Bizango

The Bizango are secret societies active in Haiti. Many of their practices are associated with Haitian Vodou.

They have been termed "one of the most important of the secret societies of Vodou".[1] Bizango groups are widespread throughout Haiti,[2] and play an important role as arbiters in peasant social life.[1]

The anthropologist Wade Davis reported that the Bizango were involved in poisoning individuals and then providing them with an antidote to leave them in a pliant state, which he associated with zombification. In Davis' view, this was how the Bizango enforced their social codes against those who transgressed them.[2] The Bizango's practice of capturing zombis is often taken as evidence of these societies' malevolent nature.[3]

In Haitian folklore, a recurring fear is that the Bizango can transform themselves into dogs or other animals, in which form they walk the streets at night.[4]

References

Citations
  1. Fernández Olmos & Paravisini-Gebert 2011, p. 252.
  2. Fernández Olmos & Paravisini-Gebert 2011, p. 152.
  3. McAlister 1995, p. 317.
  4. McAlister 2002, p. 88; Derby 2015, pp. 402–403.

Sources
  • Derby, Lauren (2015). "Imperial Idols: French and United States Revenants in Haitian Vodou". History of Religions. 54 (4): 394–422. doi:10.1086/680175. JSTOR 10.1086/680175. S2CID 163428569.
  • Desmangles, Leslie (1992). The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0807843932.
  • Fernández Olmos, Margarite; Paravisini-Gebert, Lizabeth (2011). Creole Religions of the Caribbean: An Introduction from Vodou and Santería to Obeah and Espiritismo (second ed.). New York and London: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-6228-8.
  • McAlister, Elizabeth (1995). "A Sorcerer's Bottle: The Visual Art of Magic in Haiti". In Donald J., Cosentino (ed.). Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. pp. 305–321. ISBN 0-930741-47-1. Archived from the original on 2015-05-05. Retrieved 2015-05-03.
  • McAlister, Elizabeth (2002). Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and its Diaspora. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520228221.
  • Métraux, Alfred (1972) [1959]. Voodoo in Haiti. Translated by Hugo Charteris. New York: Schocken Books.
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