Whisky and Voodoo

[featherynscale]

I've been reading The Haitian Vodou Handbook. I occasionally tell people that I know exactly as much about Afro-Caribbean religion as would fit in my left boot, and almost all of that boot-ful is about Santeria. So I know practically nothing at all about voodoo. But it's crushingly interesting, so I'm pursuing it.

So I'm reading and the author is saying that each practitioner "has" some spirits and it will be easy for them to work with those spirits, but if you don't "have" a spirit, then it will be hard for you to work with that spirit, or the spirit might ignore you entirely. Now, in Santeria, you have an orisha (or maybe two) who have your head, and that orisha is your sort of spiritual parent and chief ally, and the way to tell who rules your head is to get a divination done. I don't know if there's a similar trick to it in voodoo - the author sort of says, yes, you could have a divination to see what spirits you have, but most people don't have access to that, so you kind of just have to know. So I was pondering that before going to sleep last night.

Now, I'm a dreamer. I'm really good at it. So of course, I had a dream in which my grandfather came to visit me, and brought along a fairly forbidding, sinister-feeling person (I seem to be unable to remember any details about this person - my brain slides right over them). So, anyway. In this dream, my grandfather says he has something to tell me, but he tells me that he can't talk about it yet. We have to get away from the other person and he can tell me. So we climb up this ladder to a painter's bench, and the sinister person is left below, and I'm like, "Okay, what is it?". He leans over and says, conspiratorially, "There's a reason you like whisky." I say, "And that is?". He winks, and climbs down the ladder, leaving me alone.

We're very funny in my family. :) Because, you know, I have no problem at all identifying whisky as a spirit I have. I'm just sayin'.

Comments

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

Is there a Vodou spirit who is also into the whiskey?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Several, apparently. I can't tell you off the top of my head which ones they are though. Yet.

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

My research is turning up similar results. I've got one really good resource I'm already tapping, though...
[Sends URL to Nick]

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

Nick says that's not enough data. Personally, I'd look for one of the Lwa that reminds you of your grandfather.

[celtic-elk.livejournal.com]

Or make offerings to your grandfather as a Gede.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Except he's still alive. :) I told you, we're funny in my family.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

Heh. Whisky = Spirit. Very clever play on words, even if it's not really what you meant.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

No, that's exactly what I meant. In the last bit, anyway. :)

[celtic-elk.livejournal.com]

If you want more stuff on Vodou, run out and get a copy of Maya Deren's Divine Horsemen; it's still considered the classic work. Karen McCarthy Brown's Mama Lola is also a very interesting read.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Those are both on my list - kittenpants just happened to come home from the bookshop with this one first.

[celtic-elk.livejournal.com]

I'll take credit for that. =)

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Everyone needs a consulting librarian. :)

[celtic-elk.livejournal.com]

Preferably more than one, so that their skills and perspectives complement one another. For example: I've got your hookup on obscure spirituality, but I'm useless for designing Tesla coils.

oo! Tesla coils!

[popefelix.livejournal.com]

I ought to put one of those together. It'd be fun. :)

Re: oo! Tesla coils!

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

When you decide to do this project, can I come over and help? :D

[gamera-spinning.livejournal.com]

Somedays I miss the grocery store in Tampa a block away from where I used to live and the way they carried chicken feet.

I thought this was interesting.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

That is interesting - I'm bookmarking it for future reference. Also, yeah, it's odd to think about these faiths here in a way that it is not at all odd to think about them in Florida.

[orcjohn.livejournal.com]

Although you probably have access to this stuff. This link

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/126.html

has a short list of the major Loa spirits, one of which is considered a gatekeeper and he MUST grant permission for any loa to contact a person.

Hope this helps.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wasn't out there trying to talk to anybody. It was just a sort of funny thing that happened.

[liquidfun.livejournal.com]

Interesting how many funny things just sort of happen around you

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

What are you tryin' to say there? :)

Whiskey

[starrthinks.livejournal.com]

Okay, admittedly my knowledge of Anansi is from Neil Gaimon, not holding that against me... Anansi (in Gaimon's books) is depicted as liking whiskey. In another Anansi story this woman told me at UU, apparantly he is like a grandfather figure....

I just thought it was interesting.

[shahera5.livejournal.com]

Because you have a pirate as a spirit? Oh, that'd probably be rum, wouldn't it. Let's see -- whiskey. Some Western gunslinger? Or a Kentucky bootlegger?