Article: Haiti carves visitor niche with 'Voodoo tourism']

Haiti carves visitor niche with 'Voodoo tourism'
By Michael Deibert, Reuters

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 20 — In the maze of muddy
alleys and lanes of Port-au-Prince's crowded Bizoton
quarter, Ti Papi, also known as Goodwin Jacques, is
having a busy day.

A large man whose once-muscular build is giving way to
the softness of middle age, Jacques is presiding over
the initiation of a dozen converts from Martinique
into his peristyle, or voodoo temple.

''This area was something of a virgin territory, years
ago,'' he says as he adjusts a seashell necklace.
''There weren't a lot of people here, but there were a
lot of trees here, and a lot of water, these being
strong attractions for the spirits -- the sea, the
river and the trees. With my clients, from Martinique,
Guadeloupe, French Guyana, if I do good work for
someone, word gets around, and those who are
interested will come to me.''

Haiti, once a tourist mecca, lost much of its allure
to the international set as a result of nearly
continuous political unrest after the departure of
iron-fisted ruler Jean-Claude ''Baby Doc'' Duvalier in
1986.

Now, eight years after an American-led multinational
force restored a democratically elected government to
power, Haiti is carving a modest tourist niche in the
most unlikely of places.

Over the last several years, would-be voodoo adepts,
anthropologists and photographers have visited the
Caribbean nation to delve into what was once regarded
as a deformation of Catholicism but is now enshrined
in the Haitian Constitution as a religion on par with
any other.

At the annual festival of Souvenance outside the
central city of Gonaives during Easter Week, a
plethora of foreigners, from international aid workers
to photographers to the odd ambassador, attended a
week's worth of voodoo festivities that included the
sacrifice of a dozen animals, bathing in a sacred pool
and chants beneath a sacred mapou tree.

''In Haiti, we have beautiful memories of what tourism
was in the 1950s,'' Tourism Minister Martine Deverson
said. ''And today we lack a lot of the amenities and
the infrastructure we had then. But today there is a
greater awareness of Haiti's cultural heritage, and
voodoo, though it is often confused with black magic,
we believe can be a great attraction to visitors.''

Though fewer than 200,000 visitors came to Haiti in
2000, according to figures provided by the tourism
ministry, plans are under way to launch a modest
foreign public relations campaign stressing Haiti's
unique cultural value and to open a tourist bureau at
the capital's international airport with information
available on hotels, cultural events and
government-sponsored guides.

A RARE EXPERIENCE

''We are not prepared for mass tourism,'' Deverson
says. ''But we can offer an experience that you can
very rarely find anywhere in the world. We are trying
to make the resources for these unique experiences
available to everyone.''

Voodoo arose from the animist religions of West Africa
and holds that life is given and sometimes controlled
by spirits who can be summoned through rituals. The
traditions were brought to the Caribbean islands by
slaves.

Voodoo has played a long, often maligned, role in the
development of Haiti's national and cultural identity.
In 1791, a voodoo ceremony held by slaves outside of
the northern city of Cap Haitien initiated a 13-year
struggle against their French colonial masters that
ended with the establishment of an independent Haitian
state in 1804.

Faustin Soulouque, a self-declared ''emperor'' who
ruled Haiti for a decade in the mid-1800s, promoted
and acknowledged voodoo as a unique religion. In more
recent times, the dictator Francois ''Papa Doc''
Duvalier tailored his appearance to reflect that of
Baron Samedi, spirit lord of the cemetery, in an
effort to cast himself in a mystical, threatening
aura.

At Ti Papi's temple, initiates go through many
purification rites, including ritual baths and 41 days
of sexual abstinence, before being sequestered in a
windowless room for seven days, emerging only to take
part in rituals that will go on, day and night, for
the entire week of their stay.

''My mother was from Martinique and my father from
Israel,'' says a young, white-clad,
coffee-complexioned man. ''My grandfather was a gengen
(voodoo priest), but after he passed on there was no
one to carry on the tradition. Over the years, I had
very strange dreams, dreams of a man with horns, of
repeated visits to a temple in the countryside.

ABANDONED SPIRITS

''I went to the priest but the priest told me I was
crazy,'' the initiate said. ''Eventually, I realized
the problems were coming from the spirits that had
been abandoned. They were trying to claim me, but
because I had lost the knowledge, I didn't know how to
properly respond.''

Ti Papi, waving a bejeweled finger in the air,
recognizes the problem.

''In Martinique, they have almost entirely lost their
African traditions,'' he said. ''I would say that they
have almost become too French. We all came from the
same people, but Haiti, with its early independence
was able to keep their traditions strong.

''In many of these countries now, when people have
problems with their ancestors and problems
specifically relating to spiritual matters, they turn
to specialists from Haiti to help them.''

With paper Haitian flags hanging from the temple
ceiling, the booming rhythms of the kata drums
announce the arrival of the six initiates, barefoot
and dressed all in white to symbolize purity.

They replicate a complex series of salutations learned
from Ti Papi before the assembled congregation as Ti
Papi and his assistants strike the center post of the
temple and the ground fiercely with machetes. In
voodoo, the spirits come up from the ground, not down
the heavens.

The ceremonies will last long through the night and
well into the following day. Ti Papi, already bathed
in sweat in the sweltering room from dancing with and
saluting the initiates, steps behind the drums, taking
a deep swig from a bottle of Barbancourt rum.

''When there's tires burning in the streets, when
there's coup d'etat, when there's everything else, we
are still doing our ceremonies, we are still beating
our drums,'' he said. ''Politicians come and go but
voodoo is always here. If it wasn't for voodoo, we
would already be occupied, either by the Americans or
the Dominicans. Voodoo? It's been our sovereignty,
over the years.''
Received on Tue May 28 08:43:05 2002