by Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen

Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen — American-born, Haiti-initiated mambo asogwe — was the most active voice on alt.religion.voodoo in the group's peak years, posting hundreds of substantive teachings on Haitian Vodou practice and theology. This post, addressed to readers of the Vodou Arts forum and crossposted to several Usenet groups, is a comprehensive introduction to ancestor service: who can do it, who should do it, and how to handle the complications that inevitably arise. It was posted in February 2005 as the opening teaching of a seminar series on "Vodou, the Tarot, and Ancestor Reverence."

What makes this document remarkable is its directness. Mambo Racine does not romanticize the ancestors or sanitize the tradition. Abusive relatives, unknown biological parents, white slavemasters — all of them, she argues, are useful. The lwa recognize no racial bar on ancestral service, and neither does she. Her account of her German-American grandfather Alfred demanding beer at the Haitian peristyle — and getting it — is one of the finest small portraits of lived Vodou practice in the Usenet archive.

EVERYONE has ancestors. That is why we are starting here, because ancestral service is a way that every single person on earth can enter the Vodou tradition.

Ancestral service is good for your self-esteem! The more you respect your ancestors, the more you therefore respect yourself. Some people have problems regarding ancestors, and I am going to deal with them first, and then I will go on to more positive aspects.

There are three main problems that people come up with regarding ancestor service — 1) "I don't like my ancestors, I hate them and don't want to serve them", 2) "I am adopted and I don't know my ancestors", 3) "I want to get rid of all my white ancestors" or "I want to serve African ancestors but I am not black".

If you hate your Mama and Papa, or your grandma or somebody, that doesn't mean that you should not or can not serve your ancestors. Let's say that your Dad sexually abused you. Then he died. Fine! In the clarity that comes with death, that abusive parent (grandparent, step-parent, uncle, whoever) is probably eager to atone. MAKE THEM PAY! Give that abusive ancestor work to do, make them find you a better job, bring you money, whatever.

Even if Uncle Harry was an ax-murderer, and even after death he is still a maniac, USE HIM. Set him to guard your front door and direct his aggression at thieves. You see?

If you are adopted, CONGRATULATIONS! You are in luck. Even if you don't know your biological ancestors, they know you. They're dead now, they have spiritual vision, and what may have been hidden from them in life is now revealed. So now you have two teams of ancestors to put to work, not just one — your biological ancestors and your adoptive ancestors.

Also remember that many people who think they know their biological ancestors really don't — Mama's baby is Papa's maybe, everywhere in the world. And there are all sorts of circumstances: a teenage girl has a baby, her mother raises the child, and the child thinks that his biological mother is his big sister! The woman he thinks is his mother is actually his biological grandmother, and the man he thinks is his biological father is no blood kin to him at all.

So often I see people who say, "I am descended from a line of African priests, and only biological descendants of this line have a right to participate in this tradition." But when you ask them, "How do you know?", it develops that they were told this through divination. They had a reading and they were told this.

So, they don't really know! They believe, they hope, they wish, but they don't really know at all. And how come these folks are always descended from "African priests" or "African kings"? How come no one is ever descended from an African barber? An African goat herder?

Some African-Americans claim they want to "exorcise their white ancestors", or that "white people can not serve African ancestors". What nonsense! ALL ancestors are useful. If great-grandpa was a slavemaster, see the paragraph on abusive ancestors above — make them pay! Feed them of course; a hungry ancestor can't work as hard as a well-fed one. And then put them to work.

You can serve any ancestor you like, African, European, whoever. Let me give you an example. My late maternal grandfather died of a blood disease called polycythemia, a long-term result of exposure to mustard gas in the first World War. Now, every November 2, he comes to our peristyle in Haiti. He was a German-American (fought on the American side in WW I and even brought home a German rifle he captured). So he likes sausage, and he likes beer!

When he comes into my head, Alfred demands exactly those things — sausages and beer. He inveighs against the evils of war, he sometimes stops to have a fit of coughing. He can knock back a case of beer easily.

My Haitian initiates, who are all black except for one mulatto man, LOVE Alfred! They positively adore him! He tells them jokes, he gives them money, he teaches them magic.

Last November 2, Alfred came a little early in the day. I hadn't yet bought his beer. Well! Alfred got in a snit, and took off barefoot down the street (in my head), and went to the local beverage depot, where they sell cases of beer. And he demanded a case! Of course on the way he was telling jokes and carrying on. Fortunately the guy who runs the business knows me and trusts me to make good on my bills, and he gave Alfred the case of beer. Alfred popped one open on the spot, gave out a few more, and then asked my initiates to take the rest back to the peristyle where he could guzzle it at his leisure.

No one has ever suggested that because Alfred is a white German-American, that black Haitians shouldn't serve him — what lunacy. He's useful to our house and everyone in our house loves him.

Okay, now that I've dealt with those objections, let me talk about more positive things. Remember that your ancestors are the ones who produced your body, the physical vessel of your incarnation. Your female ancestors, right down the line to your mother, endured the agonies of childbirth, they nursed and diapered and cared for their children, and that is why you can be here now, reading this. Your male ancestors, for the most part, contributed more than just a sperm cell. They worked! They paid the bills, they fought the battles of life.

So your ancestors form a chain of love and work, leading right down to you. The graveyard where they are buried should not be a scary place to you, it should be a place where you go to experience their love! Learn as much as you can about all your ancestors, both biological and adoptive.

You can also choose an unrelated ancestor. I do this all the time! I have "La Reine Indienne", the Indian Queen, who was a Native American matriarch in western Massachusetts. I have Miss Roper, a white American woman from the 1800s buried in eastern Massachusetts. All you have to do is feed them, and they will work with you.

Colophon

Written by Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen (Mambo Racine), an American-born mambo asogwe initiated in Jacmel, Haiti, and the founder of the Vodou Page and Vodou Forum communities. Posted to alt.religion.voodoo, alt.religion.orisha, and alt.pagan in February 2005 as the opening teaching of a seminar series on "Vodou, the Tarot, and Ancestor Reverence."

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected].

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