Healing and the Arts in Afro-Caribbean Cultures

The Creole religions of the Caribbean—Haitian Vodou, Cuban Santería, Jamaican Rastafarianism, among others—are wide-ranging spiritual practices whose impact can be felt in virtually every aspect of the cultures of the region, from language and music to healing and the arts. The healing cultures associated with Creole religiosity in the Caribbean evolved out of the fusion of the native healing systems of the indigenous Arawak and Carib peoples of the Antilles and the herbal medicine and folk curative practices brought to the region by African slaves and European colonizers. Together they developed into hybrid and pluralistic magico-religious practices that have maintained a most tenacious hold on the Caribbean cultural imagination. They represent complex systems of physical, spiritual, and cultural healing that allowed conquered Amerindian and enslaved African communities that had already suffered devastating cultural losses to preserve a sense of group and personal identity.

From the early years of European colonization in the Caribbean, Creole healing traditions have relied on a multiplicity of objects—fragments of material culture produced by the clash and fusion of folk art traditions. These objects are credited with the ability to heal diseases of the body and the spirit, as well as with empowering a population suffering from the ills of colonialism and slavery. These objects, because they function as links between humans and their gods, exemplify the principle of reciprocity that is the foundation of the crucial relationship between humans and the spirit world in Caribbean religiosities. Many of these objects, such as the various representations of spirits (orishas in Santería and lwas in Vodou) through the imagery of Catholic saints and the sequined flags whose entrance marks the beginning of a Vodou ceremony, have become highly valued items in the international art market, losing in the process their connection to religion and ritual.

The earliest manifestation of the creolized healing arts of the Caribbean is that of santos, carved-wood religious figures that have been produced in Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands since the early sixteenth century. These polychrome figurines, roughly eight to twenty inches in height, were introduced by Spanish friars as aids to the conversion of the Arawak (and later the African) population, and soon replaced the traditional Taíno cemís as objects of veneration in homes and of magical fertilization in the fields. Like the santos, Taíno cemís (small triangle-shaped carved figurines fashioned out of stone or wood) had served as conduits for the forces of the spirit world to enter into communion with humans in rituals of fertility, healing, or divination.

Initially carved by Spaniards in a style highly influenced by Romanesque and Gothic art, the santos were appropriated and simplified as they were incorporated within Creole religious and healing practices. The santos are believed to be imbued with the spirit of the saint, lwa, or the orisha they represent, which can be invoked to bring about physical healing or spiritual comfort. In isolated rural communities with little or no access to medical care, most people relied on their devotion to these images for protection against disease. For example, a common figure, that of St. Raymond Nonnatus (San Ramón Nonato), a thirteenth-century saint considered the protector of pregnant women and newborn babies, would be placed on the abdomens of women in labor to assure their safety and that of the child. Santeros, as the carvers of these images are still known, developed an island-specific iconography that allowed the peasantry to quickly recognize and contextualize the carved images through symbolic forms and attributes. Saint Blaise (San Blás), the fourth-century saint that protects against diseases of the throat, for example, is immediately recognizable for his pastoral staff, red and yellow miter, black cassock with a white alb, and black shoes.

The carved wooden santos and other representations of Catholic saints made their way into the altars, rituals, and healing practices of Santería and Vodou through the associations made by slaves between the mythology of the African-derived orishas and lwa (spirits) and attributes or qualities identified with Catholic saints. On Santería and Vodou altars they joined a variety of objects—sequined flags, bottles, dolls, among others—linked to curative practices. Although African-derived ethnomedical therapeutics in the Caribbean are essentially plant-based and consist of decoctions, infusions, aromatics, and/or baths prescribed to cleanse an evil spell or attract beneficent healing spirits, they are often aided by a variety of forms of folk art.

One of the best known forms of religious art in the Caribbean are the sequined and beaded Vodou flags (drapo Vodou ) whose ritual entrance into the ounfò or temple marks the beginning of the Vodou ceremony. The flags depict specific lwa, recreating their dynamic iconography through specific elements and color combinations attributed to the various spirits, sometimes using a printed chromolithograph of the corresponding Catholic saint as the basis of the piece. Their connection to healing practices is both ritualistic and tangible. Their ritual use as devices for saluting the spirits and summoning the spiritual force of the devotees or serviteurs opens the path to ceremonies of initiation, possession, and personal and communal healing. They are important elements in a complex summoning of the spirits to join their devotees through the phenomenon of possession, when the voice of the lwa can articulate for the devotees present the steps necessary for spiritual and physical healing. Equally important is the close connection between the making of these sacred flags and service to the lwa, as many flagmakers attribute the originality of their designs to the inspiration of the gods and propose the labor of creating the intricate patterns as healing work in and of itself in which various members of the community can engage. When done well and in the proper spirit of devotion, flagmaking is work that can be pleasing to the lwa and can embody the ideal relationship between the spirit world and human devotees. Flags are also of importance in the Anglophone Caribbean practice of Obeah, although their production is not elaborate and their healing powers limited. An Obeah flag, a diagonal red cross on a black background, may be displayed in some Caribbean gardens as a guarantor of protection from thieves and Obeah spells. The Vodou flags, together with the other objects that crowd the space of the Vodou altar—calabashes for food offerings painted with the vévé or secret signs of the lwa, sequined bottles offered in honor of the spirits, undecorated libation bottles, among them—represent the creative material culture of Santería and Vodou. Yoruban-inspired beadwork, examples of which we find in beaded bottles or necklaces on Vodou and Santería altars, is never simply decorative but part of a sacred language where the patterns, colors, and other design elements correspond to specific iconographies and ritual functions.

These objects often share their space with a variety of dolls that range from carefully handcrafted cloth dolls to mass-produced reproductions of "action figures" such as Darth Vader. Whereas the commercially made figures usually represent lwa such as Bawon Samdi (Baron Samedi)—the head of the Gede (or Guédé) family of raucous spirits whose activities are confined to the world of the dead, whom they are said to personify—cloth dolls are used chiefly as mediums, as conduits of messages to the spirit world or as repositories of the spirits of ancestors. As in the making of Vodou flags, the making of dolls for healing and ritual purposes is a spiritual process through which the dolls are imbued with the aché or pwén (power) of the spirits. As such, only those trained in healing practices or working selflessly for the good of others can produce dolls with the proper attributes for helping in the healing process. The process is as intrinsic a sign of devotion as the ritual work in which the objects themselves will be used.

In Santería, as in Vodou, the ancestors play an essential role in healing practices. The spirits of the dead do not comprise a single category, however, but include, in addition to the ritual family ancestors, deceased spirits that form one's "spiritual picture" or spirit field and that appear in dreams or through divination and mediumship. These spirit guides, as represented through dolls, paintings, photographs, lithographs, and statues of saints, can range from deceased members of one's biological family to Gypsies, Indians, and old Congo slaves. Their preparation, as that of the carving of santos or the embroidery of a drapo Vodou, follows a detailed iconographic pattern in order to imbue the figure with the power of the spirit it represents. The dolls can be consulted for advice and prescriptions for dealing with a variety of physical, spiritual, or psychological maladies. In the Mayombe (Congoderived) practices of Santería, for example, the mayombero will work to transfer the evil that attacks his patient to a doll. The doll is given the sick person's name and is buried in an effort to trick death into believing that the doll is the patient's corpse. In another variation of the use of healing dolls, a doll, properly prepared or baptized, is placed on the bed next to the patient. The doll is later placed in a box and buried, while the patient is cleansed three times with a rooster that is passed over the entire body. The rooster is expected to die after absorbing the patient's illness.

Aspects of African-derived healing practices surface through many other art forms throughout the Caribbean. The work of Cuban artist Wilfredo Lam, for example, has always been understood as incorporating elements of Palo Monte, a Congo-derived Cuban religious tradition that observes a different interaction with the spirits than Yoruba-based religions; focused less on a pantheon of deities, the Reglas Congas emphasize control of the spirits of the dead and healing with the use of charms (prendas ), formulas, and spells. Healing ceremonies are a frequent topic in Haitian painting, where they appear as colorful, community-based rituals that remind the viewer of the vitality of the Haitian healing arts. Denis Vergin's Interior Ceremony (1946), Ernst Prophète's Chez un Docteur Feuille (At the Herb Doctor's House, 1973), and Jean Léandre's Healing Ceremony with Music (c. 1976) show the range of depictions of healing cultures in Haitian art. Vergin focuses on the moment when the lwa has become manifest through the oungan or priest and offers a pakét (a bundle containing materials that can transmit the power of the spirits) to a pregnant woman. Prophète's work shows the interior of a Dokté Fé or leaf doctor's healing room, which displays the variety of materials and techniques used for healing. Léandre's painting depicts a healing ceremony conducted by a secret society in which animals are being readied for sacrifice as offering to the lwa in exchange for a man's health. Haitian paintings of lwa believed to have curative powers appear often in home altars and ounfò.

Many artists throughout the region have inserted healing themes and imagery in paintings, sculpture, and photography that record the devastating impact of AIDS on the peoples of the Caribbean islands. Although technically not involved with physical healing—this art, particularly notable in Puerto Rico—has focused on chronicling the impact of the illness on the human body and seeks to either channel the rage and impotence of many of its victims or to depict the coming to terms with premature mortality. Puerto Rican photographer Victor Vázquez's work is perhaps the most eloquent example of the haunting quality of AIDS-related art in the Caribbean. His book of photographs, El reino de la espera (1991), offers a pictorial narrative of the last months and death of a friend stricken with AIDS. His subsequent work draws on imagery and themes borrowed from the healing practices of Santería, especially through the depiction of ebbó, the offerings or sacrifices that are a vehicle for the cleansing and purification that are basic to the healing traditions of the region. Fellow Puerto Rican artist Anaida Hernández's traveling show, Hasta que la muerte nos separe (Till Death Do Us Part, 1994), is intended as a healing work to help women face the trauma of domestic violence. Consisting of one hundred square niches filled with photographs, votive candles, flowers, and other objects in altarlike arrangements, each dedicated to a different woman who died as a result of domestic violence in Puerto Rico between 1990 and 1993, the work means to focus attention on an important social issue while offering a healing tribute to the dead women and their families. The work is one of the most important examples of a vital new subject in the Caribbean healing arts in the twenty-first century.

See also Santería; Voodoo

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lizabeth paravisini-gebert (2005)