# Yoruba & Vodun help!



## CicadaGrrl (Aug 29, 2011)

Anybody know anything about Louisiana vodun?  Or sources I could use?

Same for yoruba?


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## Map the Dragon (Aug 29, 2011)

Louisiana Voodoo | Vodun


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## Black Dragon (Aug 29, 2011)

What's yoruba, and how is it different from vodun?


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## Ravana (Aug 29, 2011)

Yoruba is one of the African cultures vodun derives primarily from. Dahomey and Fon are two others I know of. Actually, "derived from" is deceptive: it's still practiced there–under that name–in a somewhat different form than is practiced in the Americas. So be sure you know which one it is you're after, CicadaGrrl.

As for sources: Turner & Coulter's _Dictionary of Ancient Deities_ is a good starting place for just about any research involving religion/mythology/folklore. While it sometimes lacks depth, it blows away all other single-volume resources in breadth. 

That should give you some points of entry to work from. The only voodoo-specific resource I have is, well, uhm… _The Complete Idiot's Guide to Voodoo_. (Insert joke here.) What can I say? It's the only such reference I've ever seen on a shelf, so it's not as if I could be picky. As with all of the series, it is far better than any book with a title like that ought to be; on the other hand, I wouldn't exactly take it as gospel. You could also track down a copy of _The Serpent and the Rainbow_–the book, I mean: the movie was _very_ loosely based on it; while it has received considerable criticism, I'm not aware of anybody else attempting to do scientific studies in the field at all, so that still puts him a leg up on the people who gripe about him.


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## CicadaGrrl (Sep 2, 2011)

Both.  I need both.  I'm not confusing the Vodun with Yoruba, though, of course, Yoruba was one of the religions Vodun in its various forms descended from.  Louisiana Vodun is, yes, also Voodoo, but so many people have stupid reactions to that word.


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## Ravana (Sep 2, 2011)

Just checking. The Yoruba are an ethnic group (and the language they speak, etc.) that's still around--very much so: to the tune of at least 30M people--so they shouldn't be too difficult to find information on. (The Fon are still around too, though they're a much smaller group.) While the vodun-style religion has been largely displaced by imports, it still exists, and is probably far easier to find good ethnographic research on than American derivatives, since it wouldn't suffer from the same prejudices. 

One of the problems when considering voodoo (other than those prejudices) is that it isn't completely clear where all its parts come from: while a fair number of the names of the orishas obviously came from the southern coast of the West African bulge, I've seen claims for some bits originating farther south (with the Kongo peoples), farther west and north, or even from around the Cape on the southeastern coast. Plus, a good chunk came from Christianity, too. So it's a bit hit and miss when it comes to sorting them out. 

If you don't mind my asking: what do you want to know them for? That is, why both? It could make a big difference on the level and quality of detail you need, or how safe you'd be in ascribing some given detail to both groups or just one of them.


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## CicadaGrrl (Sep 4, 2011)

I'm working on a trilogy--the first is out, _Weaver's Web_.  They rely heavily on world religions and mythologies.  I suppose I should have said I need a historical approach to both Louisiana Voodoo and Yoruba, and current Louisiana Voodoo, as some of the characters with these belief systems are--er.  Older.  Modern day voodoo and yoruba religions essentially clash with a, for heavily backstoried reasons, bokur of 1960s Voodoo who is perverting the religion.  I want to make it very clear that what he is doing is NOT what the religion is about, any more than Black Rites are what Christianity is about.  I already know some about modern Yoruba as I had a friend who practiced.  However, I am looking more around a few hundred years ago on the West Coast of Africa.


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## Ravana (Sep 5, 2011)

You're probably going to be stuck with extrapolative reconstructions, then--at any rate, I certainly wouldn't trust anything written at the time about [_please understand the following as channeling some European slaver, folks_] primitive pagan superstitions practiced by an inferior, dark-skinned race [_we now return to your regularly scheduled Ravana_] by anybody who'd actually hold such opinions... as everybody literate at that time would have. 

(If that offended anybody... good. You _should_ get offended that humans ever thought about one another that way. I certainly do. One could only wish such opinions were _exclusively_ a thing of those bygone centuries....   )

I think you might be best going with some version of modern Yoruba practices, subtracting out anything that's obviously anachronistic, adding anything from archaeological research that sounds reasonably plausible and appealing for your purpose, and keeping in mind that even with all that, your characters don't necessarily _need_ to practice the religion the way it was practiced--in fact, that might be a worthwhile substrate itself: the "guardians" of the lore aren't always fully reflected by popular practice, any more than Thomas Aquinas reflected the average 13th-century Christian. Then, for the bokor, look not only at (fairly) contemporary practices from the U.S., but even more so from Haiti... again, not the "average," but by the more psycho/sociopathic members of the Tonton Macoutes. It could provide the strong contrast you're looking for, or at least good pointers toward it.


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## CicadaGrrl (Sep 10, 2011)

Thanks for the tips.  The yoruba being practiced would be practiced by one who hasn't done so in hundreds of years.  And I think I will have to do some extrapolating.  I know just what you mean about those fairly peaceful dark skinned books from the period.  Not at all offended.  It needed to be brought up.


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## SarahM. (Oct 17, 2011)

There is a Yoruba village on the coast of South Carolina. You can find their website here: official website of Oyotunji African Village and Orisa-Vodou Spiritual Lineage You could probably contact them for more information the queen is a great source of African history and legend (we see her on tv just about every time they talk about black history on the coast of SC).


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