The Part about Dancing

Dancing is central to voodoo, which can be described as "a danced religion". (Metraux 188) According to the anthropologist Judith Hannah, "the dancing body connotes health, but also power as life's vital force" (Daniels 261) The opportunity to dance at religious ceremonies was thus a way to assert power through one's body. It was also a way for women to express their sexuality in their own terms, by using their bodies' sensuality to strengthen their connection to their African heritages. This power would have been especially meaningful in view of the concentrated attack on African women's sexuality perpetrated by the white establishment both through rhetoric and through the actions of white men. The Congo dances, which are associated with the Haitian Revolution, are especially notable for their seductiveness and the focus on undulation of the hips. These dances are sometimes danced for Ezili and Damballah, two was who are married to each other, and may well have been invoked in the Bois Camman ceremony, since Damballah is a major Dahomean deity who still plays an important role in voodoo, while Ezili Danto and Ezili-je-wouge are both associated with the Haitian Revolution. (Daniels 113)

Colonel Malefont, part of the French expedition in 1792, recalled seeing two hundred "negresses" dancing in an insurgent camp. When questioned, they explained that they had been dancing because of their confidence in the "obstacles" the voodoo priestess had laid across the path of the French. Whether these "obstacles" were spiritual or physical (or, most likely both, since in voodoo physical objects can have spiritual powers), this story shows that the priestess was using her religion to participate in the insurgency and help fight the French and that the women in the insurgent camp believed in voodoo. Their dancing may have indeed served a religious purpose, or may have served to encourage the warriors, or both. (Metraux44, 45)

The presence of voodoo in the camps was also documented by Gros, who was held prisoner by insurgents. Gros mentioned a “dance or Calinda” that was held for three days (Gros 134). Voodoo had much more room for women to play religious roles than in the white, male-dominated Catholic Church. This because, while the role of women in Africa varied from culture to culture, there were many streams of women's empowerment that coexisted polyphonously with streams of patriarchy, as opposed to Western culture, where patriarchy has long been the dominant voice, with women and sexuality forever tainted by original sin. (Samuel 43) Catholic sisterhoods for those of African descent had started forming around the time of the Revolution, only to be severely censured by the white political establishment. (According to the Code Noir, all slaves had to be baptized and converted to Catholicism, yet these laws were poorly enforced, and even when converted, many slaves continued to practice African-based religion in lieu of or in tandem with Catholicism.)