by Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen
Everyone has ancestors. That is the opening axiom of this teaching, and it is also its conclusion. Mambo Racine begins with the hardest cases — the abusive parent, the adopted child, the person who wants to purge their racial heritage — and shows that none of these objections hold. Then she tells the story of Alfred, her German-American grandfather who died of mustard-gas complications from the First World War and now shows up at her Haitian peristyle every November 2, demanding sausage and beer, making jokes, and teaching magic to her black Haitian initiates.
This post was part of a series on ancestor service conducted on Mambo Racine's Vodou Arts teaching forum and cross-posted to alt.religion.voodoo in February 2005. It is one of the clearest articulations of Vodou ancestor theology available in English — direct, practical, and alive with the strangeness and intimacy of the tradition.
I am going to repeat some of the things I have already said about ancestors and ancestral service, and then we are going to move on from there.
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."
The Abusive Ancestor
If you hate your Mama and Papa, or your grandma or somebody, that doesn't mean that you should not or cannot 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?
The Adopted Child
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.
Race and the Ancestors
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, yatuh yatuh." 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 cannot 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.
Alfred
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.
The Chain of Love
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.
The graveyard service, the ancestor altar, the Monday and Saturday offerings — these are practices available to everyone. You can do an ancestor service any day of the week at all, but Mondays and Saturdays are the best. Begin with a white bath. Make all the affirmative, positive statements you can.
Because EVERYONE has ancestors. And the ancestors are waiting.
Peace and love,
Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen
Se bon ki ra — Good is rare. Haitian Proverb
Colophon
Archived from alt.religion.voodoo. Message-ID: <[email protected]>. Posted February 24, 2005. Archived by the Good Works Library.
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