Vodoun

From this book I am reading:

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“Vodoun is a quintessentially democratic faith” (p. 73). 

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“As the Haitians say, the Catholic goes to church to speak about God, the vodounist dances in the hounfour to become God” (p. 73). 

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“To understand Haiti,” he said, “you must think of a glass of water. You cannot avoid touching the glass, but it is just a means of support. It is the water that slakes your thirst and it is the water, not the glass, that keeps you alive.

In Haiti the glass consists of the Roman Catholic church, the government, the National Police and army, the French language, and a set of laws invented in Paris. Yet when you think of it, over ninety percent of the people do not understand, let alone read French. Roman Catholicism may be the official religion, but as we say the nation is eighty-five percent Catholic and one hundred and ten percent vodoun. Supposedly we have Western medicine, but in a country of over six million, there are but five hundred physicians, and only a handful of these practice outside of the capital” (p. 85). 

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“Haiti will teach you that good and evil are one. We never confuse them, nor do we keep them apart” (p. 94).