Price Mars So Spoke the Uncle

Main Argument

• Voodoo is a legitimate structured religion and ethical system rooted in African animism and not merely a superstitious or ignorant collection of sorcery

• Voodoo is a syncretism of various tribal beliefs, such as those from Dahomey and Congo/Bantu linguistic groups

• Voodoo served as a vital psychological refuge, moral code of taboos, and an essential unifying force that empowered enslaved Africans to endure oppression, preserve their cultural identity, and organize resistance

"Voodoo is a religion because, amid the confusion of legends and the corruption of fables, we can discern a theology, a system of representation thanks to which our African ancestors have, primitively, accounted for natural phenomena and which lies dormantly at the base of the anachical beliefs upon which the hybrid Catholicism of our popular masses rests." - chapter 2, section 2

Supporting Concepts (name them)

• Defining religion beyond western norms

• Validity of voodoo as a religion

• Voodoo ethic and code of taboos

• Intersection and distinction between religion and magic

• African Origins and Syncretism in Saint Domingue

Definining voodoo beyond western norms

• Price-Mars rejects the narrow definition of religion strictly as a bond between man and a deity/god, as the traditional etymology “religio“ suggests

• Utilizing the sociological framework of Emile Durkheim, he embraces a broader definition centered on the universal distinction between the sacred and profane

• He highlights examples like early Buddhism (an "ethic without god") to prove that religions can exist and thrive without a central personal deity

“It establishes, and everyone agrees, that 'all the known religious beliefs, whether simple or complex, have a universal characteristic: they assume a classification of real or ideal things which men have introduced as two opposite types, designated generally by the clear-cut terms of the profane and of the sacred.“ - chapter 2, section 1

Validity of voodoo as a religion

Voodoo satisfies the criteria of a religion:

• belief in invisible spiritual beings

• pantheon headed by grand masters

• hierarchial priesthood

• It has temples, altars, formal ceremonies, oral traditions, and an underlying theology (foundational beliefs, systems of thought, and explanations that African ancestors used to make sense of the world around them) that explains natural phenomena

“Voodoo is a religion because all its adherents believe in the existence of spiritual beings who live anywhere in the universe in close intimacy with humans whose activity they dominate.” - chapter 2, section 2

Voodoo ethic and code of taboos

• Price mars counter-critiques critics who say that voodoo is amoral because it doesn’t align with Christian morals, arguing that voodoo instead has its own moral system that operates independently of any other (e.g. inderdictions and taboos)

• Interdictions and taboos govern private and social life, command discipline, guard against community dissolution, and like christianity, instill a reverential fear of transgression

"On the whole, all of these customs, all of these interdictions of which we have given only a small number here, are summed up in a code of taboos to which the individual submits with a reverential and quite singular fear." - chapter 2, section 2

Intersection and distinction between religion and magic

• Although voodoo contains elements of magic and sorcery (argumentative points against it being a religion), so do other major religions, like Christianity, which historically utilized saints, relics, and prayer to influence natural physical forces like storms or seismic activity

• Magic is individualistic and operates through fear and mystery

• True religious beliefs possess the higher social virtue of binding communities and peoples together in a shared faith

"As moreover, the first men had to accommodate themselves to the material conditions in which they were obliged to live without being able to dominate them... deified natural forces, determined as much as possible the modalities by which they would regulate their relations with these forces. Therefrom came a system of representations, a cosmogony which is based both on religion and magic..." - chapter 2, section 2

African Origins and Syncretism

• The displacement of enslaved people from tribes of West and Central Africa (particularly the Bantu and Dahomeans) led to a process of cultural syncretism (the combining, blending, or merging of different and distinct religions, cultures, philosophies, or schools of thought into a new, unified system)

• Slaves maintained their ancestral beliefs in secret, all the while living under the constraints of Code Noir (colonial, mandated Catholic Baptism, and the prohibition of non-Catholic assemblies

• Voodoo emerged as an amalgamation of African animistic traditions that provided the spiritual fortitude, psychological resilience, and leadership necessary for clandestine resistance and ultimately the Haitian revolution

"This is very likely, it seems to us, the probable origin of our Voodoo. It is pre-eminently a syncretism of beliefs, a compromise of the animism of the Dahomeans, the Congolese, the Sudanese, and others." - chapter 2, section 5