by Mambo Racine Sans Bout

In July 2007, two American members of the Roots Without End Society — Houngan Louvel Delon and Mambo Lisa Gruber — were arrested at the Port-au-Prince international airport for carrying sacred ancestral skulls given to them by a Haitian houngan. Despite no Haitian law forbidding possession of such objects, they were tried without interpreter or legal counsel by a Protestant commissioner who served simultaneously as prosecutor, judge, and jury, then imprisoned in two of the worst prisons in Haiti. Mambo Racine Sans Bout, the society's founding mambo asogwe, wrote this formal statement of protest — a document that reveals the political vulnerability of Vodou even in Haiti, the religion's homeland, and the articulate voice of a community determined to defend its sacred practices.

Mambo Racine Sans Bout (Karen McCarthy) is an American mambo asogwe initiated in Jacmel, Haiti, and the founder of the Roots Without End Society, the primary community voice on alt.religion.voodoo from 2003 to 2009. She wrote hundreds of teaching posts, ceremony accounts, and theological reflections in that period. This document stands apart from her usual work — not liturgy or instruction, but a cry for justice and an assertion of religious dignity.

Roots Without End Society Houngan Louvel Delon, Bon Houngan Tounen Sa Li Vle Daginen; and Roots Without End Society Mambo Lisa Gruber, Bon Mambo Trois Bagues Trois Fois Force Bien Frais Daginen; were arrested on the morning of July 24, 2007, at the Port-au-Prince international airport. Both are American citizens by birth, and Houngan Louvel Delon has some Haitian heritage on his father's side. Both were arrested by an officer of the airport security service, who took exception to their possession of two sacred skulls. Although they had violated no Haitian law, the two were placed in custody by the airport security officer, who had no authority to do so in the first place since there is no law against possession of skulls.

Houngan Louvel Delon and Mambo Lisa Gruber received those sacred ancestral skulls from Haitian Houngan Luckner St. Louis of Jacmel. He gave them two skulls, those of a long-dead Houngan and Mambo of his own biological family line, so that the spirits within them could go to the USA and enable Houngan Louvel Delon and Mambo Lisa Gruber to perform certain Vodou services.

There is no law whatsoever in Haiti forbidding the ownership of skulls — if there were, virtually every Houngan, Mambo, and bokor in Haiti, not to mention a few others, would be in prison! These sacred objects are served with their libations and their food, their candles and their objects, being served and venerated as our tradition requires.

Houngan Louvel Delon and Mambo Lisa Gruber have not violated any law regarding the transporting of bones, either. There are laws in Haiti regulating the transport of cadavers, and laws against desecration of graves, neither of which pertain to the case of Houngan Louvel Delon and Mambo Lisa Gruber, who were in possession of dry, clean, ancient bones, and who have not desecrated any grave whatsoever.

On July 25, Houngan Louvel Delon and Mambo Lisa Gruber were charged with "trafficking in human body parts" and imprisoned indefinitely until trial, despite the fact that they had not bought the skulls for money and did not plan to sell them! The sham trial lasted no more than a few minutes, and was conducted by a militantly Protestant "Commissaire" who served as prosecuting attorney, judge, and jury all in one. The two Americans speak no Creole, and had no interpreter or lawyer present.

Houngan Louvel Delon and Mambo Lisa Gruber were then transported to the Pènitencier National and the Pétionville women's prison, respectively. Reports indicate that Houngan Louvel was beaten by other prisoners and robbed of his money, a common practice with newly incarcerated individuals. In the meanwhile Mambo Lisa, shocked by events, became ill and had to be transported immediately to the Port-au-Prince General Hospital, itself a facility of very dubious quality.

It is an outrage against all principles of law, as well as against the basic principles of human rights, that these two individuals should be treated in such a degrading way. Mambo Lisa Gruber is an educator in the USA, Houngan Louvel Delon is a writer, and the couple own and manage a bookstore. These are not murderers who, having killed, attempt to ship a body out of the country! Neither were they selling kidneys and corneas — in fact, they didn't buy the skulls at all, but instead received them from a Haitian Houngan in the course of a Haitian Vodou ceremony.

It is staggering to we the leaders and members of the Roots Without End Society that major crimes such as kidnapping, murder and armed robbery committed with regularity in the streets of Port-au-Prince go unpunished, while the august justice system of Haiti wastes its time with a Houngan and a Mambo carrying two long-dead ancestral skulls, to which we have every right and with which we practice our religion!

The Roots Without End Society, led by Mambo Racine Sans Bout, appeals to the Haitian Ministry of Culture and to President René Préval, to intervene and hold up the name and the worth of the Vodou religion! We are not criminals or thieves, we are clergy of a religion more ancient than Christianity. Our Houngans and Mambos, our rites, our sacred objects, must be respected.

The Roots Without End Society demands the immediate and unconditional liberation of Houngan Louvel Delon and Mambo Lisa Gruber. We demand that our tradition and our sacred objects be accorded the same respect as those of any Catholic priest or Protestant pastor in Haiti. We demand that the ancestral skulls be immediately returned to their descendant, Houngan Luckner St. Louis. We denounce the scapegoating of our two members, considering that skulls have been going and coming back and forth to Haiti in the hands of Houngans and Mambos for decades if not centuries, and never has there been any objection from the Haitian authorities or American Customs, through which several Roots Without End Society Houngans and Mambos have passed from year to year, accompanied by ancestral skulls. Houngan Louvel Delon and Mambo Lisa Gruber are victims of religious persecution, which is outlawed by the Haitian Constitution and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Haiti is signatory.

At this time the Roots Without End Society, aided by Haitian attorney Louifort Laguerre of Jacmel, and American attorney Timothy O'Leary of Easthampton, Massachusetts, are now establishing a fund for the legal defense of Houngan Louvel Delon and Mambo Lisa Gruber, and for their maintenance and support while they remain cruelly and arbitrarily imprisoned in two of the worst prisons on earth, for no crime other than practicing the Vodou religion in the same manner as the Houngans and Mambos of Haiti have always done.

Liberation for Houngan Louvel Delon and Mambo Lisa Gruber! Respect for Vodou and Vodouisants worldwide!

Colophon

Written by Mambo Racine Sans Bout (Karen McCarthy), founder of the Roots Without End Society and mambo asogwe of Haitian Vodou, initiated in Jacmel, Haiti. Posted to alt.religion.voodoo on August 2, 2007.

This statement was written in response to the arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of two American members of the Roots Without End Society at the Port-au-Prince international airport in July 2007. It documents a specific moment of anti-Vodou religious persecution in Haiti — the home country of the tradition — and stands as a formal record of the community's response. The two individuals were eventually released; the case became a reference point in discussions of Vodou's legal status and the Protestant-Catholic hostility toward the tradition within Haiti itself.

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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