Cameron Karsten | The Vodou Trail

Photo © Cameron Karsten-All Rights Reserved

"The Engungun spirit enters the body and becomes a direct translation of God".

Readers of this blog will know of my interest in documenting vodou or voodoo for quite a while, and until I'm able to finalize my research, and allocate some time to do so, I have to content myself with the work of others...often magnificent work...about this age-old, and misunderstood,  religious practice.

Both Cameron Karsten and Constantine Savvides produced a multimedia project that documents the origins of this belief system in West Africa to the shores of the New World. Cameron's website has a ton of still images of vodou practitioners in West Africa.

Voodoo, or Orisha, as it is practiced today, originated many hundred years ago among the Yoruba people who live in the region of modern-day Togo, Benin and parts of Nigeria. Followers of voodoo believe in an unapproachable god and an array of spirits who serve as intermediaries. Slaves, forced to leave Benin's sandy shores in their millions, took such beliefs to the U.S. and the islands of the West Indies, where they spread and formed the basis of religions like Candomblé, Macumba, Santería and Umbanda.

The Vodou Trail is the dedicated website for Cameron's and Constantine's documentary work on vodou, exploring the misconceptions about the practice, and about its clandestine aspects.