The Origins of Voodoo: A Mini-Essay

     Just like the indigenous people of North America and the Aztecs and Mayans of Mesoamerica, enslaved Africans in the Americas blended their religious ideologies with those of Christianity to develop hybrid faiths, including voodoo. Originating in the Caribbean during the sixteenth century as the slave trade brought Africans into the area to work on sugar plantations, voodoo evolved over time as it spread into other regions, resulting in a complex web of beliefs and practices which vary from society to society.[1] At its heart, though, the voodoo religion – whether practiced in Haiti or Louisiana – maintains that the divine god Bondye created the universe and, because he is too busy to deal with it, appointed loa to oversee and participate in its functions. These loa can be both benevolent and malevolent, so humans must perform ceremonies to either appease the good loa or ward off the evil loa. Due to its similarity to Catholicism’s God and saints, voodoo paired well with the religion of colonists and Africans incorporated Christian figures and symbols into the faith: the cross became associated with the crossroads between the living and dead, the trinity became a representation of the loa, the Twins, and the Dead, and the Virgin Mary and other saints served as representations of various loa.[2] Sadly, early colonizers perceived voodoo as a product of the Devil and worked to vilify its beliefs and those who practiced it, with those perceptions still maintained today. Yet, as anthropologist Wade Davis explains, voodoo during the colonial period as well as in modern society became a way for Africans to understand themselves and their role within the world: “It’s not just a body of religious ideas, but a notion of how children should be raised, a notion of what education means, an awareness of politics.”[3]

Works Referenced

 

Handwerk, Brian. “Voodoo a Legitimate Religion, Anthropologist Says.” National Geographic News, 21 October 2002.

 

Stephens, John Richards. “True Voodoo.” Voodoo: Strange and Fascinating Tales and Lore. Ed. John Richard Stephens. New York: Fall River Press, 2010.

____________________ 
[1] Stephens, 1-5.
[2] Stephens, 1-5.
[3] Handwerk.

Oracle Frame

$15 - $20 (based on 2024 prices)
Makes one frame

While perusing the Halloween merchandise at one of the big-box stores, I spotted a frame with a single eye in it. I was immediately inspired to craft my own version based on a fortuneteller theme. It also gave me the chance to experiment with air clay. I normally use modeling clay for these types of projects; however, I wanted to see if air clay would be better. Sadly, I was not impressed because the clay shrank more than I anticipated and I had to add extra clay to compensate for the reduction.

• One 7” x 10” oval picture frame
• One sheet of copy paper with vintage fortunetelling illustrations printed on it
• At least four tablespoons of dark roasted coffee grounds
• One pan large enough to soak the copy paper
• One 4 oz. bottle of decoupage medium
• Two small, white ping pong balls (1 3/8” in diameter)
• One 1 oz. package of red air clay
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat beige*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat gray*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat pink*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in glossy white*
• One 0.44 oz. bottle of clear nail polish*
• One package of false eyelash clusters
  

1. Coffee stain the copy paper by boiling about twelve cups of water and adding the coffee. The longer you allow the coffee to brew, the darker the stain will become. Likewise, greater amounts of coffee will yield a richer stain. Since I wanted uneven spots rather than a unified discoloration, I placed the paper on a baking sheet, splashed coffee and grounds onto the surface, allowed the liquid to sit for a few minutes, and then moved it to a space to dry.

2. Disassemble the frame, removing the backing and the glass. Then, tear apart the paper, isolating individual illustrations, and cover the entire surface of the frame with the pieces. This process works best if you move in stages: apply a layer of decoupage medium to one section, press the paper down until it sticks, and repeat the process. If you want to add an additional level of age once the paper has dried, you can water down brown acrylic paint and brush it over the frame.

3. Cut the two ping pong balls in half and glue them to the frame’s backing. Where you place them will determine the location for the oracle eyes, so you may want to play with their placement prior to adhering them. Due to the size of my frame, I was only able to incorporate three eyes; however, you can add more by either increasing the size of the frame, using smaller ping pong balls, or clustering the eyes closer together.

4. Use the air clay to build up flesh around the eyes and across the surface of the backing. Although you can go for a smooth appearance, lots of divots and wrinkles will give the prop more visual interest, especially after it is painted. Also, keep in mind that the air clay will shrink as it dries, so you will need to make the flesh larger than the frame to accommodate this.

5. Once the air clay has fully dried, give it two coats of beige paint and the eyes three coats of glossy white paint. For the time-pressed haunter, you might consider buying air clay in beige to skip part of this step and just paint the eyes with glossy white.

6. Smudge pink paint along the surface of the skin, focusing on the raised areas to make the clay look like flesh. Then, use a wash of gray to darken the eyes’ surfaces and give them a murky appearance. You may want to experiment with the consistency prior to doing this: the more water you add, the fainter/lighter the wash; the less water you add, the deeper/darker the wash.

7. To give the eyes further shine and seal the wash, coat them in glossy nail polish. Following this, glue fake lashes to the eyelids and randomly in the skin. Try not to overthink your application. Rather, make the lashes sparse and sporadic for a creepier look.

8. Reattach the backing to the frame, gluing it in place for a sturdier hold. If you want to add further embellishments, like voodoo beads or talismans made of aged bones, you can cater the prop to your haunt’s theme.

*You will not use the entire bottle’s content for this project.

"Origin of the Marble Forest" (A Poem)

Similar to Emily Dickinson’s “One need not be a Chamber to be Haunted” and Elizabeth Jennings’ “Ghosts,” Gregory Orr’s “Origin of the Marble Forest” uses the concept of ghosts in a metaphorical way. In this short, five-line poem, the narrator refuses to allow people associated with their past to slip away into faded memories. Rather, they want to preserve them, making them eternal and ever-present.

Childhood dotted with bodies.
Let them go, let them
be ghosts.
No, I said,
make them stay, make them stone.[1]

Works Referenced

Orr, Gregory. “Origin of the Marble Forest.” City of Salt. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995. 3.
____________________
[1] Orr, 3.

Corpse Skull

$10 - $15 (based on 2024 prices)
Makes one skull

I spent some time during the summer of 2024 experimenting with corpsing techniques. I have never been a fan of the plastic-and-heatgun method, specifically because of the toxic fumes it creates. So, I decided to find alternate processes. Building on the tactic I used to make the fake leather for Hugh Crane’s book, I used papier mache and tissue paper. The results turned out better than I expected and, with a little more refining, it can become an effective alternative.

• One human-size plastic skull
• One 8 oz. bottle of all-purpose tacky glue
• One newspaper (roughly twenty pages)
• Three to four sheets of white tissue paper (20” x 20” per sheet)
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat black*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat brown*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat gray*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat tan*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat white*

1. Thoroughly wash and dry the skull, removing any decorative elements to give the glue a clean surface to adhere to. For aesthetic purposes, I chose just to corpse the cranium and saved the jaw for another project; however, you can corpse both, gluing the jaw agape for a gnarled look.

2. Make the papier mache paste by mixing ½ cup of glue and ½ cup of water in a bowl. Try to use a sealable container. This gives you the ability to store the mixture for a day or two between applications. Then, cut the newspaper into strips, soak them in the paste, and apply them to the skull. To make the process more manageable, keep the strips at a reasonable size and only apply a few layers at a time, allowing each layer to fully dry before adding more.

3. Once you have built up the facial features, repeat the process in step two with tissue paper, using it to create wrinkled flesh, mangled tissue around the mouth and nose, and wounds along the crown of the skull. How much paper you use depends on how wrinkled you want the skin, so you may need more sheets of tissue paper if you plan for a rumpled appearance.

4. After the final layer of tissue paper dries, give the skull two to three coats of tan paint and the teeth and any exposed bone a coat or two of white. This gives the prop a uniform base and helps cover any of the newspaper which is still visible. Although I used acrylic paint for this process, the time-pressed haunted can utilize tan spray paint for a quicker application.

5. Working from dark to light, stipple brown and gray paint onto the skull to make the flesh look aged. Try not to overthink your application because a random application will look more natural and give the skull extra visual interest.

6. To mute the colors and add further depth, apply a wash of black paint to the skin, ensuring the liquid settles into all the cracks and fissures. You may want to experiment with the consistency prior to doing this: the more water you add, the fainter/lighter the wash; the less water you add, the deeper/darker the wash.

7. Using the same methods in step six, build up washes of black and brown paint – working from light to dark – to age the teeth and any exposed bone. You can also use a fine-tipped brush to outline the spaces between the teeth and where they connect to the skull with black paint.  

8. Paint the insides of the nose black and then, using a razor blade, make a slit for the eye and darken its interior with black paint. The second half of this step is entirely optional, but it gives the skull more character.  

9. If you want, you can embellish the skill with additional details, such as worms crawling out of its eye or patches of hair, to cater the prop to your haunt’s needs.

*You will not use the entire bottle’s content for this project.