Haitian Spirits: A Photo Essay by Les Stone
introduction and curation by Abigail Ohlheiser
They’re women and men (but mostly women) bathed in light, bathed in water, eyes to the sky, some touching and wearing crosses. They’re possessed by spirits, dancing on dirt floors, fire in their mouths. Vodou in Haiti is like Catholicism, but not. Karen Brown wrote in her evocative book, Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn, that “Vodou Spirits, unlike the Catholic saints whose names they borrow, are characters defined by contradiction. The Vodou spirits represent the powers at work in and on human life.” Continue Reading →