How Tight Is Your Wrap?

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the social tensions of race, gender, and sexuality in Manbo Maude’s contemporary Vodou temples. By centering the perceptions and experiences of Black people within Haitian Vodou, the chapter interrogates how for some Black folks, Vodou functions as a space of healing and community within the African Diaspora. Headwraps, dresses and sacred colored scarves function as a part of African Diasporic identity creation and evoke a vision of a common African past that participants draw on for their own sense of community. The author deploys a Black feminist ethnographic critique to consider how their Nigerian Igbo ancestry and femme identified personhood influences the performance of rituals such as headwrapping. This chapter also analyses the contentious issue of including White people in spaces that many Black practitioners view as a refuge from the anti-Black racism of the world beyond the temple. Race, gender, and sexuality have the capacity to rupture attempts at sartorial solidarity, affecting not only the cohesion of Manbo Maude's communities but also the shape of people's beliefs. These communal fissures continuously raise questions about who Vodou belongs to, who has a true connection to Black spirits, and what types of worship best serve the divine.