Sunday, January 08, 2012

Voodoo versus the Catholic Church

ONCE your eyes adjust to the blur of big city New York, you start to notice there’s another world here.

Like the botanicas, the curious little stores that are sometimes buried in basements or can be found in poorer parts of town.

You’ll push open the door to a room crammed statues of Mary, candles, rosaries and bottles of strange oils and potions. 

And you get the immediate sense that Father McGuire from the Catholic Church across the road would not approve.

Up on West 96th street is Botanica Four Winds. Inside is an elderly woman, Molina Alicia, known to most as Ma, from Cuba; there’s her adopted son, Mark, who’s part Puerto Rican, part Colombian; and Joao, who was raised in Trinidad to a Haitian father and Brazilian mother.

The three practice slightly different forms of spirituality but all share the common bond that their beliefs came from African slave culture, which were hidden and maintained behind a front of Catholicism.

There is no one name for what they do but it is all tied to voodoo.

On the shelves there is witch hazel and bay rum; there are crucifixes and lotions and scents and icons. On the front counter there are two baskets filled with half-smoked cigars, beans and torn bread, offerings to Babalu Aye, who Joao describes as the “deity of pestilence and disease”.

Babalu Aye is loved and feared. In West Africa he’s considered the “doctor of the poor”, who both cures and infects -- and is held by some Africans to be held responsible for the AIDS epidemic.

A lot of the things for sale come from Central or South America and cater for different but similar beliefs. As Joao explains: “We have products which come from these lands because a botanica is basically is your general store where you find everything from pills to spiritual items to medicine.”

Ma and Mark are spiritualists, which is another way of saying they practitioners of voodoo; Joao practices Candomble, an Afro-Brazilian tradition. All of their rituals involve healing rituals, readings and trances, which are the main way to connect with the deities.

“There’s a saying in Haiti that white people go to church to pray to God, while we in our temple become one with God,” says Joao. “The main focal point of trance is to bring the deity down to so he or she can talk to the congregation, give them advice, solve their problems, and do a healing ceremony.”

Much of what they do is secret. Asked what the bay rum is used for, all three fall silent.

Then Joao says: “What I can tell you that bay rum is used for pain. But of course, bay rum is sometimes used for magical purposes, if that’s what the spirit asks for to resolve a problem.”

And the main problem, says Ma, is love. “If I can help them, I help them. They’re looking for love, it’s mostly love problems. They’re trying to get a relationship.”

If the seeker is familiar with the rites, he or she knows what to do with the candles and oils. 

“You come here, get some supplies, go home and do a ceremony to open the doors in your life,” says Mark.

Or you may need stronger help and they will perform ceremonies on your behalf. They may read candles, the Tarot or the coffee dregs in your cup. They do other things they won’t discuss.

“We have general rules that outsiders are more than welcome,” says Joao. “We don’t exclude outsiders from getting to know our religion or getting to know themselves. But there’s only so much we’ll tell.”

The Catholic Church does not like this idea of a religion running parallel to its own, but they’ve never succeeded in wiping it out and never will. They have taken the Catholic pantheon and enlarged to include their own deities, such as Babalu Aye.

“There are so many options to attack a problem, which is the beauty of this,” says Joao. “The saints and the Christian god are prominent in our lives. But it is common for us to go to church on Sunday and on Sunday evening we go to the voodoo ceremony and drop offerings. We do not think this is wrong.”

But the church does. 

“We’re devils,” says Ma. “They don’t accept us. But I’m not going to stop.”

They love the same God, they just do it differently. St Anthony is much worshipped among the people who live south of North America. 

“According to Catholics, he’s the saint of lost articles,” says Joao. “But many South Americans or Caribbean people who have lost love will take an image of St Anthony, turn him upside down and say novenas to him. This all came from slaves. We were able to hide our traditions behind Catholic ceremonies. We believe that God in only one, but he’s very remote from humanity because he’s a very busy man."

“Anybody will get help here, as long as they’re open-minded. I see people who come to this place and don’t believe in these things but they come out of desperation, or curiosity, or they say, let’s just give this a chance. Being an atheist or a Christian or whatever, the spirit will still help you.”