Unlike many commonly known Western spiritualities, with their focus on the corporeal body and immortal soul as dualist identities, Vodou looks at the individual human in a unique way, composed of many separate but unified pieces, held together by being alive and flexible in their arrangement. The Western view of a Body animated by a singular Soul is comparatively simple in relation to the Vodou vision of the many factors that come together as the basic ingredients brought together to make a person.
These pieces are thought of as placed by God during the creation of the individual life, and upon death are ritually separated and allowed to go to their separate destinations.
The body is, obviously, the most physical of the pieces, and itself is viewed in pretty typical fashion. In Kreyol it is called the kò kadavr, corps cadavre in French, basically the ‘physical body’ or ‘body/corpse’ if you will. Continue reading The Soul and the Body