Religion: Granny & the Voodoo

High in the voodoo hills of Haiti above Port-au-Prince, a big bonfire crackled one day last week. Some 200 Haitians, dressed in their cotton Sunday best, watched intently while an old lady threw object after object into the flames—bottles to bubble when a thief is in the garden, carved wooden bowls from which to feed the gods, wanga bags to protect the traveler, love charms, colored beads, mysterious, headless dolls. Granny Holdeman was having another "burning." Granny's ceremonial burning of voodoo charms and fetishes is a potent symbol in a land where dark gods and hungry spirits sometimes seem more at...

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