In Fon circles, the name is given voodoo to a divinity which designates a spiritual being, that is to say to a divine quality. marshy waters, called primeval waters or primordial ocean, to bring out the first lands of creation. Vodoun therefore evokes a cosmological narrative. A voodoo deity designates a universal principle manifesting itself through a phenomenon of Nature.
The cult rendered to a vodoun god thus consists in appropriating the determinism underlying the phenomenon, in a technique of grasping and mastering the laws which govern the facts in their manifestations. It is therefore a question of knowledge relating to universal laws and their applications in man and in nature. It constitutes, according to us, a monotheism which is expressed in appearance by a symbolic polytheism.
It is not a question of a religion, as Honorat Aguessy was able to highlight, “of imploration and resignation” but of “command”. In other words, it is a religion where one must “believe in order to understand and understand in order to believe” as Saint Augustine said. The "vodounon", master of the creative act, and the "bokonon", master of the living word, appear as scholars and sages of their society.
Also called "houn" a vodoun entity; which literally means the heart or what escapes the head, that is, the reason. From this derives the word "hou-non" literally meaning master of the mystery. By virtue of the mysterious character of voodoo, we thus name, also by comparison, everything that seems unknowable, inconceivable. Therefore, over time, many vodoun who surely have no divine reality were added to what really constituted the Pantheon of vodoun deities and from then on made their study more and more difficult.
All the writings relating to the Pantheon voudoun, have moreover recognized the diversity of their origins and the migrations from one region to another. This difficulty, however, is only apparent, insofar as it can be removed by taking into account the laws of similarities which are found in all theologies. By following this method, one can discern a vodoun in the sense of divinity from another which is not.
The data used in this contribution are essentially those reported by B. Maupoil in his book, Geomancy on the ancient Coast of the Slaves, whose main interlocutor was the Dahomean Initiate Guèdégbé. mythology) of the old Greece and ancient Egypt. Moreover, these theologies shed light on each other. It is in this perspective that we make available to all those who are interested in the ancestral knowledge of the peoples of the Gulf of Guinea, this introduction to the Vodoun pantheon or Adja-Ewe mythology.
Voodoo in the beginning was linked to the mysteries of the universe. It relates to the primordial Principle, God, in its manifestations. The vodoun represent universal principles and are, therefore, divinities. on earth. In this respect, Tradition considers that they still live in the region of the divinities.
They are rightly assimilated to divinities and venerated as such. This fact is also observed with the saints in other religions. We can thus identify three classes of vodoun entities: the vodoun talisman, the vodoun deity and the venerated ancestor vodoun. The following study concerns the second category: the deity vodoun. Our text is organized into six parts: the initial chaos, the universal elements, the god of 1time generation and finally the gods of 2th, 3th and 4th generation.
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