Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Faces of the Gods

Faces of the Gods

Desmangles, Leslie G.

Paperback

Series: Society

Religion General Mythology & FolkloreCatholicism

ISBN10: 0807843938
ISBN13: 9780807843932
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: Dec 14 1992
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.85
Height: 0.60 Width: 6.20 Depth: 9.22
Language: English

Vodou, the folk religion of Haiti, is a by-product of the contact between Roman Catholicism and African and Amerindian traditional religions. In this book, Leslie Desmangles analyzes the mythology and rituals of Vodou, focusing particularly on the inclusion of West African and European elements in Vodouisants' beliefs and practices.

Desmangles sees Vodou not simply as a grafting of European religious traditions onto African stock, but as a true creole phenomenon, born out of the oppressive conditions of slavery and the necessary adaptation of slaves to a New World environment.

Desmangles uses Haitian history to explain this phenomenon, paying particular attention to the role of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century maroon communities in preserving African traditions and the attempts by the Catholic, educated elite to suppress African-based superstitions. The result is a society in which one religion, Catholicism, is visible and official; the other, Vodou, is unofficial and largely secretive.

Also in

Religion General

View All