This afternoon, I’m casting around (pun to be revealed) for something to blog about that will not be redundant to other stuff one can find about Vodou on the internet. Something that would be useful to newcomers or the curious, and even present a different perspective to someone familiar with the topic.
Let’s talk about family spirits!
Vodou is an ancestral practice. The Lwa are ancestors; compound ancestors, abstractified ancestors.
Here’s an example from my family.
My father turns 80 today.
He comes from a long line of fishermen. His German father and his grandfather were fishermen. Presumably, his Galician ancestors- on his mother’s side- were fishermen too, living close to the sea.
Both his father and his grandfather were also in the Navy.
Incidentally, my great grandfather was part of the Kiel Mutiny of 1918, in which German sailors refused to execute orders that would have resulted in their certain death, took over the port of Kiel, were joined in their protest by the soldiers that were sent to suppress them and by local workers, and eventually caused the collapse of Hohenzollern Monarchy and the end of WWI. As a political radical, there was then a price on his head, and he fled (as a stowaway, if I remember correctly) to Canada. Years later he returned to Germany to retrieve his wife and my three year old grandfather. They rode steerage back to Ellis Island in the US, where they were eventually naturalized.
My Galician great grandparents- my father’s mother’s parents- met at the port of A Coruña, where my great grandfather was working as a stevedore and my great grandmother, a little girl, was earning money for the family by carrying coal on her head to the ships. They, too, crossed the ocean in a ship and entered the US through Ellis Island.
And by the sea they all stayed, starting off in New York City and eventually moving to Long Island, where my father grew up fishing with his dad.
And so, my family on my father’s side has a profound connection with the sea. My father still goes fluke fishing off Long Island on a weekly basis during the summer with a couple of buddies. He feels at home there.
In Vodou, the spirit of the sea is named Agwe. He isn’t the sea itself, although all the swelling and glistening brilliance of the sea, its heavy bounty of fish, its vast and ponderous flowing mystery, does manifest his nature. He is a spirit that is ever evident in the sea, but is just as well lives in the heads of his children, those who have a special connection to him. He is seen as a captain, a protector of boats on the sea, as well a merman king beneath the sea. Lavish offerings to him are sent out to sea on a special raft, which is towed out to the ocean and allowed to sink down to him. His ritual accoutrements include a conch shell and a mirror. A mirror in Vodou is always connected with water, and under water is where the spirits live.
His symbol is a ritual boat named Immamou. With this mysterious word is painted along its side, a miniature version of this boat is suspended from the rafters of the temple.
One could say that my family, particularly my father’s side, has Agwe as a spirit, although not being familiar with Vodou, they wouldn’t articulate it that way. But the sailor life, the maritime military life, the fisherman life; these are all the stuff of myth of a particular, salty flavor. The sea and the life of a man on the sea bear a certain allure, something special that sets them apart from terrestrial concerns. In the old days, men would run away to the sea. They would choose a life of adventure on the high seas. The sea is mysterious, powerful, changeable, lonely, embracing, encompassing. I could use a lot of words for it, but if you’ve ever been to the sea, you already know.
This was passed down in my family, and it’s still there.
While I was pregnant with my son, I devoured the entire book Moby Dick, fascinated by its descriptions of life on the sea. I thought about naming him Ishmael (he got my father’s name instead). He was born in the caul, which is said to be a lifelong protection against drowning (port towns in Europe used to host a lively trade of dried-up cauls for sailor who hadn’t been so lucky to purchase). He also was born with webbed toes, which is also sometimes said to presage a destiny on the seas. And he loves to go fishing with his grandfather.
Agwe is passed down in our family through specific encounters with the sea. The sea stays the same (as changeable as it is), vast and embracing of all these encounters. The encounters vary, but hold to a theme. Being on a boat. Navigating. Enduring storms. Hauling the fruits of the sea up onto the deck. The salty smells, the bobbing and waves, the spray. These are all embedded in us. We are a sea people.
My great grandfather, as dramatic as his story of mutiny, stowing away, and political extremism is, is fading into the past. He died a year before my father was born. Specific memories of him are only preserved in my grandfather’s memoir. As the memory of him fades, he becomes more and more abstract, like a photo that blurs over time. If we keep talking about him, he will be remembered as a sailor and a revolutionary. That is to say, he will be remembered as Agwe and as Ogou.
My grandfather, who I remember well as a quiet, humble man in a fishing hat with stories of being in a submarine (and hating it) and moving up the ranks of the phone company, who tinkered in his woodshop and loved Dr. Who and The Beer Hunter documentaries, and was enchanted with the internet, won’t be remembered by my son. But what he passed on to us- a folk art metal sculpture of a man in a rowboat who bobs and moves his oars when a breeze hits him- will be familiar to him. One day he’ll inherit it from me. In that same way, my grandfather passed Agwe down to us.
So, Happy Birthday Dad, happy summer to the spirits of the sea, and may we all keep our family spirits with us, remembered and well-fed by the lives we contribute to them, both now and when we’re done here.
Drop a line below to let me know about your family spirits, whether you can connect them to the Lwa of Vodou or not!
