by Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen

A question often posed by newcomers to Haitian Vodou concerns the relationship between two ceremonies: the lave tet — the ritual washing of the head — and the kanzo, the full initiation by fire and water that makes one a member of a Vodou house. In much internet writing of the early 2000s, these were conflated, or new terminology was invented to fill the gap. Mambo Racine Sans Bout, a practicing Mambo based in Jacmel, Haiti, wrote repeatedly to correct the record.

This post from the alt.religion.voodoo newsgroup in June 2005 addresses one of the most common misunderstandings head-on: whether the lave tet is an initiation. Her answer is direct and authoritative — it is not. She also takes the opportunity to correct a terminology error that had spread through online Vodou communities: the phrase "sevis tet," which she explains is a Creole mistake with no meaning in traditional Vodou.

The post is a brief lesson in the architecture of Vodou initiation: what the lave tet does and does not confer, how it relates to the kanzo, and why the kanzo must be done in Haiti. The warmth and practicality of Mambo Racine's voice — she describes her seven-out-of-ten conversion rate with characteristic directness — makes this a valuable primary document on how a practicing Mambo understood and explained her tradition to the wider world.

A lave tet ceremony is NOT an initiation in Vodou. The person who receives the lave tet is not made a member of a Vodou house. They do not receive an initiatory rank. They are not taught the passwords, they do not learn the handshake of an initiate.

Furthermore, there is NO SUCH THING as a "sevis tet." In Creole, a "sevis" is a set of stacked metal bowls used to carry food, and the term is not related to Vodou "service." If you go to Port-au-Prince right now and ask for a "sevis," that is what you are going to get, a set of stacked metal bowls! The correct Vodou term for the ceremonial washing and cleansing of the head is "lave tet" (lah-vay tet), meaning "to wash the head."

The relationship between the lave tet and the kanzo, the ceremony of initiation, is completely voluntary. That is, a person who has a lave tet can go on to have the kanzo, or not, as they choose. And a person who wants to have the kanzo does not have to have the lave tet first.

In Haiti, in fact, most people who have the lave tet do so because they do not want or can not afford to kanzo. But among international initiates, the lave tet often serves as an introduction to Vodou. Of every ten people who receive a lave tet from me, about seven go on to have the kanzo, because they see the benefits they got from the lave tet, and they have an opportunity to meet me and some of my initiates face to face and find out what we are about.

If a person has a lave tet with me and then wants to go on to have the kanzo with me, of course they can, and then I start teaching that person as much as I can, even before the kanzo. That is because I know them, I have begun to "open the way" for them, so to speak, and they are sincere in their desire to become an initiate.

But if a person has not had a lave tet and just says to me, "Mambo I want to kanzo, teach me," then that person makes a deposit of money. This shows me that they are sincere, they are not just telling me a story in order to get information. And then I begin to teach them too!

But the initiation ceremony happens in Haiti, as is prescribed by our tradition. A lave tet can be done anywhere, but a kanzo must be done in Haiti. A lave tet takes a day or two, depending on how many other ceremonial components are added to it. A kanzo takes two weeks.

When you have a lave tet you are not a member of a Vodou house. When you have a kanzo you are! You are the son or daughter of the house, you own the house, your place there is assured. And then you are entitled to the passwords, the invocations, the "langaj," the secrets of the djevo that are taught to all initiates.

Colophon

Written by Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen, a Vodou Mambo based in Jacmel, Haiti, and leader of the Roots Without End Society. Posted to the alt.religion.voodoo Usenet newsgroup, June 17, 2005. Original Message-ID: [email protected].

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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