On African Origins: Creolization and Connaissance in Haitian Vodou
Author(s)
Apter, Andrew
Abstract
What is African in the African diaspora? In this article, I return to the problematic question of African origins in the black Americas, arguing that despite the distortions of baseline genealogies and associated myths of tribal purity, West African cultural frameworks–when critically reformulated–illuminate New World dynamics of creolization. Focusing on the Petwo paradox in Haitian Vodou, which opposes Creole powers of money and magic to the venerated, if enervated, authority of Ginen (Africa), I address a fairly narrow debate regarding the division of Petwo and Rada deities and their imputed Creole versus African origins. Against the ideology of Haitian Vodou, and its misleading influence on various scholars, a Yoruba-Dahomean cultural hermeneutic reveals the African origins and revisionary principles of the Petwo and Rada opposition, as it emerged before the Haitian revolution and realigned with class relations under Francois Duvalier.
