Erol Josué

Shamanism · Vodou Song · Houngan

Haitian vodou priest, singer, dancer and ethnologist, initiated as a houngan in childhood by his mother, a mambo, and his stepfather. He sings the chants and the invocations of the lwa, the spirits of vodou, and speaks langaj, its liturgical language. Vodou is an Afro-Haitian religion in its own right, with West African roots in Benin and Congo and roots among the indigenous Taíno: a religion, a way of living and a community, and not the caricature the word carries elsewhere.