present in their daily lives.

Spiritual Characteristics I once interviewed a Haitian drummer on the subject of drums made for

tourists in Haiti. The fact that these instruments are more decorative than functional struck me as the chief difference between them and their Vodou

counterparts. But when I asked the drummer about the chief difference, he simply replied that a Vodou drum has a spirit in it, and a tourist drum

doesn't.

Because Vodou drums are sacred, ritual activities are necessary for their

creation and maintenance. The proper care of drums enhances their power to call the spirits. Outo: Spirit of the Drums The literature of Vodou says relatively little about Outo, the spirit who

works through drummers and resides in instruments. Among the various

names for Rada instruments, we find outo, and its forms ou and outogi (see

note 4 of this chapter). In the following discussion, we look at Outo as a Spiritual entity. Rigaud likens the three drums of the Rada set to the Holy Trinity (Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit) and the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph) of Christianity. The segon is father, the maman is mother, and the boula is the child. He further associates each with particular astral bodies. The asoto, he adds, represents the Three Wise Men from the East. Rigaud does not cite his

sources.

Suzanne and Jean Comhaire-Sylvain discovered the word ou in several

works on Dahomean language and culture.” Its range of meanings include blood (i.e., life principle), drum, and god of the sea. They claim that Vodou

initiates also use it to mean the wind. Note that the prefix ou occurs in the

words oufo, ougan, oudjénikon, and ousi (see Glossary). Among today’s Vodou servants in Port-au-Prince and New York, Outo or Out6gi signify the presiding spirit of the drums.

The Instruments

ee

45

The relationship between the spirit and the master drummer is an in-

timate one. Ethnomusicologist Gerdes Fleurant’s informants called the master drummer himself outé*° This does not imply that master drummers must be initiated, and quite frequently, they are not. Fleurant points out that the distinguishing feature of an initiated drummer is not his playing ability but rather his special relationship with the society leader who provides for

the drummer's material needs in exchange for obligatory service at all the society's rituals. Fleurant found that most drummers are independent musicians (often farmers) who “cherish their unattached status.” On the other hand, Fleurant’s informants told him that an initiated drummer is asogwe, that is, skilled in controlling the spirits, and thus preventing his own possession by Outd.” The possibility of possession of the master drummer by Outo is always

present, but skilled drummers and priests have the means to deter it when

they perceive its onset. The reason for doing this is obvious. Outo plays for himself. His drumming is the ultimate virtuosity, and it forces the segon and boula players to drop out. By the same token, any spirits present in the temple depart. In other words, Outo disrupts the ritual.

Deren argued that the drum is sacred, not the drummer. The latter, she wrote, is simply a mechanism through which Outo works.” Nevertheless,

a special relationship exists between Outo and his human agents, as the following song, heard in rituals in Port-au-Prince and New York, suggests: Outo, ba mwen son ou, e, Outo, ba mwen son ou, e, Tanbouye, o ba mwen son ou, Soley leve. Outd, give me your sound, Outod, give me your sound,

Drummer, give me your sound,

The sun rises.

Rituals for the Drums

The spiritual nature of the drums demands a cycle of life rituals for them. Societies must baptize and feed Vodou drums. In practice, they don’t always do so, and we have not seen drum rituals yet in New York. This makes

sense, since the cycle begins with the creation of a new set of drums. To our knowledge, no drum maker living in Haiti (or the United States) has ever been commissioned to make a set destined for New York.

46

The Drums of Vodou

Baptism

Fleurant’s drummer /informant Coyote told him that ritual activity for the drum begins even before the tree is felled. 32 Bearing candles, the drum

maker and his assistants go into the forest, select a tree, then draw a vévé at its foot (he does not say which spirit/s is represented in the vévé). The party

offers food, liquor, and prayers. With these obligatory rites fulfilled, they

may fell the tree. Coyote’s account echoes a more detailed ritual that Herskovits ob-

served in the 1930s. The reader may refer to it directly for particulars.” 3 Impressed with the similarities he perceived between Vodou and Christian baptisms, Herskovits included the rites of Rada drum making and initiation in his chapter “Catholicism and Vodun.” In his account, food and drink offerings (manje sék) accompanied every step of the felling, carving, and covering of the drums. Participants poured libations before boring the first peg hole (which was carefully marked and named “mother” on each drum) and

before attaching the cowhides to the mother pegs. The baptism of the drum set, in Herskovits’ account, began a week later, after the heads had dried. The instruments wore aprons color-coded for the most powerful spirits, and they received food and drink offerings once more. An officiant led the drum owner, plus a pair of godparents chosen for each drum, in prayers and hymns. They placed the drums on the floor of the temple in the form of a triangle, covered them with a white sheet, and gave

each drum a name. At this particular ritual, Herskovits noted, the officiant did not exercise his option to ask Outd to endow the drums with special powers. The baptism ended with a symbolic striking of the segon.

The Journey to Ife Periodically, a society renews the energies of its baptized drums. The rites necessary for this recharging are called kouche tanbou (put the drums to bed) and bay tanbou manje (feed the drums). To our knowledge, no one has performed these rites in New York. Possible explanations are the lack of firmly organized, ongoing societies in New York, and the scarcity of traditional Vodou drums there.

Rigaud described the lalaying down and feeding of the drums, which he

also called “the trip to Ife.”“~

In Vodou cosmology, Ife is the city of origin of

the /wa-s (its earthly model is in Yorubaland, southern Nigeria). The most

prominent spirits live there, in other words, Ife is a Vodou Olympus. As the drums repose, they make a journey to the spiritual source of Vodou and

The Instruments

47

renew their powers. Vodou servants make the same journey as part of their initiation.

In Rigaud’s version of the rites, the drums and ogan lie on a bed of

banana leaves that represent Ginen (Africa). Servants place a lit candle on

each and scatter food and drink offerings over them. They give the same

food to the animals they are about to sacrifice to the drums. After the sacrifice, they drape the instruments with a white sheet that stands for the

purifying environment of Ife. The society's flags cover the white sheet, and

the servants go into a temporary state of mourning, because the drums have departed. Rigaud quotes a song from this ritual that refers to Ife and Outd. He believes that the renewal of the drums’ powers are a metaphor for the reenerpizing of the Vodou society itself. The Role of Drums in Spirit Possession

The concepts and ritualistic behaviors surrounding Vodou drums are related to their capacity as agents of spirit possession. Possessions occur without drumming. We have noted that the Brooklyn-based priest Mama Lola does not use drums, yet Karen Brown has described possessions at her

ceremonies. I have seen possessions by Gade in the streets, homes, and the

cemetery in Port-au-Prince without drums, simply because it was Géde’s

feast day. Still, Vodou servants believe that drums are the best means of

bringing down the spirits. Any attempt to find a universal link between acoustic patterns and the possession phenomenon is charged with difficulty. The musics that accom-

pany trance and possession worldwide utilize a wide spectrum of formal devices and designs. Writing about possession in Haiti, psychiatrists Ari Kiev and Louis Mars only vaguely refer to drumming as part of the barrage of stimulae that generates “schizonoid” or “dissociative” behavoir.”> Erika Bourguignon steers away from the tendency to see possession as pathological, and she includes drum patterns among the cues that trigger culturally learned behavior.°° The most thorough and integral explanations of the relationship between drums and possession are given by Vodou servants themselves. The spirits love music, they say, and each has his/her favorite beat. From their locations in the cosmos, spirits respond to a complex of invitational signals sent out by servants, but the drum might be the most compelling of these. Driven to dance, spirits use their powers to displace, and replace, the souls of dancing ousi-s. When a Iwa is present in a temple, drummers must keep the music going, or risk the ire of a spirit who came to dance.

48

The Drums of Vodou

Collective energy is a necessary condition for summoning the spirits,

and drummers use a driving beat to generate it. More specifically, they use

a pattern called the kase (break) literally to pound a spirit into a servant who shows signs of the onset of possession. Deren, whose father was a psychologist and who had an intense interest in altered states of consciousness (and who claimed to have been possessed herself by Ezili) explained the mechanics of the kase. [The drummer] can permit the tension to build to just the level where the “break” serves not to release the tension but to climax it in a galvanizing shock—the first enormous blow of the “break”—which abruptly empties the head and leaves one without any center around which to stabilize. This is a state of helpless vulnerability. Instead of being able to move in the long, balanced strides of relaxation, the defenceless person is buffeted by each great stroke, as the drummer sets out to “beat the loa into his head”.

Summary Vodou instruments have both material and spiritual aspects. The details of their construction vary to signify different nations of spirits, but, in the

region we are looking at, the tendency over time has been to use either Rada or Petwo instruments for all the nations. The migration to New York

presents challenges that Vodou servants and drummers meet with flexibility and inventiveness, including the acceptance of conga drums as ritual accompaniment. The instrumental ensemble is a metaphor for the tightly knit, organized society, whose primary purpose is to stabilize human interaction with ancestors (culture) and with the elements (nature). Because drums and the

ogan play an essential role in melding the collective and triggering spirit possession, servants regard them as sacred objects that require baptism and periodic ritual feedings. The spirit who presides over the instruments is Outd. Drummers and priests take measures to prevent the possession of the drummers by Outo, because his virtuosity drives other spirits out of the

temple. Vodou instruments are the means of sounding temporal patterns. The

following chapter describes the principal patterns and discusses how they

are used in ensemble playing.

Chapter Three

The Rhythms Robythm

is the most intricate and intellectually appealing

aspect of Vodou sound, yet scholars of Vodou music have paid the least attention to rhythm. The contents of this chapter proffer the major contribution of this book to the understanding of Vodou music. The reader must remember that Vodou drums and the ogan are played in ensemble. Each instrument has its proper hierachical function, but together all

the instruments construct a unified, coherent pattern. This notion is consis-

tent with the social values that guide Vodou societies, which balance the collective with the leadership of knowledgeable individuals. General Features Pulse and the Time Span

African percussion, song, and dance are patterned activities. In an event involving all three, a fixed temporal unit coordinates them. Scholars of African music have named such a unit the time span.’ The concept of the

time span is useful in the analysis of Haitian Vodou rhythm. But before discussing the meaning of the term, we need to look at pulse in Vodou drumming. A few Vodou songs lack a pulse. These are chants sung at the beginning

of a ceremony. Some are performed a cappella, but drum rolls accompany others. The most dramatic is the Prié Ginen (African Prayer), which includes

a long litany naming the Catholic saints and the Vodou /wa, in that order.

The drum rolls start with the first mention of a /wa and intensify as the list

goes on. Just as the priest reaches the end of the litany and the drum rolls

have reached their maximum

pulse of yanvalou.

intensity, the music breaks into the steady

49

50

The Drums of Vodou

The word “pulse” is a noun form of the Latin verb pellere, meaning “to drive, push, beat.” Regularly spaced slow pulses are visible in Vodou dance and in the instinctive, spontaneous movements of spectators. They are audible in some of the drum parts and in the song phrasing (see Chapter

Four). Slow pulses characteristically divide into medium pulses, which, in turn, divide into fast pulses. The fast pulses represent the maximum level of density. The divisor of a pulse is either two (binary division) or three (ter-

nary division). Figure 3.1 illustrates this principle, using numerals to repre-

sent the pulse on all three levels. At the level of maximum density, each numeral represents the fastest pulse. Actual drumming mixes binary and ternary division, in other words, one pattern need not use one divisor uniformly throughout, as in Figure 3.1. Figure 3.2 shows an example of ter-

ped fee bd

hed NO

231

3

oO

——=

NOD pet

aa

NO

nary, then binary division of the slow pulse.

2 1 23123 b

2 1 2312

1 1 3

Figure 3.1

Binary (a) and ternary (b) pulse division, at increasing levels of density. Keep in mind that in Figure 3.2, the slow pulses are evenly spaced. The first is divided into three evenly spaced pulses on the next density level, while the second is divided into two. This juxtaposition of binary and ternary pulse divisions is one of the spices of Haitian Vodou drumming. The time span is a segment of time marked off by slow pulses. Vodou time spans usually consist of two slow pulses, one marking the beginning of the span and the other marking the midpoimt. To repeat what we stated

Figure 3.2

Mixed pulse division.

The Rhythms

51

above, the time span is the same for singers, dancers, and instrumentalists. In a sense, it is a kind of poto mitan of Vodou music and dance. Meter, Polymeter, or None of the Above Scholars have debated the notion of meter in African music for many years”

The richness and complexity of the rhythms inspire fascination and endless new interpretations. But some scholars raise this valid question: do listeners

from European and Euro-American cultural backgrounds superimpose the

concept of meter on African rhythm where none exists? The question continues to stimulate controversy.

African and Afro-Caribbean drummers show little interest in, or awareness of, this debate. The word “meter” is not part of their vocabulary, and

there is no hard-and-fast evidence that they perceive the hierarchy of ac-

cented beats inherent in European meter.> On the other hand, there seems

to be at least something analogous to meter in African and African-derived drumming. Regularly spaced beats occur at the beginnings and midpoints

of time spans. The time span might be analagous to the metric measure, or bar. The description of notation below returns to this idea. Tempo

The tempo of the Rada rhythms yanvalou and parigol is generally about

eighty (but sometimes as many as ninety) slow pulses per minute. In their

notation in this book, that would be eighty dotted half notes per minute. The rhythms zépol, mayi, daome, and fla vodou seem to be double that tempo. The reason for this illusion is that movement in those dances emphasizes the dotted quarter, in other words, the medium pulse. Yanvalou and parigol emphasize the slow pulse. Because the dances zépol, mayi, daome, and fla vodou appear faster—and the dancers do become more animated—the music feels

faster. But there is virtually little tempo difference between the dotted half

notes of the various Rada rhythms. The petwo dance feels nervous, agitated, in keeping with the character of Petwo spirits. Its tempo is usually about one hundred and fifty slow pulses (represented by half notes in this book) per minute. The other dances of the Petwo branch vary widely in tempo. Banda ranges from the tempo of yanvalou to that of petwo. Kongo is also performed fast or slow, but ibo tends to be approximately one hundred and twenty slow pulses per minute. Generally, the Petwo dances are faster than the Rada. Vodou drummers keep a steady tempo throughout one set of songs. They do not accelerate or slow down within a set.

52

The Drums of Vodou

Form

The Cyclical Nature of Vodou Rhythm The Vodou ensemble patterns move through time in cyclical fashion; the

end of each statement of a pattern is contiguous with its beginning. After a number of repetitions, the novice might forget where the time span begins.

The slow pulse helps, but since there are usually two slow pulses per time span, a player might accidentally come in on the wrong one. When I started playing ogan, I often found myself halfway out of phase with the drums— for which I was sternly reprimanded.

Of course, a pattern does not simply repeat itself exactly over long

stretches of time. Players like to vary the music for the sake of interest. They practice ornamentation, particularly in maman and segon. In addition, each drum usually has several related patterns from which to choose in accompanying one dance. As the master drummer switches from one pattern to

another, the segon and boula players have the option of changing, too. All of these possibilities give variety to the drumming, and anensemble that plays together often learns how to keep interest alive as it develops its own style.

Notwithstanding the creative variations of drummers, Vodou drum-

ming is not itself directed toward a goal, as a European composition is when it moves through a series of tonal centers toward a home key. The cyclical

nature of the drumming is opposed to the teleology and closure of European formal designs. The drummers play only as long as it takes the servants to complete a particular ritual activity. When the priest signals the ensemble to stop, the impression is that of breaking off in mid-air. This is not the same as saying that Vodou music serves no purpose. But its overriding aim is beyond aesthetics. Vodou drumming strives to bring down the spirits, and for that, it uses the kase.

Breaking the Cycle: The Kase The Kreyol word kase derives from the French casser, which means

“to

break.” The word is appropriate because it ruptures the cycling rhythmic

figure of the maman drum. There is more than one way to effect the rupture, but essentially, kase-s use the principle of opposition. Some kase-s set up a pulse that contradicts that of the main pattern. Others use an attack radically different from the main pattern. Each rhythm has its own kase, and each

kase has its own way of breaking.

The dancer also has a kase for each dance. In Vodou rituals, the drummer

plays the kase first, and the dancer uses it as a cue to break his/her movement. Dance kase-s are typically revolutions or movements from side to

The Rhythms

53

side. They stand out from the main dance patterns, just as drum kase-s stand out from the main musical patterns. Dancers must be completely attuned to

the music. A master drummer also executes a kase on cue. Some cues are patterned

ritual actions, such as orienting sacred objects to the four cardinal points,

pouring libations before the drums, and kissing the floor of the peristyle at the base of the poto mitan. Some drummers like to mark the transition from

one song to another with a kase. But the most dramatic use of the kase is as-

sociated with spirit possession. When a drummer sees the physical signs of the onset of possession in a servant/dancer (usually, a loss of balance or a struggle against an unseen force), he launches a kase. Sometimes, he keeps

the kase up relentlessly until the spirit has taken full possession of the ser-

vant.

I have often thought of the kase as a musical metaphor for the rupture caused by the plunging of the vertical axis into the cosmic sea, where the

spirits reside. Both constructs create a pathway for traffic between the human and spirit worlds. Of course, this thought is speculation. As far as I have been able to determine, Vodou servants do not speak of the kase metaphorically, but rather as a very practical device for driving a spirit into a servant’s head.

Technique and Timbre Timbre, or tone quality, is a perception influenced by envelope (the charac-

teristics of amplitude that determine the growth and decay of a sound) and

spectrum (the relative amplitudes of the partials present ina sound). Vodou drummers use various hand and stick techniques to influence envelope and spectrum. Some of these techniques have corresponding terms, some do not. Where terms exist, they refer simultaneously to a timbre and to the

technique that shapes it. In Haiti, drummers sometimes use vocables instead of terms. For example, they imitate the boula drum pattern for yanvalou with “ke-lép, ke-lep, ke-lép, ke-lép,” etc. This practice is cumbersome with inconsistency. I use the vocabulary for hand technique that Frisner Augustin developed for his classes in New York. Stick techniques lack terms, so I simply describe them.

The hand either strikes the head or slides across it. Most strokes show

three types of contrast: hand position, hand pressure, and hand curvature.

Position ranges from the center of the drumhead to the rim; pressure refers either to letting the hand bounce off the skin (unstopped) or pressing it The (stopped); and curvature means that the hand is either cupped or flat. the rubs player hand slide is the siye (from the French essuyer, “to wipe”): the

54

The Drums of Vodou

U Horizontal Slanted

Horizontal Slanted

Figure 3.3 Vodou drum technologies.

head from rim to center with the joined tips of his thumb, index finger, and middle finger to create a portamento effect. Sticks strike either the drum head or the side of the drum. There is no perceptible difference between a stopped or unstopped stroke against the side. Strokes against the head utilize three kinds of contrast: stick position (ranging from center to rim), stick pressure (stopped and unstopped), and stick angle (horizontal or slanted with respect to the surface of the head).

The possible variations and combinations give the drummer a considerable palette to work with. They are summarized in Figure 3.4. Stick techniques, which lack terms, appear as x. Tuning The three drums of the Vodou battery are tuned relative to one another. The

boula is a perfect fourth higher than the segon, and the segon is a perfect fourth higher than the maman. The boula, then, is a minor seventh higher than the maman. The timbal is tuned approximately like the boula.

The Rhythms

55

. None of the drum pitches is absolute, and there seems to be no relatio n-

ship between drum pitch and the tonal centers of Vodou songs. Likewise, the pitch of the ogan is arbitrary with respect to the drums. Notating the Vodou Drum Patterns

We place percussion strokes on a conventional staff, using staff position as indicator of hand or stick position. From bottom to top, the strokes are as follows: efirst space: esecond space: ethird space:

fourth space:

side of drum drumhead, center drumhead, between center and rim

| drumhead, rim

A closed circle above the staff indicates that the note directly below is

played with the strong hand (right hand for right-handed people). These are

merely suggestions; drummers may be comfortable with other choices. An open circle above a note indicates that both hands/sticks are used. The hand or stick bounces off the surface it strikes unless otherwise indicated by the notehead; we use a small diamond for the noteheads of stopped strokes and an x for hand slaps. Drum rolls are written as tremolos (three diagonal Slashes above the note), and the siye (slide) as a glissando (a straight line connecting two notes). The ason and the ogan, the two idiophones of the ensemble, are each

notated on a single-line staff. Ogan players who use a West African double bell like to exploit the two tones available, as well as the possibility of stopping or damping the sound, but most Haitian ogan-s produce only one tone, so the notation here represents only one. When

the maman drum uses hand and stick at the same time, both are

notated on the same stave, and the word “stick” appears below the time signature. The player always holds the stick in the strong hand. Since the ogan

is always played with a stick, and the boula nearly always with two sticks

(the one exception being for the kongo payet dance), “stick/s” is not indi-

cated in the notation for these instruments. In the sole instance where the boula plays with hands, the word “hands” appears above the time signature. Because time spans and metric bars are somewhat analogous, bar lines

separate time spans in this notation. The time signature indicates how many fastest pulses there are in the time span (upper number) and whichnote rep-

resents the fastest pulse (lower number).

For clarity’s sake, all strokes

56

The Drums of Vodou

Plate 3.1 Rada drum: bass plus stick.

Plate 3.2

Rada drum: slap plus stick.

The Rhythms

Plate 3.3

Rada drum: tone plus stick.

Plate 3.4

Petwo drum: bass plus rim.

57

58

The Drums of Vodou

Plate 3.5

Petwo drum: press.

Plate 3.6

Petwo drum: tone.

The Rhythms

59

(stopped and unstopped) are thought of as decaying until the next attack, so there are no rests in between. Rests occur only in special instances, such

as the moment before the first sounding of a pattern, or when the stick strikes the head (obliging the hand to rest) in combined hand and stick play-

ing. Finally, the choice of durational symbols reflects the logic of pulse division. In the maman pattern for yanvalou, for example, the stick divides each slow pulse into two faster pulses, each of the latter represented as a dotted quarter note. The notation of the hand part is also organized around

the dotted quarter (rest and/or note). Idiosyncracies of each drum ensemble pattern are dealt with in the

analyses that follow. To some extent, adaptations and inventions are necessary in the notation of non-Western music, but the notation used in this

book relies primarily on European convention.

Analysis of the Rhythms The Vodou rhythms correspond to the nations of spirits described in Chap-

ter One. In a ceremony, servants salute the nations in a certain order. The

drum ensemble patterns presented at the end of this chapter follow that order. The notated ensemble patterns are analyzed in this section. A highly detailed analsis of all fourteen rhythms is bevond our scope, but we go into

detail with yanvalou, because it is a particularly complex rhythm and it can serve as a model for the reader who wishes to analyze the other rhythms in

detail. After we analyze yanvalou, we make more general remarks about Petwo in order to point out some important differences between Rada and Petwo mythms.

Certain relationships become apparent in an overview of the rhythms, the most striking being the movement from patterns using time spans of six and twelve fastest pulses at the beginning of the ritual order to patterns using time spans of eight and sixteen fastest pulses at the end. Yanvalou

Yanvalou

is the most frequently heard Rada rhythm and leads off a

ceremony. Either yanvalou or parigol opens a set of songs for a spirit, and

zepol, mayi, daome, or fla vodou closes it. A common ogan part reflects the grouping together of these dances, while differences in the other parts reflect subdivisions within the group. The performance of yanvalou begins when the priest introduces a song that calls for that rhythm. The priest sings with through the entire text once, accompanying him/herself on the ason

60

The Drums of Vodou

slow

1

2

medium strokes

1

1

2

2

3

Figure 3.4

The ason pattern for all the Rada rhythms. the pattern shown in Example 3.4. The ason pattern uses the two slow pulses that delimit the yanvalou time span. In the example, the first two strokes of the ason correspond to the slow pulses, and the third stroke corresponds to a medium pulse derived by binary division of the second slow pulse.

The boula is the first instrument of the battery to respond to the ason. It

introduces itself with a special pattern played into the third time span, then

settles into its regular pattern. Note that no stroke of this regular boula pattern falls on a slow or medium pulse. The special character of the Doula for yanvalou is that it feels entirely offbeat. This effect is achieved by using pulses that exist only on the fast level.

After the boula has settled into its main pattern, the other instruments

join in. The bas simply plays the slow pulse. The ogan plays a seven-stroke

pattern (well known to students of West African music) that uses ternary and binary division on slow, medium, and fast pulse levels, as shown in Fig-

ure 3.6. The first three strokes of the ogan are medium pulses derived by ter-

nary division of the first slow

pulse, the fourth and sixth strokes are

medium pulses derived by binary division of the second slow pulse, and the fifth and seventh strokes are fast pulses derived by ternary division of

medium pulses. The ogan uses this seven-stroke pattern for all of the Rada dances. slow

medium fast strokes

1231233123123 1

2

3.4

5

6

Figure 3.5

7

8

Analysis of the boula pattern for yanvalou.

The Rhythms

61

slow

medium

1

2

3

1

fast

2

12

strokes

1

2

3

4

3

1

5

2

6

Figure 3.6

3 7

Analysis of the Rada ogan pattern. The segon for yanvalou uses a different scheme of pulse division. It strikes

on all but one of the medium pulses, which are derived by ternary division

of the slow pulses. The second and sixth strokes fall on fast pulses derived by binary division of two medium pulses. The sixth stroke creates an offbeat effect because of the absence of a stroke on the medium pulse that immedi-

ately follows it. The scheme is outlined in Figure 3.7.

The maman pattern for yanvalou is two time spans in length. The stick

pattern articulates the medium pulses derived by binary division of the

slow pulses. The first, third, and fifth hand strokes, and the last stick stroke,

fall on fast beats derived by ternary division of medium pulses; the other hand strokes coincide with slow and medium pulses. Note that both time spans of the maman pattern have the same rhythmic structure, with the exception of the last medium pulse of the hand part. In the kase of the maman part, the steady beating of the stick against the

side of the drum breaks. On the second and third beats of the measures, the

stick strokes are offbeat with respect to the established pattern of pulse division; they do not fall on slow or medium pulses. The vacillation of the

maman between offbeat and onbeat creates the tension and opposition of

this kase. The movement of the dancer emphasizes the slap of the stick (one

of the offbeat strokes). slow

1

medium

1

fast

1

strokes

12

2 2

3

2 3

4

1

2

1

2

5

6

Figure 3.7

3

7

Analysis of the segon pattern for yanvalou.

62

The Drums of Vodou

slow

1

medium

1

fast stick hand

2 2

1

123 1 1

2

2

1

1231 3

1

1

2

4

2

1

1231 5

3

2

4

6

12 7

5

2

8

3 9

6

Figure 3.8

Analysis of the maman pattern for yanoalou. The yanvalou ensemble pattern exploits the two-against-three potential inherent in time spans that contain twelve fast pulses. The segon divides the slow pulse by three while the stick of the maman divides it by two, for example. I am certain the reader will find other fascinating relationships in this very rich Vodou rhythm. Petwo

All of the Petwo rhythms have time spans of eight fast pulses. Djouba is an exception, but ina ceremony it segues into the eight-pulse abitan. The binary and ternary pulse divisions of the Rada rhythms are missing in Petwo. Instead, Petwo rhythms are offbeat. The two slow pulses that delimit the time

span (two half notes on our notation) clash with a fast-pulse pattern of 3+3+2 that permeates all Petwo rhythms. Note where the strong had strikes the drum in the boula for petwo below. If we omit the strokes of the weak hand, we easily se the 3+3+2 pattern. We see it clearly in the even-number measures of the segon, in the ogan (if we omit the ornamental eight-note), and in the kase of the maman (measures 11

and 14, like the boula). The maman takes the offbeat feeling a step further by avoiding strokes on the seventh fast pulse (a pulse highlighted by the 3+3+2 pattern) and stressing the sixth instead. Similar relationships are present in the other Petwo rhythms.

The tempestuous nature of the Petwo spirits should be in the minds of players as they highlight the offbeat strokes. Transcriptions of the Rhythms

Following on pages 63 to 91 are transcriptions of the sacred rhythms of

Haitian Vodou, in their normal sequence of performance. (Note—the only

exception to the normal sequence in the following transcriptions is that Abitan normally follows Djouba).

The Rhythms

Yanvalou

63

64

The Drums of Vodou

The Rhythms — 65

66

The Drums of Vodou

Parigol

Segon

Boula

Ogan Ason

ee

Le

2

Ooi

The Rhythms

Sli

i dll

dt

67

68

The Drums of Vodou

Zepol Maman

Segon

Boula

Ogan Ason Bas

The Rhythms

69

70

The Drums of Vodou

May Maman

Segon

Boula

Ogan Ason

The Rhythms

71

72

The Drums of Vodou

Fla Vodou Maman

Segon

Boula

Ogan Ason

The Rhythms — 73

74.

The Drums of Vodou

Daotme

Maman

Segon

Boula

Ogan Ason Bas

The Rhythms — 75

76

The Drums of Vodou

Maman

Segon

Boula

Ogan

The Rhythms

Li

dl del

— 77

78

The Drums of Vodou

Nago

Maman

Segon

Boula

Ogan

Ason

The Rhythms

79

80

The Drums of Vodou

Ibo Maman

Segon

Boula

Ogan

The Rhythms

— 81

82.

The Drums of Vodou

Abitan

Maman

Segon

Boula

Ogan

The Rhythms

83

84

The Drums of Vodou

Kongo Payet

Timbal

Segon

Boula

Ogan

The Rhythms

= 85

nes

Stir grr tin. aa. Al a

alin

Bepost pir ter pt g hed ppt DSS opr tr SESS Ieper thir Cpt rir ppt oir pee ee 0)

0.

2)

A

A

A

ALF

86

The Drums of Vodou

Petwo

Maman

Segon

Boula

Ogan

The Rhythms

87

88

The Drurns of Vodou

Banda

Maman

Segon

Boula

Ogan

The Rhythms

89

90

The Drums of Vodou

Kita

Maman

Scgon

Boula

Ogan

The Rhythms

91

Chapter Four Song and Dance Vodou

percussion patterns are part of an array of visual,

aural, and kinetic symbols of spiritual entities. The present chapter explores song and dance, two kinds of symbolic activities that complement the percussion patterns. Besides their symbolic role, song and dance move through time with the steady pulse of the drums. Song Like percussion patterns and instruments, Vodou songs have physical and Spiritual dimensions. They originate with the spirits themselves and constitute a kind of oral Vodou bible. At the same time, patterns of scale and phrasing structure song. For our purposes, the study of song is essential because of its relationship to rhythm. Spiritual Considerations

The Origins of Songs The Vodou /wa are the authors of the songs that evoke them. Sociologist Laguerre posits two channels of communication of songs to humans.’ One is the dream. The servant who receives a song in a dream passes it on to

other members of the society as revelation. The other channel of communication is the possession state. During a ceremony, a spirit may teach the congregants to sing a new song by having them repeat its phrases until they have committed it to memory. When the spirit leaves, the person who was possessed does not recall the song and has to learn it from the congregation. [his person is not considered the owner of the song. It belongs to the collective.

92

Songand Dance

93

Priests are responsible for teaching the repertoire of the society to new members. Vodou songs migrate to other locales when individuals visit

temples outside their own. Today, Vodou songs are available by the hundreds on recordings. Poor Haitians cannot afford to buy recordings, but many hear them played on radio programs.”

Song Specialists and the Chotr The learning of songs is central to the initiation process. Individuals who show a special talent for singing and who have mastered an extensive reper-

toire of songs may be designated oudjénikon. This is a discrete grade of

initiation. The oudjenikon leads in call-and-response singing. She/he “sends” a song, and the choir “responds.” Because of this responsibility, a song specialist is rarely possessed while singing the lead. When a specialist is possessed, a priest may take over his/her role. A priest may do this when an oudjenikon is absent for any reason. That Petwo songs may be “sent” by individuals who are not priests or specialists is an index of the informality of the Petwo branch. A strong choir is a sign of society cohesion. This is underscored in New York, where societies are loosely organized. In Haiti, society members see each other daily, while the New York priest called on to organize a ritual must scout around for competent singers. The power of the industrial order to isolate individuals dampens the cohesion of Vodou groups in New York. The effect is one that I have reported on elsewhere.” It is not uncommon for priests, song leaders, and master drummers to stop the music in the early part of a ceremony in New York and lecture the congregation about their weak singing. Thanks to Vodou’s resilience, these lectures usually kindle the choir. The Sacred Texts

Vodou song texts are a kind of encyclopedia of the spirits and of Vodou cos-

mology. Because the spirits are ancestral and experienced in human affairs, the subject matter of Vodou texts expresses human feelings and concerns, sometimes as the speech of humans and sometimes as the speech of lwa-s. As

pedagogy,

songs

reveal

characteristics of spirits, people, and

the

environment (both terrestrial and cosmic). As magic, they share with per-

cussion patterns, dance movement, and véve-s the power to summon !wa-s. Some songs are even used to send undesired spirits away. Maya Deren explicated the meaning and function of songs for the individual servant in her liner notes for a now out-of-print Elektra disc. We'll cite part of it here:

94

The Drums of Vodou

When the Haitian sings songs to the loas, he performs ritual formulae,

and the more dedicated and disciplined his performance, the more it rewards him. The repetition of a name evokes the concept incor-

porated in that loa named, focuses concentration upon him and eventually, his insight and understanding of that principle gradually deepens.

How are Vodou songs classified? Most scholars make a gross division of all Afro-Haitian songs into sacred and secular. Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain subdivided the sacred songs into four categories: (1) songs of preparation; (2) invocations; (3) responses or prayers, sung when a spirit has come;

and (4) congés (dismissals), to end or prevent undesired possessions.” But if

youask any Vodou servant to classify songs, she will probably say that there are songs for Ogou, songs for Ezili, songs for Danbala, etc. Jocelyn, my friend who served as an oudjénikon for many years before she took the ason,

taught me this principle early on. For that reason, I favor the classificatory scheme of Michel Laguerre, who, utilizes two “levels”: (1) spirit families,

and (2) human-spirit interactions. © The first level comprises songs for Ezili, Loko, Géde, etc., and the second songs of preparation, invocation, etc. Concise, rhythmic, repetitive phrases that are easy to memorize pattern

Vodou songs. A few chants (usually played at the beginning of a ritual unaccompanied by drumming) are in French, but the image-saturated language of Vodou songs is mostly Haitian Kreyol. Inserted into the modern

Kreyol are occasional phrases in what servants call langaj (literally, lan-

guage), or pale Ginen (speech of Africa, roots talk). Scholars and servants

both recognize the languages of Haitians’ enslaved ancestors in these phrases. Priests claim to know the meanings and pass them on to apprentice

priests, but they share this knowledge with no one else. Scholars are not so certain of the meanings, since many of the words seem to have been cor-

rupted over time. Langaj reminds Vodou servants of their origins and imparts a sense of the sacred. But all Vodou songs are esoteric. For initiates, texts entirely in Kreyol convey both surface and deep meanings. Physical Characteristics To what

degree

has

European

melodies

descend,

melody

influenced

Afro-Haitian?

The

melodic lines of some Vodou songs reminded Herskovits of “unchanged European folk melodies.” ” Drawing on the musicological cliché that “primitive”

David

Welch

interpreted

Herskovits’

remark as a reference to the arched pitch skeleton of certain Vodou melodies.® Paul believed that new compositions are new texts only and that

Songand Dance

95

Vodou melodies are pre-existing models, fixed fora long time. ? On the other hand, Férére Laguerre found a connection between diatonic Vodou songs and the facts that (1) slaves, especially in the north, played European instruments in the colonial theatre and could read music, and (2) all slaves knew

French Catholic songs. 10 The speculations are interesting but difficult to resolve. Our agenda is simply to describe the melodies and show their relationship to Vodou rhythm.

Scale

Song specialists and choirs members do not abstract scales from Vodou songs, but outside analysts have discovered scalar patterns in them. Férére

Laguerre emphasizes the presence of diatonic-heptatonic scales to bolster

his argument for European influence. He also claims that most songs are of the minor rather than the major mode.!! To

my knowledge, no one has

proven that most Vodou songs favor any category of scale or mode. Sucha claim would entail the analysis of thousands of songs—a task no one has carried out. Perhaps the most detailed analysis to date is Dauphin’s.! The five scale types Dauphin identifies are: (1) anhemitonic pentatonic; (2) diatonic hep-

tatonic (major, natural

minor, and some

Dorian and Phrygian modes

created by pitch alteration); (3) incomplete scales (truncated heptatonic, i.e., pentachords and hexachords); (4) tetratonic; and (5) metabolic (in two

modes alternately, or at the same time). My own collection of songs reveals similar categories. A striking number of them use this pentatonic scale: cdega

The “tonic” may be c and/or a. Notice that there are no minor seconds in this scale. Some songs add a sixth pitch, b, but it usually has the character of a passing note and is part of a descending motif more often than an as-

cending one. Occasionally, f functions the same way. Two of the songs for Loko in my collection sharpen the f to render this Lydian scale: cde f# gab

I have also collected a Petwo song that vacillates between major and

Lydian, that is, the f appears alternately natural and sharp.

If there is any generalization we can make about Vodou scales, it is that

they draw from a wide spectrum of types and devices. I refer the reader to Dauphin’s book for more.

96

The Drums of Vodou

Phrasing The length of the Vodou song phrase is commonly an even multiple of the

bell pattern, and it often corresponds to one ensemble pattern. Each phrase

begins with the first slow pulse of the ensemble pattern, although a few syllables may act as a “pick up.” In the following lines from a song for Loko,

the “x’s” below the text represent slow pulses:

A-lo-ko va ni-e, mé ou-gan nou, x x x x A-ti-sou va ni-e, ga-de Pa-pa nou... x x x x

In Haitian Kreyol, stress tends to fallon monosyllables and the final syll-

ables of polysyllabic words, and this is reflected in Vodou song text, where slow beats correspond to stressed syllables more often than to unstressed.

Generally, the rules of phrasing for Rada songs are more strict than for

Petwo songs. ogan pattern oudjénikon is ogan patterns ing.

Most Rada songs begin with a formula: one long phrase, one with no singing, and one repetition of the phrase. The more flexible with Petwo songs, letting varying numbers of pass between phrases, and the chorus picks up on her phras-

A master drummer follows song phrasing closely, and his variations on maman patterns may highlight structural features of the phrasing. An extra

flourish, for example, may accent the entrance of the chorus, or the repetition of the first phrase. The more skilled a drum ensemble, the less arbitrary

the relationship between melody and rhythm in Vodou music. Call and Response Form

Call-and-response singing is one of the stamps of African-ness in Haitian

Vodou music. But it is more than an ancestral relic. The interaction of a gid (guide, leader) and pép Ia (congregation, the people) represents the way Haitians believe society should function, that is, with skilled leadership and an engaged collective. In Vodou ritual, the response of the ousi-s is a mark

of cooperation and solidarity. Call and response is consistent with what Haitians view as ideal dis-

course. The priest or the oudjénikon “sends” a song. “Mwen voye, nou reponn”

(“TI send, you return”). This choice of words underscores the objectification of a song, its transformation into a pwen (point), that is, a concentration of

spiritual energy. The sending of points is a form of communication that

Song and Dance

97

Haitians cultivate in diverse social and political contexts (Brown 1987: Rich-

man 1991). Ina

lively and effective discursive process, receivers pick up and

return points to senders. A song is always initiated by a priest or oudjénikon. This person sings the

whole text, which probably consists of three to five phrases. The servants then repeat the text as they have received it. The whole song might travel

back and forth several times. The leader may improvise and uses insertion and/or substitution of text renew an old song , or to comment ona current concern or idiosyncrasy of the society. The chorus may pick up on these in-

ventions but is more conservative. When the singers have exchanged the

entire text several times, the leader bandies just the last line with the chorus, splitting it into two semi-phrases that the chorus sings the latter of. Some-

times the leader returns to the whole text, but he/she may also proceed

from the repetition of the last line to a new song. In general, three or four songs are concatenated before the priest brings the music to a stop.

How does the leader determine how many times to sing the whole text,

how many times to bandy the last line, and when to proceed to a new song? In 1981, I noticed that I had recorded the same sequence of songs at each of two Vodou ceremonies.'* The ceremonies took place in the same house two

months apart, with the same priest leading the same chorus. One of the songs was markedly longer at the second ceremony. Figure 4.1 compares the call-and-response patterns of the two versions of the song. Note that in the B version, the leader interrupted his sending of the last line with a shout (“Ago e!”), which signalled the chorus to respond witha return to the whole text. This is a common call-and-response device. Ceremony A Whole text

leader, chorus

CeremonyB Whole text

leader, chorus Last line

leader, chorus

leader, chorus leader, chorus

Last line

leader, chorus leader, chorus leader, chorus

Shout

leader

Whole text

chorus leader, chorus

Last line

Figure 4.1 Two call and-response versions of a Vodou song.

leader, chorus

98

The Drums of Vodou

I could not make sense of the differences on my own, so I played both

tapes for the priest and simply asked him why they were different. He knit

his brows a few moments, and I worried that he wouldn’t be able to answer me—or that he might think my question was absurd. Then, as if a light were suddenly switched on, he looked up and said, “Ah, yes! Those are vévé songs.” They were songs to accompany the tracing of véve-s. The priest explained that Ceremony A was for Ogou and Ceremony B for Ezili. The vévé traced for Ezili was more elaborate than the one traced for Ogou and, consequently, called for stretching out one or more of the songs. The priest

achieved this through the exploitation of call-and-response options. The priest’s answer was So simple it was almost disappointing, but it did lead me to two important conclusions about Vodou song. First, song form is intimately interwoven with ritual action. Second, the economy or concision of Vodou verse is not an accidental feature, but one that gives phras-

ing its necessary flexibility. Meter

Vodou songs may be metered or unmetered. The songs of the opening prayers of a ceremony are unmetered. They are sometimes unaccompanied

by drumming and sometimes accompanied by woule (a drumroll without a pulse). The songs we are focusing on are metered songs accompanied by drumming with a pulse.

We can notate Rada songs, like Rada drumming, in 12/8 meter, but it would be cumbersome to do so. The four dotted quarter notes of the Rada time span are rarely subjected, in song, to ternary division on the next level of density, as they are in drumming. Their division in song is usually binary, which means that they are often ina polymetric relationship with the drumming, that is, two or four against three. Forcing the melodies into a 12/8 scheme would render a plethora of symbols not easy to read. For ease of reading, I have opted to notate Rada songs in 4/4 meter, with the quarter note equivalent to the dotted quarter of the notated drumming. In doin this, lam following in the footsteps of Fleurant in his study of Rada music. We can notate Petwo songs like their accompanying drum patterns, that is, in 8/8 meter, but again, this would be creating excess symbols unneces-

sarily. Petwo songs in this book are notated in 4/4 meter. They differ from Rada songs in their lack of a polymetric relationship with the drumming. Examples 4.1-3 are transcriptions of representative Rada, Kongo, and

Petwo songs.

Songand Dance

99

Yanvalou

3

Pa-pa

Lo

Ma,

2

- ko

pa-le

pi-tt

sa_

yo,

Wa

di

yo

mo-ve

=

tan

ba-

2 f

J

}

wad

}

aos

+

re mwen.

ko

re-vol-te

c—

pode L Pa-pa

la

ko

2

—-7

ee '

am-c

Lo

- ko

mo-ve

Example 4.1 Yanvalou.

—————

J re -

tan.

t vol -

ba-re

te,

mwen.

Coes Pa- pa Lo-

100

The Drums of Vodou

Kongo

-

wo,

A

fe

1

I I

ye

?

I |

_ | oul

~~

eo

f

4.

ot

|

kon -

pee,

J

t

]

’

a

I I

J

Ka - wo-lin’

ae.

I I

1

Illy

p—t

¢

TT

dan

A

I I

Vv

aka

-

T

a

tT jit

ko'm_

oo,

go,

a

T

]

se kon- gojous

CR we TF

=

J

i

vv

a Fr

.

tr

.

|

wo,

neg

nwe-

Example

v4

Kongo.

»

A 1

I I

ti ZO

4.2

qT

mwenmal

0,

Ly

Vv

v

]

I

chip

I

&

]

_——— ly

vt

|

- sekon-gonou

I ue

vv

I

y

yy

v

fe

T

mwenmal

nae