This page groups sacred sites by whether their sacred status is still actively maintained. Wikipedia notes that Mircea Eliade "argues that while the concept of a sacred space is often associated with religious traditions, it is not exclusive to them," since secular societies can keep treating a place as significant too. Browsing this way lets a visitor tell a site with living religious observance apart from one preserved mainly for its history.
Facts
Status
Status TodayLiving. The state-backed Catholic anti-superstition campaign of 1941-42 destroyed temples and ritual objects and did not end the practice, which has continued through repeated official hostility. An ounfo is a working temple and a lakou a family compound, not a public monument. Initiation is closed, and this atlas records that it exists without reproducing what happens in it. 2 Overview
What Defines This GroupingPlaces where the lwa are served: the family lakou and the temple ounfo, and open-air sites such as waterfalls, trees, crossroads and cemeteries attached to particular lwa. Many coincide with a Catholic shrine or feast, and those who go do not treat the two as separable. 2 Learn More
Haitian Vodou Sacred Sites
This small group gathers a sacred site of Haitian Vodou, a place bound to the service of the lwa, such as the pilgrimage sites where Vodou and Catholic devotion meet. Vodou is a living religion of Haiti and its diaspora.
The browser will find the site the atlas classes here. The entry describes its significance within the living Vodou tradition, presented in its own terms.
Practice Status
Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Sites grouped for Haitian Vodou.
Source The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in HaitiLeslie G. Desmangles
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti
Leslie G. Desmangles, University of North Carolina Press, 1992on the ounfo, the lakou and Catholic observanceView the Source Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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