By james art Haitian Americans have become targets of misinformation and even hate this political season. Part of this is based on long-standing stereotypes and a misunderstanding of their religious beliefs and spiritual practices.
A photography exhibit recently opened in Miami attempts to shed some light on religious practices and ceremonies among Haitian-Americans and others with ties to the Caribbean and Africa. The show, featuring work by photographer Woosler Delisfort, documents some of Miami’s voodoo traditions.
The Sanctuary: Our Sacred Place exhibit at the HistoryMiami Museum showcases traditions actively practiced by communities throughout South Florida. Delisfort, a Haitian-American photographer who grew up in Little Haiti and was raised Catholic, is fascinated by the many ways people in his community express their spirituality. He says, “It’s part of my culture. It’s part of my tradition.”
Many of the nearly 150 photographs in the exhibition focus on ceremonies from the Vodou, Santeria and Ifa traditions that originated with the Yoruba people of West Africa. All images were shot in South Florida. He says, “Miami Shores, Pembroke Pines, West Miramar have voodoo ceremonies, different places you’d never think of…ceremonies happen here.”
In the gallery, one of Delisfort’s photos is of a voodoo ceremony he attended in the backyard of a Fort home. Lauderdale suburb. A dozen women circle around a decorated pole called a poto mitan. “Most of these women are mambos,” he says. Mambo is a priestess in the Vodou tradition. Poto mitan, says Delisfort, “is the charge between, the link between the earthly world and the . . . world of the ancestors.”
Delisfort says he was always aware of voodoo growing up and had friends and family who participated in its ceremonies and traditions. It’s about spirituality, he says, but also about culture. Many who practice vodou, he says, are Catholics or members of other Christian faiths. “At the end of the day,” he says, “vodou is a way of life. And that’s how most people see it. It’s a way of life.”
Part of the exhibition is an altar from the Yoruba Ifa tradition. It is covered with seashells, fruits, flowers and other offerings to Yemaya, an orisha or divine spirit who is considered a mother and personifies the oceans. It was created by Michelle Murray, choreographer and ifa practitioner. She says there is a lot of misunderstanding about ifa, vodou and santeria. “People make it seem magical and mystical and demonized,” she says. “What we’re really doing is taking care of the Earth and honoring everything that comes with that.”
Another part of the exhibit documents a ceremony held on a beach in Miami on June 16 every year at dawn. Show curator Marie Wickles says practitioners of Vodou, Ifa and other religions come together to send an offering of fruits, vegetables and flowers laid on a flotilla of palm fronds across the water. Wickles says, “As it goes out, it’s meant to honor those who didn’t survive the middle passage, who were lost in the waters.” She says it also honors “those who did and were able to create new life here’.
Other religions and religious practices documented in Delisfort’s exhibit include Catholic San Lazaro Day and Ethiopian Orthodox Holy Week ceremonies, Santeria practices, and Day of the Dead altars. These are ceremonies that are not always open to outsiders. Delisfort spent years building relationships with religious leaders and practitioners and collaborated with them on this exhibition. Wickles says, “This is a project that not only celebrates spiritual practice, but also documents it for history, for the future. So people can look back and say, ‘Oh, that existed in Miami,’ and hopefully it still does.”
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