The New Afrikan use of the term Vodun is used here not so much as reference to the one system that emerges from Dahomey/Benin, but as a neutral source of meaning for the task at hand.  Vodun means "to rest before going to draw water".  It is a term that suggests that we slow down and chose a path that will allow us to draw from the abysmal waters of the Creative Source for the elevation of the individual and the advancement of society as a whole.

In a nutshell, New Afrikan Vodun is about freedom – real freedom. Afrikans in America, and abroad are returning to Afrikan traditions for various reasons and at various levels of understanding. But we still are bringing certain attitudes and baggage into these sacred orders that were originally implanted in our psyche through the horrible advent of slavery. But even before that the attitudes of tribalism set up a destructive disunity that allowed Europeans to get the proverbial foot in the door, which set the stage for the largest and longest mass murder of any people in the history of the world. Sadly, that tribalism has taken on a new form among those that practice ancient Afrikan traditions right here in North America.

The New Afrikan, the Afrikan born in North America, should stand as the epitome of Afrikan unity through Afrikan traditions, but that has not been the case. Oba Oseijiman Ofuntola Adefunmi I brought the rights of Ifa/Vodun to the Afrikans of America in 1959. Within a time span of only 45 years there has developed a new form of separation that would make the various denominations amongst Christians blush. There are many that will say that if you are not doing things exactly as is done in Afrika then that which is being done is in some way wrong. Some will go to the point of narrowing it down to a particular locale in a particular country! Who is the authority on this? The fact of the matter is that, during the Maafa, Afrikans were taken from all of the various ethnicities that populated the West, West Central, and Southwest Central parts of Afrika (95%). Some were even taken from the interior. Therefore, our blood is "multifaceted-Afrikan", hence the term New Afrikan. Thus, how can one retain a tribal attitude while being composed of so many "tribes"? To carry out such a thing is an act of an internal battle against Self, which can only result in self-destruction.

Being composed of such a variegated Afrikan cultural heritage why is it so wrong to honor them? Why do we fight against that and entrap ourselves further in the European's game of divide and conquer? These are the deities of our blood. These are not just ethereal concepts. These are actual entities that comprise the very essence of our being without which we could not exist! The overwhelming majority of American born Afrikans, descending from slaves that worked the cotton fields of the South and other places, do not have direct Yoruba, Ba-Kongo, Fulani, etc. lineage. But what we can be sure of is that we have one plus at least one other of these ethnicities flowing through our veins. And if Afrikan traditions are Ancestral then it would follow that the deities of those Ancestors are within our very being - the very consciousness that is our Orí.

The slave master attempted to confuse the Afrikans and create the atmosphere for disunity by separating people from their tribal identity and putting them within someone else's tribal atmosphere. You and I must see the attempt at creating a permanent level of confusion as an unintending vehicle of unity. The Haitians produced a system, during the time of slavery, which combined the most dominant aspects of Afrikan culture from various ethnicities. But why and how did they do this? The why lies within four realities. Reality number one is that they all realized that they had a common enemy. Number two was that they knew they had to unify against that common enemy. Number three is that they were smart enough to see the cultural unity that runs through all West Afrikan culture. And four was the big one. They realized that freedom was gained through nationalism and that nationalism either produced or was an outgrowth of a people's religious ideology. So they combined the culture without leaving out the religion. The same was done to some degree in Cuba and Brazil.

In fact, this seems to be a phenomenon put into action all around the world; both historically and in the now. Let's take a quick look. Christianity originated in Rome. It is from there you get Roman Catholicism. When Catholicism spread form its Roman home, it took on the flavor of the new culture it had come into contact with. In France, it became French Catholicism. In Spain, it became Spanish Catholicism. In Germany, it became Lutheran, which is the father of Protestantism. All of these people have in common the fact that they all stem from the same common, Indo-European stock. Yet, even though they knew this they also knew that they had to interpret their heritage from their own current cultural circumstances. The same can be said of Islam's various manifestations and Buddhism. In fact, the Tibetan version of Buddhism encouraged the Tibetans to break the shackles of the cultural bondage and physical atrocities they suffered at the hands of their Chinese kins-people! When you look at New Afrikan Vodun from that perspective can't you see what I mean by real freedom?

A Continental Afrikan Example in Support of New Afrikan Vodun

There is a little known Vodun phenomenon in West Afrika called Gorovodu. Gorovodu is mainly practiced by the Ewe in Southern Ghana. It has influences from Vodun (Fon), Akan, Ewe, Hausa, and Yoruba, and is said to have come about as a battle and defense against the oppressive colonial powers that came to smother Afrikan culture within these West Afrikan locales. But it was not only a defense as it was also the coming together of Afrikans ona common platform. It took the advent of slavery to bring this to the forefront with them. But the fact of the matter is that no matter how it came about they finally got it.

In the Ewe language, the word goro translates as “kola” or “kola nut”. Thus, the term Gorovodu literally translates as “Kola Vodu”. At a particular point of the “slave trade”, Afrikans from northern Ghana would be bought with kola nuts and other items. At that time, kola was a highly prized item. It was known for its medicinal properties in taking care of boils, shingles, stomach problems, and impotency just to name a few.

Because of the Ancestral memories of these people that formed Gorovodu they created, as a central point of the tradition, special rights that honored enslaved Afrikans collectively referred to as Tchamba (A Hausa word that means “slave”). It is reported that when the spirits “mount” a Gorovodu devotee the language that is communicated could be one of a number of languages that were exchanged due to the tragedies of slavery, and the cultural amalgamations that followed afterwards. The presence of the Tchamba rites is proof that these Afrikans realized the importance of a reconciliation and continual atonement with those Ancestors that had been wronged through the slave tragedy of the Maafa whether it had been done by their Ancestors or not. It further shows that Afrikans do have a powerful sense of necessitated unity and ideological and philisophical expansion. It is a Sankofa of sorts.

Towards the New Afrikan Paradigm

The Vodun of West Afrika is itself composed of over 30 different indigenous Afrikan ethnic groups. This is testament to the idea that the very core concept of Vodun is integrative and syncretic within an Afrikan worldview. It is rooted in the Afrikan asili (the cultural germ or seed of a people). It expands with the geography and mental norms of the people it comes into contact with.

The fact that West Afrikan Vodun is contributed to from such a multifaceted way should be a powerful wakeup statement to the American-born Afrikan - the New Afrikan. We can look at our own most recent history as grounds for such an advancement. An interesting phenomenon was found here in the Americas when a study of the Gullah of the Sea Islands off the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina was made. It was discovered that their speech consisted of 21 Afrikan ethnicities. The Gullah culture saw no conflict in integrating those various cultural ethos. If the integrative phenomenon could be done on the Mother continent through a voluntary acquiescence, then it should be natural for New Afrikans to create and practice a Vodun that is born of a 400 plus year political, economic, historical, and cultural necessity! Whereas West Afrikan Vodun is composed of 30 ethnicities, we here in the Yepete (an Akan/Twi word which means "diaspora") of the United States are composed of over 100 ethnicities!

New Afrikan Vodun's approach is in that spirit. It is a re-evaluation and adjustment of the Afrikan traditions our Ancestors brought from West Afrika. The experiences and contacts that our enslaved Ancestors experienced produced new understandings and new approaches to things sacred and ancient. What gets me excited about New Afrikan Spirituality is that it is a potential mechanism to move us away from our modern tribalism. In this manner, New Afrikan Vodun as an expression of New Afrikan Spirituality is inclusive of the indigenous sacred rites and theology of the Yoruba, the Akan, the Ba Kongo, the Fulani, etc. Many of us do not want to hear that we are still tribalized but it is quite true. We have re-tribalized ourselves based on the version of Afrikan traditions that we practice. We have created a new plantation system while yet claiming to be Afrikans. This must cease!

Finally, let it be known that the New Afrikan philosophy is designed for the Afrikan descendants - those who have been displaced from their own Afrikan traditions by way of the Maafa (slavery and its horrors), post slavery conditions, Jim Crow laws, Civil Rights Era discrimination and violence, and the neo-slavery attitudes of governmental oppression and government supported police brutality.  Therefore, and unequivocally, the New Afrikan spiritual philosophy is intricately a nationalistic one.

Movements rise and fall, but reality remains constant. A movement is something from the outside, but New Afrikan Vodun is an inherent movement from within.

Our adjustment and reinterpretation of the ancient traditions of our Ancestors is proof that our traditions are not static. They are dynamic, and it illustrates that the confidence that our Ancestors put in us was not wasted. It is the only way that we will advance as a culturally respected people. It is what Baba Medahochi Kofi O. Zannu says that will distinguish between a dead spirituality and one that is alive.

Ache

References

Lovejoy, Paul 1980 Caravans of Kola: The Hausa Kola Trade, 1700-1900. Ahmadu Bello: University Press Limited.

Margaret Joyce 1960 Search For Security: An Ethno-Psychiatric Study of Rural Ghana. New York: W. W. Norton.

Bay, Edna 1985 Asen: Iron Altars of the Fon People of Benin. Atlanta: Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology.