Voodoo Dolls

From Mod Mania

By : Elita Lay

Voodoo doll is believed to be a doll that carries a powerful mystical power. It is said that it can represent the spirit of a specific person, and by giving an order to the doll, you can change the attitude, ordering the person to do anything it was asked to. There are plenty more misunderstanding about voodoo. With the great influenced from Hollywood movies, voodoo is shown in wrong understanding to the world which helps to create the thought that it is a dark or even a medium to interact with Satan. However, there are many more story and history about voodoo, this essay is going to write about some information about voodoo dolls in reality, not from Hollywood version or assumption.

Voodoo is actually comes from an ancient religion of Africa, it comes from the African term ‘vodu’, with the meaning “Spirit of God”, voodoo believers believe that the spirits, “Loa”, rules over all the world affairs, taking control over nature and human existence. It is originated from West Africa in the 1600’s and soon throughout Brazil, Trinidad, Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, and New Orleans. Later, it spreads widely throughout the world. Some countries in Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia) are also influenced ^[1].

In Haiti, voodoo represents each unique Catholic saints with different figures. However the worshiper is not able to pray at Bondye, which is the most powerful voodoo spirit that the worshipers focus their prayer on the loas as he is unapproachable. Papa Legba, spirit of crossroad, is the one of the most popular spirit.The voodoo worship was legalized by the Haitian government in 1987^[10].

Papa Legba

In New Orleans, voodoo can be traced back to Western Europe and West and Central Africa, it started in early twentieth century. The parts of voodoo in New Orleans are neither made of traditional voodoo components nor the Haitian’s. New Orleans’ voodoo users are usually using some element of hoodoo - name for various magical practices in West and Central Africa- and modified it to suit their own purposes. The voodoo in New Orleans is more about magic, where Gris-gris is involved. It came from French word means grey, to symbolized the black magic (mojo) and white magic (juju). With the combination of various things, gris-gris’ charm are taken as the most powerful and expensive charm of all. Gris-gris has numerous different types, but it can be categorized in four main categories: Love and Romance, Power and Domination, Luck and Finance, and Uncrossing ^[10]. The Voodoo history has always been used to fascinate the visitors who visit New Orleans.

There are some differences between Haitian Voodoo and New Orleans Voodoo ^[4].

Magic has bigger influence than religion in New Orleans voodoo.
New Orleans Voodoo uses live snakes.
Voodoo was officially forbidden early days and is not suppressed in the United States like in Haiti.
The priests and priestesses in New Orleans are called kings and queens.
The queens have great influenced to the voodoo community in New Orleans.

Apart from all the confusion and misunderstanding about voodoo, it became popular from late twentieth century until today. It is known by youngsters around the world and strangely one of the reasons of its popularity is because of the myth behind the dolls. The assumption that it carries magical power interests the young people. However, some of them do not believe about the magical power and want it to be something that is more creative and more appealing to the society. From there onwards, people start to talk about it and start to explore the possibilities that can be done with these dolls.

The popularity of the dolls keeps increasing and it started to become business item than a religious item. The voodoo version of Nicolas Sarkozy, a French president, was made by a Frenchman for the community who thinks that he never fulfills his promises to the people of France. The doll with Nicolas Sarkozy’s face on it comes with a needle and was created to release their anger toward the president. It became the best selling item across the country in an instant.

As the popularity boost up across the world, more industry produces the voodoo dolls, to satisfy the desire of collectors and also for another use of it. One popular franchise that produces voodoo dolls can be found in Thailand and it is popular in the world. They changed voodoo dolls into something attractive, and it soon become widely popular among the teenagers and young people. The name of the company is Saan_ha, which according to the creator, Taweechai, it has two different pronunciations which carries different meanings in Thai ^[8].First pronunciation means 'selection', while the other one means 'very funny'.

Saan_ha Production

Keeping the meaning behind the company name the company started to design a wide range of cute voodoo dolls. The dolls are all design under International copy right by the Saan_ha team. It is made with one piece of continuous 100% cotton string. They believe with the care and affection they give during the production of the dolls, it will bring the power of love and good fortune for people using them, and also believed to give confidence. Every design of the doll produced has its unique handmade design. People bought it as a gift, as a good luck charm as well as an ornament for their gadgets or anything else.

Another similar company is Kamibashi, it is made by a western couple who has worked in Japan. The production if the dolls are also from Thailand, with the designs ready for them provided by the company. The voodoo dolls produced by this company carry only luck instead of any religious belief and can also be used as keychain. Each doll they produced will have different design and different charms. From the official ^[9], the company provides communities on social networks, where people who are interested can discuss everything in regards to the voodoo dolls. On the network they will be able to exchange their achievement and might also sell it to the visitor of the networks that interested in their products.

Kamibashi Production

REFERENCES

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