Annual voodoo festival at the Saut d'Eau waterfalls
(17 Jul 2014) Believers of Haiti's most celebrated patron saint, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, travelled to the Saut d'Eau waterfall on Tuesday to pay her tribute and make requests.
Worshippers performed voodoo cleansing rituals in the water by stripping off their clothes and using leaves to wash away bad luck and their sins.
They also made requests to the saint to improve their lives in various ways.
Thousands come to Saut d'Eau every year to honour the virgin, who is said to have appeared on a palm tree in 1847.
62-year-old Lionel Saint Jean said that, after losing his house in Haiti's catastrophic 2010 quake, he asked thesaint for a new one and she granted it.
"So, I came this year to thank her for that," Jean said.
Voodoo is a mix of African religions and Roman Catholicism and evolved in the 17th century among African slaves, who were forced by French colonisers to practice Roman Catholicism.
Many slaves secretly held onto their African religions by using images of Catholic saints to serve as African spirits.
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Worshippers performed voodoo cleansing rituals in the water by stripping off their clothes and using leaves to wash away bad luck and their sins.
They also made requests to the saint to improve their lives in various ways.
Thousands come to Saut d'Eau every year to honour the virgin, who is said to have appeared on a palm tree in 1847.
62-year-old Lionel Saint Jean said that, after losing his house in Haiti's catastrophic 2010 quake, he asked thesaint for a new one and she granted it.
"So, I came this year to thank her for that," Jean said.
Voodoo is a mix of African religions and Roman Catholicism and evolved in the 17th century among African slaves, who were forced by French colonisers to practice Roman Catholicism.
Many slaves secretly held onto their African religions by using images of Catholic saints to serve as African spirits.
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: Twitter: AP_Archive
Facebook: Facebook: APArchives
Instagram: Instagram: APNews
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...
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